Make More Marbles Podcast with guest James Guldan - Finding the RIGHT Clients for your Business

Foreign.

What's up, everybody? My name is Brad Hart and today I'm very excited to have a killer in the room. And he has a giant heart as well. So when he's not killing things, he is a very heart centered entrepreneur and I love him a lot. His name is James Golden. I'm very excited. He also has a twin brother named John who I'm also friends with. So it's, it's fun sometimes to get confused at who's who and I'll be having conversations with James and it's actually John and vice versa, so that's always fun. But yeah. James, welcome to the podcast. So grateful to have you here and please introduce yourself.

Yeah, thanks, man. Yeah, what a cool, big heart. I love your intro. I need you on my, my copywriting list. Yeah. So my name is James. I have an agency called Magic Agency. We've done over a billion dollars in the information product space through our funnels. We've worked.

Billion dollars.

Yeah, right. Like it sounds cooler than it is. Right. We had a couple really big clients that we killed it for.

Yeah, no big deal.

But, yeah, it's, it's a, it's one of those pattern interrupt stats that I feel like, you know. Yeah, it gets you there. We've also, like had the opportunity to work with some really powerful people. We worked at the Dalai Lama. We've worked with Peter Diamandis, you know, in the marketing industry. We've worked at Frank Kern, a lot of the OGs in the space and have done some, some really cool stuff. So I'm excited to kind of, you know, I don't do a lot of podcasts, just my health over the last couple years has been tough. Finally got my 90 days of consecutive health, which was a big deal.

Congratulations, brother. I'm glad you're on the upswing.

Me too. Me too.

Yeah. Well, and what I love about, I think we should dive in all that because your health journey, I think is the thing that's most interesting, even though that you've killed it in business and you've done a lot of good on that side. Just the fact that you were so close to losing it all and came back and now you're back on track is, I think, even more fascinating. So why don't we dive into that health journey real quick and just give people a little bit of a understanding of where you've been in your life.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And a call to action. Anybody who's having like a really tough time or anything else, please, please reach out to me. I Know how difficult chronic health and mystery illness and, you know, a lot of things can be. And I have a lot of love in my heart for, for people. But basically a couple years ago, four years ago I think now, I started to have some symptoms. My throat would close up. Then I had a, a cold for months. It was like three months before I finally went in. You know, entrepreneurs were always like, oh, no, it'll be fine, it'll be fine. And I'll just champ it out and tough it out. And I finally went in, they're like, yeah, you've been, been sick for that long and, and didn't, you know, And I'm like, yeah, I just, you know, it was just kind of like a cold for a while. And like, okay, well, let's do some tests. They ran some tests. They didn't find anything irregular. My throat kind of got worse and it would close. So it doesn't sound bad, but it would close about 60 seconds a day, um, which is an eternity when you can't breathe. And so that's when I finally went in to go get my an X ray to just kind of see what was happening. Cause they tested my thyroid, they said thyroid was a little off, but not like too bad. And so I went in to go get an X ray and my lungs lit up like a Christmas tree. And they're like, I don't know if you ever been to a doctor. And they, you know, you go to get an X ray and then they call you when you're in the car, like, no, no, no, they come back right now. Yeah, yeah. You're like, yeah, like, oh, do we want to schedule a follow up? And like, no, no, no, no, I need you to come back, like right now. I need you to come back. And you're like, okay, like, you can you just kind of tell me a little bit more? Because I'm, you know, I'm kind of like freaking out. And they're like, nope, nope, please come back. There's a whole process. And you're like, okay, so you obviously think the worst, right? You're thinking cancer. And you look at it and they go, okay, you have some significant nodules in your lungs with a lot of holes. And you know, that doesn't look like that's what your other symptoms are, but we're going to continue to dig into this, but you really need to get it looked at right now. And they started me on a med called fluconazole and intraconazole, where it's, it's really bad on your liver. So. But anyway, they. They started giving it to me, and I wasn't getting any better. In fact, I was getting a lot worse. And I would have these things called a cytokine storm where my nervous system would just shut down, and I would. My body would just shut down, right? Like, my. I'd have electrical signals throughout my entire body. I would have, like, 70 symptoms that sent me to the ER and it was a really, really tough go of it. Long story short was in after about a year and a half of trying the meds for valley fever, and it wasn't working. And I kept getting worse and worse. At this point, I had brain edema, my vestibular nerve. So my eyesight was going. I had vertigo constantly. I couldn't really drive. I was. My eyes would turn yellow. My. I would pee blood. It was. It was pretty tough. And so they were like, okay, let's give you more meds. And at that point, I'm like, okay, like, already. I'm like, let. Let's maybe try an alternative way. And I was talking to a friend of mine. He's like, oh, man, I've had some mold problems that sound kind of like what you have. Like, well, I might as well get tested for that. I tested it, and I was. Was an incredible amount of mold in my system. And so I went to a mold specialist, and they tried to fix the mold problem, and it ended up making it a lot worse. I don't know if you've. If anybody's ever been through a mold protocol, but the binders. If you do it wrong, you end up. If you. If you don't talk to the right person, you end up getting a lot more trouble than you had anticipated. I was taking some meds that.

Was this a place you were living, had a bunch of black mold or what was going on?

Yeah, yeah, that was. It was a. Yeah. I was living and working at. Right. I have my office in my home, and my office and my master bedroom were just covered in mold. I think they found, like, you know, dozens of, you know, those big contractor bags of. You know, you look at that black mold, and you're like, oh, cool, cool, cool, cool. I was living in that. So. But anyway, it was, you know, and I was going to the ER at that point probably once a. Once a month at least. My lungs would close up, my throat would close up. You know, you'd have numbness throughout your body. I'd have. You know, at one point, I had a testicle that got like, this big and it was just like, oh, God. And you know, stuff like that would just stop happening. Right, Right. Just. It was totally crazy. It was like 70, like over 70 symptoms of what was happening. Plus you're going crazy, right? And all these doctors are telling you you're fine and you're not. And, you know, I went to probably 200 specialists and nobody could really find out what was happening. So I had to go to the best of the best. I think got him in some networks with you where I got access to some of the people. Actually, JJ Virgin got me access to one of the best mold doctors in the world, Dr. Neil Nathan, and referred me to another doctor in Chicago that actually worked with me. And they found out I also had Lyme's disease and H. Pylori and a couple other items that were underlying causes. So it's kind of like a perfect storm of items that had happened. And. But before this, I mean, it was, it was tough. Like right before I figured it out, I mean, it was years that I had no idea was happening. A bunch of doctors said you're crazy. You know, a lot of other things were happening where it was just like, you know, my. I went nuts and, you know, I almost ended my life. Like, it was, it was a really big deal. When your quality of life dips for years on end, it's not like a couple months, it's years. And so suicide became like a. You know, a lot of people don't talk about euthanasia as being a very powerful option, but it's tough because if you've ever tried to kill yourself, you get one shot because otherwise they lock you up. So a gun is tough because you miss most of the time. You'll hit through the, through the eye and. Or you'll miss because you're panicking and a lot of stress. So gun is typically not a great option. And then heroin is also. You end up mixing it wrong and doing, you know, other stuff where the stress ends up. So there was a self assisted suicide facility out in Seattle that I was looking into. And so my wife and I decided to do 30 days of really just okay, no more doctors, no more anything. Let's just really take some serious time before we make any decisions. Let's, you know, write your, your, your letters to everybody. And my wife did this really cool thing once I wrote them. She's like, now I would tell them, like, you know, I mean, like, I don't want to, I don't want to be the person who gives these letters to the people you Love, like, why don't you give them to them now? It was a very healing component. You know, a lot of it was. Was pretty tough mentally, physically, spiritually. But, man, did I come out of it the other end. Right. I went to a doctor, they got me healed physically. But after all that trauma, it's very difficult because your limbic system is tanked. And so I had to go through quite a bit of therapy, a lot of self healing, and really dig deep on learning how to be kind to myself and loving myself. So it was a lot of alternative health therapy that helped me. A lot of what I did was not super legal on the health side. I'll mention that if somebody actually reaches out to me. But yeah, if anybody's going through anything, I mean, I've seen a lot. So.

Yeah, and this is not a rare thing anymore. Like, I'm hearing this from people who live in these houses in San Diego all the time. Like, the mold stuff is real. It's bad.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think it's. It's cool because it's getting more press now, right? Like 300,000 people plus per year are experiencing environmental illness. And now it's becoming more standardized. Because when I, when I had it, like, I mean, I went to John Hopkins University, I went to everywhere, right? Like, every hospital that I could think of that would take. And they're, they're like, there's nothing we can do. There's absolutely nothing we can do.

So there's no reliable way to really tell what's going on except to rip your walls open and see what's up.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and a lot of them, they don't believe in environmental illness, right? So it's like, it's tough when you see a pulmonologist who's like, yeah, mold isn't real. And it's like, okay, what? Yeah, I saw a lot of that. Oh, man, that was. A lot of pulmonologists were like, yeah, that's foo foo. Stuff like that isn't. That isn't a real thing. And you're like, okay, I, you know, most of the, the medical doctors in my belief system, they're 20 years behind what the FDA approvals are for stuff. So if you're not paying, if you're paying cash, you get access to a level of doctors that you can't touch in the, in the, in the regular medical community. I mean, there's so many other options out there. If you have cash, it is life saving to be able to have money and to be able to Have a network of people who you can find. It was, it was a really big deal.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's wild to think how the medical establishment has really been born of one thing. It's like, fix the problem after it's already a problem and give them pills or surgery. That's really it.

Well, I think a lot of it's, you know, my story is, a lot of it's dictated by the pharmaceutical companies and a lot of other places where I think there isn't an aligned value system. Sports science is because everybody's looking for efficacy. Right. The, the doctors and the patients are all looking to be the best of the best performance. But most others, they're liability reasons. Right. So they won't, they won't touch it. And the sad part is, you know, I've been helping a lot of people with terminal illness on the mental health side and you know what a powerful labeling tool to give somebody is. If you say, you know you're going to die, that's a, it's a very tough position to be in on both sides. And, you know, those limiting beliefs can become reality very quickly, if not, you know, touched and attached to.

Well, what I love about you, James, is how you've maintained. I'm sure I haven't seen you through the worst of it as well, but you've been very positive about the whole thing. You've been willing to share about the whole thing because there's people out there that are like really suffering. You know, I had my friend Kyle go through this very similar thing deal. Like he's living in a mold filled house. He had to move a bunch of times. Joel, my other friend, is still going through it. So it's a whole thing. So if you guys are watching this, definitely reach out. But, you know, there's, there's that piece of it. And during this whole time, you're running a really successful business with Marcus and with, you know, some other partners as well in the past. Like, how did you keep it all on the rails or did you?

Well, I had bought that business recently, right. So my old company was Vision tech team and I basically took off for three years. Right. I have an amazing team that took over. I mean, they did everything for three years. I mean, I was fully disabled. There was nothing I could do. And everybody gets to test it. Everybody thinks they want to test taking off. It was a great opportunity, man. It was. It really let the leadership show up. I think they were a little frustrated when I came back, but just because I wanted to change things up and I had a new perspective on life. And I, you know, transitioned out quite a few clients when I got healthy of ones that I didn't view that were in value alignment with who I wanted to be. Three years is a long time to be in the dojo for understanding yourself and really getting any positivity. You, the world shows up how you see it. Right. And you get to create your own reality in such a great way that I think positivity is a skill. And if you continue to nurture that skill and do everything you can to provide like gratitude practices and anything that you can do to position. I do this for a living. Right. I'm a marketer. And what everybody wants is very simple. They want to feel seen, they want to feel heard, and they want to feel like they're enough. And if you can do that, you can transform their life. And I mean that's the core principles of our marketing division is really make people feel seen and heard and if you can, make them feel like they're enough, man. Do you have a business model that can. It's a catalyst for change. And true transformation is such a great value equation for business plan. And you know, it's what I teach now and it's what I've always. Not always, but recently become a student of.

Yeah, no, it's. It's a beautiful thing. And going back to kind of your values, how has it shifted pre. You know, what, what got you into marketing in the first place and now how. How has your relationship to change now that you're on the other side of this?

Yeah, great question, man. I got into it because of the money. You know what I mean? Like, marketing is the most marketable skill set in the world. It's literally the most marketable skill set in the world. And I wanted to really. I had a lot of, a lot of trauma in my past that led me to finding where I felt like money would solve a lot of problems. And granted, it has solved a lot of problems for me. Right. Like my. I wouldn't be alive today if I didn't have money. Yeah. But the reality.

God got into marketing.

Well, no, no. What. Right. It was, it served me so well. Right. But what served me to get to where I was at isn't going to serve me to get to the next stage. Right. I was very mean to myself. I was very unkind. I was, I wouldn't say I was a super loving person. I was much more metrics driven and much more driven to succeed no matter the cost. And I Didn't understand that there is a one plus one equals three equation to almost any partnership you can get into. If you, if the 1 plus 1 doesn't equal 3, I'd be very careful of getting into any business opportunities or anything else that doesn't add external value. And that's kind of the, the, when I came back was the biggest thing is, are our clients really serving the world in the vision that I would like to see it and. Or are we just really putting a marketing engine behind something that I don't really want to see in the world? And we had only 40% of our clients. I, I didn't feel being very powerfully positive in the world. And, and some of them were selling shame. A lot of them were selling trauma and positioning it as something that it wasn't. And we were part of the problem. And we were, we were majority of the problem because we were the ones positioning it and doing all these things. But human psychology has always been very interesting to me, like how people work. You know, I had a dad that's bipolar. So you end up, I mean, anybody who's grown up in that situation or somebody who has unpredictable behavior gets very good at reading people. And it's a gift that I, you know, a skill that I had since I was young and it's, it's always something I've enjoyed is how does the brain work? How does influence work? How does, you know, neuro linguistic programming was always like really fun to me that you could like win rock, paper, scissors every time with anybody. You know, there's a lot of. I feel it's like an art form. Like marketing is an art. And it's such a beautiful thing when you can understand somebody and make them feel seen by addressing their problem directly and telling them like more obtuse, here's, you know, here's what, what you're feeling right now. And if you can tell them more that they know about themselves. Oh man. You build the kind of trust that you don't get anywhere else. And most people don't really feel seen and heard in their lives. And if you can build a marketing campaign behind that, you create positive environments in the world. You create transformation. I mean, we get the opportunity, we got the opportunity to work with the Dalai Lama, right? I figure he's like the, the king of kindness. Like, that was such a fun project to be on so that we could spread this amazing word of kindness. And really, you know, the, the leader of kindness was, was behind it. That was what a cool opportunity I had Once I got healthy.

That's so beautiful. Yeah. And. And I've noticed in my own life, you know, I'm pretty positive guy, too. I do my best to stay in a good mindset, and I'll go weeks and months being in that state, and it's. It's solid. And, you know, it used to be I was in a negative state most of the time, so I can see the contrast. And then yesterday, I listened to a podcast about AI is going to kill everybody. This guy's just going on about how we're all screwed and it's too late, and da, da, da. And I'm like, I started to let it infect me somewhat. Now I'm feeling sick today, and I'm not feeling well, and I didn't sleep great last night. Like, all these things start to cascade when you get out of that mode. And I think that really, like, we need to underscore that point. It's like, you can look at the world any way you want to look at it, and that's the freedom that you have. But the better choice, having done both, and James can probably attest to this, is you got to maintain that positivity at all times and not focus on stuff you can't control. Right.

Well, I think an abundance mindset is. Is a very powerful place to live. Right? And it's. It's very easy, theoretically. It's very tough in practice. It's something that I don't think a lot of people understand to scale. Right. It takes a long time. You know, it's. It was three years for me and my gratitude journal to write a love letter to myself. Right. It was very hard. Like, a lot of my letters to myself would be like, I'd love you for this, but. Right. But you also could work on this, but you could do this. And it's like, okay, that wasn't really a. I wasn't giving myself a compliment. I was basically, like, placating. And, you know, once you kind of get to see your language patterns around how you communicate with yourself, you really get to be able to expand. And language is so powerful, like, internal language and communication is so powerful on how you see the world. And AI is a great thing. Right. AI can be this amazingly beautiful thing that in five years from now, none of these health problems are going to exist. We're going to have MRNA treatments that can specialize to a human's DNA. Right. Like, we're going to have solutions to things that we could never, ever solve. But if you focus on the Negative of. Yeah, we're creating a bunch of supercomputers that are going to, you know, we are the common denominator for, for problems in the world. Why not get rid of us like that? That's what's going to happen. That is going to be a reality. Like at any point there are tons of events that could kill us. Right. There's a super volcano everywhere. Right.

Or comet or, you know.

Right. Yeah, or a comet or like it's.

It'S warming or any of this crap for sure.

Right. But you get the opportunity to focus, focus on the stuff that you want to. And it's also, I mean, it's the same in marketing. Right. Like you can, you can use shame. Shame is a very powerful tool in order to get people to. As a catalyst for change. But ultimately, do you want somebody in that position or in that state? Would you rather have them in an abundant state where now you're keeping them in that abundant state? Because they're going to have a longer ltv. They're going to have better catalyst for change. They're also going to be a better customer because they're going to be in a different level of abundance. They're going to be at. They're much easier to teach, coach, sell things to. They're much more positive audience. Your customer service team will love you a lot if you attract very kind people to your products.

And, and that can be. It can be a little bit of a fight. I mean, I know you've done this at big levels, right. You've done a billion dollars worth of revenue like you and David Ogilvy. Like you're on the same level now, believe it or not. It's crazy. You know, when you think about marketing.

We'Ve seen things move through that. I mean, on a scale that, I mean, it'd be very difficult for an individual information product company to know more than we do about scale just because we' it in, you know, 200 different ways. So we get this really cool perspective to see behind the scenes. And that being said, we don't have the true accountability of ownership behind it because we don't own those companies. And I've never owned an information. I've owned a lot of companies, but never an information product company. We've helped a lot of them grow.

Yeah. And I guess where I was driving to with that questioning, that line of questioning is really, you know, when you get to that point and you see both ways, right. You see like the negative, the shame, that thing, and that gets a result, right? And then you see the positivity gets a result. I think a lot of marketers, myself included, we've had to make a distinction, especially in the early days between like, okay, do we want to be that smarmy, hyperbolic kind of marketer and like hitting everybody's FOMO and greed button, or do we want to be more of that? Like, hey, you know, this may not be as sexy the way I'm presenting it, but you're actually going to learn this stuff and you're going to have sustainability. It's not just a quick hit or get rich quick thing. And I know I'm leaving money on the table sometimes by being so, you know, straight up with people, but I think the people that we do eventually attract and enroll as clients are much better and just creates a lot less stress, you know.

So, yeah, there's, there's a, I forget I'm going to butcher who this attribute it's to. But if you split test any website long enough, it becomes a pornography site. You know, if you're, if you're looking for pure raw efficacy, fear, like the basic instincts will always sell people, you know, are more fearful or shameful or, you know, if you really dove into the core amygdala responses, of course you're going to get better responses, but it isn't. That grows a very short term, very angry audience and you're polarizing them in the wrong way. Right. Or potentially the wrong way. Fear never wins. Right. Like, I mean, the best way to make somebody, the best way to defeat an enemy is to make them your friend.

Yeah, it's a level of consciousness thing too. Most of the world is stuck in those lower levels of consciousness. And as they grow up, you know, and move up through those levels, then the messaging will shift for them. You know, what they're attracted to will shift.

Yeah.

I just want to acknowledge you for being part of the good fight. So tell me about Marie Kondo and how does she change your life?

I have a 10 minute talk that's very powerful on finding joy in life. And the biggest thing on that most people, we have a choice, right? Like everything can be joyful. Being on the other side of a major health complication has made everything in my life joyful. I don't know many people who have as much joy as I do. Being on this call. Incredibly joyful that I get to share my experience with others and hopefully help them in some way, shape or form. Changing a diaper this morning with my son, incredibly joyful. Like the fact that I Get the opportunity to hang out with my son and change his diaper. Like, what a cool gift to get. I got to the opportunity to stay up late with my son last night, right? And it's like, oh, man, that's so cool. I got the opportunity to be in traffic this morning. I got the opportunity to, you know, sit there and really sit with yourself and figure out how to emotionally regulate and, you know, be. Give yourself the permission to be late for something. You know, there's. There's everything in life can be joyful if it's seen that way. And this is. This isn't like toxic positivity where you're telling somebody they should feel something. It's an internal thing. It's about, how can everything bring me joy? And it's a game that you play of just like, how is this done for me, not to me. And if you can solve that, man, does your brain get a lot, lot happier? You end up solving things that you didn't know existed. You end up in a state of consciousness that your. Your emotional regulation can't be touched. It becomes a lot happier and a lot more joyful. That being said, not every moment is happy for me, but every moment is joyful. And I get a lot of joy out of figuring out how to solve really tough problems or even, you know, fights with my wife or anything else. Those can be joyful too, because now you get to improve your communication. You get to talk through some things. You know, letting a team member go can be joyful if done correctly. Like, we. The way we let our team members go is we find them another opportunity. Just because they weren't a good fit for us doesn't mean they're not a good fit for somebody else. And I don't want their value to be in question. I want their value with me to be in question. And that way, we find them something else. And we have 100% success rate for the last two years of finding people new jobs. And it's just finding joy in all the things. Like, I just literally before this, I got off a call with my old. My old coo, and she was explaining how amazing she's doing at her new job and how happy she is. And she actually asked us to work for her for the new. For her new position, like, for her new company, and, like, do work for them. So it was like, how cool is that where you let somebody go and then they try to hire you? Like. Like, it's. It's just. It's very fulfilling, right? And I get These notes every week. And it's just like, it's such a cool thing, but it's also like know you get the opportunity to find joy in anything you choose to. You know, even, even, you know, really, really tough. Illness was one of the most joyful experience of my life. It tested me in every way possible. It tested my communication with myself. It tested my mental sanity. It also gives you the ability of like, okay, what, what happens if I need to come back from nothing? I mean, it was the most expensive thing I've ever done. I mean, it practically bankrupt me. I probably should have filed bankruptcy, but didn't. But I mean, it was, it was a lot of money to be sick. And you get this amazing experience to see how resilient the. Than the human spirit and the human mind. It's incredible.

Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. And you could have gone the exact opposite way and you'd probably be dead right now. Right where you could have just been for sure. Oh, my son kept me up late and I got to change a shitty diaper and now I gotta get on a plane. I threw my back out and I was stuck in traffic. And you can complain, complain, complain, and you're basically whittling yourself down to a nub. And then, you know, you're very much able to succumb to almost anything that comes along versus the way you're approaching things, I think is really powerful. So I want to, I want to give people that contrast of like, all the same shit's happened in James. It's happened all of us. And the way he, he approaches it because of the things he's been through, he's making the best out of all of it.

Yeah. I think it's an awesome opportunity to get to reframe and position your mind in a way that we do with marketing. Right. Like, you know, the way I got rid of 40% of our clients when I came back, I got rid of 40% of my thoughts. Right. The ones that didn't serve me. And, and really dialing down the 60% that do and giving them the neural pathways to make it much more efficient and quickly for you to see positivity. It's also great from a leadership standpoint. Right. People want to be around people who have a positive attitude doesn't mean you have to be negligent or naive. It just means that you have to have a positive. Not have to, but you get to have a positive attitude around issues in business or, you know, issues with team members and.

Yeah, well, there's A. There's an old saying, I don't remember who said it, so I might butcher it. But you can pretend you can live life as if everything's a miracle or as if nothing's a miracle.

Yeah. And you're right.

That's kind of what it is. You know, you're right both ways. And, and you've chosen to live life, at least in the interactions I've had with you, in like a way where everything's a miracle. And you find drawing everything, you know, even if it's not ideal, even if it's not perfect, it's like, okay, great. So let's, let's transition here slightly to your general thesis on marketing. How it's evolved in the time you've been doing it, who do you work with, how do you help that kind of thing. Yeah.

So I mean, what's, what's evolved? I mean, it's. Oh, marketing is such a beautiful component because it's like, I, like, I see it as like an art, right? You get this massive opportunity to position a buyer into something that they need, right. Not something that they want, but something that they need. And sometimes it's want, but most of the time it's need. But for some reason there's a limiting belief where there's some sort of belief system. Most people know what they need, right? They, it's, it's not a knowing problem, it's a figuring out how to position it in a way where you can serve them best. And of course, there's always going to be in any business, the solution aware, who are just looking for your solution, but the problem aware. That's where I find the most fun. Where it's like, you know, for a, for a weight fitness is like one of the most highest market sophistications in the world. Right. And it's, you know, that's where we've seen the most success because I find it the most fun because it's the most difficult. And it's such a cool thing to be able to indoctrinate people on how to serve themselves in the right way. Most people don't eat very healthy. Most people don't work out. They want to. They want. Sorry, they want to want to, but they don't. And a lot of it is their limiting beliefs and a lot of other belief structures. So like a lot of things that have transformed over the course of time that I've seen is getting people more around, solving their belief structures first and using that as like a challenge to go, okay, like, you know, One of the challenges that we do is the first is why, like, can this be possible? Can weight loss be possible? That's the first day. Can this be possible? And then the second day is going to be possible for you and like, what does that look like? What are the things holding you back? How like, is it a limiting belief? Is it a trauma? Is it something else? The third one is basically like handling objections of okay, but I'm traveling but I'm doing all sorts of stuff. So okay, handle their, their objections and then the fourth day is also handling their major mental and physical objections and then giving an offer, right? So it's a four day transformation process where most of the time in weight loss it's not about. Most people don't need a meal plan, right? What they need is a transformation on their thought process on how to be kinder to themselves and be more in alignment with what they want and get really clear on their goals. And when you do that now you become a commodity of one, right? You don't become a fitness business that they're like, okay, well I'm going to use you for this and then you for this, but you really get to overcome them. And now you have an LTV that can't be touched by anybody else because you've transformed them and they have trust and credibility in you in such a big way. I feel like a lot of people, the recession has also been great, right? Like it is awesome for the marketing industry because it gets people that are fear based out, it gets people that are, you don't have a great ltv. Like I say ltv, it means lifetime value. So if you don't have a long lifetime value business, it means that you're most likely not in alignment with solving their problem in a long term way. And that's like a really good business model to have where you create a problem, you solve a problem by creating another problem, by solving that problem by creating another problem. And that's how you get somebody 10x, you solve what they need and then give them what they want. And most of the time what they need is just to feel seen and heard. Making sure that if you have, let's say a physical product in the sound healing space, I'm just going to use that because that was a potential client of ours. And you know, most of the time people are using that to meditate or worse for, you know, not worse, but different for signaling, right? Like they want to signal that they're very woke and that they're very, you know, big in There and now you get them to do rituals and other things. And so that way you can sell information and physical products and like a lot of other things to that crowd and you get a lot longer lifetime value.

No, I love that. And who have been some of your favorite clients to work with? Not naming names specifically, but like, you know, I'll name one.

I. So my, my favorite client of all time was Frank Kern. Okay, cool. And, and it's the reason why I'll go on record for that. Because he was funny. Right. Like very rarely do you find marketing funny, but when you do, it's a gift because in order to, to do funny marketing, it's very polarizing in the right way. But it also is very difficult. It's very difficult because you need to know and understand the values and belief systems of your market and also align it with what they would find funny. And it's tough because funny is a very polarizing concept and not doesn't hit everybody, but it's incredibly good to get an in group out group method. Right. You have, you have inside jokes, you have all this other stuff. Frank was a master of his art. He was in not was is absolutely incredible. If you're not following Frank Kern, I would just for his, his comments, his. Everything he does is so subtle but so funny.

I love that. Yeah. And we just had our event. Thank you again for your help with that with the Mastermind millions. And the one thing that came through is just our rapport on stage, Jay and I, and, and just how many jokes we made. And some of the jokes, you know, I was having people waiting at the end of the, at the end of the segment to tell me how, how much of a dirtbag I am for saying that.

Yeah, but it's polarizing, right. So it's like you, you, you from a marketing perspective, you don't want to be everything to everyone. Right. And it's, and you know, if you have a market size that's big enough to suit it, you definitely want to be polarizing as you can. And that way you don't serve everybody. You, you do in group out group and if you do in group out group, it's a very polarizing message. It's great for building community. And community is so pivotable, especially during a recession. Like if you have a community and you're selling physical products, it makes it easier to sell affiliate products, infra products, software to them, like other, other avenues of profit to them. If you have a community also makes better R and D. But community is Built off of alignment of value and belief systems. And once you get clear on your value and belief systems, it makes polarization really easy. Still being funny is difficult, but if you can be funny while also polarizing, oh, is it great.

So what are some of the newer opportunities or markets opening up? You know, maybe it's legalization of psilocybin is one interesting one that I know that Magic has done in the past. You know, what are some of the newer markets that you guys are playing in that are interest or exciting for people?

Yeah, I'm actually like considering pivoting most of the company to mental health and alternative.

Okay.

And the, the reason is, is because, and I've been debating it for a little bit because it's like, you know, am I just in it because it was so powerful to me in the last couple years or is it actually like a market fit? And the, the reality is the market for state change medication has, I mean, I, the numbers are all over the place, but it looks like it tripled since 2020. Right. So you're looking at alcohol and there's a lot of reasons for that. Right. Marijuana became legalized in like certain areas and like a lot of other stuff. But state change medications are your number one indicator for mental health because people are taking state change in order to get out of their initial state to really figure out what they have. And that's where the mental health community hasn't really been very well positioned. I mean, Tony Robbins has done amazing work in that space. But the reality is in Landmark Forum and there's a lot of other people that are giants in that industry. But the reality is it's expensive. It's really expensive. And there isn't a ton of egalitarian offers, nor is there an ascension model to get a lot of people to where they need to be. And I think, you know, once you talk about Maslow's hierarchy needs and get somebody into self actualization, their next step is how do they handle the mental health component. And I think that's going to be really tough as we move forward. I think universal income will become a thing. And I know that's a polarizing thing to say, but with AI, I think a lot of production level jobs and a lot of other stuff is going to go away looking 10 years from now. And I think really focusing on the mental health side right now. And again, the alternative medicine I call preventative medicine, which is actually building health and taking care of yourself in a very powerful way that, that suits you for a long term. Quality of life matters a ton. Not just dealing with things that are reactive, like a heart attack or cancer or other items. It's how do you take care of your body? I mean, enough so, I mean, I think you've been to a couple of my sauna cold dub parties.

Oh, yeah.

But it's like. I mean, it's a big deal to me to have that community. I. I really enjoy that part of. So anyway, I, I feel that market in the alternative health market is going to crush it. I think it's going to be such a. With the technology happening. I mean, you know, with one of our clients, Peter Diamandis, they did. They're doing some crazy cool stuff in the space. I mean, if you haven't caught up with them, I mean, join their abundance. 360. But I know you were going to go, but had a thing. But they're doing some beautiful stuff. I mean, it's crazy. Peter and Tony wrote a book called Life Force and it's. It's amazing. Right? Like getting access to some of that stuff and being able to make it more egalitarian. I just, you know, personally, my trauma is associated with not feeling seen and heard from the medical community over the course of years. And them telling me that I was fine when I was clearly not fine. And.

And the fact that you're. You're so intelligent and effective and a problem solver and you're an entrepreneur and you had money and it was like you still couldn't get your needs met.

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

All these really smart doctors telling you were crazy. And it's like, how. What is the average person? How do they stand a chance, you know?

Yeah. So I think they don't until you're.

Well aligned with, you know, you got to bring the cost down, you got to bring the accessibility up and you have to be able to get people on track, especially the ones that are suffering, but hopefully prevent people from getting that bad a place to begin with, you know, like, know to look out for stuff like that.

Yeah, I mean, of course. Right. I think it's more of an information issue. I think the principle of authority with doctors in the United States is way too high.

Yeah.

I mean, my personal belief is that you don't delegate three things. Health, health, finance and legal. Right. You don't delegate those three things. And by finance, I mean taxes. Right. Like, because you're liable for all of the three if, if you delegate. And nobody has okay to get advice.

But it's not okay to.

Correct. Yeah. Consult, use consultants. But Ultimately, if you don't understand what's happening, you're going to get taken to lunch in all three areas. So it's just, I mean, they're unforgiving. Right. Like a lot of. I mean, I can't tell you how many stories. I know people who got into legal problems because they just didn't understand what was happening. Right. Or health problems because, you know, they trusted a doctor that was like, you know, a general doctor that's just like, hey, you're fine, or, oh, take this med for the rest of your life. Oh, you have depression. Okay, take this med. And now their heart stops. Or now they kill themselves because most that depression medication is horrendous on your body. Instead of going, hey, have you tried doing meditation? Or I have this great product for you that you walk through it and you, you know, you really work on yourself and gratitude practices or even therapy. Right. And working on the therapy side before you get a medication, I just think, you know, a lot of the doctors are handing out pills instead of solving the real problem, which is mental health.

Yeah, No, I love it. It's a beautiful thing to see your journey come full circle and to be able to be in a position now where you're healthy again and being able to help people and having the. The means by which to do it. So when I just want to clarify, when you say you're going to get into the space, is this with your own products and services? Are you going to just align with more companies that are doing this already?

Yeah, both. Both, Right. I mean, it started with the Dalai Lama and Peter Diamandis where we're trying to find giants in the space that are looking to improve their marketing in a way that they want their people to feel seen and heard. Right. But the reality is, like, my specialty now is, is in that space just because I have so much experience in it firsthand. So it's where we can create the best results because it's the fastest way to make people feel seen and heard is through a story and really being able to describe those pieces. And so, yeah, I mean, our target demo is, you know, 3 to 10 million, but we go above that for specific clients in the information or E. Comm. Space, specifically around mental health or alternative health. I mean, we kill it in that space.

And who would you say is your dream client or clients you haven't worked with yet, but you'd really like to, like, if somebody's listening right now, who would you want to make it intrude.

To to work with you so we've already worked with like a majority of our dream clients, right? Like my, to be honest with you, my dream client was Dalai Lama. Right? And how cool is that for abundance? And he. They asked for me, right? Like that was, that was probably one of the coolest days of my life when I got an email being like, hey, the Dalai Lama is asking for help with their marketing of their mission. Joy. It was a documentary that got launched and we did an amazing job on it. But I was, you know, I thought they were joking, right? Like you're like, haha, you know what I mean? Brad, thanks for the email. But yeah, I wrote back and I was like, yeah, let's get on a call. And of course there was legit. It was super legit and it was like one of the coolest days of my life. So a lot more of that, right? A lot more of attracting people who are in it to win it, to change the consciousness of the world and to really improve the quality of lives of people. Not just here, but more egalitarian. Right. How does this serve us long term? I think it's more of the ethos and the value systems and belief systems that I'm trying to align with and really make sure we're serving that community.

I love it.

James.

And how do people get in touch with you if they want to reach out and inquire about services or check out what you do or.

Yeah, so our site is Magic Agency and we have the at the top, right. There's a marketing assessment. So you get a one hour call with me on that if you're reaching out about any health issue or mental health issue. My personal email is jamesgoulden.com I do respond to them personally. It means a lot to me to be able to help somebody. I had giants behind me when I was going through my health issues that were very helpful to me. So if you're experiencing any sort of tough health illness and just need somebody to talk to, I'm available. Again, my email is jamesgoulden.com and that's.

G U L D A N. Yes.

G U L D A N. All.

Right, thank you James. I really appreciate it, brother. Any final words or parting advice for the folks listening at home?

I think the biggest thing is, I mean if I could teach anything from a marketing perspective, it's really try to get your prospects to feel seen, heard and that they're enough. And if you can do that, your business will transform. I mean we have 13 clients that have been in the Inc. 500 and that was our key. Right. A lot of our tactics that nobody does, like our secret sauce, I mean, I'll give it publicly, is that we do empathy interviews. Right. Like, very few people do empathy interviews anymore. It's crazy. It's just like, talk to your customers and not just like, don't. Don't get them into a position where they feel like they're answering questions. Get to know them, understand their value and belief systems. Like, what else are they doing? What else are they using? Like, really get to know them. And when you get to know your best customers, you can use their nomenclature to attract more best customers. And it's probably the most effective tool people can use to make people feel seen and heard, like, understand their problems and what they're going through and how they solve them. And it just lets you communicate to your audience in another level.

I love that. Yeah. We use a market research framework we train on. It's really effective as well for building out offers for the right people at the right time. Yeah, it's killer. And I love calling it an empathy interview, too. So, like, what would be one or two questions from the empathy interview that you really love that that gets to the core of what people are going through?

So one of the questions that we ask for objection handling is was there, was there any reason you almost didn't buy? Right. And one, it gets you through their main objection, but then you dig deeper. Right. Oh, man. What does that mean to you do. Right. Like, okay, well, that, that's great. That's awesome. But also just, it's not about the questions, it's about how you ask them. Right. You're not looking for an answer, you're looking to know more about them, and you're just legitimately looking to know how they live their life. I mean, it's a very powerful tool to understand. Hey, they go fishing. Three times a day, they go fishing. You know, whatever they do, you know, they're very value oriented and working out. They're very value oriented in their fatherhood. Right. Like, most signaling can be done with either wealth or family or, you know, their health or, you know, they have a value and belief system that's very much aligned. And just talk to enough people, you'll get alignment on value systems. And that's the ethos of the company. Like, it can't be you forever. Most companies nowadays are personal brand because they're easy to build, because it. It's instant trust and credibility because it's a person, not a processor, a company or a brand. But the Reality is once you evolve to a brand and once you're past the 10 million stage, you have to own that brand. That brand has to have value systems and belief systems. It doesn't have to, but it's helpful to have value systems and belief systems and that attracts a customer. It's a very polarizing way to take over the competition and be able to build an LTV cycle where the competition can't afford to compete with you on an advertising spend because you can keep them for so much longer because you have more items to sell them because you, they trust you more. You have, you know, more things that you just make a lot more money from them. And that way you can't compete with somebody who's has an LTV of you know, 20 grand versus an LTV of a thousand, that 20 grand person will be able to outspend you all day long. And the unit economics of that will crush you over the course of a decade.

Yeah, that's, that's the key is like most marketers, most people ask me about marketing is I tell them two things is you're trying to change experimental factors before you establish a control.

Right?

He's asking me for my opinion, like hey, what do you think of this or that or this landing page or this video? I'm like put it out there, right? See how it does. Like start establishing as long as you're.

Not saying something liable or that you're just saying something wrong. Put it on there. Yeah, right, yeah. Do you have to the baseline?

Because otherwise you don't know which way you're moving the needle. It's just, you know, it's a little silly. And the other thing is just talk to your customers. Yeah, talk to your customers, talk to your prospects, talk to your leads, talk to everybody you possibly can talk to until you finally get where they're at and where they're going, trying to go. And then you can make an offer to get them there.

Right. And I mean that's how you find irresistible offers is by understanding like a lot of people after a certain stage of business, they, they, you know, the most common thing we have is when our first month is we do a, so we do an audit first to be, to get everybody, to make sure we can actually help. Right. So we go, it's a five thousand dollar audit that we go through that basically dig through everything they have, all the unit economics, everything that they could possibly have to go through it. And we need to see a clear path for success. Otherwise we don't take them on. And we need to be able to get alignment on that clear path for success for everybody to go through. But usually our first month is doing surveys, so psycho demographic surveys and empathy interviews. And we gain just tons of insight on that. And it's, you know, it's one of the most powerful things that you can do is just learning more about your customer. Enabled in order to scale. I mean, we did it for Peter's team and crushed it for them. Yeah, I think the stats were that we doubled from last year by just writing copy. That could be more empathetic. Right. Make them feel seen and heard and just make it feel less transactional, more transformational. And I think if you can do that, you end up in a situation where everybody wins.

I love it. And you're a beautiful man, James. I'm grateful to call you a friend. I'm excited we get to spend time together. And thank you for sharing your time and your wisdom with the Make More Marvel's audience. Everybody out there, go check them out at Magic Agency. If you have health issues and concerns, reach out to James. James Golden. G-U L-A N.comJames, your. Your brother. I appreciate you and thank you so much for. For coming on the show today.

I appreciate you too, man. Thank you.

All right, my pleasure. See you later, everybody.