From $300k to $15m+ In 3 Years (Working 3 Days Per Week) with Brooke Castillo

What's up, 1 percenters? Welcome to capitalism.com. today.

We'Re joined by the gigglest giggliest person in the lake house. Brooke, welcome to Lake House. What's up?

Well, hello, Ryan. It's great to be here.

Wait, are you like, turned on the Voice?

I loved it.

Hey, when there's. When there's a. When there's a mic on me, I go into podcast voice. I've been very public about this, so good.

I love it. Keep going.

Yes.

I'm stoked to be here. Thank you for having me.

Well, now we're getting all official.

Screw the podcast. Let's just make fun of each other for the next hour.

I'm in.

Well, you and I met a couple years ago and I can't wait to find out what the hell you did. Because a couple years ago you called me for advice and then you started beating me at fricking everything.

Yes. Well, here's what happened. I found you. I was just trying to think about how I found you. I don't have any idea how I look.

Really handsome men on the Internet.

Yes, that's what it was. And then I found your podcast. I started listening to your podcast. You were selling a product called or you were affiliating for Amazing Melons.

Amazing Melons. Amazing Melons. This is a great new product called Amazing Melons.

And I was like, I have to have them.

Is that a fruit or a breast enhancement product?

Amazing selling machine for Amazon. And I wanted to help my kids start a business. I bought it. We started running a business. We were selling soccer balls with.

That's where all the money is.

It's like a soccer ball in a bag with a pump and like an instruction manual. And we went through the whole thing and we actually did pretty well. I went to your website to see maybe if you could help us do better. And there was a sign up form for a coaching session. I signed up. It was like only 500 for an hour. This was.

This is. So before I made it, I was.

Like, dude, what's up? We talked for an hour about my kids.

Soccer ball thing. And that was it.

Yeah, I'm gonna get a bunch of dms now will you honor the the way to 500 an hour? No, I will not honor the 500 an hour.

So good. It was money. Money well spent. But I've been listening. See, I feel like I really know you because I've been listening to your podcast for years. So it's super surreal and fun to.

Be here, but you just exploded over the last few years where you, you know how you have an eight figure business, almost eight figures in profit.

Yeah.

Every time I hear Frank Kern talk, he quotes you as his like, yes. His champion student.

I am a very big deal.

You consistently have one of like the top 50 business podcasts on itunes, which.

I think is kind of funny, don't you, that it's a business podcast and it's all about life coaching.

Well, you know, you can change that categorization.

I mean, I like that I show up, I like that I show up there. And I think it's because life coaches are building businesses, I guess. But I do think it's an interesting categorization for me.

Well, you just blew up in the last couple years. What the hell happened to you?

I think I'm one of those typical stories that it's like the overnight success that's been at it for 10 years. I think it just, I think partially it's just the momentum of me being at it so long and learning along the way. I always say success is built on a pile of failures. I think I got my fair share of those. Right. And I started to succeed. I also think the life coaching industry took off for me personally, just like decided to take off because when I first started as a coach, everyone wanted to know what sport I was in. Right. What sport I was coaching seriously. And so then I think the industry's grown. I think me learning how to do the Internet was really helpful. Me hiring Frank Kern, me doing a podcast.

So when you say learning how to do the Internet, what does that mean to you?

Yeah, like learning how to build a funnel, learning how to build a list, learning how to promote to it, Learning, learning how to. I know this sounds crazy, but like, ask people for money. I think that's the number one issue with most of the people in my industry not making money is they don't ask for it.

Well, a few years ago you were. You just had like a handful of clients. Right. Of your own. Of your own life coaching clients.

Yes. Right.

And I think you're doing like low six figures.

About 300. Yeah.

Okay, 300,000. And now fast forward like four, four or five years.

It is. Yes.

It's like 300X. Yes, that. Yeah. And maybe more so. So you say learning the Internet was the turning point there. That had to be more there.

I mean, there's so much. But I do think those are like the main things, like really understanding that I was going to keep failing and not giving up I think is huge for everybody. And I cannot overemphasate. Emphasize how important that was for me because there's so many times at about 300k, I was like, enough of this already. But here's another.

What do you mean enough of this already?

Like, I was hustling, I was working too hard. I was working like seven days a week. I was like, this is exhausting. I don't know that I want to be an entrepreneur anymore. And so I had a conversation with my husband. I'm like, we're either going to go all in or we're getting out of this industry. We decided to go all in. And I remember, I'm like, I'm going to learn how to run Facebook ads. And so I started running Facebook ads and that really, you know, that aggressive acquisition of customers really changed the flow of customers into my business.

Well, it's not like you could with as a life coach, you couldn't just take on more clients because you're already working all the time.

Well, I could because I was doing group coaching.

Okay, so. So you, you change from a one to one to a one to many.

Yeah, yeah.

Model.

Yeah.

And then you started running Facebook ads to amplify the one to many model. Would you talk a little bit about what the model.

Yeah, I will tell you, at that time, when I went from 300 to a million was really when I started doing the group coaching, which instead of doing one to one, I started putting groups of people into coaching sessions, which I was, you know, really challenged to do because I felt like it wouldn't be as effective because people weren't getting all that one to one attention. But what I found out is that it was even more effective because other people seeing other people be coached was really powerful because they could see their issues in each other easier than they could see them in their own life. So that started becoming a really powerful thing. Then I started doing online courses, which were passive income courses that I was able to sell. And that really helped everything. But I'm kind of like a word of warning that happened from 300 to a million is I started doing too many different things. And then I started getting burned out again at a million dollars. So that's right when I started working with Frank and we decided to just focus on one thing at a time. So we narrowed my business down, we constrained it down, I started charging more, and that's when it really started to come together. And the thing that's the coolest for me about going from a million to where I. To, you know, 10 million and beyond is that I work less now than I ever had.

You refuse to work more than three days a week.

I like working three days a week. Yeah. And here's the greatest thing about it is people say, oh, you work three days a week, you don't work very hard. But that's not true. Like, the three days a week that I do work, I work my hours. Ass off. But I can do that because I know I get the next day off.

So you, what, you do like Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

I do. I do Monday, I take Tuesday off. They work Wednesday, Thursday, I take Friday off.

Yeah, that's. That's really cool. So when you discovered that you were going to go all in on one thing at a time.

Yeah.

What was the first one thing?

So the first thing I decided to do was a membership site. And Frank just said, hey, do a book funnel to a membership site. And I knew there was like 1200 reasons why that wouldn't work for me and that I shouldn't do it and that he didn't understand my industry and that I couldn't charge that much, all that stuff. And I have to say, I think that's like, Frank talks about me a lot this way. Like, I just did what he told me to do. I paid him tens of thousands of dollars to give me advice. And I'm like, what if I just did exactly what he told me to do and I did that shit worked.

What specifically worked? Was it the promotion of the book as a customer acquisition tool? Being willing to lose money, customer acquisition and hoping that it made up for it on the back?

That's right. That's right. I think that was the huge shift for me is, you know, being willing to spend a lot of money on acquisition. It just seemed counterintuitive, especially from the industry or the business model that I come to from before was always, I would make all the profit right up front.

Yeah, right.

Word of mouth. Someone would come to me as a coaching client. I would just make all that money. So for me to lose money on the front end was scary.

How many members are in the membership now?

I can't say. It's a big secret.

Oh, okay. It's a big secret. All right. Now let me ask you this. What was the book that you. That you promoted and are you still running it?

I did three different book funnels. So I did stop over drinking, stop overeating, and how to feel better. And so three different niches into the same membership site.

And are they still running today, the book funnels? Yeah.

We used to do the book funnel $7 to an upsell. Now we do freeze free ebook.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah, interesting.

So it's all about acquiring the name and warming them up and getting in. Into that.

Yeah.

So I want to go down. Can I go down a weird rabbit hole with you?

Let's do it.

So, all right. So you're. You're a life coach.

Yes.

Do you work with, like, inner gunk that's holding people back?

Yeah. I don't know. What do you mean by inner gun?

All right, here's where I'm going.

This. I want to get.

I want to get your perspective on this. So I. I have found for me that burnout happens when I overextend myself, obviously. But I always think that if I overextend myself, it'll be more valuable for people. Just like you said, if I go to the group coaching, it'll be less value, but you turn out it was actually more valuable. So I have kind of the same block in times where I want to overcomplicate it, give more. And what I found is that we confuse people rather than give them a clear path. And what I discovered for me was that was like some old childhood shit from, like, trying to take care of the family, like trying to take care of the people and provide everything and overextending myself.

Yeah.

And for me, it was the same thing with, like, my customers. Well, we'll do all this thing to make sure, and then they're just confused as hell.

Right. It totally backfires.

And I had to work on that in order to even create the boundary. Like, no, I can't overextend myself here. And then people just start showing up because they respond to that.

Yeah. I mean, my. My view on burnout is that it doesn't have to do with how much you're working, which I know sounds weird. I think burn. Burnout is caused by whatever emotion is fueling what you're doing. So you can. You can be coming from a super abundant, excited mindset and work all day every day and be energized by that. But if you're. It sounds like what you were doing was working from a place of insecurity and worry that is going to burn you out every single time.

Yeah, yeah.

And. And I was going to say this earlier, too. I think the coolest thing about building a business from a million to, you know, 10 million, that space in between there, is that you can't work harder. There's no. There's not enough hard working to make that happen. So that's when you really start becoming. I think that's when I started becoming a real businesswoman, like, understanding how business really works so I could work less. So me working less is as much about discipline as it is about freedom. Because I really want to be able to make sure that I'm doing my best thinking and thinking at the highest level. Because when you give yourself all week to do your work, like, think about this. If someone said to you.

You know, I did my workout today, it was eight hours, you'd be like, dude, you know you can do that in an hour, right? And they're like, oh, no, I took eight hours. I'm really hustling, and I'm really working hard. That's what we do at work, right? We're like, oh, I took eight hours. But you could probably do most of that, like, within two if you stay really focused and do that. And then you have so much more freedom. So that's what I found for my life, too. And that is another thing that helps prevent the burnout. Because if you. If you work, burn it. I think you call it the grind, right?

Yeah.

If you grind it and grind it and grind it to a million, how are you going to get to 2 million?

Right?

There's just no grind.

It's a different set of systems that will take you from 1 to 10. And most people think that the same thing that got them to one, right? You just pour gasoline on that fire and then you take it to 10. And that's. That's how you. That's how you die young.

Well, and the other thing is. And maybe I don't know if you've experienced this, but I think a lot of people think once they get to a million, then everything's good and changes, and it's wonderful, right? They think, oh, I've made a million dollars. Now I've arrived. Now everything gets easy, and now I'm rich. And now, you know, it'll just keep pouring in, which, of course, the opposite is what happens.

What do you mean, the opposite?

Because I feel like when you get to a million, everything, if you aren't smart, everything gets more complex and more complicated because you have to start hiring people and developing new skill sets and developing systems on top of what you're already doing, right? It's not like you're just playing with your money all day if you want to keep growing, right?

So. So what. What I'm piecing the other is you had to pivot from group. From group coaching, which took you to a Million.

Yeah.

Great. Now you've got proven concepts.

Yes.

And then you started hitting another burnout.

Yes.

Point.

Yeah.

So is that when you had to learn new skills and do something different and that when the extreme discipline became absolutely necessary?

Totally.

Tell me about that.

And that's. You have to step back. I love the way D. Sullivan talks about it. He's like, you have to put your pen down and think about it. Like, to go from a million to a million one, you just do a little bit more. Right. To go from a million to 10 million, you have to sit back and be like, okay, how do you. How do you do that? How do you do. There's no way that I can work more. How big can a group be? Like, that's when I started thinking about systems and teams and building everything. But you can still burn yourself out doing a team and system. So you have to step back. The other thing that I decided is that I wasn't in a hurry because I realized, wait a minute. It's not better here at a million than it was at six figures. It's just different. It's fun to make a million dollars, but it's not like your life is better. And I think that's people. I'd be curious to hear what you think about that, because you kind of had your exit.

Yep.

Do you think your life's better now?

It is now.

Do you think it's better?

Well, hold on.

Tell me.

Hold on here. So my perspective is money is just like alcohol. It's an amplifier of who you are.

Yeah.

If you get your value through attention and you start drinking, you're going to become a cute little introvert in the corner.

Right?

No. You're like, everyone, look at me. I'm going to dance at this party.

Okay.

And money is the same thing.

Interesting.

If you get your value from egoic pursuits, you will spend your money on more of that egoic pursuit. So for me, what it did was it accelerated the time frame to which I got to burnout.

Oh, that's fascinating.

And it accelerated all my inner junk, and it made me have to work on that faster.

Yes. That's good.

That's good. My life is way better now.

Yeah.

As the result of hitting walls and going, I gotta figure this shit out. Like, I have to do some deep inner work here and find out what this is. Now, to somebody who's never been to that point, it's, oh, boohoo. Right.

Poor baby. Yeah.

Right.

But.

But the truth is, we've all got junk.

Yes.

Money is an Amplifier of the good stuff.

Yes.

And the bad stuff. So life just gets more extreme, it just gets bigger.

Yeah, exactly.

It doesn't get better. Yes, it gets bigger.

Yes, I totally agree with you.

And you can decide that's more, that's more firepower for you to decide what your life is going to look like. And if you become very intentional about what you want that to be, you now have more firepower in order to build that. And that's a process and takes new self discovery. And so yes, life is better now as a result of it getting worse after.

I mean that's what I would say. It's so much better. And I still have problems. They're just totally different problems. Right. But it's not like I think we have this fantasy that like once you're rich for women, once you're rich and thin, then everything's great and that you're just still a human being, which I have found sucks part of the time and is awesome part of the time no matter where you are. And so I think people are willing to claw and hustle to get to that million dollar mark because they think they're going to arrive somewhere. And I think if you just take your time. That's why I was saying having the long game I think is so important. That's something I learned a lot from you actually. You and Gary Vee with your, with your long game visions of owning teams. I think that seems so far away and yet it's like making that declaration of the future. You can always think from that. I think that's super powerful.

Well, I just find that I make better decisions when I'm thinking about the long game.

Yes, totally.

When I'm thinking about what do I want five years from now. I just make better decisions because I'm more relaxed. It's like when you're thinking short term, you're usually thinking about some sort of an egoic pursuit.

That's right.

So you're more likely to just dumb. Do dumb.

Yes.

Make dumb decisions that are for your own pursuit and then you think there's going to be a result at the end that's going to change the way that you feel. And then he doesn't. So you make the next short term decision.

Right. You're like, oh, that wasn't it. I better work harder and faster.

You, you coach, you won't say how many people, but lots of people.

Big secret.

So what I'm curious about is like, is this like, I guess is this an entrepreneurial thing or is this a Human thing.

This is a human thing. So, like with my weight loss clients, it's all about when they get to their goal weight, then everything's going to be perfect, right? What is? My clients that drink too much, when they quit drinking, everything will be perfect, right? Or when they can control their drinking, everything will be perfect. With my single clients, it's all about when I get married and I always say, I'm like, who's married? Raise your hand. Is your life perfect? Right? It's. We give ourselves, like this dream that when we arrive there, then we won't be this. We won't be this human that isn't perfect. Because look at. It's like, I think a lot of times we're sold this idea that the goal in life is to be happy all of the time. And we look on social media and everybody else is happy all of the time. Why aren't we happy all of the time? If we just could make a million dollars or get skinny or whatever. And so then we get there and we're so bummed that that doesn't do it. So I think that's where the clawing happens for some people.

So what do you do with them after they discover that? It doesn't make them who they want to be.

They're just really pissed. But I try and warn them. So I have this philosophy that there's a balance to life, right? They're pissed. There's a balance to life. And if you just accept that, like life is 50, 50, there's negative emotion and positive emotion. No matter where you are in your life, no matter how old you are, you just have different problems, right? And so if you know that at a million dollars, you're still going to be about 50, 50 when you get married, when you have kids, you're still going to be. It's just going to be a different type of it. Then I think we can be in less than a hurry to get to the place.

And you're less resistant to the problem, Right?

Exactly. And you're not like, why are there problems? I'm supposed to be happy. There's supposed to be no problem.

God, I get that. Yeah, I so get that. And now, Brooke, I learn through mistakes.

Yeah, we all do, buddy.

So I just hurry up to the mistakes, so I will learn from them.

Okay. See?

Money. What do I say every time we go to make a video?

Oh, come on. What's my catchphrase every time I go to make a video? Let's make some mistakes. Let's make some mistakes. Right, right. It's like, yeah, look, I'm not gonna figure this out. Let's hurry up and make some mistakes.

Yeah. Is there a.

Is there a different way to do it?

No. Here's the thing. I don't. I don't think the mistakes are avoidable. I think you have to make the mistakes. I think being in a hurry. Why are you in a hurry to make mistakes? Because you think you're gonna get done with the mistakes, right?

I. Because I will learn faster.

Yeah. Well, maybe if. I think if you're willing to walk into mistakes quickly, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. You know what I think makes the difference between success and failure is what you make the mistake mean afterwards. That's it. That's the difference.

Would you expound on that?

Yeah. So, like, I always try and teach my clients. So, like, for. For you, once you own the Cleveland Indians, okay. Just imagine yourself owning them. They're yours. Right.

Got it. Then I got my eye, black on my eye. I got Moran 13 on the back. I'm in the dugout.

Yeah. And so every big mistake you make, like, let's say you try to build a team for capitalism.com and try to build some systems, doesn't work out quite the way you wanted it, you're going to make that mean something. Like what? What are you going to make it mean?

I'm a failure. And I'm. I'll always be a failure.

Okay. But let's, you know, take the time machine to you already on the Cleveland Indians. What do you think about that? Then this looking back on this, what.

Do you think that was? No big deal. It was cute, like.

Yeah, it's a cute little thing that happens. Right? That's the thing that I think most of us. Most of us, like, define ourselves from our past instead of from our future. And I think that, that if we can define yourself all the way, you know, you're going to be successful. That's what I think propels you forward faster.

And is that. Is that the case with, like, weight loss clients?

Yes, of course. Because people start. They start losing weight, they gain some back. But if you know you're going to be thin eventually, if you're 100% sure of it, the way you interpret that was. Remember that one time I overate versus I'm never going to lose weight. I'm a terrible person. I'll always be fat.

So. So it. It is. It's just like, almost like resting in the future version, of course.

But you have this what I would say to my clients. You have to believe harder. Like, look, how hard. Do you really believe you're going to own the Cleveland.

Yes.

Like, really?

Yes.

Like, genuinely.

Yes.

So that's it. Like, you just have to believe harder. People set goals and they believe in them until the first mistake happens, the first failure happens, and then they said, oh, I guess that's not going to happen.

That's interesting.

I would. I really like for you to expound on that. I don't know what I want you to say about it, but I feel like I'm almost on the cusp of understanding this completely.

Yeah.

Like, I get this conceptually, but the way I'm hearing this is like. Like, we tend to view our. Our present is, like, infinite. Like, it's always going to be this way. And what you're saying is, view almost the ideal version of ourselves is infinite, and this is a blip along the line.

Well, here's the thing that's unique about you. So think about this. Like most people, if you ask them, can you make a million dollars? They'll say, no. And you'll say, why? And they'll say, because I've never done it before and I don't know how.

Right.

Those are the reasons I've never done it before, and I don't know how. And I don't know how because I've never done it before. Right. That's what most of our students will probably say. So what makes you think you can own the Cleveland Indians? Do you know how to own them?

No.

Right. So what makes you believe in something you don't know how to do?

I just choose to.

Right. That is huge. You're making a decision to believe in something in the future that you don't know how to do. Now, what's great about not knowing how to do it is you're going to try and do it this way, and that's not going to work. So it doesn't matter. You're just going to. You're still going to believe in it. You're going to try a different way. You're going to try a different way. Now, if you knew how.

You thought you knew how to own them, and you tried that one way and it didn't work, then you'd give up.

That's beautiful.

You see the difference.

So it's like, you're good at this.

Lifestyle, you believe in it no matter what, and you may have to try 700 ways, but it's just another way that didn't work. It's okay. You're still gonna own them.

So what's. For some reason, the way I'm processing what you're saying is.

The way you just said it is it took all of the.

The. The.

The.

The unhealthy attachment to the meaning of it out of it.

Of course. Yeah. That's what you got to do.

Okay. So I'm. I'm learning this for the first time.

Okay.

So. So you say that like, of course. That's what happens, obviously. So it was almost like the heaviness of what it means about me was removed. Like, this is the goal. I'm gonna try these different ways. And this is. As Gary Vee would say, this is like the pursuit of owning the Jets.

Right.

Right. And if I get there or not, it doesn't matter. I'm, like, committed to the result and the path that it puts me on. And that's how I feel about the Indians.

Of course.

But there have been times where I literally felt like a failure because I didn't own the Indians yet at 26.

Right.

And I didn't know how I was gonna get there. Right. So when it just became about, well, I'm just. I don't know how I'm gonna get there. But that's the end point, and it doesn't mean anything about me now. I felt, like, freed up to pursue it.

Exactly. And what will I. Like what you just said there. What will it mean if, at the end of your life, you don't own the Cleveland Indians?

Just meant that I didn't own the Indians.

Nothing. It means nothing. But it doesn't mean you ever stop believing that you will. Like, even on your deathbed, you're like, oh, it's coming. I got him. You know what I mean? Like, that's. I think your relationship with yourself. You don't give up on yourself and your beliefs for anything, especially some little failure along the way that you make it mean. Like, I've made this statement out there in the world, and I'm not proving it true yet. There must be something wrong with me.

Right? Right.

That's the. You have to always just review. Wait. How hard am I believing in my dream? And most of us are. We trade our dreams so fast. That's why it's so cool to publicly proclaim them scary.

One of the scariest things, because you're.

Like, I better get my ass back to believing. Yeah.

Right. Because I put it out there in the world. I love that.

One of the exercises I have people go through in our trainings is Take the goal of the business and post about it on Facebook.

Love it. Yes.

And that just drives you to start, to start doing it. Do you have to self coach yourself all the time as you're going through like 300,000 to a million to 10 million to beyond?

Yeah.

What does that look like to coach yourself?

You know what's interesting is once I made like I had written down that I wanted to make $10 million and put it on a piece of paper and on my bedside and when I was making like 300k and I would look at that and I'm like, every time I look at it, I'm like, that's never gonna happen. Like literally it was just like this weird thing that I had put there. And then now then once I made 10 million, I was like, oh, money is easy. Like I can make a hundred million and I, I know that I'll make 100 million. Like there's not even a little bit of doubt. But I'll tell you what my new work that I'm doing is. I took on a group of coaches that I want to all. They're brand new baby coaches. I want to get them all to 100k. And that is the work that I'm doing now because I'm believing for them and creating the space for them to have that dream and making it my own dream too, which is challenging because they don't do what I tell them to do. Right. So that's, that's my next kind of layer of work. So I have to coach myself on believing that that's possible, that all 10 of them will get to 100k because of the way I'm advising them. And so that's a daily pursuit of can I believe in something that I really don't have any control over? Right. Because do I really have control over making $100 million? How do you do that? I have no idea.

You have some control, but you don't have control of the result. You have control about how you show up.

I have control over how hard I believe and that has changed everything. So as soon as I get frustrated, that's when I go off course. But if I'm like, oh no, this is as good as done, I'm not sure how I get there yet, but I'm going to believe. Then all of a sudden I get great ideas and stuff comes to me. So I just stay really focused on that end game.

Can I ask what the primary revenue driver of the business is?

It's pretty equal between scholars and certification.

Okay. So people who are going through a certification and then your group coaching. And so do you put an equal amount of marketing into both of those or does one drive?

Yeah, most people come to my coaching program and decide to become a coach. So I don't really market my certification program. That's pretty organic.

Yeah, so. So that's a really good example of that whole one thing philosophy that makes everything else unnecessary. You knocked over that domino.

Yes.

And now you kind of have this nucleus through which you can do whatever you would like from there. Do you know how you're going to get to 100 million?

No.

Okay.

I don't need to know. Just like you don't need to know about the Indians, right? Yeah.

But you, but how long ago were you doing 300k a year?

4 years. But think about this. That's crazy. Let me ask you this question. So when you had your exit, you haven't revealed how much that was for. Right? We know it was eight figures.

Yeah.

Okay, so you had an eight figure exit. Let's go back three years ago. Could you have told me how you were going to do that?

Nope.

No way. You know when the rest of becomes together, when you get the money, then you know how you did it. That's all. That's when you figure it out. Isn't that crazy? You don't know how you did it until you do it.

So when you're working with people, how do you believing hard. Okay, that's great.

Yeah. But then it's not just great that it's everything. It's the most important thing.

Because the more important than the model.

Oh, 100%. Because the first model you do isn't going to work.

I need you to keep talking.

Of course the first model you do is going to get you to what? 17 million. That's where I'm at right now. That same model is not going to get me to 100. I don't know how I'm getting to 100. It's going to be fun. It's going to be exciting.

So I guess what I'm asking is how do you then figure it out?

You know what you do the next thing and you know what's going to happen. It's not going to work. And then you know what you do. This is like the three step process to making $100 million. Try something, fail, try something else, fail. Like that's it. Like, think of how many failures you had to go through in order to succeed.

Like so many. Seriously, so many.

And how many people after the first one are just like, listen, entrepreneurship is just not for me. The Internet's broken.

And why do you think people create that story? Because it's not, like, just about entrepreneurship. It's also about losing weight or.

Because that is literally how our brain is designed.

What do you mean?

Our brain is designed to learn in the past and then reference the past for everything in the future.

Right. That's how we're designed for survival. Basically. It's like, look at things, pay attention to things that are scary. Stay away from those things.

Yeah, I see. Okay, so it's the interpretation of that was painful.

Yes. That was awful. That was humiliating. Don't do it.

We put around the failure, and if it means nothing, you're like, I still have the goal.

Well, exactly.

But if it means pain, then you're going to go, I don't like pain. I'm going to do something else. Entrepreneurship's not. Not for me.

Yeah. And I always like to kind of reference that future self. My future self never says to me, that was a stupid idea. You shouldn't have done it. So I was like, oh, no, there's something you needed to learn there. What is it? That's a stepping stone. Every failure just moves us forward along. Yeah.

What do you do with clients to get them really clear on what they want their future selves to look like?

That's actually a really good question because that's. That is not something that I feel like can be coached out of someone. I think that's something that has to be self discovered. And I've had clients that just want to make a declaration because they think they'll be excited about it, and it just doesn't work. People say, I want to make a million dollars. I want to make a billion dollars. And they don't have a good why behind it. They don't have a, like, why do you want to own the Indians?

I can't imagine anything more fun.

Like, just super fun. It doesn't have to be like, cause it'll save the world or something. It's just like, that would be so fun. And I love the idea of a hundred million dollars. Not because I need. What am I gonna do with a hundred million dollars? Like, seriously, you run out of things to. To buy it. You really genuinely do. But it's just like, I always want to be an example of what is possible. And if I can be like, I'm a life coach that made a hundred million dollars to me, the exact same reason. I can't imagine anything more fun. Yeah, right. It's not because. Oh, then I'll prove to my brother that I was worthy.

And most people, I think, are operating from that place. Most people are like, when I have $100 million, then I will have validation.

Yeah, I'll have that few money. Yeah.

Yeah. Everybody will think I'm cool. Actually, people just think your stuff is cool. They don't really know it.

And they're like, yeah, when is enough is enough. You know, it's like. Then you get this whole, like, backlash of why do you need so much money? And all that sort of stuff. So if that's the other thing, you got to get to the point where you don't really care what other people think about your life.

Are you at that place already?

I'm real close. If I'm not there, I'm real close.

I think it's easier for dudes. Am I wrong about that?

I don't know. I've never been a woman.

You haven't?

No.

I think, like, I don't know, I was raised to kind of keep an eye out for what people were thinking of me and make sure I was appropriate and attractive, too, and pleasing to people. And so since I let that go, life's been way more fun because, you know, you get haters.

How did that shift happen for you?

I just decided that my opinion of myself was so bad when I was trying to get everyone else's opinion of me to be so good that I decided to just switch it.

When was that?

I don't know. Probably about 10 years ago.

Okay.

And I just. I have to keep working on it every. Like, it's crazy. The more successful I get, the more I have to keep working on it. Because haters come out of the woodwork when you. The more public you are, I think.

Yeah. And I've noticed it now takes a lot more for that to come out for me of caring.

People think. Yeah.

Yeah. I still don't really care what they think. It just. It still hurts.

Yeah.

Like, I mean, this might shock you, but we really do read YouTube comments and Facebook comments. Like, when you.

When you.

Yeah.

I don't believe you.

I really swear to God, I don't. Like, I just cannot put my brain on negative stuff. But here's the trick. If you're not going to read. If you're going to read them, you have to take them both with a grain of salt. Right. So we want to read the good stuff and be like, I'm amazing. And then we read the bad stuff. We're like, oh, but I. I know the amazing stuff where people say I'm so amazing is about them.

Yep.

Really it is. And the stuff where they say I'm terrible and that really sets me.

So what I found is, is I'm now immune to them up to a certain point.

Yeah. Nice.

It just takes more. More in order to trigger me in some way. And that's the. So it takes a different level of feedback in the marketplace for me to be okay with it. But the more that I work on that, the bigger things get and vice versa.

That's why I say I still have to always work on it. Yeah.

Yeah.

Because we're trained. I mean, not trained where we are trained, but our brains are programmed to be. Belong. Right. To be part of the tribe so we don't die.

So, Brooke, these feel to me like these are life lessons that take years, sometimes decades to learn. And what I want to ask if there's a faster way and you're already telling me with your. Your head that.

Here's what I think. I think like both of us will be slightly different for the rest of our lives because of this conversation today. And I think that that's true. Right. I think that it doesn't have to take. If you like listen to yourself and like if you have aha moments and you actually apply them, it could be. It really can be immediate. You don't think that what.

What can be immediate?

Like epiphany or a new idea or a new belief about yourself. Like, I decided one day that I just was never gonna hate myself. Like the way I looked physically ever again. Like I grew up self loathing. I just decided enough is enough. This is. I'm not ever gonna do it again. I never did. I do think you can do that. You can just quit drinking. You can quit doing stuff that hurts you. Not that drinking hurt you. I was doing it in a way that hurt me. But like doing things, talking to yourself in a negative voice, self pity, whining at yourself, complaining, excuses really think they can just stop 100%. You just make a commitment to do it. I really do believe you can do that. Think about something in your life that you thought you couldn't do. It's kind of like my mother in law never could quit smoking ever, ever, ever. Tried everything. And then she got cancer. Never smoked again that minute.

So do you think it's a pain threshold thing?

No, I think for her she just changed her mind like that. Right. She said I'll never smoke again and never did for.

For a lot of People, like, they have to reach a certain amount of pain.

Oh, I hear what you're saying. Yeah.

In order to make that change. And you're saying. You're saying you can do that without having to hit the pain.

I think. I think it's actually sometimes the opposite. It's like, the willingness to do it. You have to allow for the pain. Right. So when you give up, like, complaining is so indulgent. Excuses are so indulgent. They feel a little bit good. Right. Especially if we sit here and complain about the same thing together. Like, oh, it's so hard making so much money. It's just a burden. Right. And you complain. But if you're like, I'm never going to do that again. I'm never gonna. Like, I'm never gonna complain about paying taxes again ever. Because it's a privilege of my life to be able to live in this country and pay taxes. Like, what if you just decide to believe that for the rest of your life?

You can just do that, Be a false belief.

You should pay zero tax. That that is right.

Or just like. And I'm not saying that there's something you could just decide, like, okay, this feels terrible. This isn't serving me. I'm not going to believe it anymore. Now there are things that you have to spend more time on, but I don't think it's necessary. I think we make things so much harder than they have to be.

You said two interesting things there that I'm trying to piece together. You said it's being okay with the pain.

Yeah.

Being okay with what pain?

So, like, for example, if you decide, like, so many of my Cl clients don't want to. They want to lose weight. Right. So it's actually easier not to overeat than it is to overeat, like, physically, like, you pick up the fork fewer times. Right. The hard part is the experience of whatever deprivation. That kind of pain, like giving up that instant gratification that costs us all of our dreams is the pain we have to be willing to. That's a discomfort. I always say that discomfort is the currency to your dreams. You have to be willing to be in that space of not giving in to everybody, single temptation.

For me.

I think this. This came from entrepreneurship, but there was, like, a need to be doing something all the time. There's, like, the need, if I'm going to work for this, I got to fill every hour with what I'm going to do. And then in comes Brooke Castillo, who has. Who works three days a week and is beating me. So my thesis on this is that.

As a result, beating you. I love dudes. Everything is a scoreboard. It's so.

Well, here's. Here's the thing. What that indicates is that you've learned something that has given you a shift. And I want to. I want that shift.

Okay. I'm gonna give it to you right now. Right.

Tell me.

Okay, you're sitting at home, It's Tuesday at 2. What should you be doing?

It's Tuesday at 2.

Yeah.

I have no idea.

You should be working, right?

Probably. Okay.

Yeah, you should be working. So what is it like for you to not be working?

I. The process in my brain is going. I should be doing. I should be figuring out. I should at least be learning something. I shouldn't be discovering the next thing, pushing over the next domino, looking at a to do list.

Why?

So that I can discover the next breakthrough.

Yeah. So believing that you always have to be pushing yourself and on yourself and hustling to be able to have that breakthrough.

Right.

Is a lie. Right? So you can have it. You can actually work less and achieve more. Sounds like such lame bullshit, but it really is because it comes from a lack of confidence, feeling like you need to always be discovering the next thing so you can get to the place. Because you got to own the Indians.

Right.

But if you believe it, you're like, what's the hurry? I'm going to own them.

Yeah.

And, like, genuinely believe that.

Where do you think breakthroughs come from?

I. From having the space to think. I call it super thinking. If you never give yourself a chance to, like, solve your own problems because you're always in your problems. You never use your own wisdom to grow. So I think that, like, you do a lot of this stuff, though, don't you? Meditate and have the space for you. Like, I mean.

I mean, since I sold the company and then hit that big wall. All right, Burnt out and did a bunch of stupid. Made a bunch of stupid decisions and invested in things I shouldn't have invested in.

Okay, wait, stop. Can we just take a minute? We're, like, coaching. Timeout.

Here we go.

Remember we decided those weren't stupid and it wasn't terrible and it wasn't bad.

And it was a lot of lessons, like, what if.

But seriously, like, what if you didn't interpret? Like, when. I can tell. Even when you're talking about that, you're.

Like, ugh, yeah, a little bit.

Yeah. You have to totally reinterpret all of that, because if you have that, it's going to anchor you down. And if you see it as something that was like, of course you did that. Like, obviously you did that. Right. That was the next step. Glad you did it quickly.

I like that a lot better.

Yeah, it's. Seriously, I can't. I know it sounds coachy and all that, but it's so big. You're letting that pull you down. So you can. I can, like, feel it. Yeah.

I think. I think you're absolutely right about that.

Yeah.

Can you give me a new belief out of that?

Yeah. Tell me what it really was.

Remember, we're going.

We already own the Indians. We're talking about. Remember when you were a little guy and you did that little thing, like, what was that about?

That's a great reframe. So from that perspective, it was a speed bump that gave me the breather for me to discover my next moves.

Dude, that was it. Right. It's not even like you made a mistake. It was just like the next logical thing that you were going to course have to do.

Right.

Helps so much because it just keeps moving you forward.

And. And as I said before, it sped up the mistakes that I would have carried on for years and years and years. It got them out of the way so that I could clear all that gunk and.

Yeah.

And move forward to the next breakthrough.

Yeah, but you're using it, like, against yourself still. That's why you got to let it go.

Okay, tell me more.

Yeah, just don't. You're, like, using it. I don't. I don't really know exactly how you're doing it, but I can tell it's like something that you're like. That made me less than I thought I was. Somehow.

I felt that way at the time.

Yeah.

But. But looking back on it from the Cleveland Indians owner's box.

Yeah.

What that did is it just made me go inside myself and learn and, like, free myself of a lot of old patterns that I had to get rid of in order to put me on the path to owning the Indians.

Okay, so from here to the Indians. How many more times do you do stuff just like that?

Zero.

No, like 105.

Well, I mean, that's in a different flavor, right? Right in the same mistake, different flavor.

And how you interpret every single one of those depends on how quickly you get there. Like, we want it to just be smooth. Right. Just tell us how to get there and we'll go. But it's just like, oh, it's just going to be a mess. That's the point.

And we think that once we get there, all the other stuff will be.

Yeah, then you won't have any problems. Right. That team, once you own them, you won't care about winning. It'll just be. You'll just be grateful to own them.

Yeah. Every day will be amazing.

I'm pretty sure that's not how it's going to go.

So here's, here's my question, Brooke. Do you think that there is a point in which people reach their highest good or highest happiness?

It has to be right now.

That's the only way it works, right? It has to be now. You have to know it never gets better than this. And that's a beautiful thing. And I'm still going to own the Indians.

What do you mean it never gets better than this?

It never gets better than this. It's as good as it always gets. Like, what if that's true? And then the rest of it is just for fun? Because it is pretty good, right?

Yes.

Oh, yeah.

And it also sucks. And I'm not mad about that because I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be the human experience. Because if it doesn't suck, we don't know that it's great.

Yeah. I think that like the self development world, like to say the. The past does not equal the future.

I hope not.

Well, I think the past is a pretty damn good predictor of the future. But you can change now.

Yeah, it's only a good predictor of the future if you're using it to predict your future.

Well, today is like, today is tomorrow's past. And so if you want the future to be different than the past, you have to change today.

And you have to think from the future. You have to create.

That's a real interesting braingasm.

Yeah, you have to. You have to create your life from the future, not from your past. Because you create from your past. Of course you're just going to keep repeating it. Most people do. Look at how often you run into a friend you haven't seen in three years. You're like, what's new? They're like, nothing. You're like, you're right.

Yeah.

They're just repeating their life. Right. Because think about when we're kids, we always create from the future. We're always thinking about when we're going to go to college and when we're going to get married and when we're going to get our job. And then all of a sudden we start just creating from our past.

You think that's healthy though, to Keep doing that.

Yeah. Creating from the future.

Well, I mean, the sense of. I. I know that, like, some of my hardest years are right after college because there was like, there was this point and there was this point and when I graduate and when I get my degree and when I do sort of business and then it was like, at what point am I just happy with now?

But you have to be happy and have a great future. That's why I said happy is now. The problem you had then was, I'm not happy now, but I will be when I get there.

Right.

That's the big. And I see so many people trying to start businesses, so many entrepreneurs who believe that, like, once I get to a million. As if. A million dollars in the bank. Or once I get my exit.

Yes. Right.

Then it's all going to be great.

Now. Now, you said earlier that when people reach the goal, then they get pissed.

Yeah. Because everything isn't perfect. They're not happy 100% of the time. They're not thinner, they're not younger. Everyone isn't more beautiful. Like, really, People think it's all going to be rainbows and daisies and they hold that hope out because they're miserable here, but they're waiting to be happy. Then you have to be happy. Now, whatever it is you think you're going to have when you get the Indians, you have to have that now. That's what gets you the Indians.

And if somebody gets there, do you then have them set a new future?

Of course. But you have. But you have to be as happy as you're ever going to be now.

Yeah.

That's hard for people to reconcile it.

This is. But it always puts you back into the present.

Yeah.

And that's where life happens, of course.

Never gets better than this. And next year will be the best year I've ever had. Right. That's the. That's kind of the way that I like to look at the world. It's like, I don't mind the negative stuff because I know that that's half of my life. I'm all in. I know that I'm going to be so uncomfortable on the way to 100 million.

And you choose it.

Yeah. Because what's the alternative? Being super uncomfortable making a million? You might as well get rich.

Brooke, thank you for this.

You got it.

This is fun. Where do people find you?

LifeCoachGoal.com anywhere else on itunes. Life Coach School podcast. You'll see me right above.

Get out of my house.

Brooke.

You look in the rankings there. I'll be.

Brooke, I'm inspired by you. I'm challenged by you. And I'm so grateful to have you here.

Yeah. Thank you for having me. Call your friend. I'm such an amazing lake house.

Well, thank you. Thank you very much.

It's awesome.

I feel like I should close out in podcast voice.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for joining us today on if you want a free book, go to Brooke. Thanks for hanging out with us.

You got it. Thank you.