I Was In Prison... Now I Build $10M Brands

Yeah, it's been seven years since I got out of prison. I did four years and before that I was addicted to heroin. Led up to prison, and before that I was a college kid. They were trying to give me 15 to life for the crime that I committed.

15 to life.

I was stressed out in there.

You decided consciously that you were going to become a better and a different person. And meeting you now, you would never expect that you had this experience. What did you consciously do and focus on in order to become a different person during the hardest of times?

I knew I had some greater potential, but I had no idea how to even think about getting there. I chose to, like, not watch the super bowl in there, to like, watch, not watch any of these things because I said I got myself in here. Like, why would I waste any amount of time when this is the precious time that I have to build myself?

I would love to hear you have.

Somebody like a Michael Francis or a Wes Watson and you feel like they've got the it factor. What do you get them to focus on in order to start to build a real audience?

The number one underlying factor that is the most important is consistency. My core belief when it comes to content is that there's this. This hunger for that raw, authentic. I want to see that this person is just like me.

What would you suggest as a process for somebody who's building an audience or building a brand in order to start creating content, to build an audience that eventually supports their business?

There comes a point in an entrepreneur journey where you have to give up control. Most people just aren't willing to do that work and they're looking at the wrong metrics to say, oh, well, when I get to this point, then my business will grow. No, your business will grow if you just put the work in.

My guest today specializes in working with people who are creating content and have very small audiences. And he helps them grow that to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of followers. And the second thing he does is he monetizes those audiences in a way that builds brand and builds authority. So you have a seven figure and sometimes an eight figure business as a result of this process. If you know the name Wes Watson, he is one of the biggest guys in the personal development space. My guest today is one of the people behind the scenes in, in that business as well as behind the scenes in a lot of the big names in the personal development space. So the first thing you're going to learn is how to build and monetize an audience, because the people that he Works with started with very tiny audiences of just a few hundred or a few thousand people, and now they're household names in their industry. The second thing you're going to walk away with today is you're going to see that it's not too late. If you are starting over, if you're starting a new chapter, if you feel like you're behind, you're going to hear Julian's story of how he turned around his life. Just a handful of years ago, Julian was in prison. He talks about how he got there, what it was like, and what his experience was when he got out because he was starting over with nothing. Today, he's the guy behind seven and eight figure businesses. He's the guy that influencers go to when they want to build and monetize their audiences. He has a completely new life, and he rebuilt his entire life in just a handful of years. And so I hope you walk away from this knowing that it's not too late, that you're not behind in just a couple of years. If you put all your attention into building something new, entrepreneurship rewards the person that you become. I find it interesting that Julian made all of his money in the personal development space, but he also did it while developing himself. I think there's something to that. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it, because it's not only a playbook for building and monetizing an audience, but it's also a playbook for completely rebuilding your life.

Julian, good to see you, my man.

Nice to see you.

I like to start these conversations by asking, how did you make your money? Or how do you make your money?

How do I make my money? By building businesses behind people with a large following. That's how I started. And from there, just building online businesses. I guess you can kind of sum it up there.

And when you say people with followings, what, what does that mean?

Social media audiences, people who have a strong message. Michael Francis is one. Wes Watson we've built behind Bradley Castleberry, Chris Gethin. We no longer work with them anymore. And Timurigo is our. Our newest influencer. I guess you can say. I hate that word.

I hate that word.

I avoid it so much.

It's funny, I think. I think influencers hate that word too.

Yeah, it's getting to that point. It's very cringe.

Audience leaders, content creators, I don't know what we call them, but these are people with influence.

Right.

And. And these, like, I know Francis, last I checked, had over a million YouTube followers.

Yeah, that was a big.

And Wes. Wes Watson has well over a million. I'm not sure how many on Instagram.

He does.

Okay.

Over 500,000 thousand on. On YouTube.

Okay. So you're working with pretty established creators who have a following.

Yeah.

And you're doing what with them?

Build. We find a way to monetize their audience. So we've started with these guys. This isn't like an influencer agency where we find people who already have a very large following and get behind them. My approach was.

We can go back to the. The context of how we even got here, but my approach was let's find someone with a really strong message that is polarizing in some way that we can attack a niche and be able to build behind them when they have really nothing. So that's exactly what we did.

You're looking for the creator before you're looking for the audience looking for the creator. You're looking for the person who's got it.

The person. They're the it factor.

It's funny you say that because the one other. One of the other people that I really trust in the influencer space is my friend Steve Dudian, who does the same thing is he looks for not the person with a million followers. He's looking for the person with 10 or 8. But he's like, I just know when they've got it. So, Julian, how would you describe it?

For me, the it factor is. Well, it was characterized by the polarizing message, like a line in the sand. This is who it's for, this is who it's not for. I like to see that someone has haters, that someone has a something that it can only resonate with a very specific type of person.

Where it's different. It just stands out. I, I would say it might even be a more of like an internal feeling that I kind of get. Okay, like, oh, this person has it.

But those were the initial characteristics. And then as that developed, now I start adding on to the it factors, like, okay, is this person coachable? Is this person going to be willing to heed to the advice or, or at least give up some control and leadership when we're trying to build something together. And that was something that I didn't look for at the beginning, but it added to the it factor long term.

So let's talk about an example. So we've got somebody like Michael Francis, who, I'm not super familiar with his content, but he's a mob boss or was a mob boss. And I think the most successful person in the Mob. And so that's an interesting story. Right away you're like, this is compelling. What did you notice about someone like that? That you said, okay, I can build a business around this person.

That story is incredible. And seeing that there was nothing out there that was speaking on this story in this way, he didn't really have a following at all.

What was his following when you started working with him?

It was 30,000 on Instagram and no YouTube.

Okay. So pretty much. I mean, pretty small. I mean for, for reference, I consider. I think I have a fairly small audience in the global sphere of entrepreneurship. And I have more than 30,000 Instagram followers. Right. I've been doing it for years and years and years. So that's. That. That gives people like me some hope that. Okay, all right, so that's not nothing. It's not nothing. So you saw this person with 30, 000 followers doing content that you thought, what was it about? The polarizing nature of it or was it just so unique? What did you. What did you see? I'm trying to find what, what gives you that eye for knowing that somebody could break out?

Yeah. So with Michael, I saw that he. The only thing he had, he wasn't even really creating content. He was speaking around the world. So that was his form of content is in person, old school. I'm like, dude, there's something here, right? In terms of like, I'm already seeing the monetization abilities to, to be able to take this somewhere. Right. And the only other thing that he had online was an interview with Patrick Pet David at that time. That was, I think it was Patrick's largest interview during that time. It's like it got to like 11 million views.

I remember that interview.

Yeah, yeah. And they did it twice.

But that was it. That's. That was the. His only footprint on online at that time. So I said, at the very least, we can at least monetize on YouTube. And the way we came about this, this relationship was. It all started through Wes a little bit. So somebody.

Wes Watson.

Yeah, someone reached out to him.

Because he was getting constant attention. And a mutual friend that this person had was Michael. So we ended up, long story short, they were trying to do something together that that friend. And we ended up starting that. It was like a non profit for. For in the addiction space. Started with their social media and kind of getting them on ramps. And I guess Michael was supposed to be the face of that. And at that time I said, hey Michael, like you have nothing else going on here. Like, why don't we start with building your personal brand first? Because that will be more of like an, an equity play for you so you can do more of these type of things. Yes, and that's where it kind of just cascaded from there. And we, we looked to, to launch different online communities, different online products. And with Michael, it started to expand more into.

Netflix documentaries. We did a documentary with Sammy the Bull.

It was called Mafia States of America with valuetainment. So that was a really cool project. We ended up doing an NFT launch. So it really got into a different sphere with Michael because he was more almost like a mainstream type of person.

Because of his story, because he had the potential to be a mainstream. But he certainly wasn't mainstream when you met him.

Certainly wasn't.

So I'm hearing you say that he had 30, 000 followers, mostly off the back of a YouTube series that he did on a big channel, but he wasn't creating a lot of content. And you told me that when you started working with Wes WATSON he had 5,000 followers. Yeah, just on YouTube, Instagram, on. Oh my goodness.

He didn't have YouTube.

Wow. Okay.

Yeah.

So we're seeing a theme here which is that people who have a message, they meet Julian and then they pop, then, then they blow up.

Could be coincidence. Partially.

Sure, it could be. You're so humble.

But, but I would love to hear.

You have somebody like a little Michael Francis or a Wes Watson and you feel like they've got the it factor. What do you get them to focus on in order to start to build a real audience? Because these, these are some of the top guys in, we'll just say, the masculine personal growth space.

Right.

So what are you getting them to double down on in order to start to see that growth?

You know, it's funny because during that time I was shooting from the hip. I just knew there was an opportunity and I said the number one thing that we can do is just be consistent. So at the very least, let's just get on to YouTube because we know that YouTube was going to be the king for long form content, telling a story and building community. I always believed in YouTube as being like that leader. So I said let's just get you on YouTube and start telling your story. Just share the, all of the, the you know, know, intimate details, every, you know, raw, authentic story that you can come up with. We gave a little bit of guidance there, but it's mostly like run with it and let's stick to a shotgun approach and see what we, what's going to stick. And after we find some things that stick, then we can start nailing the theme and tripling down on that. So we can. We stuck with at least 3, 3 videos posting per week. And that was the foundation is like just tell your story and let's stick to three times a week. And it's really just them running like that.

I follow Wes's content loosely and I know that for a while he was just firing up the MacBook and recording eight minute videos three times a week. And they were kind of grungy and in some cases they still are. It's just him, you know, yelling in front of the MacBook, pouring his heart out. Yeah. Is that what you mean by just tell your story, find your talking points and just see what starts to come up and what starts to, to stick.

For, for those early stages when we're getting started, that's exactly what it was. And I mean it's definitely shifted and there's a little bit more of a strategic approach when that we've implemented with Beyond Driven. But with them that's all it was.

And you said YouTube was, you could see that that was the play. Would you say that's still the play today?

Absolutely.

Really? You said that with confidence. Tell me why.

Yeah, YouTube is the best place to build community. It's the absolute best way to build community. It's, it's, it's. TikTok is starting to take over for the search engine part, which is crazy because YouTube is, is part of Google. But it's, it's tell, you know, head to head when it comes to that. And I, I just think that I've also grown, you know, launched on, on TikTok and grown to almost a million followers on TikTok with, with beyond driven and comparing that audience to YouTube monetization is better on YouTube and the overall consistency in the way that, that you can go deep with an audience and, and really truly build a community on YouTube is. It's, it's bar none. I mean Facebook is starting to kind of get back.

They're trying.

Yeah, it's getting back up there. Like we have over, I think close to 200000 followers with Beyond Driven on Facebook, which was like a surprise.

You keep mentioning Beyond Driven. Could you explain what, what that is?

Yeah. So Beyond Driven is my other company that primarily focuses on helping men who are struggling with their marriage. That's kind of like the start. But the mission is really to democratize a lot of the therapy tools and resources to give that back. To the people. So any internal struggles that you're. You're really facing, you can use those same tools that the therapy industry uses on their clients for yourself. And it's started out exclusively, exclusively with helping successful men overcome the struggles that they're facing in their marriage. But the marriage is really the mirror. It's the point of adversity that causes you to look within yourself. And you can hide a lot from the world, but you can't hide much from your spouse.

I want.

I didn't expect to go in this direction this early.

Yeah, we can circle back, but this.

This is, this, this is exciting. So I'm. I'm gonna ask you for personal advice here.

Okay.

Because I. Obviously, YouTube is where we put our content consistently once or twice a week, and then we turn that over to the podcast, we turn that into clips. And my audience is still fairly small. We've grown a lot in the last year and a half or so. I'm really proud of the content that we put out. Hundreds of millionaires created as a result of our content. But we don't. We don't see Wes Watson style growth. Do I need to be more polarizing? Do I need to be more consistent? What advice would you have for me and people like me?

You might have to test some different things.

I wouldn't look at Michael and, and Wes. In your case, I would look more to Alex Ramosi because Alex was that type of person that grew so fast in a business niche. So it's like, what is, what is Alex doing? Because he doesn't have a polarizing story. Yes, he's made a lot of money, but it's.

It's still business content. It's not normally exciting. So looking like, okay, what is. What is. What are the clips? And the way that he's editing these things, that is making it more engaging because it's all about, you know, view time and, and just what are people engaged with and what are they tuning into and just finding those things and tripling down on that.

That. But that style is wildly different from a Wes Watson, for example.

Wildly.

Wes Watson does no editing. He does no screen motion. He does. He has no slides. He just gets up there and talks. Right. So how do you, how do you understand or explain that difference? Where west does a is a lot of personal growth content, but it's also a lot of money content. We'll say not necessarily business content, but money content.

Yeah.

And Hormozi does the same thing. And then you've got meet Kevin, who is just he's, he's business and finance, but he's just him in front of his computer. So how do you explain the differences between these audiences? But they all seem to work.

Yeah, you know, it's, it's interesting when you say that is another person that comes to mind too, that's, that's raw, authentic, no cuts is. Sam Suk, who grew really fast in the bodybuilding industry, is like a, he.

Just does the long workouts, right?

And he's just so raw and just like a likable personality. And I think that that's something that you can't really imitate. You know, there's some people just that just naturally have like a, a personality that people are attracted to. Like a magnetizing not to. It's not a shot at you, but.

But I'm not that cool.

Okay.

I'm funny, I'm handsome, but I'm, I'm kind of boring. Okay, got it. Yeah.

But I think that there's just like a certain type of personality that, that people just are more magnetized by. And I would say when it comes to, you know, even between Wes and Michael, those are two very different things. Michael's very articulate and there's more like a mystique about his story. He's very polished, very polished. But it's also like, man, this guy is a mob boss like.

10 years, 20 years ago. Would you ever think that a mob boss would be on YouTube telling, you know, the ins and out? Like that's just, it's, it's so like the concept of that story is just so like crazy to think about, you know. But when it comes to West. Yeah, there's, there's now it's a, there's a growing prison niche. There's a lot of guys who are coming forward and telling their stories, which we kind of started that niche.

But with Wes, it's his, his polarizing, hard hitting message. It really draws the line in the sand of like, this is who it's for and this is who it's not for. And he's not afraid to call you a. And that's where people just love that because he's so raw, unfiltered and gritty that people love like they, they kind of. There's a part of them that just want that fire.

Yes.

And I think that's right, that's what it is. It's like, ah, like there's that part of me that you're speaking to that I, I suppress.

I completely understand what you're saying and.

I'M able to attach my, like, suppressed identity to this person that is so confidently speaking the things that I never could imagine speaking.

Yeah, I only agree with Wes, maybe 44.6% of the time, but he speaks with such conviction. And I, I covet that conviction. I can, I covet that fire. And so when I, when I listen, that part of me comes alive. That's how I would describe the it factor, that some part of me comes alive as a result of just being in the circle of this person, which is also from a, from a content consumption perspective, it can be tempting or alluring to mistake that feeling that comes awake with the information that is being delivered. And I think that's when we can get into hero worship of influencers. It's like I feel something when I'm around this person or I listen to this person, and therefore I'm going to mistake the information for this feeling that I have. I think there's no better example of this than Donald Trump. I mean, most Republicans now have opinions they didn't have 10 years ago because they're not Republican ideas, because he spoke directly to a suppressed part of that wing of the party that came alive. And now I'm gonna attach those feelings, that information. I'm just having that realization for the first time. But, but when you talk about in the context of west, that makes sense to me is that part comes alive, stokes the fire. That's right. That's right. And they're. From a, from a personal standpoint, there need, there needs to be an awareness of where I put that fire. Right. I have to be, I have to be conscious about where I'm going to put that energy. So are you saying that when you can see the it factor, you're hoping to unlock and package that fire, that conviction, that message and put it out there and then see what is hitting and resonating and then you're starting to come up with the themes of content that you're going to build around. Is that a fair summary of what you're looking for?

Fair summary of what I'm looking for. Exactly. It's like you run with it and I'm going to figure out how I can, you know, package it up in the right way and to call it compartmentalize the different themes that I find that might be resonating most with an audience.

Yeah, I know you didn't come here for a personal consult, but, but we, we have this interesting dilemma or balance in our company where I know that if I talk about building E Commerce brands all day, every day. We'll sell more memberships, we'll hit our target audience and we'll grow. And I can do that for a while and I can do that consistently. But if it's all I talk about, I feel like I'm dying inside. And so there is this part of me that want that and I haven't been able to suppress it anymore. It's just starting to come out that has to talk about politics, religion, economics, personal growth. It's like it's almost been suppressed so long that it's like I'm like starting to vomit it up. Like I can't keep it in anymore. But how, how do you create consistency around a topic or a theme that is going to build a business versus unlocking and unleashing what would be a personal brand where you're just throwing random things all over the place? You know, some people, like a Gary Vee approach is more like just talk about things and see what happens. But then you have the approach of just like, shut up and dribble. Like, do, do your thing, keep doing your thing, talk about it for a long time. Hit your talking points, hit your audience. And you, you, I don't hear you saying either of those extremes. So how do you think about those two different approaches?

You know, there is definitely a balance between those, I would say, because the number one underlying factor that is the most important is consistency. Whether it's. It's consistent to a theme or it's just, honestly, it's just being consistent on, on a platform. Yeah, you know, you just have to be consistent with creating and the rest will kind of follow. Because my, my core belief when it comes to content is that people buy from people at the end of the day. So your personal brand is personal. You should share the personal aspects of it. And even if you don't have polarizing message, your, your views, your beliefs, your values, those are going to be polarizing regardless of if you want, want it to be or not. There's going to be people that align with your beliefs and there's going to be people that just don't like what you have to say when it comes to certain topics. And they might, you know, get mad in the, in the comments and say you should stick to this or not. Yeah, it's like, well, this is my channel, so you can, yeah, you know, you can. Peace out. You pick rocks.

I've actually, this is a recent example, so it's fresh in my mind. But when I think about a live market update, I think about meet Kevin, because he does, I think daily market updates, when something interesting is going on, that's a person that I think of, that's a theme for him. But recently he did a video where he, his wife had triplets and one of them was going into surgery or having a super personal video. And I watched the whole thing and it added like a different, different layer to this personality that was just interesting. And I would have never followed the content for that, but it gave a different depth of connection to that human experience. And it didn't make me go to his market updates less often. And it just gave me a different level of appreciation for the human being. And so that's kind of how I'm processing what you're saying of. You have these themes, but there's still room for that personal or that random idea to just come out and see what happens.

Yeah, because at the end of the day, I mean, I think that's, that's ultimately what makes YouTube so special and why this influencer space has grown so much is that it's, it's that behind the scenes, it's that building in public that people really gravitate towards there. Everyone's tired of, of the, the, the staged stuff, even though we still see it, you know, a lot. But I think that there's this, this hunger for that raw, authentic. I, I, I want to see that this person is just like me and that I can attach that part. Like, I, I, it makes it more real, it makes it more in touch. Like they're, they have, they struggle, they go through different things. They have, you know, ups and downs in life and so do I, you know, and I, I can, I can attach to their story and I also love their success. So it just adds that, that reality to this person.

When I started my podcast, it was 2013, and I simply accepted every podcast invite, didn't miss a week. And I said, and I didn't have like a, a plan or a process. I just said I was finding my talking points. I was just figuring out what came up a lot. What did people ask a lot, what seemed to hit, what shows hit, what were people saying in the comments. And then I was able to start to find where people started to appreciate my work. I kind of got locked into that for, I felt too long, those talking points. And that's what I mean now I feel like I'm breaking out of that. That was, but that was my process for finding my first talking points and building my audience. What would you suggest as a process for somebody who's building an audience or building a brand in order to start creating content, to build an audience that eventually supports their business.

And you have nothing that you're starting from.

Zero. Say that. Yeah. I mean, you started with a guy with 5,000 followers who now is one of the leaders in the space. So that's basically nothing.

Right?

You know, for someone. I asked myself the same question because I, I'm in the process of starting my own, coming back from, from under, you know, everyone else and starting my own.

Yeah, I mean, you've been the ops.

Guy, the behind the behind the scenes person. So I'm, I'm finally stepping forward and, and, and going to be starting my own thing. And I asked myself the same questions like, where do we, where do we start? It's like it's different to build for someone than it is to build for yourself because sometimes you're too close to the label to read it, you know?

Yeah.

And you know, when I, when I'm thinking about this whole process, it's, I always like to start with the origin story. It's always starting with like, who, how did you get to where you are to, to want to do the things that you are either doing currently or intend to do? And that there's a lot of both beliefs that are hidden in those. And I think that it always goes back to that, that thing. It's like beliefs and values is what really creates an audience. And if you can, could you explain.

What you mean by that? The beliefs and values? Because I believed for a long time and I think a lot of people believe that it's the content and the information that builds audience. So what do you mean that beliefs and values?

Well, the content that in the information is, that's like the external. Right. So that is all gonna still be.

The product of the foundation beliefs and values. Because you wouldn't say something if you don't believe it unless you're telling a lie. But it's, it's really understanding like what are those things that you believe in and what are those things that you value? And then the, the intersection there. And there's gonna be people that resonate with those things and there's gonna be people that have a contradictory belief.

Huh.

And they might have an opposing belief and when they have an opposing belief, that's what creates that, that line in the sand because they're gonna be like, ah, that person. I don't believe what he says. I don't, I don't, you know, I, I, I, I don't agree with those Things, but those are all at the, the foundational element of that is a belief or it's a value.

Right. So let's, let's play with this for a second because I'm having a brain gasm as you're saying this. So one of the beliefs that I hold dear is that over time things get better. And that's, that's a belief, that's a value. Like I live my life on that, that over time things tend to get better. Whether, like no matter how hard I try, the world is still going to get better in, if you look at the macro of it. And so if an event like a war happens or a pandemic, if I come at it through that belief, and I'm talking about the tragedies that are happening, but I'm looking at it from a long term optimistic view that by nature is polarizing. It is polarizing because in the short term it hurts. In the short term there's pain. In the short term there's loss and grief. But if we're looking at it from a long term view, there's always innovation that comes out of pain that is by nature polarizing. But I believe it to be true. Even if it doesn't feel true to me, I still like, believe it. It's still a core value and that gives a unique perspective. And I think one of the themes that could come out of that belief is that there is like a, a long term optimistic view of this guy, of this capitalism.com guy. Is that an example of what you mean by the beliefs and values?

That's exactly okay. And you know, when you even unfold that a little bit more is how would you make your audience feel from that belief? You know, who is it? Your audience? And like, when, when you create that content that has that core belief, what are they going to ultimately feel like at the end of the day? Is it hope restored? Possibly. I would think so. Is it people that are looking for that type of hope that they can attach to that belief that they ultimately believe, but they're just like, it's shaky right now and they're looking for someone that has that aligned value and that's, you're, you're kind of creating that source for them to gravitate toward?

Yeah, I appreciate that. That's beautiful.

One of my goals for this year is to grow this YouTube channel by creating content that has no ask, that has no call to action, that has no result associated with it, for selling courses or programs, just creating amazing content that my community needs. The One ask that I do have is that if you're getting value out of this show, would you hit the subscribe button on platform you're listening or watching this episode? It helps me go out and have leverage with the people that I know can serve you. I like bringing the entrepreneurs to you that are getting their fingernails dirty and don't have huge platforms so that you can learn from them first. It helps me do that if you hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast player or on YouTube, and that helps us go out and get the guests that I know create the most value for you on your road to 1 million.

You mentioned starting with the origin story, and your origin story is very interesting and compelling because you were not always running the backend operations for big influencers who are now famous in the Internet marketing space. I don't know how many years it was that you were completely starting over and not starting over with your last 2 million. I mean, like, really starting over. So could you walk us back, what, six or seven years?

Yeah, it's been seven years since I got out of prison. I did four years or three and a half, just to be exact, in prison. And before that I was addicted to heroin. I led it up to prison, and before that I was a college kid.

College to heroin? To prison.

Prison, yeah. So I don't know where you want to take that.

Well, first of all, when we know there's different types of prison, right? There's like.

If you remember the movie Office Space, okay, they talk about there's white collar prison where you have conjugal visits and lots of outside time and you play pickleball. And then there's federal pound me in the ass prison.

So which. Which type of prison were you in?

Well, I was in state, and it was I pound me in the ass. But that sounds very, very gay.

It was definitely not. None of that happened. But it was a hardcore California state prison for people that do violent crimes. I did have conjugal visits because I got married in jail. You got married in jail to a woman.

Okay.

Thank you for that clarification, Julian. We all had doubts going into this call, so that derailed me just a little. So you're in federal state prison, but these are not federal state. State. Did I say federal state?

Yeah.

These are not your federal white collar crimes?

No, this is violent criminals who are doing burglaries, robberies, murder.

Yeah.

What was your cell like?

So the way that. That it goes is you go to jail first, you get sentenced, whatever. I was in jail for 18 months fighting my case. They were trying to give me 15 a life for the crime that I committed.

15 to life.

Yeah. I, I robbed someone and kidnapped them, put them in my car and held a gun to their. Their face. They kicked me in the. Kicked me in the face. So I pistol whip them and it's crazy. I only got three and a half years, but thank God. But anyway, fought the case for 18 months, hired and where are you being.

Held for 18 months?

This is in, in county jail. So it's, there's like 50 beds in the county jail that I. Every county jail is a little bit different, but the one that, that I was at was, was there were like pods. So it's, it's like a.

It'S like a big summer camp with bunch of criminals that you know just the beds everywhere, you know, there's like two stories and just bunk beds next to each other.

So you're bas. You're basically like in barracks. Yeah, you're. You're in like a 50 person barracks.

A 50 person barracks. That's exact. That's a great way to explain it. Yeah. And that jail was. Jail is very difficult. I'd say jail is probably harder than, than prison. It's just different. Like there's, there's different challenges on both sides. But jail, I think the, there's a lot more to worry about in jail.

And is that because you're in such close quarters with other criminals?

It's more of like when you get to prison you can get your, you can. It's called programming. So like you're, you're just hey, I'm here and I'm gonna be here for the next however many years and you have to worry about riots and you know the, all the same type of things you have to worry about. But in jail you have a lot of people who are coming in and out and the cops are ruthless sometimes. Like the, the cops who. It's. It's almost like they get punished. When they get punished inside of the whatever cop world, they're like you're going to go do your jail time and, and be the, the. The jail cop. So they come in here and you get like the worst of them and they're just assholes. You know, they're. And what that means is that 2 o' clock in the morning you're all your is getting tossed and you're out in the, the yard area, this small yard in county jail, which is not like a prison yard. And you're out in there and your boxer stripped down the freezing cold. And while they're, you know, just strip searching and, and going through all your. So jail can be very, very tough in that regard. And there's just a lot of people who are going in and out, so people who are committing small crimes. So you don't have this consistency in the tank. Some people would bring drugs in through their prison pocket, their. And.

It just causes a lot of issues. You know, some people with bad paperwork that they might be in there for, For a rape or, you know, some type of sexual charge, they get thrown in, whether that's intentional by the cops or whatever, and that causes problems in the tank. And it's just. There's a lot of drama that can come with, with, with being in jail. And then you also are still going to court. So every two months, that sounds exhausting.

Ever.

You have to wake up early and you're. You're in this holding cell just waiting for your time.

So you have no certainty at all. So you're, you're still fighting your case. You have people coming in and out all the time.

You're just always stressed.

You have no predictability. Things can go haywire at any time. So you're just on alert.

You're on alert all the time. All the time. Yeah, that. That's the worst part about jail. So. So I think that that's why people try to, like, speed through that process. And if you're. If they know they're going to prison, like, you should take a plea. But I'm like, there's no way I was going to take a plea for, for 10 plus years, because that was one of my first offers. Like, you can take a plea deal for 10 years. I'm like, I thought about it. I'm like, oh, 10 years. Like, they wanted me to take two strikes in 10 years. Two strikes. And I was 21 years old, which is crazy to think about. And I almost took it, but I really sat on it. I said, nope, I'm just going to keep fighting. Which is very dangerous when they bring up the, the life sentence. So, like, I was just. I was stressed the fuck out in there. Like, it was just, man, to the point where my body. When I got, When I ended up getting to prison, I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. So my mom had Crohn's disease, but.

I tend to believe that it's. Can be dormant in your body, and then there's stress and environmental factors that kind of bring it out, of course. And.

That just made my whole prison experience that much more difficult. So when I got to prison.

Well, first of all, how did, so how did you get it reduced from 10 to 3 and a half warriors?

I mean, just, just fighting it. And man, it was.

Every judge that was.

In that district, they were like, oh yeah, this is 10 plus 10 plus 10 plus. There's the, the, the initial judge that did my arraignment was like, her name is Judge Nichols. She pointed at me, she's like, I'm gonna make an example out of you.

But like, oh God, no.

And this is like three days into jail. I've never been to jail before this. And I'm just like, this is, this is not good. And not really knowing what that path in front of me looked like, but I'm like, this is going to be a long fight. And luckily my, my lawyers are just kept, kept fighting.

And.

We happen to get a guest judge for one of my pre arraignment or I forgot what it's called. It's been a while, but one of the.

Court dates that we had before sentencing and the district attorney, he wasn't really budging that much, but he knew that he didn't really think that this was going to be a life case. He just wanted to kind of up, you know, have more leverage. It's, it's all, it's all a game of leverage. In, in that world we happen to get a guest judge that was from a different county. He looked at it, he had saw my ref. Character reference letters. He saw that I was doing college in jail and he just looked that I had had no background history or anything like that. Obviously it's a tough crime. But he decided to give me five with good time, with all the time that I did in jail. He added that to, to the prison.

Sentence, a total five year sentence. And you had already, you were in, had already been in jail for a year and a half. So then you go to prison. What is that?

Like, get to prison. And.

An important detail here is that I'm, I'm mixed. So I'm black and white. My dad is black, my mom is white. And on the, on the streets I hung out with everyone, but mostly, mostly black during that time. And that, that was like my, like my core identity is being mixed, even though I don't look mixed. So when I got in there, well, I got in jail, I chose to run black. And you have to pick a side. And that adds a lot of complexity when you get to prison because there's a lot of skinheads, there's Aryan Brotherhood. And they don't like to see anybody that doesn't fit. They're just very particular, like, oh, you stick out like a sore thumb. So my prison experience started off with me getting out of that bus, going from county to prison. And you stand in this line, your boxers or not in the boxes yet. They're always trying to see you naked.

So you're standing in line waiting for. To, like, go into, like, this registration area. And this is at reception. This is in Tracy dvi. And.

You get up to your. The. There's, like, a sergeant, and there's. There's like, an inmate that's, like, passing out your. Your clothes and, like, your.

Your.

Your fish kit is what it's called, like, your toothbrush and.

Envelopes for. For letters and things like that. And they ask you about your gang affiliation. They ask you what your race is. They ask you all these things. And right when I say that I'm black, he, like, the whole time, everyone, he's just like, you know, writing, just kind of going through the flow, whatever. Right when I say I'm black, he just, like, paused everything, and he just, like, looked at me. He was like.

And then he went and got his lieutenant, and they're like, here, get your stuff, and you're gonna go talk to the lieutenant. Like, they were terrified. I was like, oh, my gosh. Here we go. It's like, all my fear is about, like. I knew that this was gonna come at some point, that I might have to. To kind of face the music. And this was the decision that was like, do I, you know, go protective custody or do I go general public, general population? And I didn't want to go protective custody because that means that you're just.

You might get housed with some rapists, some child molesters. And I just. I can't do that. I'd rather take whatever is coming to me with fighting and. And knives. And I'm like, let's just. Let's just hope for the best and hope that my people have my back and that we're just gonna. If it comes down to a riot or whatever, my people have my back. And if I get stabbed, hopefully, I just don't die.

So.

So that's kind of like the attitude you have to approach, like, going into the situations, and. And I'm a big dude. Like, I'm not. Some of these other guys that come in here, they're just like these little white boy gangsters, and they got their little cornrows, and it's just a different situation. Like, I don't know, it's just, it's different. So anyway, when I got there, I talked to the lieutenant. She sits me down and she's just looking me in the face. She's like, you know what you're, you're doing right now, right? We just had a white crip get removed by 3, 3 Aryan Brotherhood guys in this yard, and he's in critical condition. This happened two weeks ago, and this has been happening for the past year. They're, they're taking this very seriously. So I want you to be fully informed of what decision you're making right now. I'm in the office and I'm like sweating. I'm like, first of all, I'm mixed. So I'm not a regular white guy. I had a big ass fro at this time. And so there was that. And then she's like, okay, well you're. Are you, are you a blood? Are you, you Azilla? Are you. You know, she started naming like Sacramento gangs. And I'm like, no, I'm not affiliate. I'm not affiliate. I'm a college kid and I'm good. Like, I'm going to be fine and that's it. And you don't talk to the police like I was. You get hardened during those times. So like I, I was just ready. I was like, I was accepting my fate for what it was. And, you know, this is the life that I chose during this time. And you have to just accept all the consequences that come with that. So I said my piece, they put me in the, the holding tank. And you're just waiting there for all day? Like, basically, yeah, it's like a whole day. You're just sitting, sitting and sitting and waiting to go to your cell. So they finally called me like eight hours later, something like that.

Grab my stuff and I go back, I go to my, my cell and I'm walking. And every, every CEO is just like.

They're looking at you.

Yeah, looking at me. Like, no idea. So this whole time, like, man, fuck these guys. Like, I started to get mad, like they don't know me. Like, I don't give a fuck. Fuck you. You know, that was the attitude that I had to just like embrace. You just have. It's either you're going to up or you're going to just man the up.

And get ready for war, man. I'm just thinking about the guy listening to this episode in his car about influencer marketing. He's like, I did not see this coming. I did not expect this Episode to go in this direction.

It definitely took a.

Sorry, Steve.

Right.

Yeah. I don't know if you talked about this with Dan Martell or not, but.

I'm sure he has some stories too.

So it's like, how.

So how were you treated overall over those three and a half years?

That was great. I mean, we skipped to the end. Yeah, it was great. No, it was, it was married. Studied in terms of like the people treating me. I was, I, I got the respect that you give respect. You, you know, you, you'll get respect and that's it. And they saw that I, like, I was true to who I was. Like, I was a college kid. I was non affiliate. I was not trying to be in the bullshit. I was staying out of the way. I was going to church. I was doing all the things that I need to be, you know, to get the fuck out of here and to not turn back.

You decided to become a better person.

I decided to become a better person. And when people see that, they, they respect that because they're like, he's not in the bullshit. He's not doing drugs. He's not, you know, all in the mix and trying to be in the, the, you know, the drama and like, prove himself and lead with ego and like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that guy. Blah, blah, blah. Like, no, I was a, I was a man and I just. You only have your word and your balls, you know, that's. That's all I had. So it's like, I'm going to speak whatever I'm speaking. That's what I'm, I'm backing. You know, that's my foundation.

You're. Obviously, you work with Wes Watson now, but you, you didn't go to prison with Wes Watson. No, he tells a slightly different story where he was in prison and he was deciding to become a better person. But there was still violence, there was still fights, there was still going on. Did you have the same experience or were you so focused on getting better that you removed yourself from that?

No, there's. There's a lot that you can't avoid. I mean, a lot. There's.

I would say that our experiences were a little bit different because he was a Peckerwood. Peckerwood is like a prison gang. Like inside there's.

They operate a little bit different. They're more militant compared to, to the brothers, to the blacks. Like, it's laid back. We're chilling. Like, unless there's an issue.

Between races, like you can most, for the most part, stay out of it, There might Be some internal conflicts where someone tries to press you and, and you know, kind of test your gangster is what we call it. That didn't really happen. There wasn't really an opportunity that you know, really arose where.

I was kind of put into that position. I mean there was some conf. Like I'm not gonna say I haven't gone into conflicts. I definitely gotten into a few fights in jail, gone into to one fight in prison.

But for the most part you stay out of it. And as long as you get back on track and you're just doing your thing, like people will respect it and just kind of keep their peace. But again there's, there's still fights everywhere. There's violence all the time, there's drugs, there's people who are, who need to be removed from, from yards for maybe they're stealing from someone or whatever it is. So you'll see 2 on ones, 3 on ones, stabbings, riots. A lot of shit happens that you can't really avoid. But you, you do your best to stay out of it as much as possible.

You decided consciously that you were going to become a better and a different person. And meeting you now, you would never expect that. You had this experience. You are like, you're kind, you're open hearted, you're giving, you are humble. That's not what you would associate with somebody who went through an experience like this. So what did you consciously do and focus on in order to become a different person during the hardest of times?

There were a few books that I read early on in jail that it, it hurt. Like it just, it got me to the core. So.

When I started to kind of lift the fog.

Well, first what, what were the books?

So there was a thinking big.

Oh, interesting.

So that was, that was one of the biggest books that really opened my eyes.

To just the possibility of more. Right.

The seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

What else was it?

And where do you, how do you get books in prison?

Someone has to send them in or. Okay, there's like a very small library. But mostly my mom was, was sending me books in and my, my wife, my now wife was sending me a lot of books and commissary and stuff like that.

So the first thing you're doing is you're just changing the way you're thinking.

Changing the way I was thinking by, by reading was, was the very first thing. And that reading was what really opened my eyes to what's possible into thinking big, thinking in ways that I've never thought about ever. So that is like, what really sparked that just inner fire of like, I knew I had some greater potential, but I had no idea how to even.

Think about getting there.

I'm really glad you said that. And this is hitting me at a time where I was just on a short weekend trip and I was walking through the airport and just noticing how everyone's overweight and everyone has their nose in their phone and everyone is grumpy. The airport I was in, I just noticed that there was this collective unwellness. And so much of. I think the reason why we as human beings have gotten into this place where now 70% of people are overweight or obese and unhappy is we have drowned out all the space to just read good things and we have our nose on TikTok looking at what other people have or what shitty things somebody else did. And we're judging the world and we have. We give ourselves no space to pause and think differently, think in a way that somebody else has consciously sat down to share with the rest of the world. And, and I think about my transformative years. Usually I was going through a hard time and I sat down and I read something that made me think differently. And you're saying exactly the same.

Exactly that, yeah. And, you know, it started with more of those mindset entrepreneur type of books, but then I started expanding to psychology and some of the books by.

Ben Carson about the brain. And it, it just made me so a little bit angry at myself for treating my brain the way that I've been treating it up to that point. And then I also started thinking about like, all the pain that I put on my mom. And then seeing that all these so called friends that I had up to that point, no one was writing me, no one was coming to visit me. So you really start to just think about life from a whole different perspective and you start to, you know.

Think about what's possible and what really matters. And you know, it all really just started with that. And when I got to pre after doing that for a year, I would, I would challenge myself, like, how many books can I read in this time of me being in jail? And then, you know, I would challenge myself every week, like, okay, can I read a book a week and get to that point? And I got to a book a week. So I just was constantly feeding myself with, with just different perspectives and information and I started to get a little bit bored of like, the, the mindset stuff and I wanted more like tactical stuff. So I started reading information on sales and, and getting into school and When I had something to really focus on accomplishing, that just made me tune out a lot of the bs. So in prison, while everyone's watching movies or they're watching, you know, tv, watching sports, I made this internal promise to myself to just dedicate to school and. Because, like, it's.

You gave yourself a worthy goal.

Yeah. And I. I just. It stuck me to that point where I don't even watch sports anymore, like, to this day, because it just became such a habit, became so ingrained in myself that I chose to, like, not watch the super bowl in there, to, like, watch. Not watch any of these things, because I said I got myself in here. Like, why would I waste any amount of time when this is the precious time that I have to build myself? And that's what I chose to do. And, and I. I really focus on just school and education as much as possible.

It's really empowering to hear that you just gave yourself that window to work on yourself. And so I have shared this story before.

Someone that I did quite a bit of business with was convicted of a white collar crime. And we did a decent amount of business together. And I was afraid that I was going to be somehow involved in the crime, even though I had no knowledge or anything, because we did work together. I've heard stories of my peers going to jail or prison just because of their association with somebody. And so I had that fear. And when the FBI calls, that's a scary call. And I. I worked with them, and I was never considered a suspect. I was always considered a victim because I lost at the time was my largest investment, went with this crime. And I called a friend who had been incriminated in a crime, and he gave me almost the same advice. He's like, if it gets to that, you use that space to get better. And I. I came to this place, Julian, where I finally asked myself the question.

If I go to prison and I lose my reputation, I lose all my money and I lose my freedom, can I find peace and happiness? And I concluded that I could. I concluded that I could find it in that space.

And when I found out I was not under any investigation at all, I thought that I would then treat it as like, bonus time where it was like, I will have a different appreciation for my freedom than I ever had. But you know how our brains work. We normalize things real fast. And I think in our world, when you're forced into a period in which you have to choose to get better or not, you make a clear choice. But in a Normal day to day interaction when most of us are comfortable and free and in a routine. We do not give our, give ourselves that space. We don't give ourselves that option. I even know I did not, I did not like no longer struggle with depression and anxiety because I now had a new appreciation of my freedom. I'm sure I could in some way but like it didn't just automatically happen. I'm curious if you have found the ability to maintain that focus on personal growth after you've been out for six or seven years.

I would say that I have been able to maintain it, but not to the same degree for sure.

It's just, it's different I think with, with less distractions and the, the amount of focus that you have, the amount of capabilities of focus in there regardless of all the BS happening. Like when you're in a 8 by 10 cell and all you have is you and your celly. Because this is what it, I ended up getting to at some point when I pearled from Folsom, California.

The amount of focus is just, it's, it's unmatched.

There's nothing else to do.

There's just nothing else to do. Like you're all, all day. Imagine just studying all day in a little bathroom.

Yeah. You don't even have tick tock.

There's nothing, there's nothing. So you know, it's, it's, it's unmatched. But when you know that there's no way that you can get, you know, distracted, you can't go out to a restaurant, you can't go, you know, even take a walk in the park, whatever, you kind of, it escapes you. Like that is like ah, well, you can either envision this, oh I want to be doing this and kind of take your, your mind there and, and just stress yourself out because you can't do it or you just focus on what you have right in front of you. So that aside, like, yeah, it's very different. I have been able to maintain it to a certain degree.

Because of the natures of, of my business and just wanting to become a better leader and better husband, better person overall. I think I, I, you know, there's some habits that I've maintained. But there was something that you mentioned in terms of.

Kind of that monotony, right. That breaking. You're kind of getting stuck in this cycle of just doing the same thing. What I've done is every year and this is more for the health side, but I found that it also has helped me with just overall progressing as a human being is.

Putting myself into adversity. And the way that I do that is a five day fast. So every year I start off the year with a five day fast. And that kind of breaks the cycle because it's like attaching to something that's hard and difficult for most people to do. And that has been able to help me maintain a lot of that. And then aside from, from, you know, the, the health benefits, the, the mental clarity and everything that comes with that has been really funny.

You say that because my version of adversity is getting up at 5:30 in the morning. It's like it is the last thing I want to do. But it's almost like when I do it, which is not every day, but when I do is almost like I have proven to myself that I can do something hard and therefore I can block out that time for whatever it is that I'm procrastinating, or I can have that hard conversation with a team member when I prove to myself that I can deal with adversity versus being glued to my phone for three hours. Right where now I have no capacity to deal with anything hard because I've just been dripping my brain with dopamine. It is a vastly different human experience. So Julian, you were, you were in there for three and a half years. Yeah. You got out, you're starting over. I don't know what they give you, if anything. I'm pretty sure you didn't have any job opportunities coming right out. So what was the transition coming out into the world?

When I first got out.

It was a month of twiddling my thumbs, looking for an opportunity that.

Was kind of promised to me. I think the first opportunity was in becoming a plumber. And I was kind of waiting for the call, I guess you could say.

And during that time, I saw my first Facebook ad.

So good old Tai Lopez.

That it's, it's an important part of the story because when I, it happened so fast, like right when I got out, like, I saw that there was this whole, whole other world of, of, of making money.

That never existed before.

Did you have any awareness this existed while you were in prison?

No, I, I didn't know that Internet marketing was a thing, but I was interested in marketing because like the last, I'd say like the last.

Really, that last year is when I, I tripled down on trying to figure out what I was going to do when I got out, to the point where I started stressing myself out. Like the last three months, I wrote this whole Journal called the Hundred Days of Freedom. Every day. I just wanted to at least journal my inner thoughts, what was going on, the things I was struggling with. And I just, you know, just did a one page journal every single day along with my.

By the way, that would be a fricking great first product for Beyond Driven.

Well, I'm actually getting to where I'm going to release it.

100 days of freedom. Because everybody's in prison somewhere. Yeah, I know, right? Everybody's trapped in their thoughts and their minds. 100, that's.

It'd be a good challenge.

It's a really good hook, Julian.

I appreciate it.

Yeah.

So don't be surprised.

Okay.

No. Yeah. So I was really struggling with like, ah, what am I gonna do? Like, man, I feel stressed. I don't want to come back to this place. And it was like really eating me up. And it got down to the last week and I said, I just felt like this peace finally, like it was just lifted. I was praying on it and I was just.

Finally okay. Like, no matter what I'm going to do, I'm going to be so good at what I do that I'm undeniable. I'm going to have blind conviction to this vision that no one else can see except for me. And that was a core belief that I held. And I just took a deep breath, tears just coming down my. My cheek. He said, you know what? I'm going to be okay. And I know it's going to be hard. I know, I know there's going to be times where I feel like giving up. I know that so many people are going to doubt me and just embracing the fact that like, that is part of the journey and that is part of what makes someone great, is that they're able to go through these and to, to look back at.

Everything they've been to. Been through up to that point.

I just knew that that was, this was going to be part. I. I just, I felt like that was going to be part of my story. And it's just crazy. Like, it just hit me like, damn, like I'm here.

Yeah.

You know, and.

It'S. That was really how. How it ended, man, is, is those, those final days in, in jail is just committing to a path that I had no idea what it was going to look like. But just knowing that I was committing.

To that path and. And then God or, or Satan brought you Tai Lopez. Depending on who you ask.

It was knowledge at the end.

Yeah. So. So what you bought 67 steps way back in the day or what? Where did this go?

Well, actually I, I ended up getting a construction job. But that was what planted the seed of what was possible that people were making a thousand, you know, tens of thousands of dollars online by just helping people with social media. I'm like, what the fuck? So I just knew like, I have to get my job to appease to my, my parole officer during that time. But I also wanted to look at this as like an opportunity for me to expand in different ways. So got my construction job. It was a strong, solid foundation. It was, I was living in Sacramento during the time it was in San Francisco, the job. So it paid well. But that commute was a, it was an hour, hour and a half to get there in the morning. Not bad. But after work we get out at like 2, 2:30 for construction. You're like in the heart of San Francisco traffic going back to Sacramento. So it would take about three, sometimes even four hours to commute back. So during those times from, you know, commuting there and back from work, those are the hours that I put into YouTube and to different, you know, article, different videos that I can find mostly on YouTube that I can find online in all things digital marketing. So I started, you know, looking into affiliate marketing, e commerce. I saw some of your stuff, I'm pretty sure during that time. Yeah, cool.

But it was more so like Adrian Morrison and, and like just different guys in, in the like all affiliate marketing space as well.

And it planted this like Ty Lopez planted the seed. But I started to actually take action. I said, you know, I, it's, it's one thing to just consume a lot of information, but there has to be a point where you just dive in and just accept that, okay, I'm gonna, I'm going to fail forward. I'm going to make some mistakes, probably look stupid. And there was this large learning curve. But this is again just reminding myself of that saying that. I said like, this is, this is it. This is part of the path. I got to learn something new again. So I didn't buy 67 steps, but I found like a, a torrent.

A torrent.

And you know, I started with that. I started watching those things. I found some more torrents on like SEO and different things like that. So I just started just like you.

Just consumed everything that you could about marketing.

Everything I could about marketing. And I, the first dollar that I made online was affiliate marketing. I found this website called Wealthy Affiliate and I made, they taught me how to set up me your blog and everything like that.

Do you know that I was a super affiliate for Wealthy Affiliate?

No.

I traveled with Carson. Oh, my gosh. Went to the Vegas meetups. Met my mentor Travis there. Wow. Yeah, I was just. I was a top three affiliate for Wealthy Affiliate for years.

Wow. That's probably where I first saw your picture.

That is wild.

Damn, that's wild. Yeah, so they, you know, they taught me. They had great information, so they taught me how to set up a blog, and I thought it was a genius idea to.

Write a blog of a reviewing Tai Lopez course. So I didn't even have the course, but I had the torrent.

Yeah, you had the info.

And I had the info. So I basically. I took screenshots from the torrent and, like, left out, like, the. The torrent. Like, yeah, red mark or whatever, and was putting that in the blog. So, you know, just kind of giving my whole summary. And at the bottom was like, you know, this is a great opportunity, but this is a better. And this is how you can get started. And that was my first dollar that I made online was through something like that. Posted the links on Quora, and, you know, I was, like, starting to make a little bit of. I felt like, you know, it was progress. It wasn't really traction, but it was progress. It was a step in the right direction. And with that, I started also, like, oh, I know how to set up a simple blog and website. So I started selling web design services, which I will never, ever do. Yeah, so that was. I got, like, two clients there, and I started selling. I was like, man, let me. Let me try to just sell a service and, like, outsource that work to someone else, because I don't. I. I know how to sell, but I don't know how to really do all this work yet. I'm still learning.

That's like, the beginning of your operations background.

And. Yeah, that was. That was the beginning of.

Yeah, you learned all these skills. Right. Which is. Which is often the first two years of any entrepreneurial experience getting these skills.

Yeah.

And you then learn that you can bring other people on to do everything else so you stay in your zone. Is this what led you to meet Wes and Michael? How did those connections start to happen?

So went on like this, you know, getting random projects for about six months or whatever wasn't really making much money. It was a side job. And then I finally started an agency where I niched down.

Around the same time, I got very, very sick. I was out for, like, a month from the CRO, like, Crohn's disease. And after that time, I quit my job doing construction. It was just taking a toll on my body. I just couldn't. I couldn't do it. I had already helped my wife get her business established, so we're living off of her income, but she was doing last extension, so we were okay during that time.

Your wife sounds like a saint, by the way.

She is.

She's.

She's. She's been a rock and she's been. Man, it's. It's. It's been a blessing that she came into my life.

But so. So you started. You started doing clients. You end up meeting or looking for people of the it factor.

I. That didn't come for a while, man. It really didn't. So I niche down and. And I have this traditional agency where I was helping gym owners to get new members. Like, gym launch was like my. Like, I wanted.

You wanted. You want to be too? Yeah, I wanted to be.

Who doesn't want to? Right? So it was like, that was like, oh, I. I think I can do it better than this guy.

So I started chasing that. Right. And with like the traditional agency. And then my business partner, who I met in prison, he ended up getting out and we reconnected through Facebook message, which he. I still have the message, but he was like, I don't know if this message went through or not, but.

So when I saw that message, I called him, we connected, whatever. And he. He was friends with Wes, like for 15 years or so. They've been friends. So they were friends before they got locked up. They stayed in communication during the time they were locked up. I would already have this established, kind of established agency. It was doing over like 15k a month. 10.15k a month.

And I was bringing him into this picture because he's has a way with words. He's really good at talking to people. I was like, you can at least start selling for me, because I hate the sales side of things, and I'll just build and do marketing stuff. And that's really how it started. And then he was like, hey, I have this guy that he's. He has a. He just got out of prison. He has a good message, and he's just holding his phone and just recording these. These stories on Instagram.

And that was Wes Watson.

Yeah. And we should probably go and talk to him. I was like, oh, it's. It's online fitness. Like, I've never done like a fully online fitness thing before. And he's like, well, it might be worth the conversation. I'm like yeah, sure, let's, let's go talk to him. So we met at Panera and San Diego and.

He was, he was just basically in his phone the whole time. But we went over, you know, basically how he can get monetized and like how we can start expanding his brand.

So I, I just need to tap on something here because.

Most people wouldn't have taken that meeting with a tattooed up out of prison guy who's on his phone the whole time. Right. But you had a connection to him and you needed the opportunity. And now that that person has gone on to be one of the most recognized people in our space and people are sometimes confused as to how I can have such a long term view on our members who are starting get their first thousand dollars in sales in a membership or somebody who is just starting to create content on the Internet. And it's because I've seen this story play out enough times to where a few of those people who break out are going to have a $10 million business or are going to have a million person following. And when you know that and you show up to the meeting with the guy with 5,000 followers and you can see that he has gives you a different lens than when you're just looking for something to work out right now.

Yeah.

So that is just such a beautiful example of there was a relationship that started with nothing. Right. Like you have a small agency and a partner and he's got 5,000 followers and it becomes this huge thing that most people in our space recognize. And that is, that's what I mean when I say I believe that things tend to get better because we tend to look at our current situation and forecast that out forever without ever saying how big can this get? Or this will tend to grow over time. But when you know that you can kind of relax, right? Relax in the sense of like I don't have to worry about it all going away. Like something in my sphere of influence is gonna pop, is gonna take off.

It takes a lot of belief right there.

Like what a good example of it of you working with Wes and the network moves over to Francis and all the other guys that you've worked with.

Yeah, for sure. I mean a part of it too is he just got into a podcast. It was like a YouTube interview similar to this with this guy, Big Herc, who already had a pretty large following too. And it was starting to pick up very fast. And this is like we had the interview this or we had the, the meeting. Like I met him for the first time on that same day, and it started to pick up. I'm like, oh, I'm seeing the traction already here. And then I'm already just seeing that.

It'S the direction that is. That social media was going during that time is people who are willing to. To really put their. Their story out there doesn't have to be as raw and polarizing during that time as. As Wes was. But just being consistent with it, that was enough during that time, you know, this was back in, what, 2019 or something like that.

And.

I just didn't want to do that. Like, it could have been, you know, probably could have been me. Like, I just. I just didn't have that courage. I mean, I guess you could say it to. To just be consistent enough with putting my story out there. I just. I just never really like social media. And I was like, how can I get someone who actually likes to post social media post on social, and I could just build behind them. So that was another aspect to it too.

How did you end up monetizing that audience? Because I know that that playbook has moved over to a lot of the different guys that you work with now.

So with Wes, he already had some coaching clients. He was charging like $50 a month, $100 a month, something like that. So he was making about.

$2,500, maybe $3,000 a month. So you already had like a baseline core offer, like, okay, at least some money. Somebody is taking their wallet out and they're saying, yes, I want to pay you for something. So it was a starting place. It was somewhere that, let's just do more of this.

Yeah.

You know, and obviously we can adjust the pricing. We can. You know, that's the easiest way for you to grow your business is just by doubling how much you're actually charging, because you're really not charging enough right here. And then starting to look at, like, how are you delivering this? You know, how can we make this in a way that is going to be scalable? Because whenever I look at, you know, a start, a business that's getting started, I'm like, okay, how can we take what we have here and not have to change it too much to where we can actually scale this to $10 million without doing much more, except for just marketing and sales. And it's like that. That's like the. I'd say actually like 5 million, 1 to 5 million. And then from 5 to 10 is like, now you have to get some real leaders in the business and operations a little bit different. But I'm always thinking with that lens of, like, scale, how can I set this up for scale so I don't have to just go and break things consistently?

So I just, I started with. Without even having the experience at that point. Like, I'm. I was still gym owners running ads for them. Like, I didn't really have that experience, but I knew the thought process that I needed to like the lens in which I needed to be viewing it. And I just, I, I felt confident in myself to learn the skills that I needed to be able to bring that when needed, you know, so there's a lot that I had to learn and there's a lot that I got to try. When we effectively launched, I guess you could say Watson fit. I mean, we did the whole branding, the first initial funnels, everything. I mean, everything. When it came to the foundation of, of. Of getting that brand off, off the.

Ground.

And, you know, it just really came down to.

Starting with the foundational pieces of making an online business.

I'm curious, from your perspective. There's a. There's some people who think that if I just get an influencer to work with me, my business will change. And to some aspect that's true, like some, some respect, that can be very effective. But there's another side to working with people with audiences, too. So what have you seen be the benefits and the challenges of working with people who have influence?

I think there's a lot on both sides. We'll start with the challenges. So the challenges are.

It depends, like, it's a status play. So there's, there's going to be some people that you approach that have a large influence and they don't even want to listen to anything you have to say because they're purely focused on, you know, does this person, like, are. Are we on the same page? And they, they kind of have an.

Do we have the same status?

Do they? Yeah. Do we have the same status?

And that is often determined by follower.

And it's often determined by follower count. So the answer nine times out of ten is going to be no. So it's, it's, it starts off the relationship with an uphill battle if you're already approaching someone that has a large following. In the case of west, we had commonality. We had a lot of things that we, Our values aligned when it came to, you know, first of all, our background, you know, us, we're both criminals. So we, we both connected on that sense. And there's like this unwritten rule that comes to just like the handshake of respect on a baseline level that was the foundation of our, our, you know, arrangement. But getting aside from Wes, I'd say some of the, the other challenges just come with when you grow so fast.

Whether this is just an influencer or just overall people who are.

Getting a lot of money at very fast rate.

You. I'd say from the influencer realm, there's a lot of praise and a lot of.

Positive reinforcement from an audience that can tend to make the influencer kind of have an influence. An inflated.

View of themselves.

Not really. That's one part. But it's also.

Them doing the right, taking the right actions or thinking that they comprehend certain business foundations is like, well, I'm getting all this praise and I'm earning all this money, so I must be really good at doing these things. But it's, it's not necessarily true. Just because you have a large following and you're making a lot of money doesn't mean that you're, you're really skilled at business. It. So that becomes challenging when you start to scale a business.

Because there could be conflicting views and also.

The lack of willingness to, to kind of give up some control. And at every point this, this happens with non influencer business too. Businesses too is that there's comes a point in an entrepreneurial journey where you have to give up control if you want to scale. And you tend to be the core bottleneck in a lot of cases, whether that's at a million dollars, $5 million, $10 million, or maybe you're, you know.

The, the Uber CEO and you get, you're able to scale it to a $10 billion plus business. But then years, he was the bottleneck. At the end of the day, you know, there, there comes a point where it's like this, the, the head person, if they can't give up more control, then they gotta go. They gotta go because it's hurting the business. And I think that that's one of the biggest challenges when it comes to influencer based businesses is they have this inflated ego that can give them this false sense of like comprehension.

I understand that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But aside from that, I, I would say.

There'S not really.

I mean that's just business, business partnerships.

People, you know, that's just people, that's just human beings.

Yeah. I don't know if that's like the influencer side of things.

On the positive side, on the positive.

Side grow as they grow it, it's exponential. So when you have an audience that is.

Committed.

Yeah.

And bought in and bought it. Yeah. Is bought in. There is room for failure, there's room for making mistakes and you can, you can do.

You can launch a shitty product and still do well. You can, you can be off on, on the, the operation side and.

You know, not being able to.

Really scale the marketing or the sales side really well as a. You would need on any other circumstance and still do great.

Yeah.

And you can do this with limited ad spin. It just makes it so much easier to launch things. It makes it so much easier to prove concepts because you can just post and get a ton of feedback and just like what the fuck? This is such a blessing for me to actually get this, this live feedback and interaction with an audience that is hungry. And now I can go and create instead of like going into this research and development phase and then bringing it to marketing. Ah, no, this is. And then guessing. Right. So you kind of, it just, it's a fast track to being able to prove concepts and scale a business.

I want to close by asking you a question that my followers often ask me, which is how big of an audience do you need in order to do damage? So you worked with influencers that were really at the very beginning, but you built seven and eight figure companies with these guys. So at what point do you have an audience in which you can knock over the first domino?

It's not the size of the boat, it's the motion of the ocean.

I say it differently. It's not the size of the audience, it's the intimacy you have with them.

Yeah, it, it absolutely is. And that, I mean that, that saying, it rings true in, in the audience side. I mean it's just you can do damage with someone with an audience that's pretty small, but they are just hanging on to every word that you say.

If you have 200 people who watch everything and send it to their friends, you can do damage. You can do damage because now one message is going to pop to the right people and those 200 people will buy your stuff or support your launch or leave you a review or whatever action you want them to take. That's enough.

Right?

And when you realize how few people you need, oh man, I think that frees you up to go into give mode.

People are surprised.

I was talking with a friend yesterday where I was like, how many opt ins a day are you getting? He's like, I'm only getting like 5 opt ins a day. I was like, okay, I have a challenge for you. For the next 30 days, I want you to take 50 minutes and I want you to do five minutes of research and make a five minute video for every one of those five people that are coming in. Five minutes of research, Find they opt in with their email address, find their social media, and then go make them a five minute video just showing what recommendations you would give them based on what you found through your lens of experience. That's it. And for 30 days you have 150 people, is that right? 150 people who you have delivered five minutes of intentional value to. It will take you 50 minutes a day for 30 days. Watch how fast your business changes, because you can do some crazy numbers with 150 people that you've delivered a lot of value for. Most people just won't take the 10 minutes to do it.

I totally agree. And that's it. You're building assets, especially if you do it in a way that, like, you can repurpose it in different ways too.

That's right.

You know that's right. And put those into case studies. You can create different content out of that. But you're right. I mean, most people just aren't willing to do that work and they're looking at the wrong metrics to say, oh, well, when I get to this point, then my business will grow. No, your business will grow if you just put the work in.

Julian, what a story, man. Congratulations on everything you've done. Thanks for being an example like this. I really received this idea of carving out the intentional time to become a better person because it's so alluring to just fall into the trap of the same thing every day. And most people do that. And that's a really good reminder. You're a really good example of just how much can change if you carve out that intentional time every day. Thank you for being an example. Thank you for coming out the other side a better person. Thanks for hanging out with us.

Thank you, brother. Thank you for having me.

Good to see you.

Good to see you.

I love sharing transformation stories like this on the podcast because there are still times that I feel like I'm behind. There are still times that I feel like I'm starting over to some extent. We are always starting over. We're always starting a new chapter. And hearing the stories like Julian, where he got out of prison was starting completely over and became a very powerful entrepreneur reminds me that if we give our focus and our attention to whatever it is that we want and we work like hell for a few years, there is no upper limit. There is no ceiling. Even though I've had my shares of successes. There are still times that I doubt myself. There are still times that I feel behind. There are still times that I feel like I'm not where I want to be. And when I hear how quickly life can turn around from people who have dealt with much more adversity than me, it reminds me how much time all of us have and how quickly our lives can turn around. It also makes me grateful for everything that I've accomplished up to this point and makes me excited about the things that we can accomplish together as a community over the next few years. If you're at the beginning of a new chapter, if you're starting over, if you feel like you're behind, our work here is helping entrepreneurs build seven figure businesses that they can sell. The process usually takes about 12 months. We have hundreds of case studies of people who have built seven figure businesses. You can find the resources to get started around this video and I just want you to know that I consider it a privilege to be a part of your journey. Thank you for watching. Thank you for being a part of this community. Thank you for liking and subscribing. Thank you for sharing all of your success stories with me. Seeing those transformations makes me feel like all of this work is worth it. Appreciate you guys. I'll see you on the next episode. Take care.