Episode 083: John Malott - From Jail Cell to Multimillionaire Entrepreneur

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What's going on, everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome back to the rise of the Young podcast. And today we have someone that's super important to me, that he's provided me with a lot of opportunities and, and he's been wanting to be on the podcast for. It's been over a year now since we first met and. Mr. John Milott, I finally have you on the show, man.

Yeah, don't get me started. What I had to do to get on this podcast is like I had to, you know, cross mountains and rivers and jump through a lot of hoops and spend a lot of money. So anyways, no, it's a pleasure finally to be on the podcast. I know we've both been busy building our empires.

For sure. For sure. And then I know if anyone is listening to this or watching this, that was at the Build you'd Empire grand opening. John was talking about it on stage. We're finally setting it up. It's happening today in the Build your Empire studio and we have 30 minutes. So I really want to get in depth about not just how we met and our relationship, but your story and really just get into the bare bones of really what it means to be an entrepreneur. From you, I know that I've heard a lot of your stories and there's a lot of great wisdom in there that I think the listeners that are majority between 18 and 25 can value from. So my first question to you, just for everyone listening, I really like to just catch people up to speed. So today, what's your current day to day life and what are you currently working on? Just to catch people up to speed before we kind of go in depth.

Oh, my current life, man, you know, I live an amazing life. You know, I'm, I have, I have freedom. You know, I sleep until I'm done sleeping. You know, I, if I want to go take, you know, the kids to Disney World on Thursday and it's Tuesday, you know, I'm able to do that. You know, I can. Every day is like a Saturday morning cartoon day for me. You know what I mean? I have an amazing life. So I, I now, I no longer live in a world of. I have to. I live in a world of. I choose to today. Thanks. Thanks to entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship saved my life. And you know, I tell people time. I don't, I don't have this story of how, how great, you know, everything was and how great I am. My story is how bad I was and how everything sucked for so long. And my drive to not suck anymore and to not be a bum anymore allowed me to get to this point.

Yeah, for sure. I love that you say, sleep until I'm done sleeping. And I think that's something that, just coming from a small town in Virginia where it's like that simple line not many, not the majority of people get to do. Right. There's an alarm clock and they have to be there in regards to going to their job and being somewhere where it's dependent on them and their time. Right. So my first question I want to kind of start out with is where are you from? Where did this origin story of Mr. John Malott start at?

You know, I was, I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. So I, I lived the majority of my life on the south side. South Milwaukee. And yeah, that's where everything, everything began. So the Midwest. Thank God I'm not there anymore. I can't do snow. I don't want to ever own a pair of gloves again as long as I live. I prefer the beach and the sun and the desert sun, you know, so that's why I'm here in Arizona now, but, but born and raised in Milwaukee.

Okay, cool, cool, cool. No, it's, it's interesting because I know when we first met, obviously, as you can tell me and John just graduated high school, so we have a lot in common.

But we're the, the millennials. My people.

Of course, of course. But I want to kind of get into just your standpoint on mentorship because I know a lot that we've really. We met and I helped you really explode your brand on social media. We went from what, 5,000 followers on Instagram to now around 110, 111,000 on there. And that was our first relationship builder was just building that brand on social media. And I remember one thing you told me that always is going to stick to me is you felt like you missed the wave when it comes to social media, which is obviously people listening to this, they probably heard about this podcast through social media, and I've been building my brand on social media. So I want to kind of touch on just this whole aspect of building a brand. And the question being, what was your, I would say, pivoting point to wanting to build a brand? Because obviously that's how we connected and started to build this relationship.

Well, you know, for me, it's. I had been building businesses for a long time, you know, like I said earlier, because I don't have all the things society says you're supposed to have to be successful. I don't have a college degree. I don't have a high school diploma. And, you know, I had a lot of challenges as a young person. You know, my first felony arrest, I was 15 years old. You know, I wasn't doing like you were doing. But anyway, when I saw you, I was like, man, I was a mess. So I spent most of my young life locked up in detention facilities. When I was 17, I had a heart attack from smoking cocaine. And, you know, again, circumstances around that, I end up locked into in a facility, but then had a drug program in there. And it was there that people saw more in me than I saw myself. It was for the first time, actually. They held the mirror up and said, you know, I was blaming everybody. I blame the school, the police, my dad, all these people for all of my challenges, all of the stuff. And it was in there that they said, no, your challenges are from you. You made an appointment to be here five years ago. This is you 100%. And that mirror was held up. And it was. It was there when things started to change, because the mentor, a counselor there by the name of Dave, gave me a book called how to Win Friends and Influence People. And it was the first time I ever had a, you know, personal development of any kind. And that seed was planted. And it's funny because later on, I wrote a book with Les Brown, the great motivational speaker. And he. He always says, you know, when the mind expands, it can never go back to its original dimension. So what happened in that drug facility, which at the time I thought was the worst time of my life? I walked in there. All I owned in the entire world was the clothes I was wearing, the sweatshirt that I had, the jeans and the shoes. That's it. I owned nothing else. I had already destroyed all the relationships around me in my life. I was a complete mess. But I left out of there with a seed planted in my brain about entrepreneurship, about that maybe I wasn't going to rise to the heights in My neighborhood, because my neighborhood was dominated by thugs, gangsters and, and drug dealers. And at one time I thought I wanted to be one of those because they had the fancy cars, they had the girls, they had all the stuff, you know, the trappings of real trappings of success. And, you know, I unfortunately became addicted to the product that was destroying, you know, our neighborhood. And it ultimately destroyed me. And. But it was in there that I made the decision, you know, to make the changes. Unfortunately, Les Brown also says, jump and the net will appear. Well, I jumped and I bounced off the pavement like 15 times before that net ever appeared. So it was still a long road. And it was when I was 24 years old, it was my second, it was my last felony arrest. And as I was being removed from my home, as I look back, I had a two year old daughter at that time. And. And as she was crying like crazy, I'm being removed from my home, I end up locked in a grown man's facility in the bullpen. It was 4th of July weekend, so it was a busy time in the jail. And I remember finding my little spot on the floor because the bench was taken by all the hardened criminals. And it was in there that I made the decision. And something that kept running through my mind, two things. Number one is a good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children, which was delivered to me by another mentor prior to that. And the other thing, her face, crying, bawling. And I now have the tattoo. A good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children because it's a reminder of sitting on that floor in a grown man's facility for three days, waiting to go to court to try to get out of this mess I got myself in. But that day I made a decision. I will never live like this again. That was the end of that jam a lot. I was killing that jam a lot in a new jam a lot. So I never got, you know, I never got arrested from that point on. Never did drugs again from that point on. And that's when I started diving into entrepreneurship. I was like, how does a skinny white kid from the hood become a rock star or a rap? Well, you know what? Entrepreneurship gives you that ability. So that's really how this whole thing progressed. Rest.

And so 24, like, that was the time where like 24, you mentally came to a conclusion of, like, things needed to change and you needed to be that change.

It was what, what happened there was. I Understood it was 100% me, you know, because it's easy Today, people, people blame the government, they blame everything. There's always somebody to blame. But in the end, no, it's me. It, it was me 100%. And when I finally accepted that reality, that that's the only, that was the only way I could actually start putting the pieces together to create the picture that, that I could see in my mind's eye. So yeah, I had to, I had to start making those changes. And that's when, look, I've had so many businesses, matter of fact, I'm the king of failure. Like if you, you know, we could do a, you know, five day podcast just on my failures. But, but one thing I kept doing is, is I kept moving forward. I just went from one failure to the next failure without losing momentum. Mark Twain one time said, he said, you know, you only need a couple of breakthroughs. He said, I had one, one breakthrough and it kept me in pipe tobacco for my entire life. You know, in other words, you know, just one, one good idea, one thing that happens could be the breakthrough that can set you free forever. Yeah, and I was fortunate. I had a couple, couple, you know, breakthroughs, but a whole lot of mess, a whole lot of failures along the way.

So I'm interested because 24, you're in this grow man's facility, as you call it, and stepping out of there and understanding that you needed to change. I think a lot of people that may be listening, they either may be in a situation similar to that or they may be in their own type of situation where they feel that they're trapped, they're hitting rock bottom and they don't know what to do or what direction to go, but they, they feel that change is needed. Right. And they know that's the only thing to do is change themselves. What would you say to someone in that position? If they're listening, maybe they're 18, maybe they're 24, maybe they're 35, whatever that may be. If someone just feels stuck to the extent that they just don't know what their next step is, because I get that question a lot regarding, like smaller topics. Meaning if someone wants to grow on social media, they know that's the thing to do and they want to change themselves to do that, but they don't even know what the first step is. Right. So regarding just like your, your experience with that, what would you tell that person that just is in this stuck and they just feel trapped within, within themselves?

Man, I can relate to that because that's where I felt, you know, most of my life. You know, I still. I still get that, you know, today in different areas of my life, sometimes health and fitness, sometimes the spiritual walk, different things I'm working on. So I think we all get. I think that's normal. The challenge is staying stuck. You know, that's where the problem, you know, really hits. But I would tell people, for me, it was the books I read, the people I associated with, in the seminars I attended, changed my life completely. Personal development, you have to work harder on yourself than you're working on anything else. In the beginning, it's the only way out because, you know, we talk about getting out of a neighborhood, getting out of circumstances. No, you know what we got to do? We got to get out of our own minds. It was my own mindset that kept me stuck for so long.

Got it.

If another man or another woman could do it, then of course we could do it. You know, they weren't born with anything, you know, extra, you know, anything special. You know, we all have the same 24 hours in a day. It's just, what are we going to do with that time? But personal development for sure.

And it's funny because you talk about how to win friends, influence people. That's, like, the first book that I kind of latched onto, and, like, that's where my importance of relationship building came from. And I've been telling you that since we first met. It's like everything that I've been doing up to this point, it's building my personal brand and social media. It's like, it's all led to. All right, how can I build relationships through that platform to then make relationships that are meaningful that I can build and grow with so.

Well, wait, wait.

Because you.

You got a special talent, man. Because this. This guy comes into my DM, a matter of fact, I bought, like, year.

Yeah, 18 months ago, almost.

Okay. Yeah.

So.

And I think you. You hit me up a couple times. I didn't respond right away, and then I responded. But, you know, Casey's a master. You guys know, if you've been watching him for a while, he's. He's got this stuff down. So if you're following him, it makes sense. If you. You follow his lead, you can go. You can open up doors that. That most people would never be able to open because he has courage, number one. And then he's very good at making you feel good. And. And you told me how great I was, and all you got to do is tell me how great I am. And then I opened up and I listened the next thing I know, you know, I. I bought a ticket to. I think it was a Beverly Hills mastermind that you guys were doing. Yeah, so. So that set the stage for. For what's happening now, which has created, you know, the build you'd Empire brand. So this was. This was you that. That put it in motion. And I was just fortunate to be able to be in a financial position where we could help, you know. You know, perpetuate some things.

Absolutely. No, it's funny because I remember that first time we met at the event, that was obviously the first time we met. We connected on social media, and then it was one of those things where at the time, and still to this day, it's helping people build their brand. That's always been something I'm not only passionate about, but I can tend to do well, in a sense. And I know that from building your brand. Now you're speaking at different events, and you've been getting all these people that are not just following you. But I remember when we had the grand opening here. It's just the energy that you set on stage, I think it flushes right through all the way to your Instagram. Like, that's the way people feel once they watch their content. So back to the question is, when was that mental transition from you're building these businesses, you've made a lot of money to then impact and through social. Because I know that you said you knew the importance of it, but you weren't doing it. And obviously that was a huge connector between us to build this relationship moving forward. And then we started working together. Right. So for everyone listening, maybe they are trying to build their brand or they want to, but they haven't committed. And for someone like you, like you. Fully committed. Right. And I know to this day you're still fully committed. We're doing this podcast now. But what made you commit to that extent based on the importance of social media in your mind?

You know, because you go through. You go through stages, and I think the first stage is the success stage, where you. We all want to have. We all want to be successful. That's the big, big word. Success. And success is when you add value to yourself. And so, you know, I did that very well. You know, for a long time, it was, I got to pay my bills, I got to take care of, you know, my family, you know, so success was adding value to myself. And then the second stage that hopefully we go into, and some people maybe never get out of the success stage, and maybe they. They don't get into this stage, but this is a critical stage, and it's significance. And significance is when you add value to others. So as I was building my businesses, I started to catch on. It was great. I had made tens of millions of dollars, but what I was more proud of was that the team was making hundreds of millions of dollars. You know what I mean? I was taking my piece, but it was so great to have people on the team saying, I, I live better because of this opportunity. I live better because of the things that you taught me, that type of thing. So that's significance. And then the third stage, which is what I'm in now, and the reason why I connected with you, and I knew it was important to build the personal brand because I was always building my brand, but I was building my company's brand. You know what I mean? So everything was about the company. Everything was about that organization. So I kind of got, I was kind of off in the, in the background. And then I did speak on a lot of stages, but they were stages like people say they want to be a speaker, and I'm like, well, look, if you want to take my route. I started with two people that, you know, were part of a company I had, and I was trying to motivate them to go sell something so we could make some money. And apparently I was a horrible motivator because they both quit. I ended up having to sell on my own. But eventually from, from that, it went to 200, then 2,000, and then, you know, we've had a hundred thousand distributors in our companies and generating, you know, 200 million-plus per year in revenue. So all that's great, but that's significant. But this stage is legacy. And I, you know, I tattoo everything. Matter of fact, I tell people I'm more committed than anybody. When we get, when we took the build you'd Empire brand, I put Empire builder, you know, on me to show everybody I'm more committed than everybody else. But legacy, I also tattooed, you know, because I'm in the legacy stage. This is now about my children's children, that they're talking about me not because of the money I made, but, but because of the teachings that's going to last forever, that the, the, the wisdom that we can, you know, pass on. And so that's what I love about build you'd Empire because it gives us a chance to mentor, guide, coach, you know, where there's a lot of people in there, you know, they're 18, they're your age, or, you know, in their 20s have never been through a recession. They've, you know, we've had nine years of this incredible bull market, you know, economic. You're not making money right now, then, you know, you got to check yourself. You better for sure get on the build your empire mentoring program, get some coaching. They better for sure hire us to hire you to help them get their podcast going, get some stuff going, because this is one of the biggest economic boom times we've had or one of the longest lasting. But I've been through recessions. I've been to where people that were making million hundreds of millions lost everything almost overnight. We're waiting tables, you know, a month later. So it'll humble you very, very fast.

And it's funny because I know that Josh touched on that as well when we did the podcast and someone for myself, because I'm in that category where it's like, I have been through a recession, right? So, so what do you tell the 18 to 20 to 25 year olds that are put in that category of they haven't seen the worst of worst of worst when it comes to, like, the economics of the country, in a sense. What would you give to someone that's listening to not only prepare, but to just be ready for it, in a sense, better than anyone else, especially at this age.

You know, I'll tell you when the money's made, the money's made in recessions, the money's made in depression. If you go back to the Great Depression, you know, during, and I'm not going to give you a history lesson here, you can, you could do your own homework. But there were so many millionaires made in the Great Depression. Because what happens if you're prepared, if you, you know, it comes from our children's stories, you know, the ant and the grasshopper. You know, what, what was the ant doing during the, you know, the summertime? He was working the grasshoppers jumping around. Well, the grasshopper's dead. Come winter, the ant survives. And so what I'm telling people today is you need to, you need to have allocated. When you, you get a dollar from whatever, whatever it is, you should know that a portion of that dollar is going, is getting locked up somewhere where you don't touch it. That's just, that's the way I roll. Then, then for me, 10% of that dollar goes to charities. It goes to, you know, my, my beliefs to contribute, contribution becomes huge. I believe that that 10% pays me back hundreds of times. You know, what I put out. But not everybody believes that stuff. But I'm telling you, for me, for sure. But now I'm taking, you know, 30, 40% of every dollar and goes into an investment account specifically for investments. I'm waiting for the next big recession. You know, when I bought my house on Camelback Mountain, when the market collapsed and nobody was buying real estate, I go and buy one of the, you know, one of the premier properties on the top of Camelback Mountain for pennies on the dollar. I went and bought a beach house in Puerto Penasco that at one point was like 1.55 million. I bought it for $400,000, you know what I mean? So it makes me look great during economic boom times because now the value's way up again and things are happening. But that's been. Josh and I do it all the time. We, we're finding where people didn't plan, didn't prepare. We can come in and help them, you know, providing them an exit, you know, not, not really what the value maybe will be at some point, but then we can, we can come in and shape some things and then extract the value at a later time. So I would just say prepare, man. You know, don't, don't be the grasshopper for sure, because it's coming, man, and it will come. And here's the problem with entrepreneurs. We're so optimistic, man. You know, I mean, we're always like, man, we're going to crush it. We're always, we're so passionate. Sometimes our own passion is. It kills us. Our own passion actually stops us. And it keeps us from our purpose and keeps us from slowing down a little bit and seeing what could happen. But I would just say prepare. It's coming. And you know, you can, you can do amazing things during tough economic times because it's always coming back around. We live in a, you know, these cycles for sure.

And that's amazing. And one thing I do want to touch on because I think if anyone follows you, which I know a lot of people watching this, they do, because obviously we've been, I've been promoting you a lot of my personal brand and we have you on build your empire. But for people that don't know or haven't seen your content, I think it's a common theme to say and I think you would agree is just leadership. That's always been something that. The first day I met you, you were tolding like a good leader is a good reader. You were just talking about leadership in different ways. And I think that goes through with your content on Social media. And if you aren't already following John, make sure you check him out. But continue listening to this podcast. But I want you to touch on leadership because I think it's super important because you've taught me a lot, and I'm continuing to grow throughout this journey. But leadership, you've helped me sort of focus on it to the extent that it needs to be focused on, and that comes from experience. Right. Like a good leader is someone that has been a leader over time and continues to be a leader. So for you, what does leadership mean? And how does someone become a good leader over time?

You know, it's a, it's a tricky question because there's so many people running around. You know, we got terms like boss now. You know, it's a big thing to say, you know, I'm the boss, or I'm boss, whatever. You know, it's, it's, it's so ridiculous to me. You know, people run around, I are a leader, and you got nobody. You're leading. You know, it's. You're leading your ego a lot of times. Matter of fact, I'm getting a tattoo today that says ego is the enemy.

Okay. You read the book?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He inspired me.

He was actually on the podcast.

Was he really?

Ryan Holiday.

Ryan Holiday. Look, you got a new fan. Matter of fact, I've been listening to it on audio, and so you know that. But yeah, it's amazing, you know, because it really is, you know, and I see. And for, for guys your age that start crushing it early, ego is your enemy for sure. And it will keep you from achieving what you could achieve. Matter of fact, when you get grown, people that have, that have the big money because the baby boomers still control three quarters of all the wealth in this country. It's just. That is clearly the case. They're not going to buy into a cocky kid for sure. You know what I mean? You know, no matter how great you are, how great you think you are, they're just, they're not maybe not even saying anything, but they're just ignore you.

Yeah.

Leadership is something that's earned, you know, and everything rises and falls on leadership. So you can tell what's happening inside of an organization based on leader.

The.

The size of the problem that the leader can handle. And the bigger the problems, the bigger the leader, if that leader can get you through tough situations. So I'm big on leader. Every matter of fact, every morning and every evening, I take five minutes and I, I write in a journal. And every Day one of my affirmations is I am a leader of leaders. You know, there's a big difference. You know, there's some people that can barely lead themselves. There's some people that will lead followers and they do great at it. And, and that a lot of times is ego. Some people won't let it go because it's my team, my people. I'm like, man, let your people go. Set them free, empower them to be better than you. I'm trying to raise up leaders. You know, you're the CEO of build you'd Empire. You're the youngest partner in the whole deal, the least experienced. But Josh and I were like, you know, we want to empower this next generation to step up and learn the skills and make the mistakes, go through some of the challenges because that's how you can become you. You know, you know, you think about where you're going to be at 24 years old. I mean, it's sick, man. You, you, you're getting the skills right now that a Fortune 500 CEO has to get to run a Fortune 500 company.

Yeah.

And you're getting at 18 years old. So, you know, we believe in empowering and teaching and guiding and then being around watching other leaders, you know, find world class leaders. And that again takes getting out of our own way. Checking the ego. But leadership is about checking the ego. Team building. There's all these different pieces we could do. I do a two day weekend training just on, on leadership.

Yep.

You know, there John Maxwell says there's 21 irrefutable laws of leadership. Most people are running around saying ir a leader couldn't tell you two of the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership.

That's a book, correct?

That's a book. Everyone should get that book. It's like a basic fundamental foundation piece for becoming a leader for sure.

So what would you say to someone that is maybe they're the CEO of a company or they're just a leader to their team and they think or they, their team perceives them as crushing it. How do you decipher a good leader from a bad leader? But both of them may think they're the best leader, but you seeing two individuals, how do you decipher which one's actually the good leader and someone that can represent not only the company but themselves to the best way?

Well, you know, right away I ask questions pretty quick and I'm listening. You know, a lot of times.

A.

Good leader isn't talking about I, you won't Hear I. A lot in their vocabulary, you'll hear we. Because then I started asking myself, well, I wonder who we is. Like, if you hear me talk, I'm always saying we. The, the companies that I started, I still say we. The organizations that I led, I still say we. I got in the habit from a billionaire mentor of mine, Paul J. Meyer. He always talked about we, you know, us together, we're building something, and that's a big thing. What's happening to build your empire is we caught on very quickly that it was about we're going to lead a community of people that are connected to that community, that we're empowering to be the best that they can be, that we're not here and that they're here, that we're all here. And so you can see pretty quick again, it's amazing because I just finished the book Ego is the Enemy. And there's so much of this that comes from, you know, from that. And there's.

This book's amazing.

Yeah. You know, because it looks great to us on social media to see somebody out front crushing it. The lifestyle they got, the Lamborghinis, all this crap that they think makes them something, but it's, it actually is taking away from their leadership. If you don't have 15 other people with Lamborghinis, if you don't have a whole team with, you know, living in the house like you live in, if, if, if most of the money is going to you before it ever gets to the team, I start to question, you know, what type of leader you are. Like I said, we were. I was making tens of millions, but the team was making hundreds of millions.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? That, that makes sense. That's, you know, sacrifice of self discipline is, is something very challenging. I'm always speaking out of experience because when I, when I, the first time I made like $15,000 in a month, I thought I had made it, my head got so damn big, I thought I was the man. I was fortunate. I had mentors that back then could tell you the truth. Today, you can't tell people the truth because we're so fragile. You know, we start crying if they hear the truth. But back then, my mentors would tell me the truth and they said, look, man, you're. You're a jerk. You forgot where you came from. And because you forgot where you came from, you're going to be on your way back. And it was being slapped around by, by brilliant, amazing, you know, capitalist that, you know, that got me to humble Myself and focus on being more and more humble.

That's amazing. I think that's some great advice for someone that may be young like myself. And it's funny because it's awesome for myself doing this podcast. Like, the reason I started is it's all about asking questions. And I. That you just touched on that. And it's me being able to ask my questions, but being able to take that response and give it to other people that need it. Right. And I think for anyone that's trying to get their questions answered, it's like you have to seek where you can ask those questions. And that's the reason I started the podcast, you know, because it's. It's beneficial to mutual parties, the people that are listening yourself for impact and legacy, and then myself to actually get the experience and then also for that other pillar. Right. But I know we're lacked on time right now, but I do want to touch on just your experience, not only in leadership, but maintaining culture within a company. Right. And I know that Andy Rosello talks about this all the time on his podcast, and he really, like, that's his thing is like culture.

Yeah.

So whenever building these organizations hand in hand, I think the culture is dependent on the leader. Right. So when you're speaking to a leader and then you maybe look at the culture, what determines good culture in a company that's starting from the ground up to then scale that culture as it expands.

You know, it's funny because culture is something that so many organizations try to force. And it sounds great from the stage. You know, we're building culture. It sounds great on a podcast. You know, I mean, it's just. It makes you all warm and tingly inside. But. But culture can't be forced. I think the, the. Some of the best lessons I learned is from Zappos, Tony Hsieh. You know, he's got a book called Delivering Happiness, and he really goes into how they built culture in that organization. And in the end, culture really comes down to service. Culture comes down to authentic authenticity. It comes down to transparency. Because some people think they're building culture because they got a whole lot of people waving the flag for them. You know, that's. You know, there's cults that have been built around that, you know, and you know what Jim Jones or whatever his name was got people drinking Kool Aid that killed them all. You know, people could argue he had an. He had built culture, but real culture comes from the heart. And I always say, like, you can tell the organization the culture of the organization based on the heartbeat of the leader. Because that's what duplicates culture is all about. Duplication.

Y.

And. And, you know, Josh and I, fortunately, I've got an amazing business partner that. That we go way back, but Josh and I, we. We never. In the beginning, we never. We didn't. The word culture wasn't even, you know, it existed, but it wasn't something you talked about much. But we used to be out all the time, taking the team, bowling. You know, whoever contributed, it was always like, if you're contributing, man, we. We got you. We're serving you, you know, not the other way around. And that led to this. It. It started to spread. It started to duplicate and duplicate and duplicate until we had, you know, over a hundred thousand distributors distributing a product. And we're. We're doing. We have people that got the name of the company tattooed on their neck, literally in color. Like, I was. Like, I wasn't even that committed. I was. I think I'm more committed to build your empire than I was to a business that was, you know, doing hundreds of millions of dollars. But it was. It really was. It just kind of happened naturally. We didn't try to force it. We didn't talk about it. We just were. You know, we just had a great culture. We had a great community. We set up, you know, we had core values. We had 10 core values that we. We all knew what they were, at least the leadership did. And we try to live by those, for sure. Integrity, man. Live. Live with integrity and transparency and be authentic. And it's amazing how that will spread and your culture will be amazing, for sure.

And I know that's something here at build your empire. We're trying to perfect and really get to the key culture of what we're doing here. But last question before we wrap this up. And I sort of want to end it on a note. And it's funny because whenever I end the podcast, it's really dependent on where the conversation has been, because every time I go to a podcast, it's like, zero questions. That's something over time. And what I've learned from doing, like, around 90 podcast interviews now, it took me.

Now I'm like, 91. How did that happen, man? I was Andy Frisella and Grant Cardone. All these guys get in front of me, man. This is not right.

Hey, man. So. Because the biggest thing is, it's funny, when me and John met, it's. We. We crushed it with your brand and build your empire. Now then we've doing this for now, eight, eight to nine months. So with the podcast, it's funny because, like, we never, like, talked about it until the event. You were like, why the hell am I not on the podcast? Yeah, we got to get that done because I know we went back and forth on it.

I never thought about it so much because we were too busy actually building something, you know, I mean, we were building together. I knew you were doing podcasts and I was doing other people's podcasts.

Yeah.

No, I'm sorry, go ahead.

No, it's funny, though, but last question. I think it's amazing because, like, I interview a lot of people, but your story in particular, it's you at 24, locked up and understanding that you needed to change. Like, you're the definition of someone that did change, right? There's a lot of people that maybe out there, maybe listening to this, where they were 24, they were maybe 13, if they're 18 now, where, like, they needed. They wanted to change. Right? And even for myself, I was in my neck brace. I knew that I wanted to. Wanted to change what I was currently living, and I did. And I think it's those who do that are those who are the people that actually mean it, and they're actually committed to it. So what would you say to that person that knows what to do? They know that they need to change, but they're still not doing it. They're procrastinating. They're. They're just not making things happen. And it's all dependent on them. They may not even realize it. But what would you tell that person? Maybe it's young. Maybe it's the old John Malott, that when he first started, he wasn't getting through that change, but something kept you going through it. To end the podcast, I really just want you to define that, of how you stuck to it and how you committed to everything you're doing today.

Well, it's real simple because for me and for everybody, in order to make the changes change, you have to know that change is possible. First off, because people talk about change, but if they don't believe it's possible, they're never going to make the changes. So for me, I had to believe that change was actually possible. And how did I figure that? Well, I read some books and some audio autobiographies. I read about other people. I watched other people, and it started to. And then other people started telling me that it was possible for me because I thought it was possible for you. It would be possible for this person of course possible for Grant Cardone or Gary Vee, but not for John Malott. But so change had to be possible. Change had to be personal. You know, I had to take personal responsibility for the change. You know, it had to be very personal to me because my reasons for changing would be different than someone else's reasons for changing. And the third thing was change had to be profitable. So a lot of people don't always look at the. What they're going to get from it. And it's always. We're always tuned into our favorite, you know, radio station, you know, w. Whatever. What's in it for me, basically, and, and change. I had to know that change was going to be profitable. And it didn't. And at first, it wasn't necessarily about how much money would be made, because it took me seven years in entrepreneurship to make $100,000, to finally break $100,000 in a single year. But once I made $100,000, the next year it went to 224,000. A couple years after that, it hit a million. Then it was 2 million a year. You know, I mean, so, yeah, so in the beginning, it was more profitable in the terms I was becoming something. I was becoming more valuable. I could, you know, I started to feel it. I started sharpening up. I started change my language. Back then, it wasn't, you know, in business, we didn't really cuss, you know, so. But I cussed all the time. But I had mentors that say, look, you got to cut your hair, stop cussing, you know, if you want to, if you want to get to profitability, you got to make some changes. And so I made those. I made those changes because I believed it was. Was profitable. And I'll tell you this, that for me, entrepreneurship literally saved my life. I mean, and that's why I'm so passionate about it. I'm such a big fan of anybody who's, who's moving in that direction. Because this is not. Not easy. This will be the hardest easy work you'll ever do. You know, my sister, when she was 21 years old, died from a heroin overdose. My brother today is an active. His whole life, it revolves around getting his heroin. He's 40 some years old, weighs like 70 pounds, no teeth. Every single day is about feeding his heroin addiction. So how do three people from the same household, same neighborhood, same circumstances, one goes one way, one goes the other way. Well, the things I just went through, you know, I had people that came into my life and, and show me where it would be you know, where those changes, where it would be profitable, where it would be personal, you know, where it was possible and maybe somewhere along the way they didn't have that. Now that I'm looking back, it's hard to see that when people are going through things, you know, but even with my brother, I'm constantly offering him, I'm constantly trying to bring this stuff in. He's made a decision now that, that he has no interest. You know, to him, I'm a sellout, which is interesting, you know, as he shows up with cups in his hands looking for money.

Yeah, yeah.

But, yeah, that's it, man. This entrepreneurship and what we're doing with, with build your empire makes me proud. This is my passion play. This is going to be, I believe, part of my legacy going forward. And I, and I pray every day that we're, we're raising up a new generation of leaders, you know, that, that it's not just about, you know, Lamborghinis and Ferraris and all this stuff. It's about impact. And, and I'll leave you with this, that for me, it won't be the government that solves, you know, our financial challenges. It won't be the government that solves our energy crisis or, you know, even the, the, our religious crisis, you know, the things that we can't get along with each other, our political crisis. It's never going to be the government. It's always going to be the entrepreneur. So I'm confident that we're going to continue. I talk about eradicating poverty through entrepreneurship. I see all this social change coming not from politicians because they can't get their shit together. It's going to come from us. Yeah, from entrepreneurs and particularly this next generation that we're raising up through build you'd empire. And you're inspiring every day, you know, with what you do.

Amazing. Well, thank you so much for that, John. And last thing, so regarding content, everyone listening is probably like, oh my gosh, where can I follow John Malott? So what's, what's the best way for people.

Yes, Follow me. Stop following Casey and skipping over me. No, mainly on Instagram. And because of what, what you, you guys did, what you did specifically in putting a team together to help me get my personal brand, which, which I knew was important. People didn't know, you know, other than people knew me about money, which I didn't like that, you know, I wanted to be known for world change or freedom fighter impact, you know, things like that.

But Instagram, John, that's@john.malott on Instagram All.

M A L O1 L2T's M A.

L O T. Yeah, it's funny, a lot of people tend to get those flips, but the link will be down below so you don't have to think about it. All you have to do is click on the link to go check out John on Instagram. Make sure you follow Build you'd Empire on Instagram as well. And we're gonna have to do a follow up podcast on the Build your Empire podcast as well. This will be on both. So if you're listening to the Build you'd Empire podcast, there will be another one. Maybe me, you, Josh will all sit down.

Yeah, we should.

The Build your Empire team will hop on there. So that being said, John Malotte, we've done the Rise of the Young podcast. Thanks so much for coming.

I don't have to mess with you anymore. I don't talk crazy about to.

That being said, thank you everyone for listening to the Rise of the Young podcast. I will talk to you guys on the next episode.

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