Mike Alden - How Writing A Book Can Positively Impact Your Business

Welcome back to the Casey Adams Show. Today I am joined by Mike Alden, the CEO of Alden Publishing and the co founder of Wicked. Happy. Mike, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Thanks for having me, man. I'm super excited to be here. I think I was telling you earlier, this setup's a little bit different than what we're used to. I'm actually doing this out of my house. But I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to talk to you and it's great to see you.

Yeah, you as well, man. I think it's. It's so great to come full circle. I think for the audience and those listening. I would love to just touch on that. You were the first person who I was actually a guest on your podcast when I was 16 years old, living at home. And the fact that again, we're coming full circle to having you on the show today after almost six years of hosting my intro, it's quite surreal for me and I'm super excited about today's episode.

Well, it was super cool. Cause I. So, you know, I've been busy building businesses, right? So like, my social media isn't really that strong. I just didn't have time for it, you know, at one point had a couple hundred employees and we're doing all these things and. But I'm watching what was going on on social media and I think it was you on Snapchat. And I was just like so impressed. I'm like, what is this kid doing? And I got to learn from him, you know? So it was somewhat self serving a little bit. I reached out to you and I was like, hey, man, when you come to my podcast, because I really just wanted to learn from you. I had no idea that you were 16. The best part about it is that is when, when I, when you said yes, it was literally in between dinner and lacrosse practice.

That's crazy. I mean, to think back on those days are insane, right?

It was so cool, man.

Wow. No, well, again, just to come full circle real quick, thank you so much for believing me at that age. Again, you were the first podcast that I was on. And to come to be able to have you on today, I'm stoked about it. And just to jump right into it, Mike, you're someone that I've seen you grow and flourish in businesses. Obviously I introduced you in talking about all things Alden Publishing, but you, in my eyes, are the number one book publisher and book marketer in the world. You helped me when I published my book. I'VE had friends and I've seen the clients you've worked with over the years. But for those that may not be familiar with your work in the world of publishing and marketing books, I would love for you to give a high level overview of what it is you do and where you spend your time.

Sure, yeah. You know, a lot of times people say, well, what do you do for a living? You know, and I would always start off say, well, I'm a lawyer by trade because I wanted everybody to know that I was a lawyer. But, you know, so I just did it again. But you know, at the end of the day, like, you know, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a marketer, I am also an author. And when I launched my first book, Ask More, Get More, having at that point already sold millions and millions and millions of books for other people, direct to consumer, not necessarily in an effort to get on any sort of lists. When I launched my book, I was like, look, we're going to be a New York Times bestseller. It's, it's guaranteed, right? It's just a matter of whether or not we're going to be number one. And then I realized it's a different game when you're trying to sell books in an effort to make these lists which ultimately can, you know, really change the trajectory of your business, of your personal profile. So when I launched that book, at first I was, I was super excited. And then I, then I was really dejected because what happened was, is when I first did my first push, things didn't go the way as planned. I mean, we had all sorts of things, books shipped early, you know, we didn't make any lists the first time out. So I was determined to figure it out. As a marketer, as a type A personality, I'm like, I got to figure this world out. And I did. And that book, we hit Wall Street Journal and USA Today multiple times and obviously number one on Amazon and all that other stuff. And you know, that led to a two book deal with Wiley & Sons, the fifth largest publisher in the world and publicly traded. And from there that also turned into what I'm now doing in Alden Publishing. I never thought about publishing books for people. I never thought about marketing books for other people. But you, when you and I connected with your book, if you remember, you know, you're like, hey, I mean, your book was still in its infancy. Like you were sending me, I was like kind of editing. I actually did. I made edits to your book, you know.

Yeah, you did.

And I. But, but your story as well is so, is so impressive. And, and so I wanted to help you because, you know, at the time you were like, what, 17 at that point?

Yeah.

So I'm like, you know what, I want to help this kid. But I was also super impressed with what you, with what you're doing. So, you know, this has turned into a business for us. And it's really interesting having, you know, I own a vodka, I've owned a daily fantasy sports company. I got a direct response business. I got all these things. I would have never thought that I'd be now marketing books for other people. And I really love it because I've made all the mistakes. I just posted on, on Threads now, the latest social media thing. I'm sure you're probably an expert in it already.

I've been dabbling with it, you know, the last 24 hours or so. It's fun, it's cool, and it's interesting to, to think through, you know, where it's going to be, but continue.

Yeah. And so I just posted, you know, some, some, some images of my, my book wrapping a nascar, and not once, not twice, but multiple times. My first race was the Daytona 500, and I'm not even a NASCAR guy. I'm just like, this is cool. It's cool, but it doesn't sell books. So really what I'm getting at is I made a lot of mistakes. I spent millions of dollars, you know, marketing my books. But that has now turned into a business. When I was on a podcast just like this, someone reached out to me and said, hey, you know, I do Amazon plays for people when I charge. This is five years ago. She's like, I do Amazon plays for people and we charge $15,000. I was like, for Amazon. And I was, like, blown away by it. She's like, but this client specifically wants Wall Street Journal. He wants USA Today. Can you do it for him? And I was like, I think so, as long as he knows that he's the first one. And that has now turned into now over 100 books later. We just did one for a good friend of yours. You know, we could tell that story if we want a little bit later. But I just love doing it because I'm an author, but I'm also a marketer first.

Yeah, no, I, I love that. So when it comes to all things publishing books, I'm curious, like, how has the publishing world changed today versus five, maybe even ten years ago or when since you put out your first book in terms of what You've learned if people are looking to, you know, put out a book today in 2023.

Yeah, you know, the publishing world is interesting. You know, we talk about, you probably do remember the blockbusters of the day, you know, when, you know, we used to go to the store and we would buy these things called Voe Rent, these things called VHS tapes and then they became DVDs. And you know, I saw a documentary years ago, it was called All Things Shall Pass and it was about Tower Records and how the CD, basically just the CD, not MP3 is not digital audio, but the CD destroyed their business. And so I feel like the publishing world, a lot of them are. I mean, it's like they should watch these, these movies and also look at what history has done because a lot of these publishers are still so antiquated. They're doing things that, that, that existed in the 1900s and they're just not paying attention to what's happening into the world. So I think one of the biggest things that's changed since I've really been involved in it is self publishing. You know, self publishing used to be, really had a kind of a negative connotation to it. It was kind of wonky. No one really do it. You only had a couple different options. Now there are so many options. There are so many. There are so many services out there that can help you. And you know what, quite frankly, the person who buys the book, they don't care that you're with a big time publisher or not. They have. They don't care at all. And so when I look at really the biggest change, I think that's great for authors. I think it's the self publishing world.

Very cool. And I mean that's what I. When I published my book in 2017, that's the route I went. And it's been. I've had so many friends and partners that have gone out to publish their own books through self publishing. And it's really cool to see how much it's ramped up at least since I got familiar with it just about five years ago. But I want to diverge the conversation a bit. I know you brought up that you, you know, you're a lawyer. Where did this journey for you begin in all things business? Entrepreneurship, getting into, you know, pursuing a career as a lawyer and just, you know, give some context on where you're from and how this journey began for you.

Sure, yeah. You know, I have a, I call it a somewhat common story as like an entrepreneur. You know, I grew up really Poor. I. You know, surrounded by crime, drugs, violence. My mom's HIV positive. My stepfather died of aids. A kid I grew up was in jail for life for murder. One of my brothers OD'd. My father was addicted to coke. You know, I remember what it was like standing in the separate line in elementary school, middle school, and high school because my lunch was subsidized by the state. So I grew up really tough. Right. I mean, there are a lot worse situations than mine. But when you grow up like that, and whether you grow up poor like me or you grow up without resources, you have to kind of figure things out, right? And you either go the right way or the wrong way. And I went. I went both ways. But then as I started to get a little bit older, I had like 15, 16 years old. I started to see kids, like, talking about college. I was like, whoa, college. Like, maybe. Maybe I should consider that maybe I should clean my life up a little bit. So I realized that I wasn't going to go anywhere in the right direction unless I decided to seek higher education. Thankfully, I was a decent athlete. Played football, in which, you know, you injured your neck in. Right.

Yeah.

And I was able to essentially get a scholarship to a Division 2 school. And I started to really be interested in the law. And I was like, you know what? I want to go to law school. So went to law school, did well. But my story is kind of crazy. As a lawyer, the day I started with a company, they were sued by the ftc, the fda, the IRS came after them, and then it went criminal. So when you talk about being thrown.

In the fire the first day you.

Were at a company, the first day, I mean, like. I mean, I literally walked into a meeting and it was. It was all out chaos. And I had no idea. But as a young lawyer, it was a great thing. That company, you know, did some crazy things. And it was. It was that. That's a whole story in and of itself. But one of the things that they were doing is they were selling books. And we were selling books direct to consumer. We were selling them via infomercial, essentially. Right? And so when. When I started to understand that world, it was really interesting to me as a lawyer because, you know, obviously we have the First Amendment. The First Amendment isn't really necessarily what people think it is. In other words, you know, it doesn't. It doesn't give you free rein to just say whatever you want. But when you. When you are producing a publication like a book, it's, you know, it's Pretty difficult to screw that up, so to speak. Although that company did.

Yeah, sure.

So. So I was really interested in the marketing aspect of selling a book in an effort to not only tell your story, but also to sell other stuff. I mean, I don't know if you've had Dean Graziosi on. Like, Dean. Dean was. Has been on my show.

And I did.

I've known years. And, you know, we were part of how to Be a Real Estate Millionaire. That was our campaign. And I watched, you know, what he was doing. And so I was really interested as a marketer, as a young entrepreneur, as a kid that was doing the lemonade stands, you know, in the summer, and shoveling driveways in the winter, you know, I was really interested in the business side of, you know, selling books. Telling the story is great, and I love telling my story, and I have some cool stories, and I've done some really cool things. But then I also was like, okay, well, this is a big business, and how does it work? And so, like any business, you know, you have to kind of figure it out, make mistakes, you know, throughout the way. You know, throughout the way. And, you know, in my book, Ask More, Get More, I tell a story about how I forged my birth certificate when I was 14 years old to get a job at Chuck E. Cheese.

No way. Why did you. So I would love to dive into that if you want to. It's just what led to forging this birth certificate. Did you not have one? Did you lose it? Like, what?

Oh, no, I didn't lose it. I was just too young. Because. Because you could. You had to be. You had to be 15 to work, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I did that, and I got a job there. And by the time I was done, I was essentially running the kitchen. I knew. I knew, you know, I knew what I was doing. I was 17. They thought I was 18. But here's the interesting part about it. I learned what it's like to be in business. I learned what it's like to work really long hours. I learned what it's like to be a part of a system, to be a part of a larger organization. But here's the crazy thing about what happened, and this is what we can talk about a lot of, and how what books can do for people years later. Fast forward to 2014, when that book came out. I got asked to go to a mastermind by Kevin Harrington to. And he says, hey, Kevin. And he says, hey, Mike, I want you to go to this mastermind. He wasn't even Going. He's like, you got to go. I want you to meet another friend of mine. Like, ah, I don't know if I want to go. My book was coming out. I went there. Spencer Johnson was there from the book who moved my cheese. There's just 25 of us, right?

Yeah.

And one guy I met, his name is Larry Benet. You should probably. So Larry gets my book, reads it. A couple days later, he texts me, he says, hey, Mike, I read your book. It's great. Would you like Nolan Bushnell to endorse your book? And I was like, who's Nolan Bushnell? He's like, nolan Bushnell is the founder of Atari in Chuck E. Cheese. He might be interested in that. So I was like, sure. So he gets Nolan Bushnell the book. Nolan reads it, he loves it. Of course he endorses the book. Now, I wouldn't say I'm besties with Nolan Bush now, but you know, I can reach out to him. And here's another crazy thing that just happened.

Like, wow, that's a full circle moment.

Yeah. But it just. This happened a couple months ago. I spoke at. I'm a part of a group called Metal Metal. And I spoke about books and publishing and things like that. And I told that story right to about. It was a breakout group of about 50 guys. Guess who was in the audience? Nolan Bushnell. I had no idea he was even in the audience. And he. And so, so he, he, you know, he edified the whole story. You know, it was great. So I guess what I'm also getting at too, with telling my story a little bit and why I'm so excited about books is that, you know, as a kid from the projects, a kid that didn't have contacts, I didn't grow up with money. I didn't have parents that had anything. I didn't really know anybody. And even as I started to have some success in business, I was still kind of like behind the eight ball. I wasn't involved in social media. I wasn't really doing a lot of that stuff. But the book legitimized me. Right. It gave me credibility. Now I'm a Wall Street Journal, USA Today best selling author multiple times. And so it opened doors for me and it created relationships for me that would have never happened if it wasn't for the fact that I wrote a book.

Wow. What was your intention with writing your first book? What inspired you to even do that? I know you talked about working with as a lawyer and they were putting out books, but when it comes to this idea of putting out your first book and now and not knowing everything, you know now, like, what would. What did you think it would lead to? And what was your mindset back then as a newly, you know, first published author?

Yeah, you know, great, great, great question. I. I initially was like, you know what? I saw what Dean did.

Yeah.

And his business model. I'm like, I want to do the same thing. Right. So I just started to write a book. Now, a lot of people don't know this little secret about a lot of marketing. I think they believe they still do this digitally is, you know, you can come up with the idea, you come up with a concept, you can come up with the COVID and then just test it. Right. Put it out there to see if there's any. If it has any sort of legs or any sort of, you know, market viability. And so I started to write stories about my life and the things that I have done. And as I'm writing him, I was like, wow, you know what? I think we actually have a real book here. But the goal was to put it on television, to bring people into what we all now call a funnel. Right. So we did an infomercial for Ask More, Get More. It's out there on YouTube. You can see it. In an effort to bring people in to then sell them other stuff. But here's the thing. I didn't want to sell other stuff. It's just not who I am. I'm just like, I don't want to sell you a $97 course. In fact, I just posted about that on Threads. I didn't want to sell you a $97 course in an effort to get you into the 297 to the 1997 into the mastermind. It just wasn't me at that time. Why? Because I still had a lot to learn. I still a lot of stuff to do, and I didn't want to just repackage what everyone else is already doing and a lot of that stuff out there. So my initial goal, Kasey, was just to build a business. But as I was writing the book, and then we came up with the title Ask More, Get More people, like, hey, man, like, this is a real book. Like, like this is a cool book. You should maybe think about getting it published. And then I kind of went down that journey as well and learned. Kind of learned that world and how it all worked. So that was my original goal, was just. Just to create a business.

Wow. So how many books have you published now?

So. So personally, my first book was Ask More, Get More. That led to a two book deal with Wiley and Sons. The second one was titled 5% more. The next one is called Blueprint to Business. I also did this one brought here. This one was fun. This is a children's book with my daughter. This one was the most fun. Peanut butter and toast. It has no like real kind of moral to the story or anything like that. A lot of children's books, they have like, you know, some sort of. More. It was just a fun little thing that my daughter and I did and that cost me, that's so great money. I probably shouldn't have done it, but it was still, it was still fun. And so myself personally, I've actually written seven books. And now collectively, again, we've marketed and got books on these bestseller list over a hundred. And we've done it really quietly. Right. You know, I have talked about it here and there. I haven't really talked about it a lot because I also have other businesses that kind of quote, pay the bills. But this now is turning into something that is bigger than I, than I thought that I even dreamed of.

Yeah, that's incredible. I do want to, I want to touch on something. So you published this book with your daughter. How old was she when she was this co author with you?

All right, so she was nine at the time.

Okay.

And by the time it came out, she was 11, right?

Yep.

So I said to her, I'm like, honey, look, and I'll give you, I'll give everybody a little bit of a secret. I think we'll call it a backdoor way. I think this is a backdoor way to get on the New York Times. And I think it's children's books. And so I was like, I think I can get on the New York Times with a children's book. So there's a little self serving there, a little bit, you know, But I remember talking to my daughter at like 10, when the book was, you know, kind of in its different, different versions. I was like, hey, honey, are you, do you still want to do this? Like, are you still into it? She's like, yeah. But then when she, then when she was 11, she was kind of like done with it, you know, so I'd already spent all this money, you know, putting it together. And so we, you know, we brought it through. But I tell you this, we had a lot of fun. You know, I, you know, we went to Barnes and Noble a bunch of times and we did like book readings and, you know, and kids liked It. And then we donated books to like different charitable organizations. And I just had a lot of fun doing it. Now my daughter is 17, you know, going into her senior year, and she's a legit, bona fide, you know, bestselling author. What she wants to do with that, I'm not sure. But I'm pretty sure there aren't a lot of kids who are putting on their college applications that they're actually best selling authors, published authors too. Like this was. This wasn't. This actually wasn't. This was with a publisher. This was a publisher called Amplify Publishing. So, you know, we actually got a publishing deal. But by the way, I wouldn't have been able to even get that publishing deal if it wasn't for the other books that I had already sold.

Yeah, absolutely. That's incredible. So when you've helped 100 authors or so get on these bestseller lists, what is the blueprint at a high level of success for an author? I think that obviously, if you're watching this video, I have hundreds of books in my office here. And some of them are very notable, some of them you've probably never heard of. And obviously the success of a book can vary based on publishers, marketing, your audience, or just the test of time. And I still read books that were published in the early 1900s. Right?

Yeah.

And I gotta ask you, what makes a book successful, in your opinion? And what have you learned over the years, Whether that's the books that you've worked with or some of your favorite books that you read? How do you define success as a book? Maybe that's the list. Maybe it's another way, but would love to hear your thoughts on that.

Yeah, I mean, it's great. Like the definition of success is such a fluid term for everybody, right? Yeah. But I'll say this. I find that most authors forget about the marketing. If you want to have success with your book, you need to prepare from day one. The second you put pen to paper pen. Or the second you decide you're going to type down whatever you're going to write down on your computer, whatever it is, you need to think about the marketing. Because I don't care how great your book is, I don't care how many people endorse it, I don't care who writes the forward. It doesn't matter unless you prepare for the marketing. Now, you and I were talking about this. You know, your girlfriend has a book coming out. I don't believe that you have to spend the kind of money that I've Spent either. But what I do believe is your book is never going to see the light of day. It's never going to get to the masses. It's never going to do the things that you think it's going to do just by the mere words that are in the book. Right. So you have to decide from the very beginning that you're going to market the book. It's really that simple. From there, however you want to define success is up to you. You know, I was talking, you know again, you and I in Jacqueline, right. We were talking and like Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Times, when you, when you do that stuff, your life changes forever. It's great, but it doesn't necessarily. It's not the end all be all right. You know, there are books that have never made any of these lists that are seven, eight figure businesses like you said, that people have never even heard of. So you have to decide, you know, what you, what your definition of success is. But I'll tell you this, if you want your book to do anything great, you have to decide to market the book.

I love that. I think it's true, right. I've heard people talk about there's the best books, then you have the best selling books. You could have the best book ever. But the best selling books obviously are the ones that get the notoriety and actually have the influence through readers. Right. When it comes to just all things competitive in books, I don't know the figures, maybe you do, but how many books are being published a week, a month, a year?

It's increasing now, right? It's millions a year.

Right.

And so now you're again, now you're a part of millions of books that are coming out each year. I'm talking worldwide. The numbers are all kind of all over the place. But if you look at Amazon, there's millions and millions of books. I mean, that's why if you look at some of the rankings, you know, you're like, you know, 2 million and change. Like that's your ranking, right?

Yeah.

So it's millions of books. And so to cut through the noise, just like anything, what's going on, like just in the digital world and social media and anything, you have to figure out a way to get, you know, people's attention. So, you know, like, like you said, the greatest book in the world. And I've read some great ones, like my first book, Ask More, Get More. It is certainly not going to win me any literary awards. Let's just be honest, right? It's a great Book. It's a great story. My second book, I believe is my best one, which is 5% more. That one I spent a lot more time on. I did a lot of research. I hired. That was a. That was a lot more comprehensive. But I learned a lot. So, you know, the numbers continue to increase and also the mediums. Right. So when you think about digital versions of the book and then you also have the physical and then also you have the audio, there are some pretty innovative things that are happening within the digital side of things and the audio side of things. And so it's super competitive within, with. Within books. And it continues to look when people talk about reading books, a lot of people now are listening to books. People aren't going to stop reading books or stop listening to books. That's never going to happen. Why? Because like you were saying, the things we can learn. Right. I've. I have books that are written same thing in like the 1900s that still apply today. Like the Law of Success, which is Napoleon Hill, which is, you know, was thinking grow rich. Like that book is like the Bible to me. Like. Like I read that book almost every day. I have it in different parts of. I have one of my. My on my nightstand. I have one in the bathroom where everyone's always reading. I have one over here on my desk. I have it everywhere because for me, I'm always learning stuff from it. So people are going to. Always going to read books. It's just whether or not if you want them to read your book. And that's really up to you.

Absolutely. Speaking of great literature and books overall, like, who are some of the authors that have influenced you? Whether that's your writing or maybe that's their marketing or just people that have influence impacted you in the way you either have read their books or just all of their work.

Yeah. I mean, so the magic of thinking big was. Was really by last name, last name Schwartz. You know, that book was the book that changed my life. I believe it was written in like 19.

That's what I.

Or something like that.

Yeah. That's Andy Frisella's favorite book. Imagine a thing in day.

That book, that book 100% changed my life. I recommend anybody. Like, if. Here's the thing growing up the way I did, like, I saw a lot of despair. I saw a lot of negativity. I was never. I didn't have anybody around me that was positive. I didn't have anybody around me that was like a multimillionaire. So those concepts of success, whether it Be, you know, monetary success or having the physical things and having all the material things or whatever that. Whatever your definition is, that just wasn't. It wasn't around me, right? And so when I was introduced to that book, the Magic of Thinking Big, it was at that company that I was working at, and I read it, and honestly, I didn't buy into any of that stuff. Like, I was like, you know, the Law of Attraction, that's. It says it's not real. You know, pot. The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale, by the way, that was a big one for me. Like, there's a lot of religious overtones in that book, you know, So a lot of people might be turned off by it, but I'm not. I'm. I'm not like a super religious guy. But, you know, so when. When you. When I read those books and I. And I decided that, you know, I want to change my life, I mean, by then I was already a lawyer. So I was like 28 when I first read those books. And I. I internalized them, and I decided that, you know what, all the successful people that I know have read these types of books and they talk about these books, you know. And so the other one is called the Go Getter. And in the Go Getter, there's a great story about a guy named Bill Peck, and he's given the impossible task of getting the Blue Vase, which is the big company that I own. And that's kind of like the umbrella on the Umbrella company. And in that book, you know, you learn a lot of different things. It's only like 140 pages, but again, it's written in the early 1900s. And then you go to Napoleon Hill, the Law of Success. I believe that Napoleon Hill, I mean, other than the Bible itself, you know, I believe that Napoleon Hill was really kind of the pioneer in the world of success. And there's a lot of controversy about him and what he studied, what he didn't study, who he knew, who he knew, who he didn't know. But the fact of the matter is, that is one of the greatest success books ever written. I'll say this, though, I would not read that book first, because he talks about things in that book that, quite frankly, seem a little trippy to people. It seems he does talk about brain waves and radio frequency. We all know that it exists now. But when you. He wrote that book in 1919. Right. And so when he talks about how. When you. When you think there's actually. There's actually radio frequencies Radio brainwaves that. That emit, they. They leave our body and they go somewhere. So when people talk about the law of attraction, or how many times have you thought about somebody? You know, you're on. You're on one side of the country, I'm on the other side of the country, and then all of a sudden, boom. You get a text message or a phone call. Like, that's so weird. How'd that happen? It happened because of the concepts that we're talking about in the book the Law of Success. So if you're not really ready for that type of stuff, you know, you can start out a little bit slower with a book. Like the Magic of Thinking Big. You know, like in the Magic of Thinking Big, some of the simplest things, like just dressing for success, you know, before I came on your podcast today, I changed my shirt, I put some more gel on my hair, I washed my face. I made sure I looked okay. You saw Taryn, my. My girlfriend. She was in the background making sure the background looked okay, you know, because it's important.

Yep.

To set. You're up, to set yourself up for success. Whereas the way I grew up is like, ah, whatever. Throw a T shirt on, do whatever. I could have wore a hat on this thing, and no one would have said anything. Right. By the way, I've done podcasts, my own podcast. I do it all the time. But. But for you, like, in your audience, you know, in order to be presentable, right. In order to really come across as a guy that knows what he's talking about, the right thing to do is to dress for success. So in that book, that was one of the first times I learned, like, all right, I should get some nice shoes. You know, I should. I should. I should buy some starch. And when I'm ironing my shirts, you know, I should buy myself, like, a really nice suit. Not like 10 cheap ones, but, like one or two, like, really nice ones. You know, I should, you know, I should, you know, feel good about myself when I'm walking into. Into a meeting, buy the clothes that I'm wearing. You don't have to buy, like, you know, a Rolex or all these expensive things, but, you know, you really want to set yourself up for success. So that was one of the first things that I learned, you know, in that book. You know, and then again, the power of positive thinking. And then another thing, too, like, within these books, a lot of times they'll reference other books. And so then I'm like, oh, well, what's that?

Always for sure. Yeah.

Yeah. And then I would just go and read those. So I really. But I. I would say the magic of thinking big was the one that changed my life. But the law of success is. Which really took my life to another level.

I love that when it comes to reading, like, growing up right in the environment that you did, like, were you. When did books become a big part of your life? Obviously, being a lawyer and going to school is one aspect of it, but growing up, like, did you pick up a. A book? Was that something you did? For me, I'll say absolutely not until I was 16 and got injured and was really forced to do something with my time. But I'm curious to hear your perspective on that and how books have influenced you throughout your life.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. So I wasn't, like, a big reader. I would. I would do everything I could to avoid that. But. But. But here's the thing is, my mom read to me almost every night, you know, and she used to read me a lot of Dr. Seuss things. And, you know, you have Horton Hears a who and they have Horton Hatches and Eggs, right? There are two different Horton ones.

Yep.

And shoot me, Horton Hatches an Egg. A lot. In all the Dr. Seuss books, there is some sort of moral, there is some sort of story. There is something to learn from these, right? And in Horton Hatches an Egg, there's a. There's a bird named Maisie, right? And so in Horton Hatches and Egg, he's. I don't want to ruin it for anybody, but, you know, you can read it. You know, he goes and he's in the woods and he sees that there's this. There's this egg and that this bird's on. Her name's Maisie. And Maisie wants to leave, right? And so Horton's like, well, I'll stay for you. You know, I'll sit on the egg for a little while for you, right? And so Horton climbs up the tree and he sits on. He sits on this egg, and he goes through all these different things, and the. The. The. All the animals come to the forest and they're laughing at him. So he's like a pariah. And it's raining out and it's storming out. And then at some point, hunters come, and then they like, whoa, this is kind of crazy. And they capture them, they bring. They do all these different things, right? But his mantra, so to speak, was. I said what I meant. I meant when I said an elephant's faithful 100 and so. Like, you know, I don't really remember a lot of quotes from books and things like that, but I'll never forget that, you know. And so, by the way, I'm probably, no kidding, probably the largest collector, like, art collector of Horton stuff. I have Horton stuff everywhere. In fact, there's a. You can't see it. There's an elephant right behind me. And so as a kid, my mom used to read to me all the time. We had the bookmobile that would come into the. To the hood where I grew up, you know, and, and, but I wasn't really, like a big reader. I just wasn't really into it. And then in law school, like, I read every page of every book because I had to, you know, that was really it. But, But I'll tell you this. When I decided in my late 20s that I was going to pick up books and learn from books and learn from other successful people, then my life really started to change when I decided to embrace it and accept the fact that I am not going to be successful, whatever that is, for me or for other people, without learning from others. And so it isn't just going to happen. You know, a lot of people think, well, I'm a good person, I'm a hard worker, I'm smart, therefore I'm going to be successful. That isn't how the world works, right? We all learn from other people's successes and failures. And so in these books, you're going to learn about it, and you're also going to kind of spark something, you know, within yourself. You know, I had Dan Coyle from the book the Talent Code. And in the Talent Code, you know, he talks about an ignition moment in life, right? And it's mostly about sports. But when you pick up a book and you read it, you, you know, the story itself may not necessarily. You may not necessarily be able to fully, like, appreciate it or even fully relate to it, but it may spark something inside of you at that moment. You might not even feel it right then and there, but it might spark something within you that could forever change your life. And so I say to people, I, you know, look, I hear these people, these numbers. They say the average CEO reads 60 books a year. I think that's bullshit. I don't think a CEO has that much time. They might listen to a lot of books. But I'll tell you this. Pick up a book that may. Or ask your friends that are successful, like, hey, what book? Like you said, Andy Frisella, right? You know, Andy's Doing like, hey, what did you read? Like, what is your favorite book? Just like you asked me. And then just see where it takes you. Because it might not change your life today, tomorrow, or next week, but it most likely will change your life later on. And you won't even necessarily even know it because that ignition moment happened within you.

Yeah, I hear you on that. I can't just, over the years of the question, the thousands and thousands of questions that I've asked on the show, I always, I can reflect and pick out and point to just books that I've either been recommended or have influenced me. And I think it's just something, at least for me. I love storytelling, hence why I've been doing the podcast for six years. And when I was on Andy Frisella's podcast recently, he was asking me about my books that I love to read or like, some new ones that I found interesting. And there were two biographies that I loved so much. It was Michael Dell's biography, Play Nice. But when. And then Richard Branson's, which was the book's called Losing My Virginity.

Yeah, I've read that great, great story.

And I just, when you hear a story like that again, I kind of what you were saying, Mike, about might not influence you in a moment, but I've already had situations that I will then reflect on why I'm doing things. And I can ask myself, like, oh, what led, what led to that decision or what that thought process? And it, you know, every now and then I can find myself saying, oh, it stemmed from that book that I read. And therefore it's influenced me in this positive way. But I think it's very fascinating. I know we've been talking about books a lot during this podcast, but I would love to hear your thoughts and really dive into some of the lessons learned throughout the years of running the businesses, building teams. I know that you said at one point you had hundreds of employees. What are some of the business fundamentals or, or lessons that you've learned over the years that if you could reflect on and think through and teach yourself, what would those lessons be and why?

Boy, you know, great, great questions, Kasey. You know, I, you know, hear a lot of people, they flex and they say all the things that they've done and how much money they've made. And, you know, my businesses have generated hundreds of millions. If people ever wanted to see my tax returns, I can show you, but I haven't kept millions. And I talk about that publicly all the time. And I'll tell you so Let me tell you about some mistakes that I made, you know, so, you know, and I just again, posted about something like this on Threads, which is, you know, growing up the way I did, growing up poor, not having money and then going from, you know, you know, I was making great money as a lawyer, and I probably could have, you know, transitioned and working somewhere in Boston, you know, where I'm from, and making great money then. But I decided to start my own business in 2008, you know, what used to be what I used to call the worst economy in the history of the world at that time. And, you know, we. Our first year, I think we did 9 million, and then it was 20, and then it was 30, and then it was 40. That was 50. And we were kind of like peaking at 50. And I think one year we might have even, like, hit 60. So, you know, millions of dollars. And, you know, I saw also from my previous employer, like, what can go wrong, right? And when you're generating that kind of money that fast, it's really hard to manage it, right? And I've had some friends tell me, say, mike, making your first million is easy. Keeping it is hard, you know. And so one of the mistakes that I made as a. As a kid who grew up in the projects and wanted to kind of help everybody, I wanted every. I wanted my parents to be okay. You know, I wanted, you know, my brothers to be okay. I wanted to take care of this one, take care of that one. That was the problem. I took care of too many people, including the people that worked for me. I mean, I had a hallway of executives are all making $200,000 a year, plus. Right. And then. And then there were some times where. Where I had, you know, I had employees that worked for me that were making more money than me. And. And no one knew that I knew that. Of course, you know, I mean, if I needed to pull money out of the business, I could do that at any time, right? Because it was my business. So I would say to. Especially to young entrepreneurs. And, you know, Robert Kiyosaki talks about this and rich dad, poor dad, you know, pay yourself first. You know, it's really important to do that, because if you don't, right. If you don't take care of yourself and something goes wrong, there's nobody else that's going to help you, right? And so. And so that's happened to me many times throughout my career where I just was. Quite frankly, I was just too generous. I overpaid people. You know, my book settled. Ask More. Get more. I. I would say I'm a pretty good negotiator. So I don't necessarily believe that I've overpaid for services, but I basically overpaid people. Like, I didn't. I'm not like a, you know, like, I wouldn't. I wouldn't say Andy Frisel is like this either. But I mean, you know, like, I don't have a Porsche. I don't have a Rolls Royce. I don't drive a Bentley. I don't do any of that stuff. You know, I lived in a beautiful house in a private neighborhood. And where I grew up, I sold that house recently, you know, so I've had a lot of that stuff, but it doesn't necessarily fulfill me. Right. And so I didn't. My point is, is, like, I didn't buy a bunch of stupid shit, but what I did was, is I as. I overpaid people too much for too long. And it's really hard, too, because a lot of the times these people, they're your friends, and it's a really. The lines get blurred. Friend, employer, employee, relationship. You can have both. Some people don't believe you can. You can have both. Like, I'm still friends, close friends with people that worked for me for 15 years that I had to lay off, you know, and the reason why we're still friends is because, you know, I'm open, honest, and candid with people. I tell them kind of how it is. So I would say one of the mistakes that I made was, again, being too generous. You know. The other thing, too, that I would say is I've taken my eye off the ball a lot, you know, in business. And in fact, in blueprint to business, I tell a story where it's the opening story, where I'm in this, you know, 7,000 square foot house in a private neighborhood in Beverly, Massachusetts, where the town that I grew up in, literally Beverly Hills, was founded from a guy from Beverly, Massachusetts. I'm in my pool, a kid from the projects. I'm just like, loving life. And I get a text from a guy who provided services to us and says that we owed him 12 grand. And I was like, oh, and by the way, I'm telling the story, I'm getting ready to go on my boat, right? The whole thing sounds absurd. And I was like, well, wait a minute, we owe him 12 grand? Like, how is that possible? Like, like, that's nothing, you know, I mean, that's like. That's like an hour or less in business that we're doing, you know, and really what was happening was, is because I just built this house and I was trying to, you know, kind of like, enjoy the things that I had. I took my eye off the ball and then no one said anything to me. So I had all these people working for me, right? Nobody said anything to me. Why? And here's the thing. This is the hard truth. There's nothing wrong with being an employee. Nothing. Most people are employees. But as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, as someone who employs people, right. Nobody cares about the business as much as you do. And a lot of times, more times than not, the employees aren't going to tell you the negative things that are happening. Why? Because that could negatively impact their own financial interests. So as a business owner, you need to keep your eye on the ball. You need to check up on things, and you need to also maybe have a couple people, one or two people around you that are willing to tell you that stuff, you know, And I have, you know, I actually have two guys now that have been with me for almost 20 years.

Wow.

He's our COO and also our general counsel. They say a lawyer who represents himself has a full for client. So I don't have a. I don't. I don't practice law for myself, you know, so those two guys will tell me, mike, you know, we got to do this or we got to pivot here. We do these things. So those are the things that I. That I've learned. And then the other thing I'll say is that one thing I think is really important for any business is, is. Is for the owner to have, you know, is for the owner to have a top level understanding of every aspect of the business, right? So my business, of the supplement business, right? So I understand everything about it from how it's made to how the labels are made, to the bottles, to how it's shipped, to how it's manufactured, to that, how we process the orders, to how they're packaged, to what happens in customer service, to what happens in sales. You know, all of it from the marketing, all that stuff. And I know how to do all of it. Now, if you ask me to do it all right now, it might take me a little bit of time to figure it out again, but I can do it right? So the reason why is because as a, as a, as the owner of the business, you see things differently than everyone else does. So I encourage people, like, I used to do this all the time. I would take customer service calls, people like, what are you Doing take customer service calls. You had mentioned my business Wicked Happy, right?

Yeah.

So I've done this. I've posted this before, like, and I was just talking to one of my kids about this. I'll throw on a backpack and put Wicked Happy gear in the back in my backpack and hats and hoodies or whatever, and I will go into stores and open up stores to this day. And people say, mike, you don't have to do that. Why would you do that? Why would I do that? Well, because. So I can really understand the process and also see what's different. So I would take customer service calls in my business. I would make sales calls. I would take incoming sales calls. I will take the trash out, you know, and the reason why is because I see things a little bit differently than other people. And here's another thing. What I say to business owners is have every one of your employees do the same thing. So if you hire somebody in customer service, have them work in sales for a couple days, that makes customer service people really nervous, and vice versa. Right? Look, I'm not. I hired you as a salesperson. I'm not going to put you on customer service. But I want you to understand the perspective of a customer service agent versus a sales agent. I want you to know what it's like when you make that sale and then it goes to shipping. What happens next? Right. And so when they can, then when they have a better understanding of the business, then they are also going to operate at a higher level, because they know that. Oh, okay. Well, I placed the order today. You know, it didn't go out today. It's going to go out tomorrow. And here's why. Because it's Tuesday, whatever, however the business is run. So I tell every business owner, look, take all of your employees, all of them, and have them work in basically every department for at least a couple days, especially in the very beginning.

The key things that you said there, Mike, were extremely valuable. I want you to know, and I know I learned a lot there, and I'm sure a lot of entrepreneurs out there that are listening did the same. So thank you so much for sharing that. I wanted to end on this because I think it's something not only that's important to you, but that we've had conversations about. And it's this phrase that is now a brand that you call Wicked Happy. What does Wicked Happy mean to you and how did that brand get started? Because I think it's so important to end on this as it's such a, you know, an important thing in your life. And I think it's. It has a lot of value as well.

Yeah, you know, it's great, you know, because you're tied to the story too, which is. Which is so surreal. Right. So, you know, several years ago, I think we're going on, like, four years ago now. Right. I was speaking at the Build you'd Empire event, which you were the CEO of. And I knew John Milott and Josh, and I, you know, I was talking with them. They were doing this event. I was like, hey, I'd love to speak there.

Great.

And you were the CEO of it. So I spoke there. And when I was there, I think we're doing 20, 30 million a year or something like that at the time. But the business was kind of, like, stagnant. But I still had a ton of employees and a lot of stuff going on. And during that time, before I even spoke, I think it was in Phoenix. Right. I don't know exactly how it happened, but I realized that my aunt. We have call centers, right? Thousands of 800 numbers. I realized that my on hold message was taking too long to get to a customer. So someone would call in and they would wait forever. So I got really frustrated. That's kind of the beginnings of the story.

Yeah.

I do my little speech at your event, and a guy comes up to me and he shows me his business. It was a T shirt business, and he was doing like 6 million a year out of, like, Michigan. And I was like, wow. Pretty good numbers for a pretty simple business. I'm like, how many employees you have? I was just like five of us. And he was showing it to me, and I was like, wow, that's really interesting. And be honest with you, I wasn't super impressed with the actual business itself, like, as far as, like, the quality and stuff. But I was like, he's doing something right, you know, and it's really simple. And so I went back to my hotel room, and I was talking to a friend of mine who's now passed. His name is Jim Shriner, who was like, one of the most positive people ever. And I was just telling him how unhappy I was. And, and. And I had known that I was unhappy. Even though I've, you know, had access to all this money and anything I wanted, I was just really unhappy. And I just said to him, I said, you know, man, I just. I just want to be wicked happy now. We're from Boston now. People think that wicked is just a New England thing. It's not. They say it actually all over the world. I go, man, I just want to be wicked happy. And he's like, wow. He goes, I think that's a T shirt, you know? And then I was talking to our lawyer, and I told him the same story. And again, I said, like, man, again, I just. I just want to be wicked happy. And he goes, I think it's a brand, you know? And I was like, wow. You know what? Yeah, I do, too. So we said, hey, let's see if we can get the domain. I'm a lawyer. Let's see if we can, you know, see if we can trademark it. But more importantly, we started to think about how apparel and clothing can transform people's lives. And it sounds, again, so simple how just those two words, wicked happy, can change the way people think. It can take someone who's in a really negative place and change their life with just those two words. And we started this in 2019. Then Covid hits, right? So we had a lot of, you know, ups and downs in the very beginning, but the very genesis of it, the beginnings of that business, was ultimately really because I wasn't happy, and I wanted to find happiness. And you know what? To be honest with you, wicked happy still wasn't the answer. You know, it wasn't the answer. But what I found was, for me, is that it was the beginning of me saying, you know what, Mike? Like, why aren't you happy? And let's figure it out. Now, I've talked about this in my books. I'm a big believer in transcendental meditation. I've been in therapy pretty pretty much my whole life, But I really decided to step it up, right? So we had two guys, two lawyers. We're both lawyers, by the way. So that lawyer talked about, you know, we're partners in that deal, and we were unhappy. And so we started to both look at, like, well, what makes us happy, you know, and what makes us happy is helping other people. What makes us happy is to see an idea of a T shirt and then turning that into a real product and then seeing somebody else wearing it and then getting messages from people saying, hey, I bought one of your hats, and it's great, and my son loves it, and he's so happy, it's the only hat he'll ever wear. In fact, it's so worn out, I would think we're gonna have to get him a new one. So the genesis of it, again, is ultimately for my own happiness, but now were at a point where it's being sold all over the world. In fact, you know, you saw my girlfriend, you know, behind me, you know, Dr. Taryn Marie. You know, she. It's a great story as well. If I wasn't. If I wasn't in a happier place, her and I wouldn't even be together. She's a neuropsychologist, and. But her whole business is about resilience and happiness and really how to really just kind of, you know, work on ourselves.

Yeah, right.

And so she's a. She's a. She's a peak performance coach, and she helps people with all that stuff. But she says to me, she says, Mike, like, look, and this is. This is why. This is why. It's also great now that here we are talking about it today. She says, I know you're doing great things with the business, and you really are. She's like, but I think we can do much bigger things. And she's like, would you. Would you be okay with me helping now? She's a former executive at Nike. She's a former Miss Teen Michigan. She's actually working in, like, boutiques. When she was in graduate school. She's fashion forward. And I was like, yes, we're two guys. Like, we don't know what we're doing. Casey. This, by the way, this just happened. Like, nobody knows about this. Nobody knows about this. I was just out in Vegas for a couple of reasons, and I was playing poker, too. And as I was playing poker, Taryn, again, her name is Dr. Taryn Marie. Stay school. You could. You can check her out. You just Google or whatever. She decided she was going to walk into all these different boutiques in Vegas and ask about, hey, how do you get your brand in. In these stores? Like, how does it work? You know, she finds out who these people are. Two buyers. It was with Caesars. Finds out who they are. Just. Just the first names, by the way. Gets on LinkedIn, finds them on LinkedIn. Then we go on Zoom info. If you don't have zoom info, it's amazing. Gets on Zoom info, finds her information. She goes to my partner. She's like, hey, listen, we should send an email. And by the way, again, she's a professional model as well. So we'd already done a photo shoot with her in it. She's like, let's put together a sales sheet. Let's send it to Caesars, Caesars Entertainment. 50 properties across the country. Send it to them, and then follow up with a phone call. Casey, this literally just happened. I'm playing poker. I didn't know this is happening. Yeah, Sends the email, they called us, which is never happens with a multi billion dollar entity like that. Yeah, they called us and said, you are exactly what we're looking for. You are exactly what we want. And the timing couldn't be any more perfect. And so I'm getting chills just thinking about this. But none of this would have happened, actually, by the way, I'm going to come full circle. None of it would have happened if I also hadn't written a book. Why? Because that book changed the trajectory of my business. It changed my life, and it also connected me to somebody who then connected Taryn and I together. And then she comes in just and is now closing multimillion dollar deals already. But at the end of the day, she's just like me. Where we want to help people, and more importantly, we also want to be happy. And so it's such a beautiful place to be in right now. And ultimately, again, we just want to be not just happy, but wicked happy.

That is such an incredible story, Mike. Oh, my goodness. Thank you for sharing that. That's so epic. Well, I just want to say, Mike, this has been such a treat for me to have you on the show today. I learned so much from you in every conversation we have, and it's been quite the honor of having you on the show today. Before we wrap it up, I want to, of course, give you the opportunity to share with everyone one like, where's the best place where everyone can follow you, stay connected with you? But also, if there's people out there that are, you know, interested in writing books and that want to work with someone to actually get the book out there as you do so well, where's the best place that they can get in touch with you to learn more about everything you do?

Geez, you know, it's just changing all the time now, right? So I guess really the place where I'm, as of right now, the most active on is is is on Instagram or LinkedIn. So, you know, on Instagram it's ikeaulden LinkedIn. It's Mike Alden as well. You know, look, and if anybody does have a question about writing a book, how to write a book, you know, send me a dm. You know, I don't charge for it, so to speak. I mean, I do have some stuff that we can do that for. But I'll tell you this. I was thinking about when I came on your show today, so I wrote a book. It's like 33,000 worlds. It's called 33,000 words. It's called unfair advantage. Right. And where I actually show authors everything that I've done and everything that I do for authors. And it's been updated as well within the past few months. So it has all the kind of the relevant stuff that's out there. If they just send me a dm, I guess just with the word Casey, I'll just send them a link. I'll give it to them for free. They got to pay like a small processing fee. It's like seven bucks or something. But it's 33,000 words of exactly what I've done and what we continue to do for authors over and over and over again. A lot of the stuff you can do yourself and a lot of the stuff you know is free as well. And then I'll say this too. Like, if you're thinking about publishing a book or maybe you have a manuscript and you're not really sure where to go or how to do it, you know, the name of our company is called Alden Publishing. You could also just send me a dm Ike Alden. I can send you there. And then I'll say this too. I'll leave it at this. Having grown up poor and many times not having any resources, even like in law school, even after law school, like, I just like, cash was always difficult, like having money. I've never raised money. I know that you have. I know you sold a business, which, by the way, is amazing. I never had like real access to capital for many, many years. And so. But one thing I learned from is never let the lack of capital stop you from, you know, from your dreams or from building a business. Never let cash stop that. Because you can figure it out. And the reason why I'm telling you that is, is that it does cost money sometimes to publish books, right? And so what we've done is we're like, you know what, we'll finance it for people, right? So if you want to be a Wall Street Journal, USA Today best selling author, you know, we'll finance it for you. If you want to take your book from, from literally from concept to reality, I'm talking everything from ghost writing to editing to book design. Like, that stuff costs money. It just does, right? But if you want to take it totally and you think you have something there, send it to us. We'll take a look at it. We'll see if you're a good fit. And if you don't have the funds, that's okay. We can finance it for you.

That's awesome, Mike. You guys do incredible stuff. And I'll be sure to link everything down below where people can find your Instagram, LinkedIn, everything you mentioned there with so with that being said, Mike, thank you so much for coming on the show today. It's been an absolute pleasure. I definitely appreciate your time.

Thank you, sir. Great to, Great to be here.