S3 #2 - James Malinchak, Featured On ABCs Hit TV Show "Secret Millionaire" - Keynote Speaker / Coach

In a world full of turmoil, despair and darkness, you need to carry the light. Season three of the Get Attitude podcast is where we will ignite your mind, your heart, and your attitude. Welcome to the Get Attitude podcast. This is Glenn Bill, and today we are with one of my favorite mentors, somebody that I've been following for years, somebody who has direct mailed me to tons of mail. Mr. James Malinch is a leader, he is an influencer, he is an educator, and as I said, he is a mentor to millions. He is recognized as one of the most requested in demand business and motivational keynote speakers and marketing consultants in the world. He has been featured on the hit ABC TV show Secret Millionaire, co authored the best selling books Chicken Soup for the College Soul, and was twice named college speaker of the year. Ladies and gentlemen, and let's bring Mr. James Malinchak up. James, welcome to the Get Attitude podcast.

Hey, Glenn, thanks for having me, man. Love the red jacket.

You gotta have props, man. You gotta have props. Do you know Clint Arthur at all?

Yeah, yeah, Clint's been here to my house for coaching.

Oh, cool. Cool. Yeah, well, Clint's a big, you know, prop guy, so we love the red. That's the color of our book, the Get Attitude Podcast. That's the color of the University of Attitude, which you have now walked into. I know you are a big college speaker, so you probably never heard of the University of Attitude, but it's the 400 million campuses in America, all six inches between your ears. So welcome to the University of Attitude.

I love it. I've not spoken there, but I love it.

Okay, well, you are doing it right now. So what we want to do, people come to our podcast to bridge the gap from where they are to where they want to be and to bridge the gap from who they are to who they want to become. And that is exactly what I know you special specialize in. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your definition of attitude, and I'd love to know who your attitude coach was.

Yeah. Well, first of all, thanks for having me. Anytime. I get to share something that might help one person. I think that's a blessing. And anybody else that's helped is all gravy. It's all icing on the cake. So thanks so much for having me, first of all.

My pleasure.

My definition of attitude is waking up every day and being thankful and grateful for all the blessings that you have in your life and being happy with your life. And, you know, God gave us one of the most powerful powers on Earth, which is the power to choose. And we get to choose our attitude every day when we're blessed to flip open our eyelids in the morning. So, I mean, what. What greater blessing? And if you're healthy and your family is healthy and you're safe and your family's safe and you're having a happy life, I mean, that's a great attitude right there. And you can choose that. You can choose that.

Yeah, no doubt. Now, I see that we have a. You've written many books. I know, but you have success as an attitude. You want to just tell us a little bit about that book, why you wrote it, and maybe some of the key precepts. Success starts with attitude.

Starts with attitude. Yeah.

Yes.

This all stemmed out of a talk that I've been doing for corporations for years. I've done 3,000 some talks in my career, and I just started thinking when I was starting out as a young speaker, well, what has been the driving force for me that has allowed me to, I don't want to say be successful, but just do things in life and, you know, create a life that I'm happy with and blessed to have. And. And then I was like, well, it all comes down to attitude, you know, I mean, that's why I resonate with your awesome podcast so much, because it really does. So my whole message was always, success starts with attitude. So years later, when companies, I'd say four or five years later, they're like, man, we love that message. But you know what? The message is wearing off as soon as you're done talking. Like, it would be great to have, you know, some sort of resource where they could take our folks, could take the message home, and the message can live on well past your presentation. So I literally sat down and I transcribed my talk, right? And I broke it up into 50 chunks.

Love it.

And basically, this is my talk I've been doing for years, and it was all based on employers saying, man, we'd love the message to live on and be instilled within our folks so we can not only help them change their life, it'll change our culture. It'll change the direction of our organization. It'll get everybody rowing together with the same mission, same vision of our organization. And so I was like, well, you know, momma didn't raise no fool. If they're going to buy the books from me and thousands, tens of thousands of books and give them to their people, I'm going to sit my butt down and I'm going to put a book together. And that's literally how it came about.

I love it. Now, not to put you on the spot, but maybe you could open that up to the table of contents. Considering the times that we're in, could you maybe give us one or two just quick tidbits that are in there that you go, you know what, Glenn, out of the 50, these one or two things I think would be relevant for the people that are listening here today that will help them become and bridge the gap from where they are to where they want to be.

Yeah, this is one of my favorites. I talk about it in my talk all the time. It's secret. 20 associate with winners.

Love it. Great.

And associate with winners, right? I mean, look at you. You're creating a winning attitude, winning culture, winning environment, winning vibes, going to the world. Why wouldn't anyone want to subscribe to your podcast, listen to you, follow you, read your books, You're a winner. And so I said, it's a simple choice. You could focus to hang around duds, and what are you going to become? You're going to become a dude. But if you choose to hang around winners, people who are positive, who are on the growth curve as we all are, and trying to do more, achieve more, be more, help more, you know, then that's who you become. Because all of that wears off on us. That, you know, I tell kids all the time, look, if you want to be a drug dealer, I'll tell you how to do it. Just hang out with drug dealers. You'll learn how to fix it, mix it, slice it, dice it. You'll learn everything you need to do. But if you want to be a winner, you want to be a successful person, you want to be a champion, you want to be somebody who's contributing to society and the world, making a positive difference, you want to have your name up in lights that you hang around those people.

I love it.

So associate with winners. I think that's. It's a simple choice. And I'm not saying you got to associate with, like, you know, like, celebrity winner. I'm not talking about that. Or, like, I'm out here for the NFL Pro Bowl. I have a bunch of folks that are former and even current NFL players. I'm helping get into motivational speaking. Yeah, I'm not saying you got to be on that level, but I'm just saying you've got a winner of a mindset. You know, somebody who's positive, someone who. Who's trying to do great things, someone that, you know, adversity comes at them and they just bounce off, you know, like women put their bracelets up like Wonder Woman used to do, and just let the adversity bounce off. Fellas, we put our chest up and let the stuff bounce off like Superman used to do. And that's, that's who you associate with, people that just reject negativity, negative people, and hang around winners.

When we talk about bridging the gap from where you are to where you want to become, if you go to malinchak.com you're going to see James with some heavy, heavy celebrity, high powered people. I'm looking at a photo right now over his shoulder. And those of you watching us on YouTube, you're going to see the great Michael Jordan sitting there with James. But my God, James, man, you've been around some unreal people. What I want to know is, before you became James Malinchak celebrity coach and mentor, who was James Malinchok before you bridge that gap? Like when you say, let's associate with winners, who are some of the winners in your life that weren't famous, that really made you who you are today?

Yeah, I appreciate that. I grew up in a very tiny steel mill town outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, population of about 6,000. A town called Monessen. You wouldn't know it unless you were from western Pennsylvania. And we didn't have much. Dad was a railroad conductor working in the mill, and mom was a lunch mother serving lunches to us kids at school. So it wasn't, you know, like we had anything. It wasn't like we came from anything. But my first two mentors, if you will, were my mom and dad. I wanted to get a basketball scholarship out of high school. That was my dream. That was my first big goal. Played Division 1 college basketball, you know. But I heard every reason why I couldn't do it. You're too slow. You come from a high school that's too tiny. No one's going to see you. No one from our school's ever done that. No one from your family's ever done that. What makes you think you can do it? You don't shoot well enough. You don't dribble good enough. You don't play good enough defense. I heard every single reason, and I started to believe that. And then one day, I'll tell you, another mentor, Mrs. Monahan, I think it was seventh or eighth grade English class. I was kind of down in the dumps believing that about my future. And she got up from around her desk. She's about 4 foot 11. Got up from around her desk, came over, got in my face and said, james, Malachi, it's ridiculous for you to believe that stuff. If you could dream it, you could do it. Now go do it. And I don't know, for some reason, Glenn, that resonated with me. So what I decided to do was I said, I'm going to become a gym rat. And a gym rat is somebody who's always in the gym. And my motto became this. You know what, maybe she's right. You know, the heck with everybody else. And you know, here's my motto. You might be faster than me, you might be a better player, you might have more talent, more God given talent, but you're going to have to kill me to beat me. Because I will take you out. You go up for a dunk, I will take you out. Your ball's going out of bounds, I'll dive through the wall to get the ball right. That was my mindset. Hard nosed steel mill town kit. Well, I thought, I thought in order to like really make that work, there's a lot of lessons in here for anybody watching or listening. I thought in order to make that work, I had to become this gym rat. So I said, you know what? I'm gonna get up every morning at six o' clock in the morning and I'm gonna go to the high school gym. Before school school started about 8 o', clock, 8:10, and I'm gonna work out in the gym. I made friends with a janitor, Dougie Halinka. I remember Dougie yesterday. And he was so nice. He would unlock the door. Not supposed to, but he would unlock the door and let me into the gym. And I would work out for an hour or so on my areas of improvement, not my weaknesses. A weakness is only a weakness if you choose to let it be a weakness. My areas of improvement. I would tie my right hand behind my back because I was right handed. And I would practice dribbling with my left hand to get my left hand stronger. I wouldn't shoot with my right hand. I would shoot with my left hand to get my left hand stronger. I would wear ankle weights and do defensive slides all by myself. Nobody was there. Well, here's the teaching point. So who were some of my mentors? Dougie, Alinka, that janitor that opened the door. Mrs. Monahan, who said that to me in class. My mom. My mom for four years straight got up at 5:45, 5:30 in the morning, had breakfast waiting for me, drove me to the school at five minutes to six every single Morning, and I'm talking in the dead of winter when it was bitter cold outside. My father was another mentor who said this. He said, son, you can do anything you want in life if you believe in yourself. You don't listen to people who tell you you can't do it. And just as a sidebar, as I wrap this point up, my father went on and became. He was a Division 1 college football official and actually officiated the Orange bowl for the national championship. Six officials in the whole country. My dad was one of them. From our tiny steel mill town. So those lessons there from Mrs. Monahan, Dougie Halinka, who I'll be grateful for forever for unlocking the gym. My mom driving me to school every single morning and never once saying, ah, I want to sleep in today. And my dad, who not only told me, you can do anything you want in life if you don't listen to people who tell you can't do it and you believe in yourself. But he actually went out and laid a path by doing it himself and letting me see, becoming a top Division 1 college football fish. Those are my early mentors.

Yeah. That's so cool. And so where did you play college football? College ball.

I signed a scholarship out of high school to the University of Cincinnati.

Oh, uc. Great.

Go Cats.

Great, Great year this year. Great year this year. I'm sure you enjoyed that. I want to go back to mom and dad because I. I often find with exceptional people like yourself, there were people a generation before them, Grandma and Grandpa. And I'm just wondering, what did you learn from. You got four of them. Whether it was one or all four, what were the lessons your grandparents put in you or instilled in you or when think about them. Talk to me about what memories resonate with you.

Unfortunately, I don't have many memories because they all passed away when I was very, very young.

Okay.

But I will tell you the memories that I do have. We grew up in a still town, still mill town. You know, think Hoosiers. If you ever saw the movie Hoosiers.

I'm in Indianapolis and I'm a basketball junkie. So.

Yeah. Okay, well, think like a small town like that. Basketball, you know, the whole town following, you know, the bus in the car.

Oh, yeah, right.

But that's a kind of like small little town that we grew up in. And so here's what I remember from my grandparents is that they were just hard working folks, right, Grandma, Both of them. Right. In the. Up early in the kitchen, cooking, cleaning the house. Right. I Mean, like, all day long. Right, right. Gotta have a clean house. I remember that. Gotta have a clean house. All you have a clean house. Gotta have food in your belly. Right. And I'm talking about folks who've never had any kind of, like, college education.

Sure.

Right. So we're going back to, you know, people who stood in line for the Depression.

Yeah. So they. So that you are Western PA. Deep, deep, like. So they came from Western PA.

Absolutely. Me, Joe, Joe Montana, grew up. Oh, gosh, 10 minutes from me.

No kidding.

My. One of my dearest friends from high school, Michael Moore, went on to Defeat Evander Holyfield, April 22, 1994, to become the heavyweight boxing champion of the world. From our small town.

Isn't that something?

Dan Marino, Jim Kelly, Joe Namath, Broadway. Yeah. That's the heart of Western PA Right there.

That's so freaking cool. I love it. I love it. So talk to me about Michael Moore. You said he was your friend and he was the heavyweight champion of the world. What was his attitude, and what was the attitude lesson you learned from him? Because I remember him winning. I was a huge. I'm still a huge boxing fan.

I know. This is my book, Millionaire Success Secrets. And I wrote about Michael, you can see. But that's Michael and I in junior high school, playing basketball right there.

Oh, my gosh.

That's Michael right here. Let me see here. Can't see, it's backwards. There's my mom with Michael in a limousine after he won the heavyweight championship. That's Michael and I in a swimming pool at Palm Springs. And that's me in the locker room with him before he's fighting George Foreman.

That's awesome. Wow.

Yeah. Michael and I go. And I've found another one real quick. I'll show you. But Michael and I go way back, so. Yeah, here we go. I'll show you here. So there's the ticket. There's my ticket against Evander Holyfield. And there's Michael and I. Oh, where we go? Right there at training camp when he was getting ready.

That's crazy good.

Got a great story. You'll love this. Talk about attitude. I had a feeling it was junior high school. Michael was in ninth grade, I was in eighth. And we had a game on a Saturday, and we're playing against a team that we should easily, easily blow out by 20 some points. So we get to our gymnasium, and the way it worked back in our area, you get to your gym, then get on a. You kind of, like, shoot around and street clothes. Just messing around. Bus picks you up, get on a bus, and you go to the nearby town. 10 minutes, 15 minutes away, right? Then you go into the locker room, you change, you come out and play the game, right? So we're doing our little shoot around, waiting for the bus to come to our school, and we're goofing around, like, you know, we're shooting hook shots, we're throwing bounce passes between our legs. We just were, like, goofing around, right? So then we get on the bus, we go to a nearby school, and we play the school that we should easily have blown out by 20 points, but we lost, like, by 25 or 30. Oh, okay. So big swing. So on the ride back home, what are we doing? We're laughing, we're goofing off. Hey, no big deal. We lost the game. Whatever. It's Saturday night. We're gonna go hang out as kids and have fun, right? We get back to our gymnasium, we go downstairs, and we start putting our stuff in our lockers and getting our stuff to go home. Coach Barrino comes over and he said, where are you guys going? And somebody said, well, we're going home, Coach. He said, oh, no, you're not. They said, put your practice uniforms on. We're gonna go upstairs and run a couple hours with no water bottles and no basketballs. Because I don't think you all were committed to play today. Yeah, and so what do we do, Glenn? We start moaning, complaining, you know, saying retarded stuff like, hey, wait till I get my dad to call the school board. We'll get him fired. You know, stuff like that, right? Knucklehead stuff, right? And so. Except one guy, my buddy Michael, he didn't say anything. He just changed his clothes, went upstairs, got ready to run. We're upstairs running. We're doing around the world, going up and down the gym steps and all over the gym. We're doing line sprints, right? You know, three, four hours, everybody's bone and complaining. Except one guy, Michael. Michael never said a word. He just finished first in everything, did whatever Coach Marino said. So three or four hours later, Coach Marino calls us in to center circle, center court. He said, everybody get in here. He said, you go downstairs, you shower, you change, you go home, and don't you ever come back. Not ready, not committed to play, or we'll do this the rest of the season. So we're downstairs changing clothes, and what happens, Glenn? Everybody's moaning, complaining, right? Kicking the lockers, you know, this idiot coach, right? It was the coach's fault, wasn't our fault, right? Except one guy, Michael. So we get cleaned up and I kind of got go over to Michael and I say, hey, Mike, what time you coming over? We're all getting together for his little party. And he said, oh, I can't. I can't make it tonight, Mal. He just called me Mal. I can't make it tonight, Mal. And I was like, why? He said, well, because I missed my workout today. So I got to go home and I have to hit the speed bag. I gotta jump rope. And I got a shadow box. And I said, what? I said, man, we played a game earlier. We've been here like four hours. What do you mean you're going to go home and work out? And he said in that high school dressing room when we were in junior high, ninth grade, him in ninth grade being eighth grade, he said, well, you know, I have a dream of becoming the heavyweight boxing champion of the world someday. I said, yeah, I know about that. Because we all lived in this small town, everybody knew everybody's business, right?

Yeah.

And he said, you know, I know there are other kids out there, got the same dream, and maybe they hit harder than me. Maybe they got better training facilities, maybe they're quicker. He said, so the only chance I have, the only chance I have to possibly win when we fight maybe 10 years from now is to stay committed and to work harder than anybody else. And that means on days when I don't feel like doing it, Glenn, I have my first look, my first look in eighth grade at what it takes to be a champion. Not world champion, a champion in anything. It takes commitment, discipline, a consistency, and making sure you stick to the dang plan. Well, brother, April 22, 1994. I'm at Caesar's palace out here in Las Vegas. As I'm watching them put the belt around my midget league basketball's friend, announcing a new heavyweight champion of the world, Michael Moore. Doesn't end there. Gets better. I'm in his victory party after they took him to the hospital, because that's what they do with the fighters to check him out, right? They take him to the hospital. He's fine. He's got some bruises against Holyfield, but he's okay. He comes back, he walks in to this private party, and everybody's like screaming, champ, champ, champ. Right? And he walks through the crowd and I see him and he sees me and I go running up on him because I'm so excited. And I jump up on him and I'm screaming, screaming and squeezing him. I got tears Coming down my eyes. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. And he's like, man, get off me full. It hurts. Like, I'm sore, right? But then he grabbed me and he whispered in my ear. He said, hey, Mal, you remember way back in junior high school, I told you I'd be the heavyweight champ of the world? I said, yeah. He said, man, I did it. Wow. I said, whoa. Yeah, you did, buddy. I started crying more. That's attitude right there, baby.

Oh, man, that is such a great story, Mal. That is just freaking good, man. I know you got a ton of them. I want to respect your time. And so with that said, we always pivot our interviews with this thing called knowledge through the decades. And I just want to walk through your life very quickly and give me an antidote about each decade or each when you turn into a new decade. This is just off the cuff. We're heavily edited. I know you're going to be just fine, but. But what? We look for the attitude lessons throughout your life. And so obviously you were born. I don't know if you have kids or not, but, like, what's the attitude lesson of being born?

Are you talking about the lesson then or the lesson I know now?

Well, the lesson, you know now when you think about child childbirth or being born, you're coming out, like, what's the attitude lesson there?

Know what I know now? Blessing, right? Such a blessing. We have life. I mean, and, you know, if we want to put it in maybe a statistical term, you know, you're a winner. We all came out winners, right? Because we survived millions of other sperm, right? Right. So we're winners, right?

You beat the.

Everybody comes into this world a winner. Think about this. Everybody comes into this world with a winner as a winner. Yeah. Right? We decide to let things change our attitude about life, about ourselves, about the way we see the world as we grow. Because you came, you won.

Right?

Everybody listening, everybody watching. You won, my friend. You're here. You came into this world. Winner.

That's beautiful, James. That's awesome. Let's go. Do you remember being 10? Third grade, fourth grade. You remember your teacher? And what was the attitude lesson that you learned at 10?

Reward people. Oh, right, because that's when I first got a star on one of my papers for some class. Right? And you should reward people, Mrs. Skiles. Okay. And, you know, I ran home. I couldn't wait to show mom and dad the star on my paper.

I love it.

Right? It taught me the power of recognition and reward.

I love it. So you know, the, the message to the gappers is who are you rewarding? Right. Are you actively going out to put a star on somebody's paper today? And if you want to improve your attitude, if you want to become who you want to become, recognition and rewarding people are huge.

Well, look, if anybody doubts it, Glenn, you just asked me what I remember and what was the thing I pulled up? Recognition and reward all these years later. So anybody doubts that it works, there you go.

You're 20 years old. You're at UC. You're 20. Big man on campus. By the way, I love the shorts. I saw those uniforms were great, man. Did you ever play against Larry Bird in Indiana State?

No, no, no.

He was before you.

Larry was much older than me.

Okay, okay. He used to go to the gym at 5:30 in the morning too.

Just say, oh yeah, you know. You know, I know that I actually had the blessing of speaking one year at Indiana State University, and I went purposely a day early so I could go to the gym and just take in all the Larry Bird ish stuff, you know. Yeah.

My son graduated from ISU, so yeah, it's, it's pretty cool. So 20, what was your attitude lesson at 20? What did you, what did you realize.

That life's about competition and you may do well in one area. For example, high school, I was a big old basketball star for my tiny little area, you know, in the papers and stronger than most kids and, you know, six foot three, about £185 back then, was strong, could shoot, could dribble because of the work ethic during the summertime and, and in the before school, but, you know, get to get to college. Everybody could shoot, everybody can dribble, everybody's fast or faster. Right. And so I had to learn how to versus Instead of saying competition, I would say navigate competition. I had to learn how to navigate competition and find where I could contribute. Right. That was the other thing too, that I learned at that point was it wasn't about me. I was a big old star in high school and all that. But, you know, now I'm part of a team, part of the community. Even though we were a great team in high school, you know, I was much better than a lot of the players on our team. But now everybody's good. Yeah, right. Everybody's good. I was playing against, you know, Billy Owens at Syracuse and Bimbo Kohl's at Virginia Tech and Chris Jackson at the time, his name was Chris Jackson. He went to LSU with Shaq, Shaquille O'. Neal and Stanley Roberts.

Yes.

Here you go. Here's a name you probably remember. Eric Anderson went to Indiana University.

Absolutely.

Yeah. That was my class when I was a senior in high school, and we were playing in the Dapper Dan Romball Classic. So that. And then getting into my, you know, 20s, into college, I learned how to navigate competition, pick where I could have small little wins. Add up enough small little wins, you get a big win.

Right. And these, you know, I just love this. This is awesome. Let's go to 30, right? You're 10 years out of playing college basketball. What was. What was going on with James Malinchuk when you were 30?

I was creating financial freedom for myself. I don't think enough people at that age think about it. They think, oh, I'm just living life. And, you know, and I had my phases, too, in my 20s where I bought ridiculous stuff, you know, all the infomercial products and the fancy car, when I started to make some money and all that. But then I just. I thought, you know what? I have a relative that's worth several hundred million dollars, and he's one of my mentors as well. And he would always tell me, save your money, save your money, save your money. This is a guy that was going to buy a professional football team.

Wow.

And. And so, yeah, I. I immediately paid everything off as fast as I could. But I never. Here's my. Here's my financial lesson for anybody. Listen, you want to learn how you get wealthy? Here's how it is. Forget, you know, stocks, forget real estate, you know, Bitcoin, all that stuff. None of that stuff matters. You know, you do. You pay off all of your expenses. Yes. And that means your house. Yeah, but I got a mortgage. That's 4%. Doesn't matter. You go to bed at night with owing people money. Right. Owing people money. So what's the price of peace of mind? Wake up and have no bills. Right, Right. So. But here's how you get wealthy. You pay off everything, but you never stop making the payments. What. What's that? You make the payments to yourself now for the rest. Excuse me. Rest of your life. Yeah.

That's great.

So I paid a car off back in my 30s. It was about $180 a month payment. You know what, Glenn? To this day, I've never stopped making that payment every month.

I love it.

It just goes to me.

And I'm guessing that's part of the millionaire secrets. It's in the book, probably. Correct that lesson?

Absolutely. That's what I teach my Students think about if you erase, like, a 5% interest rate you're paying, that's like making 5%.

Sure.

People don't think about it. Now, if you go over here and you invest it just at a measly 5%, it's a 10% swing you're making now. Yeah.

Right.

And you just do that incrementally, consistently, and disciplined over time. You wake up one day and what you got? Whatever you want.

What was your profession when you were 30? How are you cash flowing or were you speaking and doing all that at 30?

At the time, I was a financial advisor, actually.

Oh, okay. Northwestern Mutual guy or whoever. Who were you with?

Yeah, my. So my cousin, who. He was one of the most successful silver traders on the commodity exchange. Wow. And he used to fly me to New York and he would. I'd work for him when I was in high school and college, being a Gopher, but he was teaching me about markets and finances and all that. He was. He was actually the floor trader for a guy named Bunker Hunt and the Hunt brothers and Lamar Hunt and the Kansas. Owns the Kansas City Chiefs. So. So my cousin was their floor trader. And he just made obscene crazy money. Every trade went through him. And so then he started trading his own silver and mercantile accounts. Just made crazy, crazy, crazy.

Wow.

And so he would. But he came from my same small steel mill town. We lived about 10 minutes from each other. And so that got ingrained in me. Oh. And he would tell me about, save your money, don't make stupid purchases. Right. Invest wisely. Never swing for the fence. Right. Pay things off. Right. Go to bed at night with peace of mind. Wake up with peace of mind. Yeah. You'd also say more. More marriages end in divorce because of money problems, not infidelity. So if people think money's not important, he said, I'll show you a gazillion ways that affects your life. And so. Yeah. So that's why I started setting up for financial freedom in my 30s.

That's very rare, obviously. And what I keep thinking about was your first message to us. You are who you hang around, right? Yeah. Winning people.

I want to say something. Not wealth. I wasn't trying to build wealth, be rich. I was creating financial freedom. Meaning to wake up every day and not worry about bills. Right. That's a good. You get a pretty good attitude when you wake up and you have no bills.

My guess would be, yeah, if we put out there, hey, we're going to pay off all your bills to improve your attitude. Everyone would sign up for that program. Problem is we can't do that. But guess what? You can do it for yourself. And that's the point. Let's go to age 40. You remember your 40th birthday. Where were you living and what was going on in your life at 40 years old?

Man, I don't remember, actually. I don't remember the birthday.

That's okay.

I'm trying now. You put me on the spotlight. Where was I? I have no idea. It was probably someplace great, though. You know why? Because my attitude was great.

There you go.

Every place is great, right? I could have been at the 7:11. It would have been a great day.

The most important 6 inches of real estate are the 6 inches between your ears, baby. And it's always beautiful there.

Yeah, yeah. So I would say at that point, and it was actually before that, but I was starting to put my knowledge and wisdom into a major career because I started consulting and folks to do what I did. And at that time, I'd already been doing a lot of speaking because I actually started, I think mid-20s, started dabbling in it. But that really kind of like late 20s, early 30s. I got into doing 150. Some locations. Not talks. Right. Locations I'd go to, like Orlando, Florida, Valencia Community College. And they have six campuses. And I get paid six checks. Yeah, that would be six talks. Six checks at one location. Yeah. So, yeah, I knew how to do that. I just knew how to book talks as a speaker, which is something most speakers have no clue how to do. I knew all the budgets because I figured it out. I learned it. Sure, I figured it out. And so now here we are, let's say at the 40 mark. But even before that, because I started getting asked to do this, I started to realize, oh, the knowledge, the wisdom, the experience, good and bad, positive and negative. I can actually package that into another business and put it out in the form of courses.

Sure.

And put it out in the form of consulting and put out in the form of seminars to help others. And then my whole thing when I. My logo, Big money speaker. When I do my Big Money speaker boot camps for those that want to do kind of the speaking. I always say, I'm spending four days here with you and I'm not going to talk to you about your message. You already have a message. You got a story. You talk over coffee with someone. You share advice. You already got that stuff. Okay. You need to know how to organize it. And I can show you that. Like literally 10 minutes.

Yeah.

But what I'm gonna spend four days is teaching you. And that's why my logos. A coin. I love the one. One side, you have a message. The flip side is the business. Mm. And I'm spend four days, 12 hours a day, teaching you all how to really crush this stuff from a business standpoint. And so that's what I started to do and what I tell folks this. Nine words that will make you wealthier than anything else. Do something, Package it, teach it, and sell it.

I love it.

And that's all I did. I packaged it up and started putting a price on it.

I love it. Go ahead and say that again, because I know everybody's, like, listening on the beach going, damn, that was good. But you guys, you can rewind it, but let's have him say it one more. And if you go to. If you go to his big money speaker events, guys, like, he drops stuff like this for four straight days, but go ahead.

Yes, I would say nine words that will make you wealthier than anything else. Do something. Package it, teach it, and sell it.

I love it. That's so cool.

That's all I did. That's the whole big money span. That's all I did. And you know why that happened? Because people said, hey, how did you do that? And my litmus test is, if three people who don't know each other ask you the same question, you better put your antennas up and say, there might be an opportunity here to actually help a lot of people and turn this into a business.

And so did somebody teach you how to get booked, or did you figure out how to get booked?

All out on my own.

And so what? I'm just curious, like, what are the two most important things to getting booked, in your opinion?

Well, the very first thing is understand everything else is smoke and mirrors other than actually forget two things. I'll give you one. Okay, good. I always say, look, the single most important thing is you got to get to eight balls. You're like, what? Okay, look, Glenn, if you and I were shooting a game of pool, playing a game of eight ball, I can knock every ball in on the table. That's my suit or my number range.

That's so good.

But if you knock the eight ball in, real simple, you win, buddy. I lose.

Right.

The eight ball of speaking is you got to get to the coordinators, right? And get them to pick you and pay you.

Yeah.

Everything else is irrelevant. It's smoke and mirrors. People tell you branding and all this bullshit. Excuse me.

No, you're fine. It's good, right?

I mean, I never had a brand. And I went out, I was booking a hundred talks a year, making a half a million. A million bucks a year, and I had no brand.

Yeah.

It was just me hustling and get. Getting to the people who were the coordinators who controlled the budgets and telling them the value that I can bring and the value for their audience, and then, you know, communicating in a way where they understood that value. And then they picked me to come speak, and they paid me a check. Everything else is irrelevant. You'll see all these, these, these. Yeah, I'll be nice. I know these people selling all this other crap to you online that you need this. You need it. No, you don't. You know what you need? Aic ass in chair. Reach out to coordinators.

I love it. And so you did that with the old thing called the telephone, I'm guessing, right. You just called him up and.

Direct mail. Direct mail.

Oh, yeah. I got a file like this. My God, this guy is killing it. So direct mail. And I tell you what, it still works. So, you know, I go speak. Nobody mails. Right. And nobody calls. But call them.

Like, if you wanted to get a talk. They think that, like, coordinators are hanging out on Facebook and Instagram.

No.

Hanging out on there looking for speakers.

No.

So what if you melt directly to their mailbox? Yep. You have zero competition.

I know.

Zero. If you pick up the phone and call them because everybody's scared to talk to people on the phone. You have zero competition.

I love it. That's so good. That's so good. Let's go to 50. Are you 50? Yes. You're 50. You're not 50.

I'll be 50.

You're. Gosh, no kidding. You're a young guy. Well, then let's do this. Let's just say where you are now. What's going on with you? What is your attitude? What's been the most recent attitude realization you've had? And what's your message of hope for the people that are listening today?

Yeah, this actually is a good question, because it started hitting me maybe three, four years ago. And, you know, and here's a great message for everybody. And this just happened to me. And I don't know, Glenn, maybe it happened to you, and maybe it happens to people listening or watching. Some of the things that. Some of the way my attitude changed or my feelings internally change, and then the attitude change. I never asked for. You just sort of wake up one day.

Yeah.

And you start feeling or thinking a different way. At least that's Happened for me. So about three or four years ago, I really started focusing on legacy, you know, And I said, how? Because I sort of, like, retired, checked out, was just kind of hanging out, doing what I wanted, and. And I was like, I don't know. It just hit me one day like, well, this is cool and this is fun. And I still had my consulting clients that I had, but I wasn't, like, taking new business. I was turned down almost every talk that I'd get invited to because I just wanted to, you know, play golf, basketball, like, hang out, you know, whatever. Like, wake up and have no agenda. So. And that got boring after a while, and I was like. It just hit me, you know, the secret to living is giving.

Yeah.

And there's going to be a time, hopefully it's a long time from now, but there's going to be a time when I'm no longer on planet Earth.

Yeah.

And, you know, I'll never forget that. When I would do something great anywhere in school or some award, I would tell my mom and dad, and they would all say, oh, son, that's great. We love you. We're so proud of you. But remember this. You didn't come into this world with anything, and you're not leaving with anything. And the only thing you have are the memories you create, the people you help while you're here, and the legacy you leave. Well, you know, especially as a young person, you're, like, right over your head, like, yeah, right. I'm going out and getting the, you know, the new Mercedes, right? Yeah. And then. You know, it's funny, Glenn, I don't know if you found this, but the older I've got, the more wiser my parents became.

I'm with you, brother. Are they still with us, by the way?

Like, three or four years ago, that whole thing that mom and dad used to always. I'd win an award or I was on Secret Millionaire, the TV show. Mom, dad, I'm on this TV show. Oh, that's great, son. We love you. We're proud of you. But remember, you didn't come into this world with anything. You're not leaving with anything. The only thing you got is who you help while you're here, the memories you created, and the legacy you live. Right. So three or four years ago, it hit me, and I said, that's what I want to do. And the way I felt I could do that was by doing stuff like this podcast. Not, you know, not walking on the beach and playing golf, but getting back in the game and Doing what I love doing, which is teaching and sharing the wisdom and experiences that God blessed me to have these years.

Well, we're so grateful that you chose to be with us today. And is mom and dad still with us, your mom and dad, or did they move on?

My mom is. Yeah. My dad passed away April 15, 2006. He was trying to avoid taxes. Yeah. April 15th. We joke and say that's why dad left on April 15th. He didn't want to pay taxes. Yeah.

I actually was checking you out. I think I saw you and your mom. She's 90 or 91 years old now.

Such a blessing. A few months ago was with her celebrating her 90th birthday.

Oh, that's so cool. Tell me real quick about three programs you have. Pitch Secrets Mastery. Just real quick for those people that are looking to make the difference, for those people are looking to insert themselves in your legacy, tell us what Pitch Secrets Mastery is.

Yeah. So several years ago, I had a revelation. It's kind of like the old commercial, the V8. I could have had a V8, right? You get the wake up call. I had the wake up call. I said, you know, all sales training is wrong. All sales training is wrong. It's traditional stuff that is taught from year to year and passed down. And you say, well, who are you to judge? Well, I've sold $50 million from the stage and on webinars and all that, so I think I got a pretty good gauge of how you communicate to convert.

Yeah.

And so I said, man, all sales trainings wrong. They teach you this. Make a hundred, you know, contacts, and you'll close X number of percentage, right? Let's pretend 10%. So you get 10, right? And then, so what does that lead you to believe? You've got to go get more clusters of a hundred to get another 10, right? You got to go get a thousand. You got to say a thousand folks to get a hundred yeses, right? Well, that's a lot of people you got to see prospecting in any profession, any career, any entrepreneurial business speaking, you know, insurance, sales, anything, right? And I said, that's. That's bogus because that's not what I do, right? That's not what I do. You know what I do? Like, from a presentation standpoint, if I had 10% of the audience that bought my course or whatever I offered on webinar or live in the audience, I go back and I get like Michael Moore going home to practice and work out and train that night. I go back to the drawing board and Say, okay, so there was 90% that said, no, I must not have done a good enough job of communicating the value and the benefits and how their lives would be changed, or they would have said yes. So let's go to work, James. Let's get. Get moving on it to see how we can improve it. Because then it's like, well, gosh, if I go instead of out of 10, you get one out of 10. If I get four out of 10 or six out of 10 or eight out of 10, do I really need to see as many clusters? So if you get 50 or 60 out of 100 now, because you learn some ways to language things properly and present properly, do you need as many clusters of 100?

Right?

So Pitt Secrets all came about was I was at my event, and I had Kevin Harrington there, whose original shark on Shark Tank, and he invented the infomercial. He sold $5 billion. And Kevin saw me do an offer where I sold $100,000 in 2 minutes and 37 seconds. And he had never seen anything like that before, even though he has had the best products on tv. And he was like, how about. Because here's why. I made the offer up 30 minutes before. There was no offer. We didn't. There was no seminar. There was nothing. I just went up because I knew how to communicate. And literally 30 minutes before, put some slides together, went up, made this offer, and in 2 minutes and 37 seconds, sold 100 grand. First 100 grand. Wow. And then. Then we had more sales after that in the next 15 minutes. Okay. And he took me aside. He's like, that's the greatest pitch I've ever seen in my life. And he said, I've seen 50,000 plus pitches at the time.

Yeah.

And I'm like, what are you talking about? You had the greatest Billy Mays. I mean, you had the greatest Anthony Sullivan, the greatest people on TV. He said, yeah, but they're selling $29 things, right? You know, they're selling, you know, $60 things with three payments, you know, $20 each, right? I just watched you sell a $2,000 package that you made up, because I saw you making it up and go up, and I watched them stand up and run to the back to give 2000. I've never seen anything like that in my life. And he said, we ought to do a seminar called Pitch Secrets, and you oughta. You. And I ought to teach it, because I can share a lot of stuff and that you need to teach it with me because you. I mean, so that's how it all started. And that's what it is. It's basically how to present the right way, to communicate things the right way. So people say yes to you and feel great about it, and they. They don't feel tricked and manipulated. You don't feel slimy.

Now do that. Does that get taught at your big money speaker boot camp, or is that a separate gig?

It's a separate one.

Okay.

And I've done several of those together. And then it's kind of like whenever we want to do it. Yeah. It's not like a set in stone. Like it's every, you know, August 8th or something.

Right.

It's whenever we say, all right, hey, you want to. Let's run pitch seeker. We've done probably about five of them now. Six of them. Something like that.

And do you have. Do you have any upcoming in person events going on?

Not yet. Because of the whole Covid situation, right? Yeah. Yeah. I haven't done a live, personal, live event of our own. And since January of 2020. Right. When the. Right before the COVID hit. And I know we will, we'll be coming out of them, but we're just, we got to make sure, like, we're always, for example, we do them here in Las Vegas and we're always monitoring the governor's website of what we can and can't do.

Yes.

It was crazy. I went to. I have a friend who's a big executive with one of the NFL teams, and she and I went out last night, grabbed some dinner, went to a show because she had never seen a Vegas show. And it's the craziest thing. You got to sit there in the show wearing a mask.

Yeah.

Like in the showroom. And it's, it's just there's some really crazy guidelines here. So that's why we haven't done the events, because we do them in Vegas, because of where I live, because we always bus people up to the house and have a party at night, stuff like that.

So let's talk about. Let's talk basketball real quick. State of the. Do you follow the NBA? And what's your thoughts? What's your thoughts on the state of the NBA? And. And like, who's your favorite team?

So my favorite team is the Sixers because Doc Rivers is a friend of mine.

Oh, cool.

And so my favorite team were the Clippers. When he was with the Clippers before the Sixers. And my favorite team before that was the Celtics, when he was the Celtics and won the World Championship in 08 09.

Yeah, that's great.

So that's my favorite team. So I root for Doc because he's just a great guy. I've known doc for about 12, 14 years. I actually met him out here when I was doing an event with Michael Jordan. Doc was there and we just became friends. And I just, I like him. He's a great guy. And he, I just, I root for him.

So.

State of the NBA, spoiled folks that should be grateful for what they have. You know, Joe Theisman is one of my best friends who's a former NFL quarterback for the then Washington Redskins. Now all of a sudden this week, the Washington Commanders.

Right?

Yeah. And Joe, actually, Joe's one of the guys that got me into speaking. Yeah. 25 years ago. He's the one that told me about the speaking industry and got me into it. And so he's been one of my dearest friends for 25 years. Years. When Joe, right before he broke his leg in the NFL, he would. He just signed one of the highest. I think he was the third highest paid player in the NFL. It was a million dollars.

Imagine that.

He was, he was the NFL MVP, just signed a new contract which is the third highest player in the NFL. A million dollars. Now these guys in the NBA, NFL, all that they get, you know, $50 million, 40 million, 30.

Yeah. Court Jackson, Jackson from Baltimore. You know, going rate for a quarterback MVP is 40 mil. That's it.

Amazing. Crazy. Here's my, here's my point. Shut your damn mouth and show up to work and do your job.

Yeah.

I mean, be blessed. You should be privileged. Like you could be playing basketball at the local YMCA for nothing.

Right? Well, it's. As I was watching the all star football game, I was a football coach for 25 years and was fortunate enough to coach Zach Martin, who is for the Dallas Cowboys and his brother who's in Las Vegas. And one of the player personnel guys, dejuan Daniels for the Raiders also was a guy that I coach, so I'm familiar with it. But I was watching the lack of effort, the touch football and I'm.

Touch football.

Yeah. When I watched some NBA games, including my beloved Pacers, and you talk about hardcore defense and being in position and shuffling. I mean like the lack of effort on a professional basketball court is mind numbing.

Well, it's crazy. Spoiled versus grateful. You know, it's a privilege to be paid to play basketball. Things you did as a kid. It's not a right. It's a privilege. It's an honor. And yeah, I get it. That you want to try to get as much as you can, but you know, there's a way to. That's why I love people like John Stockton. Yeah, right. Did you ever hear Stockton come out in the media and complaining about it? Nope. He got his contract. He went to work every day, did his job. Yeah, he was rough on the court. I have friends that played for the Jazz when Stockton and Malone were there, but I mean, they were rough because they were leaders in practice, but they were privileged. They felt honored to be playing basketball and getting paid. There's not many people that can do that, especially in the United States. So I just think it's become so overblown.

Jason and I were privileged and honored enough that the great Mark Eaton came to the Get Attitude podcast. I'm guessing you know Mark. Yeah.

Yeah.

And like, I think I may have been one of his last. Like it was like a month before he passed that he was on our show, which was crazy. But you might want to tune into that one. Everybody should listen to what Mark Eaton.

I will. I definitely will. Yeah. But I just think folks need to be more thankful and grateful and yeah, I get it. You know, you get whatever you want. Get 50 million a year, God bless you. But there's a way to do about it diplomatic, be a diplomatic about it and be grateful about it and you know, give back and help others with some of that money. Yeah, you know, again, again, it's your, it's their money. I can do whatever they want. But I love the. You know, it always goes back to what Charles Barkley said years ago. He said, me, Clyde Drexler, Olajuwon, Michael Jordan, right. Stockton, Malone, Patrick Ewing, we would play this game for free. Bird, Magic, we played this. Kareem, we played the game for free. You'll find players like that today.

No, talk to me about the state of college basketball. Are you a fan of college basketball?

Absolutely.

Obviously I know you love uc. Any other, any other favorites that you like to check out college wise?

I love great coaches. So Kyzhevsky, you know Duke, you know Coach K's last last year. This year it's been kind of cool. I got to meet a lot of these folks when I was with doing the Michael thing out here for four years. One of my good friends, Jay Wright, Villanova, two time national championship, Calipari for Kentucky. Actually Coach Cal recruited me out of high school when he was back at Pittsburgh, then when he went to UMass.

Yeah. So my good friend of mine, Eddie Schilling, I don't know if you know, Eddie or not, but Eddie coached with him at UMass. Grew up with me right down the street.

What was the name?

Ed Schilling.

He was the name sounds.

He was a shooting coach. He's at Grand Canyon University right now, actually. Right near you.

Yeah. Coach Cal took out of high school. He signed Jimmy McCoy from Central Captain.

Yeah.

And. And Jimmy McCoy and I played in a round ball classic and I ate his lunch. So I was very, very upset that Coach Cal gave the scholarship to him. But Jimmy was. Jimmy's a great player. He was a great player.

Do you ever run into Dan Dakich at all or do you know Danny?

I don't know Dan iu.

Yeah. He was close to Eric Anderson. He's a little bit older than us. Guarded Michael Jordan. And when IU beat North Carolina in the Final Four that year, well, Eric.

Eric and I played against each other in Dapperdam Round Ball Classic in Pittsburgh. Guy named, a friend of mine, Sonny Vaccaro. Sonny was one of the biggest guys. You probably remember Sonny. Actually, Sonny is the guy. A lot of people don't know this, that is credited for building the whole Air Jordan brand. He flew around three years on a private jet with Michael to build the brand when Nike. And he's the one that got Nike to give all the money on one player for Jordan.

Oh, my God.

But Sonny used to run something called the Dapper Down Romball Classic in Pittsburgh, which was an all star game that he had run for 25, 30 years, maybe longer than that. Because he goes all the way back to like, Moses Malone played in it, Right. When Moses went straight from high school to the pros and all the big stars played in it. So I was so excited, privileged that I got to play in it. Yeah. And so I think the state of college basketball is, you know, I don't want to say a state, but it all stems on the coaches.

I agree.

You know, what kind of example are they setting? You know, they bring freshmen in. Are you setting the right example? And the other thing, too is what I like about college basketball and others might not like this is it's not traditional anymore. It used to be traditional. Guys come in, stay four years, you know. Yeah, it's not traditional. Every. Every coach has different. Like, you know, Caliper, he's got the one and done. He made the one and done famous, right? Come in for one year play, and then we'll get you to the NBA. You'll be done, right? And people bashed him for that. I'm like, why that's his style of coaching.

Sure.

And if he wins, who cares? We coach however he wants. All he's not doing anything illegal. Right. But I like, you know, like Jay Wright is a friend of mine. Jimmy Laranega down in Miami. I met Jimmy at the Michael thing. We did the Michael Jordan thing. And Bill Self, Kansas. Love Bill. You know Roy Williams. I love Roy. Got to hang out with Roy a lot.

And he's the Gonzaga coach. Is it Mark?

Love him. Phenomenal.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't. I've never had a chance to meet him, don't know him. But, man, I sure admire that guy.

Goes back to. That's a traditional way to run your program. Right. It's like all his guys are old and all that. I want to respect your one last question for you. You know, a lot of people, and I don't care if this is. And you've given us. You dropped bombs, you've given us such great stories, but maybe there's still one inside of you, no matter who it is, whether it's Michael Jordan, the most famous person you ever met, or the custodian that let you in at 6am when you think about the one person you met that moved you the most, where you said, oh, my God, man, somebody that's overcome something, somebody that embodies attitude, somebody that just knocked you off your socks and you went, it's the most impressive, unbelievable person I met. I'd love to just hear that story and we'll get you out of the studio.

Yeah. So I got a telephone call one day from my dad. And this is when I was younger and I was in college. I was actually working in New York on the commodity exchange for my cousin. I was living with my cousin, and my phone rang and it was my dad. And he had said my sister Vicki had collapsed and was in the hospital with the right side of her body paralyzed. Now, this was shocking for me, Glenn, because a few weeks ago, prior to that, a few weeks earlier, she was in New York and we hung out, we went to the mall, we got some pizza. We were just, you know, sister and brother time. So we initially thought, well, she has to have a pinched nerve in her hip or her back because she was young when this happened. She was 38 at the time, with three children. First set of test results came back. It wasn't a pinched nerve. Then we thought, well, maybe she had a stroke. Because medical research says that people of younger ages, even younger than that, can have strokes nowadays. Second set of test results came back and it wasn't a stroke. Few days went by, and I could not reach Vicki on the phone in the new room that she was in. They put her in a new room. So finally I got connected, and she answered the phone, and I said, vicki, hey, how are you? And she said, hey, did you hear? And I said, what? Everything's cool. They upgraded you. That's why you're in this new room and everything's fine. You're coming home. She said, no, little brother, I have a brain tumor. And the doctors say that I've only got about three months left. I said, what? Like, literally, Glenn, I could not speak. So I quit my job immediately, told my cousin and all that. I mean, we cried. And I quit my job, jumped on a plane, went back to the Pittsburgh area, where she was at, and I became her coach. I read a book, great book by Dr. Bernie Siegel on the flight back. Dr. Bernie Siegel. It was called Love, Medicine and Miracles. Wow. And it was all about how people beat cancer, beat inoperable brain tumors and just the worst diseases, and how they won by believing, if you will, attitude, believing that they could win, and praying and positive visualization. So I became her coach. I put a sign on the door to her hospital room that said, if you have any negative thoughts, leave them at the door, because I will not let you in. And everything became positive. We would do positive visualization. We'd have soft music with the lights down. And she would. I learned this from the book. And she would visualize almost like fighter jets shooting the brain tumor and shrinking it and destroying it and, you know, changing her diet. Everything we could possibly do. So few months later, about two months, I was supposed to go to college, play basketball. Supposed to be there. I'm under contract, basketball scholarship. Coach was fine. He was totally cool. He understood, hey, take as much time as you need. Don't worry about it. And so I was in the room with her, and I made the mistake of actually telling her that I was not going to go to college and I was going to stay there with her. Now, Glenn, at this time, she had lesions in her brain. That one led to two, two led to three. And they were so painful that they would give her pain medication, and they have to give her so much, she would overdose on. But if she didn't take them, then the pain was so bad. So it was just bad situation. And she would never, like. She would always lay in bed, and she could talk and was coherent, but I'd never seen her get up. So when I told her I wasn't going to go to school. She rose up out of the bed and got my face and said, you go to college. I'll be fine. Don't you worry about me. And she did. And so a few nights later, I had to make the most difficult decision I've ever made in my life. I had to. After thinking about it and praying and talking to my parents, I decided that if I don't go to college, if I stay, she's going to know she's dying because why else would I not go to college?

Right?

Right, Right. So I had to make that most difficult decision I ever made my life, which was to leave that night, leave my sister, knowing it would be the last time I ever saw her alive. So I go to college, and craziest things happen to me. Glenn. It's a month and a half, two months after she's supposed to have passed away, and she's still living. And so every night, what I would do when I was in college, away from her, I made a deal with her before I left, called 50 50. I said, Vicki, when I'm at college, I'm at school. I'm not going to quit this fighting that we're doing. All you got to do is fight 50%, that's it. Because I'm going to fight the other 50%. I'll call you every day. And we're going to keep it. We're going to win. As long as we don't quit, we're going to win. So, Glenn, now here we are, a month and a half, two months later, she's still alive. Doctor, because what I would do when I was at college, before I go to bed, I'd get on my hands and knees and I'd pray. Looking out the window, I'd pray. And then I would talk to Vicki and I would encourage her. Same way I talked to her on the phone, or same way we were in the hospital. It's a month and a half, two months later. Doctors cannot understand how she is still living. There is no medical explanation. And so I am excited beyond means, right?

Yeah.

I was having dinner with two elderly folks, and they were in their 70, late 70s, early 80s, Ernie and Adelaide. Adelaide said, how's your sister? Because she knew what was happening. And I was all excited. I said, adelaide, she's like, that's still alive. She's in a lot of pain, but she's not giving up. She is not quitting. And doctors have no, literally no explanation how this is happening. And I'm so excited. And Adelaide said, Something to me that made me feel really selfish. She said, did you ever think that she's in a lot of pain and kind of wants to just let go, but she's not because she doesn't want to feel like she's letting you down? Man, I just felt so selfish. I never looked at it from that. So, Glenn, that night I got down on my knees, prayed, I looked out the window, and I talked to her. Said, different talk this time, though. I said, vicki, I know you're in pain and you may want to just let go. And I understand if you want to. And if you want to, I want you to. Because we didn't lose because we never gave up.

Right?

And I'll see you again. We'll be together again at some point. And I love you with all my heart. If you want to do that, then that's great, and I. And I support you. Four hours later, the telephone rang, and it was my dad telling me Vicki passed away.

Oh, my mercy. Wow.

Now, I tell you that story because you asked that question.

Yeah.

That is the most inspirational person I've ever met in my life. Because throughout that entire ordeal, not one time, not one time did she ever say, why me?

Yeah.

Not one time did she complain. Not one time did she get mad. And, you know, and I was mad for a long time. Mad at everybody. God, you know, how can he take my sister? There's people. There's drug dealers out there giving kids crack and hurt people and murderers. My sister never heard a fly. Right. You know, so I was the mad one. But I never, ever once, and I learned that from her, that no matter what you go through, right, you can choose the attitude of complaining about it or just kind of dealing with it, doing what you have to do. And. And that's why I say she's the most inspirational. I've met a lot of people, as you know. I've been blessed to be around a lot of winners, superstars, as society would, you know, demon. Nobody touches her.

James, thanks so much for sharing that. That's a beautiful story. We will make sure that we honor. And we'll dedicate this podcast to Vicki Malinchak, and we'll make sure that she is front and center on that blog. And Gappers, I think also the message to the story is that James Malinchek has met the most famous, successful people in the world, yet the person that God put into his life to solidify attitude was somebody that he grew up with. And the question to you Gappers, is this. Who is in your life that really could be the hero of your life, and you don't even know it. And maybe we need to quit looking to all the superstars and all the media and all the stuff and understand that it's the people that walk with us day to day in our lives that we can change their attitude. We can improve their attitude. And they may just in fact, have the lesson for us to learn to have a great attitude to help us get from where we are to where we want to go. And obviously, Vicki did that. So, James, this was awesome. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you giving to our audience. And I know you have changed some people's lives just with this 60 minute talk between you and me.

No, thank you. It was supposed to be 30 minutes and we kept going, which was good because I got a text saying that my next one was pushed to this afternoon. So we're good.

Awesome.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. And again, I started this way, and I'll end it this way. I love the red Jacket.

All right. I appreciate Go Hoosiers. Mike Woodson. You talk about a great coach. Mike Woodson's turning that stuff around at Indiana. And I will get out to Las Vegas. I will see you if you can. Hang on. After we close this for just one minute. I want to send. I want to send you some stuff. I need to get an address from you.

Sure.

All right, Gappers, this is Glenn Bill with the great James Malinchuk. And we are out of here. You guys, remember, stay positive. This is Glenn Bill for the Get Attitude podcast. Thank you, James.

Thank you, Glenn.