The Law of Vibration, Positive Energy, and Mental Exercises with Scott Hilse

All right, Scott Hilsy.

Yes, sir.

Welcome to the Zen Drop Podcast. And guys, if you're listening or watching, thank you for joining us. We're excited for a great time here. Now, Scott, you want to remind me how we met? I think it's been such a crazy journey.

Yeah, so I think I launched my course like, it was like March of 2018, I believe. March of 2017, something like that. And 5 months into it, I probably had 600 members at this point. And then I was at dinner with this one girl and I look at my phone, it says j@jaredgoetz.com just purchased your course. And I was so excited about that because I'd seen all your ads like when I started and everything. I like even made a post in Simplified Dropshipping. I don't think you saw that, the Facebook group. I'm like, big announcement, Jared Goetz, zero to a million in 60 days, has joined the Simplified Dropshipping course. And everyone's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, because everybody knew you. And then I think we started, we didn't, I emailed like a couple times and then 5 months later we came in contact. I was in Colorado when you messaged me and then 2 months after that we arranged me coming out to Boca and playing some golf.

I think you joined our program, didn't you? The group coaching?

Yeah, so.

Because I saw you show up on a call.

Yeah.

I didn't know you joined.

So that was, I remember that. So in September is when you got the course. In October I went out, with the Oberlo team in Berlin, talked to Thomas and everything. And then I asked him the advice, like, what'd you do with your $50 million that he sold Oberlo for? And then he sent me the article about the circle of competence, never investing outside of what you know. And I'm like, I may be making like a couple hundred thousand dropshipping, but why would I not invest more into dropshipping? And I recognized you were the top dropshipper at the time, so I'm like, He has a mentorship program. I'm gonna get his mentorship. And so I got into it, and then that month I did like $43,000, which was my best month to that day.

Right, right. I remember just seeing you randomly because we were doing group coaching calls every week, and I saw you on there. Yeah, I was like, oh, that's Scott on there.

You're like, oh, oh, you're, you're Scott, right? I'm like, yeah, yeah. And then we ended up collaborating 4 or 5 months later, and, and it never would have happened if I 'Cause I was about to invest in stocks, real estate. I think I might've even verged off of e-commerce if it wasn't for that one piece of advice that Tomas gave me on Facebook Messenger.

Now that's a great piece of advice. I would love for you to elaborate on that advice a little bit and what you heard and what were you thinking?

Yeah, so a lot of people will get a little success in something and then they'll start spreading theirself thin across many things. But at that point, what that taught me was When you— like, for example, they say that intelligent people are more humble because when they get into an area, they recognize— they realize how much they don't know the more they start to learn. Like scientists, like when— but someone who isn't as intelligent will get into an area and then instantly think they know it all, and then they'll get into other areas and instantly think they know it all. And that's why on the other podcast we talked about disappointment cured my stubbornness. I never had to be met with that disappointment at the time because he relieved my stubbornness in the fact of indirectly telling me I don't know everything and I did not even close. And so it really made me realize I had so much more to learn. I had one Facebook ad strategy which was so all over the place and then the big thing that I learned from your mentorship was the horizontal scaling. I never even heard of that before. So when I applied that, I'm like, okay, so there's a lot of different ways to do this because at this point I was self-taught. I didn't take a course, I just taught myself through trial and error, just asking questions on Facebook group.

Yeah, so there's a lot of little golden nuggets no matter where you look. I mean, I've— a lot of the most successful, you know, most well-off, wealthy, awesome people that I know, when I talk to them, they're just genuinely curious. Like, they're genuinely interested, really good listeners. So I think that advice that you got from Tomas was really good advice.

And they keep investing into themselves. Especially like you, how many masterminds are you in?

I've been to a bunch. Actually, I just joined a new one called Board of Advisors and it's really cool. It's like $25K or $30K a year, but it's like all really high-level business people. I'm actually going to one next week and I'm spending 4 days in Sarasota.

Oh nice.

With like, you know, there's a bunch of presentations, a bunch of networking, a bunch of connections. And I'm not even a big networker. Like, I don't really like to go and network for the sake of networking. Yeah. But if you have the opportunity to surround yourself with other like-minded people or people that are doing bigger and more, you know, things than you are, I think it gives you— you kind of feed off that energy. Yeah.

I feel like a lot of people would get in your position and then they get lazy. I think laziness really comes from not even realizing that there's so much more to learn or not willing to know that there's so much more to learn and how you can always be better. Like, like that mutual connection we have, my mentor, when he was here, he was asking questions on questions on questions, everybody. And nobody really expected that this guy was just insanely successful. But that really showed why he was so insanely successful. And when it comes to networking, I agree, my— how I network is called— I call it magnetic networking. And I think you can definitely relate to this. It's like, I never go to networking events because it kind of seems like a lot of— most of the— especially like the lower tier ones, it's just a lot of people who are trying to brag about their own achievements. When magnetic networking takes all that stress off and you display your achievements online through a personal brand, and then people come to you. So that's how I met you. That's how I met people like Dan and just pretty much everyone in my e-commerce space. They kind of came from me. Like, I don't know if you know this, but you know how I live with Mikey Kass, Fez, and Sebas. So in February of 2019, I had my first meetup in Los Angeles. And like 80 people showed up in the worst storm in 4 years in Los Angeles. Mikey Kass was there, and Armin Najad was there. So that's how I met Mikey. We started talking. Fast forward 6 months later, I'm living with Mikey, and then Fez, who I met through Mikey, Armin, who's always there, and then Sebas, who I met through Mikey and Fez. So if I never had that magnetic network attraction, I would have never met Mikey. And then all all of our timelines would be skewed because Mikey would have never lived with me, he would be on a different path. Fez may never move to LA, Sebas may never. So it's just really interesting what— how you can network efficiently, so to speak.

So what is your take? You know, there's a lot of people that might be listening to this that would love to network with someone like you or someone who they look up to. And I know that a lot of times when people reach out, at least for me, it's, it's very transactional. They're either looking for something or they're just blatantly telling me like, how can I add value? And like, which is really them saying, how can I add value to you? But it's like, well, how can I add value to you so that you'll let me into your circle? Yeah, it's like, how do you— so for someone listening, like, what's some good advice to be able to network with someone at the next level?

Number one, authenticity. I think a lot of people, they, they watch a little too many Gary Vee videos and then they think that saying these little scripts. Like, that's where that came from for sure. Like, how can I add value? How can I add value? Because Tai Lopez and Gary Vee push that heavily. So whenever someone messages me and says, hey, how can I add value? You're not getting a response. And when— I don't like when people try tricks either. Like, they'll send me a video of themselves or a voice— a voice note. I don't open any video or voice note because you got to like click accept to even see it. And so, um, if what you're actually Providing is valuable. You don't need to do any tricks. You just need to present it. So like if someone came to me and said, hey man, I, I run a certain business. I need a certain business. I don't know, basically anything that where the value is obvious without specifically saying how can I add value? Because if you're asking how can I add value, you probably don't have any value to give, right?

And it's, it's like, how can I add value so that you'll let me into your life? It's really them asking for something.

Yeah, and that kid Arman who came to my meetup, like, he's a perfect example of that. He doesn't— like, he dropships here and there, but the reason he's always around is, first of all, and this is a huge tip for anybody, value can be in itself just pure personality, like the energy you bring. Because he's always down for everything, he's always bringing super good energy, like he always, like, tries to take care of us in the best ways possible. He always hooks us up in so many different ways. And while I'll tell you a great story after this podcast with what he did, but that's a good— we were talking about that in LA. It's just like, this kid's been hanging out with us for like a year and a half, and like, we don't really do any collaborations or anything. He's just there because he's always down to say like, give you a ride. He's always down to— but not in an agenda sort of way. If you come with an agenda, I think, uh, you're doing yourself a disservice because People who are real with themselves can see through non-real things.

So it really comes down, at least for you and for me too, it's like if someone has good energy, right? But it's like, what defines that? And I think that it's, you know, people are listening, they're like, oh, I want to have good energy. That's a great start, but it starts with having a foundation and knowing who you are and being real, being authentic to yourself and others. I think that authenticity is a really important point to strike on. Yeah.

Finding yourself is key because you can't find yourself by— I mean, you can help find yourself by being with others, but if you don't know who you are, what you want to do, people are going to see right through that and then they're going to say, "Who are you and what are you doing here?" If you don't know yourself, then it's not going to last.

So you've been through a lot of different things, lots of changes in your life, you know, from a financial standpoint, you've done really well for yourself over the last couple years, uh, and it seems to me, at least from an outsider looking in, or as a friend at least hearing your stories, you know, you kind of go with the flow of your life. Yeah, you're going from one situation to another, you're going with the momentum. How do you keep yourself in a state of good energy? And like, what are— let's start with that. Like, how do you keep yourself in a state of elevated energy?

Just knowing it's gonna work. When COVID hit, uh, that's the only time I've ever had any doubt, just because my environment shifted so much and the world was in chaos. So I always, from when I was 19, like when I was a sophomore in college, my friend Drew asked me, he's like, how do you have this mindset of just knowing it's gonna work? Like you don't have a plan, you just know it's gonna work. And I go, yeah, as long as I know it's gonna work, the plan will make itself. But a lot of people focus on the plan and then they get a little doubtful of if it'll work or not. That's the opposite of what you should be doing because like the law of vibration in the— I forget what book I read, but whatever, like every thought you have changes the vibration of your body, and vibrations attract from one to another. So if you're vibrating at a certain level where you know it's gonna work, you know these things are gonna come to you— not even know, in my head it's already there. Like we talked about manifestation, how I think manifestation is bad because it sets the divider. I already know it's gonna happen, so I'm vibrating at that level. And so those vibrational patterns are going to naturally be attracted around me to set me to wherever I'm trying to be.

So for, you know, for someone who understands the concept of knowing it's going to happen and being confident, but their mind is always in the background chirping at them like, you're, you know, you're an impostor, it's not really going to work, you're not as good as you think you are, like, do you ever have those types of thoughts? Or, and if so, like, how do you quiet them and how do you not allow them into your mind?

Simply say, devil be gone.

Devil be gone.

The devil's the negative thought in your head. So once I realized that, I realized the negative— like, the law of vibration is super important because if, if you do have those thoughts, your vibration goes down a little, and then the, the doubts of it not working, that's going to attract the things that are going to make it not work. So you try to live in a state of this high vibration constantly, always, from like even as a kid. I just knew where I started learning this around When I was 18— no, when I was 19, I heard the song "Cut You Off" by Kendrick Lamar, and that changed my life. If anyone wants to know what changed my life, that's probably top 5 of things that changed my life, because in the second verse he goes, "I'm trying to learn something new, I'm trying to surround myself with people that inspire me, or at least inquire similar desires to do what it take just to reach the top." And that really opened my eyes 'cause it's like, okay, that makes a lot of sense. Even if, so for example, in e-commerce, especially when I'm in Los Angeles, even if I'm surrounded with people who aren't in e-commerce, if they're passionate and successfully doing what they wanna do, that energy, that vibration is natural. So then it rubs off on me. Every time I go to LA and see those people, I always come out inspired because in St. Louis, none of my friends are doing this. Not even one. Well, I mean, one actually.

But there's something to be said about going to LA and getting that inspiration, but then being able to come back home and get your shit done.

Yeah.

Do you value having time to yourself to get things done too?

Yeah, I say in St. Louis, like a lot of people watching this are in small towns like that, St. Louis is where I gained my confidence and then LA is where I get humbled. I always say it's like people in St. Louis, they make a quarter million a year and they act cocky. I don't think you can act cocky. You don't have the right to act cocky till you're making a million a day. Because you go to Los Angeles and you're making a quarter million a year, you might get a decent apartment, but you couldn't even rent certain houses with your yearly salary. And that's if your salary was tax-free. And so I— that's, that's a good balance to have, like getting humbled and then gaining confidence, getting humbling, getting confidence, and then staying in that mindset the whole time, which Really comes down to the people you surround yourself with. It's hard when you don't have people around you to be surrounded with in your local area, but we got the internet now. You can be surrounded by these people online by just listening to their content. What you put in your ears is super important. So yeah, I mean, if you're like Gary Vee— I know I hated on him a little bit at the beginning, but just because of what people have taken his agenda towards— but if you listen to people like that, positive advice from successful people, it's similar to what you could possibly find in a place like Los Angeles, anywhere.

But on the same accord, a lot of the people that you may be following online that are portraying this life of success and wealth in there— like, I think most people actually portray a much better version of their life. And if you're consistently like feeding on that content you start to compare yourself to other people and you could push yourself to the, to the, you know, far end of the, the, you know, lower confidence because you're comparing yourself to these fake lives. What's your advice for people who are, you know, are on social media and they're active and they're following all these people and, and they don't know if they're really successful or not? Do you have any advice on that?

Be careful with who you listen to and be careful what advice you take in because there's certain people that we both know where It seems like they're doing really well online, but they're not. It's, at the end of the day, as long as you keep it real with yourself, you're gonna know, like, realness attracts realness, real recognizes real. So it's when you see someone who doesn't, like, you can definitely note there's certain things about this person that's off, then just don't listen to them. Like, only listen to the people who are verified, verifiably successful, and there's very few that I can think of off the top of my head.

And that doesn't mean that they have a blue check.

Yeah, no, definitely. I know scammers with blue checks. It's very easy. I always say, it's like, I'm very open. It's like pretty much any e-commerce person that you know, more than— not all of them, but more than likely 90% of the articles they paid for. I paid for all my articles. Well, not the Oberlo one and like the Medium one. Some they reach out to you. I know a lot of— like Forbes reached out to you, I believe, right?

I've had some that I've paid for. I've had some, you I had a full-time publicist that was pitching things. I mean, it costs money to have publicity in general.

And that's why whenever someone sees something like that, just 'cause they have a news article about them doesn't necessarily mean they're legit. I know so many people who just pay thousands of dollars to get this article and then they're like, oh my God, look, I'm featured, go check this out. So when it comes to the blue check, that, and for the people listening, that's how you get a blue check, publication and having a Google panel, you can buy, buy, buy. And if these people are making their money scamming people with their personal brand, then they can elevate that when they get that blue check. So be careful with the blue check. Authenticity comes— like, everyone has a sense of authenticity in this. It's just like intuition. The stronger you listen to it, the stronger it gets. And it's very important that you yourself are authentic to recognize that.

Yeah, and I think that that's just a big problem in general today, and I think it'll weed itself out over time. But I still think that there there's many years of this problem in place. So it's something that people should be aware of, and I'm glad we brought that topic up.

It's definitely peaked, I think, for sure. I would say it peaked like 2 years ago, and then people started heavily scamming. Like, I know some people where they would log into their friend's Shopify store and they had a personal brand on a dropshipping course. They're like, look, I did a quarter million dollars today, swipe up to get my course. And then eventually, shout out Baller Busters. I know you're not too big a fan because the vibe they put off. I totally understand that. But when— I'm not gonna mention his name— but when a certain person got busted, that's when they got on the New York Times and they didn't pay for any of that. Yeah, that really started exposing a lot of people and set a domino effect where people are now realizing that, okay, if I just try to scam people now, I can't just like pack up and go, like, that's my face. And like, that kid specifically, the rest of his life is gonna be attached to that.

Jared Goetz did— yeah. Now on the same note, it's like, you know, if you're, if you're looking at things like that, those types of videos, those types of exposing accounts, and you're watching them all the time, you know, you have to be careful not to make yourself into some kind of victim.

Yeah.

Where you, where you think the whole world's a scam and you think that nothing's real. And like, and, and validating why you're— I'm not successful because It's not really possible, like everyone's fake. Yeah, you got to be careful not to get in that mindset also.

Yes, I'd say at the end of the day, just be careful where you get your inspiration from. At the beginning, I was inspired by diamonds, cool cars, designer clothing, and now I get inspired by advice that really touches me to the heart. And when I apply it, works like extremely well. I know the more wealthier people I meet, the less they want to be known, the less show-offy they are. And so when someone's a little too show-offy, that usually sends a red flag to me because it's like, why? It's either insecurity or they have an agenda.

So that actually brings me to a good point. So, you know, you're talking about what inspires you, and I always say that it's really important to have a crystal clear vision of what you want your life to look like. So for me, a big turning point in my life was I went to Tony Robbins' UPW event. We did an exercise where You know, we really, we actually pretended we were someone like a loved relative that like cares a lot about us. And we're this relative walking up to our dream house and, you know, looking at the car in the driveway and see, and walking in and seeing a picture of the family and like, and they're just really proud of you. And then long story short, they like walk through the house and they see all this stuff about your life. And then they walk into the bathroom and they look in the mirror and they're you. And it's like a way to turn yourself, you know, into someone who's actually proud of yourself and get a vision on your life. And after I went through that process, I think that was the first time I ever defined a vision. And to, you know, anyone listening, you're not just gonna sit there and think your vision. You have to get yourself in a high-energy state first, or else you're gonna think of some weird vision. So you get a great vision, and, and it's really important to have that because You need something to have discipline to work toward each day and make sure all of your little actions are going towards it. So with that said, vision is very important. Do you have a vision for what you want your life to look like?

Yeah, before I get into that, one thing I want to note, shout out Jordan Peterson once again. He always says, take care of yourself as you would— take care of yourself as you would a loved one that you need to take care of. So that's his perception on the best way to take care of yourself. Now my overall vision and goal is pure freedom. Talked about this with Umar, but like when I was working as a busser, I thought freedom was working for myself. And then I started Uber driving. I'm like, I still am kind of like a slave to the money. I'm trading my time for money. So freedom, this isn't real freedom. Freedom, I still gotta be in this location. Real freedom where I make money wherever I go. Then dropshipping started working out and I'm like, perfect, I'm moving to LA. I remember I moved to LA and went to the— I lived there for a month, went to the beach 23 days in a row, uh, probably 25 in total. And I thought that was freedom. Okay, I made $30,000 this month, I've been going to the beach every day. But I honestly, first of all, wasn't happy because that's not fulfilling at all. You need to be working for something more than just money or direction of your life. But another thing I noticed is like, this isn't real freedom. Like, like, if I wanted to go to Bali right now, I couldn't just rent a jet to go there. I couldn't— like, if I want to get a house here, I think my goal in life is true freedom, where it is, okay, let me get a house in Colorado, let me get a house in California. Those are the two places I want to live. Okay, but I want to go spend 3 months in Cape Town. Let me hop on the jet, Private jet, skeleton key. I feel like once I get a private jet, then I'll know the real taste of real freedom, going anywhere ever I want on a moment's notice. Freedom to help out my family as much as I, like unlimited amounts basically. Freedom to help the unfortunate and freedom to just make the world a better place. That's real freedom and that's what I'm about and that's what encompasses everything into my goals.

So that's awesome and I think that that vision's really, It's a great vision to have, and I think for everyone listening, having a vision is a key takeaway here. You need to have a really clear vision. And another thing is, you know, that's really important with the vision is that you actually regularly think about it. 'Cause sometimes people will have the vision, they'll think of it one time, and then they'll have a stressful week, and then they'll go down, something will happen, and then they don't even think about their vision for months at a time. It's hard to keep them on track. So, you know, I think it brings up the point of like a routine. Like what— like how do you get yourself into a good mindset each day? For you, like, what does your day look like? What are your— what are you like— what are your first thoughts you have when you get up out of bed? You wake up, like, what— how do you get your mind in the right place?

Yeah. So first of all, in terms of a vision, I live life as if my vision is already true. Like I'm going to Colorado after this. In my head, I'm kind of already like in the feeling of, I— this is my house that I own out here. When I was driving my '98 Accord to Napoli to the bus, I pictured it being a supercar or hypercar or whatever. And then a couple years later, I got it because I— again, it goes back to the law of vibration. And so in terms of mindset, especially now in my new apartment, going from my old apartment to my new apartment Every day I wake up, I'm grateful as hell. I am super grateful. I'm not thinking about what I don't have. That's why I definitely try to stay off my phone for the first like good portion of the morning 'cause I don't wanna be focused on what I don't have or anything like that because I catch myself some days stressing over of like, I need to make more money, I need to make more money when I've never been more financially set in my entire life than I am right now. But I'm still thinking in that like mindset of like, okay, so which it's a good thing. But then I also got to reel it back and be like, this right now, if I had this 3 years ago, I would like, I would have permanent goosebumps. I look like a lizard for like days at a time because of how insane this is. So a lot of times this life will become so, I'll become so normal. Like, like I rented just like a 3 Series BMW. I couldn't like, I never drove anything like that until like 2018.

Yeah.

And then I get in it now and I'm like Yeah, this is a cool car, I guess. Like, I'm kind of used to my Tesla, or I'm kind of— I was using the M4 in, uh, LA. So it's just like, like Dan Bilzerian said, the issue with how money can't buy happiness, it can ruin it. Because when you start to go up, like when he— say I graduated high school and my dream was a badass Mustang, and I got that Mustang, and I'm at a 10 out of 10. If I got a Mustang now And that— okay, for my example, Trans Am was my dream car. If I got a Trans Am, 10 out of 10 for sure, take the T-tops off. But if I hop in a Trans Am right now, it'd be like maybe a 6 out of 10. So it's a good and a bad thing because you kind of start being less grateful for what you actually have, cuz you kind of normalize the life you're living. But then you got to compare to the life you were living compared to now and realize that you have to be grateful for everything, even if you don't have much right now. You're still way better off than a large portion of this world.

And I think that brings up a couple really good points. Number one, you know, no matter what— so I've been through the same thing. It's like, you know, if I peered into my life now when I was like 18 years old, I would be like, oh, that's it, I made it, I'm good, I'm set. But like every day I find myself like, what's next? What's better? What's more? And it never stops. It's like once you get the car, you want the house. Once you get the house, you want the yacht. Once you get the yacht, you want the plane. Once you get the plane, you wanna live on Mars. Once you live on Mars, you wanna own the universe. It never stops. And that's okay, it's human nature. It's good to have drive. But at the same time, most of us focus more of our attention on what we don't have than what we do have. And what that does, as you're saying with vibrations, it attracts more of not having things into your life. So if you're sitting here listening and you're driving a '98 Accord and you're like, man, I wish I had this other car, and you consistently live in that state of man, I wish I had this, you're gonna keep attracting not having it. But if you can get yourself into the state of gratitude, I live in America, I have internet, I have a computer, I have family that loves me, I have great friends. Okay, I might not have everything, but if you focus more on what you do have than what you don't have, it attracts getting more.

Yes, and I know in my DMs I see it like, Scott, I don't have anything grateful. Well, first of all, you do, so knock that out of the park right away. Find out what you're grateful for, just start writing it down. But if you have convinced yourself that you don't have much to be grateful for, Morgan Freeman has said, be grateful for the blessings that you haven't received yet. So even in that way, you can be grateful because you know, you should know you're on a path. Not like, I hope it works, I hope it works. It should already be happening in your head and you should be grateful for that.

When I went through a really hard time, when I, you know, some of the people listening may know my story, some people not. I'm not gonna tell the whole thing right now, but when I crashed and burned at 23 in my concert promotion business went under. I was living in my mom's apartment. I had just went through a really bad breakup. I was in a bad state of mind, and I was trying to hold on to things to be grateful for. And one of the things I could come up with was like, I was in pretty good shape. So I'd go to the gym and I would just like focus on being grateful that like my body was operating at a great level. Yeah, it would take my mind off of what I don't have and shift me into an energy of what I do have. So you just got to find something, whatever it is, to hold on to and focus on it that you do have.

If you can get out of the bed and stand up, you have no idea how big of a blessing that is.

Dude, I, I, some people, I hear— so I, you know, I live here in Boca Raton in a country club, so obviously I'm the youngest homeowner in the neighborhood. I play golf with people that are, you know, 50, 60, 70 years old very often. And I'll— and I hear this all the time. I'm like, like, how are you doing today? They're like, I got out of bed today, it's a great day. Yeah, many people have said that, but sometimes when we're young and we're not quite there yet, we're naive and we don't focus on what we have. Yeah, I think that was really good.

Yeah, like when I went to Colorado, I was on a big hike, and I think that trip in Colorado really made me understand how grateful I should be simply for just something as simple as I can hike this mountain. I'm fine. Like, I don't have anything like breathing issues. I don't have— I have— I'm completely able-bodied to do this. And even if you're not, there's still so many things to be grateful for on top of that. Like, the gratefulness never ends, and you got to be grateful for the blessings that you just haven't received yet, because if you're in that mindset, they're gonna come. Yep. Because you're— it goes back to my point of the anti-manifestation point where thoughts are reality. So if you're grateful for the blessings that you haven't received yet, in your head, that would mean that they're already there. Yep. And so that's gonna naturally attract them.

For anyone interested in learning the scientific reasoning behind this stuff, which it is scientific.

Yeah.

Joe Dispenza, Dr. Joe Dispenza, his book, Becoming Supernatural, talks a lot about how we're particle and wave and we're just energy. And we could live in the vision of our future as opposed to live in the memory of our past, and living in that vision of our future actually manifests it, and it's very scientific stuff, so.

What do you think the best advice that you've heard from Joe Dispenza is?

I think that right there, that simple piece of advice that you need to live in the vision of your future rather than living in the memories of your past. Yeah. 'Cause a lot of people's upbringings or situations or their past maybe, not that good. And if that's how you define yourself, that's the work. You have to define yourself as the vision of your future rather than the memory of your past.

I can't remember his quote, he posted the other day. He's like, every action you take is a step towards the person you'll be in the future. So every action you take must— every action you take must align with the person you want to be in the future, or you may— or you're gonna become someone you don't want to be in the future. So it's really important, like, treating everybody with respect, every single person with respect.

I—

all because especially like in restaurants specifically, like since I went there, since I worked there for 6 years, I am so grateful and extra respectful to every server, anything. Like I'll even clean up after myself, I'll stack the plates just because I know how big of that small little detail can make. And at the end of the day, You're not better than anybody else.

Well, that mindset makes you magnetic. Yeah, like being— just being a genuine— it's like, I'll have days where I feel down and like I'll be lit, I'll be in my car and the music's just not as entertaining, and I talk to people and I'm just like, alright, I'm done with this conversation. But then I'll have the days where like I'm just pumped about life and, you know, I'll go to the gym and like just be friendly to the person behind the desk. I'll buy something, make someone laugh and smile, and like those are the days that like I'll get those phone calls that like a great deal is closing or it's like it all works together. So if you could focus on being a good person, more compassionate, more energetic, like that's what you should be focusing on if you don't know where to go.

Yeah, if you don't know where to go, read the book How to Win Friends and Influence People. Have you read that one?

That's a classic. Yes.

I mean, he talks about how like he's given compliments as simple as like, um, like you, when you meet someone you want to find something about them that you admire. And it's as simple as like, "Oh, I really wish I had your head of hair." And I think he said in the book like the guy started crying because he's like, "Nobody's ever admired me before for anything." Right. And it's just like you have no idea the effect that can have on other people. And in an unselfish way, you have no idea what the effect of doing that's going to have on yourself.

Yeah, love that one. Kinda wanna move to the next topic that I'm sure a lot of people are thinking about. So with all of the opportunities online these days, affiliate marketing, being an influencer, e-commerce, freelance work, softwares, what do you think, I'm gonna ask you two questions. Number one, for a beginner trying to kind of gain some more freedom in their life, Where do you think a good starting point is? And then number 2, what do you see the biggest opportunity for people over the next 2 to 5 years being?

Ooh, that's a good one. Well, first of all, in terms of all the things you listed, I'm just gonna blatantly say this out now, don't listen to your parents' advice. They don't know about this world, don't know anything about this world. Unless your dad's like in software development or something like that, then It's a little different, but so many— it's a very consistent thing. So many parents think it's a scam, and if you start making money, they think you're doing something illegally. Tune all that out. Tune to the people who are actually doing it. So a great starting point— do you want like specific advice or just general?

Specific advice would probably be useful for a lot of people.

Okay, well, this is— you need money to start off, first of all. Everything's gonna cost money, and you will lose money in anything you go into. Most— for the most part, you're gonna lose money at the start. Sorry. So one thing, change your mindset to that because you're gonna lose money. A lot of people— because like 90% of traders quit, but it's just because anybody can trade. So it's a little skewed. Make money. You can do so by, say, learning Facebook ads on YouTube for free and then doing social media marketing. One thing I've always recommended is going to Craigslist free. Like, Craigslist has a free tab. All of that you can sell for $0. You're not putting any money up front. You find like desks, Flip that on the Facebook Marketplace because all the people putting on Craigslist free are older people who are still using Craigslist. You can literally— I call it drop posting— take the photos from the Craigslist free ad and then just put it on Facebook. And whenever it sells, whenever someone wants to buy on Facebook, you go contact that guy. It's a fluid motion. That can be a little issue-y because it might sell or something like that. So then they could just get like a storage unit and or just put in your backyard. But you gotta find some way to make money, you gotta find some way to make money on your own.

How about a job? I mean— To get the money to start. Yeah, exactly, a job's a good option. So many people are like, they feel too good for a job. You worked in a restaurant for 6 years. I worked at Baskin-Robbins for 5 years.

Oh, really?

I worked in restaurants as well. I've done some of the shittiest jobs there. It's nothing wrong with getting a job to build up $5,000 or $10,000.

100%.

To start what you wanna do.

Yeah, I guess I didn't think of the obvious answer right there, the job. But yeah, get the job and then that's gonna teach you the discipline. And then you got to have the discipline to work outside of that job. A lot of people, once say it's a 9-to-5, once 5 hits, they're at the bar. It's like, you can do that, but you're gonna end up like everyone there at the bar at 5:00 PM. So I, like, when I was dropshipping, I would be working like sometimes, like, there was days where I would work like 9:00 a.m. till 10:00 p.m. and then get home and start working on Facebook ads till 1:00 a.m. or dropshipping or anything like that. So that's great because then you're gonna have the consistent cash flow, and if you do lose money, you know that the check's coming next week if you're working for it. So a job is the best way to do it. And then from there, find a little success doing something. At that point, when you're in the job, I would say you want the time— time freedom should be your goal. So start working on things that are gonna give you that money, in which that you can still— you have the freedom to expand on it, like dropshipping, social media marketing. I mean, stocks if you want to get a little more risky, but anything that's gonna bring you money on your own terms, even Uber driving, that is gonna set you to another level of free, which is gonna give you so much more time and so much more mental concentration to do whatever you want to do.

Awesome. And you know, another point real quick before we dive into the next point is You know, the skills you learn along the way are really invaluable. After my concert promotion company crashed and burned, it led me to getting— joining an amazing company called Yik Yak, running the marketing there, which paid me a salary. I got shares in the company. I made an exit. So like, even if you're honing in on these skills, you're dropshipping, you're running ads, you're doing whatever you're doing, Having these skills, when another opportunity shows itself, it starts to actually build what I like to call an opportunistic mindset. So like all the shit you do and learn, now if you go somewhere and you see something that you would have just glanced over, now you see it as an opportunity. When I went to China for the Canton Fair after having sold so much online, you know, now I was in like a playground. I was like, I could sell this online, so that I'm like, do I see this online. But had I just been there without the skills, I would've been like, yeah, that's a toothbrush, yeah, that's a toilet bowl. But I was like, this is a Sonicare quality toothbrush for $2 a pop. Like, I'd probably sell these for like $80 each. And I saw a smart toilet, I was like, we could probably sell these for $2,000 each. So my point is that the more shit you do, the more you develop that opportunistic viewpoint.

Yeah, be grateful for the blessings you haven't received you've got and prepare for the opportunities that haven't been presented. Yeah, and I like that, is perfect because I compare it to the dropshipping eye. That's what I say now. It's like people always say, how do you know if a product's gonna work or not? It's like you kind of just got to keep testing, keep learning, and then you develop that dropshipping eye where you switch from consumer to seller mentally. Because a lot of people will say, well, I would never use this I've sold plenty of things I would never use. I would say I've only used one of my products that I've ever sold because I had no interest. So a lot of people— I've seen people sell like— especially if you're a male selling a female item, that's going to really teach you the dropshipping eye because even though you wouldn't use it, you recognize that there's a demand for it. I mean, that one guy, I think he made $400,000 last year selling air. I would never buy an $80 bottle of air. But he's selling $400,000 worth of air and it just proves like at the end of the day it's not really your preference of, well, that's a bad way to put it. At the end of the day, you gotta think in terms of making money, you gotta think in terms of the people who are paying the money, not selfish and like from your standpoint, if that makes sense.

I mean, I've sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of magnetic eyelashes. I've sold push-up bras. I sold little stuffed animal talking hamsters that would repeat what you said. I sold like 40,000 of those.

Oh, I remember that.

I would never buy that product, but it was the data of the market. I mean, the market teaches you. You can't decide, but once you start to get a feel for it, then you develop that eye.

Yeah, and the eye is super important in anything.

Yeah.

In anything you're going afterwards, like a real estate eye. I don't have a real estate eye. Like I couldn't like, look at a house and be like, oh, I can make money on this. But I guarantee you, the guy— a lot of people know.

Yep. So my— the next point was, what do you see as the biggest opportunity in the internet, you know, entrepreneur space over the next 2 to 5 years?

Ooh, that's a good one. Like, besides the, like, e-commerce? If you think e-commerce is the biggest opportunity, then in terms of e-commerce, there's never been an easier time to build a brand and to test a brand before you even build it. That's why I do branded one product dropshipping, because you can take a product, you can give the illusion that it's a brand. I just learned the other day that you can add the TM mark to your name. Yeah, without having the trademark, like, completely legal. So you can make the illusion of a brand, and if it actually works, then you're like, okay, I didn't just spend $70,000 in stock and product development and branding all these products and I spent $3,000 on these ads and I made back $10,000. Let me scale this up, see what happens. Okay, now with this money I've made, I'm gonna apply this into the brand, reinvest, brand the products, get the stock, and all of a sudden you have a brand that would normally take possibly tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, to build. You made it in kind of like a funnel sort of way, like you started on the small part of the funnel, as in small small investment, and as you start making more money, you started putting more money into the brand and expand it like that. So that's a big opportunity. Trading cards are huge right now. I don't know if you follow that at all.

I've had multiple people reach out to me asking if I was interested in buying or getting involved with them. I'm not into sports. Yeah, so I had no interest, but it's nuts.

Garen Jones, he spent— he spent $35,000 on like trading cards, uh, specifically basketball. Right now. He just got them appraised the other day at $900,000. Yeah, no way! It is ridiculous, especially the past year. They've taken— and that's why Gary Vee was talking about a year and a half ago, he turned $30-something thousand to $900,000 because he also— that guy comes in with such crazy positive energy to every single situation. He goes, when I was buying these cards, I only bought these cards because my mom threw away all my cards. I had signed LeBron rookies I just enjoyed these cards and he threw them away. So when I started making money, I just started buying them out the pure heart, pure joy of my heart. And by doing that, someone reached out to me. He goes, hey, that card you just posted, it's worth like $3,000. I had no idea. And then I started looking at all these. Okay, that's $900. Okay, that's $700. I just wanted to look at them. And he goes, now he's had people— because he's now, he's in the trading community— he says people have literally offered him like $2,000 to flip fly out to where they are and buy packs of cards because his luck is just out of this world. It all goes back to his mindset. Change your mindset, change your life.

That's incredible. Yeah, so, so we got building brands, cards. I mean, building brands is— there, I mean, there's companies that we work with that, that you can spend $1,000 or $2,000 and they'll hire a bunch of models or, or people off Craigslist to come create user-generated content, unboxing, You can literally fabricate a brand for a few thousand dollars, test it, validate it, then go and then you can go raise money. You can say, "Hey, we built this brand, we did this test run, these are the results, do you want to invest as a 20% partner?" And everyone wants to get in. I mean, I would, if somebody came to me with results like that, I would invest in it.

100%. I would say for the people who are listening, they don't know, well, how do I start building a brand, da da da. You can think outside. The easiest brand to build is a per— well, the most simple brand to build is the personal brand. Even if you don't know anything about e-commerce or you don't want to or anything, at the end of the day, having a personal brand is gonna be so beneficial and it's only gonna get more and more beneficial because I'll tell you something that happened in St. Louis. I run localized Facebook ads in my area in Clayton and I have that trick where I can isolate down to just downtown. And I ran ads for this 2 years ago, and I restarted them on the go-kart recently. First of all, everyone in the fucking town knows me now. People are yelling my name when they see me and all this, which is cool, but I just wanted to see what this would do this time around with a more strategic approach. So the restaurant in my building saw me. They all know me because they all saw my ads, and the head manager came up and said, hey, we'd like to actually sponsor you. We'll give you free meals for life if you start talking about our restaurant. In your videos. Just like before you go go-karting, be like, hey, I need to stop by Peel Pizza. Shout out Peel Pizza. And simultaneously enough, my apartment building reached out to me and they goes, hey, we're actually going to contact with the owners because we want to give you some sort of sponsorship deal where we'll give you a discount on your rent every month just to promote us on your personal brand. And with TikTok, it's never been easier. And something really important about that is you gotta And I stress, like, I just watched my first YouTube video the other day and I was like, I just wanna make one thing clear for everyone. I am gonna be 100%, this is still when I was an Uber driver, so this is a YouTube video I just haven't posted. He's like, I've made like $350 in dropshipping, this product's gonna, I think it's gonna take off. This is the product I did $200,000 on. So it's so weird to watch those, but I just said, I'm gonna make one thing clear from the very start. I'm gonna be completely myself. I'm gonna be completely authentic 'cause I noticed a lot of people online aren't. So when you go in the personal brand route and you start pretending to be someone you're not, you're gonna fall into a hole and lose yourself in the process completely. So people like— you don't know what people want. So say you start vlogging and people start liking your vlogs, you don't know that. Like, you wouldn't think like, oh, someone wants to watch me go, or someone wants to watch me play golf, someone wants to watch me do this. You'd be very surprised what people want to watch. And as long as you remain yourself and you're never gonna lose yourself and you're never gonna dig yourself into a hole where you don't even recognize the person on the screen anymore.

Yeah, I can definitely relate to that. I mean, as, as I got into the e-commerce info space and was selling courses, you know, I started building a persona around, you know, making money with dropshipping and e-commerce, and it wasn't really who I was at my core. Like, who I am is I'm passionate about inspiration and about mindset, about meditation, about bettering myself and others, and others, and like, and focusing on, on, well, on bettering myself so that I could validate to myself that these things work so that I could share with other people.

Great point.

But I built up this whole community and following of people that want to make money with dropshipping, so I had to consistently put out content like that. And I don't— if, if anyone realized, I haven't really put out anything on Instagram in, in like a year or more because I don't want— I only want to be authentic because it's very tiring. So a lot of people out there that are trying to build something and they're trying to build a personal brand and they're, they're doing what they think they have to do because other people are doing it. Like, that's cool and all, but once you get it, then you're gonna have a lot to hold up to and a lot to live up to, and it's way harder to go back once you have a lot of people that are expecting you to do one thing. And it's very tiring.

100%. In terms of personal branding advice, I always say, if you say— I hate to kind of use the word, but famous. If you want to, let's just say, pretend— it makes more sense for me to say famous, but recognize that it's just growth. I'll just say growth. You want to grow in yourself, and then you want to grow in your town, and then you want to grow in your city, and then you want to grow in your state, then you want to grow in your country. And then you want to grow in the world. But you don't want to go— you don't want to do that backwards. You don't want to try to take on the whole world because the people in your— you're going to relate to yourself most of anybody, and then the people in your town are going to relate to you most because they see, like, especially with the localized Facebook ads trick, you can easily become localized famous. And then you don't know what opportunities that's going to bring, and then it just expands like that because then now you're— say, okay, this kid's popping in the state. If you can get famous in your state, there's a great chance you can get famous in the nation. If you can get famous in the nation, great chance you can get famous in the world. And I get DMs all the time. I don't respond to too many, but it's like, hey, come out to my house, you know, I got like a mansion and a yacht, like, let's go, let's come down here for 4 days, let's have fun. Or like, hey, I got a business opportunity over here if you want to fly out. So that magnetic networking is so important, but you have to have the exposure for people to find you.

Yep. And like what you said, it's the most important thing is to figure out who you really are and be famous within yourself first.

Yeah.

Before going outward.

Tai Lopez says the greatest misfortune is becoming really successful and good at something that you don't like to do.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a great line right there. Okay, so we're coming close to wrapping this up here. Do you have any general words of advice or anything that you think that would resonate well with people?

I would say my core value, and we touched on this earlier, just please, please, please do not listen to a single piece of advice on anything that someone giving you the advice hasn't done. I mean, more perfectly put, never listen to anybody who's never done whatever you're trying to do. You're gonna end up not not doing it just like them. So when I was doing dropshipping, my parents, my friends, everyone around me who have never even done a Facebook ad or don't even know how dropshipping works was telling me it's a scam and it didn't work. And then when I got on YouTube, similar things. So guess who I listened to when I was dropshipping? The successful dropshippers. Guess what I listen to now when I'm getting into stocks? Not the 90% who have failed, not my friends' parents who lost X amount of money, I'm listening to the people who are making the real money. I'm listening to people like Umar Ashraf, who's made $1.5 million this year. And so when you listen to those people, you're way more likely to actually get the results. And it seems like a no-brainer, but a lot of people are so emotionally invested into certain people, which let me just cover. I guarantee, for the most part, your parents, your family, and friends, they have your best interests in mind. But the world changed big time. And a lot of times what was best for them isn't best for you. So you, only you know what's best for you. No one else can tell you different. And if you start listening to everyone else, you're gonna start to forget what's best for you and you're never gonna ever find that.

Yeah, and I think just on that note, like as Scott said, your family and friends may have your best interest in mind, but at the same time, if they wanted to do something and they never did it, and you're doing it, there's going to be a level of like, "Ah man, I wish I would have done that." And so at some level they don't want to see it work because they want to prove to themselves that they made the right choice by not doing it. And by you talking about what you're doing and sharing with people what you're doing, you're inviting that energy into your world. So you're better off not even really talking to your friends family and friends about the things you're working on until it's working, until you've already done it.

Yeah, the energy will be off. I remember, I just had this thought actually, when I first started dropshipping, I told my parents like, I'm gonna make a 6-figure business, which to me back then was just so much, and obviously I have done it. And I remember they said, your uncle said the same thing and he didn't do it. And so it's just like, okay, that's a great point because maybe they didn't necessarily try, but they saw someone else try and it failed, and they they were just worried that I would do the same thing.

Yeah.

But I knew, like, it already happened in my head. I just needed my, my, like, I think the brain lives a little bit further in the future, but I kind of trust that it lives way further in the future, and I just need my body to catch up to whatever my thoughts are having. So the only way to do that, the only way to get anything, is to listen to the people who have done it. It's going to send you light years. I can't imagine how much talent the world's lost out on because that talent listened to people who have never done what they're trying to do. Maybe a famous singer, maybe a great philosopher, a great writer. I can't imagine the countless amount of people that we've lost and all that knowledge never— that never got presented because they simply listened to people who hadn't done what they were trying to do. But with that being said, it's nobody— it's nobody's fault but that person's.

Yeah, well, especially now that we have access to podcasts like this. Yeah, amazing advice all over the place. Anyway, Scott, thanks so much for joining, man. I think this is awesome. I think people are going to love it. Um, great conversation. If you're watching this on YouTube, uh, you know, and you have any questions, leave us a comment. If you enjoyed the podcast, share it with a friend.

Hit that like button, hit that subscribe button.

Do those things. Those would be helpful things.

Absolutely. Thank you so much.

Thanks, bro.