305: My True Story: Success After Hitting Rock Bottom - #GrowYourLife

Hey, everybody, thanks for listening to the Grow youw Life podcast. My name is Jeremiah Gracowski. On this podcast, I talk about ways for you to grow in your life, in your business, to make more money, scale your business, reach your goals. Now, I talk about my story all the time at the beginning of all my YouTube videos. My successes built multiple online coaching, online course businesses to over eight figures. It's over $10 million a year. And I can help you reach your goals, making six figures, seven figures, eight figures. But I want to talk about in kind of more of a traditional podcast form. It's going to be a little bit more relaxed. Down to earth is my story and where I've come from and the lessons that I've learned along the way. There's going to be lessons for you glean from this. Nothing boring that you don't care about, but also some stuff that might be intriguing as well to you. So again, my story in business, very interesting. Grew up, had a mom. Some of y' all know who my mom is. Sandy Krakowski, who actually built an online business back before Amazon was even built. She built an E commerce store. And so in a sense, in a very real sense, I come from a family with a lot of success in Internet business, e commerce, and online sales. And it started with my mom, who made millions online before Amazon was even around in the 90s. So, like we're looking at over 30 years ago. Incredible. Okay. Now, I wasn't old enough to even know anything about business back then. I got my start helping her with that. But I learned stuff along the way. My business story starts when I turned. I was 16 at the time, but I had. I had met a. It was a company. My mom went to this seminar and it was a sales seminar. The person putting it on's name was Danny Johnson. And it was interesting. I will say I'm not afraid to say it. I'm not a. Not a huge fan anymore of Danny. Kind of got a bit of a sour taste in my mouth after years of being closely connected with them. But for years I worked with them, worked for Danny, helped out a lot to their bottom line from a marketing perspective. And I got my start creating and editing CD and DVD products. I was super into video editing before. It was like a trend. Interestingly enough, kind of the same way I am. I'm always like five years early on a lot of the stuff that everybody's gonna learn about. Like I was using AI back in 2021, like crazy. I know a lot about AI, a lot more than most people now when it comes to building your business. I was doing video stuff back when, like, nobody knew about video. I wanted to be a filmmaker at the time. And so I would edit all these, like, crazy things together and all that, that kind of stuff. That's where I got my start because then I went and worked with Danny and helped create the CD and the DVD products that she sold by editing them all together, putting all together. But again, because I came from this background of business, I was always having ideas, sharing the ideas. I would always speak up in meetings. I didn't really know that you weren't supposed to speak up in meetings. Nobody told me that. So I'm like this, like, kid who just every meeting I would speak up and share ideas. And a lot of those ideas were pretty good. They're. They're pretty valuable. Fast Forward to about 19 years old and I started to do some dabbling in affiliate marketing. It was really like a weird dabbling, like, in, like, in the weirdest sense. So I. I got a taste for drinking alcohol quite a bit around the time and as well for about a year or two. This is kind of a dark part of my story. Experimented a little bit with, like, prescription opiates. Not like, a lot, but like Vicodin. And yet, like, I would not recommend this to anybody. But yeah, some drug usage and I'd have all these ideas for business while I was doing this. So this wired my brain in a very weird way that took me years to unwire to where like, now, you know, I have not used anything, including alcohol. I don't even drink caffeine. I haven't drank caffeine in over a year and. But I haven't had alcohol in. It's almost been now four years. And so that was not where I was at at the time. Like, that was like, alcohol was a big part of my life and all that. But I was like, I was using it because I didn't feel safe to come up with and share ideas. And so that's one of the first lessons I want to share with you, is that for me, I've always chased after, where does my highest creativity come from. I'm always looking for the edge of my creativity. And of course the alcohol and the pills helped because it helped me get out of my head and into that creative flow state. And I want you to think about, like, musicians and artists that have done this over the years. What I learned now through therapy and healing and learning how to calm my nervous system down on demand, learning how to Listen to my inner voice is that my creativity comes when my nervous system feels safe. And I call it the big three feeling unstoppable, unshakable and safe. And really like, that's what I would feel when I would drink alcohol. I would feel that's why they call it liquid courage, right? So what I've done is I've been able to cultivate in myself without needing to use substance because I, I knew people who could do it. But I was like, how do you do this? I couldn't do it. And I had to learn like, okay, how do I cultivate that? So that's one of the first things I'll tell you is you totally can rewire your brain to where your, your best level of creativity flow state. Like, I mean, when I first started this podcast, I would take a shot of tequila to even record the podcast. So again, I don't drink alcohol anymore. I am actually very proud of that fact. And I'm not going to from there all that to say I, you know, I made some really dumb choices. And it was interesting because I made $750,000 in affiliate marketing one year and then almost the next year, I think I made like, maybe less than like under $10,000. And I look a little bit of savings and some investment stuff that I was able to sell to take care of certain things. But I was miserable. My life was miserable. Bowl and I hit rock bottom. That's when I first moved to Austin, Texas. I live here in Austin, Texas now. But the first time that I moved to Austin, Texas was during that time I became a dj. I used my marketing chops that I knew, and we were marketing nightclub events here in Austin. And that was crazy because we get a lot of people to show up to our events with a lot of the marketing things that I knew how to do. So that was kind of incredible to put all together to see that, to see that happen. I don't regret that at all. Again, that ties back into the alcohol consumption, all that because I was in that this party season right there. But then my business career takes a transition where. And again, I'm so grateful to my mom. She saw that I had hit rock bottom and she had offered me a job to help run her marketing. So I was, I was fired from Danny Johnson because of these alcohol issues that I had made some really dumb choices and it was affecting my life in a lot of ways. I hit rock bottom and the mom was gonna give me hand up and I'm so grateful for that, for her Giving me that opportunity. And what ended up happening was I discovered for the first time what it meant to take care of myself, what it meant to love myself, what a sense of self love meant. I didn't know it at the time, that's what it was. But I had focused on my, my health and fitness at the time. I went on this crazy fitness journey where I lost like £150. I lost £100, not £150. I got down to, I think it was. I got down to 150 pounds. Yes. And I had, I had ABS six pack from the first time. It's like, whoa. It's crazy. It's awesome, you know, But I was like killing myself in the gym all the time for that. And then after that, I met my now wife and my whole life changed. Got flipped on its head. Met a beautiful woman. Just like everything I could have ever dreamed of or imagined in a woman she had. And in, in, in her personality and how she looked, everything, it's just like amazing. And so like, I was like, this is awesome. We didn't get married right away. I was again working with my mom. I kind of decided to get my life a little bit in order at the time when I met her. This was my first instance of finding something that was similar to therapy. But it wasn't really therapy. It was like, it was kind of like talk therapy. But it like mixed with some religious stuff that I did and it radically changed the way that I was thinking. And I can look back now, it's because it gave me a sense of satisfaction, safety for a brief period of time. And in that, when I felt that sense of safety, there was a lot of synchronicities that started to happen. There's a lot of amazing things that came together in my life that then, you know, our mind and our body seeks homeostasis, meaning that it will return back to what it believes it does. Deserves like, like a thermometer. The temperature goes up, you turn the temperature down, it returns back to the. What the setting is. So I met, met Abigail, my now wife. I had gone through this. I felt super confident, amazing. And then I had started to like, lose that confidence. I started to go back to where I was mentally. And that was really hard for me because I had experienced something that now I know how to cultivate. I know in my entire life how I live my life is literally based around that. I felt what I feel today in living my life that gives me joy and pleasure. And it's amazing about how I understand about the mind and mindset and managing my thoughts. I had discovered this during that sort of religious experience for the first time. And that's when I met my wife, because I had the confidence to go out there and do that. And it was. And it was amazing. And I, and I truly believe, like, she was. She was exactly who the Lord God had planned for me. Some awesome. So anyways, I digress from there is. We started building my mom's business. I was working with my mom. My wife was working with my mom. She was not my wife at the time. And we helped grow that business to over $10 million a year. No, sorry, $20 million a year. That one was 20 million. $20 million a year. The next one was 10 million. And so my journey was in business 22 years. It's been 22 years. When I started working with Danny Johnson, I started on this journey in this industry, the coaching and online course industry, and then dabbled in the affiliate marketing and then marketing of live events with the DJ events. And then I started working with my mom, working for her, doing the marketing. But then when I met my wife, which was in 2014, so we're looking at like 11 years ago. So the fact the first 11 of those 22 years was just me, kind of like after I left home, after being homeschooled, finding myself the last 11 years has been really dialed in, in creating millions of dollars of wealth strategically for the companies that I've worked with and then for myself and my own company, you know. And about two years ago, for the first time, one of my own businesses made seven figures, hit a million dollars. I have not earned less than a quarter million dollars since. Oh, gosh, I would say since 20. 2016, 2017, like around then. So for at least the last eight or nine years, I haven't earned less than a quarter million dollars. And for most of those years, for about seven of those years, has been. Been in my own business. So that's really cool. And I think that that's a, that's a testament to, like, that's my baseline minimum. And I know how to get people to a quarter million dollars from zero. I know what it takes to do that. I know without a doubt, if you're following me, if you're watching me, you want to be making a quarter million dollars. I know how to get you there. I know how, what it takes. I know what the mental game is to get there. I know the sacrifices you got to make. And that's what I mentor people on all the time in My wealthy coach academy programs is how to do that. Okay. So from there, we had helped my mom scale her business to over $20 million. And then it was interesting, my mom and I got like, kind of toxically entwined, intertwined in our relationship. Like, what I mean by that is just not enough healthy way, both in business and personal relationship. And so we ended up kind of parting ways. And I didn't even really talk with my mom that much for couple of years. This was right after I got married, by the way. So my life got shaken up, got married, and then my mom and I parted ways and I started my own business. And so this is back in 2018, you know, and things were. Things are. We're going well. During that time, I got a chance to work with a ton of different organizations. I took the skills that I learned working with my mom and building that to then helping over a dozen. A lot of them were spiritual leaders, reached audiences of people growing in my own personal development during that time. And one of those was one of my friends, Rick Pino. My wife and I ended up working most of our time with his business, and we helped him scale that to over $10 million. It's called worship Coach. So it was right alongside him we were able to build that. I talked a lot of examples during that. That time period, and that was up until 2022. That was three years ago, in 2022. Then my mom and I started working together again. I helped her scale. She started trading stocks, helped her scale that coaching business, and launched my own coaching program in 2022. All during that time, my coaching program then within a year, hit seven figures. Our best month. I did over $160,000 in cash, received sales. This is the best month I'd ever had in business, period. And so the lessons that I had learned along the way are this, that a. Everything in life leads us at the right place at the right time. God is never late. He's on time. If we accept it, if we stop trying to control things, we learn to surrender, to lead us to the right time, the right moment in time in our life, to do amazing, incredible things that we're called to. And so then for me, what I found was I was able to take these skills that I had learned over the years, build my coaching business, build my coaching program, and then share those skills with other people. And that's what I do every single day right now, is, if you're a coach, if you're a course creator, you want to know, how do I get more Clients online. I can help you do that. I can show you exactly what strategies are working right now. I can show you exactly how to structure things, how to build your marketing campaigns, your advertising campaigns, your funnels, your lead magnets, all of that. And that's what I do in my coaching program. I also do some high level consulting as well, where I can actually come into your business and build that with you. It's not, it's not cheap, but for the right person, it's worth it 100% to work with me, to be able to build that with you and to come alongside you and to create those results. And so listen, if you're looking to do that, you want to work with me, whether it be inside of my wealthy coach Academy program, you go find that over my website. There should be a link in the bio as well. You can go check that out. Or you want to work with me in consulting, you go write me on Instagram and I can schedule a call with you where we can talk about that. And before I do any, like, high level consulting, I definitely will get on a call with somebody, but I only, I only work with a select group of people doing that every year just because of the capacity and the effort and what I do in that. And so again, if I think you're qualified, if I think you kind of fit into that, then I would schedule a call with you to help you accomplish that. So again, that's my story thus far. A little bit of like personal life, massive shift that's happened. I got a picture right here. My wife gave birth. We got two sons. Kyron is a little one, Luca, or not Luca, Lucas, my nephew. Kyron and Holston right here are my sons. And that's changed my life. That's completely and radically changed my life, who I am, my, my personality. I've become more of the man that I've always wanted to be. And I couldn't be more grateful. And I can tell you this, that going off of alcohol I was using, I used to use CBD oil every day. Going off caffeine has helped me be able to hear my inner voice and become a better parent and dad to my kids and a better business leader. And so again, if I can encourage you in one thing is learn, do the work to where you're not mentally self sabotaging yourself every single day. It's worth it. And if this episode has helped you or anything or you found some value in it, please share it with somebody. Don't keep this information to yourself. I know you know somebody who could use this lesson and some of the lessons that I've shared from this. I'd love to see them as well. All right, everybody, grow your life. We'll talk soon. Have a good one, Sam.