The Fearless Strategy Brooke Castillo Used to Grow Her Life Coach Training Business to $50 Million

It was like my own journey. I kind of studied myself and everything that was going wrong in my life. And, like, as I fixed it, I started teaching it. You know, people will say to me all the time, oh, must be so nice to think you're so great. And I'm like, it is so nice. I spent a lot of my life hating myself. And if these are my choices, I can either hate myself or think that I'm fantastic. I'm going to pick that I'm fantastic every single time.

So you have a business that is currently making how much money a year?

What's your, like, 50 million?

You run a very successful business that helps certify people to become life coaches. And that means you've probably had to do a lot of deep dives into psychology or therapy or human behavior. What's your version of who you are and what you do? And we're going to delve into your childhood, perhaps.

Maybe we're going to delve.

We'll see. Delve. Delve. Delve. No, dwell is a new word. It's a coaching word, Brooke.

We're delving together.

We're going to delve. Delve. It's so funny. You remind me of when I just had to record my audiobook and there were several words that I could never say properly, and I had to keep stopping during the whole, like, I write them, but then I couldn't pronounce them. And you don't realize this until you actually have to record your own book. So who are you? What do you do? What's your deal?

What do I do? Well, I run a life coach school, and I did. I think I learned most of everything that I teach at the school by dwelling into my own, really, my own brain. It was like my own journey. I kind of stuck. Studied myself and everything that was going wrong in my life. And, like, as I fixed it, I started teaching it. Truly, that's how I created the school. And I basically teach everything that worked. I study everyone, and I basically teach everything that worked. For me, the combination from all the different people put together with my own recipe is kind of like how I help people deal with their own brains.

Well, you know, I'm gonna actually ask you about what was not working in your life and kind of what you do in your methodology. Cause I want to. A couple things I want to talk about today here, and the reason I want to do an interview with you is you've built a really successful business. So there's the business of what you do, then there's the thing of what you do, then there's the people out there in the world that are selling, offering, delivering, coaching people in the things that they learn through you. And one thing I've been saying recently, since I wrote my book, which I'm going to blatantly plug my book every once in it. What's in it for them? Okay. It's a question I've always asked, where you approach people with not what do you want? But what do they want? If you help them get what they want and you do it with the right people, you know, it'll be very beneficial. I've been saying this when I've been speaking because I've thought about this. People that speak, write books, put on seminars. In a lot of ways, there's a lot of insecurity. I've had a lot of low self esteem, a lot of insecurity. You want people to like you. You want to share your ideas with the world. And a lot of my friends, most of them male, not all, but most of them that are male, that are unwilling to deal with their darkest stuff by going into a therapy group as an example, or going to a therapist or doing somatic therapy, just really working on the core of the puzzle. What many of them do instead is they start a podcast to heal themselves. Yeah. Then they start interviewing. And I will say that interviewing smart people is a good way to learn because you're certainly going to learn through the experiences of other people by sitting down and interviewing them. But I'll tell you, I think a lot of it is almost like a facade to doing your own work. And so in order to. So how deep have you gone down the rabbit hole of like, figuring out what causes you to tick or dealing with your shadow, dealing with crazy stuff in your life? I'd love to kind of hear your journey of what got you to this level.

Yeah. And just as a side note to that, just. And we can circle back to it, is like I've kind of grown up in this industry with a lot of dudes and bro marketers whom I love. But I think one of the differences between the people I kind of came up with is that, like, people not doing their work and like crashing and burning and really struggling. And I was like trying to figure out, like, what is it that made it so I could make all this money and have all the success and not do that. And I think one of the main things for me, because my business is doing this work, is I realized that it I wasn't going to be better There than where I was like. I think a lot of the people I came up with thought, as soon as I get rich, as soon as I'm successful, as soon as I make it, then I'll be healed.

Right.

And that's just not how it works. Right. So I started really, like, setting myself. I was obsessed with my weight. Like, I was like, borderline, really. I mean, and that's my weight. And my focus on my weight was really just my way of escaping my life. And so in my mind, I really thought that I was just trying to figure out how to get skilled, skinny.

Yeah.

But I just couldn't. And it made no logical sense. And so I actually went to therapy for many years. I went to therapy four days a week for three years when I was.

18 years old for like an hour. An hour a day?

Yeah, yeah, an hour.

Same therapist for the whole period of time.

Same therapist. And it was a Freudian therapist too. So they didn't say a word.

Oh, so you just sat there.

I just went in there and just basically talked about everything that was terrible in my life and. And she nodded and said, tell me again, but what about your past? And I just kind of. And I never really made progress there. I think initially telling my story the first time was really powerful to have a witness to that. And then after that, I just felt like I wasn't making any progress. And then I started getting involved in relationships at a pretty young age. Like I was like 15 years old. I had dealt with some sexual trauma when I was younger. And so I started getting these very toxic relationships when I was like 15, 16, 17. And that was one of the reasons that led me to go into therapy. But what helped me way more than therapy was a book that I had read. And it was written by a psychologist. And at that point I thought. And this book, it was like I read it and I felt like somebody understood me and someone could help me. And it was the first time I realized, like, it doesn't have to be people around you that help you.

Right.

And that was like the first step towards me just becoming obsessed with self help and self help books and researching. And this is way before we had the Internet or anything. I was just reading books and so. And she was a therapist. That's one of the reasons I got into therapy, but it's also the reason I wanted to become a therapist. And so I went to school thinking I wanted to become a therapist. And I went to Santa Clara and studied psychology and thought, you know, I'm going to Sit in an office and be a therapist. But what I studied in school to be a therapist was nothing like what I wanted to do. I was studying all abnormal, non functioning issues, you know, that you're dealing with when you are a therapist. And so I was like, this is depressing and awful and terrible. And I decided, I graduated from college and decided to go work for Hewlett Packard.

There you go.

Well, as a procurement specialist. So it was random.

So what period of time was that when you were kind of exploring that before? You were like, this is not working for me. I'm gonna go do something else. I mean, how much time did you put into the education and the, in the contemplation about.

So, yeah, I went all four years of college, my whole undergrad of doing that. And then even a year after that, I was still, you know, trying to figure out how I, you know, could. And becoming a therapist is a long process. Right. How I could do it in a way that would work for me. And I just couldn't. And I needed to get a job.

Yeah.

So I just went and got a job at Corporate America. And it was so random that I ended up doing that, but I'm so glad that I did. Right. There's so many things I learned about life in terms of making money and being in Corporate America. And now I have a perspective that I wouldn't have had otherwise. But fast forward a couple years. I saw an Oprah episode with. And meantime, I'm obsessed with self help, reading every self help book.

We like going to a lot of seminars to like seminar jokes, everything.

Yeah, like Tony Robbins, like all of it. I wanted to know everything there was to know about figuring out. Because what happened with the weight loss is I figured out it wasn't just a physical thing. Like I was eating emotionally and I couldn't understand my emotions and I didn't know how to deal with them and I didn't know how to not escape with food. And like trying to figure all of that out to me was fascinating, but it was also torturous the whole time. It was like an addiction. Right. So like the whole time, like trying to solve that, I remember thinking like, if I figure this out, I'm gonna teach it. I'm gonna teach the solution that will work for me. And so. But then I was watching Oprah one day and I saw a life coach on there and I was like, what is a life coach? I didn't even know that existed. And then immediately when I found out what it was, I'm like, that's what I want to be.

Wow.

And I went for a weekend certification and boom, became a life coach. That was it.

Can I go back to when you were saying about when you were going to therapy, you spent three years and you didn't feel like you're making any progress?

Right.

So there was a psychiatrist who never prescribed medications during the time he was a psychiatrist, famous guy, people that are older would maybe know him. Younger people probably have no idea. But his name was William Glasser and he was a very famous psychiatrist. And in 1968 he wrote a book called Reality Therapy. And basically I met him at a conference years later, same time I met who was the father of self esteem, Dr. Nathaniel Brandon, who ended up becoming a dear friend. And basically one of William Glasser's things was if you go to a therapist seeking help without a goal, you will get mired in your past, or you could get mired in your past. And so did that therapist ever say, Brooke, you know, how would you know you're winning? But think about that. How many?

No, never, never, never. And I think therapy's changed a lot. And I think the type of therapy you go to really matters. And I do definitely think there's a place for therapy. I think if you have unhealed trauma that a really good therapist can help you talk about and process through, I think it's imperative. But I think most of what people are wanting help with, I think life coaching can be the answer for for sure if it's focused on the future.

So what makes a good life coach and what makes a lousy one? Because you've probably heard every sort of thing of life coaching, does that mean someone who wants to be a therapist but won't go to school for it and you know, everything that you've heard.

A million times like, so I think first of all, I think you have to be trained how to hold space. And I think, you know, our industry is unregulated, so anyone can just call themselves a life coach and start trying to help people. So if people haven't been trained properly to hold space and they don't understand what's a proper thing to be coaching someone about? And when they need therapy and when, you know, when they need suicide hotline and when they, you know, have unhealed trauma, if you don't understand and aren't educated in those areas and you just call yourself a life coach, you can, I feel like you can do a lot of damage. So beyond that, the type of life coaching that I do is really understanding the brain and the cognitive process and emotional process and behavioral process that comes from that and how to really think about your thinking in a conscious way that changes your life. And a lot of life coaching out there is focused much more on advice giving and trying to hold adults accountable like their children. And I personally don't find that to be an effective approach. If the approach is to help the client, let them go on and be more empowered in their own life. And I feel like there's a lot of life coaching that's trying to create a dependency situation where I'll become your life coach for life, literally, and I'll hold you accountable and you can check in with me and I'll let you know if you're doing life right. And so I don't do any kind of life coaching like that. I really try and teach a cognitive model that our coaches can use with their clients to help our clients understand their own brains and then move on from life coaching and then, you know, come back and check in, but not, not as a daily thing that they're going to need to be dependent on.

It's not like the chiropractor that wants you come three times a week, we snap and crack. Okay, so the term hold space, what I mean, many of my, and I gotta say this just to make fun of my crystal gripping moon crew friends, please, like, oh, let's hold space. What does that even mean? Like, how does one know when they're holding space?

Right. I really do feel like it's something that you need to practice and get feedback on. Because the way that we define it is you're creating a space where you're non judgmental at all. Right. And that means positive or negative. And it means when your client comes to you, you're not having an opinion about what they should or shouldn't do or an opinion about what's happening in their life, which is very challenging for humans to do because our brains are like determined to judge everything and to not give advice. And so when you're holding space, you're questioning in a way that helps the client find their own answer instead of having an agenda or guiding them towards what you think they should do with their life. And so we call it. A lot of times what happens is we're taught as friends to be empathetic and to kind of like, you know, commiserate and to be on the client side. And once you do that, you, you've lost all, I feel like you've lost all your ability to hold space and and be a coach that can really help the client find their own answer, which you have no idea what your client should do.

Yes.

But you have an idea of what you think your client should do, but you actually don't know. And so that is the most challenging thing I for, I think for most life coaches to learn. And most of them don't learn it. Well, if you don't, they don't go to our school.

You know, how long does someone need to go through the training? What? Describe your program.

So our, our training is six months. Some people come in and their ability to hold space is extraordinary. Right away they understand the concept and they're able to do it really quickly. And we have a lot of people that take a lot longer and we will not certify anyone that can't do it properly. So I mean, it depends on the person. But I would say that the entire six months, the mistakes that most people are making are holding space mistakes. Because what happens is a client will present with a problem and you'll immediately agree with what the client is saying about the problem. Instead of being able to stay back and just see how they're creating their own problem with their own mind. Right. And so instead of like helping the client, like look, hey, this is how you created this. They're in the circumstance of the problem, trying to solve it, trying to have the coach trying to have an opinion about it. And that's just not effective. Even if you come up with a solution for your client, once they execute it, however it ends up, they're going to be holding you responsible, not themselves. So it's totally ineffective.

I think so Is responsibility one of the main things that you want the coaches to deliver to the, to the client. Meaning when people go to, there's many things they're probably looking for. But what are some of the. What happens when someone has an effective life coach? What does that do to help the person start being able to more effectively fashion their own future? Quit making.

That's such a good question. Yeah, it's so well asked. So what happens when a client comes through? Most clients come to us believing that the world is happening to them. Right. That they have this terrible mother in law and they have this terrible boss in this awful situation and then their childhood and all these things are affecting their life that they have no control over. And what they learn when they come through and be coach is they realize that they don't have control maybe over their circumstances, but they have control over everything else. Their thoughts, their feelings, their actions that Is the majority of the rest of their life. And when we can help them see, like, this is a circumstance, but it's affecting you this way because of the way that you're thinking about it. And we can show them that over and over and over again. They finally understand how much agency they really do have in their life, no matter how terrible their circumstances are. So we teach them that circumstances are all neutral. Everything that happens to your life is neutral until you have a thought about it, until you add your consciousness to it. Then you are making a judgment and having a thought and then making it mean something and giving it maybe way more power than it actually has. And when people start seeing that, they start feeling so much more empowered. They stop trying to control other people. They stop trying to have other people take responsibility for their feelings. Right? Because if you're responsible, if you're my mate and you're responsible for how I feel, I'm going to be miserable.

Right?

Because you can't provide me with the emotions that I want. So when people really start understanding, we do a whole model on it where we show them that their thoughts create their feelings and their actions and each one of those things, circumstances, they go through and understand that with their coach over and over and over again. Then they can take that into their own life and approach it in a way where they're like, okay, what is it I want to create compared to what I have circumstantially is going to be determined by what I think. And they just take so much more control over their lives.

Awesome. How many coaches have you certified? I mean, I know it's a lot.

I think it's like 5,000 now.

5,000?

Yeah.

Okay. And so. So let's talk about your journey of what you needed to discover early on when you were having the most challenges. Talk about to whatever degree you'd like to, because I'd love to know what was the. You said a book. So you read a book, right? And I often refer to dominoes in my life. You know, who are the first dominoes? It could be a book, it could be a person, it could be an experience, Something that changed the trajectory of your life in a positive or negative way. I mean, when I was raped and molested as a kid and then paid money not to say anything, that was a domino, but it was a very negative domino. And it caused me to internalize tremendous shame. And I went down a path which ultimately addiction was one of my many coping mechanisms to try to deal with the shame and the embarrassment and the all the different ways that my young brain interpreted that. And then there's very positive dominoes that have completely pulled me out of these holes and these traps that I would get myself into in life. So I'd love to hear what are the biggest things that were challenging you, how you went through them, and then how did you end up turning this into a very successful big business that you have now that is teaching other people to do this? I mean, you found formula, you're a convert of your own system, and then you started selling that system others, which actually is kind of what I did when I was like a dead broke carpet cleaner. I figured out how to make that business work. Then I taught thousands of service businesses. That was my early days in teaching and helping people, which I never, in my worst states, I never thought I'd do interviews, write books, do speeches. I mean, I was a shy, introverted, scared human just trying to bumble my way through life. I still bumble my way through life. I just do maybe a little bit more strategically once in a while, you know what I mean? But I honestly do think most humans, no matter how successful they are, status, fame, teams, celebrity, everyday people, most humans wake up and just bumble their way through life. And some do it better than others.

Yeah, I agree. I think I went through similar experience when I was young child. And I think when you experience trauma as a young child, you learn how not to feel and you learn how to escape your emotions. And so that's what I was doing with food and then later with men when I was dating. And when I read that book and it really explained like that I was just trying to escape who I was and trying to escape my own self, it kind of put me on this trajectory of like, why, why do I want to escape who I am? Like, what is it? And what I uncovered is that I just had so much self loathing, like because of the experiences that I'd had as a child and what I had made that mean in my own mind and what I realized as I kind of read all these books and did all this studying and even some of the therapy that I did helped me understand like, that I could decide, and I know it seems so obvious now, but I could decide how to think and feel about myself. And nobody who had abused me or no circumstance could, could deny me that power. And I think that's the most powerful thing we have as humans is the decision to decide what to think and most specifically what to think about our own selves. And so when I Started, you know, with the weight loss. What it was really was I learned to experience an emotion instead of eating, which sounds so basic, but people don't. A lot of the clients that come to me that eat emotionally, I tell them, I'm like, you don't have an overeating problem, you have an under feeling problem. And it's same with like addiction because I later went through it with alcohol, Right. I would look at like a glass of alcohol and I would say to myself, you can either drink that and escape what's real, or you can experience what's real in this moment. And what I realized, this was so profound with the drinking that I realized I'm like, if I don't let myself feel what's real about my life right now, what's true in terms of my emotional life, I'm never going to change because I'm never going to know how bad it is because I'm always drinking, covering it up. And it was like this momentary thing where I just decided, I'm going to live my own truth now. And so I started just experiencing what it was like to be me. And it was terrible. And instead of drinking, I decided to solve for that. And that's when I really dove into like understanding what it was the alcohol was doing into my brain, why I wanted it so much, what was going on with me emotionally. And I started asking myself the question, like, what would my life have to be like so I would never be tempted to escape it. And that's exactly what happened. I got to the point where I didn't ever want to drink because I didn't want to miss out on my life.

I love that framing. That's really good. And when you said. Because you just a moment ago, you said, I looked at my life and it was terrible. Meaning you weren't in a state where you're just like, this is. I don't like any of this.

Yes, but.

And that's why I'm trying to numb with food or alcohol or whatever.

Yep.

Which I think is so much of human existence. And what you said earlier about self loathing, there's three experiences that a human could have. You're either communicating with someone where you're just talking. Right. You're connecting with them. You're on the same wavelength, you're dancing together and you're enjoying it, or you're trying to escape. And those are the three experiences that I see people go through. And here's what I've thought a lot.

Communicating, connecting, are escaped.

Exactly, exactly. But here's the thing. It's not just doing that with other people, it's with yourself.

Yes.

So you're either just talking in your own head, you're feeling connected to life, you're feeling engaged. You know, the greatest form would be what's called, you know, flow.

Yeah.

Or you're just trying to escape. And so trying to escape could be through addictive behaviors, you know, porn, Internet, work, eating, social media.

Yeah, yeah. Gaming.

Exactly, exactly. And so when you're in a state of self loathing, you're trying to escape your own yourself 100%.

Because you hate you.

Exactly. Yeah. And how hard is it to have a relationship with anyone if you can't even have one with yourself? Or you don't like the vessel.

Oh my gosh. I deal with it all day with my clients. All day. They will start talking to themselves in front of me. I'm so stupid. I can't do anything right. I'm terrible person. I'm not worthy. They don't even know you. They start saying it out loud and I repeat it back to them and they don't even recognize it's such rhetoric that's just been playing in their brain. They don't even realize that's what they're telling themselves. I'm like, I would want to escape that too. Right. And that was me for sure.

So, okay, so then let's go to what was the domino? What was the big thing that made the difference? It was the book.

But then the book and like really understanding there was a big domino where I understood that I could feel, feel instead of act out my feelings. That was like profound. And. And that really changed my whole life. Being able to be present with myself.

Yeah.

And it sounds so basic, but it's everything being present with what's real. And like, for me, it was like, right now I feel shame, and that's just what I feel right now. And just being able to not escape it, not run away from it, but just be present with that emotion was and is, I think, one of the most powerful things any human can learn. Because here's how that translated into my success too, is what I realized is that emotions are really actually harmless if you don't act them out. Right. And I was like trying to think, like, what is the most terrible emotion I could experience? And I was thinking it's probably either terror or humiliation. Right. Those got to be some of the worst emotions that you can experience. But if you recognize that there isn't any emotion that you can't feel, that you can like actually experience, then maybe nothing that you try to do is that scary. Because the worst that could happen if you set a huge goal and you don't achieve it or you fail is an emotion. Right? And so that moment in time, it made me realize like, I am going to have the biggest, most amazing life because I'm not afraid to feel. And that has been true for me because I'm willing to experience anything.

That's great. That's great. Well, I mean, so it's one thing to talk about it that you're experiencing feelings on an intellectual level, there's another. And believe me, one of my biggest challenges has been to be able to not be in my head to actually feel feelings. And when you are put in a situation as a young kid, and I learned this from my friend Dr. Gabor, mate, if you, if you're in a situation where you can't fight back, you can't run away, or you can't ask for help, right. Then you repress, you suppress 100%. And when you suppress emotions, what he says either turn into a disease, like cancer, in some cases, autoimmune conditions or an addiction.

Right.

And that's what people do to deal with those sort of situations. Because he had shared with me, you know, what would you do in a situation? I was at a restaurant with him, he said, if I poured water on your head and started yelling at you right now, what would you do? And I said, well, I probably. He's like, what are some of the ways you could react or respond to this? I said, well, I could walk away. He goes, yeah, you could run away. He goes, what else could you do? I said, you know, tell you to f off. And he's like, yeah, you can fight back. He goes, what else could you do? And I was like my. Searching my brain for options. And here I was in a busy restaurant with this 70 year old Hungarian doctor, not a huge guy, not threatening physically. I said, well, I guess just sit here while you pour water on my head and yell at me. He goes, well, no, you could ask for help. And it didn't even occur to me that you could ask for help. And I think a lot of humans are stuck in the place where there's help available and resources, but for some reason they can't resource themselves. And so when people are really in dark places, there's something in their psyche. You know, it's, it's the, it's almost.

Like we were taught, right, that there is no help. Right? Right. That's how I felt for a long time, and I think that's when I finally did get some help, that I started becoming obsessed with getting help.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out, and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video, or you can Simply go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there. Yeah. And this is what I want to get to. So how did you resource yourself? It's one thing to have confidence. It's another with courage. My buddy Dan Sullivan says courage or fear is peeing your pants. Courage is doing what you need to do with wet pants.

Yeah. That's so good.

Yeah. And so. So there are times where, when. When our life sucks, or we. We think or interpret it as sucking. Yeah. Or we hate it. Where we actually have to operate with courage. And courage, in my experience, never feels good. Right. Because you're having to kind of, like, fight.

Mine neither. Yeah.

You know, you're gonna ask someone out and you're scared because they may reject you.

Well, courage always indicates the presence of fear, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because. And that's why it doesn't feel good, right. 100%.

Yeah. You can't have fear without excitement. You can't have excitement without fear. Maybe you can, but I think in most cases you don't. So. Yeah. So what was the turning point? Because it's one thing where we can say all this, but the person watching and listening, I'd love for them to. Getting your body to do the things that your brain or your mouth is telling you to do are two different things. You can give yourself affirmations, you can go to motivational seminars, but to actually affect that change, when that happened first for you, like, what was the thing? What did you actually do? If that is a teachable thing.

Yeah, I mean, I think it is a teachable thing. I really started studying emotions and, like, how to process them through and really understanding that an emotion, if you allow an emotion, it has a beginning and an end. And the beginning and the end, in my experience, is not 60 seconds. Sometimes it's three days for me. But I learned the difference between resisting an emotion, which just makes it bigger but less in your own awareness. Like, I have so many clients, they just say they feel numb. Right. Because they're just constantly escaping or resisting. And what I learned is that you can. And I use this, like, this imagery in my own mind, if somebody had like a vial or a syringe of, like, an emotion, and they said, hey, I'm gonna inject you with fear right now, or I'm going to inject you with shame. Are you ready? Can you experience it? And then I injected you. And you knew that it would last a certain amount of time. You would be able to kind of witness yourself experiencing the emotion instead of actually being so engaged in it. And so when I realized that, I started teaching my clients and myself to be the witness of my own emotion as I'm experiencing it. And in that, becoming a witness of it, you get some relief from. From it without resisting it. And that. That is what changed everything. But step one has to be. And this is the challenging piece. And you know this with addiction, right, you can stop drinking, you can stop doing drugs, you can stop eating with willpower, which is just resisting emotion. And that's why so many people are so ineffective with being able to kind of out will themselves.

Oh, yeah, no, willpower doesn't work.

It just doesn't.

Ben Hardy even wrote a book to that title. And the other thing, you know, it's interesting about this conversation is I'm sitting here thinking about the alcohol, the food. You know, for me, it was sex, it was work, it was drugs. I mean, my first addiction was addiction to drugs. I was a cocaine addict, but it wasn't the cocaine. The cocaine was the solution. The sex was the solution. The workaholism was the solution. I say that addiction is a solution to pain.

Yes.

The real problem is the pain. Trying to escape the pain. And when you can find healthier ways to address or you can eliminate the pain. And sometimes you can do that intellectually. Other times it's in the body. You know, that whole saying the issues are in the tissues.

But I actually think that's a mistake many of us make, is we think, okay, we start to understand, okay, the addiction is a solution to pain. So the solution is to eliminate the pain and eliminating pain, especially if it's trauma, pain, like eliminating it quickly and easily, which is what we all want to do, is sometimes not available. And I've actually found that if you. If you're not in a hurry to eliminate the pain because you have a willingness to be able to experience it, then it is so much more sustainable for the rest of your life in all areas.

Well, okay, let me say it this way then, and tell me what you think of this, because I listen to, try to. I'm always doing Stuff to try to learn.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

And to unlearn.

Right.

Because I think what helped me with my recovery was not learning, it was the unlearning. And the thing that was most interesting is when you are often getting better, the people around you that are hooked into your crazy making.

Yes.

They start losing their shit, right. And they become, in many cases, unsupportive of your progress. And so the thing with pain, for me, if I get into a sauna or a cold plunge, which I do almost daily, and when I first started doing it, hated it. Because you know what I think humans want? And I learned this from Poe Bronson at a bookstore years ago. He said, you know, what people want is more woo and. And less. Ah. And I love that. Right? Cause like everything we do, yeah, it's like woo. Like, anyone watching this right now, they're hoping we're gonna say something that's gonna get more woo. Dave is gonna go eat whatever weird food he's gonna eat later, and it's hoping, you know, woo. People have sex for woo. People pursue business for woo. And they do things. I don't want any. Ah. And some people give us woo. Other people's crate. Ah. Certain jobs and careers are woo. Others are ah. But the thing is, getting into a cold plunge or a sauna is. Is ah in the beginning. But if I sit with it, I become heat adapted or cold adapted. And it's kind of like what you're saying, sitting with your emotional pain. And so for me, if you try to numb it or make it go away, it actually makes it worse and you don't.

I totally agree.

And in some cases, that's the spiral. And so what I often think about is in the first chapter of my book, did you notice the subtle plug for my book again? What's in it for them?

What's in it for that?

The question to always be running into your head is, be a pain detective, because pain is a messenger. And if you want to help other people, look at where they're suffering and how you can either reduce it, eliminate it, or sit with it. And there's many different experiences, but your own pain, if you're unaware of your own pain, you will do all kinds of bizarre crap, so true to avoid it. And so pain is. Can be used. Pain is one of the deepest bonding mechanisms of humans. And when you're sitting with someone who's been through the trenches and like in recovery groups, you know what's interesting? In recovery, no matter what, and when I say recovery groups, most well known, even though there's many. For Recovery groups are 12 steps, you know, started in the 30s by Dr. Bob and, you know, Bill W. And one of the things that they did, when the addicts would start healing, they would sit with each other, and they would have an instant rapport with people that they just met. And oftentimes, no one around them understood them, because those people understood the crazy making of their own addiction. And it started with alcoholism, and now it's been adapted to many other things. But the interesting thing about it is, once the addicts started getting sober, not all of them did, but the ones that did, the family, you know, the husbands, the wives, the family members would start losing their shit because they were addicted to the crazy making. That's where they started. Al Anon for all the codependents.

Yeah, exactly.

So in a lot of ways, when you started going through this cocoon butterfly effect of your own life, what were the biggest challenges of that in order to sustain you and keep you going? Because what I see happens is people. People can often come to an event, one of our events. They get close. They stick their head out of the pit of crap that they've built for themselves, and they're like, I have a new vision. And they're excited. And then something around them, their environment, their dopamine in their head, because so much of this is biochemical, their sphere of influence pulls them right back down and they go back to it. So what was it that got you out of it and kept you out of it? Or started to.

I mean, I think for. For me. And this. This probably won't help other people. This was my life's work, right. So I was. Every time I learned something, I was always thinking about it for myself and for my clients, always for myself and my clients. But I did have a lot of backlash. I will say one of the things that even now is so fascinating is when you really become kind of a master of your own emotions, and you're willing to experience any emotion, and you know that you can process it through, your level of confidence is, like, radically higher than anyone. Anyone who's unwilling to do that, then this is what you're talking about. There's a lot of people who have a lot of success that are still afraid of their own emotions. And so the level of confidence that they're portraying is not how they actually feel. And I will say that my level of confidence in myself and in my life and how I feel about myself now is really kind of uncomfortable for a lot of other People especially, like, in my immediate family, like, and, you know, people will say to me all the time, oh, must be so nice to think you're so great. And I'm like, it is so nice. And I'll tell you why. Because I spent a lot of my life hating myself. And if these are my choices, I can either hate myself or think that I'm fantastic. I'm gonna pick that I'm fantastic every single time. Because. And it's crazy that we can criticize someone for thinking they're great.

Yeah.

Like, it's wild. Like. Like, people will hate on me for me saying that I think what I've done is incredible and amazing and I love myself. Right.

So this is definitely worth talking about. Okay, can I talk about, like, the success you've had and how much?

Yeah, totally. Yeah.

Okay. So you have a business that is currently making how much money a year? What's your.

Like, 50 million.

50 million a year. Okay. And you fly private and you have multiple houses. You have a lot of external forms of success that people will view and say, you have a lot. You own a lot of stuff. You make a lot of money. You are, by all standards, wealthy. Right. So how do you deal with the envy and the criticism or the jealousy? Because the way I view jealousy is. Jealousy is wanting what someone else has. Envy is wanting what someone else has and not wanting them to have it. You know, there's a. There's a level of kind of bitterness attached to it. So how. How do you deal with that?

I. I really have to credit a lot of how I feel about this to Dan Sullivan. Like, the way he taught me to think about just wanting what you want and never apologizing for what you have and never, like, having to explain your success to anyone. Like, there's a few things and a few different podcast that he has said about that that just really changed the way I own that success, and I never apologize for it. And if people hate me for something that's true about me, I don't really have a hard time with it. Like, somebody wrote an article about me and how it's so irresponsible of me to tell people that they can make a million dollars, that they can make a lot of money as a life coach, because most people can't. Which I just disagree. I disagree that most people can't. I think people can. And I've had hundreds of people that have made so much money as a life coach. And so if someone hates me for something like that, I'm like, keep Hating, Right. If someone hates me for something that's untrue, that really bothers me, like if they don't understand something or they're misreading me. So I love money, and I love the ability that we have in this country to make money. I feel a responsibility to every woman that went before me to cash in as hard as I can on the opportunity that they created for me. And I will never feel bad about that, no matter how much I'm hated for it. And I will never stop talking about it. I had a moment where Amy Porterfield, who's one of the. An online marketer influencer.

She's a friend of mine. Yeah, she'll be at the event.

Oh, awesome. Yeah.

I'm interviewing you. People may not know.

Amy Porterville is amazing. And on a podcast, she talked about making a million dollars in a year. And I was like, I will never forget that. I was like, wait, what? We're allowed to do that? We're allowed to make a million in a year? What? And just her saying that, like, the audacity of her to say. And she's nothing like, you know, me, like, talking about all my things, but she just happened to mention that, and it completely changed my life. And so I always encourage all women to talk about how much money they're making to inspire other women to make as much as they can. Right.

Well, honestly, I think one of the biggest challenges that people have with taking the advice is someone dispenses, is they see, let's take, like, Dave, who's sitting over here, teaches a lot of stuff related to health and energy, fitness, your brain operating functionally. People are like, well, that could work for other people. That could work for Dave, or that could work for Brooke. That could work for these other people. The biggest challenge is, can it work for me? And the moment someone believes, oh, it can actually work for me. When you've now opened yourself up to.

I couldn't agree more.

I gotta jump in here with some important stuff.

All right.

If you're a woman or a man and you start talking about how much you make and all that.

50 million.

If you look at what Robert Greene teaches in the Laws of Human Consciousness, and he's one of the great modern masters, from what? From my perspective, that does increase the likelihood of envy and greed, which are the hardest to spot. And what that does, that attracts narcissists and people who will appear to be your friends and prey on you.

I've dated many of them.

We've had discussions.

It happens especially to Successful women.

Right.

Because there's some little programming that women get. It's like, I need an operational man to help me support my stuff. And the kind of person who's attracted.

Oh, look, look. Money, fame, power.

They're more likely to be a person who has really bad trauma, bad programming than not. So it feels like when you're small.

You want to look big.

When you're big, you want to look small.

Right? Yeah.

Just a counterpoint there. Because you don't want to attract the wrong people into your field because they will spend all of that money and tell you they're not doing it.

I've certainly had that happen. Interesting. Anyway, so what do you think the solution is?

What do you think the solution is? I think that you want to be in a room full of people who.

Are the right people to share it with. Agree. I share it with everyone.

That's why I go to Genius Network.

Yeah. No, no.

And always find out what's in it.

For them and share it with your coach.

Well, no, but I'll tell you in the. Yeah, I mean, thank you for that. Product placement. Product placement.

And the point is. And the point always is.

Well, here's the thing, though, like, so I wrote my book, which would not even have existed if it wasn't for Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. It's a great title, and most people want to win friends and they want to influence people. But what I've learned is that it's not about winning friends and influencing people. It's about winning the right friends and influencing people.

Winning the right people.

Because that whole Zig Ziglar line, you can get anything you want, life, if you help enough other people get what they want. My friend Martin Howey said, well, that's not necessarily true, because you can help a lot of people get what they want that won't do a damn thing for you. And many will abuse you, take advantage of you, and steal from you. So it really is about selecting what I call Tammy. You put your time, attention, money, effort and energy. Or it could be tame with two E's. But time, attention, money, effort and energy are things that we can spend. You apply. Apply that to the right person in the right way to best leverage yourself. And I mean, you certainly have really good business skills, good marketing skills.

Can I just tell you, though, I was kind of having a little out of body experience driving over here because I was trying to remember where I was when I was walking on a trail and my kids were like, I Think they were in daycare. And I was listening to I love marketing with you and Dean. Like, that was before there were any marketing podcasts. You guys were like the OGs of all of that. And like learning what a target market was and like learn, like learning the nine word email, like all those basics. And it's like so surreal. Now I'm like, I'm like going to Joe Polish's house. Like you taught me so much, like from the very beginning. And it's so interesting how it's like a full circle moment. Right. And I hear so many people say that to me all the time. But it's fun to have one of those experiences myself. Right? Yeah. So, I mean, I've studied all the things.

No. Okay, let's talk about this then. Because oftentimes it's really cool if you stick with it. If you just stay with stuff, you will eventually meet the people in it, I believe. Like I do. You know, one of my favorite lines which I put in my book, I didn't come up with it was a quote from years ago, A guy named William Iser, he said, be nice to the people you meet on the way up. They're the same people you meet on the way down. Right. And so part of it is you will. I tell this to young people all the time, you know, don't be an asshole. You're going to run into the same people. Believe it or not, if you leave scorched earth 5 years, 10 years, 15, 20 years, you may come across those people and they may dislike you and they may have a grudge and. And don't give them a reason to do that intentionally. I mean, like, you can be successful in some people, like you said, they'll just despise you from the fact. Because a lot of criticism is just self hatred turned outward. I mean, it really is.

That's really interesting the way you said that. That's good.

Yeah. And some people that want to give you advice, they're really looking out for you. But it's one of those things, you will run into the same people. And I think it's awesome that you know, like all the people that I used to study, I mean, Jay Abraham just interviewed me for my book three days ago and just said the most edifying things because he read my whole book.

Yeah, that's cool.

And Jay, I was like, aunt Jay, you know, in 1992, I was listening to your cassette tapes that you did your Australian boot camp. And they were instrumental in helping me understand lifetime value of a customer you know, it's so cool that, you know, many years later, you don't realize the domino effect of putting knowledge up. So what I said to Jay, who's add off the charts, I mean, Jay's like, you know, but he's a cool dude. He's a nice guy. And I said, you know, just take in how much impact putting your ideas out into the world that helps small business owners, how much it does. And I would say the same thing about you because, you know, when you have transformed this pain into productivity, you've actually learned, you know, I hate myself and I love myself. I often sit and think, yeah, you know, what a waste of really years of marketing skills that I've worked so hard. I mean, I've put over $2 million into my own marketing education. I've read over a thousand books. I know something about addiction. I've spent a lot of time and a lot of money and a lot of effort into my addiction recovery. I had a lot of relapses along the way. I had a lot of crazy making along the way. I was in horrible places. I was suicidal in many times in my life. And it's like I learned about marketing, which I love. What I don't love about it is so many of the scoundrels that use it in unethical ways. But I love the fact that you can. But I was like, man, to know things that actually help people with addiction recovery, but to not use those skills to put it out into the world, I feel really good about that. And so I think it's amazing that not only the transformation you made in your own life, but you've actually built a business around this that helps other people do that thing. I mean, so it's one thing to discover a recipe. It's another to teach the recipe to other people. It's another to teach recipe to other people so they can teach the recipe to other people. And now you are. Every single day, your work impacts God knows how many countless thousands of people as a result of you figuring this thing out.

And then, yeah, I mean, figuring out, like my own work and my own model and how to help clients, but then also doing the talent stack of learning marketing.

Yeah.

And being able. Because I think there's a lot of people with way amazing ideas, probably way better than mine, that don't ever learn marketing.

Right.

That nobody ever hears about their great ideas. And so I think those two skills together is what has, like, really helped propel me. And I'm still a student.

Can I piece Can I just say something to what you just said? Because I often say that too, where I know exactly how you said it. But you're like, there's some people out there that have skills, some that. Did you say maybe greater than mine?

Yeah, better than mine. Material that's better than mine. Yeah.

But. But they never turned it into a $50 million a year business because they haven't put together that marketing. And that's where the whole thing is, where there's. There is no relationship between being good and getting paid. And that's the. The painful realization that when I was a Deb Broke carpet cleaner.

Unless you're good at marketing.

Exactly. Well, that's the finish. There's no relationship between being good and getting paid, but there's a huge relationship between being good, being a good marketer.

Yes. That is so right.

So the thing is, is when I was a Deborah carpet cleaner, I realized, like, man, I am so pissed. I don't understand how this other person is making money. They see suck, they're unethical, they do bait and switch advertising. I'm over here working my ass off doing good work. I actually care about people. Why is my business not working? What is it that I don't know, that I don't know? When I had this insight that the problem was not the business I was in, the problem was I didn't know how to do the business. My first mentor actually helped me understand that story. I remember jet skis. Yeah, yeah, I won't go into that one here. But the. But the thing is, when I was aware of that, I started looking at my business. It's now a lab rat. I'm not going to get out of this business until I figure out how to make it work. And I need to learn fundamental business. And that's what put me on my path to where I eventually learned marketing. And I actually learned that you can persuade people with words that you have, you know, and so what I always. My friend, the late Dave Kekich said, enthusiasm covers many deficiencies, which I think is a great line. Because when you're first starting out and you don't know what the hell you're doing, at least don't be a jerk. Be enthusiastic about ideas. Be enthusiastic about learning. Be a useful, grateful, helpful person as you discover and learn these skills versus someone that just has a terrible attitude is just not pleasant to be around. You know, I have a chapter in my book, my book again. You know, what's in it for them at this point? I gotta make a Joke about it every time I mention it, but, you know, be the type of person you always want to answer the phone for. And I say that so much of it is energy. And I will tell people on the next five or ten people that contact you, because a lot of young people don't even use phones to make phone calls anymore.

Right.

You know, messaging. I said the next messages, social media, texts, phone calls, whatever that come through. Gauge the feeling when you're looking at that phone and saying, okay, do you feel, whoo when someone's gone? Or you feel, ah. And whatever you're feeling, there's a reason you're feeling that, because there's something that that person represents that excites you and makes you want to connect with them. And the people that drive drive you crazy.

That's so good. Yeah, it's a great way to measure it. Yeah.

And you can start measuring all the relationships.

Like, even a text I get totally. You have a feeling it's either a dopamine hit or it's not.

Or it's like. It's like, oh, my God, now I will have to caution people and say, if you owe them money and you're a jerk, then they're not the problem. So the energy goes both ways. And so. And one of the things I say is, we all want something, but make sure that if you. Whatever you want, make sure that your give is equal to or greater than your want, because those are the people you want to hang out with. Those are the people that. Where they show up as a contributor and expander, not a contractor. And so anyway, but so the point how. And what I'm realizing, Brooke, is that I'm going to be doing. We're recording this at a time where, you know, in a few days, I'm going to be interviewing you in front of all of my Genius Network members at Genius Network, the annual event, which is going to be more focused on the business aspects of what you're doing. But I wanted to really dig in a little bit in your life and how you've done this. So what I'd like to do is I could. Man, I can see this as being one of these three to four hour interviews we just went everywhere for. The people that are out there watching that are business owners, and they are many aren't good marketers, but they're studying it, they're learning it, they respect it, they. They understand the value of it. What was. What. What would you recommend is how to approach understanding marketing, what is it? And applying it to whatever you do? Because I. I don't know of a single business that doesn't need or utilize marketing. Even people that come up to me and say, you know, my business is doing really well and I don't do any advertising. I don't do any marketing. I'm like, but you have customers and clients. Yeah. How do you get them? Well, word of mouth. Well, that's marketing.

Marketing. Right.

You're obviously, you're not doing crappy stuff and people are telling other people about it, but for the most part, like, what advice would you give to. Because you've been through, not only through one hell of a marketing journey, and you studied and applied. And when I say studied, you've also spent a lot of money. You've hired consultant, you've hired copywriters. I mean, you're hard and you've become a great marketer yourself. So as a person who really understands and gets it, and obviously your track record proves that you know what the hell you're doing in that department. What advice would you give for people?

The eight Profit activators.

Ilove marketing dot com.

I mean, I really would say, like, the basics and really actually doing them, like understanding your market and understanding how to communicate to them, giving them, like, way more than they pay you, that takes care of so much. Right. It's just having an amazing, great product and understanding that marketing is just really letting people know you can help. And when I think about marketing that way, it makes me so motivated to do it. And I do think it's a mental thing. Like, when I think about the people that don't know about me yet, like, it makes me sad for them, like, genuinely sad for them. Like, I want to go. The people that want my help that don't know about me. Right.

Well, you know, I gotta say this too, because there's two ways to do this. So that could either be viewed as like, wow, what a freaking narcissistic statement that I can't believe they don't know how great and how awesome I am. Or the fact is, you know, you got the goods. You know, you got something that's amazing. You know, it benefits someone's life. And you feel sad that, man, they just don't know about it because what would it do for them if they had it? And I'll tell you, I have that experience too.

Oh, my gosh. I have it all the time. And it is. It's both of those things. I don't think I'm narcissistic, but I think it's like I know that I can help them. I've been them. I know that they're drinking too much. I know they're eating too much. I know they're suffering needlessly. I imagine them. It's like a woman in her life where she's gotten everything she thought she was supposed to get and she's drinking a bottle of wine every night, or she's overeating and can't lose weight or whatever. Like, I can help you. Like, I need you to find me so I can give you what I have. And so for me, when I think about marketing like that, I get very, like, aggressive with it in terms of the amount of money I'm willing to spend to reach the most amount of people. And so I would say understanding how to write good copy, I mean, it's the basics. Understanding who your customer is, how to communicate with them with good copy, and being willing to test everything. And I think learning how to create a business where you can have an aggressive acquisition that pays for itself on the back end is. There's no limit to how fast you can grow your company if you're willing to do it like that. No, you're, you know, I've taken no outside funding at all, and I've done no debt. I have no debt because I learned that skill.

I have to say something that too, because I have equity in quite a few companies and I haven't invested in quite a few companies. Most of them are genius network members. Because I've learned. My criteria is if. If you're going to want to help and advise someone, you. You actually have to talk with them. Now, there are passive investments. There's people that won't invest. But I see a lot of people's business models that have not learned marketing is all they know how to do is try to go out and raise money because they have not yet figured out the marketing. As if they keep raising more money, they're someday magically going to do it. Now, if they're not also simultaneously studying how to sell, package, position offers, the whole works, what it is they're doing. You're just going to owe a lot of people a lot of money or you're going to go bankrupt. Right? Or you're going to be in that cycle. And I've always, you know, I will often say to people like, you know, I want to raise money. It's like, well, how are you going to sell what it? And they don't have an answer.

Right.

You know, we just need to raise a lot of money. We need to build. It's like. And whenever I've needed money, I just, like, sell things that people want to need.

I learned that from Dan Kennedy back in the day. Really, like, you know, it's like, if you can't make the money selling to your customer that you already have, especially if you're a developed business, it's probably not a good idea. Right, right. And so. And I think there's something beautiful about creating a profitable business. And I think, you know, with a lot of companies that bring in a lot of external funding, it's a different business model. They're building a business to sell it, which, God bless them, people do amazing things. But for me, I wanted to have a profitable business. I wanted to learn how to be a businesswoman from the bottom up. I wanted to learn how to market, and I wanted to have, like, a company where I only work three days a week. I wanted it to be able to. I wanted to have a balanced life.

Yeah.

You know, I built my business while I was raising my kids, so I needed that time to go to soccer games and all of that. And so I think it made me better because I had to. I had to learn it. Yeah.

Well, yeah. And plus, you had a reason to set up in order to do it. Well, like, I. I like these setup and conditions. In order to have the conditions we want in our life, we have to set it up a certain way. And if you don't do the setup, you're never going to get the conditions. You can dream about them, you can affirmation about them, you can wish about them. You could hope for them, you can pray for them, but if you don't set up the way in order to get, you know, you're not going to have an elf business if you don't set it up to be elf. I call it easy, lucrative, and fun versus half hard, annoying, lame, and frustrating. So, I mean, there's so much more I could.

So much more.

But we got this goofball over here named Dave who's going to interview me for his.

Who will be much more interesting.

No, I don't know about that. I wanted him to actually.

He uses words I don't understand.

I wanted. I wanted Dave to witness this so he would at least know what a really good interview is. Like.

This was his model?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm just wondering.

Wait, you need to get close to the mic, though, so we can hear you, though. Can we change pants right now?

Let's go on camera.

So how do people find out about you if someone is watching and they want to go through your training, if they want to learn, if they want to hire one of your coaches.

Life coachschool.com let's go. We have a program there where you can get coached. You can come and try out a coaching we have a program there where you can get coached. You come and try out a coaching session for free. You will think it's amazing and you will love it. And then you can get coached once a week in our get coached program or we have certification program if you want to become a life coach that you can go through and then be certified as life coach.

Awesome. Awesome. Thank you.

And thank you.

Since you mentioned the eight profit activators, I would be, it would be stupid for me not to mention that you can download those from my podcast or many people are going to actually hear this on my podcast. But if you've already read the eight profit activators, which is in the breakthrough DNA report we have, you can just go to ilove marketing.com you can download it. You don't need to even buy anything. It's free.

But which may have you thinking that it's not the most valuable thing you can do because it's free. Like it's everything. I mean, so well done, so succinct. That's how I started all of this.

Yeah. And I'll tell you, like putting out useful, valuable information like what we do. I mean, look, I'll say this, this is going to be another plug. But you know, here's one of my books, Life gives to the giver.

Right.

And I give this book away for free@joe'sfreebook.com now they can they download the book if they want the physical copy, they can get the physical copy for free if they pay shipping and handling. And a lot of people give away free books and they give away a crappy book and then they put people in an upsell funnel that just hammers them with you really want the good stuff. And I don't put people into a upsell funnel that hammers it. I bond with them first. If they like my emails, then eventually they may buy something. So I follow my own advice on that and it works really well. And the but the point of sharing that is if you have, you know, the most expensive information in the world is bad information, even if it's free.

So good.

Yeah. And so it's one of those things. But Brooke, you are a rock star. I look forward to our. We're going to do another interview.

I love It.

And I want to also share a little backstage stuff. I wanted to do an interview with Brooke before I interview her in front of all these people running multimillion dollar businesses, because I wanted to make sure I wasn't crazy. Yeah, I wanted to make sure she wasn't crazy. And. No, but see, the other thing too is like, people often ask. I don't know how many people I have inspired to write books, do podcasts, stuff like that. And questions are more important than answers. Yes, People are always looking for answers to stuff, but I just. You have a lot of answers and I have a lot of questions. And I think it's just a good way to learn about stuff. And I know it will deepen the interview that we're going to do, because this, I wanted to focus a little bit on your life and about what you've done. And then I want to ask you some questions about how did you build this big business? And so my genius network members will also watch that one, too. And this one. It works both ways.

It'll be fine. Everything integrates and we can send them back if they want to know about my childhood.

We could. This is not going to be the last. This one, too. I think I want to go deeper. I think we're going to have maybe one of those Joe Rogan stalls.

Let's go. I'm down. We live so close anytime.

Exactly. So that's it. This is Burt Castillo lifestyle.

Bye, all.

Thank you. Thanks for watching.

Dave Asprey. Coming up next.

Yeah, There you go. Peace out. Okay, I hope you found that video awesome and useful. So if you want to get a free copy of my book, I want you to click here. And if you want to watch some more videos that will be useful and awesome, click here. Go ahead. You're over here. Do it now. Come on. Thank you.

Watch them.