The Epiphany Moment He Had While Living with a Girl Who Was a Cocaine Dealer with Aaron Singerman

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind.

I'm Larry Weddell.

And before we get started, if you want to know exactly how to win again and again, go to Wydell on winning.com webinar now to watch something I've put together for you. Now let's get going into this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind.

This afternoon, we've got a treat. Aaron Singerman, founder and owner of Redcon One sports supplement brand, annual revenue between 10 to $50 million. Number 27 on the Inc. 5000, number one in its product category. And he's had a lot of success before this. Maybe we'll get a chance to dig into that. For one thing, he was a host of off topic radio from 2008 to 2010. And, and so, Aaron, thanks for joining us.

Of course, Larry, of course. First thing I want to, I have to the information you had on the revenue numbers is old. We're well into the nine figures now in the sports supplement category. So we're a little better than the 10 to 50. So I had to, I had to give myself a little credit there.

Okay, great. You know, we have trouble digging those numbers up.

Thank you for correcting us.

And we have since he knows you so well, I thought to do you justice, we need to have my son Adam join us. So, Adam, welcome.

Hello.

How's it going?

And Adam, introduce Aaron. And you know this industry pretty well. Tell us what's exciting about Aaron, what he's done and his place in the industry and kind of kick us off.

All right. Yeah, I've hung out and talked with Aaron once or twice. I wouldn't say I know him. Super great on a personal level as far as the bodybuilding industry. He started out years ago. He was with one guy doing a supplement company, then they switched to another and he's eventually created, broke off, created his own brand. I don't know if he wants to get into even mentioning the companies before, but he's been in the supplement game for a long, long time. He's grown the supplement company he started on his own to the biggest one in the world in that industry, like you said before, and just a very prominent figure in the sports, athletic bodybuilding world, doing sponsorships of shows and athletes all over the world and different industries. So he has taken it to a level, obviously, that no one else in this industry has as far as the supplements. And he's super nice guy, always willing to give advice. You know, he's just as happy to see people win as he is to continue Winning himself. And he's never satisfied with where he is. Like most top guys, he is always looking for the next level. So, Aaron, do you want to. You can go into a little more detail about how you actually got started originally in the bodybuilding supplement game?

Sure, yeah, yeah. So I got started initially in the very beginning, like your dad mentioned, was off topic radio. And I started by basically being the host of a popular radio show. And I was noticed by Muscular Development when John Romano and Dave Palumbo worked there and Steve Blackman is still the owner. So they noticed the show, asked the show to be hosted on their website at the time, muscular development.com and then when Dave Palumbo and John Romano broke off and created a company called RX Muscle, which became the number one bodybuilding media site in the world. A few years after it got created, we brought the show over there and then I ended up taking John Romano's spot and one day ended up being years down the road, ended up being the editor in chief of the website. And through that process, I traveled the world covering the sport of bodybuilding and had the opportunity to meet many, many people, make a lot of great connections. I'm sure that's when met you the first time, Adam. Somewhere on the road somewhere at a show or expo or something. And that basically gave me the opportunity to see that the people that were making money in our industry were sports supplement companies pretty much exclusively. And, you know, contest promoters make a little money. And, you know, the MPC and Jim Mannion, who runs the world of bodybuilding, certainly makes good money. But for me, I noticed if I wanted to make enough money to support a family, I needed to do something other than traveling the road and doing interviews for bodybuilding magazines or websites. And it was easy to see where I needed to head. And so I first started off as the marketing director for a supplement company. And me and my old business partner, he was the main athlete for that supplement company. And once we realized how much money we were driving, we were able to drive very, very early in social media. Like Facebook had just become public practically where anybody could be on there. Twitter just started. And so we were using social media platforms, drive a lot of revenue to this other person supplement company. And I remember at my wedding, which is 10 years ago, my wedding, the guy was there, the owner of this company, who was a pretty wacky guy, and he said to me and pj, my former business partner, he said, you guys personally generated $300,000 this month on the website using your coupon codes. Which at the time, that's now everybody uses coupon code for everything. But at the time that was a newer thing. And we realized what are we doing getting paid $50,000 a year from this guy to represent the company when he's making $300,000 a month? And probably not the most wise thing to tell us because the first thing we did as soon as he walked away was like, how are we not owning our own supplement company? And that was the beginning of my first company. And that led into many, many other companies. And I worked with bodybuilding, I guess you'd say, celebrities starting their companies. So like CT Fletcher and then Dynamic muscle with Kai Green, who's now a Redcon athlete. Dana and Rob Bailey with Run everything labs, steal supplements with Jason.

Huh.

So there was a bunch that we did back to back prime nutrition. And then when I actually split off from my other business partner, I started Redcon one and really focused all my energy. I only own Redcon one now, so either sold the shares or for Kai, I gave him my shares of dynamic because redcon1 took off so such a great, tremendous trajectory. And it's been an unbelievable journey of a lot of successes and a lot of failures too along the way. I know you mentioned Adam at the past company, in that past company I made so many mistakes that I wish that I would've done differently when Redcon1 got started. Now keep in mind, like Larry mentioned, the past company was very successful financially, but I just didn't like the direction it was going. And when I took a look at the mistakes, I said, man, if I was able to do it again, I wouldn't make these mistakes and the successes we had, I really would scale those successes. And so I took an honest inventory of those things. And when Redcon began, we set out with who did I really want to be? Who would I want? When you think about your legacy, what would you want your legacy to be? And the company has maintained that blue collar work ethic, very patriotic, pro freedom company, very military based. So we've been able to maintain that and it really resonated with people and the company has just exploded now in over 80 countries. We're in everything from Walmart to every military base and forward operating base in the country, in the world. Excuse me, the country, in the world. We're on PXs and everywhere and we're on military Navy vessels everywhere. So we've gotten from nothing to something really big in a little over five years. So it's been a very exciting journey. And I Certainly have learned a whole lot about creating success and also handling failure along the way.

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Aaron, I was going to ask you because I've never actually heard myself, but I know, like I said, I know y' all have. Y' all are a huge military and patriotic. You know, you put a lot of energy towards that, too. But where did you tell me how you actually came up or decided on the name Redcon1? I've always been curious that myself.

Sure, sure. So a few things. Well, one, the name itself was lucky, was very fortunate. My assistant at the time, Eduardo, who's known as the chief of staff, Eduardo Silva. We were at Flex Lewis's old gym upstairs, using his conference room when we, before we even had an office. And we're thinking of a name. And we were looking for military synonyms because I knew at the time I wanted to, which is I'm going to tell you after, why military? But I knew I wanted to make the company different. Right. We need to have a differentiating factor, Adam. As you know, sports supplements is incredibly, incredibly competitive. There's new companies all the time and there's nothing really proprietary about sports supplements. If you have transparent labels and you show what's in the products, anybody can copy them. So our number one product, Total War Pre Workout, Adam, you could literally bring the formula in a container and get it made with your own label on it. Call it Adam Atom Labs. You could do it, no problem. Right. So it's a competitive, very competitive field with new competitors all the time. So I knew we needed to have a differentiating factor. And so I thought what we would do at the time. It's funny because the world has changed in the last six years since I came up with the name at the time, I thought we had more support at that time for the United States military than I could ever remember in my lifetime. And I thought we knew. I'm very close with two Navy SEALs, Brandon Cruz and Ryan Bates. And I thought wouldn't it be cool. I know I can do the bodybuilding stuff. I know I can. At the time, I had found Dallas McCarver, who was going to be our main bodybuilding face. And I thought, wouldn't it be awesome if I could integrate these two seals who are super funny, very charismatic, in crazy good shape, and they would be. Who wouldn't think they're awesome, these two guys? Now, these days, with the climate of the world these days, it probably would have been received differently, but we said, what does a name need to be? So a name needs to be short, needs to be short, needs to be easy to remember, easy to spell. It needs to be able to be trademarked. You need to be able to get a URL for it. And then if everything works out, you hit all those other numbers, five things. Then if you're really lucky, you get a name that means something, which means what you're actually trying to accomplish. So there's been plenty of names like Amazon that don't mean shit. But it worked because it was easy to remember, it was short, it didn't actually mean anything, but they made it work. So we got really lucky because I was able to. Eduardo found the name Redcon1, which means the highest state of military readiness or the highest need of readiness. So I thought, man, the highest state of readiness. Who doesn't want to be at the highest state of readiness? Whether it's Dallas McCarver, the pro bodybuilder, Navy SEALs or soccer mom, nobody's going to say, I don't want to be prepared. I don't want to be ready. So I thought, wow, what a cool name. That's a military term that means highest theater readiness. And I saw that I could buy the URL for $5,000. It was available for auction. And so all of those things came together at the right time, right place. And I ended up pulling the trigger and spending the $5,000 and the rest is history. Now why did I want it to be military? Because I didn't serve in the military. In fact, I didn't even finish high school. And I had a drug problem, a lot of drug problems as a young man up until being like mid-20s. And so I never served. And it would be great if I could tell you I did. But both of my grandfathers served, and my grandfather on my dad's side fought in World War II and was one of the only Jewish officers storm the beaches of Normandy. And he had his, his uniform. He didn't really talk about it, but he had his uniform hung in his closet. And whenever we go over there for Friday night dinners, I would always look at the uniform and he had silver star and he had a bunch of other accommodations and medals and stuff. And I thought, how cool would it be one day to kind of follow in his footsteps? And my other grandfather fought in Korea and was also an officer and served very well there as well. So it's kind of like something I thought I would do in my lifetime. And then instead, you know, I did drugs and chase girls instead, unfortunately.

What was.

From that stage?

Was it.

What was the turnaround for you there, Aaron?

From the drug stage? I mean.

Yeah, the drug stage. And, you know, it's like getting serious with your life. You know, at some point you had to have a talk with yourself.

Oh, yeah, oh, yeah.

Sometimes life just beat you over the head with a club and make sure you have it, you know, get serious. But what, what was it, you know, what happened during that transition?

Yeah, it was. I had like an epiphany moment, Larry. It was. So I was living with a girl who was selling cocaine and her boyfriend had died. He was. He was killed. And she continued selling. Getting his sources from out of the country and continued selling cocaine. So I was living with her doing. Injecting cocaine all day, every day. And. And there was a guy who came over to the house, was one of the, I would say, not wholesale clients. Like, he was a lawyer who would buy an eight ball of cocaine here and there. And he liked us, we liked him. So she let him come over, even though he wasn't buying any kind of quantity of cocaine. And he came over and we went to the room. And I would say, larry, he was a friend, even though he's like a drug friend, which is not really a friend, but that's what it felt like. We went to the room, we had an argument, and we came back out. This guy was dead on her couch. And. And you realize he's dead because he smelled, you know, he had defecated himself. And. And so she told me, you need to pick him up, put him in his truck and bring him down the road. And. And I told her, look, you know, I'm no genius, but I've watched, you know, csi like, I'm not picking him up and moving him. Like, you know, he died of a drug overdose. If I pick him up and move him, then it's now, I'm breaking the law. It's a crime. And so she got very upset and, you know, basically started screaming and punching me in the face and So I was being punched in the face while I. While I was looking at the dead body of my friend. And the room was smelling horrible by then, and he had started kind of stiffening up. And this went on for a few minutes, until suddenly I just realized, like, this is my future. That's going to be me. And I literally turned around, literally turned around from her as she's punching me, ran to the door, ran to my car in my truck, and then drove to my own apartment, which I hadn't been to in forever, and locked the door, and I never saw her again. And that was the epiphany moment. And it was cemented two months later when I ran into a different guy at Dillard's. Another lawyer, incidentally, not the same lawyer, but a different guy at Dillard's. And he was in the shoe department. He had got a DWI and lost his legal license. And he said that Jennifer, the girl I was talking about that was with, had been beaten to death and died in that short period of time that I was away. So it cemented even more the fact that, like, that I was right. That is where I was going to be. Because I would have been in the apartment when she. I'm sure I would have been in the apartment when she got beaten to death. So there was a lot of drama surrounding all that. And it was enough for me where I realized, this can't continue, you know.

So from that, how did you end up going to the radio show? How did that start?

So I tell you what, Adam. It was. It was when I realized I needed to change my life, I started personal training. Cause that's the thing that I knew the best I had been, you know, done in my life. Off and on, I realized, you know, I love working out. I always, you know, until I did, was injecting cocaine. Even when I was doing heroin, I still worked out pretty regularly. It was something that, like, kept me sane and. And. And. But. But how do you make money working out? How do you have a living? The only thing I. That you really can do is train people. And I thought I was pretty good at it. Pretty much a. I've always been a people person. And so I went back to training. And then as I was training, kind of the story goes, there was a guy there that was a really good trainer. And not just really good, really successful. And he had a Porsche, a 911. And one day I went up to him, and I really never even talked to the guy, even though I worked with him every day, because he was always busy. Like, he had clients from 7 in the morning to 8 at night. And I went up and I said, man, how do I get a Porsche like that? And he told me, you never will. And I said it was like a slap to the face. And at first I got mad. I wanted to, but somebody goes, you're never going to get it. So I said, okay, what do you mean? He goes, do you love personal training? And I said, do I love it? No, probably. I don't really love it. I was like, but I mean, it's paying the bills. And he said, well, I love personal training. I love helping people. I love doing my job. I look forward to coming in the morning, I am making plans of what I'm going to do at night, thinking about how I'm going to help my clients. Are you like that? And I said, no, I'm not like that. And he said, then you're never going to get a Porsche. He said, you need to figure out what you love doing, and you need to figure out a way to make money doing that, because if you do something that you love doing, you're going to do better than just pay the bills. And I went home and thought about it, and the only thing I could think of was bodybuilding. And Adam, as you know, bodybuilding is not a thing. You can't just be a pro bodybuilder that's making tons of money. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how hard you work or what you eat or what things you take to help you get there. You either can do it or you can't do it. And so for me, being a tall Jewish kid, I'm not going to be the next Dorian Yates. It's just not going to happen. Or Ronnie Coleman. And so I realized that. But I did think about that. Other people in the business have made money and had a fun life and a good life in bodybuilding surrounding the actual sport.

And.

And that's what I went after. I started posting on all the bulletin boards as my name, Aaron Singerman. Instead of, you know, swole gun 69 or something, I was using my own name, which was really weird. You know, I was one of the only people doing that. And then I was sending in articles to Muscle Mag and Flex for free over and over again. And. And I just forced my way in because, as you know, Adam, it's tough to get in the industry, but once you're in, it's kind of like you're in. You know, you see these guys who are go from one company to another company to another company, and they just seem to keep getting jobs. So I basically forced my way in and spent all my free time and all my free energy. Instead of going on dates and, you know, like, you know, watching tv, I was constantly trying to get my way in or have somebody pay attention to me. And. And eventually I did, and that was off topic. Radio. So that Carl Lenore had something called superhuman radio, which he still does. And I, instead of giving because what I did every show, I would listen to podcasts. So Pro Bodybuilding Weekly. Do you ever listen to that, Adam?

That one I haven't heard.

It's gone now. Yeah.

Hey, Aaron, thanks so much for sharing this part of your story. And next time, I know exactly what I want to get into, but thanks so much for sharing.

If you enjoyed what you've heard and are dead serious about finding out for yourself exactly how this works in the real world, I've taken the most valuable business lessons I've learned over 40 years. Put them into something for you to watch. Go to whiteellawinning.com webinar now in order to move up as fast as possible. I'm Larry Wydell, and I run the Million Dollar Mastermind. Go, go, go.