The Magic You Are Looking for is in the Work You Are Avoiding with Alyssa & Freddie Smith

Welcome to this edition of the million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell. I'm talking to a high powered couple currently in Orlando, Florida, Alyssa and Freddie. They're in the real estate world and also in the podcasting world. Have got a huge background in, in entertainment and marketing and have exploded into the podcast arena with over 5 million downloads in 5 years. And I don't know, how many subscribers do you have on YouTube?

Got between about 30 on YouTube, but altogether on all social, about 500,000, 500,000.

On all social media platforms. So congratulations, guy. And hello, Alyssa, how are you?

Hi.

Thank you so much for having us. I'm doing fantastic. How are you doing, Freddie?

Thanks for coming. The podcast is all about what you've learned about winning and a lot of those, you know, all those lessons relate to your journey, you know, your story. And when you would say, why are you two together? You know, you know, what brought you two together?

Well, we've been, yeah, we've been together since 2011. We were best friends for about a year and a half. We met in Los Angeles. Then things got romantic in the summer of 2011 and we moved in together three weeks after that. And then we've been together ever since. We're married now and it's been wonderful. So we're life partners and we're also partners in business. So we feel very lucky and fortunate that we are able to complement each other in business and in life. So I think that really boiled down to just luck because we were just young party kids when we first met. And then we, you know, grew up, started working on personal development, building businesses, and have grown into, you know, adults in their mid-30s now. So we've had quite the journey.

We both grew in the same direction, which I think is something that's so imperative. We'll get a lot of relationship questions on our podcast and, and we were both in the same place right when we met. We were young kids, we were in the LA scene enjoying life. And we both made the decision, as we continued to grow into adulthood, if you will, that we wanted to grow in business, we wanted to grow in personal development, we wanted to grow together. So I really believe that's the glue that has really formed our bond. Obviously, we had gone through so much together throughout the years, but us both really wanting that and to be intentional and grow in the same direction together is ultimately I feel what really was that strong bond for us.

So you're here to make the case that solid citizens can actually emerge from that sorry state of Los Angeles. That's what you're saying?

It all depends. It all depends. The land of opportunity, though, it was really good to us, so I know it's going through some growing pains at the moment, but it was really, really good to us. And we had a lot of fond memories and a lot of great working relationships.

Where did you live? Where did you live?

Mostly around Studio City, Burbank, Toluca Lake.

Yeah, yeah. Very, very good. And you know. Cause a lot of people, you go out there and it's like, where is the party scene? You know, where are all these people you see on tv? And it's, you know, it's not always obvious. You've got to know if you. It helps if you grow up there. And you spent a lot of years there, I guess, to know where the good people are. And.

Networking, you know, that's part of the gig. When you're in the entertainment business, getting together with as many people as you can, networking really goes a long way. So just as you're out there, you just meet good connections and then you weed out people that might not work out in a relationship. But yeah, we found just really good people and built great working relationships. So, yeah, networking in a city like Los Angeles is a must.

And the theme, you know, winning themes always emerge, you know, when you're talking about stories of people who've actually worked their way through it and climbed the ladder. But the networking thing, when did. There was two things about networking you said, and that is look for good people that you. And weed out the bad. Where did that. When did that light bulb go on for you?

I think after getting burnt a few too many times where you start taking ownership of your. Of creating boundaries and learning to say no and just really asking the right questions and being around people and go, are we really aligned? Do our values align? Do our missions alignment? And I think just as we kind of pulled away from that Hollywood party scene in our early 20s, some people weren't ready to leave that scene. So we just had different interests and it kind of just pulled away. Because it wasn't always bad partings. Sometimes people just grow apart. But yeah, I think that's what it was. Just really understanding ourselves and learning to create boundaries and not letting negative people in your bubble because life's challenging enough. You don't need a circle of friends that aren't supportive.

Well, not to Belabor the point. But if it wasn't such a negative thing, I blocked out a book once about 35 monsters you will meet in life to give, you know, to explain to kids coming up, entering into the business world. These people are actually out there. Let me introduce you to the narcissist. Let me introduce you to the. The con man. Let me introduce you to, you know. And so we've all been taken to the cleaners. That's part of the thing in a business for yourself is you're gonna get screwed. And it doesn't hurt to have your, you know, coming up. It doesn't. It can be labor because there's a thousand. You know, you're gonna start. Seen everybody in a bad light. But I just think it's profitable to be aware these people are actually out there. They're actually bad people out there. And so you've. You ran into you. They pick off the naive. That's where they, you know, if you're smart enough to know these people are out there, the wolves are out there. There's harder for them to get you. It's easier for them to find easier picking somewhere else. But how did you. One particular thing did you run across there, Freddie, early on, that burned you?

I mean, it's just like a cutthroat world in business of people just. I think the biggest thing for me was just the jealousy. As you know, everyone kind of starts off at ground zero. When you start creating success, that's when jealousy can occur. But as we surround ourselves with people in our lives now, everyone's rooting for you to succeed, because everyone succeeds when everyone succeeds. But when you're young, I think that probably happens no matter what field you're in. If someone's achieving more, anybody who's feeling insecure might be jealous and that jealousy comes out. So I think that was the main thing we saw most often, wouldn't you agree?

Yeah. And I feel too, we learned early on that the people you surround yourself with influence, you know, what it is that your aspirations are. So I feel a lot of our friends now I feel like I'm not doing enough. I need to do better. I need, you know, continue to grow. And I love having that surrounding me because it makes me the best I can be. As opposed to, oh, no, you don't need to do that. Come hang out here and do this for the entire summer. You don't need to work. We love to hustle, we love to grind, we love to grow. We are still very much in that, continuing to Grow phase of everything we want to build in our life. So I think who you surround yourself with is key and we learn that very, very early on.

Well, tell me about this. You know, you, it sounded like we didn't get a chance for you to fill me in entirely, but it sounded like you had a level of success, Freddie, out there that would cause people to be jealous. What was that in, in the entertainment business? I mean, you generated some big income and big, big dollars. Talk about that.

Yeah, I mean, I've done multiple projects from movies to TV to commercial work. But I always say my claim to fame, if someone recognize me, it was from my stint on the soap opera Days of Our Lives. I worked on that show for nearly 10 years. And so that was like a huge chunk of my 15 year run out in Hollywood was working on that show. And that was just a really great experience. I learned a lot. I was able to accomplish what I went out there to do and learned a lot, grew a lot, and it was a good experience. But yeah, Days of Our Lives was probably my biggest claim to fame.

What was your intent while you were there and while you were working? Was it your intent to move up, to have your own thing? I mean, were you looking at the producers there, the directors there, the writers there, and say, I want to do that. What part of that appealed to you the most, if any of it?

Well, just breaking into the industry is like one in a million shots. So I just felt very grateful to have any role. But as I continued to grow and become really good at the art, I began to fall more and more in love with the character and the whole process. But I do have aspirations to do writing, directing of my own. We just decided to take a pivot, especially when Covid hit, moved out of la, came to Florida. We're going to start a family of our own pretty soon. But the cool thing about acting is that it's not like a sport where you have an age limit where you have to stop. So we're going to continue doing the acting business at some point. We're just kind of taking a few years off to, you know, kind of live in a different place because all we've known is Hollywood. We moved both to LA right after high school. And so this past couple years has been a taste of the real world outside of the Hollywood bubble. And so which we're just stretching ourselves, growing, doing some different stuff and just taking a little hiatus from the business. But we definitely want to eventually get back into it.

I don't want to Waste a lot of time on it. But I'm curious why you, what appealed to you about Orlando, friends there, past association or things like that?

Yeah, my family's here and living apart from them for 15 years. It was really important. So here we are.

I've been in the business, my life of recruiting, training and putting people in business for themselves. When it comes time to say, well, where do you want to go? Where you get most excited about, you know, having a area of your own and 80% of it comes down to where the wife is from.

Oh yeah, oh yeah. I'm just trying to get my parents to move down. They're retired, they're in Ohio and I'm trying to get them to fully commit and get a place down here too. So that's our goal. We think once we have a kid, it'll be the glue that brings everyone together.

Freddie, if you can't make that sale from Ohio to Florida, you're not, you need to give up your salesmanship career.

Very true, very true.

Now what caused you guys to, you know, a lot of people, in fact, I'll tell you this. I've got a designer friend who has been on the podcast. You know, I've interviewed him as Matteo Perrin from Verona, Italy, and he was traveling through last weekend and we went by this Haven art gallery over on the island where I have some stuff and I wanted them to meet him and get him to do, you know, some pop up shows, trunk shows in there. But anyway, I'm in there and I'm talking to the manager, Tommaso, and he, you know, the idea of the podcast came up and he said, everybody, everybody wants to be an actor and everybody wants a podcast. He said, you know, I wanted to do a podcast. I said, well, what, what would you do the podcast on? What would you. He said, I don't know, I think I have some interesting opinions on things.

That's a podcast in a nutshell.

Yeah. And so what got you guys going where you went from, hey, you know, let's put on a show to where you actually put on the podcast and got up to 500. Now you say 500,000 followers. Social media. How does that break down? For those of you who are sick and tired of fooling around and are dead serious about wanting to move up fast, I've got something especially for you. I've combined the best insights from over 40 years in business and making $70 million in income and compressed them into a free webinar. That's right. It's a free resource if you want to find out exactly what the concepts are that I use in coaching million dollar earners, Register now@wydellonwinning.com you'll discover the five part framework used by so many to reach their financial, personal and professional goals. You can find that link in this.

Episode'S show notes that goes on on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

Yeah, you guys are going to educate me on TikTok, right?

Yes.

The thing about TikTok, I just can't dance. You know, I'm trying to get myself a dance.

No, TikTok honestly is a great place and the algorithm is so brilliant because it really helps to show you what you'd want to see. I mean, I feel your algorithm is very different than mine.

Yeah, we see different stuff, but it's a great way for your business. It just can be your podcast clips. Like you don't have to do anything fancy.

No dancing.

Yeah, you don't have to dance unless you. I don't have to dance unless you want to. You know, sometimes it's fun. But yeah, I mean, that was one of. I mean like the simple story of the podcast is just we wanted a way to connect. You know, having a fan base for, you know, 12 years now, we just built such a deep connection on Twitter at the beginning and then Instagram and then podcast is the best way to build depth because you can only learn so much about people on a photo on Instagram or a quick video. But when we had fans of the show and people that we were meeting tuning into an hour long conversation, it's where people can really build depth and build a true community of people. And so podcasting for us was like the thing we were waiting for and it really fit well with what we were doing. And now we're using that today for all different sorts of community building and different revenue streams. I think like six real estate clients that we've had in the past six months all came from people who watch the podcast who are buying in Florida. Yeah, so we have, you know, so it's, it's like a really good tool for people to get to know us. It's a video diary of what's going on in our lives. We talk about things, we learn in business, we meet great people, bring great people on the podcast. Everyone kind of shares and we just build like a really great community. So that's what our purpose is. What does our audience want and how do we entertain them every week? And that's our main goal.

Okay. And this is the Freddie and Alyssa show.

Yep.

Freddie and Alyssa Show. And then the real estate is the Alyssa and Freddie Show. I guess.

Yes, correct, correct. She's the face of it. You know, we have our strong suits, but she's. She's the face of it and she does very, very well. But we're both licensed agents here, and it's. It's been a lot. It's been a lot of fun. So we get to focus on the podcasting and the real estate, and that's what we do for a living. So we have, you know, our time, freedom. We get to make our own schedule. We get to work with great people, buy and sell, you know, help them buy, and. And we get to podcast and meet wonderful people all around the world. And it's just been. It's been really great. So we've been planning this for many years because I knew that the acting on that soap opera wouldn't last forever, and I didn't want to be left, you know, holding nothing. So we were like, let's start building. So in 2014, we actually started building, preparing that one day I was either going to be fired or the show was going to get canceled. So we wanted to prepare to make sure that we had income so that we could travel and do whatever we wanted and not rely on acting as the source of income.

And again, to be specific, what were those preparations that you started doing because you started the podcast in 2018, I believe. Is that right?

Yeah. Well, we did four years of network marketing, so that's what got us going in the personal development.

What does that mean, network marketing? Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, or what?

In the multilevel marketing field, direct sales. So we started doing that while I was on the show. So we did that on the back end for four years, and then it just led us to mentors that then got us into social media. And then over the past five and a half years, we've built a wonderful business just all through social media, working with brands and advertisers. So that's how we generate that business.

How fast did your. So you did the prep work to make sure the podcast was. Had some place to go, had some people to follow it, and so it wasn't throwing a dart up against the wall. Hey, let's have a podcast. I mean, you did the groundwork, you worked up to it. How did the mentors shape your.

You.

What kind of advice you think your mentors gave you that gave you an advantage?

I think just learning about. About financial education, that's something that we didn't have at the beginning through acting, you know, other than just traditional, like, where to invest and things like that. But to actually, like, set your. Your hopes very high of the income you could actually generate. Being a business owner and just learning the marketing skills, I think was the best thing, because learning how to market yourself on social media became our. Our business. So instead of selling a physical product, it was basically selling yourselves or selling stories or opinions, like your friend was saying. So that's all it is, is it's just pretty much we're just entertainers and we have. And we use these social media platforms to entertain people. And if you have enough views, advertisers love to pay you. So we've been able to build just that business through there. But yeah, our mentors just showed us that there is no ceiling. Really showed us that we could be entrepreneurs and creators and taught us how to market correctly.

And I feel too on that as well. It's really about just rolling your sleeves up and doing the work. Don't focus on C activity per se. So there's a B and C activity. And you always really want to be an A activity where you're actually doing the work. Whether for us that's out there doing showings with real estate clients. Maybe it's us actually recording our podcast, just not being afraid to get in there and do the work. Because the magic you're looking for is in the work you're avoiding. That is always how it works. So you got to really just buckle down, have a schedule if that's going to be something that will really help you stay on track and get the work done. Don't be afraid to do the work.

And when you say you focused on your there is no ceiling and you focused on your marketing, talk about that. Freddie, you had a phrase in there that I kind of forgot because Alyssa was so good at her comments that I tell you, the magic you're looking for is in the work you were avoiding. That was a poof. Very good, Alyssa. This is why I like to talk to people who do things. I mean, you know, even you saying the words, it communicates a pow in people's minds. Whereas if it comes out of a professor saying, Alyssa said, like we used to do, I used to have. When you're in growth and building organizations, you do a lot of. Part of it is recruiting. That's your prospecting and network, part of your recruiting. And so I had this incredibly exciting recruiting course that I written. And then you get big. You can't do all the Courses. So I was walking across the back of a room to get something once where this lady was at the front giving my recruiting course. Almost. She almost put me to sleep halfway across the room, saying my words. It was like, recruiting is a way of life. No, recruiting is the fastest way from the bottom to the top. And I had written the words, and she almost put me to sleep saying it. But it's the words, you know, because there's a spirit that you guys have that you can't get by just interviewing somebody who has it. You know, you can get the words. You know, it's like what they say, the Bible. It's the. You know, it's the words and the spirit behind the words. You know, where the power is. That's where the revelation and the light bulbs go on. Not so much from the words, but that, you know, the magic behind it. And so the magic you're looking for is in the work you're avoiding right now. Do you guys have something you want to say as a last word? Because we're three minutes past your hard stop.

If you have like one more question or something, we could do one more question for you.

Well, it's basically a final word. You know, we're what you find people get stuck up on. I won't say the most, but more often than not, people seem to be stuck on and they're looking for help on getting to get off the fence, you know, and it can be the reason behind a whole lot of different questions that they would ask you, but inside your mind. And I think a lot of it has to do with they're trying to avoid the work. They're looking for a secret and avoid the work. But how would you describe that? What do you think that is?

I mean, I think through my. Just the personal experience is that everything you set your mind to, any goal you try to achieve is probably going to be more challenging than you could ever imagine. There's going to be obstacles, and you should really get into something because you're going to focus on the journey and the process of it. I just thought that was so corny back in the day. And people say you have to enjoy the process, enjoy the journey. But I never understood that the journey is much longer than you think it's going to be. So pick something. If it's real estate, like, try things and focus on enjoying the journey, because reaching the goal is just a step in it. So it's like really pick something for the right reasons, but don't be afraid to try new things. Because every time you try new things, you're going to stretch yourself, get out of your comfort zone, you're going to grow and you're just going to be beaten. You're just going to get beaten up. But that's how you get strong and you learn. And why there's that spirit behind Alyssa saying, because we've gone through it. 17 years of nonstop zero vacations, working in five different industries and just being very fortunate to be doing, you know, doing well. And we've definitely had a lot of failed businesses, but the five that have succeeded has made us a life.

So, yeah, and I feel too, in any sort of avenue of having success, you really have to focus on mastering your mindset and be wildly intentional about what you are feeding your mind, whether that's books, podcasts, you know, television in general. You got to be really, really careful what you're putting into your mind. And that can include your friends and conversations with different friends or colleagues. You want positivity. You want to be mentally very, incredibly strong. Because life is tough. Having success in any avenue, it's tough, it's hard. But you want to make sure that you yourself, you know, you came into this world alone and you're probably going to go out of this world alone. That's just life, you know. So you want to make sure that you have your own back, that you're the strongest you can be mentally, physically, make sure, you know, in the morning. For me, it's all about getting my exercise and my mental capacity just where it needs to be. You know, maybe that's spiritual. Maybe it's my gratitude journal. Maybe it's putting on a song that puts me in a great mood. The first 10 minutes of getting out of bed, whatever that looks like for you, master your mindset and take care.

Of yourself, you know, because many things in life we can't control, but you can control the voices, you can't control your circumstances, things that happen to you, but you can control the voices that go into your mind and you can control your responses to a large extent. So those are the things to focus on. You guys are a lot of fun to talk to.

Yeah, you as well. Thank you for having us. We really appreciate it.

Looking forward to doing this again soon. And no telling what all we're going to get into next time we talk. Thanks so much. Wish you the best. Thanks for listening to the Million Dollar Mastermind. If you felt there were any valuable takeaways from this episode, please take a minute and leave us a five star review. Your feedback is important and really helps us get the word out to a wider audience. Remember, we have a valuable webinar that is absolutely free. Register for it right now@whiteallonwinning.com thanks for listening.