Zero to $100 Million with Josh Bezoni

Hi, I'm Natalie Jill, fat loss expert turned lifestyle and high performance coach. Welcome to Listen up the podcast. On this podcast, I do what I do best. Taking complicated information that is relevant to us now and breaking it down simply with actionable steps you can implement to level up your life. I also regularly interview some of the most inspiring and courageous men and women on the planet who at their worst, learned how to achieve success greater than anything they ever, ever dreamed possible. Creating everything from nothing. If you are new here, I encourage you to go back and listen from episode one when this podcast was previously called Leveling up for the Full Transformative Experience. Recently on my trip to Maui, I met Josh Bazzoni. And I was fascinated by how humble and down to earth he is, especially knowing that he had created a business, BioTrust, that he grew from zero to a hundred million. Year one, you heard me right. But what makes it so fascinating is that he had built and failed several times before. He'd had many setbacks and had to start over. And he bounced back time and time again from no's and setbacks. In fact, his journey is super unique. But the lessons he's learned and shares on this episode, they'll sound quite familiar because they are the clues to why he is such an epic success. Now, there's a theme in what he shares that you've heard with many success stories. So today, Josh is super open with us. He shares a lot. He gives some great advice, some great tips, and know that now, not only is he an entrepreneur, an angel investor, a startup advisor, a philanthropist, but you are going to learn so much from today. Enjoy the episode, enjoy the conversation with Josh today on Listen Up. I've got my friend, my new friend, Josh Bazzoni. And I can't wait to interview him today because he created BioTrust, he co founded BioTrust, and he brought it from zero to $100 million in a year, which is just unbelievably amazing in itself. I have so many questions there and now he recently sold it. But when I was talking to him about this huge accomplishment, he shared with me how he'd had some epic failures before, some really epic failures that really brought him down. And I'm so curious about that and how he dug himself out of that, how he ended up turning something smart so epic around and how he created this. So thank you so much for being here today, Josh.

Thank you for having me, Natalie.

So take us back. I want to kind of go way back to the beginning. Like you're a kid. Did you want to Be an entrepreneur. What was your ambition in life initially?

Wow. So my parents ran this little hardware store in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. It's like 7,000 people. So I always grew up around business. And I hated it at the time because I had to work since I was like five years old because it was a family business. But looking back, it was a huge blessing because I learned that business wasn't scary. And I think so many people, if they haven't grown up with it, they're fearful about becoming an entrepreneur. What about health insurance? What about, you know, all these other things? And it's easier just to get a job. It's more secure. And so anyway, I didn't have a lot of that because my parents ran a business. We ran a business together, but I did the lawn mowing services, the snow removal services, you know, painting company.

So you grew up kind of understanding entrepreneurism, which is interesting because you're my age, you're close to my age. I'm 50. I think you're a couple of years younger than me, 48. So in our generation it was just expected. You go to school, you go to college, you get a job. A job. Like we didn't. Entrepreneur was sort of the weird thing. So you had a different experience. Cause you were living in it.

Yes, exactly.

Were your parents encouraging you to think outside the box on how to earn or was this all your idea when you said you were doing snow blowing and things like that? Younger?

Yeah, I just, I didn't want to work for my parents, for one thing, so I would try to do anything to get out of that. But also, you can make so much more money, like painting houses. I would hire my friends, we'd have a great time all summer running around getting tan and painting houses. And there's some funny stories there. Anyway. Yeah. And so I would make a lot more money being an entrepreneur. And I didn't, you know, working for 750 or $10, whatever the minimum wage was then, just didn't make any sense.

Yeah, so that's good. So it's interesting, kind of by default you, your parents trained you because they said you're working for us and your only way out was to work for some, do something else. So you didn't have to interest.

Exactly. Yeah.

I love that. Okay, so you. So you had it in your blood already. You were starting this. What was. Talk to me about, did you go to college and what was your first, like big entrepreneurial hit?

Yeah, I went to college. I went to Western Illinois University for a few years. And, you know, I painted houses to put myself through college. So I paid for it all myself.

So your parents were not going to pay for it?

No, no. So I paid for my. Paid for my own. And then I transferred to. To a school, Central College in Iowa, closer to home and played football there and was always doing, you know, like I did door to door salesman for a while, like selling knives and equinox stuff. And while I was in college, so I was always doing something entrepreneurial.

And you were learning selling. You learned how to sell?

Yes, learned how to sell. Then when I graduated college, I. One of my big mentors was a guy named Bill Phillips. He owned a company called eas. And so EAS created all these products, like Myoplex protein powders. They were kind of the first company to have a real, like, protein powder on the market.

Yeah, they were the original protein bar too. I remember they tasted like bricks, but they were the original.

Yes, yes. And Bill Phillips, my mentor, had started metrics and. And then he started eas. So my first job, Bioplex.

Remember? I remember that was like my first protein shake.

Yeah, Yeah. I got a biology degree. I wanted to get a business degree, but my dad said business degrees are really easy, so you have to do something hard. Because I thought maybe I'd do pre med or be a physical therapist or something. And out of school, my first job was with Bill Phillips in Colorado. So I moved from Iowa, drove my whatever 1987 Toyota Corolla with like 200,000 miles on it. It had no heater on it, no heater in the car. So I drove to Colorado, which was freezing with no heater, and dropped my resume off. And within the day, I got a job at EAS, which like the Mecca of supplements in the U.S. it was like the place to be.

Which is interesting in itself because you just said you were a huge fan of his. He was kind of like a mentor. And then you. It's almost like you attracted that. You were so focused on what is he doing, and then you end up working with him.

Yeah, I drove out to Golden, Colorado, just to try to get a job and showed up and dropped my resume off.

Wow.

No, no real plan. I stayed with my aunt and uncle for a while, but I had no real plan besides that.

That's. That's gutsy. Yeah, but they probably loved it.

Yeah. And I was 22, so it's great. I had nothing to lose. And. And there, you know, they worked with like Brad Pitt and Demi Moore and Sylvester Stallone, and I'm a Kid off the farm. Just put into this whole new world.

And it was literally off the farm.

Literally off the farm. Literally. And I had a biology degree, so I started learning how to develop supplements and, you know, vitamins and minerals and protein powders and creatine products and all these things. So I helped with that while I was.

What were you doing for them first? Were you. Did they take you on as an intern or what was your actual job role there?

Product development. Made $22,500 the first year, which is crazy. And then they bumped me up. I became a manager, and a few years later, I was making, like, 48,000. And I remember that because when I. When they sold the company, Bill sold the company, and I think he made, like, half a billion dollars out of all of his exits from the company. And he called me up to his office, and I was going to pitch him on funding my own company. Right. So I was all nervous, and I go up there, and he basically just turned me down and said, no, I did this on my own. You've got to figure out how to do this on your own. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. So I left the company and I had.

Which was actually probably a gift of him to do that, if you think about it.

Yeah. I would have just. It wouldn't have been the same, you know, with someone else's money. So I started my own supplement company, and at the time, I had no money. So I took out. At the time you could take out credit cards. I took out 10 credit cards.

Wow.

All at the same time from 10 different companies. And they each approved me for $10,000 based on my job salary that I just had. Quit.

This is brilliant. I love it. Okay.

It's not. This is. I would not recommend this. No.

But I love. I love the. What's the word? The gumption, the. Just that you were so committed to your vision. It didn't matter to you. You're like, I'm going to find the funding somehow.

Yeah. Well, I went. I went to banks and did a, you know, business proposal and met with bankers, and they literally, like, laughed me out of the bank because I. At 24, I looked like I was 17, probably. And they just patted me on the head. They didn't even. They said, this Internet thing is a phase and a fad, and it's. You know, you can't run a company on the Internet because this was like 1999 or 2000.

It's kind of like if right now somebody went in saying they want to build something on blockchain or something. It's like only a very small percent believe in that. And then they've got a lot of doubters. So that makes sense that that Internet was still very new then.

Yeah. So no one believed in it. And I took these credit cards and had and bought product. And the first product I created was a brain supplement. So, like, they're really popular now. But back then, it was one of the first brain supplement products to help people mentally focus and like a nootropic type of thing. Yeah, like alpha brains out there from on end. And there's tons of brain supplements out there. Nootropic. So I was one of the first ones to actually do this. And I decided to market it to golfers because I thought golfers really need to focus and they're. They're crazy. If something will work for them, they'll spend thousands of dollars on this product.

Smart.

And so I marketed it to golfers. I rented an email list, went out to this email list selling this product to golfers. And the first weekend I launched it, I did $48,000 in revenue.

Wow. Okay, so wait, back up one second. You said you rented an email list. So, like you found somebody that had a big email list and then asked if you could send an email and paid them?

Yes. So at the time, I think it was bettergolf.net and they had all these golfers that read this online newsletter.

Okay.

And so I rented a solo email. It was $4,000. I can't believe I still remember all this stuff. But it was $4,000 and it brought in $48,000. Now, I earned previously at my job, the year before at EAS, I earned $48,000.

Wow. Exactly that.

I earned the exact same amount over a weekend.

Did you write your own copy and do. I'm assuming you did all that yourself. Like, you wrote what you wanted in the email. You knew exactly how to speak to people.

Yes, I learned how to write copy. And working for Bill Phillips, he used to write some copy for Bill. And it's one of the best skills I ever learned how to. How to do is write sales copy to sell products.

So how cool. And I'm imagining as you're going through this process, if you had run it by anyone, they thought you were crazy. Like, what are you doing? Why. Why would you take borrowing all this money and now you're going to put 4,000 on? So what did you. How did you deal with that when, like you're telling somebody or maybe you weren't telling anyone. Were you getting that, that self. That doubt from other people and were you second guessing yourself?

I remember. So I quit eas, which was like my dream job, and everyone thought I had the best job in the world. And I quit. Told my mom, she told my aunt. My aunt called me right when I was driving home from quitting and she said she just reamed me out. She's like, you're a fool. What are you going to do about health insurance? You had the best job. Your uncle and I think you're crazy. This is foolish. And I got the. And I pulled over and just thought I just screwed up my entire life.

Whoa.

Yeah. And then I proceeded to do the $48,000 in one weekend, like maybe a month later. And so I was a huge relief more than anything. But it was also a sign. I'm very into signs and, and, you know, Manifestation.

Yeah.

And when it showed, when I got the same amount from. In that weekend from my previous salary, I just thought that was a big. That was a huge sign.

It's a huge sign. And it's. So I hope people listening are really picking up on the part you just said about your aunt. Because I think relatives and friends, they're well meaning, but when they speak that over people and us, it does create self doubt and it does stomp on vision. And it sounds, I mean, I know and you know to be true. And I think most of our entrepreneurial friends will say vision drives everything. When you're like committed to your vision and it's dangerous what people can say and what we let people tell us or what we take on to believe.

Sure. Now, I always encourage people, even if it's a. Not a. I don't think it's a great idea. I encourage them and I say things like, you might want to keep your job and do this in the evening until it gets legs under it. We'll do it on the weekends. And then when it gets legs, leave the job. You don't have to burn the boat, you know, burn the bridges like I did. But, you know, if that's your, if that's your calling, you can do that too.

Yeah. Okay, so you make $48,000. It's a huge sign. You're like, your aunt's wrong now. You're like, okay, I'm on to something. What do you do? What happens next?

Okay, so I hire my sister who worked for me for like 10 years, which has its ups and downs. Although many years later we just sold a company which we'll get to. And I gave my sister a nice check from that, from helping me out in the beginning. So that was really cool. But anyway, I started a company selling products, and we were shipping it out of my sister's garage. Okay. In the suburbs. So her HOA had strict rules about selling. You couldn't run any type of home business out of the neighborhood. And so one day, the HOA president is knocking on the door, and my sister Molly's talking to him, and she's calling for me to come up. Because we had, like, 12, 15 customer service reps in the basement working. We had people packing stuff in her garage. We had, like, 20 some employees in the house working. And a big semi truck pulls up with product right as the HOA president is at the front door. And we had said, no, we're not. It's just a little ebay company. You know, it's no big deal. And then all of a sudden, this huge semi pulls up and starts unloading pallets of product. We got kicked out of my sister's house, and we bought our first, like, 5,000 square foot office down the street in Arvada, Colorado.

Were you ever nervous during this? Like, am I making a mistake? And how did you stomp on that voice? Like, how did you stay so committed to like, no, this is happening. This is growing. I'm doing this.

I was actually scared to death. I just pushed through it. But I also wasn't married and didn't have children, so I didn't have a whole lot to lose. I mean, I grew up, you know, I moved to Colorado with a couple hundred bucks, so I didn't have a whole lot to lose in my mind.

Okay.

So it was all upside.

So it didn't feel risky. It felt like, if this doesn't work, I just am back where I was.

Yeah. And I think entrepreneurship, it attracts a certain type of risk taker. You know, you have to be willing to risk things. And even people who aren't, quote, unquote, risk takers, they have to push themselves a little bit through the fear to be able to, you know, to run their own business. So. Yeah.

So was it all uphill from there? Tell us what happened. How did you grow this? What happened? And then I know that there was a twist. So talk to us about what happened.

Yeah. So at first it was great, but I knew enough to be dangerous, so I knew enough to, like, how to market online. And back then, there was no, like, can spam laws. So you could send, you could rent email lists, just, like, people, if you could pick up the yellow pages or white pages and just randomly email people. And there was no canned spam laws. And people would love it because it was like the Yahoo Days, where. Or aol, where you've got mail. And they would write us back these long stories and say how excited they were to get emails. And now there's so much email that people freak out. But then you could rent these email lists really inexpensively. And so I learned how to do that and start selling my products. In the first year of business, we did 3 million in revenue.

Wow.

Sister's house. And.

And it was just you and your sister?

Yeah. Well, we had customer service reps, and, you know, it was a handful of us. And my net profits from that were a million dollars. I had 33% net profits, so I made a million dollars when I was 25 or 6.

Wow.

And that was great. But it was also bad at the same time because I didn't know about accounting. I didn't know about taxes. I didn't know about sales tax. I didn't know a lot. I knew how to sell and how to fulfill orders. And, you know, so.

And now you thought you were a millionaire. Now you're like, I'm a millionaire.

But then I did. But then, you know, you have to buy more product, and then you have to pay. You have to pay taxes on that money. So out of a million dollars, you have to pay, like, 400,000. And so pretty soon, me thinking I'd hit the lottery was awesome. But there wasn't very much money in the bank account because I didn't know how to do accounting and how to finance proper finance and everything. So anyway, there was a big learning curve there, but I hired people and pushed through it and learned. And then we ran that company for about 10 years or so in Colorado, and I grew it to $40 million a year.

Wow.

In revenue. And this was in. This was in. Gosh. What year was this? Maybe 2008. 2009.

Right, right. @ the stock market and housing market crash time.

Yes. Then everything crashed in all over the US with the housing market, and it really hurt the business. We were too focused in one channel, the media. Everything just fell apart. And then one day. This was a very interesting day. So one of my heroes. I have a lot of heroes, but one of my heroes is Oprah Winfrey. I think she's.

I love Oprah. She's on my vision board every year.

And all she does is she does a lot of amazing things. And so one day I'm walking into my. My office, and this guy comes up and says, are you Josh Pizzoni? And I said, yes. And he goes, oh. And he gives me paperwork and leaves. I'm like, oh, no, what is this? And I open it up, and it said, you are being basically sued by Oprah Winfrey.

What? For what? I love her. Don't make me not like her. What happened?

No, this turns out very good.

Okay.

So I'm like, what is going on? Oprah's my hero, but she knows who I am. I guess this is. That part's cool. But turns out there's affiliates. And one of our affiliates that was only doing tiny amount of sales was using her picture and ads, and we had no clue.

Oh, wow.

So she had gone after a bunch of companies that were using her picture and ads. And so we found the affiliate, cut them off immediately. But then we were also sitting there going, oh, no. And this lawsuit was dragging on for quite a while while the company was struggling with the economy crashing and everything else. And so previously, like a year or two before that, Oprah had a TV show called the Big Give. And one of my friends, Cameron Johnson, was on it. And they came to Denver and they were helping out an orphanage as part of this TV show was only on for one season. And we went down and donated, like, a $25,000 check or something, and were briefly on the TV show, but as soon as her lawyers found out that I'd given to her charity, like the Angel Network, and helped out with the TV show, they dropped it immediately. So I. And it was like a big lawsuit. So I'm sitting here going, wow, a good deed that I did two years before or something, like, really came back and saved me in this situation.

And they figured that out on their own. They didn't even. Or did you tell them that you had donated this?

My lawyers ended up telling them this.

Wow.

I didn't even think about it at the time to mention.

That's amazing.

Yeah. And so dropped it. If I ever meet Oprah, I'm going to tell her the story.

Yeah, it's a great story At a place in Maui. And such a great story.

Run into her sometime. But I learned, and early on, I learned, too, from my parents, that whatever business I ran from then on, I put a big charity component to it. So when we started BioTrust, every time someone placed an order, we fed a hungry child for a day through no kid hungry. And we also donated to the Make a wish. We granted a wish every week at BioTrust. And we ended up granting hundreds and hundreds of wishes through the Make a Wish foundation and donating like millions and millions of meals to kids.

Wow.

So I did that because a lot of times too, when I started doing well, business wise, I had a lot of disturbance issues. You know how some people, they do well and they kind of sabotage themselves because they don't think they're worth it.

Sure.

Well, I had some of that in me. And so when I started adding a charity component, it really helped them. And I wanted to do that from my heart. But it also gave me a bigger mission that I was helping other people and not just myself. And I really started focusing on our team, making sure our team was taken care of. And so the more I would do for other people, it's like the more.

Success came in, the more you focus out. Okay, I have some questions, I have a lot more questions about that. But I want to back up for a minute. When you were in the first company and you had made that money, and then 2007, 2008, the lawsuit, all these things start happening. What happened to that company and what happened to your belief set? Because obviously you learned a lot that then went on for BioTrust. But what was the period of time and did you start having self doubt, I shouldn't be an entrepreneur? What did that feel like and how did you bounce yourself back up from that?

I started getting distracted at the time and I hired an executive team to run the company. And then the economy crashed and the lawsuit and all these things. And one of the. When you take your eye off the ball as an entrepreneur, it's not a good thing. There was just things going on I didn't know about and the company ended up basically crashing and burning. I could have kept it going, but I was just ready for something new. And after the lawsuit was settled and the economy was so bad and other things that just happened with the executive team, I just wanted to start fresh. And so we didn't officially go bankrupt and everyone was paid, but I went to being, you know, doing very well, to basically losing almost everything.

And then what did you believe about yourself when that was happening?

I thought, I thought, man, I really screwed this up. I'm a failure. Am I going to have to go back and get a regular job? You know, how can I ever rebound from this? Because it was really difficult, difficult time trying to save face. Because friends and everyone who looked at me as successful, you know, now I was like basically going out of business. It was a tough, it was a tough time. But also I just, I knew I had to like pick myself up. Sports helped a lot. I played a lot of sports. So I know, like when you lose, it's not the end. You got to pick yourself up. You know, I'm only. I'm still very young at that point. And so I moved to Austin, Texas and just started completely fresh.

So tell me about the time on that. And I'm sorry, I'm digging a little bit here, but there's people listening right now that are stuck in that down spile. And I, in my story, another, another episode. But 2007, 2008, I had that same rock bottom and was in debt and all the things, losing my home, all. Everything falling apart. So you and I were not alone in that. There were a lot of people. Whole world shook up then to them. How long was that space? Or was it a year? Was it a month? Was it five? Like, what was that space of that downtime? And what are some of the things that you did to get yourself reminded of what sports is and what end of why you need to pick up and keep going?

Well, it was probably a year and a half to two years that I was down, kind of down and out. And. Yeah, a year and a half to two years. And I think I just, I was, I was either going to go back and work for someone which I thought would be a complete failure at that point, or I was just going to, like, I called up mentors. That's what I did. I called up my friends like Joe Polish, Dean Graziosi, friends that I've met over the years and just reached out for help, which is tough sometimes for entrepreneurs. And friends helped lift me up at that time.

So when you ask them for help, was it like, hey, I'm going through this space right now. What are some things you did to get out of it? Like talk through the kind of help that they gave you or that you asked for because, and this is really critical, Jasper, and because there's so many people I know that this last two years, like rock their world. So they're having this conversation.

Well, first of all, it's mindset. Like, you've gotta, like, you've gotta change your mindset, you know, you've got to change your state completely. So if you have the reoccurring loops of, you know, I'm a failure or I'm, you know, I'm not worth it, or you have to, you have to change that. You have to snap yourself out of it by physically, like moving your body, like Tony Robbins says Changing your state, coming up with mantras, all these things that people think sounds silly, but if you're in a, like, negative, depressive state, you can't really do anything. You have to start with yourself. And then they just gave me advice like, I never asked for money. I never borrowed money. I think that's a bad idea at all possible. Sometimes you have to. But I had enough to start over. And they just said, why don't you go back to the basics? Why don't you start small and just do what, you know, that works. Get rid of all the overhead, the buildings, the employees. You know, unfortunately, we had everyone suffered from this. And just start, literally start over with something simple that you know how to do that, you know, works, and do it just you and, like, one other person and start all over. So I sold my car, sold my house. I lost a lot of money selling my house at that point. And I. Basically, the only thing that saved me was, you know, merchant processors have a reserve on your money, so they hold back a certain amount of money. So when this was all. All the dust settled, they sent me a check with the reserve amount from the merchant account, which I'd basically forgotten about. And so they sent me back. You know, I think it was like, 100 grand. So I basically had a grand to my name.

But I believe that was all a sign. Like, it was because you had already. You'd made the switch now you were clear. And then that was like a reinforcement.

Yes. Yeah. So you got it. You got to get your moment, your mind right, and then you got to help come up with a strategy and reach out to friends, mentors, to come up with that strategy. Because I wasn't even thinking clearly at that time.

No, no. And we. I can speak for myself. I'm sure you probably felt that I had this. I had an overwhelming feeling of fake. Like, oh, my gosh, I met all these people when I was at my high. Like, do they really like me? Like, I had this whole. Like, I didn't. It was hard to be vulnerable with people and share. Like, I'm struggling. I'm going through this because I thought they wouldn't like me anymore, I wouldn't fit in anymore. So I wonder if you had that. Yeah, I totally felt like a fraud. Like, I'm not worthy of these people.

When I started in business, I was 24, 25. So I felt like a fraud right from the beginning because I thought I was too young. And then that just kind of carried. Even though I was doing well and very. I Always had this kind of like, I'm not really a businessman. I never went, I never got an mba. I never went to college for business. I'm not a real business guy. I'm just like kind of an entre, low level entrepreneur. And I don't think I actually started feeling like I was competent and confident in business, which is crazy, until maybe like three or four years ago.

Wow.

And we'd already done like a ton of business online and, you know, but I pushed through that. And a lot of it again is this mental work. So I used to listen to Tony Robbins personal power too, which I. Tony's one of my mentors and I actually met him several times now and spent a week with him and a small group of 10 people in Fiji. So I think I manifested that. And your mindset, yeah, it's so important to believe in yourself and to get over those blocks that we all have and the self sabotaging. And then I'm not worth it. And that's, that's like 80% of entrepreneurship is coming over all this negative chatter in your brain.

So now you start BioTrust and you have got like a whole clear new perspective on things and you're taking advice, you're starting small. Like, okay, no overhead, no this, no that. I'm assuming that's how you started. And did you start initially with the idea of I'm going to give back?

Yes. Well, I was in Texas and I kept. I'm pretty introverted and I don't like to be out and I don't like to have conferences or any of this stuff. It's not my style. And I kept being called. Right when I got to Austin, I was living on Lake Travis in an apartment. I kept being called to like have a conference. It's beautiful here. There's a hotel. I live next to a hotel. You could have a, you could have a conference there. And so I was like called again. The people are hearing or feeling that they should be called to something. Don't ignore that because I'm so glad I actually followed through on this like calling. So I had a conference. I met Tim Ferriss years ago.

Tim Ferriss, you hosted the conference like you hosted? Okay, got it.

I hosted it. And I charged like $1,000 a person and I paid for everything. I made no money on this. And so Tim Ferriss I'd met years ago at a conference and he and I had stayed in touch and actually Tim Ferriss wrote the book the Four Hour Workweek, which is a huge bestseller. And he's written many since then. And I called a favor in and asked him if he would be like the main presenter at this conference. He'd be the keynote. And Tim was selling a book called the Four Hour Body at that time. So I brought all of these fitness entrepreneurs into Austin, charged them all $1,000, took them out on boats and paid for all the food and just had this great time. And we had Bill Phillips speak at the conference. I called all my favorites and Joe Polish, Dean Graziosi, all these marketing legends all came in presented at this conference. I met my business partner Joel there, which we went on to sell over a billion dollars worth of products together through BioTrust over the next 11 years. I think probably, I don't know if I ever would have met Joel if I didn't have conference. We met all of our affiliates who got behind the brand later on and helped us grow BioTrust really quickly. And it was all from this one conference. And I only had two of them my whole life. And like all that's good in my life right now can be tracked back to that decision. I did not want to do the conference, but I was called to it and I. And I had the conference called in favors. And at that conference I went up there and did a presentation on how I basically screwed up my business and how my life was kind of like.

At rock bottom right now, part of the hero's journey. But you didn't go back up. You just gave. Like this is what happened.

Well, I was still sitting in it. I was still rock bottom.

You were just vulnerable people, but it made people like you, I'm sure.

I thought after that presentation no one would want to touch me with a 10 foot pole to do business with. But everyone did the exact opposite by being vulnerable and authentic. Everyone wanted to rally around and help. It's crazy.

And so much goodness in what you just shared because like we all get those, like nagging, like this thing that just keeps coming up, you're like, why am I being told to do that? Or why do I have this? Like the conference like made no sense for you, but it like just kept coming up and then I just got chills. Like that completely changed everything.

Yes. So at the end of the conference, calculating, got the calculator out to see how much I, I lost or made or whatever. Just praying. I did lose a lot of money. And at the end I made $7 from the conference after everything was paid for.

After all the work.

Okay, after all the work, $7. But first of all, seven is a lucky number. Second of all, so much good came out of that. So you don't have to be profitable with all you do, but also just putting all that goodness out in the world. Everyone loved the conference. Everyone had a ball, we played on the lake. You know, they got a lot of knowledge from that. And then I met Joel, my business partner. He's amazing at selling ebooks. So he was selling $10 million a year of ebooks when I met him. He had one part time employee and when you sell ebooks, you're just selling air, you know, there's no hard cost to it. So he was making crazy profits. And I pitched Joel and first of all, he and I did an ebook together that I had written. And I think it did over $2 million in a week with all those affiliates that everyone promoted around the country at the same time. And so it did $2 million in revenue. And then we paid about half of that out to them. And then Joel and I split something. And so then I had around $500,000. So then I pitched Joel. Hey, with all these affiliates that I've just met, all these people from this conference, with your knowledge on marketing, instead of selling ebooks, let's build a real brand supplement brand like Bill Phillips did that EAS that I worked for. And it's something that we could grow like a real company, do a lot of good with, hire people so they can support their families and then we can eventually exit this company like Bill did and do really well. And I said, man, maybe we can even sell the company for like $10 million in five years or something like that. And Joel completely turned me down. He's like, no. He's like, I'm, I'm killing it with ebooks right now. I don't want to take on all the hassle. And so then we, you know, I was completely deflated. I didn't want to do it myself because sometimes with a partner, if someone's really good at something, you're not and you know you're going to make a good team. And we already did an e book project together and we work really well together. So we became partners. You have to be really careful who you choose as partners, by the way. It's like a marriage. But anyway, so we started BioTrust. All these great products. Our first product was like a grass fed protein powder, different flavors, delicious. We launched that and I think we did a million dollars the first week with all the affiliates. And we're like, we're really onto something here. We thought we'd do a couple million dollars the first year. And then we started ordering tons of inventory. I put in $500,000 into buyer trust.

So basically all the money you just.

Made from the ebook, I risked it all. Everything I had, I put into the company to buy inventory to start. There was like three or four of us running this company and it took off like a rocket because we had no competition at the time. There was none of these other companies out there. If you ask most of these online supplement companies these days, like BioTrust was a real inspiration for them. They followed what we did and they kind of emulated and models things we've done.

Well, you use the online marketing strategy of ebooks and copy and affiliates and all that, but to our product. And nobody else was doing that yet.

Yeah. And a lot of old direct response copy stuff and strategies we just brought online because it was still early. And so Joel and I were looking at each other like this is taking off like a rocket. And then our first full year in business was a blur. We were hiring people from other companies that have done what we wanted to do. I have a whole hiring strategy I could talk about. But anyway, the first full year in business, we did over 100 million in revenue. Wow. It was insanity. We had to bring in people that knew what they were doing, like real high level CFOs.

Because neither one of you had done that really before. Like you both were. He was no. Just one person. Ebooks. And you did. This was all new.

Yeah. And so we gave equity to top employees to draw them away from other companies. And so like our operations guy was in charge of North American operations for Amazon. He just got tired of traveling all over for Amazon. And so we told him he could work virtually from home so he could be with his family. And we gave him equity and paid him about a third of what he was making at Amazon. And he came and just like fine tuned our whole operation. We did the same in tech and in all these different positions. One, because the company was doing so well, we had the profits to be able to hire amazing people. But then bringing them in, like really build a team. And it was, it was crazy. It was, it was the best times, but it was also like 80 plus hours a week and things breaking and fixing things.

Yeah, yeah. How did you check your ego? Because you'd already been through kind of a big ego crash before. And I would imagine as this new business is crushing and you're, you're like just generating so much. Did you have that fear again? Like Were you starting to get an ego? How did you keep that in check?

I had gotten knocked down so low that the ego for me wasn't ever a problem and still isn't because I had learned that when things are good, they're not always going to be good. And even at BioTrust, things started off great and there was a big dip later on, which I'm sure we'll talk about my business partner. Joel's eight years younger than me. He hasn't been through any dips. And so I was like the guy always playing defensively and always kind of checking Joel like, no, can't do that. You know, I ran a supplement company before. That'll get you in trouble. You have to do everything by the book, you know, all these different things. And from the very beginning I put in the charity components. Right from the very beginning. Make a wish and no kid hungry.

Yeah. And I, and I believe that's a big reason your company's done so well is because you had a huge charity component.

I do too. It doing conscious capitalism where everyone benefits and you add in a charitable component. It's just blessed us so much. I don't think any of the good things that happened at BioTrust would have happened if we wouldn't have done that.

Yeah. So how was navigating with a partner? Did you mention it's like a marriage. Did you have ups and downs with him? Did you have to go to like business partner counseling? How do you work through that type of thing?

We should have gone to business partner council.

Do they have such a thing? Maybe that's your next business.

Yeah. Our CFO was really the guy in the middle. Okay. So fast forward, BioTrust has done extremely well. Four years in, we're still doing over 100 million. We decided to sell the company because that was the goal from the very beginning. Build an awesome trusted brand.

And your goal was 10 million originally. So that's interesting.

Yeah, yeah. And so then we went to market, didn't know what we didn't know. When people go to buy you, they bring in a troop of lawyers and analysts and everything you can imagine and they just tear your company apart and look for any risk. And so we had not been prepared for that at all. And so suffice it to say, four years later we got to the five yard line of a company buying us and it was for well over $100 million and it fell apart. And so like on the five yard line and Joel and I had already had in our mind, the company was sold and we were going to roll over some equity and we were going to retire and live happily ever after. And Joel was looking at planes and, you know, stuff like this, right?

Yeah.

And then it falls apart and then there's a lot of like, kind of finger pointing. And Joel and I's relationship, which was awesome until then, like really suffered because we were both so deflated and had worked so hard. I would, I would. The analogy would be like running a marathon with like a 50 pound pack on your back and you finally crossed the finish line and they said that didn't count, you got to start over. Like that's what it. That's what it felt like.

Yes.

Then we were just discouraged because you.

Knew how to build it differently in order to sell it.

Yes, yes. Completely differently. So over the next four years, we had to like, remodel the whole company based on the feedback that we got from different people who looked at it. They wanted us to diversify our channels. We couldn't be just focused in one channel. They wanted different products. They didn't want any weight management products at all, which were a big portion of our company.

Why is that? It's just because it's harder to advertise or sell or.

Yes, but also they, those customers, people who buy a lot of weight loss products tend to jump from company to company because they don't. Sometimes they don't change the actual things that, you know, we would try to coach them on nutrition, habit changes and exercise, but a lot of people would just want to take the product and do no other lifestyle changes as, of course, that doesn't work.

That's good feedback to know from my own fat loss business.

Yeah. And so the customers weren't what they call sticky. They wouldn't stay around for a long time. And what we learned with our other products, like our protein powders and our probiotics and our fish oil products, they would stick. These people would reorder and reorder for years. Whereas the weight management products, they've kind of come and go in a very short amount of time.

That makes a lot of sense. That's great. Yeah.

And so we got rid of all our weight management products, which was like $60 million in revenue, and replaced them with a bunch of new products like collagen, which became hot at the time, and a lot of different flavors, and rebuild the company over four or five years. And then also we learned at the time that they wanted Joel and I to go with the company when we sold originally. And Joel and I are sitting there thinking we're going to become employees. After being entrepreneurs for this long, it's going to be terrible. You know, reporting to a CEO, like having to be in meetings, having no real control. And so the second time around, we decided to hire people and replace us like three or four years before we actually.

Oh, so smart. So smart.

But I don't want to discount how difficult that time was. At one time, Joel called me up and said, I will sell you my half of the company for $1. He's like, I'm just done.

Wow.

He's like, this is. I mean, we had worked ourselves 80, 90 hours a week. He had small children. You know, he was used to running an ebook company that he worked like five hours a week. So.

Sure. He was really questioning everything. Yeah. Like, I was crushing. This was easy. No stress. Yeah.

Now there's products and manufacturing issues and shipping and, you know, we had 200 and some employees, and it just became like this big thing that. And we just needed a break. Like, a lot of entrepreneurs had no work life balance. He and I had a standing call every day at 2:00am like, we were just working ourselves.

Like 2:00am yeah.

So, you know, when people see now that we actually sold the company on Christmas Eve, everyone's like, they don't understand the 11 years of work and the ups and downs and the risks and the burnout and, you know, all the things that a lot of entrepreneurs never talk about. They just go on, you know, a show and they talk about selling a company for billions of dollars or something. And they don't talk about the downside of it.

No. Gosh, it's. So. And what I love about your story and you, like, I just met Josh recently in Maui. I was in Maui and I met him. And you're so down to earth and humble and like, you would never know that you're. That you've created what you've created, because there's no arrogance about you. There's no ego. There's no. You're just such a generous, giving person, and I love that about you. And I think that hearing your story, it makes so much sense. Like, you really started from that place, and then you just kind of got sidetracked along the way. But all these lessons have brought you back to why I believe you're so successful now. Because you came back to yourself. Like, you're truly who you always were versus who you were trying to be. And it's. It's worked. It's. I'm so curious. Like, what did. What does your aunt say? Now, the one that told you that she was disappointed in you.

Well, after, I think after we did like 100 million the first year, my mom had told her that I think she was just super.

Yeah. That's amazing. I love that. What are some. If you were just to kind of. I know it's a lot of. In the journey, but if you were to give somebody right now that's like feeling down, like just kind of like five things, like you're. They're feeling like a failure. They're feeling like their business idea just fell apart. They had a hard whatever. Just like five things you want them to know. What, what would those be?

One is a lot of people feel like a fraud or they feel like they're just kind of faking it. And I know top level entrepreneurs that feel that way too. There's very few people that I've met that are actually extremely confident in their own skin. And I mean, you're talking about the top of the top of the top, the Tony Robbins and people like that. A lot of people have tons of doubt. A lot of people feel like they're kind of faking it and they're living the Instagram life where people think they're really successful when behind the scenes they're not. I would just say that everyone struggles and you don't have to fake anything. You should just go out there and be authentic from where you're at.

Yeah. What I love, like, just, I think about that story when you said you put together this event and like you were in kind of in your rock bottom spots when you had, when this happened and you just didn't have an agenda, then I'm just doing this. It's a give. I want to learn. Like, your agenda was probably, I want to learn too. But you just, it was a give. And then you just shared where you were. Like, I had this business that. And it's interesting how many people connected with you because of that. They didn't judge it connected. They felt your heart, they felt you understood them.

Yeah. And I coach a lot of entrepreneurs. A lot of them are younger male and female entrepreneurs. They really struggle because they're young and they don't think that they, you know, that they have the credentials to be out there and to talk. And I say, just share where you're really at in life and say, this is what I'm doing. This is what I'm learning, and come along and learn with me. You don't have to pretend that you're, you know, an expert. If you're not. And people resonate with that.

Yes. And it's. It's hard. It's so hard for people to be real. It feels like we've. And I think it's because of the Instagram world and that we're comparing, but if people would just be them, people do resonate with them a lot better.

Yeah. And I just got back from, like, a men's retreat I went to last weekend. I sold a company and went to a men's retreat all about, like, being your authentic self and, like, sharing with other men, like, your stories and your struggles. So I just got off a weekend. I'm really into this, like, being authentic and helping people from an authentic standpoint.

Yeah. That's so good. It's so good.

That was one. But what. What were you.

So you gave me. You gave me a couple good ones, but it was five things that you want people to know that are in their aquatics, that a lot of people feel like that they're a fraud and faking it, and that everyone struggles, which is amazing. And then I also got from that, just share where you really are and come along with me.

Ask for help.

Ask for help.

Another one. Find mentors and people that have done what you. That you want to do and. And have gone through. I guarantee they've gone through struggles just like you have. And when I shared that, when I was at my rock bottom, every person I went to, my mentor said, oh, I did that 10 years ago. I went bankrupt. And I'm like, you went bankrupt? I have no idea. And they're like, yeah, and here's how you pick yourself up. And this is part of the journey. And so it's par for the course. When you're an entrepreneur running a business, there's going to be great times and there's going to be low times. And once you understand a lot of people have gone through. Through that, you can ask for help. So asking for help is really important.

So it's funny that you said that, Josh. What people listening might not know is I started this podcast a little over three years ago, and it's changed over the years, but initially it started only as stories of this type of thing. And the reason I did that, the reason I did 200 interviews of all the people you mentioned, Dean, and all of them is because I was in my own personal setbacks and I. That was my way of asking for help. Like, I'm going to start a podcast and share along the journey. I'm going on to ask people how they got out of this. And just like you said, 200 interviews later, I'm like, seeing these same themes from people, from Joe Polish, from Dean Graham, like, and I'm like, whoa, they've all been through this. Which made me feel way better and got me thinking new ideas and leveling up.

Yes. Another one is you have to just get real with yourself. Because there's so many times I went into like, the big OD and like, poor me and this happened. And, you know, the person who used Oprah's picture caused me so much problems and that never should have happened. And, you know, all these things and really the reality is you just gotta own it. Like, you just have to radical, you know, radical self honesty of where you're at. And you have. No one's gonna dig you out. You have to do it yourself. And so you have to, like, light that fire within you. Because everyone can sit around, it's really easy to play the victim. And I've done that for a long time too. But everything changed when I finally just looked at myself in the mirror and said, you know, I'm not a victim. I'm here for a reason. God didn't put me here to fail. Especially with all these resources around here. I can do this and then take, like, action steps I'm going to do every day and get on a routine and getting on routines. Another one is just people that don't. I used to think you didn't have a morning routine or an evening routine and you could just float through the day and just randomly kind of do things. Never. It doesn't work.

What is your morning routine? What have you learned about that? Like, what do you have a routine that you know is. What is that?

I wake up in bed and I journal for 10 minutes or I'll never do it. So I journal for 10 minutes in bed. Okay. Then I grab the book.

And that's just whatever thoughts are in your mind or like, whatever you thought about overnight.

And a lot of gratitude. It's a gratitude journal where I really focus on things that I'm grateful for. Because if there's one, really one lesson I would talk about, and it seems cliche, but being grateful every day for things in your life just brings you more of that. And so many people beat themselves up all day long and look at the negative. I've done that a lot. But if you actually look at the positive and start your day off that way, it makes a huge difference. Okay, so gratitude journal. And I write other things in there, but it's mainly journaling. And then I read 10. 10 minutes or 10 pages in a book, which seems crazy, but then after, you know, a month you've read a book. And before I'd have tons of books I'd never get to. So I just read 10 pages a day. Then I get up and do like 10 minutes of yoga, like right on my bed. So I haven't hardly left my bed.

Okay.

Then I do yoga right next to my bed. Like 10 minutes. It really grounds me. And I'll do yoga slash meditation at the end. I'll listen to one song for seven minutes and I'll meditate to it.

Okay.

So then my brain hears that song, knows this meditation time, and I meditate during the song. When the song's over, I'm done. Okay. So I do that every day, the same song. It's awesome. Because I can't sit there. I could, but I don't like to sit there for 20 minutes.

Yeah.

Twice a day and like transcendental meditation. So just seven minutes in the morning. Then I get up, I get ready, and I work out right away. Otherwise I won't do it.

Notice he didn't say anything about checking your phone. So that's good.

If I do check my phone, if something's going on, I literally have to set a timer for five minutes. When I check my phone in the morning, when it goes off, I have to shut it off.

Okay.

So I'm like. I'm like zipping through text and stuff because I know I have five minutes.

Yeah.

And then I'm like onto my next thing. Otherwise I'll get.

I'll get it so grounded. I think everybody, all of us are get sucked into that. To that voice.

Then I work out or I won't do it. I'll lie to myself and say I'll do it later and I'll never do it. And so I have to do all the major important things first. Then I eat, and then I do my. My number one project that will bring me the most happiness, joy, reward in life. Very thing first, when I have the most energy.

So you'll like your list of what you need to do for work kind of things or your. Your thing, your personal list of joy stuff.

It's really the thing that's going to move me forward the most in life. So I'll do a 90 minute, 90 minutes of work on whatever that is.

Okay, got it. So if you, for instance, when you were getting ready to sell your company, it might have been 90 minutes on focusing on stuff you had to do for that.

Yes. And like, right now, like, I've been writing screenplays for years, and I'm writing, working on a screenplay to get made into a movie.

So. Good.

And because that's something that I've always wanted to do, and if I don't time block it, I'm never. I'm never going to do it. It's just going to be one of these dreams. And also, I'm 48, right. So I realize I'm probably halfway through my life. And when I look at everyone else with the biohacking and everything that's happening, we can be productive a lot longer. But you don't hear about a lot of people, like in their 80s and 90s doing, like, their major life goals. It's really rare. So I'm very well aware of that. And I'm thinking about what my legacy is and really what I want to do with my 50s and 60s.

So good. I loved it. So when I was at Josh's house for dinner in Maui and we had a bunch of people, everybody, everybody there, I think, was an entrepreneur. And we went around the room and said, what are we. We were going to share what we were. Our biggest focus for 2022 was remember this. And what I loved about that conversation is not one person at that table set a business goal. Everybody was speaking about something personal. They wanted to achieve some more experiences, something like just to uplevel their life experience here. And I found that really fascinating because I do believe the reason a lot of entrepreneurs are successful is because they do have that sort of in the back. That is the. Or in the front, actually. That is their leading thing.

Yes. Yeah. No one did talk about business. It was all about how they wanted to feel and how they wanted to impact someone else. And.

Yeah. Yeah. And then I saw. Because I started following Josh on. On Instagram and you had. He had a post of flying private. I'm like, oh, that's my. On my list. I've never flown private. And we were. But he was. He had a picture of himself doing it and you had. I will never forget this. You had your laptop open in a journal and you said on that. I'm going to probably mess up how you said it, but you said that you'll never take for granted being able to do things like that. So you use that time, that time of expansion super wisely and you spend that time in gratitude and how can I help other people? And I just thought that was so magnificent. So instead of, like taking that for granted, like, oh, I just get to do this, it's like I'm going to use this time wisely to expand more.

Yes. I remember not being able to afford a coach plane ticket on Spirit Airline or something, you know, for years. And so now when I do fly private, I. I block that time out, like, so I have to do work on a project that's going to serve other people, write a script. So.

Great.

Come up with a charitable plan. Anything. While I'm on the plane, I don't get in there and drink champagne and fall asleep. And I just can't do that because I think the universe. If you're not grateful, the universe checks you. And it's checked me in the past.

I love everything about. Well, Josh, this is fantastic. I'm so excited for you. I was so happy for you. You said, I finally sold the company. I remember you sent an I added IG DM from you. And I just know what that must mean to you. I can only sort of understand, but it's just absolutely incredible and such an accomplishment. So what's next? The screenplay, what else? What are you doing with your time right now? What are you focused on?

Yeah, well, you know. So we finally did sell the company. And it happened on New Year's. Sorry. Christmas Eve of all times. Like, it could have closed. It got pushed and pushed and closed on Christmas Eve, which, again, I think is another beautiful sign. And we got wires that day. And you look at all your life's work from a business standpoint, and it all comes across as digits on a screen. Right. There's no one around me. And it was just me, like, looking at a screen. And then I thought, wow, now I have this financial energy. What am I going to do with it? You know? And the first thing I did was I bought my niece a house because she has these beautiful children that I love that are like my kids because they don't have kids. And they were living in this rundown apartment and she works for my company. So the first thing I did was buy them a house. They're still paying rent to me, but they're paying what they paid before because I don't believe in giving like you give people. They still have to contribute, but that was. The first thing I bought was like, something to. To invest in the family and those kids. So that was worth all those years of work just to do that.

So amazing.

It's really cool.

I absolutely love that.

Yeah. As far as what's next, we still own 20% of the company, so people have to think about that when you Build something, you can sell 80% of it, somebody else can run it, and then they'll sell it again in three to five years and you can get a second bite of the apple, they call it. And hopefully we'll make even more off the second bite of the apple. So we'll have another exit in three to five years.

So good.

And, and you know, a large portion is going away to various charities. I'm writing screenplays because it's a passion of mine. I was an executive producer on a film last year that just got sold. So movies are really cool and the legacy behind them, you know, they don't go away. So that's really cool. And I've already, I invest in 15 different companies with Joel. So we're helping, helping other entrepreneurs and teaching them what we've learned and helping them avoid pitfalls and challenges, which is really cool if they listen and sometimes if they don't, that's, you know, they might know better than us at times. So, yeah, a lot of investing in people.

So good. This was so epic today. Josh, thank you so much for doing this. I know people got a lot out of it. I got a lot out of it. Thank you so much for doing this today.

Yes. Great to see you. Hopefully we'll see you in Maui again.

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