Get The Most Out Of Life By Giving Value To Others | Lewis Howes

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with my unique experiences in life could have turned me into two different types of people someone that was very ego driven and wanting everything to be about me or someone that cared deeply about others and wanted to help others get out of pain and suffering how did that grow my audience how did that grow my business how did I grow my brand so quickly I'm just asking these people that have already done it what to do and I'm doing exactly what they tell me to do I'm just taking extreme action and

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I'm getting results it's not perfect it's messy but I'm building something the gift that I think I have had to overcome that was just I'm going to come in here with excitement and joy to like learn on today's episode of agency I sat down with Lewis house a bestselling author former football player lifestyle entrepreneur and the host of the school of greatness podcast Lewis's content teaches personal growth overcoming challenges and building a life of greatness join us as we unpack the

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importance of building relationships with genuine interactions and so much more leis uh welcome to the agency podcast man thank you so much for having us and it's really odd being in your studio looking at you where you sit when I'm usually watching the camera and welcome welcome to my studio on your show yeah thanks so much man we actually met before we uh bumped into each other uh on a flight to Mexico yeah and I remember turning around at the line when we're boarding the plane and I saw you

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and I was like hey Louis and then I realized we actually don't know each other and it was so odd for me to do that but you were like oh hey what's up and then we got to hang out a little bit and then we got stuck in Mexico I think we made a break for it at one point that's right yeah good times maybe I'll talk about that um but man thank you so much for being here and having us on and I'm excited and I've been a long-term listener since 2013 I remember driving uh to work in the morning and putting on

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the school of greatness and that was like my daily pick me up listening to the latest episode I appreciate it thank you it helped me just get my mindset in a good place and it really that a foundation for me to get into personal development because of the part I got into Jim rone Tony Robbins I started listening to Brian Tracy all the greats and um yeah a lot of that's a lot of what we're doing now is because of you man much appreciate that thank you so first and foremost man like I really

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want to understand what exactly happened for you to inspire the school of greatness and when I when I mentioned this it's like what was the defining moment what happened and it was three defining moments it was a it was season of life where I was in breakdowns in a relationship with my girlfriend at the time that was just kind of up and down for many months I was in a kind of a breakdown in the Business Partnership relationship that I had as well for many months kind of up and down and uh just

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feeling within myself up and down emotionally having a lot of resentment angers not understanding how to navigate my emotions realizing that the things that I learned growing up allowed me to create a lot of accomplishment and excess from Sports to business but I didn't feel good about myself consistently so I realized like okay I had certain skills that got me here but it's not everything I want to feel why and so there was a season of breakdowns and I remember being stuck in LA traffic um just close by here stuck in

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traffic driving somewhere and everyone was stopped on the road around me and everyone was just kind of screaming at each other honking the horn screaming and I was just like I've experienced that in La it's interesting yeah and I was like man people are just well I'm literally stuck right now in life metaphorically I'm stuck literally in this car in traffic and a lot of people around me seem to be stuck also and I was like there's so many things that I've learned from great

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mentors that helped me accomplish in sports and then in business and a lot of people were asking me Louis how did you grow so quickly in those early days from like 20089 to 2012 like how did that grow my audience how did that grow my business how did I grow my brand so quickly and I just kept telling people like I'm just asking these people that have already done it what to do and I'm doing exactly what they tell me to do I'm just taking extreme action and then I'm getting results it's not perfect

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it's messy but I'm building something and I just said huh maybe there's a thing where I could have these these conversations with these mentors and coaches that I've that I've learned from that that have taught me a lot and maybe everyone who's stuck in traffic would listen to these that's literally what I thought and I was just like and I also need this for myself cuz I feel stuck in my life like sure I've accomplished something but I don't feel fulfilled I don't feel like harmonious peaceful I

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don't feel like I love myself fully I don't feel like I can navigate relationships so there's a new level for me that I need to learn so so why don't I just start calling my friends mentors coaches and seeing if I can just record interviews about stuff I'm going through and stuff I think others are going through to get unstuck and in that car ride I called two friends who had a podcast at the time this is early days this yeah this is before it was like even really exactly this is

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201 13 is that what that is or what am I what 2013 is when you started the school 2024 it's 11 years so January 2013 is when it launched so this is 2012 about 2 months before the end of 2012 when I called these friends in this car and podcasting was still new there must have been I don't know not even a 100,000 podcasts in general right maybe like 10,000 out there it was so new no one knew where to go to find a podcast I don't even think Spotify was around it was just Apple podcast it was on iTunes

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it was kind of confusing and how to get there and I could listen to it Joe Rogan had a show but no one knew who that was what the podcast was there was a couple of tech podcasts maybe like a news podcast but it wasn't big at all but I remember hearing like the cars people are making the future are going to have podcasts built in I was like oh interesting okay let me call these friends that just launched a podcast like six months ago like a few months they just started getting into it and I came from the social media blogging

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world that's where I started going to these conferences and blogging social media and online marketing so I was learning early like here are the trends with Instagram and YouTube and Facebook and Twitter and Linked In I was learning about these sites so podcasting was another it was like a sister of blogging right it was like a cousin of blogging and blogging was the big thing right then I was like how do you kind build the internet right like email blogging yeah and so I was already blogging but I

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was like always looking for what is going to be the next big thing that I could get in early and be a leader in and I felt like I did that with LinkedIn right I was one of the first people to write a book about LinkedIn to kind of talk about it from an online marketing business standpoint even though I didn't have a business or I didn't know what I was doing but I understand how to connect with people on the platform so I taught that uh then I was early on with online webinars you know back in 2009 I

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started doing webinars now everyone does webinars right and it started to become a thing and I was one of the first people to write a book about webinars webinar marketing and I was just like I feel like this podcasting thing is Big because there's millions of people stuck in traffic all day and they're listening to radio what if they could listen on demand to Great insights from things that could help them in their life where they feel stuck called two friends who had a podcast just asked them how's it

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going what do you think about it and they were like man we love it you know both of them said they loved it and they were like they love the connection I have with my audience and it's a different feeling than blogging and I was like I think I can figure this out you know I have no idea what I'm doing I don't have a background in this but I know people and I have good relationships and I think they'd open up to me if I asked the right questions so that's how it started and at that time

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you were involved in a business that was in the spectrum of marketing or online marketing yeah we creating online courses yeah right okay so you were kind of in the technology space around like social media and what was happening the latest uh Trends and everything else you were kind of reading where things were going connected to a few people and got a sense okay this podcast thing is going to be huge cuz I remember at that time maybe it's a thing you know you who knows but it's like yeah cuz I remember

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in 2013 2014 saying oh I listen to the school of greatness podcast and people would say to me what's what's a podcast and I had to explain it and they're like this doesn't make sense just listen to the radio but here we are everyone listens to podcast wherever they going in the gym driving all the rest of it yeah so in that moment of transition like what were the first hurdles of starting the podcast that you found uh challenging or something you had to come I think was getting the word out

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you know I didn't have a challenge of like finding guests cuz I had good relationships but that is a challenge for a lot of people it's like how do you get great guests it was more of like how do I continue to elevate myself every time I interview someone how do I how do I get better and make the experience or the product better every episode and that was challenging because you could criticize and an analyze every little element of what you do from oh the audio quality was bad my question was bad I

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looked weird you could analyze everything yeah so it's more of like just how do I continue to prove and just try to get better every time if I can that was one thing but getting the word out cuz people were did not care about podcasts no one cared no one wanted to listen so for the first year I remember the first year I had 750,000 downloads total for 50 episodes right 52 episodes or however many I launched that first year cuz I launched at the end of January and you know it's like I do that in a

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day now or something right it's like the first year it took all my effort and attention to promote I was only doing one episode a week and all I did the other days when it came out was just promote it one by one on LinkedIn Facebook Twitter and I would try to find people that I thought would have an angle of where they would like this episode so I had a lot of connections at the time I think at that time there was no Facebook fan pages but there was I had 5,000 friends was the limit so I would message all my friends that I

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thought would be interested in the guests that I had and an angle of why they would be interested so it's very personalized messaging and emailing to people I did this on LinkedIn Etc and it was all a one toone effort I think you'll like this part at minute 13 check it out it's going to resonate with the life what you're dealing with right now and then also can you leave a review And subscribe which just like one by one for a year wow it was a lot of work how many would how many a day do you think I

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don't know I mean some days probably like hundreds you know it's been all day obsessing about it just back to back back to backage a lot of was copy and paste but then it would be like first name like hey I think you like this and here it is and there's a link you know but it was that's how I built everything on LinkedIn originally W it was like one by one reaching out to people and researching them and messaging them based on who they are not based on what I wanted yeah and I think that is what

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allowed me to launch the podcast launch Books launch whatever I'm launching is the onetoone interactions about what's in it for them not what's in it for me interesting so it's almost like you're creating your own early adopters yes by oneon-one relationships and then imagine you log in the next day you get 300 replies going back andth or some people don't reply or some people do or some people say that was amazing it's just like following up oh I think you're got

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to like next week too it's with this person yeah it's like how do you retain the customer or the audience as well right so you individually marketing each person that sounds like a lot of leg work but the payoff you're saying is okay once a certain portion of these crowd are in now you have Advocates well here's the thing we also there was no video back then so there was no reals YouTube shorts audio all audio man well there was no there was no way to Market through video there was no video on

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Facebook then there's no video on Instagram there's no reals no YouTube shorts no Tik Tok none of this yeah there was no video on LinkedIn so went viral except for blog posts but you had to have a big blog post and get picked up on all the news and have all the bloggers share it or big social media people share these things yeah that was a strategy retweet please retweet this that was the whole marketing strategy for people back you know 12 years ago yeah there was no way to go viral Maybe on YouTube it's like

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if you posted a video and you got a million views it was like the biggest video of the month on YouTube was like a big deal to get a million views yeah I never did that so there was no easy way to Market like there is today yeah like it's so much easier to scale faster if you understand content and you can make viral short form content today so this was I didn't have the privilege of let me come up with cool ideas and trending ideas and Market it and collaborate with people you couldn't collaborate on

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posts now you can do that but there's Millions of podcasts millions of books millions of things that people are you know distracted by so it's easier than ever but it's also harder than ever to retain because there's so much content so it's kind of like the pros and cons of it yeah so then since 2013 and fast forward to today what have some things that you've learned to adapt with your media that used to work but don't really work anymore and what are some things you're

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doing now that you never imagined well I I remember I think it was 3 years in I was doing Audio Only audio and I remember thinking I feel like I need to start filming this I actually got an interview with Tony Robbins and I said to myself I have to film this WOW right so let me hire a film crew and like do the whole thing we flew out to New York it was like a big deal for me to meet Tony for the first time now I've had him on many times and I've you know been to his you know his Island in Fiji and in

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Florida and I've done more things with him like Pal's now shooting this [ __ ] well not pals but I mean he knows who I am and I'm connecting with him more but um yeah but the first time meeting him was a big deal for me it was like I was trying for the first three or four years to have man and now there was a moment and I was like this is this is like a big breakthrough moment for my show right it's like the biggest guess at that time for me yeah because of an emotional connection I had to him when I

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was a teenager seeing him at a live event and how it gave me a vision of a potential future you know I didn't know where I was heading but I was like wow that it gave me a feeling of what's possible yeah and so I hired a film crew we filmed it and I just remember thinking like I feel like now more people are getting into podcasting after 3 four years of doing it there was a big show called serial that kind of took off and brought the masses in mainstream media was now talking about podcasting

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now it's like other people were creating podcasts and I just said to myself I feel like need to film these everyone's now doing just audio I think I need to film them M so after that first one with Tony Robbins I was like let's just hire someone to film all of them put them up on YouTube and promote back to the audio use video to promote back audio so for it sounds like ridiculous now so for four years almost five years I had this thought process I don't want to monetize YouTube I don't want ads in front of my

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content because I don't want some weird marketers promoting their you know stuff in front of my content I want to keep it as clean as possible and just add value and so for four or five years we just you know paid to make video put it on YouTube and then when you could put it on Instagram and Facebook we were just driving back to the audio and in some sense it paid off big time because we had I don't know five or 600 videos over those four or five years on YouTube but I made zero off of that

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content and I remember I was like someone said you you should really turn on the ads this was like 3 years ago right three and a half years ago only 3 years ago it was the beginning of 2020 so I guess three and a half four years ago right yeah after I think it was five or six years of of filming now four five six years and um I go let's just turn it on for maybe a couple but I was so against like other people ruining the experience of the value I was trying to create right by like selling some weird like crypto

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course or something I was just like it's not what I want you know it's just like teaching people about how to like love themselves and like how to overcome fear and insecurity Pharmaceuticals and yeah I didn't want that I didn't want that an digestion Pro exactly so I was like okay let me just turn it on for like a couple videos let's just see what it is cuz you can turn it on for a couple not all your videos and I remember after like a month it was like you know five grand that

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came in they go huh okay that's not nothing I wonder if I turn it on for all 500 videos the next month turned it on was like 25 Grand M then it was like 40 Grand and I was like oh this is like not nothing you know this is okay that's interesting and then like 5 months later it was like 200 Grand a month yikes and I go no the I was excited and I was disgusted because I went back and said oh there's 5 years that I had these videos If I had these turned on how much could I made and when you look at the

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views you're like oh man I just lost all that money that's what was exciting but also like disgusting what I was but it was all great because I was able to just just learned how to like I felt like I kept saying okay I think this might work in the future let me invest in it now and I made no money for 5 Years From that investment but now it's paid dividends by being on YouTube for much longer three and a half million subscribers you know I don't know 15 20 million views a month whatever it is and

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just the ability to reach the masses now a million subscribers on YouTube for Spanish half a million almost on Portuguese reaching more audiences because we invested in a video early on um but that didn't answer your question I think your question was like what did you invest in that a great Segway but it pay off yeah that was really helpful just added a lot of context of like what it was like in the early days and kind of it sounds weird to saying in early days it's not that long ago uh but if

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you look at how you're involving your content maybe now like where is your focus shifting to you know with the Advent of what's happening with AI and all the rest of it like what are some of the gears you're shifting at this point to go how do we be competitive now when this so much competition man I think it all starts with what your vision is for why you're creating content first my vision is to serve 100 million lives weekly to help them improve the quality of their life so based on that value and

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vision that I have for myself I'm thinking how do I scale this into multiple different platforms multiple languages and what's the faster way to get content out and what's the better way to get it to go viral essentially so that more people can consume the value that we're trying to create yeah and so that's the way I think about it so it's it's it's more of like how do I set up the right processes the right teams in place to leverage the tools and test and iterate quickly and that's what it is

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now and as the someone who's still the talent where I'm interviewing people you know I just did an interview right before this I'll do this interview my days typically start at 5: or 5:30 p.m. where now I can I'm done with my content and my job as the talent for the host of the show now five o' starts that's when I go through all my email checking with my team then it's like 7:00 when I start to be like how do I creatively think about expanding these things so It's

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tricky sometimes when you're also talent and you're thinking of content creative ideas marketing launching and also thinking of process people you know scalability yeah so it's you know I've got Matt who's great as well who manages the whole business and the team but it's it's just trying to move with the time and the energy that I have to do these things as fast as possible at the highest level quality I think you know quality like I look at a lot of my stuff over the last couple

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years and I cringe because I know our video quality wasn't where I wanted to be the standard but certain limitations or you didn't have the right people on the team at the right time who knew what they needed to know or something and so it's it's and I've also always lived with like getting something out there is better than being perfect and never getting it out there so although I cringe at some of my work I'm also like I'm way farther ahead than I would be if I tried to make it perfect

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and then changed my design or my look 6 months later anyways yeah so I I think about how do I just keep making it better getting out the highest level quality but also with speed I think those things are challenging to do especially when you run a team you run a company we share the same experience I run an agency dayto day and I'm a creative so like yeah what what would be your advice for someone who and there's a lot of people in this boat right now they're like okay I run a successful

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company I don't have a personal brand but I can see my competition starting to leap over me using personal brands in cohorts with their business yes because we're starting to see even like Zuckerberg right now is doing a crazy PR tour where he's making himself super lovable and he's eating hamburgers and like hanging out the UFC and he's fighting Jiu-Jitsu like never have I seen so many Founders try to spin narratives to drive attention to their business cuz Zach's video reviewing the

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VR headset in his Lounge room got more views with an iPhone footage than the $20 million stage performance that they put on right so like what's what's your what's your advice to someone who's in a business right now who's like I probably should have a personal brand but God it looks like a lot of work I think it is a lot of work I think it is a lot of work I think it all depends what you what your vision is and what your values are I met a guy earlier that I had on the show he had uh

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multiple exits for you know nine figure businesses that he was always behind the scenes he was the leader of the company yeah but never frontf facing for consumers or customers or audiences he didn't need to be he was able to like I'm just going to recruit and hire people and just execute my vision with my team add value to our customers that way scale it and exit it and just keep repeating it um so it depend now he's like I have a mission where I want to get this message out there to the masses

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of everything I've learned over the last 20 years so now he's jumping into personal brand because it's calling him it's part of his mission I think when people jump into saying I got to launch my personal brand because Dane's telling me or Louis is telling me or whoever is telling me or it's it's the cool thing to do yeah right I think you're not going to enjoy it it's going to be wor it's going to feel like hard work it's going to be exhausting you're not going

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to get the results you want and you're going to resent yourself and this idea of building a personal brand and I'm assuming you people to fall in love with the idea of building a personal brand but if you're doing it because you feel like you need to not because you have a vision on the foundation of building a first personal brand then I think you'll stop or you'll stop creating content or you just be like I'm over this I'm exhausted yeah you have to love it you have

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to doing it yeah and I know you know people that build their personal brand without doing a lot of video nicolea Pera who's a a psychologist and a therapist she has built a massive following I think it's like 10 million followers now mostly just photos and text sometimes she's on video rarely but it's mostly photos and text she's got massive book deals from it but it doesn't have to be you in front of the camera screaming at people to build a personal brand that's true it can be

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authentically who you are and expressed in the way you are to build a personal brand it doesn't have to be you on camera of three videos a day so I think it's just like look at what you want and why you're doing it yeah it has to like an outfit has to fit your demeanor your personality exact you know and I think you know there's kind of two Entre two types of entrepreneurs there's the entrepreneur who starts a business to make money and then there's the entrepreneur who starts a business

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because they're obsessed about a thing yes for you what was that Obsession adding value and being of service I think with my unique experiences in life uh could have turned me into two different types of people someone that was very ego driven and wanting everything to be about me or someone that cared deeply about others and wanted to help others get out of pain and suffering MH and probably in my 20s I wanted to make it more about me I was more competitive I wanted to win I wanted to be right and I wanted to look

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good and I cared what people think deeply until I had those breakdowns in my life that I talked about at the beginning of this show and those breakdowns forced me to turn around and look myself in the mirror and say who are you who are are you really Lewis what is it you want why are you this way why do you have these breakdowns and resentments and angers and I kind of had kind of had a choice Point either go in deeper and say screw the world and everyone who hurt me I'm going to hurt everyone back and

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become bigger better stronger than everyone and I'm going to prove people wrong or I'm going to go a different way which is you know what I'm going to heal I'm going to go on the inside I'm going to find a way to transform this pain into service and I'm going to hopefully help others get out of that pain as well and that's what I started to do with the school of greatness I remember specifically there's no right or wrong here but I remember specifically thinking to myself I need to challenge

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my ego every step of the way so early on everyone was like just do the lwis house show you know you've got this little brand already and marketing and you know entrepreneurship like just call the lwis house show I was like it doesn't feel right at this season of my life and I'm not saying it's bad if you call your name your show or whatever it is but I was like it needs to be about others not about me and I want to point the spotlight on everyone else not make it about me so I came up with the school of

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greatness with Lewis house it's not the Lewis house show shining at me yes I'm the host yes I'm the interviewer and the curator and the facilitator but it's really about finding other great minds and pointing the light on them and that was a practice that was an intentional practice for me in my journey of transformation and maybe one day I do have a show called my name or whatever because of where I'm at now but it's it's making sure I'm doing it from a place of service and value to others

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yeah that's what it's been about like you said it has to come from a place of hot like you strike me as someone who's very hot Le very much very kinesthetic cares a lot about the people around them yes um and you have a phenomenal team here like I've spent maybe seven or eight hours with different people on your team and they're all remarkable like this they're really invested in what you're doing yeah I've not seen that anywhere yeah and uh the first thing that striked me was like this is a

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rare culture like I'm not really sure had anyone speak about their boss in such an endearing way like you really you only talk to the right people you know not everyone's going to be like that nice so so if you take me back to when you had these you know these moments of breakdowns and then you went on this slingshot trajectory building the school of greatness I'm sure there was battles along the way um what was it like transitioning from you know being a high performing athlete potentially

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struggling with ego to then transitioning into the world of business into media what was that like going through the motions of Switching gears like that I think the biggest challenge was I always felt like I was the youngest person in every room and I was the least knowledgeable or experienced person in every room and so there was some there was some intimidation early on because I was like Wow here are all these leaders that I'm like reading their blogs and reading their books and seeing like

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videos about them they're speaking at all these big events and now I'm going to the events as an attendee but I was always finding ways to like get in the rooms afterwards or the dinner tables and like somehow be with all the leaders and the thing the gift that I think I had to overcome that was just I'm going to come in here with excitement and joy to like learn and not act like I know anything m not need to like feel smart cuz I didn't have any smarts to feel good about I was just

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like I'm a beginner and what you said was amazing tell me more and I think people liked having me around these kind of leaders or speakers or experts because I made everything about them I was like just tell me more about your life and tell me have this and I was just curious about them and they just wanted to hang out with me CU I wasn't asking for advice I think a lot of people get turned off when they say I need help can you tell me how to do X Y and Z yeah they told me how to do X Y and Z not because I asked

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them but because I asked them about themselves and through their stories they would share with me all their advice but it's how I connected with people early on and I think still today through heart not through I need something help me but man you're fascinating tell me more yeah people told me everything and they wanted me around and at the end of the night people be like you're the most interesting person I've met at this whole event and I didn't say anything exactly so I think it was just kind of

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like this happy go-lucky like I'm excited to be here and man you're fascinating tell me more and just like excitement about people without saying can you help me I'm struggling I'm broke I'm on my sister's couch I don't have any skills I have nothing to offer you give me something I never did that I said what can I contribute to you it was all about value driven first value driven conversations then I would always ask people that were you know 10 20 30 years older than me with much more

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success I just be like you've you've accomplished so much success what's your biggest challenge right now and they would tell me after like 30 60 minutes and them tell me their their stories they would tell me and I just all I would think of is who do I know who can solve this problem and I was building relationships on LinkedIn and social media and I was hosting these events around the country and I was just meeting all these people who had skills and value and so when they would tell me

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ah you know I'm really struggling trying to find a Ghost Rider I'm really struggling trying to find a design company or whatever I'd be like I got three great options and I would call these people on the phone right then I say you need to talk to this person he's worked with so so so I build the credibility talk about the results they created and I put them on the phone right then like as a 24 25y old I was doing this and you know some people were like okay sure talk and they're and

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they're like all right cool you know send me a follow-up email with this introduction yeah and sometime they worked out and they were like so thankful both parties yeah so I became a champion not of just one person with a problem but another person who wanted to grow in some other way so you become a champion of two different parties and when they're linked together and there's results they both want to help you exponentially and I was doing that over and over again for years just connecting

00:31:55 - 00:32:44

the dots for people on a pain and a solution and two parties benefited and it Amplified their opportunities and that's the value I was able to create cuz I didn't have any other value to give yeah but where did that come from like what led you to know how to do it this way cuz even right now as you're explaining this I'm like that makes sense cuz when people come up to me in an event they like help me I'm like uh but if they're like hey you just want to hang I'm like okay cool like

00:32:20 - 00:33:18

this person's not here to take energy from me you know I think a lot of it was just again the things I learned growing up from I was an observer of people growing up cuz I didn't have friends growing up Matt asked me this 3 days ago when we were driving in here he goes did you have a like a best friend growing up I go no he's like come on you had to have someone like a neighborhood friend I go it wasn't until I was 11 and 1/2 years old when a kid moved to my small town in Delaware Ohio in California

00:32:48 - 00:33:45

Casey Casey Nelson he moved he's about four and a half years older than me and he moved he didn't have any other friends and I saw him playing basketball in the backyard and I went by and just started playing with with him then we became like best friends cuz neither of us had friends and and and so it was like N I didn't really have friends and he was like so it's hard for him to believe that and I go but because I didn't I observed people all day long I watched people sit alone

00:33:17 - 00:34:01

just be like oh why are they hanging out why are they talking to each other that way why is this person reacting why is he putting his armor around you know why did she just get mad at him I would just watch people not in a creepy way but it's just like you know walking through the Halls it's just people watching yeah and I would observe people's energy and I think that's why I'm connected to people's hearts or that's why I speak more about emotion even though I love

00:33:39 - 00:34:52

mindset I really feel like the energy inside someone's heart drives them to think a certain way and and when you can get into someone's heart then you can really serve them better to know what they value what their needs are what they value what they appreciate and when you appreciate someone they typically appreciate in value or that a relationship appreciates in value there's a greater Bond so I think out of survival strategies early on by not having friends I just learned how to listen to people cuz people don't

00:34:15 - 00:35:20

want to talk to me because I wasn't cool and by listening more and practicing that I was able to understand people's needs not all the time but just like I started to pick it up so one of my greatest weaknesses became a skill set probably like you have a design knowledge and skill set for whatever reason you grew up yeah whether that's art classes or doodling or just like loving design from Big brands or whatever it was that got you into your unique experiences made you gifted yeah this is one of my gifts so that's what

00:34:47 - 00:35:42

got me into it I and it wasn't like and I didn't think it was a gift it was just what I was doing it who I was being and I realized oh that added value cool and after a couple years I was like someone gave me $100 after connecting them they're like you have no idea how it's going to help my business go you'll give me money for doing this oh wow okay probably like you you're like doodling all day you got your Journal you're like hey can you draw me a little logo oh sure wow this amazing here's 50 bucks

00:35:16 - 00:36:30

whatever it is yeah you know I don't know if that's what happened but it's just like you're just you're just doing you yeah and things unfold but what I found interesting is is how you knew how to to not approach someone who's successful out of a place of need I tried that in LinkedIn early on in 200 oh you I tried in 2007 cuz it was I got injured playing football in 2007 I had a surgery the end of August 2007 on my wrist and they took a bone out of my hip and put in the my wrist

00:35:52 - 00:36:44

and I was on a cast for six months and so 2008 so end of 2007 I call a mentor of mine I go I don't know what to do like this is where I'm at I'm struggling I'm on my sister's couch and he said I heard this thing called linkedin.com check it out I hear you can find a job on there that's literally what he said he's like it's kind of like Facebook for adults I was like okay I'll try it out I had no idea this is where I heard about it I think there were six or seven million people

00:36:18 - 00:37:18

on the site at that time okay so I get on there and I literally When someone tells me what to do I just go all in I'm like okay let me go do this so he told me what do I did it for 6 months about 6 to 8 hours a day was just like let me figure this out let me research who's written blogs about this how do I get on here how do I connect with people so I just sending emails one by one to local leaders trying to see who had a company that' be interested in working for can I get a job interview that type of stuff

00:36:48 - 00:37:45

and um I tried to message people certain ways to ask for something and it didn't work and then I just started trying other ways I was like let me just asked them about them and they started replying and then all these leaders in my local city were started to have phone calls with me started to take me out to like breakfast or lunch or coffee or whatever so I could ask them more questions I was building relationships and I was like oh this is working let me just keep doing it yeah and that's how

00:37:17 - 00:38:20

it happened it's fascinating how one little tiny thing can create so so much momentum 100% yeah now something you talk about frequently and obviously in the brand name as well is is greatness and what it means to be successful how do you describe greatness in your own definition I feel like there's a difference between success and greatness and success is more about me it's about it's a selfish thing in itself which is not bad but you can only go so far when you make something about you by

00:37:49 - 00:38:55

itself and so for years I was driven to be successful and I would accomplish these things but it didn't give me ultimate fulfillment it give me momentary feelings of accomplishment but it wasn't like okay am I really actualizing what I'm meant to do whereas greatness is about pursuing my gifts and talents to accomplish my dreams in the service of others it's bringing others along with me and impacting those others with me in those Pursuits and I can be successful as well along the way but there's a

00:38:21 - 00:39:21

greater impact of service to others it's like a ying and yang one's giving and one's yes Tak from it and do you think people have a common misconception around what it takes to achieve success some people might um but again success is more selfish in my mind so I I I don't look at as like I think people think if you want to be successful you have to work really hard and you have to you have to win I think you have to win and it's more about me versus you yeah it's more I've heard you use the word

00:38:52 - 00:39:58

competition a few times yes they think more in terms of competition in order to succeed when I hit 30 years old I was all about competition my life was driven by Sports and winning and so was the business world it was about how do I become number one how do I become bigger than my competitors yeah how do I learn what they're doing and then not tell them what I'm doing how do I like you know one up everyone right and it the energy feels exciting but it's not fulfilling and it's kind of like a

00:39:24 - 00:40:31

burnout it's a draining energy as well it's like it drives you but it kind of drains you also yeah and you like need to keep driving to get ahead to get that rush but then you kind of feel drained and let down and I learned at that moment on that and it's tough because the ego self or the Shadow Self wants to compete it wants to win it wants to accumulate what's mine it's mine you know it's like the precious right and um the precious and it wants to own and it wants to you know Gra AB it wants to do

00:39:58 - 00:41:06

all these things yeah but I think our true higher self or our conscious self wants to collaborate and wants to serve and um and so that's why again I made it more about collaboration the show for me is not a solo show it's about lifting others up and in the service of lifting others up I will be elevated also right I'm collaborating with someone when I interview them it's a collaboration sure I do solo episodes every now and then but the whole show is not about here's my advice and I know it

00:40:32 - 00:41:35

all and I'm going to just like tell what I need to tell and everyone's going to look at me and I'm going to win in the market of podcasting I don't know it's been always more about a collaboration and it's and I forget that a lot of other people don't think that way you know I forget that yeah a lot of people are more competitive driven hiding resources information they'll build a friendship or relationship with me until they get something and then they they feel like

00:41:04 - 00:41:58

okay now I can go and not talk to you anymore it's like this more competitive like energy sometimes yeah so it's just being aware of that and I think it's there's no right or wrong people are living their lives but it's just I want to have a more fulfilling rewarding life and I think collaboration is always better than competition do you feel like because you've realized through your own Journey that there's not a necess to try to beat everyone you know that there's there's

00:41:31 - 00:42:29

value in that in some ways but it's not maybe the most valuable I just think it's a losing game at the end of the day you trying to win at all times you eventually will lose you'll be number one at the top of the mountain and feel alone yeah you have no one to share it with and no one to connect with on certain things yeah you you'll feel like I've isolated myself from the world um and and I think there are people that can achieve incredible successful things but bring their friends their

00:42:00 - 00:42:57

family their communities with them or their you know I I'm always like my competitors we could do better together than against each other yeah so let's just work together and help each other and then there's enough for everyone like you can be successful great and I can be successful it doesn't have to be you need to be this much more successful than me in order for us to feel good it's like we can all win yeah let's support each other if it makes sense if there's alignment I agree you know

00:42:29 - 00:43:11

people have different values and whatnot but I think you know for the most part if we're all out here helping each other you know we can all wi exactly exactly I don't know what it's like in Australia are people more collaborative or more competitive it depends on what industry you go in because I don't want to see anyone succeed more than them right it's kind of like knock them down yeah I mean if you go into the bodybuilding space or the fitness space you know it's it's

00:42:49 - 00:43:44

very challenging I would say um there's probably less endorsement of others doing well than you would find in the US really yeah people don't celebrate others and like collaborate with others as much not as much so uh Luke mazni who's our odd director is also a musician and he comes to La all the time and produces music here and he does the same thing in Australia and he says people in LA are collaborating a lot more way more collaborative they're like hey let's just write a great song

00:43:18 - 00:44:11

whereas in Australia it's a bit more like hey like this is my song and this is what I want you to do he was actually culturally shocked when he started working with studios here everyone's like hey let's just jam out like big names let's just let's see if we can make something cool together yeah let's jam out there's like almost like less ego and more collaboration even from an agency perspective working with um business people in the US is a lot easier really yeah it's a lot more

00:43:43 - 00:44:43

open-minded a lot more free-spirited um a lot more like let's let's let's go for a reach less risk of more um more risk averse open sry less risk averse yeah more openminded I think yeah there's there's definitely a an evolution happening in Australia where people are starting to become a bit more entrepreneurial and a bit more the next younger generation are thinking differently is that CU they're consuming content from Americans or I think we we've been the underling

00:44:14 - 00:45:21

for the US for a long time like the little brother the little sister like whatever they do will do you know whatever food they're eating will kind of inspire the same Foods is it more us influenced or British influenced interestingly I think in the origins of like the 40s 50s maybe more British we certainly around the era around the 70s became very us Centric um and I was told by my neighbor cuz I live in this street that was built uh as like the brand District in Sydney in the 80s he's like

00:44:48 - 00:45:34

oh that street was like the cope Capital like everyone was high everyone was selling branding and I was like what are you talking about it was just like a different world back then but that's when Coke landed in Australia Pepsi landed all big brands from the US were like Australia is the next Market I think now we're starting to kind of become our own thing yeah it's great we're like the teenager now we're trying to rebel against everyone we're doing our own thing yeah yeah yeah but yeah

00:45:11 - 00:46:07

man so like I think for what you've achieved uh he with the school of greatness is you've had the most insane lineup of guests and I understand that it takes momentum it takes time it takes uh a serious dedication to to land there what's your advice for someone who's trying to begin their podcast and they're trying to get a leg up amongst all these tyrants that are crushing it you got to think about how much value can I give to this person of what they need and what they want at the right

00:45:39 - 00:46:36

timing like the guest like let me give the guest yes what is the thing that if you're going for a big guest you know typically I probably wouldn't do this interview right if I'm just being honest I wouldn't do this interview for a show like this at this season of My Life cuz I've got my own content and my own stuff that I'm doing and I barely do rarely do any shows right now outside of my own stuff so that I can get ahead every hour I'm doing on someone else's show I'm getting

00:46:07 - 00:47:01

behind essentially on my show when I could be getting ahead like right now like right now right and um but because you've been reaching out to my team and adding value through branding and design strategy and Concepts and just like hey let's explore this and see where it's going I was like yeah I'm happy to do it for him you know I'm happy to do he's a nice guy he hasn't been weird you know all these different things I'm happy to do it um but normally at this season I

00:46:34 - 00:47:43

would be a no because I don't have anything I need to promote if I had a book coming out I'd be more open-minded right to doing more things so a lot of his timing for seven years I reached out to the Rocks publicist every few months and was like hey I'd love to have him on nope love to have them on just like constantly nope L mad on you know three four years ago whatever yeah he's got a book coming out about self-help now's the right time so seven years of following up it was the

00:47:09 - 00:48:03

right timing and I was big enough and had enough value to provide to help sell the thing that he needed right so a lot of it is timing and having the patience and I know people don't have patience um and listen I've been trying to get the rock on for 11 years he was one of my top three guests and I haven't had him on yet yeah and I'm like I'm patient I know it's going to happen at some point or I hope it's going to happen at some point right and um it will happen when

00:47:36 - 00:48:32

he sees that there's enough value at the right time for the right thing he's trying to promote and his team sees this is perfect alignment otherwise he doesn't need to do my show right he's going to do his buddy shows or whatever you know magazine covers and all these different things that's going to help him yeah him coming on my show at the moment is helping me more than it's helping him I see unless he's got a self-help book or something like that where I'm driving

00:48:04 - 00:48:57

thousands of copies then I had a lot of value so if it was me early on if someone's here like trying to book big guests I would really and don't get sneaky with this like I've had this H I had this happen this week I don't know how someone got my home address they sent me a shoe CU I saw a strategy somewhere and said I got one foot in the door I'd love to like pick your brain and like have you on my show right yeah and I'm like I've seen that's happened to me twice now where someone sent me

00:48:30 - 00:49:20

one shoe the whole hey I'm just trying to get a foot in the door now that I got it in here I'd love to have you on my show it's kind of funny yeah and I'm like I give you props for that but I don't like that you found my home address somehow like I didn't like that yeah uh so I immediately just threw it away cuz I was like I don't like this but people have done other creative things so I'm not saying don't get creative and like try yeah but you got to make it about value like if there was

00:48:56 - 00:49:53

10 grand in there you know and suppos of a shoe I'd be like oh that's interesting you know it's like careful what you say right yeah yeah there was a 100 Grand in there uh but it's just thinking about like what can you do to really add value and it's like find the timing for the person where it makes sense if they got a book if they got a project if they got an album and you can directly impact them in a big way to help them you're going to give yourself a better chance but otherwise when you

00:49:24 - 00:50:15

have a new show or you have a small show they're doing you a big bigger favor than you're doing them so it's like people have come to me and say listen we'd love to have you on and we can get you you know 3 million views for our distribution Network our audience is small but we have these relationships and they've guaranteed that they will clip these up and post them out there I'll drive you a certain amount of subscribers to your YouTube channel or your podast whatever it is like find the

00:49:49 - 00:50:41

thing that they care about this is where I started with research on LinkedIn on everyone's profiles and we go read about them and learn about them and watch their stuff online and I figure out what makes people what what they care about in their heart and I'd speak to that thing and say hey I know you care about this charity I'd love to make a $5,000 donation to this charity I did that with um Matt Damon we had Matt Damon on and he was promoting his charity and I said yeah I'm I'll have them on a protote to

00:50:15 - 00:51:12

Big audience and I'll make a $5,000 donation can we get them on and he said yes so it's just like okay he cared about that thing we talked about that thing and we talked about some other stuff and I made a donation and that's how I was able to get Matt Damon so it's like you got to find what people value and deliver that value so what's the most creative thing you've done to get a guess on the Pod gosh I don't know if I've done anything crazy I just for me I'm

00:50:44 - 00:51:50

persistent in following up right I'm just like they said no okay and I'll say when can I follow up right later this year okay I put on my calendar and I email them again and I think it's the consistency see a followup that has allowed me to book a lot of the guests I want but three of the people in my top 10 since day one The Rock Sylvester Stallone and Jim Carrey I've not been on a book yet and I've just been following up with their teams their publicists finding different angles for 11 years

00:51:17 - 00:52:20

and I still haven't done it but I it doesn't make me not appreciate what I have created you know last week I had John Bon Joi and Canelo you I mean it's like I had one of the biggest rock icons and the world's greatest potentially boxer of all time yeah in the same week and those things came just at the right timing Bon Joby had a docu series that's coming out on Hulu right so it's like he was doing the rounds and I found the right timing canelo's got a fight coming up but I've been trying to get Canelo

00:51:49 - 00:52:44

for four years yeah wow but he just doesn't do us interviews like English interviews doesn't do many interviews at all but it was just like following up with his team and I would follow up before right when he would announce a fight 3 months before I follow up his team hey I know he's going to do the rounds at some point like I'm happy to promote this thing I'll do whatever it takes I flew for that one I rarely fly for an interview rarely like almost never yeah I flew for Canelo cuz I was

00:52:17 - 00:53:14

like I want him that bad I will do what it takes you flew here you know it's like you're doing interviews for a week out in the US yeah and you're the main reason we're in LA to you know so like for us it's um this a big opportunity and like also like I understand where you're coming from it's it's all about consistency showing up and it's repetition and I think so many people struggle to just be repetitive and showing you can get consistent results yeah it's like you're

00:52:45 - 00:53:40

usually going to be talking to someone's team a gatekeeper a publicist unless you somehow get in touch with them over DM or something right but usually you're going through a team and you have to show them the results that you're able to get consistently if you're a new show and you're like I get a 100 downloads on my video why is that valuable for a guest it's not there's zero value for that guest zero so you need to find an angle on why it's valuable and I appreciate and acknowledge people that

00:53:13 - 00:54:01

are like saying hey we'd love to make a $1,000 donation to your charity that you approve of I appreciate that goes farther with me although I usually won't do it CU it's like I don't need it right now cuz I'll just I'd rather pay the Thousand myself and save that hour of my time I'd rather just make my own donation yeah and claim my time back yeah but I'm like hey I'll have a I'll say thank you I'll reply to that I'll appreciate I'll and I'll keep an eye out

00:53:36 - 00:54:25

on them right I'll be like okay cool I see that they're really trying to add value to me like maybe when the time is right and I have a book like I'll slide them in for an interview if they can make it work you know what I mean I'm like I'll remember that stuff and I think that that stuff does matter when it's genuinely trying to add value you may not land that person right now but it's like you're going to get on the radar and they're going to remember you two three years down the

00:54:01 - 00:54:54

line it's powerful and it's it's simple yeah it's straightforward yeah and often times it's the most obvious things that we really need to work on MH exactly um so Louis for right now what's something you're obsessed on projectwise or uh goalwise over the next 12 months for me it's just optimizing my health and because I think that is the foundation you know you have the triangle of your design experience with people that you walk through for me my health is at the

00:54:28 - 00:55:33

foundation you look great man thank you very much appreciate it appreciate it look like we're at the same age on me but for me I feel like that is the foundation for all of my dreams and my Visions to come true relationships my business results and the energy in which I have when I move through the world so for me it's an ongoing prevention and optimization of health and figuring out how can I not be too obsessive about it but make it fun and enjoyable which I have been doing but it's just the

00:55:00 - 00:55:58

consistency and the Reps and that should be the main project I think for everyone personally because from that space you're able to create more flow in your life more abundance more peace and Harmony and I think um you know as long as I have that I'll have the energy to be present with people to love people fully to be less reactive all these different things and I'll be able to create from a more energized place so it's probably not the answer you wanted but that's where I'm no it's an honest

00:55:30 - 00:56:22

answer and I think the one thing that surprised me about you is recently in the last year as I just ate three Donuts that you brought me you know I'm like telling you like what I want to do but I'm like man you bought donuts and I was like I'm had Donuts in months I was like craving these things you got smash the M we're [ __ ] around that big darut so good man you're very welcome I think you know when we met the first time at the airport and uh we made a break for it and you were tired of being stuck in the

00:55:56 - 00:56:49

line or what ever you were very courteous and kind to me and even here when we arrive today same thing I've met a lot of my mentors and people I look up to recently and when you say what you just said I I know you mean what you just said because you're very hled and you mean it you care about people and a lot of people say that it's pretty rare right yeah yeah so appreciate it thanks yeah man genuinely mean it like I think out of everyone I've met you're the most genuinely exactly the same as what I've

00:56:22 - 00:57:18

experienced online I appreciate it man you've only met like three or four people right yeah yeah yeah you haven't met enough people yet no I haven't met enough people but you're great um and um I know you have an event coming up in September yes so let's unpack that real quick before you some of greatness someone of greatness happening in La you're coming um hopefully I'll be there out there said yeah man for me you know I've been in the digital world since 2007 well I mean really 2004 when I got

00:56:50 - 00:57:46

on Facebook right um it was either the end of 2004 early 2005 when my college it opened up to the colleges this is before was like for public I don't know where were you in Facebook when you got on Facebook do you remember it was 2006 I got on late I was on Myspace yeah I was on Myspace too right 2004 exactly don't look at my profile it's embarrassing I didn't know have it yeah but I mean like Facebook was kind of like I was on Myspace and I was doing actually doing Myspace marketing for my

00:57:18 - 00:58:13

brother's music account CU my brother's a you know about bands back then exactly so I was learning marketing through Myspace and growing my brother's audience on MySpace as a jazz violinst which is really hard to do but I was building his profile I was making his personal brand on MySpace look incredible and I was running his page for him 2003 2004 how old were you at this time 20 this is when you started to build the LinkedIn business before that L I didn't even know about LinkedIn

00:57:46 - 00:58:31

right so this is where you started to pick up the skill in college when I was doing this right I was like in college and uh just getting the skills and I was like I just kind of get this like it just made sense I was like how do you Market this oh people are leaving comments so I was just like okay how do I make your profile look better so I got those skills on MySpace then Facebook came around when I was a senior in college and I remember people Whispers of this thing called Myspace and they're opening up to our

00:58:08 - 00:59:24

College soon and so like everyone got on right and um I remember getting on that and that kind of got me into just like online marketing what was the exact question you said I just got side mypace Su yes I was like we went on to Myspace I was like Myspace what was I talking about um that's cool man I think you so so okay so I got into I got into digital the donut communities yes I got into digital marketing and digital communities early yeah 2002 3 4 and as I started building the school of greatness I realized that people were

00:58:46 - 00:59:43

messaging me from all over the world who were getting impacted by this content and everyone kept saying God I'd love to meet other people that think like me that that love this content and are growing like me from this content just like you are and so that's why I was like I feel like I got to bring people together everyone's disjoined on the online communities how do I bring people together and I started LinkedIn networking events in person back in 2008 2009 and I did one actually in Australia

00:59:15 - 01:00:15

really in 2010 I did an event in Australia in Sydney Sydney yeah I think I might have done one in Melbourne and it's melbour right not murn it's Melbourne we just say melbour yeah yeah Melvin I was tricking you yeah I know so he's trying to be American so I I thought after years of doing the podcast I was like I want to bring people together someone of greatness came about that did in Columbus Ohio for six or seven years now we're moving it to LA on the largest stage in North America and we're going

00:59:45 - 01:00:38

to have some of the biggest names speakers leaders that people know about live and not only that it's like the best community it's just people that think a certain way that act a certain way that are creators entrepreneurs so so many people meet and do business together we've had people meet and get married actually I heard about this it's crazy man it's just like-minded people MTI people got married multi people man it's crazy so cool do you have any celebrancy license no that'd be fun

01:00:12 - 01:01:08

though yeah yeah so we're doing the event in September yeah people are interested you're helping us with the Design Concepts and excited about it someone of greatness.com and I think you can name drop the first guest Because by the time this comes out that'll be know we can yeah oh [ __ ] do you know it is yeah okay David goggin David go it's big right dude let's go man goggin I think um never have I enjoyed cardio until I listen to him right what an enigma yeah he's great man he's great he's I mean

01:00:40 - 01:01:31

he's extreme that's for sure but I think a lot of people live in an entitled world right now and they live in a world of like everything should be given to them as opposed to be earned and he is the epitome of like here's how you earn things in your life some might think it it's a little extreme but I think he's got a mindset that is power F and I agree that people need to move back into a more structured disciplined way I agree cuz I I love people that are polarizing yes that on for everyone just

01:01:05 - 01:01:42

living that truth he's not he's not for everyone he's not he doesn't care what people think yeah um Louis thank you so much for giving us your precious time I know you're busy as all hell and um you know thanks for having us in your studio and allowing us to use your space um from the team thank you so much man appr appreciate you man thanks much