Playing to Win - 020 - What You Think About You Bring About - Joel Therien

00:00:00.000 all right gentlemen what is up we're live for episode number 20 of uh playing to win i actually

00:00:09.540 put btt there i have to update that but it's the playing to win series and i'm joined today by my

00:00:14.780 friend joel theron is it theron or terran terrian actually terrian yeah it's french canadian not

00:00:21.440 too many people can pronounce it properly but that's all right well i lost my french now that

00:00:27.380 i've been living in the united states for quite some time so don't worry about that yeah no worries

00:00:31.100 man all right so let me do a little bit of a background here let me uh intro you because i

00:00:36.120 met you on one of yannick silver's um maverick baja off-road adventures and i should let me pull it up

00:00:44.380 real quick see if i can share the screen to kind of give you guys a little bit of frame of the kind

00:00:48.680 of batshit crazy stuff you end up doing when you connect with some dudes so this is this is from

00:00:53.940 the 2010 trip here and you start out this one we started out in loretto mexico and these are the

00:01:01.240 cars that you're driving they actually rent these out to the public in the off season but they're the

00:01:05.700 actual cars that they uh race in the baja 1000s in a in a challenge series and they're quite capable

00:01:12.340 fast cars uh they do of course take some punishment there's a flat tire uh there's another one uh you know

00:01:19.400 you hit cactuses there's a lot of uh you know like the deep mexico baja scenery that you kind of get

00:01:24.420 into that was an old church um where's joe sugarman there's a picture here of him that's yannick i

00:01:31.360 don't know if you can see my cursor on the screen right there so that's that's the guy that organized

00:01:35.320 it there's one here with sugarman that's that's joe and yannick after they smashed into a cattle guard

00:01:40.700 with the car and they basically ripped off the back suspension but uh yeah like you get the idea so

00:01:47.300 um i ran into joel on the trip the year after this one i don't know why i don't have any pictures

00:01:52.560 you know of us together but um funny story was let me just fix this over here so we go back to that

00:01:58.820 setting so funny story was um they sent everything to us in the mail before we went and i got this uh

00:02:04.500 thing and you can't really read it on the screen if you can see it it's hard to read here anyway it it

00:02:10.480 says uh 20 where the hell is it maverick uh richard cooper guns out suns out baja 2011 and i remember

00:02:20.540 when i got this like i showed up and i had it on the wrist like everybody else says i know that you

00:02:24.100 got one of these too and i go to yannick i go what the hell does guns out suns out mean because i never

00:02:28.860 heard that before right he goes well you know you're always walking around with a wife beater or 0.98

00:02:32.220 sleeve to shirt you got some big pipes on you and then in walks this guy and he's like a monster

00:02:37.760 i'm cowering in the corner because the hulk walks in the room with his giant guns and i'm like okay

00:02:43.180 i got the wrong van but yeah joel you're a you're a solid dude um when i met you on the trip i think

00:02:49.600 um you were still married at the time that was 2011 yeah yeah you might my divorce was only 11 months

00:02:55.160 ago it'll be next month it'll be a year yeah yeah and um you know you moved down to texas from

00:03:01.200 ottawa you're originally canadian yeah um so like the whole theme for those of you guys that are new to

00:03:07.140 the series watching sort of thing it's it's about playing to win versus playing not to lose and for

00:03:11.700 a lot of people that sounds pretty similar uh but they're quite different i mean you do take

00:03:16.380 additional risks and you've got certain tolerances that some people that play not to lose don't

00:03:21.340 necessarily want to accept so i kind of wanted to dive in your story and you know we pinged each other

00:03:26.460 back and forth over the last five or six months just kind of shooting the breeze about maybe doing

00:03:30.300 one of these episodes um where should we begin like let's let's kind of start with your childhood

00:03:35.380 because you sent me like a breakdown of you know your first job which you quit eight months

00:03:38.820 later but yeah as you're growing up like what did you want to be when you're growing up

00:03:42.840 uh age 11 i remember distinctly i was sitting in the basement playing atari my father was upstairs and

00:03:49.340 he said joel come here i don't know why he did this but i came upstairs and he pulled like two 0.65

00:03:54.000 thousand dollars out of his pocket in 1983 and i was like holy damn you know like what'd you do for 0.65

00:03:59.600 that he goes oh so my dad owned a yellow page company and he's like oh i went out and sold ads in 0.79

00:04:04.220 in the telephone book and i'm like my best friend's mother has to work like a month for that

00:04:10.020 money and you made it in a couple hours now of course there's overhead and stuff but at that point

00:04:14.440 i'm like teach me how to do this like i'm not working for anybody else but my mom was the other

00:04:19.860 side she was government and uh you know military style and you know get a good job get a good education 0.72

00:04:26.080 so needless to say i did i did go to university nothing wrong with that but it was an internal struggle

00:04:31.200 for a long time because i knew what i wanted to do but i had a better relationship with my mother so

00:04:35.240 i wanted to appease her so that at that point i didn't know what i was going to be but i knew that

00:04:40.020 it's like man i don't want to trade time for money ever in my life but that's what i ended up doing

00:04:43.700 just to make my mom happy which was that hospital job you know that that that time for money in 1.00

00:04:48.880 ocean i've talked about that quite a bit on my channel i don't know if you've heard heard it

00:04:52.460 because i've because i know you've watched some of the videos i've watched a lot of them

00:04:55.960 yeah yeah what i mean if you can explain that well i was uh you know uh you you were so bang on

00:05:02.800 dude like i about three years ago i realized so i was separated for almost seven years um a couple

00:05:09.340 years ago i started realizing it was really going south and uh you know i watch all these videos

00:05:13.720 well you know before this before that watch they get really scorned i'm like my my wife at the time

00:05:19.060 won't be like that and yeah once once she realized it was really over everything you've said is

00:05:25.440 100 bang on and i'm like wow just so that's how i started watching and uh and uh yeah you provided

00:05:32.600 a lot of great advice and stuff and it was a it was a deep deep deep black hole at that time and

00:05:38.400 i'm happy to say that i'm well past it now which is good but you helped me out a lot brother i

00:05:42.600 appreciate that thank man um talk about the exchanging time for money notion like what does that mean to

00:05:48.700 you like what does that look like for you in your head oh well you know there's a lot of people who

00:05:53.000 get a real business you could be away from that business and still be making money so you know

00:05:57.180 like i was a personal trainer for a long time well not a long time like but you know growing up all

00:06:01.740 in college i realized if i wasn't working i wasn't making money so i wanted to do something that i knew

00:06:08.020 i could be away from it and still you know passively making an income so that's why i just decided to do

00:06:13.960 stuff on the internet there's a little bit of a story behind that i was training dr michael copeland

00:06:17.640 the founder of korella at the time and i would train him in his house in rockcliffe park and i

00:06:22.580 mean the it's massive massive house beautiful and uh you know again kind of trying to appease my

00:06:29.100 mother i would share my ideas with him we became good friends like that's a fantastic idea like why

00:06:33.520 aren't you doing that and i used to always share my ideas with my mother but i realized over time

00:06:38.220 that no matter what and a lot of people hopefully will resonate with this because they want their

00:06:41.400 significant others their better half their best friends or what mothers wives whatever to be on

00:06:46.660 board with them and my mom just never was and so i remember thinking to myself because he was

00:06:52.020 running krell which is a software development company why was she on board what's that why

00:06:57.080 wasn't your mom on board with the plan like uh because she just it was her programming it was you

00:07:02.940 know just 100 of programming her father was in the military her mother worked in the government and

00:07:06.920 that was the same thing to do no matter what you know yeah and that's the whole like playing not to

00:07:10.900 lose notion right like playing to win is what an entrepreneur is going to go and and and take the risk

00:07:15.560 to win but playing not to lose is hey joel go secure the uh government job the teaching job

00:07:21.640 you know fire carbon whatever right yeah yeah exactly well you've been wrong with that no no

00:07:26.640 there's no no exactly didn't make her right or me wrong or good or bad it just was different

00:07:30.700 and i remember one day i i kind of succumbed to this thought and this notion that well

00:07:35.340 you know his name was he had a phd copeland had a phd so dr copeland so i assumed it was in

00:07:40.000 software engineering or whatever and i asked him one day i said you know where'd you get your

00:07:43.440 your software engineering degree goes software he goes i'm a civil engineer i don't i didn't

00:07:47.580 know anything about software and i at that moment i was like okay i gotta i gotta change directions

00:07:51.980 here and so i was i was working at the hospital at the time doing his personal training he'd give

00:07:55.980 me 200 bucks cash on a saturday which was like super easy money and it was always inspirational

00:08:00.800 and i uh um quit my job didn't tell my mom for two years start playing on the internet didn't make a

00:08:07.360 dime for about two years but i had a part-time job and a very low mortgage at the time so i you know

00:08:12.620 a lot of people i find they they go all in you don't need to do that you know got to make sure

00:08:16.720 uh 20 21 i started doing this full-time when i was 23. okay so i mean like you bought your first

00:08:24.640 house in your very early 20s too then yeah yes yeah i bought my first house and uh yeah and

00:08:29.680 yeah it's you know first couple years was rough but it once once i figured it out and stuff and

00:08:35.840 i was pig-headed because i you know i wasn't i was in the attitude i can do it all myself i can learn

00:08:41.580 it all myself and when i started associating with good people that was one of the reasons i went on

00:08:45.440 the mavic trip you know when you start associating with good people around you it makes a huge

00:08:49.560 difference you know and so yeah and luckily but what's what was really interesting i remember one

00:08:56.380 day waking up like oh it's going to be a big fat donut hole in my bank account again and i sold at

00:09:00.980 three o'clock in the morning a product for nine dollars and 97 cents i was like wow man holy cow i can

00:09:06.800 actually do this you know and i went of course i went to my mother she's like yeah okay you've been going

00:09:10.680 at this for two years and you made nine dollars and that's like 0.000 cents per hour like rain on

00:09:16.240 my parade again um but you know for me that was the breakthrough that okay well how did i do this

00:09:22.220 and how do i replicate it a thousand ten thousand times and i think once i started having that positive

00:09:26.740 action and it really is what you think about you bring about kind of like the topic is once i started

00:09:32.360 taking more and more action i started seeing more and more results and because i was seeing more

00:09:35.440 results i was taking more action and i think within three months i was making about 25 grand a month

00:09:39.580 did you have um do you have like a frying frying pan to the forehead moment where

00:09:44.780 you saw things happening and it just hit you like okay this is what i need to be doing or this is what

00:09:49.880 like was it that nine dollar transaction at three o'clock in the morning that you got the email on that

00:09:55.220 two two of them was one part i didn't tell about copeland so back then he was complaining that he was

00:10:00.480 they're only doing about five thousand dollars a day in online sales which is very low for a company

00:10:05.500 that size at the time i said well why don't you just set up an affiliate program he's like well

00:10:09.440 what's that i'm like you know somebody sends traffic to your website you pay them the commission if they

00:10:12.980 buy your software it's that simple and uh anyway he called me a day later i was 20 or 21 at the time

00:10:18.000 he's like i want you to come talk to my board of directors about an affiliate program so he was just

00:10:22.600 somebody who took massive action and uh i was like what did you say like you want me you know in front of

00:10:28.560 your board of directors so anyway long story short the board of directors said no but that day i

00:10:33.860 remember driving home i'm like man this guy who's you know he's built mitel he's built correll he's

00:10:38.280 built other companies believes in me and i don't believe enough in myself that i keep having to

00:10:42.920 reinforce back to my mother and that was the biggest aha moment where like i don't know what i'm

00:10:48.120 going to do i don't know how i'm going to do it but i'll make sure it gets done no matter what do

00:10:52.360 the work i from that point on there was no more fear it's like i know i will make this happen

00:10:57.300 there was um a business that you started up called aylmer kiosk yep yep yep that's that was

00:11:05.620 kind of the first one that really kicked it off for you yeah so so i so i went to my father's

00:11:10.120 company and i said dad listen your yellow pages aren't going to be around much longer uh i want

00:11:14.280 to sell everybody a website and back then like nobody knew the value of a website nobody had a

00:11:18.960 website and so their perception was and this is a good tip that i can leave to everybody but their

00:11:23.480 perception was listen joel so many japan clicks on my website it's not going to do me any good

00:11:26.860 you know like i'm a local restaurant and so just you know just because it's not working doesn't

00:11:32.600 mean it's not going to work and so i listened to the people and i created the very first search

00:11:36.940 engine and what i did is i put elmer kiosk in the top of the yellow pages on every page of his book

00:11:42.140 so i created a local search engine which drove local traffic to the local businesses and next thing

00:11:47.840 you know we had about 400 to 450 clients paying us 20 bucks a month what was your dad's reaction when

00:11:53.080 you said to him you know the yellow pages are not going to be around forever because that was like

00:11:56.880 there's a lot of younger guys right now i bet that are watching this going yellow pages what's that and

00:12:01.040 like that was a giant phone book that they plop on your front porch almost on an annual basis which

00:12:06.920 kind of organized everybody's name every single business and i remember there was a time where i was

00:12:13.600 kind of involved in conversations like that in my late 20s no was it early 20s or late teens i don't know

00:12:20.080 earlier on in my uh youth maybe 2021 or so and they were starting to have those same conversations

00:12:25.820 like the yellow pages are going to disappear and it's going to be replaced by the internet there

00:12:29.100 was like this this older generation i was like ah you guys don't know what you're talking about that's

00:12:33.040 just a fad right that's okay nobody even knows what the yellow page is anymore yeah well even so he's

00:12:40.380 like you know i was running faster than he was i was young and i was energetic i i knew what i knew a path

00:12:45.600 that we wanted to take and uh he he just like go for it and even still today he'll call me like my

00:12:51.560 dad's 80 now and and he still sold the yellow page business imagine this richard he sold it three years

00:12:57.080 ago for about 45 000 bucks and i'm like wow they obviously they paid for the database and stuff like

00:13:02.140 that but so he sold it and he calls me the other day goes do you think we could put a business card

00:13:07.500 on the internet i'm like yeah dad it's called a website but you know enjoy your retirement so

00:13:12.000 um you know he's very old school uh but he taught me a lot about um you know the value of of making

00:13:19.960 sure you provide a good service and he really taught me that if you can't look somebody in the

00:13:23.260 eye and shake their hand you shouldn't be in business so he uh he taught me a lot you know

00:13:27.660 one other valuable lesson uh so the the way the yellow pages would work you would create the ad

00:13:32.520 the person who owned the business would sign off on the ad saying it's perfect or whatever you know

00:13:37.220 that way if there was a wrong phone number or whatever um it was on the client's end so there's

00:13:42.020 this one guy named uh electrician i was young at the time and he would my dad did three different

00:13:47.300 telephone books so the guy called the phone number was wrong but he had signed off on it that the phone

00:13:51.160 number was right and i could hear the guy reaming my dad out over the phone and uh my dad said hey you

00:13:56.760 want to take a drive and it was about an hour and a half away to shawville i'm like sure anyway long

00:14:01.740 story short he goes you know when you sell somebody don't think about now think about having them as a

00:14:05.740 long-term client for life and uh he went up and he said listen obviously there's nothing we can do

00:14:10.920 for this ad this year but i feel bad you know it was an honest mistake on both our parts so he ended

00:14:16.080 up putting two free ads of the other books that were in the circulating area and it was just profound

00:14:20.980 to me because my dad wasn't in the wrong at all but he understood the value of a client and that person

00:14:26.560 was a client for another 10 or 15 years so it's things like that just really hit home even though

00:14:30.720 he's old school you know how did you get into this hosting stuff because there's not a lot of

00:14:36.840 people that even thought about this around around the time you got into it it was like 99 1997 it says

00:14:42.980 here in the description that you're registered almer kiosk um i guess in hindsight you would probably

00:14:48.840 name it something else and been on a more global scale rather than so yeah i was yeah i was at first

00:14:53.640 and again just by listening to the objections of people like hey i don't need somebody in japan or

00:14:58.200 whatever my radius is 10 miles i thought okay well how can i clear those objections and and the other

00:15:04.780 thing that i did uh is everybody buys based on a comparison right so they knew that their ad the

00:15:10.120 telephone book was like 800 or something for the year um so i said listen if you buy our hosting for

00:15:16.600 20 to 25 a month i'll give you a second ad in the telephone book for free and i'm going to advertise

00:15:21.740 this local search engine all over the place in the telephone book and stuff so they're like well

00:15:25.860 that's a no-brainer i'm already paying 800 for an ad you'll give me a second smaller ad

00:15:29.640 and 20 but you know even back then 20 25 bucks a month if you can afford that as a business owner

00:15:33.720 forget about it and so that's how we kind of squash the objections and put a lot of people online really

00:15:39.560 quickly and what's really interesting aside from those who have probably sold or gone out of business

00:15:44.100 i would say a good you know we're talking back in 97 to you know early 2000s probably 25 20 of those

00:15:51.640 people still host with us today which is really cool um talk about the the growth to the first

00:15:56.940 million dollars in sales what was that like i was pretty interesting because i don't know it i remember

00:16:03.800 saying so my dad's business was doing about four hundred thousand dollars a year uh his overhead was

00:16:08.400 low because he only had about one one staff i said dad we'll take this to a million bucks so i was

00:16:13.100 it was an extra six hundred thousand and i actually did it that year um one year yeah in one but

00:16:18.180 richard i was going door to door to door to door i was willing to do whatever people wouldn't do so

00:16:24.280 i would go see 40 people a dad get two or three yeses and then as i honed in on what the objections

00:16:29.140 were you know i started getting a 50 yes and stuff like that and so it did really well and that's when

00:16:34.060 i started looking more and talking to a couple about affiliate marketing i was like man this door

00:16:38.160 to door stuff is still hard work you know it's still no real leverage because if i'm not outselling

00:16:42.640 i'm not making money and that's where i started looking at affiliate marketing more

00:16:46.340 and uh we uh we built our first affiliate platform back in 2001 and and launched our

00:16:52.820 first affiliate program which was just selling the web hosting and people would refer us clients and

00:16:56.540 it did really well and uh it's it's it's interesting because online i was having a hell of a time trying

00:17:04.700 to make any money and uh all of a sudden i had rheumatic fever i don't know how i got it but i had a

00:17:10.360 fever 104 and the phone rang and at that time i was still operating out of my basement i actually had

00:17:15.100 servers in my basement and i was so embarrassed i wish i never took any pictures back then

00:17:19.280 and this one guy called me he's like i like what you have to offer ask me about four or five questions

00:17:25.320 maybe a few more and then he's like uh i like what i hear get ready to get about 300 clients overnight

00:17:31.080 and i'm like i i hug up the phone i went to my wife at the time i said i just talked to some loony bin

00:17:35.620 who says he's going to bring us 300 clients and well he lied the next day we had 412 clients from

00:17:41.020 this one customer from this one affiliate and i was like wow we're definitely heading in the right

00:17:45.240 direction with this so he ended up to be a big influencer in blogging at the time and blogging

00:17:49.380 was taking off at that time and he just you know sent out an email to his newsletter and so i the next

00:17:54.580 day i'm calling and i'm like i'm like you know piss excited i'm like holy cow like but i can't sound

00:17:58.980 too excited because i don't want this guy to know that like he was everything to me at the time

00:18:02.540 and i said what'd you do he goes oh i just sent an email to my newsletter i said what he goes yeah

00:18:07.520 i said you know i have 80 000 people on my newsletter i sent down an email what year was

00:18:11.800 this in probably 2000 2001 you know what's funny about newsletters and email lists is they still

00:18:18.460 work remarkably well i was i was on a call on monday night after the before the train wreck show with a

00:18:24.720 bunch of guys in my um entrepreneur's brotherhood and we were looking at the open rates on active

00:18:30.160 campaign for two that i run and one was uh 78 on average for my debt business and 60 on the uh red

00:18:39.380 flag list that's phenomenal numbers open rates you're talking about yeah open rates yeah yeah like

00:18:44.860 open rates i think typically are considered good after about 20 right yeah yeah 10 to 20 is good

00:18:50.940 you know in these days especially well you know in any type of marketing space but yeah it's a it still

00:18:56.280 works very very well and that's when at that moment i'm like okay send an email make that kind of money

00:19:01.560 and that's when we started developing our first autoresponder software way back then um and i was

00:19:08.080 still folk right now i still focus my whole business on generating a lead which means a name email and

00:19:12.640 hopefully a phone number so that we can do sms and uh that's it and then we just do a lot of email

00:19:18.100 marketing and uh yeah and it's a great business build a list um definitely collect email addresses

00:19:25.380 and or or and phone numbers so you can sms text market to them but yeah build a list because if

00:19:31.200 you have a audience that that's that's listening to you and wants to hear what you're talking about

00:19:36.360 um when you offer something you know for sale they will often buy yeah well you know as an example

00:19:42.300 you've done a phenomenal job with youtube and and some of your other social media platforms but you

00:19:46.760 have to you want to take that social media and still generate a database for yourself because

00:19:51.420 you know people's youtube channels gone overnight well if you don't have that database you're in big

00:19:57.180 trouble i know one of your fan pages got shut down right well you've got the database yeah you've

00:20:01.200 got the database to to to you know uh that's yours you're not you know social media you're renting when

00:20:06.760 you when you build a database of clients and emails phone numbers stuff like that that's yours to keep

00:20:11.400 so it really solidifies income because there's a few people i know that literally lost there was the

00:20:16.200 google flap back in like 2010 too you know a lot of people are doing stuff and making phenomenal

00:20:20.880 money with google adwords and they can change the algorithm overnight so building a database is the

00:20:26.040 key to stability for huge i wanted to ask you because we talked moments earlier about um you know that

00:20:32.560 path to the first million in sales receipts and you know i know that like you're uh you're basically

00:20:39.500 what most guys out there watching my channel would consider a chat if they met you in person like

00:20:44.100 you're you're big strong muscular you're successful you drive nice cars you got bank

00:20:49.020 would like would you say that it's easier to grow a business to a million dollars than it is to find

00:20:54.400 that one perfect woman yeah yeah yeah yeah absolutely and i remember the day not so much a million

00:21:02.980 dollars gross the first time i had a million dollars in my bank account i want to share this

00:21:06.780 too because again a lot of people they naturally just want that validation from the people they love

00:21:11.220 the most so i took a screenshot of my bank account and i sent it to my mother and her reply back was

00:21:17.260 don't forget you have to pay taxes on that 0.99

00:21:19.320 i'm like joel you're so stupid like when you think you're gonna get a positive answer and stuff like 0.99

00:21:26.800 that so but uh yeah it was definitely um it's mindset it it again what you think about you bring 0.99

00:21:33.600 about it and i had you know not really fast forwarding for now but when i started the whole

00:21:37.660 divorce process like we lost millions and millions and millions of dollars in revenue because i was 0.98

00:21:43.220 thinking about the wrong things you know so once we once i knew what i wanted to do and once i knew

00:21:49.520 the path that i wanted to take it was relatively easy it doesn't mean it's a lot of hard work but i

00:21:54.900 was willing to put into work you know like you've talked about your mom a lot so far and it almost seems

00:22:01.320 like you seek approval or validation from her more than your dad is that something that you've always

00:22:06.740 done uh yeah well in a way so so because my father was the provider my mom was a homemaker

00:22:14.520 basically um he was out selling all the time and uh and so i didn't see him that much my mom was

00:22:20.600 the one that was a communicator and stuff in the family but i think it was more so i could never get

00:22:25.080 validation from my mom so if i shared an id with my dad he'd be like just do it you know i have trust

00:22:30.180 when you do it and with my mom was always well dear you don't know anything about computers i don't

00:22:35.120 think that's a good idea or whatever so but she was she was definitely my protector like that's 0.55

00:22:39.900 the reason i started working out i was the skinny little ethiopian kid on the block and so she would 1.00

00:22:44.480 uh she was actually on the she was one of the supervisors on the school playground in elementary 0.78

00:22:48.960 school because people would pick on me and my problem was i would never start a fight but i would

00:22:54.860 never ever back away from one like i just i wasn't gonna let anybody show any weakness even though

00:22:59.940 i was scared to death at the time so my mom ended up being on the school board so yeah and i miss her

00:23:04.580 she passed away five years ago uh but we had a we had a strong relationship for sure um what lesson

00:23:11.220 did you have to learn the hard way and how could you help others avoid that same mistake in business

00:23:16.160 or in personal or both let's do both okay uh in business it's such cliche hire slow fire fast trust your

00:23:27.160 got way more than you think uh if you don't know what people are doing chances are they're not doing

00:23:31.560 a whole lot so what do you mean by hire slow fire fast because i actually have a chapter in my upcoming

00:23:36.340 book that's titled that well because you know people do the perfect interview they always do oh we'll do

00:23:41.460 this i'll do that i'll do whatever and uh and then of course you bring somebody on board and without

00:23:47.360 naming names you know i thought okay we'll get higher quality people if we go through an agency

00:23:51.580 uh one guy i hired cost me 45 000 because he was going to be our cto so his salary was quite high

00:23:57.600 and uh the second day on the job he went missing for four hours and i'm like wow and and yet i kept

00:24:03.220 him for a year and a half i have no idea he went off drinking

00:24:06.560 crazy okay so yeah go ahead um so that was your business angle what about on the personal angle like

00:24:18.860 what lesson did you have to learn the hard way and how can you help others avoid making that same

00:24:22.380 mistake i mean if you want to deal with relationships or self-care i mean you know

00:24:26.120 you end up deciding um well let's start with the the earlier days of self-care so you know i was

00:24:32.980 definitely picked on and i was 11 years old and i saw this guy in atlantic city new jersey muscular

00:24:39.020 getting all types of attention and i didn't care why he was getting attention i just like i want i want

00:24:43.920 some of that and i started to work out but the point being is i started getting bigger and bigger

00:24:48.440 but it didn't fix here i was still very insecure in my head at the time long story short what fixed

00:24:53.840 here was i became a stripper to put me through college and that was so out of my comfort zone

00:24:58.280 that i remember saying to myself like man i'm sitting here naked in front of 300 women and i can't talk

00:25:04.080 to a girl on the street corner whatever and i was like that was another aha moment like joel if you can do

00:25:09.360 this you can do anything so maybe a joel magic might well my stage name was jonathan at the time

00:25:15.400 i wanted it to sound real but anyway so that was something that i don't regret because it just had

00:25:20.320 brought me so out of my comfort zone that it really helped me to become a better you know i'm classified

00:25:25.880 introvert extrovert like when i first meet you i'm a little shy i'm a little standoffish but then i warm

00:25:30.580 up quickly you know and then um what about with women like what like what lesson did you have to learn 1.00

00:25:35.900 the hard way that you can help others avoid prenup

00:25:39.580 truly i mean we we had a were you already successful when you met your wife and got married

00:25:47.020 or no no the success came after that i mean i was driven i was very very driven but did you get

00:25:53.880 married in canada or in texas yes no no in canada so we were together over 20 years okay so you met

00:25:58.580 her here then you brought her down to texas yeah yeah yeah and and you know i mean nothing bad to

00:26:03.800 say i i realize now that a lot of the scorn ang you know just the aggression that she had she was 1.00

00:26:10.280 scared to death you know she was scared to death and and and stuff but uh yeah there was red flags

00:26:16.420 early but again for the kids and whatever you know you try to uh you try to stick around and and uh i

00:26:22.200 i shouldn't have but i did but no regrets because she's a very good mother it's just

00:26:26.940 irreconcilable differences i guess at this point uh but yeah if i do it again there will definitely

00:26:33.100 be some sort of pre-arrangement for sure because i had to give up every single asset that i had to

00:26:38.460 keep my business which is which is fine you know you got you got two sons and a daughter right two

00:26:43.160 daughters and a son actually two daughters and a son so a question for you would you tell your

00:26:47.880 would you tell your sons and daughter anything different about marriage like would you tell your

00:26:51.660 son something different from you tell your daughter because for me like i would i would definitely

00:26:55.380 encourage a daughter to get married a son i wouldn't i mean i don't have a son but that

00:26:59.920 would just be my angle um i i for me personally i don't i don't think so i think there's a double

00:27:07.680 standard uh you know i'm very protective of my daughters i love that i have a lot of muscle

00:27:12.120 because it scares the shit out of all the boys that come around the house which is good 0.69

00:27:15.040 um whereas my son he's got a great they all they're all in good relationships right now so

00:27:19.780 to say i except for you know maybe maybe have a prenup with my son or whatever because you're

00:27:26.280 you're bang on to the laws so favor the women you know like just completely favor them and it is what 1.00

00:27:33.060 it is so uh but i mean it's not even that it just favors women but it's also that it encourages them

00:27:39.260 to use the legislation in a way that it's actually harmful to kids it's definitely harmful to the

00:27:47.520 father and women won't see the harm in it to themselves because of their solipsism but 0.97

00:27:51.600 not only is the legislation favorable to them but it also encourages them to use it in a way that's

00:27:57.460 it's quite damaging it is and that was one mistake that i made maybe guys who were just beginning to

00:28:03.500 process when we got separated and i left my thought processes in my head was i want stability for my kids

00:28:09.080 so they can stay at home with mom and what happened was is they habitually got used to not seeing me as

00:28:14.860 often because i wasn't living there anymore and so you know what over time that's just became the

00:28:21.020 norm for them and so there was many many lonely like i my my family was my wife for starting a

00:28:27.000 business of course i love having good money and freedom but it was freedom for my family to be able

00:28:31.120 to travel and we did a lot of that as a family group but um yeah that was a big mistake that i made

00:28:36.700 i should have brought my son along with me or something like that we only live 10 minutes apart but

00:28:41.480 when you're used to tucking in your kids every night or listening to their their banter upstairs

00:28:45.840 or their video games or whatever it was there that was the hardest part like just sitting with four

00:28:50.740 walls around me and i remember at first i had just rented an apartment thinking you know maybe we'll

00:28:55.660 work this thing out or whatever and then after six months of renting an apartment i bought another

00:29:00.040 house because i thought okay if i buy a bigger house and i can have some friends over but none of that

00:29:03.620 ever transpired and was so it's very very very difficult time for sure so that's the other thing is

00:29:09.660 is stand up for your rights really early in the process you know what um what advice would you

00:29:14.860 give give yourself if you could go back in a time machine and have a conversation with yourself before

00:29:20.600 you got divorced did um you end up leaving or did she leave you by the way no no i i left i left okay

00:29:27.920 yeah yeah yeah and we we flip-flopped for years like because it was there's a lot of good qualities in

00:29:34.020 her uh but there was a lot of things that obviously we just didn't see eye to eye on and uh and uh i

00:29:39.540 think i think being more decisive because i did flip-flop too much uh being more decisive looking

00:29:46.960 up hey i don't know how many hundreds of videos i re-watched or watched of yours saying they're going

00:29:52.900 to get scorn and they're going to get mean and they're going to come after everything that you have

00:29:56.700 and i'm like oh she won't do that like i mean she knows that i i built the business and stuff like that

00:30:01.380 but once once the fear is there yeah just there was there was no playing fair at all you know it

00:30:07.880 was just come after everything and and then uh there was no ability i always tried to communicate

00:30:13.360 there was no ability to communicate because it was just screaming and yelling constantly you know

00:30:17.920 that's the that's the big lie that every that every guy usually tries to default to is we'll just

00:30:23.520 we'll just communicate better because that's what you hear your entire life is just learn how to

00:30:27.340 communicate but even but even women don't understand why that narrative is out there 1.00

00:30:32.160 yeah yeah it's just a big uh huge uh disservice um what would you consider a defining moment in your

00:30:39.540 life uh definitely that one with copeland where you know he had all of his staff and board of

00:30:47.340 directors say like like it was just like man this guy believes in my ideas why don't i believe in

00:30:52.120 myself a little bit more like why and and uh it it was sad because here's this close to a billionaire

00:30:57.980 if not a billionaire believing in stuff that i was doing and and and so that was defining moment

00:31:02.860 um that was the biggest defining one uh the hardest one was obviously the decision to leave the the

00:31:09.120 matrimarial home and leave my family uh but it's definitely for the better so that those are some 1.00

00:31:15.380 defining moments um watching karate kid was one because i was picked on so much i remember leaving

00:31:21.700 there and going like that's it so i ended up becoming a black belt in taekwondo and then that's

00:31:25.380 when i started bodybuilding as well and all the bullying went away but it's still again it didn't

00:31:30.160 fix up here you know i still had a lot of problems and not not big problems but insecurity issues and

00:31:35.360 stuff like that yeah you know did you ever read uh uh psycho cybernetics by maxwell malt no i didn't read

00:31:41.860 that no he was um i'm trying to remember the uh details of it specifically but i believe he was

00:31:48.860 uh the book was written around the time that uh like reconstructive surgeries first started coming

00:31:55.880 about like rhinoplasty for guys that had like car accidents or stuff like not not for cosmetic

00:32:01.780 purposes like you see today but more for like you know reconstruction after an accident or a fire or

00:32:07.060 burn victim or something like that and one of the things that he noticed um was um you can go and

00:32:13.940 go through the entire procedure have your face uh redone and you got a perfect nose but you still

00:32:19.040 have a very low opinion of yourself because in your mind's eye you still see yourself as you know

00:32:23.880 the skinny kid that got picked on you know for example so there's like a part of the mind that

00:32:28.420 needs to catch up even even when you change your body like i had the same sort of problem that you

00:32:32.800 did like i was a real real skinny kid i think i'm uh i think by the time i was 15 or 60 and i was

00:32:38.460 about six foot one but i weighed maybe like 135 140 pounds like i was a skinny like real thin dude

00:32:45.060 yeah and then it was around that same time that i think my dad gave me uh charles atlas's uh what

00:32:52.020 was it called dynamic tensions mailer like one of the earliest mailers that came out in the 50s so he

00:32:57.780 gave it to me he got it in singapore when he was in the royal air force and i'm reading this thing and

00:33:01.740 i'm like okay do lots of push-ups do like you know stuff like this and bicep stuff like this and

00:33:06.380 you know i started to put on size and i got up to 180 pounds within a couple of years

00:33:10.720 but my mind still saw me as a skinny runt you know what i mean like it's i know exactly what you mean

00:33:16.180 exactly like there's a lot of guys that'll go to the gym and they end up with um what was i think

00:33:22.060 coined at one term in in bodybuilding magazines and muscle media uh reverse anorexia yeah um they

00:33:29.500 actually called it big orexia and even though you're huge you still don't think you're big enough

00:33:34.460 yep and i had that same you know thinking going on in my head too when i was in my 20s like i was a 0.97

00:33:39.000 i was a good 204 pounds like rock solid like ripped as fuck but i still never thought i was big enough 0.88

00:33:44.540 well you know i suffered from that so i just when i decided i wanted to do something for myself i wanted 0.96

00:33:49.680 to do something that i enjoyed and something that i can make money at so i went for the professional

00:33:53.260 bodybuilding route i got all the way to the national levels i remember going up a flight of stairs like 15

00:33:58.260 stairs i was 272 pounds and by the time i got to the top i was sucking wind bad like really bad

00:34:05.860 really bad and i was like 20 probably and at that same time though so i started getting some endorsements

00:34:12.200 because i looked pretty good like pretty to me i was still skinny right like that's the the head game

00:34:18.260 but i remember my cousin was playing for the philadelphia flyers with rod brindamore and lindros

00:34:22.960 and all those guys he was a defenseman making 3.6 million a year at the time and he was only four

00:34:27.540 months older than me and here i am still starving you know and i'm like okay directions need to change

00:34:33.340 and i looked at the roi of the amount of drugs that those guys have to do and stuff and and that was

00:34:39.300 another you know defining moment where like i got to change directions again you know so because you

00:34:43.960 can love a lot of things in life but if they're if it's not going to put food on the table like it's

00:34:48.160 it's gonna you're gonna have a stressful life you know what i mean like i wouldn't want to take up

00:34:51.460 knitting or something like that if i loved it because you're not going to make any money doing

00:34:54.740 it you know what's um what's one thing that you'd not do again that's probably one when i went to the

00:35:04.560 national levels i started to do a lot of not a lot because they all think it's a lot but you know i

00:35:09.100 started doing some some anabolics because you had to um i wouldn't have done that for sure because

00:35:14.800 there's just no money in it like if i'm not going to put at least seven figures in my pocket i'm not

00:35:18.660 going to put my body through that type of risk that's one thing i would do um another defining

00:35:23.260 moment was my very first love um we dated for a year and a half and uh she dumped me and i chased

00:35:30.700 her and chased her and chased her like for nine months i chased her and i just realized that she 0.77

00:35:35.640 just wanted to keep me as the backup plan and i remember from that day forward i'm like if i ever

00:35:39.720 fall in love again that's it like as hard as it's going to be i'm going to cut ties and just walk away

00:35:44.880 that's the best bargaining position you can have is just no you know you hear all about it no contact

00:35:49.920 walk away and uh and definitely did a lot of that during this process so that's yeah one of the things

00:35:55.620 you know yeah that's one of the things that they teach um guys a lot now in a lot of the red pill books

00:36:01.800 is um you know if you have any inkling that your relationship's about to break up you need to dump her 0.81

00:36:08.660 because yeah it basically puts you in a better position um but yeah that's that's like one things

00:36:15.500 that that the guys flop so badly on is they'll go and chase a girl that ends up breaking you know his 0.99

00:36:20.880 heart and nothing dries up a woman quicker and faster like turns her into the fucking sahara desert 1.00

00:36:26.420 than you chasing her she hates that yeah well i mean there's nothing else i mean you're such a poor 0.99

00:36:32.880 beta male coming crawling on your knees and stuff and i mean i remember my first girlfriend her she was

00:36:38.460 beautiful and and and you know i was like enamored and all that kind of stuff and she was quite cruel 1.00

00:36:44.420 with it because she i you know looking back she enjoyed the process of being able to keep me right

00:36:48.460 on her pinky but had she absolutely without a doubt wanted nothing to do with me you know it's just

00:36:53.280 power play i guess i don't know but i learned i learned i'm like i'm not chasing you know if it's on

00:36:59.560 an even playing field of course you'll do whatever you do to keep your relationship strong but when when

00:37:03.740 when when the energy changes you don't start chasing that like you said women hate that you 1.00

00:37:09.620 know yeah what's um what's your top business achievement like the thing that you'll never

00:37:15.360 forget um so i i put in my bio we want to hit 100 million uh in 2014 we we hit 78 million dollars

00:37:23.420 in revenue that year uh which was a great achievement but it was also something that um you know

00:37:28.980 was not what i thought it was going to be because we had about 250 employees at the time

00:37:34.560 and and i and i don't know if it's the same for you but i can remember coming to the office here

00:37:39.700 and having anxiety in my chest because i knew as soon as i walked through the door hey joel hey joel

00:37:44.660 hey joel hey you know like it was just like overwhelming and i i found myself not being able to do

00:37:49.520 anything that i wanted to do so it was a big achievement to to to get there and if we if i do it again

00:37:54.460 i'll just do a little smarter so that was uh um you know some of the smallest achievements uh are

00:38:00.480 the biggest like we i started doing some fitness stuff online because i'm very pretty good with

00:38:05.780 the internet marketing side of things now and when i you know i almost get emotional thing about but

00:38:10.580 there was a lady who was misdiagnosed with uh either some some autoimmune disorder either multiple

00:38:16.760 sclerosis or something and it turned out to be something toxic in her diet and stuff and she just came

00:38:21.780 up to me gave me the biggest hug of the world balling her eyes out you know so even though it 0.76

00:38:26.440 wasn't a huge achievement from achievement but on a human humanitarian level it really meant a lot and

00:38:32.180 stuff like that you know you said something um when we were talking offline before we went live

00:38:38.920 um i can't remember what the hell it was though but we needed a head on it when we were uh getting

00:38:44.740 into this business stuff and all really tied into the um obstacles that kind of get in the way while

00:38:51.260 you're playing to win um what the hell was it that we were going to cover bro don't forget i'm

00:38:57.720 older than you richard so i get more senior moments than you do you know yeah right yeah huge right

00:39:01.940 i'm sure it'll come back to me um have you ever had a near-death experience yes i nearly drowned

00:39:08.960 in acapulco how did that affect your life don't go swimming again

00:39:14.140 was that because you're a bad swimmer or was that yeah so you know like well you know so let's say

00:39:21.560 back then i was probably still 255 260 uh not doing an appreciable amount of cardio and when you have

00:39:27.460 that much muscle mass you know muscle tends to sink in water so i got caught in a small riptide

00:39:33.280 and i'm like oh god damn it like and i did everything what you're not supposed to do which 0.79

00:39:37.640 is go against the tide and try to get back in and i just i was screaming and screaming and screaming 0.95

00:39:42.960 and screaming for help and of course nobody was hearing me and i i think i was on my last stroke

00:39:48.340 i'm gonna go under like my arms were everything everything was burning the lactic acid through

00:39:53.000 my whole body was horrible i'm like one more stroke man and i'm gone like there's just no way

00:39:57.740 and i remember what it what it was now we're talking about employees and the size of the business

00:40:02.600 and like a healthy appreciable kind of business that really serves you um because what you described

00:40:08.900 there were you know you did 78 million you go to work and you have anxiety because you got have 250

00:40:14.320 people ready to jump on you when you get in the door um i know what that's like when my debt business

00:40:20.400 was at its biggest but i mean today it's a lot smaller and i don't need to go to it every day my

00:40:25.460 brother runs it and all i really do is automate a lot of the marketing and some of the other top level

00:40:30.260 stuff and i like it a lot more now even though it makes a lot less money yeah we were talking about

00:40:36.680 that with your business offline can you kind of dive into that a little bit and you know like the

00:40:41.500 sweet spot for you with your business and what you learned kind of getting it to that sweet spot

00:40:45.220 yeah well definitely um you know you you have you have illusions of grandeur that okay if i hit these

00:40:51.440 numbers you know my life is going to be perfect i remember the first illusion of grandeur was i thought

00:40:56.560 to myself okay if i get a thousand people paying me 20 bucks a month i can live on the beach all day

00:41:00.920 and actually that was one of the hardest times of business because that was at the time where i was

00:41:04.540 making good money but i needed to start hiring people by you know at 20 if there's 20 000 gross

00:41:09.460 you hire somebody there's 5 000 to 6 000 gone right away you know what i mean on on a decent

00:41:14.660 programmer or whatever um so that um you know that was one defining aspect and then yeah when so when we

00:41:23.280 got to those numbers it just wasn't fun anymore and i i think that was part of the

00:41:28.120 looking at my whole life like okay where am i personally where am i professionally um and is

00:41:34.560 this what i want you know like if the definition of insanity keep doing the same thing and expecting

00:41:38.780 a different result and uh i decided that no it's you know i'm not i'm not happy i'm i'm not happy

00:41:45.280 money the money's good but the stress is so unbelievable so we're we're doing maybe half that

00:41:52.560 right now you know which is which is but you know the past couple years i've spent probably six

00:41:58.620 months out of the country almost actually i'm a i'm a canadian u.s citizen now but during that travel

00:42:04.020 i was only a green card so you're not allowed to leave the country more than six months so you're

00:42:07.800 not considered a permanent resident in the united states anymore so but you know people say i just

00:42:14.640 remember the anxiety of knowing when salaries were due and stuff like that it's like

00:42:18.620 so much money was going out that if i wasn't in the office keeping an eye on everybody and making

00:42:24.800 sure the efficiency was there it was like but i'm spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a week

00:42:30.420 just on you know salaries payroll yeah and and so i felt trapped even though i had a business that

00:42:37.120 leveraged itself i felt trapped that i had to be here all the time now that that were a lot less

00:42:41.560 the anxiety is not there on the payroll side because it's more justifiable and and here's

00:42:48.600 the really interesting thing so we probably have about 65 65 to 70 staff total now and they picked

00:42:56.100 up for 80 percent of what the 250 people were doing you know what i mean just the right people

00:43:01.300 uh with you and and stuff and and it creates a lot of distension because the good people will pick up

00:43:07.000 for the slackers but it creates a lot of distension because like oh i gotta do his job and that person's

00:43:11.580 job and whatever and when you get rid of those people and you're able to pay your good people more

00:43:15.980 then it's a it's a much more efficient business and the people i have now i can't say enough good

00:43:21.060 things about but it took a long time to get there and a lot of defining moments to get there and and

00:43:25.580 yeah it's allowed me i was god i was where where have i not been i was in rome not long ago before

00:43:29.920 this whole covet thing obviously let me get that on the table um but i spent four months in tulum i spent

00:43:35.400 four months in cancun i spent a month in egypt i spent uh a month in spain i spent all over the place

00:43:42.260 just traveling and a lot of that was you travel by yourself or do you have friends or you have a

00:43:47.400 chicken bringer yeah pretty much all of that yeah all of that yeah i couldn't travel alone alone it

00:43:53.520 would be kind of boring you know what i mean so yeah um but it was definitely looking back a little

00:43:58.200 bit was to hide the pain that i was going through on the personal level and stuff like that because

00:44:02.340 did that help like did the traveling actually help you deal with that pain and kind of get

00:44:06.840 it was a distraction it was definitely a distraction it it beats you know being brutally

00:44:12.200 honest in in the the lowest of lows i was like anything would trigger me and tears would come

00:44:17.920 to my eyes you know what i mean so i'd be sitting at home and i found it very difficult four walls no

00:44:23.160 kids and you only had your thoughts and so the traveling definitely definitely was a distraction what

00:44:29.540 it must have helped in some way but was i happy traveling no it was still in the back of my mind all the

00:44:35.220 time you know because it was this i remember the when we saw july something i can't even remember

00:44:40.240 now but the day we signed a decree i wasn't happy or sad i was just relieved because every day her

00:44:47.020 attorney would be she wants this now she wants that now she wants something one thing that was so

00:44:52.260 i won't get into too much of it but i was uh before father's day last year and she's like hey i

00:44:58.440 noticed that you have a lot of air miles based on the business why don't you take the kids on a

00:45:02.340 holiday for father's day and because i know you miss them i was like okay that's is she turning

00:45:07.560 in a corner the next day i get an email from her attorney saying that she wants half the business

00:45:11.860 i kid you not yeah so it got a little a little a little ridiculous at times you know yeah here look 0.62

00:45:23.480 there's a comment here from a guy by the name of ace golden gloves and he says every man needs to hit

00:45:27.580 rock bottom discover himself and reach his potential again sort of thing and that's like

00:45:31.720 that's like pretty common for a lot of guys i mean they're like um i don't know if you know philip

00:45:37.220 uh mckernan he's a irish dude you know one of the things that he says is um you know the absence of

00:45:43.600 clarity do something yeah yeah so you know you may not have clarity around what's happening post

00:45:49.460 divorce something that's happening in your business but the worst you can do is just kind of

00:45:52.740 like sit there crawling a ball you know or just crawl yourself in a ball and like cry yourself to

00:45:57.720 sleep i mean that might be one thing you can do for five minutes but at some point you got to get 0.99

00:46:01.860 back up and stop being a little bitch and kind of figure it out yeah well that's it and that that 1.00

00:46:06.360 that was the part that was very bizarre for me because i'm usually very creative you know i'm more 0.97

00:46:10.960 on the marketing side of my whole business and writing good creative emails was always something

00:46:14.900 that i was strong at and stuff i remember sitting in front of my computers four hours have gone by

00:46:19.180 and i've written like two lines because it was the negative aspect you know hitting the back of my

00:46:23.120 head all day long and that's when i said i gotta get out of here and i started traveling and uh not

00:46:28.080 too many people know this but when i was in uh when i was in tulum i did like this ayahuasca ceremony

00:46:33.140 and that was that was really enlightening it was very very very very enlightening for sure it's uh

00:46:39.520 it's hard to describe it set and setting uh is very very important but it was still definitely very

00:46:44.660 healing for sure where did you stay in tulum it's like one of my favorite places

00:46:48.960 uh we stayed in a condo i just rented an airbnb condo for a couple months and stuff and uh it was

00:46:54.520 like on like the old old town beach strip like close to uh no no it was a little cheaper yeah i

00:47:00.820 know what you're talking about we didn't stay beachside we were a little further in where it

00:47:04.380 was about a five minute cab ride yeah that way the condo was only like 1100 bucks a month or

00:47:08.700 something like that yeah if you wanted to stay on the beach was probably a thousand bucks a week or

00:47:12.160 more yeah and uh but yeah tulum was nice and then uh for me because i like to do a lot of things um

00:47:18.600 you know as long as there was a gym there was a gym that was fine but this year i stayed in cancun for

00:47:23.260 a while and even though it's kind of teenage style there was a little bit more to do um a little bit

00:47:28.340 more to see so i enjoyed and the beach in cancun was beautiful too but tulum was was great as well

00:47:33.180 uh pyramids of egypt that was enlightening that was really cool but uh what did you like about that

00:47:39.280 because that's because that's kind of on the list for me to go um you know you you learn about it

00:47:43.960 in school you hear all about it all that kind of stuff and uh uh what's weird and i don't want to

00:47:50.040 get into it because it's a whole nother thing but when i was doing the ceremony i ended up going back

00:47:54.680 to these egyptian times you know i was just very enlightening but it's it's it's phenomenal like

00:48:00.580 to be in front of these structures and you know you've got these these stones that are a couple of

00:48:06.780 tons each and from one side to the other they're off by half a millimeter you know what i mean

00:48:11.300 and and it's structural like it's just incredible incredible incredible so that was uh uh cairo is

00:48:17.720 dirty though i mean i've been i've been to india and india can be very dirty like i've been to mumbai

00:48:22.260 cairo itself was very dirty but we ended up staying at an all-inclusive resort uh in i forget the name but

00:48:28.560 we took a plane and we took a flight into cairo spent the day in cairo with uh with a guide going

00:48:33.620 through all the pyramids and stuff and that was that was fun it was definitely worth it for sure

00:48:37.520 one of the things a lot of guys wonder about is how do you run your business while you're you know 0.99

00:48:42.740 uh sort of gallivanting yourself around the world you know dealing with your shit like is that something 0.97

00:48:47.780 that kind of rely on a number one for like do you have an inside guy while you're the outside guy 0.98

00:48:52.360 combination of of that and then what i also learned is you know um if it can be automated and it's not to

00:48:59.000 cut people out of jobs automate it so um after 2014 and realizing that we're just pissing all kinds

00:49:05.860 of money away needlessly even though we're making money um i've got checks and balances throughout our

00:49:12.560 whole system so that i can tell what people are doing yes i have a couple of right-hand people so i

00:49:17.020 have an office here in texas an office in ukraine and an office in india but i i could see with it

00:49:21.780 within a moment's notice what's what's happening what's going on and stuff so it's all documented and

00:49:26.320 and uh that allows me to but trust is a big factor if you've got i there's a key people that

00:49:32.200 i trust in each office that uh have stood the test of time you know and the whole good to great type

00:49:38.680 of model you know get the right people on the bus and it allowed me to uh to to to do what i wanted

00:49:43.900 to do and you know i was very transparent with those people too i was like listen man i haven't lost

00:49:49.020 all my mojo or drive but something's wrong like i i need to go i need to go fix myself like i because

00:49:55.540 my productivity in the business and i'm generally a happy-go-lucky guy and i was really cranky and

00:50:00.900 pissy a lot of the time you know going into the office i don't want to portray that onto my team

00:50:05.460 i'm supposed to be the top guy you know who's happy and and so forth so they were very because i was very

00:50:11.260 vulnerable and transparent with them i'm like listen i love the business the business is going

00:50:15.720 to stay afloat we're going to be okay but i i got to go do something for a little while that's okay

00:50:19.980 they're like go for it you know um favorite book and how it changed your life

00:50:24.580 well after looking at some of your stuff the rational mail was pretty interesting book

00:50:30.840 you know uh definitely changed a lot of things good to great was another good one

00:50:34.620 uh that i really enjoyed uh i'm always curious when somebody that's an entrepreneur reads rollo's book

00:50:42.140 like what did you think of it how did it change your perspective on things

00:50:45.980 the the the initial gut feeling was like but he says it himself he's a little bit sour

00:50:56.020 you know what i mean uh you know a little bit biased um and that's where i'm at it's like

00:51:01.040 do i regret getting married no do i regret taking so long to make a final decision yes like it dragged

00:51:07.800 on for seven years that's way way too long uh but do i think like hypergamy and that does it exist 0.94

00:51:14.980 hundred percent um but are all women exactly the same i don't think so i think there's varying

00:51:20.520 degrees of women that are better than others and stuff like that so that part yeah like you know he

00:51:26.380 really puts the kibosh and i mean i i understand it comes from his perspective and stuff like that and

00:51:32.280 i don't know like maybe i'm considered a high high value male like i it's not to sound shitty but i don't

00:51:40.680 know i don't understand how a man can live off 40 or 50 000 dollars a year you know like it's it's it's

00:51:46.220 it would be scary i mean jesus you know it was enough when our grandparents came back from the war

00:51:54.140 and started a family you know they could have a factory job and make you know like a decent uh

00:52:00.100 earned living you know women would stick around they could have a family they could have a house and 1.00

00:52:05.020 that sort of stuff but today like like just having a a a job is literally just being just over broke

00:52:11.220 that's what job stands for right exactly and and that's why i agreed to so many people say like keep

00:52:16.820 fighting you know keep fighting to get what you deserve out of out of all this but what i realized

00:52:22.280 richard was if i keep fighting and this negativity keeps up i'm losing way more money of opportunity in 0.62

00:52:28.700 my business thinking about the wrong fucking things excuse my language yeah and i'm like no 0.97

00:52:33.180 so i gave her everything that she wanted so that i and and sure enough and that was a pound of meat 0.95

00:52:39.180 that you had to give up that's one of the things that i yeah exactly exactly and it was so the day

00:52:44.380 that it was on paper and signed by law it's like okay i could i i realized subconsciously i'm not

00:52:50.920 working on my business because what if she wants more of this or more of that or more whatever so i was

00:52:54.960 like i'm not gonna put more effort into something that i don't want and don't get me wrong i would

00:52:59.100 even still today maybe it's wrong i would make sure that nobody was living on the street that's

00:53:03.300 just who i am if my ex ended up in trouble i'd probably help her out or whatever if i whatever but

00:53:08.480 yeah i was losing hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in revenue because i was thinking

00:53:13.340 about the wrong stuff you know yeah there's there's a lot of acrimony that happens in divorce and

00:53:20.500 again you know you don't say this again like family law is not written to um allow things to

00:53:25.840 wrap up quickly and in the best interest of the kids it it's really designed to like draw out uh

00:53:31.780 rack up legal bills cost you a lot of time and at some point you got to realize that you know as a

00:53:37.060 guy you only have so much time in life and you can always make more money back later so exactly

00:53:42.200 women need to feel like they've gotten a better deal than you in the divorce and sometimes it's the 1.00

00:53:47.780 the guys have to pay to kind of like wrap things up yeah yeah exactly well i was watching your

00:53:52.600 interview the other day where your friend interviewed you for your and and he said one of the questions

00:53:57.420 what would you do if you lost everything and i felt the same way you did it's like okay well i'll just

00:54:02.320 do it again yeah you know just just build it back up again and and because i think once you have

00:54:07.500 certain skills that you've acquired and you've been able to do you never lose it no exactly what a mind

00:54:12.380 once expanded can never contract like when i first got started my goal was to cover my mortgage

00:54:16.860 of 450 dollars a month i lived in a very small townhouse and you know there's uh now if we if

00:54:23.220 we don't do 30 grand a day i'm pissed off you know what i mean like it's so so yeah you know how to do

00:54:29.180 it again and the confidence is there and you take the right actions to make it happen so i i was like

00:54:34.920 yeah that's exactly what i would have said too like just do it again you know yeah are you still a car

00:54:39.620 guy i remember seeing a picture of you at some point in front of a red uh ferrari f430 that was a

00:54:45.840 number of years ago though i think that's when i first met you and we did that trip yeah that i love

00:54:50.300 cars i just got myself a nice 750i um with the m performance uh the ferrari was fun um i i what i

00:54:59.760 didn't like about that car especially being you know if you're in miami there's ferraris everywhere

00:55:03.260 but being here i would stop for gas and people would get into like personal bubble invasion like

00:55:08.260 this far from you while you're filling her up and like nice car man i'm like i'm gonna get a gun put 0.65

00:55:12.520 my side or whatever um so i ended up giving that away in a contest and russell brunson of

00:55:17.880 quick funnels won my ferrari back okay and uh but yeah i love you know i i do i do i mean i love

00:55:24.480 real estate more because i know it's a better investment you know like me cars are cars are

00:55:28.320 great so yeah we've got a lot of cars right now you know relative to my kids and stuff like that so

00:55:35.160 what was your favorite car that you've ever owned

00:55:36.540 the ferrari was the one because it got the most attention and i think it was a childhood dream

00:55:43.340 like you know if you get yourself a nice ferrari or a lamborghini you've made it so that was a lot

00:55:47.780 of fun uh but there was a lot of negative that came well here's one thing look i mean they're race

00:55:52.020 cars right so they i wasn't going to be the guy that got a ferrari and put 5 000 miles a year on it

00:55:57.060 like screw that i'm going to drive it as much as i can so i probably put 25 000 miles on it

00:56:01.600 in two years and so it uh it was broken a lot like it would you know it was broken all the time

00:56:07.720 i i remember going to um to go see ryan dice at uh digital marketer up in austin it's only like 50

00:56:13.700 minutes from here here's a guy with a 20 inch arm pushing his ferrari off the side of the road because

00:56:18.140 it wasn't working right so they're not the most reliable vehicle um uh so for reliability i've had

00:56:23.840 a couple of s class 550s that i really liked as far as just uh i was going to get a tesla at one time

00:56:29.160 but the tesla backseat was very small you know so i didn't like that very much um i've had i yeah

00:56:35.440 yeah when i get people say would you get another sports car i might in the near future i mean being

00:56:41.080 in internet marketing it definitely attracts attention and stuff like that like some of the

00:56:44.920 videos that i did back then with the ferrari some of the best converting videos that we've ever done

00:56:50.060 online because it's hard to not say well this guy's got to be doing something right you know what i

00:56:53.960 guess your attention yeah exactly that's like the standard formula whenever you see like a youtube

00:56:58.280 pre-roll video now or on facebook it's always some like young guy and in front of a rented lambo or

00:57:03.280 ferrari that they claim is theirs you know for the most part yeah yeah true um those cars have gotten

00:57:09.200 a lot more reliable too over the recent years like the f430 they stopped making i think around 2010 or 11

00:57:15.540 and um like i know a guy that's got a lambo huracan that he has out on rental and it's got something

00:57:23.140 like 130 000 miles on it really and yeah no issues with the car whatsoever right yeah so some of them

00:57:29.860 are are really really anything with like the audi lambo v10 super reliable you're really not going

00:57:37.620 to have a problem with it but when you start getting into like the only cars today that are

00:57:40.980 really not that reliable are mostly like in the mclaren brand lineup because they're still kind of new

00:57:45.000 and yeah they pump out a shit ton of them what's your favorite that you have uh the fastest car i've ever 0.58

00:57:50.960 driven is the love ferrari and i got that up to 203 miles an hour on an airstrip and that was just

00:57:55.560 batshit crazy i love that but i think that i think the next car that i'm going to add is is is probably

00:58:01.860 going to be a 720s and even though it's a mclaren and yes it's going to have problems and it's going

00:58:06.080 to be expensive to maintain it's just like it's it's it's hyper car type of performance but with super

00:58:12.280 car pricing yeah um plus it's got the doors that go up which you kind of have to get if you're

00:58:16.600 going to move away from an audi r8 yeah yeah um i got one more question for you before we wrap up

00:58:21.520 so as you've gotten older what has become more important and what's become less important to you

00:58:26.260 uh more important is enjoying the journey so when you know when i started my company and up until

00:58:32.860 probably my mid 30s it was just grind grind grind grind grind all the time and there's nothing

00:58:38.560 i still grind but it's like there's a lot of time where it was probably unproductive working 16 hour

00:58:45.520 days and when i think back now maybe seven of those hours were productive the other set you know

00:58:49.860 seven or eight weren't that productive so you know enjoying life more uh it's definitely been

00:58:56.080 uh you know people can blame a lot uh you know everything on a divorce on yourself i realize now

00:59:02.600 that i probably was very emotionally unavailable because i figured my dream was everybody's dream no

00:59:07.840 matter what and and stuff so i learned a lot that way so yeah that's that's what i care less about

00:59:12.520 now is i want to make good money but i also want to not that i didn't enjoy it because that was my

00:59:17.300 goal at the time but it's like i didn't stop and smell the roses enough i didn't stop and take the

00:59:22.020 kids out enough for or things like that you know yeah you know kids grow up really really fast

00:59:28.020 um let me um throw up on the screen here uh kind of on the exit because you've got this uh

00:59:34.360 program you're kind of working on within self-care so let's throw this up here you can talk about

00:59:40.740 that um men over 35 who want more swagger and so this is you obviously you're you're what 48 now

00:59:49.820 40 i'll be 48 july 7th so everybody right now that knows anything about bodybuilding is going to say

00:59:55.400 well joel that's trend and winning and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah sure what are we looking

01:00:01.380 at here like you're obviously on trt right yeah i you know it's funny the only the only symptom i had

01:00:07.580 of that i was 41 years old when i started trt um was um brain fog i still had a lot of muscle

01:00:14.820 but brain fog was the main main thing that that just drove me nuts and he i went to the doctor he

01:00:20.800 said yeah your your testosterone is 182 at the time that's pretty low actually yeah it's extremely low

01:00:26.480 but i was still 215 pounds and maybe eight percent body fat at the time you know okay so the trt did

01:00:32.560 help me gain more weight i i i built such a base when i was younger so right now i'm about 235 at

01:00:38.520 510 um nothing more than that than than a little bit each week and that really helped with my clarity

01:00:45.200 like my mental focus and and better energy for sure for sure for sure um but what people don't realize

01:00:51.880 i'm very much a mike menser dorian yates style of a person i train seven to ten minutes a day three times

01:00:58.380 a week and that's it high intensity very short duration so a lot of people figure that you know

01:01:03.820 joel you must be in the gym you know an hour a day you know five days a week not not even close

01:01:08.360 do you still lift like really heavy like can your joints handle it or no so so it's all a relative

01:01:13.700 term right so when i was younger i would always train into the four to six rep range meaning i would

01:01:18.040 fail at four to six reps now i'll fail around eight to 12 reps so i'm still training with very high

01:01:22.660 intensity just not the same amount of weight on the joints and and most of my upper body is okay

01:01:27.500 but i find my knees are the ones that can't take it the most you know i would do you ever throw a

01:01:31.240 duck into the mix just kind of you know to deal with your joints and stuff uh i glucose i mean

01:01:36.720 it's helped a lot omega-3 has really helped my joints more than anything fish oil helps a lot

01:01:41.360 yeah uh it's also good for your brain and your cardio as well yeah yeah no um yeah that's it i had

01:01:46.360 you know then i hurt my knee when i was 40 and like when i was younger it's like okay it'll be fine

01:01:51.280 in three months you know and two knee surgeries later that kind of stuff so uh i definitely train i still

01:01:56.300 train with very very high intensity but i'll fail around eight to 12 reps rather than four to five

01:02:01.280 reps you know so you've put together this uh program for self-care if you guys are interested

01:02:06.560 pinned in the top uh link below in the video if you're watching this on a replay if you're watching

01:02:11.420 it live it's it's it's already pinned there but um you know you put together this landing page

01:02:15.940 um 21 minutes sorry so the first thing guys are going to say uh is you know 21 minutes is not going

01:02:22.940 to get me looking like usual right so can you kind of explain what this is all about and what's all

01:02:28.380 involved with it um yeah so so i mean it's not going to get you looking like consistency is the

01:02:33.120 king to everything right so i um you know very long story short when i started training because i was so

01:02:38.380 skinny i would go to the gym every way every day and i didn't see the results because training provides

01:02:42.940 the stimulus for your body to improve so i actually train each body part once every 10 days that's it

01:02:47.780 and by giving that much recuperation time i've i've seen the results that i have so it's basically

01:02:52.640 for people who don't have a lot of time um you know diet's on point but uh it's really not all

01:02:59.060 that hard so it's catered to ceos it's catered to people like you know the one thing i think that was

01:03:04.760 when i was going through the whole divorce process knowing that i was still in very good shape and that

01:03:09.460 was my decompression time to my time to think and think about my life and stuff and i'm like well at

01:03:14.140 least i still look good you know you know i didn't gain 80 pounds of fat over the marriage and

01:03:18.600 all that kind of stuff and uh it uh but it definitely works you know we got a 60 day money

01:03:23.000 back guarantee because i know that it works i tell people do one 10 day cycle we train each body part

01:03:27.640 once every 10 days and you'll see improvements so quickly that that uh it just works and i've been

01:03:32.340 training that way oh god 30 i started training at age 11 did my first show when i was 16 i started

01:03:38.240 training that way when i was 18 so i've been training very high intensity very short duration only three

01:03:42.720 days a week for the better of 30 years i guess okay and you've got it all broken down it's like 25

01:03:48.860 bucks a month or they can buy up buy it up annually yeah and it's everything it's your diet it's your

01:03:53.520 nutrition it's your mindset it's everything everything everything everything in there okay

01:03:58.100 who's the hottie here uh don't want to get into that it's going to be a sore thumb across a few people so

01:04:05.700 all right i want to just yeah somebody i've been dating and stuff like that you know okay so um

01:04:11.840 link is pinned in the top description if you guys are interested in uh self-care program and

01:04:16.360 supplementation and stuff like that it's it's it's not expensive you you actually sent me some of your

01:04:20.480 supplements i don't have them here right now but um the one that fills your stomach um you know you

01:04:25.640 did like a video demonstration of it where you basically mix it with water and it like just expands

01:04:29.980 so like 10 or 50 times the normal size it'll expand you know yeah and it's just like a fiber

01:04:35.440 so it's calorie free so i've been using that a lot just to kind of like you know fill up my stomach

01:04:39.560 especially in the morning so i can fast but check it out if you're interested joel thanks for sharing

01:04:43.780 your story and you know all the other experiences and getting vulnerable and just kind of letting guys

01:04:47.980 know what it takes to you know play to win in life and there's there's life after divorce the guy i just

01:04:53.540 remember like you know before a divorce i'd have my good and bad days i could never empathize

01:04:58.860 what a true depression was and when it when it hit me man i was like when i get through this i will

01:05:04.040 let people know that you can get back to normal even better you know that that's my whole objective

01:05:09.120 i know there's some guys who are like just you're you're paralyzed you're freaking paralyzed you know

01:05:15.660 and you're like what the hell is the matter with me you know so i always i always love going back

01:05:19.760 to that story um what's his name howard schultz the guy that did starbucks it's howard schultz right

01:05:25.300 yes yeah it's like the story of 242 it's like you know he went to something like 241 different

01:05:33.420 um investment firms angel investors and all this sort of stuff to kind of like pitch this business

01:05:38.300 idea and it was like on the 242nd one or something like that they actually said yes to the idea and

01:05:44.040 allowed him to launch it but you know it just goes to show you that you know you got to do the work

01:05:48.660 as ace golden glove says here um you know life's going to knock you down it's just a test you know

01:05:54.280 divorce losing money in a business making some shitty choices in life it's all a test you know

01:05:58.680 you can either stay down and knock it back up which some people do or you can get back up and you know

01:06:04.020 do the work and hopefully you know you make it out of it a-okay if not stronger and better you know

01:06:09.640 um you know what we forgot to talk about before we go real quick is um surround yourself with um

01:06:16.980 you know the right people um we met on a business trip well not a business trip it's a business

01:06:23.580 adventure trip that a mutual friend of ours put together and he kind of put all these guys together

01:06:27.940 uh the price of admission i think at the time was 10 or 12 000 for that off-road trip i know you

01:06:33.820 and a lot of the other guys were paying a membership due to that uh group as well to have access to all

01:06:38.860 these guys and events and networks how important has surrounding yourself with like-minded people been 0.91

01:06:44.580 in this journey to excellence for you and dealing with all this shit i honestly believe there's no 0.81

01:06:49.420 such thing as a self-made millionaire and what i mean by that is you have to get around the right 0.87

01:06:53.660 people you just because you know coming back to my mother i would share an idea with my mother and

01:06:58.700 she had no experience but her gut instinct was to say that's a bad idea you know my first mentor being

01:07:03.760 kind of copeland and he's you know got this you know done a couple times over and he's telling me it's

01:07:09.980 a good idea but my mom says it's a bad idea i started realizing that you really have to get

01:07:14.100 yourself around people that are going to believe in what you're doing and and more importantly when

01:07:19.120 you share experiences i might ask you about that consolidation on something you're like well joel

01:07:23.120 do this and where i might ask my father who knows nothing about it he'll give me like just really

01:07:27.340 shitty advice you know what i mean and uh it's been at least 60 to 70 percent uh of my success is

01:07:33.920 getting myself surrounded by really smart people who who have just the right positive mindset

01:07:39.400 for sure and it just makes it fun because you know you get around these people and they're

01:07:44.440 legitimately happy to see you succeed they're legitimately happy to to help provide value to

01:07:49.420 to you know i i mean i would do anything for anybody like yourself who if i had experience in a certain

01:07:54.800 field and said well do this or do that and here's why because i tried it and this is what worked and

01:07:59.360 what didn't work based on on experience you know it's very very important very very it's only at the top

01:08:05.100 isn't it's a it's more a mindset it's not about finances it's about being around the right people

01:08:09.460 who just see the world very differently you know like a lot of people think that you're batshit crazy

01:08:14.840 when you run a business and they always you know like your mom said well you know just get a job or

01:08:18.620 just you know play not to lose sort of thing and it's only guys that have gone through it that um

01:08:24.280 have an opportunity to network that are guys dealing with similar sorts of struggles that actually

01:08:28.200 believe um in in the stuff that you're doing and will support your mission and those are the people

01:08:34.400 you want to surround yourself with it makes a big big difference yeah it does and i'll tell you one

01:08:38.040 more crazy mom story just to show that being around the right people are so important so six months 1.00

01:08:42.720 before she passed we knew she was terminal and she called me on the phone and she's like she starts

01:08:47.340 to giggle and i'm like what mom she goes i have to tell you something and i know it's crazy but i need

01:08:52.660 to tell you i'm like what she goes i just wish you had a good stable job

01:08:56.860 i said well there's 250 people that work for me the last person to lose their job will be me and

01:09:05.660 she was obviously she was semi-joking at the time she'd see that it was the right path and decision

01:09:10.500 for me uh but yeah being around good people is the key you know like i mean i i can't thank you

01:09:15.760 enough richard what you did for me you know with your youtube videos and it was a pleasure meeting you

01:09:19.540 in cabo and stuff and uh i'll uh i'll definitely come see you this summer i'll be up i'll be up there soon

01:09:24.620 yeah if you're in toronto let me know and uh but uh by the way guys if you want to join my men's

01:09:28.960 community that's how you get to it that's also pinned in the top uh link description there's

01:09:33.520 either an annual membership option or or monthly it's it's the one percent of men that are chasing

01:09:39.420 excellence not women they're putting a dent in the universe all that good stuff you can click it watch 1.00

01:09:43.700 the video there that explains how it all works joel thanks for hanging out let me know if you're

01:09:48.240 heading up to toronto anytime soon we'll definitely grab some dinner and and you know hang out for a bit but

01:09:52.620 it's good to have you on and catch up and seeing you know what's all up in life i appreciate you

01:09:57.520 and i appreciate what you're doing and thank you for watching everybody i appreciate it have a great

01:10:00.720 day my friend all right see you brother

Playing to Win - March 02, 2022

020 - What You Think About You Bring About - Joel Therien

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