As a speaker marketing coach and consultant, our guest, James Malinchak is the behind-the-scenes, go-to marketing advisor for many top speakers, authors, thought leaders, business professionals, celebrities, sports coaches, athletes and entrepreneurs and is recognized as “The World’s #1 Big Money Speaker® Trainer and Coach!” 

Tune In to this episode as Tara talks to James about his experiences in becoming a speaker, the fails he had before realizing that it was a business, and the tips for all of you on creating your content and getting your world out. James seized the opportunities as they were presented to him and so should you!!

About Our Guest:

James Malinchak is recognized as one of the most requested, in-demand business and motivational keynote speakers and marketing consultants in the world. He was featured on the Hit ABC TV Show, Secret Millionaire and was twice named National “College Speaker of the Year.” James has delivered over 3,000+ presentations for corporations, associations, business groups, colleges, universities and youth organizations worldwide. James can speak for groups ranging from 20-30,000+. 

Giving back is a big part of James’ life as he has raised over $1,000,000 for various charities and organizations and has donated thousands of dollars of his own money to help others. 

As a speaker marketing coach and consultant, James is the behind-the-scenes, go-to marketing advisor for many top speakers, authors, thought leaders, business professionals, celebrities, sports coaches, athletes and entrepreneurs and is recognized as “The World’s #1 Big Money Speaker® Trainer and Coach!” 

For more information & FREE Training, visit: www.BigMoneySpeaker.com 

About Me:

My name is Tara Bryan. I help business owners break into the next level of success by packaging their expertise into an online business. It's my passion to help you find the fastest path to results to create a greater impact and income for you and your tribe.

This podcast is 100% focused on support, tips and example sharing, and building a community of online business owners who are passionate about building awesome learning experiences.

We do that by building engaging, motivating, gamified, and learner-centered online experiences. We come up with ideas and strategies to ensure that our learners can thrive and succeed using our packaged products.

To learn more:

Find us at https://www.taralbryan.com

Here are two ways we can help you grow and scale your online course-powered business:

1. NEED TO CREATE AN ONLINE EXPERIENCE BUSINESS? (Course, Program, Digital Delivery)

Join LEARN ACADEMY MENTORSHIP - Learn Academy is the best done-with-you On-demand and cohort implementation program that will help you create, sell, and launch your online business. 

2. ALREADY HAVE AN ONLINE BUSINESS & READY TO INFINITELY SCALE?

Schedule a 15 minute call with Tara to talk about our offers that will help you master the game.

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Mentioned in this episode:

Gamify My Course Camp

https://bit.ly/2023_Gamify

Hey, everybody is Tara Bryan and you are listening to the Course Building Secrets podcast. Whether you're a coach or a CEO, the success of your team and clients is based on your ability to deliver a consistent experience and guide them on the fastest path to results. This podcast will give you practical real life tips that you can use today to build your online experiences that get results and create raving fans. Why? So you can monetize your expertise and serve more people without adding more time or team to your business? If you're looking to uncover your million dollar framework, package it and use it to scale you're in the right place. Let's dive in.

Alright, hello, everybody. Welcome to the course building secrets show I am so thrilled today to have James Malinchak here with us, the founder of big speaker, big money speaker.com. And, James, welcome to the show. So excited to have you. Tell us a little bit about yourself your experience and and what you're up to these days. Yeah,

well, first there, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it. I don't take it lightly. Anytime we get to give somebody some info on their time during their precious time. It's an honor. So thanks for having me for your great folks. Yeah, I never planned on doing this course stuff, experts stuff speaking stuff, book stuff. I mean, I didn't even know it existed. You know, there weren't like great shows like yours around when I was starting to like, teach me stuff like this. So how I got started was, I did very well, I played college basketball. And then I did very well, as a financial consultant. I had a successful career, and won some awards. My first year, I worked for a major Wall Street investment firm. And my phone rang one day, and it was a guy, and he said, Hey, my son works with you. And he said that man, you're just like, blazing it, setting things on fire. And you're young guy, I want you to come and speak for my employees. I said, I don't speak. Like I'm a financial advisor. I don't even know what you're talking about speak. Right? And he said, Well, look, just can't you just come and speak and like 40 minutes and tell them how you built your business. And I said, I don't speak, thank you, but I don't do that I don't speak and he said, and I'll pay you $5,000 I said, I speak I speak. Obama didn't raise no fool, someone's gonna pay you to speak, you shut up and take it. And that's literally how I got started. And I did that talk. It was horrible. On a scale of one to 10. I literally thought I was like a negative three or four. And he came up to me after and said, Well, that was great. And I'm like, Who are you watching? You're watching me, you're watching somebody else? And he said, Man, I have two other like divisions. Could I have you go and speak to them as well. And I'll pay the $5,000 for each one. Is that okay? I'm like, what? So that's literally how I got into this thing. I had no idea that this whole experts space speaking without all the stuff combined into like the experts, space, if you will existed, I didn't know what it was. But Mom, mom taught me well. She said, Son, you don't need to get hit by two by four twice in a face to get the message.

That's awesome. So what do you think it was? Like? Do you think that he just saw something in you? Did you have some sort of system that you were, you know, implementing? Or what was it that that made him so confident that he wanted you to speak?

Well, back then I had like no system i Not that I know anything. I didn't even know what a system was. I just did really well. My first year I opened up like 200 accounts my first year and worldwide one most outstanding performance. And number one, a new account opening. And so I think he thought that whatever I did, that I could share that with his people, primarily his sales reps. And maybe it would give them ideas to help build their business. I think that's literally what it was, you know, starting out if I would have went back and asked him, Hey, why did you actually bring me in to speak? He would have probably said, Well, you went out in the first year and just did this amazing stuff. And hopefully you will be able to inspire my folks and then maybe give them some tips and strategies where they could do similar things. I think that's what it was. And by the way, that's the whole expert space. I always say nine words that will make you wealthier than anything else. Do something, package it teach it and sell it. Ah right up your alley right up your alley. Yeah, that's perfect. Well, I know that now. I say that now but I didn't know Back then starting,

right, yeah. And I love that, that somebody believed in you and gave you that little spark to get started. And in that, that literally is what started your career doing this?

Yeah, yeah, it did that man. I'll always be grateful. But, you know, tear Have you ever done something really stupid in your life? No, right, like everything's perfectly right. So I did something really stupid after that third talk, right sharing my expert information if you will back then that I didn't know I was an expert on. I did something really stupid. I was like, Oh my gosh, three talks, roughly about an hour of my time, maybe 90 minutes with driving time. I got paid $50,000 5000 each. This is unbelievable. I'm gonna go quit my job. And I did. Well, long story short. Guess what? I realized something that the speaking expert money fairy didn't keep dropping checks out of the air to me. And I literally blew through my life savings. Like in about six months, and I became so broke that I was forced to work in a video store. While anybody under doesn't know what a video store I forgot, I gotta explain what a video store is. But I was forced to work in a video store. And I made seven bucks an hour. And I tons of Top Ramen noodles. Tons of my favourite joke now, but I was very serious back then my favorite thing was my Costco card from mom and dad, because I couldn't afford like the $50 membership fee. But I would go there and I get these big bags of pasta, right? Because you get the big bags for cheaper. And then I would get these big bottles of spaghetti, these big tubs of spaghetti sauce. And I would dilute the sauce with water because guess what that makes it last longer. Right? And Tara I ate Top Ramen noodles, and pasta noodles, diluted with water with the spaghetti sauce for over three years, while I made seven bucks an hour working in the store because I didn't understand that it's a business. If I was looking back and like what was the mistake I made? You know, I just, you know, I was living in a fantasy land like, Oh, these checks just fly out here. This is easy. People just call you up and buy your stuff or book your to speak or people just go online magically and buy your course and stuff. I didn't know any of that back then. And yeah, I was so broke. I remember those days like it was yesterday. And I think it's part of my somebody asked me this not too long ago, I was out with a friend. I'm here at Las Vegas and friend of mine is a big executive for one of the NFL football teams. They just had the Pro Bowl here. And I was out to dinner with her. And she's like you've been so like, accomplished in this space. Like, why? What's the drive to keep going? And I said Top Ramen noodles. I said I'll never forget I Top Ramen noodles. And I don't ever want to go back. That's That's my drive. That's my motivator. I always remember.

Yeah, well, and I think that first it took spark and it took the belief. Yeah. And then you had to actually build the business around it. Right? I think that's such an important lesson. Because that's what sort of happens, right? You have a little bit of success. And then you're like, okay, I'm good. Let's, let's keep going. And and that's not necessarily reality until you figure out how to get the machine running.

Yeah, well, you know, nowadays, so fast forward all these years later, you know, I teach people how to do take their expertise and put it into speaking. And it's the reason my logo is a coin. Because I always say this, I say on the front, you have two sides to the speaking coin. And I'll say it for the expert space, right packaging your time, knowledge, experience and expertise. You have two sides of it. But on the one side, you have your message, your information, your stories, your tactics, or tips or strategies, you're trying to make a difference in the lives of people trying to make the planet a better place, leaving a legacy you have all of that right. And unfortunately, I think most people stop right there and think that's good enough. And so the reason my logo became a coin, is because I always talked about for years, you know, there's a flip sides of the coin. And the flip side of the coin, is this thing we call the business. Yeah, right. You know, how do you how do you get customers client side you get them to buy again and again refer others how do you upsell down sell cross sell it language things the right way on a webpage if you're doing an online course, to get them to convert or if you're on a webinar, or if you're speaking from the stage live in person, how do you language and communicate the value and the benefits so people see that and move forward with you. You know, that's all the business stuff. And that's that's why I say my logos a coin because there's a full flip sides of the coin.

Yeah. So I love this. You don't know this. We didn't talk about this. But I talked about the same thing you it's funny, Wayne, because I have three children, along with being a business owner. So mine is called a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, right? Like you have to have the peanut butter and the jelly, which is the technical and the sales and marketing part of the business right in order to work. So that's really funny. I like the coin better from a business perspective. But I talk about it, like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So there you go. There's

love. Yeah, yeah, well, I like can I give everybody listening a tip. If you want to, if you want to convert, I've done over $50 million in core sales and coaching sells and over my career. And so I teach a lot of people how to do that. You know how to like structure presentations, if you will, to get folks to see the value, you don't come across slimy. And they don't sell sold. But they want to take the next step. And one of the things I always have to teach is if you want to convert more people, because I come from a brain based learning and neuroscience, research background of how we buy, and one of the things you always have to do is you have to do exactly what you just did exactly what I just did. You have to teach get in a habit of teaching and analogies. Because that, that makes the brain go, Oh, I understand it. And there. And if people don't understand how you're communicating about your great work your course whatever that might be, you know, book online course, then they will resist, and they will move away from you, because you're not speaking the way the brain wants to learn. And when you do analogies, what it does is it creates what's called a sense of accomplishment inside the subconscious mind, where the subconscious goes, Oh, I get it, I get what terrorists saying. And now automatically on a subconscious level, they start to attract to you and attract to your courses your work, because, oh, if I got that, I can feel safe and trusted. If I move forward with the purchase that I'm going to get the same result and feeling. So there's a little tip for all your listeners.

Yeah, I love that. Thank you for sharing that. I think that's super powerful. And I think that the other piece of that is really thinking about the analogy that's going to work for that learner, or that the person who's purchasing, because the other thing is, is that if you do it from your expertise, or your sort of technical, you know, acumen, then what happens is that you may lose them, right. So getting getting into where they are in that, in their journey, too, is important.

Yeah. So if I could piggyback on that, a couple of things, one, don't get sucked into your own curse of knowledge. You know, as we get more knowledge, we start to raise higher and where we are and we start to speak to people from there. And we don't realize that they're not where we are with this knowledge on this topic. So I always say don't speak from where you are with the curse of knowledge, you have to speak customer. You have to think where your customers at remember, you and I were all there at one point, we're just a little higher now. But you have to speak to where they are at, not where you are at with the information. Okay. So very important, because a lot of folks, you know, you'll see folks speaking trying to communicate on a webpage or communicate verbally. And there's, I'm sitting there going, what the heck is he talking about? I have no clue. Yeah, so always remember to speak customer from where they are not from where you are.

Exactly, exactly. Yep. And then you ascend them to where you are right when you're teaching them and you're helping them get be successful and get the results. Because then you can geek out with them and have you know, be have them be up here. But you can't start there. Because they're not

know. Yeah, remember, repetition is the mother of skill. The more someone goes through your great work your great course the more they'll get it, and they should be going through it. I mean, I have people that go through my stuff 3040 times like the same course I'm like, Yeah, because every time they come back, their mind is at a different level. And they pick up all the stuff they miss at the previous level the previous time. And then when they come back again. And you and I were the same way. We read a book three times, and we found new stuff in it. The second and third time. We missed the first time. It was already there. We just didn't see it.

Yeah, yeah, awareness is different. Yeah, that's awesome. Very cool. Well, I'm excited to keep digging in with you about these different concepts because I think it's so powerful and it's so very, very true. As we're, you know, trying to monetize our expertise and really be able to not only help and make a bigger impact with people but also obviously, you know, be successful from a sales and marketing standpoint and get get those people in our world so we can help them. Absolutely. Um, so you You've already talked a little bit about your business and where you are, can you help us understand? So you started? Started doing speaking, right? That's your that's kind of your core business is,

is by accident.

So you're teaching other people how to become speakers or how to make money from speaking. And so in your business model, you're doing more than just speaking. So can you just talk a little bit about how you've structured your business how you went from sort of speaking to actually packaging and monetizing some of your message outside of just speaking? Oh, yeah, for

sure. So after I became really good at speaking now, when I say good at speaking, I don't mean delivering a message. I'm not a great presenter. But I became phenomenal at what I call the only thing that actually matters when it comes to speaking. Right? You get rid of everything else. If you got rid of everything else, and you just did this, I have no doubt you would be successful anybody would be whether it's speaking virtually, or speaking your live in person. I'm here in Las Vegas. I spoke for 1200 people the other day, at a convention here in Las Vegas. Okay, that's in person speaking. And here it is. You got to go for eight balls. And here's what I mean. Terror if you and I were shooting a game of pool, and we're playing a game of eight ball, okay, I could knock in let's say, I'm stripes in your solids. I could knock in all the balls on the table. But if I don't knock in the eight ball, and you do you win, I lose. That's the name of the game. Took me a long time to understand that I couldn't figure out why. I was never went ahead Jack Canfield. cocreator chicken soup of the soul. I've coached jack for years. He was here at my house. I have a game room, we're playing pool. And I couldn't understand like, How the heck can I not beat him? How can I not be beats me every single game. It's not like he's great. But he went. And then I finally figured it out. Oh, he's setting up every shot that knock in the eight ball. I'm just randomly shooting ball at balls all over the table. So what this means for you for speaking is you got to get to eight balls. That's the most important part of the speaking game and the eight balls meaning you have to get to the people who control the budgets and decide who's going to speak for an event. And you got to give the pick you everything else is smoke and mirrors. None of it matters. People want to sell you on branding and all that it's nonsense. You know it's you need a I see ass in chair and contact coordinators and ask them to book you and share your value. So here I was broken that video store making seven bucks an hour. And that was my V eight moment like, Oh, I could have had a V eight, right? Like whack inside of the head like, wait a minute, I have a message. coordinators have the money. Because I remember online Zig Ziglar read a book one time, zig when he was selling pots and pans a great motivational speaker. His motto was I have your pots and pans you have my money. I'm here to make the switch. And I always thought that was funny. Right? You know, deliver, show you the value for the pots and pans and then you get compensated for it. So that's what I did with speaking wait coordinators have the budgets, I have a message I need to make the switch. And the way I make the switch is about contacting. So I started out by doing two hours a day Monday through Thursday, sit my butt in the chair, contacting coordinators. And funny thing happened at the end of the year I looked at my data. I booked 40 paid talks from zero to 40. I was like whoa, wait a minute. That could be the ticket. What if I sat down Monday through Thursday and I still take Friday, Saturday, Sunday off and relax? And what if instead of two hours a day, I do five hours a day of reaching out? Well guess what? Your next year I booked over 100 paid talks. Okay, so that's how I started the whole speaking. And then somebody walked up to me one time at an event said, Man, I really love that. You have that in a book. No, like I didn't know anything about doing a book. Matter of fact, I never in high school in college, never read a book. Write a book. But I started to take my talk. And literally now I'm going to date myself. I sat there with a cassette tape recorder, and with a typewriter, not a computer, a typewriter. And I literally sat there and I would press play and I would type out what I said I'd press stop and keep typing. Then I do it again. And again. You know, over the course of a few weeks, I literally transcribe my entire talk. There were no services, like like there are today. And then I started polishing it up and I'm like, well that doesn't read the same way. I said it. It's weird. So that was my first product and I printed up my first product at the local print shop. It was like $8 a copy and I was selling it for 10 not good margins. They're, you know, and the cover was ugly, I use Clip Art. Right. But as and people laughed at my book, and as I say, all the time, my ugly book is better than when you ain't got.

Yeah. And so that's how I started. And then you know, lo and behold, it was crazy as ugly as that was. As long as it took me in dysfunctional it was the creative. People came up after and said, Boy, I really because I said, Hey, if you'd like my talk, I have a book here, which is the same, basically the same stuff. So you can have the information continue on with you after this hour session. And a little bill, people would come up and hand me $10. And I was like, oh, so then that's when I got laid off. I should have more books. And then I should take that book and record it back in the day a CD and sell the book in the CD now for $20. Right, so I started that way. So now I have just to kind of bring a full circle, I have 21 online courses, I digital online courses, I've read 25 books actually have two or coming out.

And I've done 2300 ish one on one consulting now for people over the years. So my business evolved a lot out of the speaking, I still do some but not like I used to. But it's more of a product business and a service business now, like I have 100 private consulting clients. And our fees are pretty steep. They're 25, grand 50 and $100,000. So far cry from seven bucks an hour in a video store eating Top Ramen noodles, but we're really a coaching business, a product business, but I also still speak but do about only about 10 in person once a year, because I've raised my fees a lot now or could be a speaking offer. Yeah, yeah, that's really our business. And I will tell you, the last thing I will say is we run everything on a system, we run a multimillion dollar business with one person, one staff person who's my assistant, like, how can you do that? How can you have 100 coaching clients? You're doing TED talks, you're doing great podcast interviews, like how because everything's a system. So, for example, today's Tuesday, right? Tuesday is podcast interview day. Wednesday is private consulting day with my coaching members. Thursday is teaching day I teach two classes on for right now for the next six weeks. I have a one to three o'clock class, I teach for about 300 folks that bought one of our courses for 2000 bucks. And I'm delivering that now. And then in the evening, I have a course ironically called mass conversion where I teach in writing and verbally how to convert. And so Thursday is teaching day. Friday is off day. Saturday is off day, Sunday is off day. Monday is free day for me to do whatever I want. I could go through things like call people back. And then Tuesday, podcast day, Wednesday, right? Coaching day, Thursday, Teachers Day, and that's our system, we systematize everything. Okay, so here's here's what most folks do in their business. Especially folks like myself who came into this expert space, not knowing what I was doing is everybody runs around being a Smokey the Bear. I'm sorry, everybody runs around being a firefighter. And what you want to do is you want to be Smokey the Bear. Okay, Smokey, the bear presented for as far as bye bye, grew up. And remember the old Smokey the Bear commercials only you can prevent forest fires. So for example, we, Cindy, my sister, who's my assistant, we actually probably once every two weeks have about an hour conversation on the phone. By the way, she and I don't talk all the time. There's no reason to talk all the time. Right? She should be doing her job and I should be doing mine. Right? So we talk every Friday every other Friday for about two hours, hour and a half, two hours and we'll go through stuff. And we'll plan things out. And we will we will do everything we can to be a Smokey the Bear. So we never in our business are a firefighter running around putting out fires all day long. Now your whole business is jacked up. Right, your time is messed up. So I'll give you a quick example. So we did one of our big money speaker boot camps. And I was having actor Anthony Hopkins from Silence of the Lambs and legendary actor he was one of my people come in to speak at my event. So we're on our call and we're doing Smokey the Bear and it comes up with her and some of our volunteer folks that we outsource things to that. Oh yeah, we probably should alert hotel security because we're having an A list actor we need to have security there and I thought about it for a second and I went no you know what? We need to get off duty Los Angeles police officers there are like why that's gonna be more there's a lot of a moonlight for security, right? And then like last gonna be more expensive. So well, let's just play this out. A list actors are different than us speakers and authors and of course creators. They have stocks Right now, like literally people that follow him around and try to harm him. So play this out. Mr. Hopkins is on our stage and someone we unbeknownst to us registered pay the fee and as a badge, charges the stage with a knife and unfortunately tries to do something. And we have to take that person down. And on the way down, that person falls breaks his shoulder. Now, guess what I get to?

The hotel gets sued, because so tell security, security took them down. So my whole thing was this. If that happens, God forbid. But if that happens, who do I want testifying on my behalf in the court case, Paul Blart Mall Cop or off duty decorated Los Angeles police officers who deemed it an imminent threat to someone's life, took them down, handcuffed them and took them out. I prefer to have LAPD there. Yeah, so because we did that. Everything went smoothly. They came in they told us how they're going to do stuff. They're gonna have a guy up here they got a guy backstage, they're gonna have a guy undercover two days before he comes. He's walking around acting like a an attendee he's at the bar hanging out at night, they see can sniff out people who are stocker like their trip, they taught us how to do all this. And guess what, I got to go up there and teach sir my students and not worry about any of that stuff. So there's, there's a way we systematize everything. And that's a little example of being Smokey the Bear, rather than a firefighter.

Love that everything that you just said is great. So So I have a couple different things I want to unpack out of that. The first one is, when you're talking about just getting started. And you know, you know, the typing and all the things. One of the things I think people struggle with so much when they're trying to package their expertise is that curse of perfection has to be perfect before they get it out there. It has to be, you know exactly how you know it. It's their, their, you know, their body of work that's going to last forever. So I love that example of you just typing up what you were teaching or what you're speaking on an offering that and I'm sure it's gone through, you know, a number of iterations since that day, but still providing so much value for the people who you're speaking to. Do you find that that gets in your way or gets into some of your students way? Is that curse and perfection that that so often we all end up dealing with?

Yeah, it's a great, great question. It doesn't get in my way now. Because I quickly realized, well, no one probably read my stuff anyway, or going through my course. Like people buy my course. I'm not kidding. I spoke in Dallas, Texas, over the summer, and literally had 105 People buy a $3,000 package that included a lot of WoW was a lot but three, three online courses. Now we can track who goes in and how much they watch by percentage. Yeah, so about three months later, I go in and look, one person finished one of the whole courses. Okay. About 30 started a little bit of one course and then stop. And that was it. And I'm like, they paid $3,000 For this, this is crazy, goes back to my my thing. People will buy your course James doesn't mean they're gonna listen to it, people will read you. But those times I did a book, where I literally left out a paragraph by accident where the page didn't make sense, when you read it literally didn't make sense. And I didn't know when I printed it up that the paragraph was out, sold about 10,000 books over the course of a couple of years. And not one person ever wrote to me or called to say, hey, page 37 Doesn't make sense. You're missing a paragraph, right? So that's the first thing I always try to understand is okay. I used to think like, everybody read and went through all my courses, like start to finish, they got home, they sat down and they're doing it like put everything kids get out of here. I gotta go through chains and stuff. And I quickly realized that doesn't happen. And I realized that what myself because when I get courses, and I get books and all that. I'm the same way. Yeah. So that never happens. Now, what's more important for me now is to get the stuff out. Because Done is better than perfect. Yes. And I always try to tell my coaching clients, I said, look, I mean, it's great. You always want to try and put out the best stuff. But there is no such thing as perfection. So if you're waiting for that day to happen, where you go, Oh, hallelujah, everything's perfect. Let's go. Hey, you're gonna write this book for 25 years? Yeah, so and so what I tell them is, why are you being so selfish? I'm really what I'm like why you being so selfish, there are people out there right now who need what you have. And you're being selfish because you're thinking about yourself, right? Trying to be this Miss Perfect, Mr. Perfect. And we should be thinking about helping them. So get your stuff out so they can start to be helped. You can always go back like you had said Taron, refine it, update it, change it as you go, especially with digital courses nowadays, you can change it every day if you wanted to. Right. And even doing books, if you do it up through Amazon, through their KDP publisher printer, you can change it every day, because it's print on demand, you don't have to print, like back in the day, I had to get 1000 5000 books and put them in my garage, I have to do that today. So you can literally keep correcting and changing as you go. And so I just, I don't think perfection exists. You know, when I started out, I did my best. But there was still tons of mistakes, tons of mistakes in all my stuff. Not that I tried to make mistakes, but because I didn't see the mistakes. Right. But then I went back and corrected them as I as I noticed them and grew in my career.

When I love that just even just looking behind you. You've been able to gain momentum through just taking action and and you know, maybe the first one wasn't exactly your your dream book. But as you've been going, you've been able to gain that momentum and and really create that that system as you said and create the products and everything that helps you show up as the best version of yourself. So you can continue to help people.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I'll show two things here. For those that are watching this. This is my first book. Success starts with attitude. Now this came out in 1998. Now it's a different versions. Now it's hardcover. But remember, when I said I sat there and type my speech, this is literally the same information from 1998. This is the same speech, otherwise the same speech I do today, all these years later. So what I tell folks, is look, if you have information where you sat down on a couch, and you shared it with your niece, nephew, daughter, son, granddaughter, grandson, and told them about life, that's what you put in your products. If you have coffee, or tea or juice with a friend who's going through a tough time, and you counsel them on maybe some ideas to get through that. That's what goes in your product. Right? People get all freaked out, like I gotta sit down and write all this stuff. And do this outline and record with this fancy studio. Right here zoom flow, little $20 headset at Best Buy connects into the computer free Zoom account. Yeah, and you just you speak in and you act as if 5000 People are on there, and you're training them and you record each session and bam, your course is done. Right? This one right here. Anybody can do this. And I know for those listening can't see this. But James ballin checks, motivational quotes. I went on social media and pulled out all of my positive stuff that I would put out like a quote here, or words of wisdom. Well, you know, I was walking today. And I thought about this. And I'll put something out, right. And I was like, Well, that's all great stuff. So guess what I did there. I just went and gathered up 100 of them from over the years, and put one on a page and blew it all up. And their book was done in like a day. So

that's awesome. I love that. Oh, you guys are getting such great nuggets from James. I'm so happy that you are here. This is amazing. So I know that we could talk all day and and get into all different things. So I want to be respectful of your time. But I cannot let you go without talking about your time when you are on the hit show the ABC hit show Secret Millionaire, which I happen to watch. I told you earlier I watched your episode. I would love to hear about your experience on that show. And and tell my listeners sort of like your journey around that. So you decided to go and do that you went to was a Detroit, very Indiana. Oh, Indiana. Sorry. You went to Indiana and and had an experience that was unlike anything that you had done before. I would love to have our listeners hear about that journey that you went on for that show.

Yeah. So as I said earlier by Assistant, Cindy and I we get on the phone every hour every two weeks for 90 minutes, hour, 90 minutes, two hours, whatever that is and we go through stuff. Right? And so when things come in, we'll go through like this. You'll tell me about and I'll say no. Okay? Yes. Yes, yes. No, no, look how fast we go through stuff. Right So again, that's because we systematize how we go through stuff. So something came in came in an email, and said, somebody referred us to James, we want to talk to him about being on this documentary, TV show where we're shooting. And I said, No. Because everybody's a producer nowadays, right? Print up a business card of Vistaprint has the word producer on it, and you're producing, right? And I don't know. I don't know that stuff. And so she said, No, they came back, like literally 10 minutes later and said, No, no, we really got to talk to Jen Baba, blah, blah. And I said, look, okay, sin, Cindy. Give me their number, I'll call them because they said a mutual friend. And I don't want that friend to think like, James was disrespectful and didn't even talk to them. I'll call and I didn't know who the friend was. They didn't mention. So I call him up. I was in Dallas, Texas, speaking about the speak the next day, it was a Friday. And I said, thanks so much. I'm just not interested. And they did something that we all should learn. If you ever want to sell things, they ignored my objection and kept talking. I was blown away by it. I was like, well, that's interesting. Yeah, so we're about 15 minutes in and I'm talking to her and she's, and she said, you sound great. So what I already told you, I'm not doing your documentary thing. I don't even know what it is. And I just don't do that stuff. And she said, Well, could you talk to my executive producer, I said, Look, if it'll help you, I'll talk to your boss and politely tell your boss I'm not interested. So the boss gets on the phone. And I noticed about 20 minutes later, I'm still on the phone with her because she was very pleasant to talk to. And I was like, well, that's interesting, because that'll stay on the phone with anybody, like, especially in a movie thing, or whatever they're doing, who knows what they're doing. Right? So we're 20 minutes into it. She says, Well, you sound great. Okay, not gonna be in your documentary thing. Right? And by the way, why was it a documentary? And why was it a hit name? Because ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, I found this out later, always hides it, because they don't want people saying yes, just to get on TV. Interesting to promote their businesses and things. Right. So she said, I need to tell you something. We're not XYZ production company. I'm actually with ABC television. And the show is not called XYZ, whatever they called it. It's called Secret Millionaire. We bought the rights to the show from a company in the UK, and we're gonna be bringing it out here. Are you at a computer? I said, Yeah, I have a computer. And she said, pull this up. And she gave me this weird URL that like you can never figure out. And when, when the website came up, all there was was a space to type in, like a code. And she gave me this, like, 35 digit code that no one can figure out, you know, question mark, underscore back arrow, the capital T small p dot, dot, I'm is crazy, right? And so when I hit Enter, boom, I'm inside ABC televisions website. And I'm like, what? I'm like, either this person is for real, or this is the greatest hacker ever. I'm like, inside again, I'm not because you're arrested for hacking their website.

And that's interesting.

Yeah, but I'm looking and there's Monday Night Football. There's Grey's Anatomy, there's Desperate Housewives, no back then the shows are on. And she said here, here's the trailer we create. And I watched like the minute trailer and I'm like, what? Like, you guys are? Like, why would you be calling me? I'm not a TV guy. Well, we want somebody like we have people like you. We want like, everyday entrepreneurs. And I'm like, This is real. And she said, Yeah, could we and then she said, somebody blew my mind. She's like the week come to your house and meet with you in Las Vegas on Monday. And I'm thinking, Okay, this is real, because ABC doesn't fly for anybody. I mean, you audition like American Idol. 300,000 people in football stadiums. And you know, and so they came to my house, but I didn't believe like I'm thinking okay, this is not real. This is my cousin playing a joke on me. You know, I'm on this show punked or Candid Camera or something like that. Right? And I'm waiting for like the cameras that come out and say I got you. Right so they come to my house. I was rude. Because I think they're trying to scam me. Right? I've never thought they were really ABC. They walk in my house. They sit down in my office and I say Okay, listen how much of a charcoal as I said, Okay. I got my feet up on my desk. You're in my house. Tell me why should kick you out. Such an idiot because I think they are scamming me. Right? Right. Right. And they start talking about it and like I'm like, actually are like really talking sense. Like they know TV production and all that. So I'm just not buying So we're an hour into it. And the producer Lesley gets up from around but the chair, walks around my desk, grabs my arm and says, Look at, look at me and my eyes. Okay? She said, I give you my word. The we're for real. And we're not going to hurt people. We're going to help people. And we really love you. You should do the show. So I did. I did. I believed her. I looked into her eyes, and believe that she wasn't going to mess around with people and her people. Yeah. signed the contract on the on the plane about three weeks later. And they take me to Gary, Indiana, they say, Hey, how's it feel to be going to Gary, Indiana, and I've never been there before. And I'm all excited. I'm like, right? Because I think I'm going like to a farm to milk cows and all that stuff, right? Yeah. Number two murder capital in the US at the time. The only thing I knew about Gary, Indiana was 223 Jackson Street that Michael Jackson and the Jacksons grew up there. So that's all I knew. And so yeah, basically, for those who don't know, the show, I was picked up out of my current life mentioned, if a big crane picks you up, and goes and just drops you somewhere and says, Go ahead, live, survive. Right? And so

they gave you what, like 40 bucks or something? What was

it? Oh, I remember the number. When you have very little money. You remember the exact it was $44.66 for eight days. And so that's and I was like, what? Oh, that's what a male with no dependents gets from the state for money. And they wanted me to live like that. That type of person. And by the way, before I left my house before they pick me up, if you will by this crane. And it wasn't really a crane. I use it as an analogy. But they took me and put me on an airplane. And I didn't know where I was going. They said, You can't take a watch. You can't take a cell phone, no credit cards. Okay, no, pager anything, no connection, no internet, no computer, no connection with the outside world whatsoever. They said the only thing we want you to take and you have to hand them to us is your drivers. We need your driver's license and your medical insurance card. And I'm like, Why do you need a medical insurance card? Right? I already signed the contract now get nervous because I tell me to take my medical insurance card. Well, the contract states, you know, something happens cluding death, you know, I can't go back and sue them. Because I signed up and greed to do this reality TV show. Let me tell you why I did it. She she actually looked into my eyes and said, you know, trust me, we're going to do good things. And I started to think, and if you guys are for real, this is bigger than a show, we can put the hope back into people's hope tanks. Because people have their hope tanks on IE, we can really help a lot of people. And so that's those two combined were the reasons I did the show. But basically, yeah, the live for like eight days on $44.66 and walk around town and introduce myself to folks and find amazing, beautiful people who were contributing and serving others. Charity work, if you will, and volunteer have to convince them to let me volunteer in their their organization. And then after at the end of that, like eight day period, I have to go to those that I chose to volunteer for because I had to find and pick who I would volunteer for. And I had to go to them. And I would say hey, Tara, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it. This has been a great experience. And I have to actually leave town right now. But before I do, there's something I haven't told you. Okay, Tara, did you see that pause? That's the only acting they said I had to do. Everything else was real. They say that was what was scripted. They said after you say you got to pause. So here we go. I'm gonna do it again. For anybody watching. Terror ready. Here's my big acting debut. Kara there's something I haven't told you. There we go. It was my acting.

Good. Yeah. Good. Yeah, he did a nice job.

Yeah, and so that's all they want. They had they instruct everything else was real. Other than was like just happening. Other than that, they said, We need you to pause after you say that, because that's like the big cliffhanger dramatic like you could see it every person's like, what? Oh, no, what's going on? Right? And so I said, I had to say, and by the way, they wanted me to say I haven't been honest with you. And I refuse to say that I say, I'm not going to lie to these folks. I will withhold information during my time with them. But I'm not going to lie. Even my name, they wanted to give me a fake name. And I refused to do it. So So my name was James, Robert, because that's my middle name. You know, and I say I'm James Robert. And you know, hopefully they would hear like Roberts or whatever but James Robert, because I didn't want to give a fake last name. I felt that was deceiving but I I understood their position too, because they didn't want somebody going to the internet googling My name finding out and now the whole shows blown. Me, you know, so it's all these legal provisions you have to adhere to. So, yeah, I say, look. So I wouldn't say, I haven't been honest with you, because I've told them, I'm not going to say that that's a lie. I will withhold information. And then I'll tell I'll say, and I think I was the only one that said, there's something I haven't told. And then I said, Look, I'm not actually a struggling volunteer, going through a change life. I'm a successful entrepreneur. And they made me say on the millionaire, that was the second thing, actually, I had to say, and then I opened up my checkbook and start writing them checks to further their mission. And I had to commit to writing over $100,000 worth of checks to giveaway to help them, hence the term secret millionaire. So that's what the show is about. One of the greatest blessings of my life, I found, I found out what true sacrifice and giving really is because these folks, they didn't know we were going to be on worldwide TV, they thought we were just shooting a documentary on charities who were giving back. They had no idea it was going to be ABC. And by the way, I gotta tell you, this is crazy. I was talking to the producer that got up and said, Look in my eyes, were very good friends to this day. And she's was one of the most successful producers in reality TV. She's been doing it 30 years, one of the biggest big wigs out there. And we just because she was true to her word, we became the dearest friends. Here's the friends. She comes to Las Vegas. I go have lunch with her dinner with her when she chose and things. But I was talking to her and I just blew my mind. I cannot believe this. She said, Oh, yeah, you know, we're getting the stats back. And we think about 15 million people have watched it now. I'm like, what, 50 million people around the world. That's crazy. That's crazy. I used to make $7 an hour in a video store and eat Top Ramen noodles. And now the thing shift the billion plus people have watched it crazy.

Well, and I love that story along with the one that you told earlier, which is like you just said yes. Right? Like you're like, Yeah, let's go, let's do it. And you didn't let you know your fear or your skepticism or whatever else stop. You just went for it. And because of that, there are things that that have happened as a result of that. So how do you think your life has changed since you made that impact to those kind of three different organizations that you were working with?

Yeah. And just to let you know, I got about two minutes left, because I've got another podcast that jump on how the man. So I'm still in touch with the folks. I've actually gone back. I'll share this, but most people don't know. I've gone back there with no cameras around. Just to go back to see him and check on things and see how they're doing and talk to the folks I worked with. And at one of the guys Coach Tony, who was the basketball guy with me. On the show that I met there is one of my best friend's and he's come out to Vegas many times he stayed with me. I did an event out here with actually Michael Jordan to do an event for years, I think with Michael Jordan. And I surprised Coach Tony because he was a big basketball guy and I flew he and his wife out and gave him like a second honeymoon. And they stayed at my house for three days. And then I said you know I think would be fun. You guys need to see the strip. Let's go down to the Vegas strip. And we went in checked in at The Mirage and I said, let's just go take a walk around and see what's going on here. They don't know that I already had a room there and my stuff was already there. Because I was doing this Jordan thing. And we go walk in and Tony's looking around. He's like, there's a lot of basketball stuff hanging and then we go toward the Mirage ballrooms, and he's like, okay, man must have some. Oh, Michael Jordan stuff going on. Look at this basketball court set up in the ballrooms. And I'm like, Huh. Like, Oh, would you like to meet Michael? Who's like jaw dropped? Because he's a basketball guy. Well, what? I said, Yeah, you don't know this, but like, I'm doing a thing down here with him and all these NBA guys and college coaches and NBA coaches. And that's sort of my little surprise for you. And he was beside himself, like hanging out with Michael and like all these other players. And so how's my life change? Oh, my gosh, this was one of the greatest blessings of my life. I got a great best friend out of it. You know, I learned so much from those amazing angels that changed my life and just a true blessing from God for me.

Yeah, that's amazing. Well, thank you, James, so much for being on the show. It has been a great time. And the last thing that I just want to ask is how can our listeners reach you how Oh, cool. How can they learn more about you and what you've got going on?

Real simple. I have all this stuff about how to get highly paid as a speaker and package it up. I took my boot camp and wrote it into a book that's 250 Some pages It's all my best stuff. And I thought how can I leave a legacy easiest way is just give it all away for free. So there's no credit card needed nothing all you have to do is go to www dot free. Speaker book.com Free speaker book calm and if you're ever interested in taking your message story and how to advice and actually learning how to get paid the right way so you don't eat Top Ramen noodles and work in a video store for seven bucks. Then get the free speaker book at free speaker book calm.

Awesome. Perfect. Thanks so much, James. Have a great rest of your day.

You too, Terry, you're awesome. Thank you so much for having me.