21 The James Altucher Take Over: How I Live My Dreams

After inspiring everyone to Choose Yourself in episode #19, James Altucher returns to take over as the host on The School of Greatness. With Altucher in charge, the microphones have been turned around and I'm the one who is answering the questions. I share things I've never shared before about chasing my dreams of being a […] Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 21 with the James Altucher takeover.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  What is upgrades? Thanks so much for checking this out today. I've finally got my voice back. It was pretty much gone the whole week and it's still a little raspy. So hopefully it don't mind too much, but it's good to have it back and being able to communicate with full energy and power with all of you guys. I hope you enjoyed James Altucher. I love that episode. The guy is super funny and very wise in these years. Had a lot of ups and downs, but finally bringing it all together. So if you haven't checked it out yet, if you're, if you're new to this podcast, make sure to go check that out right now because it's pretty cool. However, after the interview, James said, hey,

• 1:14Lewis Howes?

  I want to take over your show and I want to interview you. So James and I ended up doing an extra 30 or 40 minutes where he interviewed me and kind of broke down a lot of stuff that I haven't really talked about with the early hustle and the early work that I did a few years back in the beginning of my kind of business career. And it was interesting to kind of share and to have James ask the type of questions that he did ask. So this one is all about James taking over the School of Greatness, interviewing me and me kind of opening up more about the hustle and the greatness that I believe in. So hopefully you guys enjoy this one.

• 1:56Lewis Howes?

  I'm going to get into a quote of the day because I want to keep up with the quote of the, the show. And this one is by my good friend Jonathan Fields, who's actually in his book. And the quote is cultivation of a growth mindset starts with an understanding that greatness is largely about work. So keep that in mind as you're listening to some of the stories that both James and I are sharing today. But a lot of what I've accomplished has been because I've worked my fricking. Butt off for a long time and I met the right people at the right time as well. So I'm gonna go in and dive into that and what I had to overcome to kind of get to where I am right now.

• 2:38Lewis Howes?

  Hopefully you guys enjoy it and you're willing to hear what I have to say. I've got some more solo rounds that I want to come out with in a little bit. But this one again is James Altucher taking over this episode. Had a cool picture posted on Instagram today. This is the fan of the week, Dave Conray. I think I was saying your last name right. Dave Conray, who's fresh rag on Instagram. He posted a picture just with a big, huge, uh, huge barbell or dumbbell on the ground with his sneakers. And said bent over rose while listening to at Lewis Howes School of Greatness. So it's a great workout for your mind and your body, he says. So thanks for listening while you work out.

• 3:21Lewis Howes?

  And again, keep posting pictures wherever you are in the world. Getting pictures from all over the place from you guys on Instagram, tagging where you're listening to the School of Greatness. I appreciate you all and I thank you so much. It means a lot to me and that's why I keep doing this each and every week. So with that, hope you enjoyed this interview where James Altucher takes over and interviews me on the School of Greatness.

• 3:53James Altucher?

  So this is James Altucher and I'm taking over Lewis Howes Podcast. I've got Lewis Howes with me here in the studio and we're gonna talk about what makes Lewis Howes' success and how he can help you. So Lewis, are you up for the challenge? I'm, I'm ready and willing. And Lewis, to be up for the challenge, I'm gonna ask you detailed questions. So you've gotta be able to, you gotta be able to answer. You ready for it? You can ask me anything you want. All right, good. So first of all, I know you're in the business of helping people deliver value through LinkedIn, but I want to talk about before that. I want to talk about sports because I'm not an athlete at all and you are. And what, I know you're a professional football player,

• 4:37James Altucher?

  you're a college athlete, you're an Olympian, you're like this mega athlete, you know, incredible. So what lessons from athletics do you bring with you now into your daily life? And I'm sure your podcast listeners know this, but I want to learn this for myself.

• 4:56Lewis Howes?

  You know, I think, I feel like I'm very blessed to have grown up as an athlete, transitioning into just the rest of my life in the business world because so many lessons I learned in sports that I've been able to translate. And, and being completely ignorant about business and making money, I had no clue how to make money after playing pro football. I was pretty much training my whole life in the summers and the offseason and, you know, spring break. I never had to get a job because my dad was just like, "Go train. If this is your dream, I'll support you." So I didn't know how to make money and it was very scary to me in the beginning. But some of the things I learned, specifically belief, I think belief was probably one of the biggest things,

• 5:37Lewis Howes?

  believing in myself that if there was anything I wanted to do, I can make it happen. If I just took the right steps to make it happen, if I found the right team, if I learned enough, if I worked hard enough at it, that I could do it. And it really helped me with building confidence because the more I learned, the more I failed in sports and then succeeded and won and continued moving up to the next level, the more confidence I gained. And it taught me a lot about flexibility.

• 6:07James Altucher?

  But Louis, let me ask you about... Let me ask you about that though. So you're a professional football player in arena football. What happened? You didn't make it to the pros. I'm gonna call that out as a failure. Now, I know it's not and you took your lessons from it. But how did you feel that moment when you knew that that dream was going to come true?

• 6:27Lewis Howes?

  It sucked. It was very depressing because I put all my eggs in one basket and I said, this is my life. I have to play in the NFL or I have to play some type of major pro sport. And yeah, when I had a couple of tryouts in the NFL and didn't perform as well as I should have at the tryouts. So I played arena football and thought I was gonna move up after the first year, got injured and really didn't have a chance to go back. Due to this injury, I had to have surgery and recovered for about a year and a half. And it was really low for me because I didn't know what to do next. I had no, I barely went to school, let alone get any good grades at school. I barely passed class just to be able to play football.

• 7:10Lewis Howes?

  So I didn't have like a skill, experience, a job, nothing. And my whole passion was gone. Playing sports, it was gone. So for me, I was just depressed for a while.

• 7:23James Altucher?

  But I always imagine, and this is kind of like the nerdy fantasy of what happens in sports and semi-professional sports and so on. That once that part of your life is over, there's all these big shots at investment banks who are willing to like just hire you to have you around. Like that didn't happen?

• 7:41Lewis Howes?

  You know, some of that happened. There was like sports sponsorship companies and things like that that wanted to bring me on. But I couldn't get myself to work for anyone. There was something inside of me that would not allow me to. Like every time I'd get an interview or someone would say, yeah, let's offer you something in this sports sponsorship job or sports marketing. I just couldn't move forward with it. It was like this, I felt like I was killing myself a little bit if I did something like that. Cause it wasn't what I was passionate and working for someone else wasn't what I ever wanted to do.

• 8:12James Altucher?

  So, so what was your first step into kind of the entrepreneurial world?

• 8:16Lewis Howes?

  Well, I actually stepped back further. My dad was a, had become a pretty successful life and health insurance agent. And he had this big book of clients and he was about to retire in five or six years. And he's like, he said, when I was done, he's like, I'll just give you my book of clients. You can work with me for a few years and then when I retire, you take it over. And I remember, and I remember thinking to myself, man, this sounds like a great opportunity. I could be making a lot of money right away, you know, have it pretty easy, but it was just, I couldn't even. I don't know. I, I couldn't go work there. I couldn't do any of it. I just cause I felt like, oh, it's not mine. It's not something I built. It's not anything I'm passionate about, like dealing with insurance every day. Sounds so boring to me and I just knew I couldn't do it. I knew I had to figure out a way to make money on my own.

• 9:01James Altucher?

  I wish I had a dad like that, actually. That, that sounds pretty cool.

• 9:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:05James Altucher?

  So, so what did you do?

• 9:08Lewis Howes?

  So, yeah, I was sleeping on my sister's couch for about a year and a half, uh, while I was recovering from surgery. And that whole time I had a, I had a laptop, a guitar and a couple of bags of clothes. So I was there eating her macaroni and cheese and leftover food, whatever she had, wasn't paying any rent. Was pretty much worthless around the house, wasn't even helping clean up after myself, really. I was pretty much a worthless piece of crap. And I'm, I'm super grateful that my sister was just loving and supportive of me. And after about a year and a half, she was like, all right, isn't it time you about, uh, you, you go get a job. But until then, she was just very supportive. What I did though.

• 9:46James Altucher?

  But what were you doing during, what, what were you doing during that year and a half?

• 9:48Lewis Howes?

  What I was doing was a mentor of mine said, I was, I was reaching out to a bunch of people that I felt were successful, that I wanted to be like. And a mentor of mine said, why don't you check out LinkedIn? There's a lot of people on there. There's about 15 million people on there at the time. Uh, I've hearing a lot about a lot of people getting business opportunities and job opportunities. Maybe you can meet some people in your local, you know, in, in Columbus, Ohio, and see if there's any opportunities for you. So I just did exactly what people told me to do that I trusted. And I went on LinkedIn for about six to eight hours a day for the next year. And all I did was look up people and. Different companies that I thought would be interesting to meet. And I connected with them one on one on LinkedIn. I would do research about them. I would send them personalized emails.

• 10:30Lewis Howes?

  And I asked them if I can meet them in person, uh, somewhere in Columbus or around Columbus. And for that year, year and a half, I met with hundreds and hundreds of people, one on one, or talked to them on the phone. And literally just interviewed people and asked them about how they got to where they are in their, their career or their, their business. And just met successful people and asked them what they did to get there.

• 10:56James Altucher?

  Okay, so let, let, let's dive into that for a second because at some level, like if you write to the CEO of GE, he's not going to respond to you.

• 11:04Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 11:04James Altucher?

  At what, what level were you writing like, and at what level were you getting resistance? And

• 11:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:10James Altucher?

  You know, you know, the idea of, not everybody understands the idea of the personalized and the research letter.

• 11:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:17James Altucher?

  Like I get a lot of emails, uh, hey, can I buy you a cup of coffee? If I had all that coffee, I would be drinking coffee 27 hours a day. So

• 11:27Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. I had a couple

• 11:28James Altucher?

  People don't normally respond to messages.

• 11:30Lewis Howes?

  I think I had a couple of things working for me. I had, I had mastered the art of like, uh, crafting my profile to make it look really good. I learned, I tweaked it a bunch. I'd researched. I was like, always updating it, trying to make it look better so that I could get responses. So I looked interesting enough to other people when I'd reach out to them and I was, I had the pro athlete card.

• 11:47James Altucher?

  Okay. Okay. So, so, so tell me how you made your, your profile interesting. What are like four tips to make the profile interesting?

• 11:54Lewis Howes?

  Well, you know, most people just put like, uh, I work at XYZ company or looking for a job or new opportunities or, you know, CEO of this or whatever it may be. But really it doesn't tell you anything about them. It just tells you where they're working. So I started thinking, well, how can I tell a story better? So that people are more intrigued. What I would do is my headline, I would tell people more who I am, who I help and how I help them. So there's two things you can do on your headline, which is do that, tell the story of who you, who you are, who you help and how you help people. Um, or you can just

• 12:27James Altucher?

  And what did you put? What did you put back then?

• 12:29Lewis Howes?

  And so I put like former pro athletes, world record holder and two sport All-American or something like that, like early on. So I was going for the like, let me make it look really interesting effect, the kind of the wow effect initially. And that worked for me. So I started like telling a story in my profile. I just really made it look really pretty and, you know, professional, but kind of had a more like a wow factor with my, my summary and everything, with everything I had accomplished, I guess. I used that to my advantage. And I was reaching out to former athletes, people in the sports world. So it was easier for me to connect by kind of playing that I'm a world record holder. I played pro football, even though I wasn't in the NFL, I still played and whatever.

• 13:13Lewis Howes?

  So I just kind of played along that and it would get me responses. And I was reaching out to, you know, the former, the founder of ESPN responded to me and we're now good friends and I've, you know, connected with him many times and other big presidents and CEOs, they're responding to me. And what I was doing though, I was making very personalized emails. And I like to break down three barriers. So when I, when I would reach out to them, I would say something very personal in the first line, like, hi, James, we don't know each other, but I noticed that we've got 13 different connections and I was just speaking to Tim Sykes last week about you. So initially I would break down the barrier of connections,

• 13:56Lewis Howes?

  even if we didn't know each other. The second thing I would might say, I noticed also that you're from New York City and I used to live in Union Square, actually. So I'm sure we've, you know, eaten at the same restaurants or something like that. So you talk about location. And the third thing could be hobbies, interest or education. So I might say, oh, I noticed that you, you write for the Washington Post. I wrote for them as well. Or I noticed that you went to Ohio State University, which I'm from, you know, whatever it may be. So you're breaking down three barriers of connection points in a very brief email where you don't ask for advice or for help at all, where you more ask them about their success. And

• 14:40Lewis Howes?

  I think people are turned off when you ask for help or advice, or can you look over my resume, or can you make an introduction or anything like that. But when you make it about them and their success, people are more inclined to respond. At least that's my experience.

• 14:52James Altucher?

  But then how would you bridge the gap to get like an actual meeting?

• 14:56Lewis Howes?

  Usually from there, I would just say, I'm really interested in hearing about your success with, you know, for the ESPN thing. I went, what I would did, I started a blog and I started it saying, I would like to feature you on my site for some of these successful people. So some of it would be, I'd want to feature them. Other people, it was just, I wanted to meet them and hear about their success. And for whatever reason, people would take meetings with me. I don't know if it was because I had the pro athlete card or whatever it was, but I did it in a way that, you know, didn't take up that a lot of their time. And I wasn't asking for anything. So I think I didn't turn people off that way. And the more I did this-

• 15:34James Altucher?

  And you were offering that. You were offering to feature them on something which is always good for people.

• 15:39Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. Offering and featuring. And the more I did this, the more I realized that, and I want to never ask people for advice or anything. I just want to ask them questions about their success. And people love to talk about their success. If I asked you, you know, how'd you make millions of dollars? Of course, you're going to like sharing about your success. And the more I did this, people would always ask me at the end. I would never ask for anything. And then at the end, they would always return with, you know, oh, you're like a great guy. I appreciate the time. Is there anything I can do for you? And I would never ask them to do anything for me. I would never say, yeah, you know, I'm looking for an introduction here or this and that. I would always put it back on them and say, no, I'm just really looking to connect and I just want to add value in any way.

• 16:22Lewis Howes?

  And I would always finish with, what's the biggest challenge you're having right now with your company? Or with this or with that? And people would really open up and say, well, my biggest challenge is, we're looking for like a web designer or a new person in sales or we're looking for, you know, whatever it may be, we're looking for someone to help us grow this or someone with e-commerce experience. And I'd be like, you know, I just met like one of the top web designers in the area last week, actually. Here's what he's done. Here's who he's worked for. I'd love to make the connection for you right now if you're interested. And he'd say, yeah. And what I would do is I'd get on the phone with that person right then. I'd call them and say, you gotta meet the president of this company. Here he is. I just want to put you guys in touch really quick. I'm going to follow up with an email and introduce you guys.

• 17:02Lewis Howes?

  And I think the more I actually took action as fast as possible to connect people when they had a challenge, that's when things started to flow.

• 17:10James Altucher?

  That's really interesting. So you were getting like, you were doing like permission networking.

• 17:14Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 17:14James Altucher?

  Um, by essentially getting permission on both sides. And then would, would you grab value in the middle? Like, would you essentially take a part of the fee if, if somebody did a website for somebody or a, or a service?

• 17:25Lewis Howes?

  I never did that in the beginning. For now, I do sometimes now with, uh, different things with like coaching and, uh, different introductions like that, but for a number of years I didn't. And really I don't, there's no need to now because it's got to come back one way or another in the future. Uh, I don't think I need to take the referral or the commission, but I, I can if I want to. But, um, yeah, I would never really ask for anything. I was just saying.

• 17:49James Altucher?

  So, so what's next? How do you, how do you, uh, translate that then into, uh, value?

• 17:56Lewis Howes?

  I think, once I started having, once I started creating products, I was able to get a lot of sales from my network. People were just buying because they wanted information from me. People would always ask me about LinkedIn, social media, online marketing, things like that. As my skills started to develop, they, all these connections were like, man, you're doing some great things online. I'd love to learn this stuff. Uh, so I started.

• 18:17James Altucher?

  Who, who, who would say that? Like, so obviously the head of ESPN or the head of the web design company wasn't saying that. Who would actually say that to you?

• 18:25Lewis Howes?

  Mostly small business owners, entrepreneurs, uh, freelancers, things like that.

• 18:30James Altucher?

  So, so these were people who you were connecting with in the same way as the ESPN people, but they were?

• 18:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, these were more people that I would be like, I'd host these, uh, kind of LinkedIn networking events all around the country. And this was more of that audience. This like, kind of the mainstream, small business owner audience that I was bringing together. I, I'd built up these huge groups in this large network on LinkedIn during this whole time as I was meeting people one-on-one. I was connecting with lots of people, thousands. I think I have almost 25,000 direct connections on LinkedIn plus a couple hundred thousand in different groups that I've built up. So I was like, It was hard for me to do one-on-one connections so much. There's only so many you can do. And so I started saying, well, why don't I just bring everyone together in these cities and let them meet each other and connect and grow their business. And so I did 20 of these around the country and

• 19:18Lewis Howes?

  uh, that was the audience that really needed my advice. They were like, can you help me? Can I, can you hire as a consultant for this online marketing or this LinkedIn or social media stuff? And I did a little bit of that early on to make some money, but I realized that wasn't scalable for me. And it wasn't something that I really enjoyed is like one-on-one, um, trading my time for money. And then I started creating these products, writing books about it, creating products. And that's when I started to realize the value and the importance of building a strong network.

• 19:49James Altucher?

  So let me ask you this, your, your first event that you did, so, so you're like a, a networking superhero. And what always got me into comic books when I was a kid was the secret origins of the superheroes. So what was like your first networking event? Like, were you nervous? How many people? What kind of people? Like, what happened?

• 20:08Lewis Howes?

  I was extremely nervous because I was 24 and I was hosting an event in St. Louis, Missouri. Cause I had built up kind of this group there on LinkedIn. So I, I hosted, I saw all the people were doing like tweet ups around this time. This is back in 2008, like end of 2008, everyone was doing like tweet ups or meetup.com was popular. So I was like, I could throw one of these events. These are like, the events that people are doing are pretty bad. I was like, I can do a better event. But I was young. I was 24. I didn't have a job and everyone that I brought in was like late twenties, late thirties, late forties. They all had careers, jobs, and I was a nobody. So I was really nervous. I was not sure if people were going to show up. I made the first one free and I hosted at like this bar and restaurant in St. Louis, Missouri.

• 20:53Lewis Howes?

  And I remember getting there an hour early. I put on like my nicest suit jacket and was like trying to look really good and like, like I knew what I was doing, got there early. And there was about 350 people that showed up and it was a huge hit. Everyone was super grateful. People were doing deals, people were connecting, everyone, you know, people were making introductions for each other. And I was getting emails left and right the following weeks from people saying, you've got, when's the next event? This was amazing. The people here were great. A lot of great prospects for me. When's the next event?

• 21:25James Altucher?

  And I bet you, I bet you when this was happening, you were, I bet you when this was happening, you were feeling so good about the value you were creating that you did not once, this is just my guess, you did not once think about money?

• 21:38Lewis Howes?

  Well, I was broke, so I thought a little bit about it, but I was more excited about, I was more excited about, uh, you know, the, the experience people were having and seeing results for them. It made me feel good knowing that I was helping them more. And I knew the money was gonna come. I just didn't know how to make it happen yet. So the first event, I sold like four tables of sponsorships or something for like 250 bucks each. So I made like a thousand bucks. I pretty much broke even. And I remember I was like, I wonder if people will show up if I charge $5. Because I made it free the first time. So I was like, I wonder if they'll show up if I charge $5. So I do it again the next time and I charge $5.

• 22:18Lewis Howes?

  Because there was like probably 10 or 20 people that were just kind of riffraff that weren't, were kind of like sleazy. And I was like, ah, these people are kind of lame. So I was like, I wonder if this will scare away these riffraff? And, you know, maybe we'll get 100 people. Hopefully it won't scare away everyone. And it ended up being more people. I think it was like 400 people, paid $5. It was more quality people. And there was like very few riffraff. And I sold sponsorships and I sold $5 a ticket to get in. So I had all this cash now this time. And people loved it even more. Now there was this buzz around it like, when's the next one? Like, let's make it bigger and better. And I'm gonna bring these people and invite these people. And they were promoting the group for me that I had built on LinkedIn. So I was building this huge network by just cultivating a great audience.

• 23:01James Altucher?

  You're almost building a mini LinkedIn within LinkedIn.

• 23:03Lewis Howes?

  I was building a mini LinkedIn within LinkedIn. I was building these different groups all around the country in various cities that I could help connect people and bring them together. And, uh, yeah, it was basically a mini LinkedIn and I was just cultivating it very well. I was sending them content. I was sending them articles, videos, helpful tips to help them grow their business. And then I was bringing them together.

• 23:25James Altucher?

  Well then, was it hard to kind of jump to the next city and start fresh with the meetups again?

• 23:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:32James Altucher?

  Or was it the same experience?

• 23:33Lewis Howes?

  After the first one, it was pretty much like I kind of had my own system down and I knew what to expect. It was just a matter of like figuring out logistics of location and restaurants and things like that. But it was, it's pretty much the same thing in every city.

• 23:46James Altucher?

  Okay, so what's, what's the most you made on an event, you know, during this period? Like you were getting bigger and bigger and you were charging more and more. So now you were making a living or somewhat of a living.

• 23:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:55James Altucher?

  Um, what, what, what were you making?

• 23:58Lewis Howes?

  I probably made, you know, around like $5,000 from events. It wasn't, you know, for me, it was a lot of money, but it started to become a lot of work. This was all cash and I was like 24, 25 at the time. Hadn't made, hadn't made any money before that and was living on my sister's couch. So finally I was like, okay, I'm making enough money to like give my sister some money, rent money. And, uh, so, but it was very, it started to become very like emotionally draining and energetically draining because I was, I wanted to shake every person's hand at every event and talk and listen. And you do that for four hours, you know, a couple of times a month. It gets exhausting and promoting it and planning it every time. I was just like, uh, after 20 of them, I was kind of, I wanted to move on. I couldn't really scale it any bigger. I didn't know how to do it.

• 24:43Lewis Howes?

  And I need to make some more money without having to work as hard. I started doing webinars. I had a book out because people were like, I need to know this LinkedIn information. I wrote a book. The book wasn't making me any money, obviously. I mean, it was making a little bit, but you know, I didn't make it that much of a LinkedIn book, but it gave me the credibility. And it wasn't until I did my first webinar, a guy named Joel Kamm, who wrote a book about AdSense, actually. He invited me to come on a webinar. He said, you know, this information you've been teaching about in your book is amazing and no one knows about LinkedIn. So I'd love for you to come on and talk about how people can grow their business using LinkedIn with your strategies on a webinar to my audience. So I get on there, talk for 45, 50 minutes and just give away tons of free content. It's all free.

• 25:26Lewis Howes?

  And at the end, I offer like a three day, kind of like live webinar bootcamp training about LinkedIn. I just give them more advanced strategies. And I'll never forget, this was the moment when I realized that I wasn't going to have to worry about money again. That I knew that I could turn my information, my advice, my expertise, my network into... An amazing lifestyle, an amazing living, if I add the right type of value. And this is when it all shifted was at the end of the webinar, we closed the webinar down. I offered the training, not sure what was gonna happen. And I remember I opened up my email and my entire inbox, I think the first 50 lines or whatever,

• 26:10Lewis Howes?

  everything said, "You've received pavement" and all the different lines. And I remember just being in shock about how fast money came in within 60 minutes of doing a free thing for people and giving them value. All these people bought my products, my live training, and I made $6,300 in basically 60 minutes. And I was screaming, running around the apartment, freaking out. I felt like I was rich, making that much money in an hour.

• 26:36James Altucher?

  That's great. So, so, so how many people showed up for like the webinar, for instance?

• 26:40Lewis Howes?

  I think there were around 500 people on that webinar.

• 26:44James Altucher?

  And they were like asking questions online, there were some software you're using?

• 26:47Lewis Howes?

  I gave a presentation, yeah, it was like go to webinar, I gave a presentation. At the end, they were asking questions, I was answering the questions. And then I did a horrible job presenting and I mean, I was giving a content, but like as a presenter, I was really bad, I was really nervous, stumbling, stuttering, everything. My slides were ugly, uh, but the content was still good. And I didn't sell really that well at the end. I was just kinda like, here's my thing, like, hope you guys enjoy this and see you later. You know, I was really timid and people still bought. And I remember thinking to myself, holy crap, I can do this every single day for the rest of my life. If I wanna make $6,000 in an hour, I was like, this is great, I'm gonna be rich. And I, I just remember saying, if I continue to give value and give away stuff for free, then the money's gonna come in.

• 27:31Lewis Howes?

  And, um, that's what happened over the last three, four years. I've probably done like 700 live webinars. And we've probably done well over 5 million in sales in the last two, two and a half years alone by giving free content on a free webinar. And then at the end, offering some type of advanced training course. If they wanted more, they could sign up for more. If they didn't, then they could leave with something for free and still take action on the free content.

• 27:58James Altucher?

  Okay, so, so what would you give, what kind of stuff would you give away for free?

• 28:03Lewis Howes?

  I would give away some of my best strategies. So if it's a LinkedIn presentation, we talk about a lot of different social media topics, online marketing topics, but say it's LinkedIn. I would teach people how to increase their ranking on LinkedIn so that if anytime someone typed in sports marketing, I could get them to the top of the search engine, let's say, in LinkedIn. And that way, they're going to be attracting more clients, more customers, more leads by being kind of number one, number two spot on the LinkedIn rankings. So any keyword you have, I would teach that live on a webinar. Let's say you're a web designer, or you're a realtor in Columbus, Ohio, or whatever it may be you want to be ranking number one, I would teach them that for free. And people would be blown away by the results they were getting. And people were getting $5,000, $10,000 customers from just this one thing that they would do.

• 28:48Lewis Howes?

  So I'd have a lot of success from just teaching this free stuff. I would also talk about how to optimize their profile, how to get more connections, how to do all these different things. In the advanced course, I would teach them even more, how to build up a huge group and build an email list and all these other stuff. So I'd really show the value.

• 29:04James Altucher?

  In the advanced stuff, it's almost like you were showing them what you did.

• 29:08Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 29:09James Altucher?

  So then what do they do with that? Like, once they have an advanced group, how do they then, or do they monetize it in the same way that you monetize it? Or like, how do you suggest that they monetize it?

• 29:19Lewis Howes?

  Most small business owners and entrepreneurs that are on these webinars want more leads, traffic, and sales. That's pretty much everyone wants. If they have a business or website, they want more traffic, they want to convert that traffic into leads, and they want to convert those leads into buyers, or customers, or clients. So with having a LinkedIn group, you're basically building a mini LinkedIn, a network of people that are your potential customers, your target audience, you're turning them into a group. And there, you're able to send a message out once a week to this group, to their actual email. And so it's like free email marketing from LinkedIn. And you can put links in there, videos, you know, you can send them to a sales page and opt-in, you can send them to a webinar, whatever you want to send them to, but you can get

• 30:01Lewis Howes?

  traffic, leads, and sales from building a free group, free marketing, and sending emails to that group.

• 30:08James Altucher?

  Wow, this is really interesting. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna build a LinkedIn group.

• 30:12Lewis Howes?

  You should. Everyone should.

• 30:14James Altucher?

  And so now, so like, this week or this month, how many LinkedIn webinars did you do?

• 30:20Lewis Howes?

  I I've kind of scaled back from doing it. I used to do, I probably did like 700 live in the last three, four years, but now I'm doing where I publish people to to give the presentations as opposed to me doing as many live. So we do about one a week now that's live and it's on a different topic every time. And sometimes we'll do automated webinars where we're just driving traffic to a webinar that we're just having on autopilot. So we don't have to show up anymore. So I've kind of learned how to maximize my time, leverage my time more. So I don't have to always show up.

• 30:52James Altucher?

  It seems like that's actually a theme. So at first you were sleeping, like you were sleeping on your sister's couch. Then you wanted to make money while you were sleeping. So you would invite people to these events. And so it's not like one on one, but you can make money in in all at once in four hours at having a an event in different cities and stuff. But you wanted to abstract away from that. So you started holding these webinars where you would then sell products out the back end. So again, you're making money, you're making, you're sleeping more and making more money. And then now, and and now you're you're you've abstracted away from the concept of of you holding the webinars, but you almost like a curate what you think are good webinars.

• 31:35James Altucher?

  And that has value because you're you've become an expert in the space. So it's it's that's kind of the path or the career arc that that you've been taking. And I imagine, you know, it's going to keep on evolving. You know, who knows what will happen next, but I imagine it'll be along the same type of arc. Do you have any have any plans for the future?

• 31:53Lewis Howes?

  Uh, you know, I'm just trying to do bigger and better things and leverage my time and energy more effectively so that I can become a better human being, do things that inspire myself than do, uh, and then in return inspire more people on a larger scale. So my my goal is to figure out how to scale everything in a larger audience. Um, and keep offering value, whatever that may be. And maybe LinkedIn is going to be done in six months or two years, who knows? So the goal is not what it's going to be, but how it's going to be.

• 32:23James Altucher?

  You teach people also like you have Facebook webinars, Twitter webinars?

• 32:26Lewis Howes?

  Everything, yeah. Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, YouTube, you know, pretty much email marketing, blogging, affiliate marketing, pretty much everything about online marketing. We bring in the top experts. We curate their content, we teach them how to give live webinars. A lot of times we'll, we publish their products for them and then we'll promote them for them. Uh, so it's kind of become like a little publishing house now.

• 32:50James Altucher?

  So when you say we, how many people do you have working with you?

• 32:52Lewis Howes?

  Uh, I've got a business partner for that specific company and then we've got a few employees. My, my mom works for us full-time and then

• 33:00James Altucher?

  That's great.

• 33:01Lewis Howes?

  A couple of customer support and then uh, probably hiring on a, we've got like a, a web team as well that we outsource to, so it's pretty

• 33:07James Altucher?

  So what, for your company, what was your, what were your revenues for the past year?

• 33:12Lewis Howes?

  The past year went down a little bit, it was probably right around uh, just over two million in sales.

• 33:18James Altucher?

  Wow, that's great.

• 33:20Lewis Howes?

  And the year and a half was about two and a half million. I had kind of taken a step back for about a year and really, I, I kind of started doing some different things in my business, in my life. I was focusing on playing in the Olympics and trying to do all that, so I was pursuing other things. Step back, but fortunately enough, we had built up enough of a system in place that we pretty much did just almost as much in sales last year as we did the previous year when I was working, you know, ten, fifteen hours a day, so it's uh, it's nice.

• 33:51James Altucher?

  That's incredible, so what would you say is, this is very inspirational how you built this up and, and, and use LinkedIn and other things to build this, this, you've chosen yourself basically, uh, to, to steal the title of my book, you've chosen yourself to, to uh, uh, make this new career that didn't even exist ten years ago.

• 34:11Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, yeah, I created something, I mean, I've, I learned how to leverage everything to like make money from it. And it started with those events, it started by, okay, I'm gonna sell a sponsorship and make a couple hundred bucks and then I'm gonna sell tickets. And then I was like, what about the food and bar sales? All these people are buying food and drinks, so I started negotiating with them and saying, hey, can I get a fifteen percent cut on all the food and bar sales? And if they spend more than five thousand, can I get a twenty percent cut? So I started making money that way. I started selling my books at the events, I started getting consulting from people, I started doing spa, uh, everything. I was like, how can I leverage the value I'm bringing to monetize it? And that's what I've done in my life now and uh, the couple of companies I have, which is leveraging everything to monetize it.

• 34:55James Altucher?

  So, so let me ask you a question, like, have you thought about uh, making an agency where you start doing this for, for big brands?

• 35:06Lewis Howes?

  It's crossed my mind, but I feel like that's be a lot more work and it's not something I want to do. I think I don't want to do a lot of time consuming tasks.

• 35:16James Altucher?

  The reason I bring it up is like, once you have an agency where you have people paying you on a monthly basis, a big amount, you could sell that ultimately for millions of dollars to other agencies.

• 35:26Lewis Howes?

  Sure. Yeah. I just feel like it'd be a lot of work. I look at like Gary Vaynerchuk and how much work he's put in the last couple of years to build his agency and he's built something amazing. Couple hundred employees now and however much he's doing in revenue. But I was thinking about how much energy and time that he's been spending on the road to sell and speak just to get clients in and, and I, you know, he's been hustling, but it's not something that's what I, I'm, I'm living a good lifestyle right now and I'm still growing financially and I'm pursuing other things in my life, handball, Olympics, my health, that I feel like are more important, kind of like what you talk about, the balance of living the dream in your book, that being on the road every day,

• 36:08Lewis Howes?

  speaking and being on the conference calls all day and consulting is not a priority to me because I want to live a great life, a balanced life and pursue the things that are interesting to me as well.

• 36:19James Altucher?

  Well, Lewis, this is fantastic. And I mean, on our earlier podcast, I mentioned to you that I feel like every day is an adventure just from even the people I meet and the things I get to do. And having this podcast is very inspirational. It's really great to hear the story of what you've done. So congratulations and thank you for letting me take over your, your podcast for the half hour. I'm glad I had a chance to do it and, um, you know, good luck.

• 36:46Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it. Thanks, James.

• 36:48James Altucher?

  Thanks, Lewis.

• 37:00Lewis Howes?

  And there you have it, guys. I hope you enjoyed part of my story that I continue to share a little bit over these episodes and over these podcasts. If you enjoyed this, please leave us a review over on iTunes. Leave us an honest review and feedback and also. So you gotta have all the show notes over at School of Greatness.com. Make sure to go check out the new site design as well. Let me know what you think. Put a lot of time and energy into making this more efficient for you guys and more effective looking and useful and helpful resources. So check it out, School of Greatness.com. Again, keep posting pictures wherever you are in the world, listening to the show, and I'll give you a shout out one of these times, I hope, if you post a sweet picture. With that, guys, I hope you have an amazing week.

• 37:45Lewis Howes?

  And until next time, make sure to do something great. Something great.

• 38:01Lewis Howes?

  Oh, I'm not the only one. Running in your eyes.

• 38:18Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 38:41James Altucher?

  I saw what. Ah. Ah. Ah.

• 38:54James Altucher?

  I saw what.