Transcript of Episode 557: Kevin Trudeau: The Infamous Infomercial King On Prison, Media Empire & The “Price of Natural Cures" New

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

Okay, you guys, I don't know if you're gonna remember this, this, but this is, uh, an oldie but goodie and part of a staple, I think, in my childhood really. Right? Because I have Kevin Trudeau and he wrote, I think, one of the biggest books of all time. It was called The Natural Cures, right? How many books did you sell?

Only, it's called Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About.

Yes.

And sold over 50 million copies.

50 million copies. And when I was told that, you know, about Kevin being in LA and everything else, I was like super excited because I, I was saying to you before we started this, I remember your book like on my bookshelf when I was a kid. Like my mother had it, like it was part of like my household, you know, for many, many years. I'm sure you hear that though all the time.

I do. It was the number one bestselling book that Walmart ever had at the time. It was number one on the New York Times bestselling list 26 weeks in a row. And it was a book that exposed— it was first book, and I was the first person to not expose that there are natural ways to be healthy, but I exposed why the drug companies and the US government, the FDA, and the media all work together as a, you know, kind of a collusion to hide the non-drug and non-surgical ways to cure and prevent disease so that the drug companies continue to make huge profits. That's what I exposed. And that's when the crap hit the fan, right? Because everyone in the government and the drug companies and the media went crazy and said, this guy is blowing, you know, blowing the— he's, he's, you know, pulling back the curtain on the Great Oz and exposing stuff that nobody would even dare to.

I— well, so I didn't know any of that back at the time. I don't think anybody did, right? Because of course you had all these legal issues that we're going to talk about in a little minute, in a little second here. But I just wanted to say on the fact that that book, like you, like you were like the king of infomercials. Like I, I think every time I put the TV on, you would be having an infomercial. So how, so how did it even, were you surprised of the traction that it got really quickly? Or was it like all very strat— like strategic before? Like how, what was the process? How did that book become such a massive book where then the government actually did what, what, you know, you got such, you got in trouble afterwards?

Well, you know, I, my company's since I was, actually 15 years old when I started my first company, generated almost $25 billion in sales around the world. And people always ask me, you didn't go to college, your dad was a welder, you didn't have any connections, you didn't have any financing. How did you start businesses from scratch without any financing, operate out of cash flow and generate these global networks? I launched 3 TV networks in Europe, the Golf Channel, a shopping channel called Shop America, and an entertainment channel. Had mining operations in Australia. Publishing. I published my own books where I actually inventoried and, you know, had tens of millions of dollars in inventory, cash outta my own pocket. How did you come up with this money in, in these businesses? And there wasn't a strategic plan. It was basically going as far as I could see. And when I got there, I, I could see further. So it was really going one step at a time and using kind of a, a formula. If you, if you, if you were to say, or an algorithm on how to man— manifest is the great, is the hot word today, how to manifest your desires.

What we call that is how to set a goal set a goal and achieve it.

Yeah.

You know, it was, it was different, right? Now it's, now it's how to manifest. Well, back then, setting a goal and achieving it mean you had to work.

Yes.

People use the word manifest. They think they don't work.

I don't use that word ever, to be honest with you.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's really, and, but it's the word today that everybody likes, but it's a very, it's a trendy word. It is a trendy word. It is. But at the end of the day, there is certain things that you have to do if you want to make something happen in your life and create something. But for me, it was all one step at a time. My first infomercial was Mega Memory. And, and here's a perfect example. I was in the memory training business, but I got into the memory training business by accident. I was in the automobile business and a guy came in selling memory courses and I thought, oh, I, I have a terrible memory. I can't remember my own name. I can't remember my own address. I get lost going home. It's like I can't remember how to get home. I'll take the, the memory course. So I took it, improved my memory, and I thought, this is unbelievable. This really, really works. Then the guy said, you should work for me. And I said, I will. I went to Chicago, worked for him to sell memory courses, and then bought him out a few months later with the other top salesman.

Now I'm in the memory training business by accident. It wasn't preplanned, but because I was so passionate about how the memory course positively impacted me and all the people that were taking it, I was fanatical about it. It was like, people need to get this. I wasn't trying to make money. I was trying to help people improve their memory. And in doing so, I generated hundreds of millions of dollars in sales. In the memory business, but I was traveling around the world teaching memory seminars, doing lectures, and I thought, you know something, I want to travel the world and not have to work. So what I really want is I wanna magically figure out a way to get like $100,000 a week being deposited into my bank account without me working for it. And I wrote it down with blue ink on a white piece of paper. I used my little formula that I was taught 70 times for 7 days in a row, threw, threw it away and just released attachment to the outcome. About 2 weeks later, I'm at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, and I go to have lunch at the Carnegie Deli, and I'm having a Danny Rose, half corned beef, half pastrami.

So I'm sitting there on rye with mustard, and right over here, sitting on the same table, I'm looking at this guy and I'm thinking, boy, he looks familiar. And I said, hey, are you Bobby Singer, the blackjack expert? He goes, yeah. I goes, I seen your TV infomercials. I bought your cassette course on how to, you know, Win Money at Blackjack. I loved it. It was really easy for me because I'm a memory expert. He goes, a what? I go, I'm a memory expert, so I can remember all the playing cards. So using your system was really easy. And I went to the casino and I'm like doing really well. I loved it. It was fantastic. And he goes, tell me about the memory course. So I told him and he said, you should put that on cassettes and sell it on TV infomercials. I go, no, no, no, that won't work. People won't buy it on TV. It has to be a live seminar. And he goes, No, I'll put up all the money and I'll pay your royalty. So we exchange business cards. I'm not thinking anything about this. I go back to the Plaza Hotel, I call up my answering machine.

Remember the old days? You had answering machines. I have to call the answering machine, dial in the code, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. And it says, hey, Kevin, this is Dr. DeWarty. I'm in Lake Tahoe with your old friend Ed Beckley, the millionaire maker, the real estate expert. I told him you were doing this memory thing, and Ed says you should put it on a cassette course and sell it on TV infomercials, and he'll put up all the money and pay your royalty. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. In the same day I get two offers completely off my radar screen. So I call up Ed and I said, Ed, I just met this guy Bobby Singer. He goes, I know Bobby really well. I go, should I go with him or you? He goes, go with me.

I go, why? Why?

He goes, because I want to make the money. You can't go wrong with Bobby. He says, but I want you to go with me. I says, I'll tell you what, whoever sends me the contract first will get the deal. Two days later, Federal Express. That's when it was called Federal Express, not FedEx.

Yeah.

Federal Express came to my house. Now, this is when if the Federal Express guy comes up, you are like a somebody because nobody uses Federal Express. It was like a big thing to get a Federal Express package. So I get this Federal Express package, I open it up, it's this contract from Ed Beckley. I read it over, sign it, send it back. About 3 or 4 days later in the regular mail, I get the contract from Bobby Singer. So I call up Bobby and go, hey Bobby, you missed out. You should have used Federal Express. I just signed with Ed Beckley. And he goes, I wanted to save $25. He goes, and it probably cost me tens of millions of dollars. And later he told me it cost him probably $80 million to, because he saved $25. So I signed with Ed Beckley. We shot the infomercial. A few weeks later it's running. I says, how's it doing? He goes, Kevin, it's breaking every record on TV infomercials. It's doing unbelievable. It's doing like a 5 ratio. Today in marketing they call it ROAS, return on ad spend. Back then we called it ratio. And I said, fantastic, when am I gonna get my first royalty check?

He goes, next Friday. And then every Friday you'll get a royalty check and we'll FedEx it to you. Federal Express it to you because they didn't do wire transfers, right? So on Friday I get my check, I open it up, $276,000, my first royalty check. Every single week I would get a check for over $100,000. We did $180 million in sales in the next 18 months. What I asked for came true. I was getting a check every single week without me working for it. It manifested— there's the word, right? It manifested out of the air. But again, it wasn't the strategic plan. So then I thought, fine, I think I'm a pretty good person. If I find something that I'm passionate about, well, then I did the same thing. I read this speed reading course by Howard Berg, the world's fastest reader. And I thought, oh my God, I'm the slowest reader on the planet, and now I'm actually reading like super fast and remembering everything I read. People need this. So I called Ed Beckley and said, we need to do an infomercial with Howard Berg. Ed says, nah, we're moving on to bigger and better things.

So I said, fine, I'm going to do my own. So I shot my first infomercial for the Mega Speed Reading course, and it sold $80 million worth. Then I did Mega Math with, with Scott Flansburg, the Human Calculator, because I went through it because I couldn't add to two numbers together, you know, I needed to like— this is before calculators. So everything that I found—

before calculators— calculators were like around.

Yeah, but nobody used them and they were this big. Oh, okay. The Texas Instrument was like, you know, and it added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided. Didn't do anything. Right. So what I did was I would find something that I used that I got so fired up about and said, I love this. People need it too. So I was never really focused on making money. I was really focusing on positively impacting people's lives. I didn't have a master plan. It was just one step at a time and one thing always just led to the next. And then another door opened and another door opened and another door opened and it just kind of exploded.

So wait a minute, so I got a million questions. So first of all, what, what was the formula for even that at that time with the infomercial? Did you learn how to, like, what did Ed and you do for that first infomercial? What was the, Well, was there like kind of like a, like a—

We have to go back to the '70s because back in the '70s I learned about direct mail and that's when I learned how to write ad copy that would actually sell.

Right. So who was writing the first ad? Were you writing the ad copy or somebody else?

We didn't write any. Here's what happened.

Okay.

So back in the '70s I read the book Seven Steps to Freedom: How to Escape the American Rat Race by Ben Schwartz and also The Lazy Man's Way to Fortune by Joe Carbo. And I met Frank Zarkona, who was a great copywriter, and Ted Nichols and Gary Craig and all these great guys.

Yeah.

And I would read this and I'm like, I'm thinking, okay, so I'm learning how to write ad copy. But when we fast forward to memory, one of the things I did which was different was I understood a concept that you can't be a me too and also ram. You can't follow the trend, you have to create the trend. So if you remember in business, there's two axioms in business, right? So Business 101 is find a need and fill it. So if there's something out there that people need that no one's offering, Fill that need and you can get rich. The second one, which is actually the best one, is even better than the first one, is build a better mousetrap. So if somebody's doing something, figure out how to do it better because there's already a need. People are already buying it. There are— there's already an awareness to it. And then do something better. So when I looked at TV infomercials, it was a formula that they used. They used testimonials, they used a live studio audience, they wrote a script. Everybody was reading a teleprompter. They did shoot after shoot after shoot like they were making a movie.

And then they had this offer where they showed the product and they had to create value. So they had to make the product look like, you get 9 cassette tapes and this and that and this. And if you order before midnight tonight, we'll throw in a set of steak knives. And so they had this formula, right? And then it says, and forget the price, we're gonna cross it off and give you a discount. So it was this hard sell and it worked. But I understood that if you want to really stand out, you break the trend. And I said, look, I don't need to sell this hard. This is something I'm passionate about. And quite frankly, if a person buys the memory course, that's good for them. And if they don't, they're the loser, not me. So I really don't care. I care, but not that much. So when I did it, I did not have any testimonials. I didn't have a live studio audience. I didn't even show the product, and I didn't even mention the price. And there was no script. It was one take, live, live to tape. I taped it in 28 minutes and 30 seconds because that's how long it was for the TV infomercial.

With no script. And the person who interviewed me, I never met. So it was just like I was going on Larry King Live or going on this interview where we never met before and you're asking me questions. And so the person sat there and goes, I'm with Kevin Trudeau, the founder of the American Memory Institute. Exactly what is that? And I says, well, what we are is we're the largest memory— so no script. I'm talking from the heart. I wasn't trying to sell it. And it broke all the sales records. So everything I did after that, I was the only infomercial guy in history and still to this day that never used a script and only did one take. One take. It's live to tape. There's no editing, there's no scripts, there's no rehearsals, there's no testimonials, there's no studio audience. I don't show the product, generally speaking. I mean, I show the book on this now, but generally we don't, we don't lower the price. There's no big sale if you buy now or anything like that. It's very, very simple. So it's coming from the heart. I really believe in what I'm promoting because I used it and I really want people to benefit from it.

So all that money, what happened to it?

Well, I expanded the business and I gave most of it away. One of the things that's documented even in the book Natural Cures, which sold, you know, 50 million copies, it says right there, all the, all the profits from this are going to charity. 'Cause I didn't write that book to make money or to get rich, which is nothing wrong with.

You gave all that money to charity.

Yeah. It's right there in the first, uh, in the first, in the first. But just 'cause it says it doesn't mean it's true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, but it all, it all went away. So it was all given away because it went to staff, it went to charities, it went to better the community. I made enough. So it was about publishing.

Even that book alone, Natural Cures, that was self-published.

Yes. Because what happened was I went to all the publishers, so I got this book, Natural Cures. They said it's too thick, 600 pages. No one's gonna read it. Number 2, you bashing the drug companies and you're bashing the FDA and the US government and you're bashing the media. We don't wanna be involved.

Oh, so they said that?

Yeah. And number 3, you're not a doctor. You don't— why is anyone gonna buy the book when it's not written by a doctor? I go, look, a medical doctor gets 20 hours of nutrition training, is an entire career. How can he write a book on natural remedies? All he's trained how to do is prescribe drugs and perform surgery. And thank God we have those people, but they don't know anything about natural remedies. So I said, fine, I'll publish the book myself. So I started the publishing company. Alliance Publishing. Now we're True Star Publishing. I started my own publishing company, printed the books in hardcover, put a million copies on the floor, paid for it upfront.

You did?

Yeah.

How, wait, so, so 50, if you sell 50 million books on your own.

Yeah.

How much did you make off that one book?

Well, it depends because remember when we're buying media, you know, sometimes we're spending a million dollars a week in media. Right. Yeah. We might bring in 3 million in sales. So a million dollars of, you know, a third, a third of it.

That's what I was gonna say. So with all the costs, yeah, minus the costs, how much did you make off that one book?

Well, I don't recall specifically, but I think it's safe to say that you'll net, net, net about 30, maybe 40% of the bottom line.

Wow. Okay. So that book sells for, I have to do the math.

It was $30.

$30. Oh my God.

So it was a lot of money.

A lot of money.

A lot of money. But it wasn't the most profitable thing I ever did. I mean, I had TV networks and, you know, other, other enterprises. Yeah.

Because that's what I would assume that's what everyone knows you for. Yeah.

Well, back before that one, everyone knew me as the memory guy. I know. That's true. Right. 'Cause everybody, 'cause I was like, you're the memory guy, you're the memory guy. And all of a sudden you're the Natural Cures guy. You're the Natural Cures guy. Yes. Yes. You know, then it was like, you're the coral calcium guy. You're the coral calcium guy. You're the Weight Loss Cure guy. You're the Weight Loss Cure guy. So it depends on—

I remember that too. Yeah. But wasn't Weight Loss Cures part of the Natural? No, was that a different book?

No, there was first Natural Cures.

I had that book too.

Then there was More Natural Cures Revealed.

Yes, I got that too.

Yeah. And then there was The Weight Loss Cure They Don't Want You to Know About, which talked about Dr. Simeon's, uh, weight loss cure process.

Hold on. I have all 3 of those books back when, That's why it was so familiar. Yeah. It wasn't just that one book.

That's right.

It was all three. So how many books did the second and third sell?

Uh, at least 10 million each.

Okay. So it was no slouch either.

No, no. But I don't know if it was 50 million. No, the Natural Cures was the big one.

What was the big thing in the Natural Cures that kind of got the biggest, you know, I guess spark, like people like, the number one thing that blew everybody away.

And I got calls from Walmart and, and, and McDonald's because it had such an impact on their business. And when I was on with Matt Lauer on the Today Show on NBC, you know, he said it as well. The biggest thing in that book was when I made the statement that drug companies are publicly traded corporations, which means all the officers and directors have a legal fiduciary responsibility to do one thing: increase shareholder value, not to get people healthy.

Right.

A drug company's goal is not to get you healthy. It's to increase shareholder value, which means Their goal is to sell more drugs. So a drug company has a conflict of interest. Their goal is to get you to be convinced to take more drugs every single day for the rest of your life so they can increase their profits. They do not want you to be healthy because healthy people don't take drugs. I'm the worst nightmare for a drug company because I don't take pharmaceutical drugs. I don't take prescription or even non-prescription medication. I don't. So if everybody was as healthy like me, all the drug companies would be bankrupt. And when I exposed that there is a conflict of interest, a legal conflict of interest, because they have a fiduciary responsibility as an officer director of those companies being publicly traded, that's when people, their eyes opened. They were like, well, yeah, all the drug company wants to do is get me to take a drug. They don't want to cure me of disease. They don't want to be healthy. They want to treat it. The symptom so that you take the drug every single day for the rest of your life.

Oh, you have high blood pressure? Perfect. You're a great customer. Take this every single day for the rest of your life. Oh, you have high cholesterol? Oh, beautiful. That's why the cholesterol number keeps going down. Used to be 275. Then the doctor would tell you you need a statin. Then it was 250, then it was 225. Now it's 200. Because every time they lower it, they get more customers.

Wow.

I mean, and this is the US government working in collusion with them. Because if you go to Europe, it's not 200, it's 2-something. I think it's 250.

Is it?

Yeah, before, because it used to be that here in America. So they keep changing the number so that the doctors are required effectively by law to prescribe more medication.

So I guess you're one of the first people, 'cause that's very much spoken about a lot now, right? You have a whole, the whole conspiracy theory. All the people talk about that. Not all, but a lot of people talk about the government and how it's all the pharmas. That's why peptides are— they're trying to like, they're trying to do the legalize— not legalize, they're trying to ban peptides and of course all the compound pharmacies. This is like a very known thing now. Now, but at the time you were a real kind of cowboy, I guess.

That was the thing. I got calls from like Deepak Chopra, who's a great guy, and he goes, what are you doing? You're going to get violently attacked. The media is going to try to discredit you and ruin you. The government's going to sue you. They're going to try to put you in prison. They'll do anything they can. The IRS is going to magically knock on your door and do, and do, you know, audits because they're going to try to shut you up. And they could even try to take you out. I got calls from the Health Ranger and all these other experts who were natural cures people, but they didn't bash the US government or the drug companies or the media. That was an area where they were really nervous about, but I wasn't. I said, you know, someone has to stand up and I'm willing to take the heat. And I did.

Okay.

Got lots of heat.

I know. I wanna hear about, that's like a big area that I'm curious about. But before I even talk about that, you aren't a doctor. It was very new in the, like, it was, it was very early on. How did you even know to write a book that's super thick on natural cures? Where were you getting this information from?

Yeah. I tell the book, I, in the natural cures book, I tell the story right in the first chapter.

I don't remember.

I should, I should be 40 years ago. It says I should be dead by now because I was born with a deformed heart. And I thought in 1982 or '83 I was having a heart attack. I was checked out by a cardiologist, a real doctor.

Yeah.

You know, with heart monitors. I went to the Mayo Clinic. I went to the Cleveland Clinic and Mass General because I wanted all these, you know, real doctors to tell me. And they said, you have a deformed heart. It's incurable. You know, we can't give you drugs or surgery. You probably have only a few years to live. It's very severe. And there's nothing we can do about it. Well, I heard about a Harvard medical doctor who during the Korean War was a M*A*S*H surgeon. So he knew what he was doing. He was a real doctor and a surgeon, but he gave up drugs and surgery to practice some weird thing called homeopathy, which I never heard at the time. No one heard of that. And he was using a machine from Germany called the Dermatron by Dr. Voll, using electromagnetic stuff to find out what's wrong with you using the meridians or something, right? I didn't know anything about this. So I flew to Reno, Nevada, had him check me out. Me out. And in virtually a couple minutes, he says, you have a heart problem. I says, how did you diagnose, diagnose, you know, make this diagnosis in a couple minutes when it took the Mayo Clinic like 3 days?

He goes, that's a business. He goes, here, I'm just finding out what's wrong, and I'm telling you, you have a heart problem. It's in the mitral valve, and you know, you will have only a couple years to live, probably. I said, yeah, I heard it's incurable. He says, yeah, in America. I said, "Timeout. Say again?" He goes, "Well, in America it's incurable, but you can go to Switzerland. You can get an injection in your hip of live cells, which will go to the heart and rebuild it." That was the precursor to stem cells. It was live cell therapy where they would took the placenta of a sheep embryo and then they would take the heart cells or the brain cells or the lung cells and inject it in your hip and it would go and travel to that particular organ and start the rebuilding process. He said, "Or you can go to Mexico City and Dr. Watts will do it there." I said, I said, will it work? He goes, well, yeah. How come it's not in America? He goes, 'Cause it cannot be patented. So they're working on patenting something called stem cells, but you can't patent live cells.

So I went, got the treatment, 90 days later went back to the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Mass General, and they all said the same thing. You don't have a heart problem. We must have misdiagnosed you the first time. I said, timeout, show me the ultrasound side by side. I go, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a radiologist, but I have eyes. It's, it's, it's deformed over on the left and it's not over on the right. You didn't misdiagnose me. How come you can't admit that the treatment I got cured it? They said, because I don't wanna lose my license. That's what. And I thought, if the, if the medical community is hiding the truth about this treatment, what else are they hiding the truth about when it comes to natural ways to cure and prevent disease? So for the next 20, 30 years, just for my own self, I thought, I'm going to research. This is before the internet. I'm going to travel around the world and interview thousands of medical practitioners who are treating people and getting them cured without drugs and surgery for various amount of illnesses and find out what's working from real people in the field like a journalist would do.

I'm not a medical doctor. So I did that and I used a lot of things and I tested it. And a lot of it was, you know, snake oil and hocus pocus. And some of it, you know, was more antidotal and real and And some of it was real.

But the book is so thick. How did you get so many things in there?

Well, remember, I'm a memory expert, so I remembered everything. And I actually wrote the book, like all my books, I write every single word. There's no editing. I wrote it.

Wow.

I sit down and I write the book first draft. And somebody says, that's impossible. I go, no, Mozart wrote his symphonies in one draft.

So you're very unique.

Yes.

Yes. So you are. I mean, so— So, because ever since you, I mean, there's been a lot of people who've been on infomercials and doing all this. Has anyone had the success that you've had ever? No. Like, how about like the one, what's that guy's name with that gazelle?

Oh, that was Tony Little. He's a good friend of mine. Yeah. Tony, Tony Little did a great job. And actually the biggest infomercial company in the world was Guthrie Renker. Guthrie Renker.

Of course. I know them.

Yeah. Bill, Bill Guthrie, Greg Renker. Great, great people.

But did they ever sell as much as you?

Yeah. Their company did really, really well. But they had multiple people. They had Tony Robbins as one of their people. They had Victoria Principal, they had the Proactiv. Proactiv, yeah. Proactiv.

Right, Proactiv is huge.

Yeah, Guthrie-Renker, it's the Proactiv, it's the house that Proactiv built.

Yeah, exactly.

Guthrie-Renker, because that was their main thing.

How much did they sell?

Oh, billions. And they sold that for billions. And they, you know, as soon as they sold the company, each one of 'em got their own private Gulfstream.

Oh, did they really? Yeah, yeah. That Proactiv was crazy.

Yeah.

That did crazy numbers.

They did crazy numbers. And they, and they're great people and they're, they're one of the, the white hats. In the industry, in that industry, there were a lot of black hats, guys who are selling stuff that they, you know, here's an example. There's one guy's got a product and what's his name?

I want to—

I can't tell you the name. He's got this product and he says, oh yeah, we're going to sell this product. And I go, do you take this? He goes, this product ain't for taking, it's for selling. And that's a black hat. He goes, I'm just going to make a lot of money. And then is it a real, like, a product that people actually, like, take? Yeah, yeah, people.

Yeah.

So he would— they would sell garbage. Knowing that it's garbage.

But what would it be, a supplement, or what was it?

There are people in the supplement business, people in the information business, and so forth, but that's a small percentage. Most of the people out there marketing are selling something that they really believe is good. But I think today, especially specifically with the internet, there are more and more and more— I saw an ad campaign that's running right now, and it's 100% fake. They got Tom Cruise They got Meryl Streep, they got Morgan Freeman saying that they take the product and they recommend this guy and it's all AI-generated.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, it's, it's not them. It's 100% fraud. And the guys behind it don't live in America. They're offshore in a non— in a jurisdiction where they can't be extradited. And they're selling this supplement, which is a good supplement, but they're selling a supplement and the advertising is 100% fraudulent. 100%. Because I called these people and I said, is this you? No, it's AI-generated. It is not me. I do not use it. I don't recommend it. I don't know anything about it. And it's fraud. So there's a lot of that more and more.

And there's nothing they can do about it.

Well, the FTC should be doing something, but the problem is these people are offshore. So in terms of jurisdictional issues, it becomes, okay, we have limited resources. Who are we going to go after? We have to go after the low-hanging fruit. We have to go after people that we can actually get and collect money or, you know, why didn't you move to like the Bahamas or something? I don't like the humidity.

Okay, well, where else could you have moved where you could have been like protected?

No, I didn't care about being protected. It was more about doing the right thing.

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What else did you get? Like larceny?

Yeah, no tax evasion.

Uh, was it—

yeah, no tax.

What was it?

No tax evasion.

You know better than I do, right?

First off, I wasn't in jail, I was in prison. There's a difference.

Oh, sorry.

Jail is— no, that's for— that's for the guys who, you know, stick up, you know, stick up men at a liquor store. They go to jail. I went to prison.

Federal.

Federal prison, thank you very much. Very proud of that. Sorry. About that. I was with Jesse Jackson Jr., I was with Jeff Skilling, I was with, uh, several other billionaires in the area. Oh, a lot of very, very, very—

tell me, it's public knowledge—

very prominent celebrities. No, but my, my thing is too, you know, back in the '90s I bounced a couple checks. They called that larceny. That was, that was an error. Secondly, I applied for a credit card and didn't put accurate information on the credit card application. They call that credit card fraud. But But that was nothing. That was when I was 21 years old. Oh, okay. There's an old saying: every saint has a past and every sinner a future. So, so, okay, so when I was 21, I bounced some checks, made a mistake. Okay, I gotcha. I could have been smoking dope or, you know, did something, and people would have said, no problem, you know, he's 21 years old. All right, so that was nothing. But the 10 years that I spent in federal prison, I'm very proud of because I was not charged with a crime. I was charged with contempt of court. The judge ordered me to stop talking about the Natural Cures book. He said, stop reading from the book on TV. And I said, no. He said, you can't talk about the Weight Loss Cure book. You cannot read from the book.

And I said, it's a First Amendment issue. He says, I'm gonna hold you in contempt of court. Please do. And he did. Now, what people don't know is when you're charged with contempt of court— a judge charged me. People didn't sue me. My customers love me. The government didn't even sue me. The judge charged me with contempt of court for violating his order. The judge can put you in prison for up to life in prison. No one knows that. It's in the Constitution. And when I was arraigned, it's in the public record. He says, Mr. Trudeau, you do realize that I can sentence you up to life in prison. And I go, yes, I've read the Constitution and I do realize that because I'm not saying I will give you life in prison, but I'm telling you that I could give you up to life in prison. I say, I know that. And he goes, so with that in mind, if you plead guilty, I'll give you less than 6 months. I said, I didn't do anything wrong. I'm not going to plead guilty to something I didn't do. I didn't willfully disobey your order.

I exercised my First Amendment constitutional rights. He goes, well, I'm going to find you guilty, 10 years. That's how it works. And people don't understand that. So I was charged with contempt of court. I was given the longest sentence in the history of America for contempt of court, which is not a felony and it's not even a misdemeanor. And I was imprisoned for 8 and a half of those years.

Sorry.

Yeah, 8 and a half of the 10. I got off on good behavior.

Good for you.

I was a model inmate. Thank you very much. Never got any incident reports. I never, never got any disciplinary actions. I was loved. I'll tell you a funny story about prison. So I'm in prison and I'm walking down the compound and the warden is coming this way and the warden sees me and he goes, "Hey, Trudeau, you know, I've been in the Bureau of Prisons for 35 years. I've seen tens of thousands of inmates and I've never seen one who's actually happy to be here." He goes, "Except you." I go, "Well, look, I'm here. I can't change that. I can either be miserable, bitter, upset, angry, or I can be happy." But I'm still going to be here. I might as well be happy. I might as well take advantage of this time. I can do yoga. I can learn a foreign language. I can play bridge. I can exercise. I can meditate. I can relax. I can read great books and great literature. What's wrong with this? I am going to get out and I'll be better off, fully relaxed, fully rested. And I'm going to write a tremendous amount. So I wrote this amazing multi— 2,000-page course called The Science of Personal Mastery Course while I was there, because I had all the time in the world to do it.

Which I never would have had if I didn't do it before. And the book Your Wish Is Your Command. So I took full advantage of the opportunity is the point.

Wow. Can I tell you something? I'm so happy to have you here. I was not expecting this. You are like, you are a very effervescent character.

Well, I appreciate that.

No, it's amazing. He's got a very, it's unbelievable. Uh, so you're here. So basically you're in jail, prison.

Prison.

Prison.

Federal prison. Yes.

Do you get your own room?

Well, again, the universe works in unique ways. Remember this, the universe or God, the universe doesn't do things to us. It does things for us. So if we don't resist, you know, we always say it's a blessing in disguise. You've heard that phrase, or we've heard the phrase someday we'll look back on this and laugh. Okay, well, and guess what? We always do. We always look back and laugh. Well, if that's true, why wait? Laugh now. So in the middle of a disaster, you know it's a blessing in disguise. So look for it and find it. John D. Rockefeller said, in every adversity is the seed of a greater benefit. All you have to do is find it.

So what was a blessing in disguise? You don't— you didn't you see it as you lost? Yes, I know what you're going to say. It's all about perception. But you lost like 8 and a half years of Oh, I didn't lose 8.5 years at all.

I gained 8.5 years to—

Great perspective.

To do exercise and yoga and meditate and read and write. I would have never had the time and the ability to focus and concentrate and relax on all those projects that I've been dying to do unless I was given the luxury of 8.5 years where I didn't have a single worry in the world.

What was the schedule like? What did you do in the morning?

Well, you wake up, but they put the lights on at 5:30. We're in a dormitory, so there's no cells or anything, you know.

You're in a dormitory?

You're in a dormitory. Yeah, it's just like college dormitory. So you're in a college dorm, like a big room. Yeah, it's called— this is a federal prison camp. There were 3 buildings. There's 3 dormitories.

Where is it?

2 floors. Montgomery, Alabama, on the Air Force Base. So you wake up at 6 o'clock, you can go down and have breakfast, or you can make breakfast in your cube. You get a— you get a cube and you have a bunk bed. So you have a roommate, unless you don't want one, and unless you talk to the counselor and he likes you, and then they don't assign one to room, which is incredibly rare. So I had 2 roommates while I was there, but the rest of the time I was allowed to have no roommate and I had the bottom bunk. So it was, I had a very—

Who was your roommate?

Well, my first roommate was very interesting. When I first walked in, there was this African American fellow and he's there standing and I'm coming in with my bag and I got a big smile on my face and I said, "Hi, I'm gonna be your new roommate. I'm Kevin Trudeau." And this guy looks at me, this real nasty looking, mean, you know, African-American fella who I didn't know has already been in prison 20 years for drugs and killings and all that stuff, and he was on the way out, but I didn't know that. He had started in a penitentiary, then went to a medium, and then a low, and then he was at the camp. But here's the funny thing. He called me a couple months ago. He tracked me down. Kevin, it's Sean, your roommate from Montgomery. Sean, I go, how are you doing? He goes, you're not going to believe this. I got to— I can't believe I'm talking you. He says, you changed my life. And I got to tell you, I go, how? He goes, the day you came into prison, you were smiling from ear to ear, walking down, and I thought, who is this guy?

And you shook my hand with this big smile, introduced yourself. And then I asked you, how long is your sentence? And you said, only 10 years. He goes, I nearly fell off the chair. He goes, everybody else is crying, they got 6 months or a year, and you smiling, go, I only got 10 years. And he goes, and I thought, this son of a gun, maybe I can learn something. And I read the books you recommended. I transferred to the other prison, as you know. And then I got pardoned by President Biden because the new drug law would have meant he only got like, you know, 2 years instead of 25. He goes, I got instantly pardoned and I went home and now I'm a motivational speaker and I talk to about having a positive attitude in your story. Is part of my speech. So you never know when you're gonna positively impact somebody for the better.

That is incredible.

Yeah.

Okay, go on. So who's your second roommate?

So my second roommate was a fella. The, the place was being packed. It was filling up. So I get a call down to the office and they go, Kevin, it's filling up. You're gonna get a roommate. We have busses coming in every, every Monday now. So you're gonna be getting a roommate. But I got a guy coming in today who's about your age. He's from—

How old are you, by the way?

I'm 63. He goes, he's about your age, a little younger, but he's an accountant and he's only got a year. Do you want him? And I go, yes.

Yeah.

Because instead of some guy who's a member of a gang or something like that, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Right. So I get this other guy, Steve Wakefield, who is a great, great guy. And he came in and I kind of gave him some advice.

What was he in for?

He was in for something to do with embezzlement. And he was one of the rare guys that said, I 100% did it. I did it on purpose. I didn't think I was gonna get caught. I had financial difficulties. I thought I could do this. I, I tried to cut corners. I made a huge mistake. It was an error in judgment and I deserve what I got and I'm glad I didn't get more and I will never do it again. So this guy was one of those guys who really took it hard, but learned his lesson, and got on the straight and narrow, as we said, and took that error in his life and turned it into a positive. A lot of the guys were already planning their next caper as soon as they got out.

They were?

They were like, "Oh, yeah, man. I only got, you know, 2 years. I killed this guy and that guy. I didn't get caught for this, and I used to bring in this heroin. This is the first time I got caught." He goes, "I'm not gonna get caught again." So, yeah, I'm already planning my next operation. So most of the guys were complete arch criminals and they were getting ready to go out there and—

and wow, you know. And so wait a second. Okay, so go. So what, you wake up at 6:00 and then what do you guys do?

So everybody has a job and you can decide what type of job you want. Some guys like to go and cut lawns and get out in the fresh air and do landscaping all day long. Some guys would be bussed into town and we would work in maybe some of the Air Force bases and clean clean, you know, rooms and do janitorial work at the Air Force Base and come back via bus.

Uh, how long is your day like that?

Well, you start at 6:30 to 7 o'clock, and then you have to be back at 3 o'clock because we have a 4 o'clock count.

Okay, but you're working then for until 3? It's like a full day of work?

It's a full day work. Yeah, everybody has a full day of work.

Okay.

My job, I asked to work in the kitchen because I wanted to be involved in, in kitchen duty because I wanted to eat well.

Yeah.

So I thought, I want to be—

everybody want that job?

Well, no, because most guys don't want to work in the kitchen because they don't want to you know, have to work in the dishroom, which is where you start. So I said, I want to work in the kitchen. They shoved me in the dishroom. Well, there's 3 other guys in the dishroom and they're all lazy. They don't want to work. So I tell them, I go, you don't have to work. I'll do this myself. I go, this is a one-man job, not a 3-man job. So I busted my butt and I thought, I'm getting a lot of exercise and I'm having a good time and I'm figuring out systems. How can I do this faster and better and more efficient, you know? And I'm having a good time. It's like, this is cool. You know, I'm getting all dirty and sweaty and, you know, And so I took— I, I— that's how you have to embrace life, right? So I work in the dishroom, but I want a different job. I want to work in the kosher kitchen. That way I get my own kitchen area.

I get a kosher kitchen.

They have a kosher kitchen. So I want to work—

At prison?

Yes.

Do they charge extra for that?

No, no. But if you want to eat kosher, you have to be able to follow your religious dietary restrictions. So we had a lot of Jewish inmates that wanted to eat kosher. Some of the Muslim inmates wanted to eat halal so they could get on the kosher line as well. So I said, I want to work—

You had a lot of Jewish people there?

Yeah. Yeah. So I said, I want to work in the kosher kitchen. So I have my own, you know, food. That way I can go there and cook my own food, which is what I did. So when I went in there, I cleaned up the whole place. I organized it, structured it, and I told the food service administrator, I go, look, I want to kind of come and go as I please. You know me, you know, nothing gets stolen out of there. I run a tight ship. Everything is clean. I do everything great. He goes, yeah, I've never— yeah, I know. We've never had anybody here like you. You know who used to have that job, by the way?

Who?

Kushner.

You know Jared Kushner's dad?

His dad, Charlie, used to be at Federal Prison Camp Montgomery, and he had that same job.

No way.

Yeah. So when I was there, he was at the kosher kitchen. Mr. Russell said, you know, you remind me of— I go, who? Charlie Kushner. And I says, get out of here. No kidding. He goes, yeah, he had your job. And he goes, but you're doing it better. I says, you're just saying that to butter me up. And he goes, no, I'm kidding. He says, you're, you're work harder. He goes, well, I'm younger than him, so I get a little more energy.

Wow. How long was Kushner in there for?

I'm not sure, but it was several years. Several, right?

Yeah. More than 10?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. When I say several, maybe 3 or 4 or 5, something like that.

Wow. So were they giving you like chicken and like—

Yeah. So we had kosher chicken, kosher beef, kosher lamb. You had, you know, rice and I used to be able to get kosher bread sent in and we had—

That's expensive too.

Yeah, well, you have to keep the kosher, you know, restriction. It has to have the OU on it, you know, Union of Orthodox Jews. I know. So I had to have all the things there, but it was great. So the point is everybody had to—

The point is you ate really well.

Yeah. So I made sure I had vegetables and fruits and salads and omelets and, you know, I could make my own pasta.

Was it the Four Seasons or a federal prison?

Believe me, it's prison. I mean, it— I don't want people to think that it's this nice place. It isn't. I made the best of a situation. You know, I go fishing up in Canada and we're in a little lodge and it rains and you get wet and it's muddy. And we talk about how great it is. It ain't the Four Seasons. People go there and go, why do you say this is so great? This is miserable. We love it, okay? Because we like the fish. And we make the best of that situation.

Got it.

And we embrace what we can't— you can't resist what is, because what you resist is going to persist. So you have to embrace it. You have to embrace it like a little kid. A little kid says, I want to go to the horror movie. I want to go to the— and ride the roller coaster. I want to go to the haunted house. I want to be scared. I go, why would you want to be frightened? Why are you going to pay money to be frightened? Or remember this? I want to go to that movie because I want a good cry. You want a good cry. You come out of The English Patient. Remember The English Patient? And these two women are crying and I go, you okay? You ladies okay? Yeah, the movie was so good. Oh, I'm so sad. What? I go, I'm confused here. You said it's good, you're sad, you're crying. I don't get it.

Yeah.

Yeah. You have to see it. I just loved it. It was so sad. It was so sad. Why do people love to feel terrible? But then when something in life happens, they don't want to embrace that emotion. Embrace it. Embrace life. That's what life is. So you can get excited one day and maybe you feel some pain and sorrow. Okay. Embrace all the emotions. Don't resist them.

That's a great— this is great life advice, to be honest. I mean, you lived it. So, okay, so now you're home from your kosher place. You don't want to be there. And like, did they let you?

So I kind of come and go as I please. So I'd go down there for breakfast and I'd serve the guys breakfast, and then I'm free for the day until lunch. So what I did was I told the food service guy, I said, look, I need the— it's a 3-man job, but you don't have to hire 3. Just hire one other guy. And I know the guy, and he's a direct marketing guy that, by the way, that I knew from the '70s, Frank Zarcona.

Oh my God. Yeah.

He wrote all the direct mail pieces. Yeah. They, they— it was terrible what happened to him. He did nothing wrong. He was selling, he was selling Kitezan, you know, which was glucomannan, which was glucomannan root. You're taking the glucomannan root. It kind of expands in the stomach and it makes you full. It's a great product. It's still sold today. So it was glucomannan and chitosan. Chitosan came from, uh, shellfish. So he sold this product and the, what they got him on, he had no customer complaints. 30% of his customers bought more. That's how much they loved it. No customer complaints, but he called it the Weight Loss Institute of America Corporation. That's the name of his company. That's the legal name of his company. And he put that on the letterhead of his direct mail piece. The government said, That was misleading. You're making people think it's a government agency. He says, what's the name of my company? It's not misleading. It's the name here. I registered it with— when I registered it, nobody told me I couldn't register it, that it was going to be misleading. They allowed me to register it. You, the government, allowed me to register it.

And that's what I put on my letterhead. No, it's misleading. He got convicted of misleading. He got a $30-something million restitution, which he couldn't pay, and 20 years in prison. And the guy did nothing wrong. Nothing wrong. Nothing. So this poor guy was there. So I had him—

Oh, wow. Yeah.

So I had him be my assistant. We worked together. So I had— I'd go in the morning, serve breakfast. I'd go at lunch, serve lunch, go on dinner, serve dinner because I had to eat anyway. And the rest of the time I was free. So I'd exercise, shoot pool, play tennis, learned how to play bridge. You went down—

You understand why this sounds like the Four Seasons or like a resort.

Yeah. Yeah. But believe me, there are a lot of people there who are miserable. I was lucky I didn't have a wife. I've been a bachelor my whole life. I didn't have any children. I didn't have any financial responsibilities. But imagine if I had a wife and kids. Imagine how terrible it would've been because now the breadwinner of the family is gone. They have to kind of fend for themselves.

Well, you made so much money though, they'd be fine forever.

Well, it depends. Most of these guys get all their assets confiscated by the government.

Did you get your assets confiscated?

Even though I was not fined, I never got a fine. There was no restitution. They wiped out and they took everything away and they shut everything down. They sold everything off 10 cents on the dollar and wiped me out.

They took all your money?

100%.

Even though you weren't technically—

Correct. Yeah.

Fined with anything?

Correct. There was no fine and no restitution.

Are they allowed to do that?

The government can do anything they want. You know, I was with President Gorbachev. We were traveling together in Australia and we were on the plane. We had a private plane. We were flying And we were talking about the KGB and how they influence all the media in the Soviet Union. But he— and he said, and you know that CIA influences all the media in America. If you don't know that, you should, even though they're designated for international. That's not how it works. And we were laughing about the realities versus what people perceive to be true. And when I talked about our system of government and the legal system, and he said— he laughed like a fool. He said, you know, It's never what the law says. It's only what the judge says. And remember, the judge can say anything he wants. One federal judge can say anything because he's the guy with the gun. So if he says, take, take that person into custody, bailiff, you're taken into custody.

Wow.

You think you're presumed innocent? No. You look back at a lot of movies and they say this. They go, can you prove your innocence? Can you prove your innocence? Can you prove you weren't there? Can you prove Wait a minute. This— the government is supposed to prove you're guilty. You're supposed to be presumed innocent. But at the end of the day, in America today, we presume somebody is guilty if they're charged by the government. We presume that they're guilty. And then if they get acquitted, they got off. This is the mentality that people have. And this is very terrible. This is very wrong. But the point is, the judge can do anything he wants and it doesn't matter what the law says. And you say, oh, well, you can appeal. You're going to appeal to 3 of his friends whose offices are right over there. You know, they have lunch together and they golf together and they talk. And then you're going to appeal to the Supreme Court. You know, the Supreme Court has been around for a long time. They hear 70 cases a year. There's the same number of judges today as there was 100 years ago.

They're getting 70,000 applications to be heard. They only hear 70. 100 years ago, they got 1,000 applications to hear. You don't have a chance. You don't have a chance to appeal to the Supreme Court today cuz you just, they're not gonna hear 'em.

Did you not have a lawyer, an attorney?

I had the best.

That didn't help.

I spent tens, tens of millions of dollars on legal.

That didn't make any difference.

There was a guy in prison with me, a guy named Mike. He was a CFO, chief financial officer of a major Fortune 5 company. They had insurance. He did nothing wrong. When he did his financials, he conservatively gave the numbers low and they said that was financial fraud. He wasn't— he didn't— he didn't jack the numbers up. He was conservative. They spent $40 million on his defense and he was convicted and they ran out of money.

Wow.

Because the government has unlimited resources. So his defense cost $40 million and the insurance company maxed out. He was convicted, got a 10-year sentence. He appealed, they lost the appeal. Supreme Court didn't hear the case. Same, same thing with me. So I had the best lawyers from Jenner Block, Winston Strawn. These are the biggest in the world, you know, the best lawyers, cost a fortune. And they, they put on a great, great thing. But the judge said, I'm not even reading your briefs, I'm just— whatever the government wants. Yeah, whatever the government says, I'm agreeing with. I'm not even going to Read your briefs, Mr. Trudeau. I mean, it was really nutty. It was really nutty. But look, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. Yesterday is a canceled check.

True. But like, how much money did you have that they took away?

Well, they took everything away.

How much was there? Was it like $200 million, $500 million, $2 million, $10?

My, my balance sheet, my assets, my financial statements estimated about $300 million in assets at the time. But we were highly leveraged. We weren't very liquid. So we didn't have, you know, I couldn't write a check for $37 million at the time because we had enterprises around the world that we were financing. So we were financed and leveraged. But, you know, we had assets of about $300 million. So, okay, we could liquidate. It'll take a couple of years. You know, it's how you have to do that. But they didn't want anything to do with that. They wanted to take everything over, shut everything down and wipe it out. Because remember, this was about a guy who is exposing the drug companies and the government and the media. So what does the government do? What's their modus operandi? Number one, you discredit the person. Just look around today. Any time a person is saying something, whether it's RFK or whether it's this guy or that guy, whether you believe them or not, it doesn't make a difference. If they're saying something that has a potential negative financial impact on somebody in the big sphere there, that person is violently attacked and the attempt is always discredit, discredit, discredit.

If that doesn't work, then you wipe them out financially and usually do that by lawsuits because they can't handle the bad publicity. Their businesses crumble or they can't handle the litigation, so they have to capitulate. Okay. And the third thing they do is put the guy in prison because now he can't talk anymore. So they've tried the first two with me. It just didn't work. Every time they tried to crucify me on TV, I got bigger. I was on the Today Show with Matt Lauer, and Matt Lauer says, "Kevin, listen, sell a lot of books." You know that Matt Lauer's getting canceled, right?

Yeah, yeah. 'Cause you've been in jail. I wasn't sure if you knew about that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I knew about the scandal and everything like that, but back then he was the—

I know, but back then, I wasn't sure if you knew.

Katie Couric was there.

'Cause you had TV back there, right?

Yeah, we had tons of TV.

Yeah, you did.

Yeah, yeah. So, so when I was on the Today Show, Matt says, listen, sell a lot of books, but don't mention or bash the drug companies. They're our biggest sponsor. And that was it. So I don't remember the first question Matt asked me, but I remember what I said. I said, look, I don't care about the question you just asked me. What's important is why did you just tell me 2 minutes ago over there, don't talk about the drug companies, Kevin, because they're our biggest sponsors? That's the problem. You are being controlled. By the drug companies. And everything that comes out of your mouth is what the drug companies want. And you won't say something to your company's dog walk. And that's why the American public is not getting the truth, because the sponsors, the drug companies, are controlling the media. He— I mean, you could see him. He wanted to strangle me. I mean, absolutely crucify me. And then they would— you know what they crucified me about, by the way? He says, you said that talcum powder causes cancer. That's a lie. We know it's safe. Well, guess what we know today? Talcum powder causes cancer.

That's right.

Right. And it was one after the other, after the other.

What are the other ones that you put in the book that I talked about?

Red dye number that, that's in the food. I says this is causing all types of health problems. Now it's eliminated. The FDA has finally banned it like every other country in the world. I talk about fluoride in the water. We're the one of the only countries in the world that allows fluoride in the water. Well, you gotta follow the science. Well, the science in every other country in the world says that fluoride is a deadly poison and you shouldn't be drinking it.

That's what's all in the book.

Yeah. And that's what's all in the book. So everything that he crucified me on today, we know is true.

Name the other ones. I want to Google ChatGPT this myself. I'm curious because I bet you there's been a lot. Like it's been, what, 25 years?

25 years. Yeah. So I have a big file called the Kevin Was Right file.

You do?

I do.

Where is that file?

I got it back at the office. We got to type it up. I just keep scribbling stuff and throwing it in there.

Yeah, because what was in the Natural Cures book, in the Natural Cures book that today we know is true.

Oh, here's another one. Rebounding. Jon Stossel crucified me for that. They did an exposé and he was jumping up on— and Kevin Trudeau says jumping up on a rebounder is good for your health. That's a lie. I mean, he goes, Kevin Trudeau is the biggest liar in America. He says that jumping up and down on a rebounder is good for your health. I go, guess what we know now? It's one of the best exercises on the planet. Al Carter wrote the book The Miracle of Rebound Exercise.

Okay, this is what it says here. The stuff that Kevin Trudeau got right was ultra-processed food is making us sick.

That's right.

Big Pharma's profit motive influences what gets get studied and suppressed.

Yeah, ding ding ding ding ding.

Don't drink tap water.

Ding ding ding ding ding.

Avoid sunscreen. Ding ding ding ding ding. That's controversial. Critics call this flat out wrong. But today there's a serious growing body of research on the dangers of certain chemical sunscreen ingredients, right? The importance of vitamin D and the overcorrection of sun avoidance culture. Not settled science, but no longer fringe. Okay. Organic food matters. You said that he pushed hard on pesticides and chemicals in food. Today, the research on glyphosate, pesticide residue, and endocrine disruptors are validated. A lot of the un—

ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

The other one, gut health as the foundation of overall health. He was talking about this before it was a multi-billion dollar industry. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Stress and emotional mental state drives physical illness. He said this loudly. Today, psychoneuroimmunology is an entire field.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

Okay, now the stuff that was genuinely dangerous or wrong. Are you ready?

Yes, and I will, I will challenge them.

Okay, he claimed animals in the wild virtually never get sick, the vaccine should be stopped. Well, that's still kind of—

I didn't say vaccine should be stopped.

That's also fringe.

Yeah, but the vaccine statement I said in there is, look, vaccinations are good, right? Don't take 45 of them at one time, right?

So that's why this is like, I'm not 100% with them. That sunblock, that sunblock causes cancer, and that oral chelation cures heart disease. These range from incorrect to actually dangerous. Is it though dangerous? I mean, the truth is sunblock, there's a whole thing about that.

Of course it is, um, we know that.

And then the oral chelation, how does What's that about?

Yeah, intravenous chelation or oral chelation products are being used. Dr. Pompa is a huge proponent and he's all over the place now.

He's in jail?

No, but he's proving that when you chelate, which is CLAW, pull out the heavy metals.

Yeah, that's good.

It absolutely is.

Yeah, I know. I think that's what— this is not right.

No, they're a little off there.

They're a little off. That's why I don't understand.

That's in the Kevin Was Right file.

I got enough of them.

That should be in the Kevin Is Right file.

Okay, also he claimed there were natural cures for cancer, AIDS, herpes, MS, muscular dystrophy, all being deliberately hidden. No credible evidence supports these claims. The bottom line framing for your— okay, this is for my episode because they know it's me talking— was Kevin Trudeau right? So you kind of were right on a lot of things.

Well, most of them clearly, without even question, I was right. And some of the last ones are still debatable.

They're still fringe.

Still fringe and debatable, but there's more, more belief that they're true today than they were when I first—

I was gonna say also, okay, so this is the— sorry, this is the part I'm curious. He claimed there were natural cures for cancer. What's a natural cure for cancer or AIDS?

Well, what I talked about in the book really was you can't cure a symptom, you have to actually stop the cause. So for example, The guy comes to the doctor and he says, "Doctor, every time I hit my foot with a hammer, it hurts.

What's the cure?" Well, don't hit your foot with a hammer.

Thank you very much. So this—

But you come to my office and have cancer, right?

Right, and so the question is, what is causing your body cells to go insane? Okay, so what have you put in your body? Are you taking Botox? Do you have breast implants? Do you take Juvederm? Are you eating residue-laced foods?

Mm, okay, see, reverse engineering it.

So let's look at all the things. You have to find out what the cause is. And then address the cause.

Is that what you said in the book?

Yes, that's exactly what I said. So even though I, I use the word cure, but at the end of the day, it's like there are certain things that you always have to go and find what is the cause, what's the reason that's occurring. And then if you handle the— and address the cause, now you're— no, we're not, we're not addressing the symptom anymore.

Kevin was correct about? Because that's kind of crazy, right? Because this was like 20, 20 years ago, 2005, that book came out.

Natural Cures, 2005.

See that? Okay, hold on. He called out eggs were considered very bad because of high cholesterol.

No, I didn't say—

no, I know. Now research suggests they are not bad at all. I think— did you say that they were good?

Yeah. What I said was people are afraid of the yolk. They want to eat egg whites, and that's idiotic. The egg is a perfect food because in the yolk you have the lecithin. Yeah, you were right. Exactly. I was right.

That's so interesting.

There's a ton of them in there, and they go on and on and on.

Okay, then why does it say this? It says it's how— how did you exploit legitimate fears to sell them things and subscriptions? Were those are all like— okay, well, what were the subscriptions that you selling.

First off, that line comes directly out of the press release from the Federal Trade Commission.

Really?

That, that line comes directly out of the press release.

No way.

Yes. So that's, so ChatGPT took exactly what the government said. So there was a subscription because the book Natural Cures was a book. But I told people in the book, look, there are new things coming out all the time.

Were you selling any products?

No. No. And I told people, I don't sell products. That's the whole point.

So you weren't selling any like supplements?

Supplements, nor did I take any advertising. So in the book when I said, hey, this is a product that I take, I don't have a, I'm not an affiliate, so I didn't get a commission on it. I mean, there were people that made fortunes and they said, Kevin, can't I give you some type of compensation? And I said, no, that'll ruin my credibility. I don't want the money. You keep the money. I want people to get it. So what I did was I had a website called naturalcures.com. Which I still own now. And we had back then a paper newsletter that went out every month. So the subscription was buy the newsletter and I'll give you updates on what's the newest, newest development. We don't take any advertising and I don't sell any supplements and nor am I affiliate. So if I in the newsletter say, hey, I found this product, you know, Garden of Life or whatever, or, you know, Balance of Nature and it's really good, I take it. Here's the link. I don't get a commission on it. Everybody else does. I didn't take a commission. I said I refused to take a commission and I refused to take any advertising for products because then I want to be more like Consumer Reports where we don't— we're not influenced by the advertisers.

Right, right, right. Hold on a second. So let's go to the weight loss book.

Yeah.

Okay, hold on. I'm going to do this now. How about the weight loss Shior's book. This isn't— this is fun. God, I'm happy you're here. This is like, this is really— you're, you're like, you're great.

And we haven't even talked about what's in the—

oh, I know, it's something—

your wish is your command book.

I know, this is because this is more interesting.

We're going down, uh, uh, memory lane here.

The central— I know, the central, because that's what people want to know. I mean, sure, anybody who listens to this, okay, either people won't know because they're too young to know Or they're gonna be my age and they're gonna be like, oh my gosh, I totally remember him. And they wanna know what happened to you. They wanna know what happened to the book, or if the book is legit still. These are all the things. And if you can like tell people, if you can satisfy someone's curiosity and get them to like you again, then they'll be more interested in your book. But if they don't like you or they don't trust you, they're not gonna care about your book.

Sure.

You know this, you're the marketing guru. I don't have to tell you any of this stuff, right? Like I, I should be, I like hearing it from you though.

You say it much better.

Okay, well thank you. But that is the truth. Truth, right? Like, now I'm more interested in this book because I'm clearing up all of these things. And I would be remiss if I didn't ask you this. I know I'm gonna do a story with you after we do that, after we do this podcast. Like, oh my God, blah blah blah, I'm here with who, and you know, and the first question that people are going to ask me, like, oh my God, whatever happened to him? Isn't he this? And because people will, will, I'm sure, know what's going on with you, right? And you've been a delight Right. So either you're very charming— I have heard, I did read that you're very charming though.

So, well, I appreciate that.

It's true. It's like, well, that's why, how you made all this. Listen, I can promise you 99% of people who are trying to sell on an infomercial are not gonna be selling what, how much you sold because it's a personality-driven thing. People obviously liked you, right? They believed you, you were enthusiastic, you had a lot of passion. People gravitate to that.

Well, there's two things I think people need to consider, especially if they're in business, but Are you genuine and are you authentic? And if you look at the same thing, they are a little different.

Hmm.

Tell me, when, when you are reading a script that the marketing people wrote—

totally agree.

Okay. You're not authentic, although you can be genuine because you genuinely want to help someone, but you're not authentic. So one of the things that is unique, and people should really learn to do this better, but not even worry so much about being perfect. Just be genuine and authentic. There's no script here. And every single infomercial I've done, people say, oh, you're charming. No, I'm authentic and genuine. I mean, that's it. At the end of the day, I'm not trying to pull the wool over your eyes.

Right.

And I'm telling you what it is. I mean, even when, for example, we have a high-priced item that I'm recommending. People can't believe what I say that when I say this, by the way, don't put yourself under any financial pressure. Don't use your credit card if you can't afford it. Don't do this. Do not put yourself in— and all the other guys who are selling, you know, big-ticket seminars going, no, that's not how you sell it. You have to sell it this way and that way. I go, no, you're screwing people. You're putting them— you're getting them at a point where they want to do it and then they're overextending themselves financially. That's not what you should be doing to that person. You should get that person pissed off that they don't have the money to buy it and then start making it so they can come to you and then pay for it in cash. You know, do right by the person. And sometimes we don't even take people's money. If they say, oh, I want to buy your apprentice program or something, I go, what's your financial condition? You know, we don't want your—

well, I want to know about that. Wait, hold on. I'm looking at this. That makes sense. Okay. I'm looking at what you did for the weight loss cures.

Yeah.

Okay. Detoxification and liver health matter for weight.

Yes.

Interesting. Weight loss without addressing the underlying hormonal metabolic dysfunction. Yes, yes, these are all true.

I was right there.

Okay, cutting out processed food, sugar, and artificial ingredients is essential. Again, very true.

Yeah.

And the hypothalamus controls weight, not just calories.

Correct.

His central argument was that the hypothalamus regulates hunger and metabolism and that resetting it is key to permanent weight loss. Yes, not just eating less. This is now mainstream endocrinology. It is the—

And back then it was heresy. He's a witch. Yes.

He's a witch. It is the entire scientific basis of the GLP-1 drug revolution.

Exactly. Which is why I got crucified on this particular book, 'cause I knew in advance—

Crazy.

That the GLP-1 was coming. And so when I was talking about the HCG protocol invented by Dr. Simeons, not me, I did the protocol. I lost 45 pounds in 45 days. It's all documented. By using the HCG protocol. But not only weight, I, I lost mostly fat as opposed to muscle. My appetite was completely regulated. I was no longer—

what?

The HCG protocol, which is the Dr. Simeon's protocol. And that's what I talked about in the book. But that handled better than the GLP-1s because it resets the body's set point.

What is it, though? Tell me.

You take a hormone-like substance called HCG. Which is—

where do you get it?

Well, back then you had to go to a doctor and get a prescription. It was not for weight loss.

What was it for?

It was for different types of issues, sometimes increasing male testosterone. But what HCG is—

no, that's not hormone growth. It's not—

no, no, no, it's not HCG. Uh, that's hormone growth. Uh, hormone growth—

growth hormone.

Growth hormone. HCG is the substance that the female body releases when you're pregnant.

It.

Because remember in the old days, a woman would go get a blood test and then to see if she was pregnant, and the doctor would say, the rabbit died. You know, if you remember this.

No.

Okay. Well, that's how a woman—

I'm not that old.

Okay. Well, that's how a woman would know.

Okay.

I watch old movies. I'm not that old either, but I've watched old movies. But when the woman would go to the doctor, he would take a blood test and then inject the blood into the rabbit. And if the rabbit died, that means she was pregnant. The reason the rabbit died is there was hCG in the blood. So that's how they determine whether you're pregnant. The HCG is released in the blood so that the body will release from the brown fat cells calories. So when you're pregnant, the HCG tells your body as a woman, you can now release the brown fat cells into the blood to feed the fetus. That's what it does. Brown fat is what women can't lose and guys can't lose.

You can't— I know—

get rid of it. You can't get rid of it. HCG is the only way to get rid of it. It actually looks like you've had liposuction after you do the HCG because the brown fat—

So if I went to a doctor and said, hey, I need some HCG, you can do it online now.

You can actually get it online. You get a little vial, you mix it up. But it is a little bit of a challenging protocol to do. But when I say—

why?

Because you have to buy the HCG, you have to mix it properly, you have to get it into an injection. You can't do it sub-q. You have to do it intramuscular. You have to take it every single day, even though it's only a small 125, you know, units of the HCG. You take it daily and you have to do a very specific diet with no fat, very specific calories.

So people don't be doing this, please.

It's, it's, it's a little bit of a thing.

It's a thing. But you did tell people to do it in the book.

I told people this is what I did. This is what I did. This is what Dr. Simeons wrote about in his book Pounds and Inches. This is why it works. This is how it works. And this is something you should consider.

So why are people not doing it?

And there were clinics all over the country that actually did it.

Oh, okay. Well then.

So there were clinics all over the place and still today there are clinics doing it and there's online resources because it works. But for a lot of people, they find it challenging or at least daunting when they look at the protocol. The reason I got in trouble for the book, here's what I did. I said, I did it and I found it easy. And I said in the book, I did this and surprisingly I found it easy, right?

Yeah.

Okay. So the government said, we don't think it's easy. And my argument was, Your Honor, did you actually do the HCG protocol? No. Well, how do you know if it's easy or not? Yeah, I go, if you didn't do it, how do you know? Of course he doesn't say anything. I says, and if you did it, maybe you would find it hard. And maybe I would find it easy. It's subjective. Hey, I just talked to a guy, by the way, who went skydiving. And you know what he told me? It's easy. I got into a plane to go skydiving. And guess what? I didn't jump out of the plane because I found it hard. So is it hard or is it easy? It's subjective, Your Honor. Yeah. Put him in prison. Put him in prison. 10 years.

That's literally what happened to you.

That's what happened. I'm arguing with the judge. Judge, put him in prison. Take bailiff, take him away. The marshal said, he's the most liberal judge in the whole building. What did you do to piss him off?

Oh my God.

And the marshal said, I got your books, by the way, we're big fans. I go, well, can I get like a sandwich or something before they haul me away? He goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, let me—

Oh my God, this is hilarious. You are such a kick. I, I— you are hilarious. I— you really are. So, okay, so So that's what happened in the book. So you did it and blah, blah, blah. So people could still do that if they find it, yeah, online.

And look, at the end of the day, I got probably 100,000 comments that came in from saying, I did the HCG protocol, Kevin, it was easy.

It was fun. Yeah.

I lost 30 pounds in 30 days. I lost—

can they gain it right back though?

No. No. When you do, if you, you have to do it right. 'Cause you have to do the protocol, then you have to do a 6 weeks maintenance and then it resets the set point. Then basically the issue is you're not—

oh wow. Are you looking it up right now, Ed?

You're just not, you're not hungry again, but Look, you have to do it properly.

How come nobody's talking about that?

You get it because it's easier to just inject this GLP-1 and not do anything. It's easier, right? That's easier to just do the—

It's the same thing, but one requires a diet and training.

One requires a diet and it's a little bit—

Does it hurt more?

It doesn't hurt at all.

You said it goes intramuscularly.

Yeah, it's intramuscular, but the needle is so thin it doesn't hurt at all.

Okay, so it doesn't take away your appetite completely.

It does take it away mostly. But again, it's a protocol that has to be done properly the first time.

But like anything else, you have to— why do you gain weight back with GLP-1s?

Yeah, you're going to get— I mean, that's for sure. You're going to gain it back. Yeah, that's for sure. I mean, that, that evidence is pretty clear. Nobody— if you— once you stop taking that, it's automatically going to come back. Yeah. At least with HCG, if you do the protocol completely and properly, it'll take years for it to come back. I mean, and if you— that's if you do everything wrong.

Really? How long does it take though, like to get activated in your body?

Just 2 days. So you do the protocol for a maximum of 6 weeks, which is 45 days. So you could lose up to 45 pounds, up to a pound a day. Women use a little bit less than that.

And no muscle mass?

Very slight. And we know this when you test— the best way to test the, um, the muscle is to do the submersion test. That way you can really test the fat versus the muscle. So you lose a little bit of muscle, but it's mostly brown fat. And you see this in the way the body's re-sculpted and reshaped.

Really?

Yeah. Yeah. The studies are really impressive. And the one thing the government did say, by the way, which is a big feather in my cap, they said, look, we're not saying the protocol doesn't work. It absolutely works. They said it. The government, we concede that the Dr. Simeon's HCG diet—

Right, and you said it was easy.

But because you said it was easy, 10 years.

I mean, throw them in the hole. That is remarkable, isn't it?

It was remarkable.

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I started at MCC Chicago, which is the Metropolitan Correctional Center, which is a madhouse. You have people doing triple life sentences, murderers, all types of crazy, terrible, horrible people. So that's where I started. I saw a couple stabbings, a couple fights.

You weren't scared?

I'm there, what am I gonna do?

Be happy, apparently.

Yeah, it's okay. And then I got shackled up, you know, handcuffs. I mean, I'm such an arch criminal here. I'm contempt of court.

Yes.

And I'm shackled up next to the guy who killed two guards in this last prison. I go, really? Really? You're putting me in the same cell with the guy who killed two people in And I'm here for contempt of court because I said the word easy. So I'm shackled up and I'm in my paper, my paper pants and my paper t-shirt. I'm on the tarmac at O'Hare Airport. It's freezing cold. I mean, freezing. And they got us standing on the tarmac. We have paper, paper shoes, paper pants, and paper, a paper shirt, short sleeve. And we're shackled up with our hands around our waist and our feet. And we're standing outside in the freezing bitter cold in Chicago where all of the marshals are in parkas with their shotguns and they got scarves and gloves on. And of course, luckily, I had studied yoga and pranayama, which is breathing, and I knew what's called the breath of fire. So you can generate huge amounts of body heat. You know, yogis and different monks in the East, in the Himalayas, would sit and melt the snow all around them because they could generate so much body heat.

So I started doing this because I didn't want to freeze. And so I'm sweating on this and all these other guys are shivering and going, I'm so cold. And the marshal's looking at me going, Trudeau, you're weird.

Yeah, really?

Yeah. I go, I'm not cold. I might be weird, but I'm not cold.

You're not cold.

I'm not cold.

Exactly. Holy moly. Okay, now we can talk about how— okay, so you get out of jail in what, 2022? 2021. Oh, 2021.

And it was prison, remember?

Oh yeah, prison. Sorry, sorry, sorry. You're right. Prison for saying easy. And then so do you have any money? No, zero. Zero.

As a matter of fact, the government still said I owed them money. I said, well, how much?

$32 million.

They said $37 million is where it started.

Oh, now they're down to $32.

Now here's the thing. This is the best part.

Okay.

So I go to court and the judge says, are you hiding money? I go, I just spent 10 years in prison. If I was hiding money, wouldn't, wouldn't I just write you a check instead of spending 10 years in prison? Are you insane? I go, look, I can—

Oh, what, they, they gave you that option?

Yeah. Yeah.

And I said, they said you, you can pay $32 million.

Yeah. $37 million. And then I, I don't have to go to prison. I go, I don't, I don't have 30. I goes, I have my companies. It'll take 2 years for me to write the check. I have to basically, you know, liquidate some things. It's gonna take a, a couple years. I can put you on a payment plan here and I'll get it paid off in a couple years. We're just not that liquid at the present time. You caught me 5 years ago, it was different. But you know, I made big investments, capital expenditures in companies and different assets around the, around the globe. So our companies just aren't liquid that, that much. I mean, General Motors wasn't liquid. They couldn't even make their payroll at one point.

Wow. You know, so they gave you the option. They said if you pay $37 million, you don't have to go to jail. At all.

Correct, correct. So that was, that was what the judge said. And I said, look, if I had the money, I don't want to go to prison.

You didn't have the money?

No, I said, I said, I got the assets, it's just going to take a little time.

And they wouldn't let you do that?

No, because it wasn't about the money. Yeah, it was about discrediting somebody who was a critic.

But why didn't you work on releasing those funds while you're in jail and get—

I couldn't because they, they, uh, assigned a receiver to take over everything and just liquidate it all. So I didn't have the choice.

Oh, you didn't have the choice?

So when they put me in prison, they basically just confiscated everything, wiped everything out, sold things 2 cents on the dollar. I mean, it was—

10 cents.

10 cents, 2 cents, 2 cents in some cases.

2 cents?

It was absolutely horrific. We took a $150 million asset that they sold for $1 million. It was just ridiculous. And then the receiver took 80% of the money.

What do you mean?

He— the receiver collected the money, goes, well, our fees.

Oh really?

He took 80% of it. I mean, it was just a— it was—

this is crazy.

Criminal. So I come out, I got nothing.

21, 21.

Yeah, 2021. I go to— go to the court and the judge says, are you holding any money? I says, I get it. You— are you insane, Your Honor? I mean, if I— if I had the money, why would I spend 10 years in I go, you appointed the world's greatest receiver and the world's best forensic accountant who you said, and the FTC, the government, could find any asset that I had hidden, but they didn't. And it just says, well, the reason they couldn't find it is you didn't tell them where it is.

Are you serious?

I said, excuse me? I go, they can find Pablo Escobar's hidden money.

Yeah.

They can find drug lords. They can find—

But they couldn't find this.

But they couldn't find— I must be the greatest asset asset hider in the history of mankind. For them, the greatest forensic accountant's not to find a nickel in the fact that if I had the— how much do you think I have hidden? At least $300 million. I goes, and why wouldn't I write a check for $37? It makes no sense. So I said to him, I said, your honor, do I still even owe money? Because nobody's asking for a refund. What's the money for? You said to give you the money, you hold it, and if anybody wants a refund from the book, then you would give it to them, and anything left would come back to me anyway. It's been 20 years since the book has come out. No one wants a refund. Nobody's asking for a refund. As a matter of fact, they're all writing saying they don't want a refund. They love the book. They lost weight. It was easy. I got 100,000 letters. I go, how much money do I owe? And he said, I'm not going to tell you. I swear to God, it's in the record. And he jumps up.

He jumps up. He had had a cane. He jumped up out of the chair and almost falls down to run off the bench and get back back to chambers. And I go, your honor, you didn't answer the question. He's hobbling around like running away.

How?

And I'm looking at how, how can I, you won't even tell me how, if I owe money and if, if so, how much?

So then what happens to you?

So we kept negotiating and stuff, but here's the miracle of miracles. Finally, one day he calls us into court. We don't know why. It's a big mystery.

Where are you now?

We're in, I'm in Chicago.

So you got out?

I'm out, but I'm on home confinement.

So I'm, I'm locked up in a, because you only got like a year and a half off. Off.

Yeah, exactly.

Not that much.

Well, that's the maximum you get under, uh, uh, in the federal system.

Oh, okay.

So he calls us in, and this— if this doesn't vindicate me, nothing will. Calls us into court, no one knows why. He, he requires that the government lawyers come in from Washington, DC, no one knows why. Comes up on there and he says, I am not an independent arbitrator I am biased, and therefore, I am recusing myself. That's all I'm gonna say. And he walks away. He finally admitted that he was biased. He admitted in open court that he was biased all along against me.

Really?

And I'm thinking—

Do you have that on record?

Oh, yeah. And I'm the— I go to my corner. Can I sue them? Can I sue them?

Yeah. Can you?

I spent 10 years in jail to a guy who just admitted he was biased. So he turned it over to another judge, and I'm going to call him a real judge. Harvard lawyer. They call him the smartest guy in the building. And we have a hearing with him. We walk into the hearing room and the papers from my case are stacked up on the bench. I mean, huge. This has gone on for 2 decades. And the judge said, I want you to know I read read every single one of these pieces of paper, and I have no idea why Mr. Trudeau is here in court.

Are you serious?

And I thought, thank you, Jesus. Someone say hallelujah and thank you, Lord.

But 8 and a half years you spent in jail.

Correct. But I'm thinking, finally.

Do they give you your—

No. And so the judge says, I don't even know why we're here. And at the end of the day, within 3 weeks, the government said, we want to settle, we're done. We sat down, we negotiated the settlement, I signed, and now it's over. Complete vindication. No finding of any wrongdoing. That's what the document says. My consent decree says there has been no finding of any wrongdoing on Mr. Trudeau's part. That's what it says. And that's never reported in the news. Never. Can you report it? I do, but nobody listens because all they listen to is what the government says. The previous stuff the government said, scammer, snake oil salesman, because again, they just try to discredit somebody. I was doing a radio show and a fellow says, you're a scammer from the '90s. I goes, really? What was my scam? Well, I don't know, but I read someplace that you were a scammer. I go, but that's right. I know. But what did I scam? Was I selling oil wells that didn't exist? You know, was I selling stock in companies that didn't exist? What was I scamming? What was I even selling? Do you have any idea?

No, no. But I remember somebody saying you were a scammer. That's right. That's how, that's how dumb people are really. That's how, you know, Zig Ziglar, the great motivational speaker, called these people SNYOPs. They're susceptible to the negative influence of other people. They're basically sheeple. They just parrot whatever they hear and they love train wrecks. So any bad news— and they love to be haters. They hate people who are successful. They hate people who turn their life around. They hate people who learn from their mistakes and go forward and become a better person because of it. They don't like that. They want you to fail because they're in the basement of their mother's house, you know.

Yeah.

400 pounds. They have no life except to sit on the internet and write negative comments about people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So basically you, this happens in '21 and then '22. When is it over? '22?

My home confinement, I believe ended somewhere around '22.

So then how do you make a living?

Well, first they wouldn't let me work.

So, so, okay. So they're not, they don't let you work.

They let me work. So here's what happened.

'Cause you have this lady.

Yes.

Hello.

Yeah.

Who was part of your team.

Yeah. Well, not back then. She was a member of a club that I started before I went away.

What kind of club? Yeah, you said that.

Called the Global Information Network and we're a Success Club. We're basically like YPO, um, you know, Young Presidents Organization.

I'm part of that. So it's like YPO?

Yeah, but not— but most people don't qualify to be in YPO. So our club is for people that want success, are healthy or health-oriented, have a positive mental attitude, and want to meet other—

either like a free YPO.

Yeah, like, uh, like wealthy people or successful people or other people that want to be successful who are entrepreneurial, health-oriented, you know, positive, positive mental attitude and that type of thing. And so they join our club. We have seminars, meetings, we have local chapter meetings around the world.

How many people are in this club?

We have thousands. I actually bought the entire cruise ship, the Norwegian Cruise Line, the Pearl. So we own that ship for a week and we— 2,200 of our members were on that ship. It was completely sold out.

When was this?

That was in January.

So you still have this group?

Oh, yeah. The club. The club still went on.

Are there— are there— Is there fee— like, are there like fees to be involved?

Yeah, yeah. There's a— there's an initiation fee when you join.

How much is it?

It's $1,500 to join and $150 a month dues.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

So it's cheaper than YPO.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. But—

and then if you want to upgrade to level 2, we provide additional training, success training courses at level 2. And then there's level 3, goes up 12.

Okay, so then you have like a revenue stream.

Yeah. Yeah. So that club club, but that club was not mine. Remember, the government took it all away and other guys bought it. Yeah, they took that away.

That doesn't belong to you?

I just bought it back.

When?

This year.

But how did you afford it? You have no money.

Well, when I came out—

okay, when you had no money. Okay, but you're wearing a nice Rolex. How much is that Rolex? Let me see that.

This is one of many that I have now.

Okay, that one looks pretty nice.

It is pretty nice.

It's like, what, $100 grand for that one?

I— yeah, at least. At And then the jewelry comes from right here in Beverly Hills, Michael Bodry. He's been my jeweler for decades.

So you're not exactly poor again?

No, no. Right now I'm doing very well.

How are you doing? How are you rich now?

Well, when I came out of prison, I had nothing.

Yeah.

So what I did was, well, some of my supporters started the Kevin Trudeau Fan Club. They started it when I was away and they said, listen, when Kevin comes out, he has nothing. If you want to help him kind of get back on his feet, you can make a donation to the Kevin Trudeau Fan Club. Club. So I had thousands of supporters around the world make some, you know, $10 donation, $50 donation, $100 donation. So I started off and I had some money.

How much did you have?

I had a good amount.

How much?

A good amount.

Like $100 grand, $200 grand?

A good amount. It started off with a couple thousand dollars. So when I came out, I had $10,000. Okay. So that's what I, that was my start off.

Okay.

But then we had the internet. There was this new thing that I didn't have when I went away.

Oh, that's right. You didn't know about that.

Called the internet. Yeah. And it was something—

That happened while you were gone?

Correct. There was something called Zoom, which I never heard of before. So there's people all around the world that know I'm out that are trying to email me and find me on something called social media, which I never heard of something called Facebook or all these things. So I—

You didn't know about this?

No, I had no idea how any of this stuff works. So I call people and say, how does this work? And the people are tracking me down because there were Kevin Trudeau, Kevin Trudeau support groups on Facebook and Kevin Trudeau fan club groups on Facebook. So people are saying, how can I talk to Kevin? So I had some volunteers and I said, listen, why don't you just talk to them and tell them I'll do some consulting via this thing called Zoom and they can pay. And all of a sudden I get booked one after the other after the other. Everybody wants an hour consulting. So it started off at $1,000 for the hour and went up to $5,000 for the hour. And so people were just booking me one after the other, after the other. And then I had marketing guys going, you're the greatest marketing person of all time. I'll give you a check for $250,000 if you'll help me with my company and a percentage of sales. I go, yes, I can do that. I have some free time. So, so virtually the universe created this avalanche of people that said the legend's back.

You know, the great— what The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times called the greatest marketing man of all time, America's marketing guru, a marketing genius, etc. They're all flooding in. And the guys today in direct marketing, they were, Kevin, I watched all of your infomercials and that's why I'm making tens of millions of dollars a year because I studied your marketing back in the '90s. I can't believe I'm talking to you live. So all of a sudden One thing led to the next. One guy's telling another guy, hey, I just talked to Kevin Trudeau, the guy we've been studying all of his infomercials. I can set us up with a counseling meeting and he can show us our business and help take it to the next level. He can 10x it. And so that's what happened. I had this massive influx of revenue just sitting there while I had an ankle bracelet on.

No way. Yeah.

And I'm just on— this is like a miracle. I mean, virtually a miracle because I didn't know if I would— if I was going to make it.

You must have been scared.

I wasn't scared. I didn't care. I didn't been there, done that. So I didn't know I was going to make a comeback. So I was like, look, I have no problem living in an ashram, you know.

I live in prison, for God's sake.

I mean, I had a friend of mine who's a guru, and she says, you can live with me, you know. It's like, fine. I, I, it didn't matter to me, but this just kind of happened.

How about any speaking gigs? You do a lot of speaking gigs or like mastermind talks and stuff like that?

I'm not a professional motivational speaker, and there's a lot of guys that I know, everybody in, in industry, you know, like you name the name, I probably know them. Yeah, that's their business. And I kind of give them a hard time because it's like, look, you are in the business of selling books or seminars or audios or videos on how to make money. But what have you ever done in real business to actually make money?

Right?

I never gave a talk or did anything until I generated at least $10 billion in sales. So yeah, I actually did it first. So when I When I, when I talk about success or how to become successful or how to start a company or how to do something, it's coming from a depth of knowledge that really nobody in the industry has because I'm not in the business of motivational speaking. Now, if somebody calls and said, will you give a talk? I may or may not do it because that's really not my business. And I charge, I would charge an astronomical amount of money. In my private club, the Global Information Network, you know, I teach those members and that's really what I do. I teach the members and mentor the members and help the members achieve greater success. But I do some talks and I still do some one-on-one.

How often do you meet with these people?

We have 4 major events a year, weekend events. So I'm at the weekend events. And then we also have 4 seminars online a year. So that's 8 times a year. I also put together all the online training courses called the Success Mastery Course. So at level 1, it's like 25 hours of training and it's designed to go in steps. So I actually put together, and I wrote this when I was in prison, which is really, again, which is, you know, this is the brilliance of that, the universe giving me this gift. I have the only virtually PhD course on success that is systematic step by step by step. And it's already done because I have, I was taught the entire success puzzle. So there's a puzzle with all these puzzle pieces and it's called total success in life. So all I do is I teach it to you. This is what was taught to me. Me where every other guy out there or woman who's out there teaching success, they're making new— they're making stuff up all the time. Oh, I just discovered this, or I just came up with this idea, or I just came up with that idea.

I go, well, I don't— I'm not coming up with anything. I'm not inventing anything. I was taught how to become successful by my mentors. I have all the pieces of the puzzle. That's it. And I just teach it to other people now.

So I think it'd be a huge business for you just to go to like like just mastermind or in sales, you know, sales teams, marketing teams for their like yearly roundups, you know what I mean? Yeah.

And I'm certainly open to that. But again, you know, you make so much money. Yeah. But that's working for money. And if, if the businesses that I've established over the years, you, you invest time and money and then you sit back and have residual income.

Yes. Versus much better.

You have to go out there and do a speech and do a speech. Even if, and look, I've been paid $1 million to speak. I spoke with, I spoke with, uh, General Norman Shvorskov and President Gorbachev. I was given $1 million, and this was back 20 years ago.

You were?

Yeah.

They were giving away $1 million for speaking?

I got $1 million. It was called the World's Masters of Business. It was in Australia. We did Brisbane, Sydney, Perth, and Auckland. We did 4 appearances. We had 35,000 people at each appearance. I got $1 million, plus I sold, I was talking about memory back then, then. I sold the Mega Memory home study course, and we sold $5 million worth of memory courses as well.

What did you sell? Because you couldn't remember what we just talked about.

Well, back then I was a little younger, and I was on top of my memory game. Yeah. Okay.

Are you sure? Okay. Because I mean that— okay, so then walk me through how this happened. So now you write this new book. Okay, let me— now, now we can talk about your book. How's that?

Great.

Good. Okay. It's called Your Wish Is Your Command: How to Manifest Manifest.

I hate that word. Why did you put that in the COVID Because that's the word that all the SEOs and everything has to— is like, hits the number. If you put how to set and achieve your goals, it would get like zero hits.

So this was SEO related? Yeah.

So there's certain words you have to put in the title to hit the certain buzzwords that people are looking for today. Because people are doing Google searches on manifest. Not how to set and achieve goals.

That's true.

That there's like zero Google searches for that.

That's probably true. And how many, how many, so the book is called Your Wish Is Your Command, How to Manifest Your Desires. Is the, is the SEO high on the word desires, on command, or wish? Like what is all of them?

Yeah. And you could put dream, you could put reality. Those are other also good words as well.

See, this is where you become, this is where the marketing person in you comes out, right? Correct. Because you knew that. So when did this book, when did you write this book?

I wrote this book last year, but it's based on a seminar I did over 25 years ago.

Okay. And so how many books have you sold? Have you sold any?

Oh yeah. Yeah. We've sold, I think over 10 or 20,000 so far. We are just soft launching it right now. Just went up on Amazon.

It just went up on Amazon. Okay. So what is in this book? What are people gonna learn if they read this book?

Okay. So if a person is familiar with Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

Yep.

Okay. That's a very good book.

Very good book. Very good book.

Very good book. The Law of Success in 16 Lessons by Napoleon Hill. Very good book. Ask and It Is Given by Esther Hicks. The Teachings of Abraham. Very, very good book. So if you look at books like that on success, they do have some things that are missing. Because when you talk to people that read those books and saying, have you achieved great success? No. Okay. Tell me what the recipe is or the basic formula for manifesting. Manifesting? And they go, I don't know. You just told me you read those 3 books. What do you mean you don't know? Because they really don't tell you. So what I did here was I put together the absolute simple step-by-step recipe. There's a 40-point algorithm that I was taught back in the early, well, mid-'70s on how to manifest or how to create your reality, or basically how to set a goal and achieve it. There's a 40-point algorithm. Each one has different weight, ways of, weights of importance. But if you follow it, it produces a specific result. Just like if you follow a recipe. When I was a kid, I used to make cakes. My mother was from Italy, so she cooked this Italian food, but she wasn't a baker.

So I thought, you know, I watched the Galloping Gourmet on TV and, you know, the French Chef, you know, Julia Child. I wanna cook cakes too. You know, I'm a little kid, right? So I go, "Mom, gimme a cookbook on cakes." So she didn't have one, so I went to the library. And there was a cookbook on how to make cakes, like in the shape of a butterfly or something like that. Like, you know, like, oh, okay, I'm going to take this home. Now, I'm not the smartest guy in the world back then. I'm a little kid, but I'm reading the book and it says get an 8-inch pan by 2-inch. All right, Ma, do you have this? Yeah. Get away from me. You bother me. Yes. Here's the pan. Okay. Do we have butter? Yeah. Yeah. Do we have flour? Yeah. Do we have, you know, do we have eggs? And so I'm reading the recipe and it tells you what to do. Take a bowl. Okay, here's a bowl. Mix. Put this in first, this in second, then stir the dry ingredients and slowly add the milk. And I'm following the recipe. And then I bake the cake and then it says cut the cake in two, you know, this way, then flip it over and then angle it this way.

And I'm just following the recipe. Put the little M&M's here again, and it has a picture. Picture, and then I present it to the family on a Thursday night. All my aunts and uncles come over the house, and I get this butterfly cake, and everyone applauds, and they go, this is unbelievable, how did you do this? You're a genius. And I go, no, I just followed the recipe in the book. Anybody could do this. No, I couldn't do this. My aunt's going, I could never do that. Yeah, can you read? Yeah, all you have to do is follow the recipe in the book. And I showed my aunt, And I watched her and she wasn't following the recipe. She was doing something different. I go, that's not what it says. And then she comes up and it's a disaster. So I'm thinking, what's wrong with these people? Success is exactly the same. If I tell people do this, they go, okay, and they do something else. So it's, I didn't know, I told you to do this, not that. You can't follow instructions. So the bottom line is success is duplicatable. Replicable. What one person has done, you could do also.

There is a pattern for success. There's a recipe or a formula for success. All you have to do is do the steps exactly as outlined and you get a quantifiable, specific result. And that is success. You make more money, you, you create the relationship of your dreams, you get into great health, you, you're happy, you don't have things trigger you anymore. People can't push your buttons cuz you've eliminated the buttons that people normally push. And they yell at you and you look at them like, you're not affecting me.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, and they're looking at you, then they get mad and they leave because they can't push your buttons. So that's what the book teaches. The book teaches how—

How to actually do the thing.

How to actually— this is a step-by-step. You do this first, you do the second, you do this third. Here's the recipe. Here's what you do. And what it does, it's written using hypnotic language patterns and certain syntax and in the words so that it deprograms you. Because even though you were born to win, you've been programmed to lose. We speak the way we speak shows you about the programming. Oh, that'll never work for me. Stop. Cancel, cancel. What you say is what you get. You just put out that that'll never work for for you, and now you're going to try it. Why do you think it's going to work? You just put out into the universe, you spoke into existence the fact that it's not going to work for you, and you wonder why you're not successful.

I mean, so the words that you have have meaning.

Little things like that. I'll tell you a quick story.

It's like The Secret, kind of.

The Law of Attraction, yes, but there's more to it. You actually have to do some effort. I'll give you an example. Had a friend of mine, he teaches success supposed to know all this stuff, but he's struggling. He goes, "Man, I'm struggling making these deals. You know, I get all these deals and they keep blowing up at the last minute." So I go, "Look, and I've been with you as you're negotiating this deal. Do you realize you have a habit of saying the word concern?" He goes, "What do you mean?" I go, "Every time you get a contract, you say, 'I have a concern with this paragraph.'" Every time you say the word concern, that comes from fear. That means your whole body starts vibrating fear. And your deals never happen. You don't understand what you're doing. That word is so powerful, it automatically kicks in the fear vibration, which is pushing away or repelling success. So what you have to do is do what successful people do, change the verbiage. So watch this. You have a paragraph and you tell to the person, hey, I have a question about this paragraph. There's no fear there.

That's neutral. Or you say, can you clarify this paragraph? That's neutral instead of saying, I have a concern. But let's take it to the next level. Now watch this. I think we can make this paragraph better. Now you've just taken control. I'm getting goosebumps all over because once you say that, your whole vibration changes. You are in control. You're in command. You are at cause over your environment instead of being at effect. Effect. You are now making it happen, and the universe will yield to your will, and therefore it'll happen.

I love that. Give me another one.

Well, a lot of people, when I ask them, what is the manifesting formula, we hear this common: oh, you have to picture in your mind what you want. True. What else? Some people say, and you have to feel right now as if you would feel if you actually had it. Feeling is the Bravo. That's true. Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about that specifically in his Netflix documentary as the key to having him achieve all the success that he did in all these different disciplines, whether it was the Mr. Olympia, real estate in Beverly Hills.

But his whole thing is work hard. And that's what I believe. Right.

That's true. But he does talk about— but he talks about that he picks—

you're going to believe that it's already—

that he has to picture it. But there's something else that Arnold says that nobody you will read in any success book except this one. Arnold said he hated Austria. He had to leave and get to America. Watch Jim Rohn, the great Jim Rohn, one of the greatest motivational speakers, who's the nicest, sweetest guy in the world. Everything is love and beautiful and happy. He says the most powerful emotion when it comes to success is disgust. You have to find something in your life that disgusts you. That you will not tolerate anymore. That's the only way you'll achieve success. You don't live there, but you have to have something that just disgusts you to the point where saying, I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. I am not gonna tolerate this anymore. This is not what I want. That's what I want. And that's what Arnold did. He goes, I'm sick of this little town, Thal in Austria. It disgusts me. I'm going to America. So you first have to find out exactly what you will not tolerate anymore, what discuss you. And from that point, you do step 2, which is clearly define what you want with specificity.

I ask people, what's your name? Joe Smith. What's your address? 113 Main Street. What's your phone number? Gives me the phone number. What do you want? Well, let me think. I want some more money. Stop. Cancel, cancel. You just fail, fail, fail. Go back. Do not pass go. Go back. Do not collect $200. You failed. What do you mean? You didn't tell me what you wanted. You hesitated. You didn't hesitate when I asked you your name. And then when I asked you what you wanted, you said some more money. What the hell does that mean? There's no specificity there. You got to be specific. You got to know exactly what you want as well as your own name. You have to know exactly, exactly, exactly. Specificity. Then you got to write it down. There's a great study and no one knows if even if it was true, but it sounds great. Zig Ziglar used to talk about it from Yale University or Harvard back in the '60s. The graduating class was asked how many people have specific goals for the future. Only half of the people said they had goals. How many of you that have goals for the next 10 to 20 years have those goals written down?

3% of the class said they wrote wrote down their specific goals for the next 10 to 15 to 20 years. 20 years later, the class was interviewed again. That 3% had accumulated more wealth than the other 97% combined. Written down, quantifiable, specific goals is the key. I'm with a friend of mine who's in a $35 million mansion, his house, and his buddy, another super wealthy fellow. And I asked him, do you have written down goals? He goes, of course I do. It was almost like, what a stupid question, Kevin. Why would you even ask me? Of course I have my goals written down.

Really?

Like, of course I know what I want. Of course I write it down. And is it typed up into a computer? No, it's on a piece of paper. It's written down. And I bet you don't tell anybody your goals. Nope. That's another trick. You don't tell anybody your dreams. Don't tell people your goals.

Why? Why?

People want you to do well, just not that well. There's counter-intention, even if it's subconscious. They don't want you to do too well because you and them are at the same level. And if you do really well, you go way above them. That doesn't make them feel good. They don't want you to do well. Don't tell people your goals. I come driving in the driveway with the brand new Rolls-Royce. Daniel goes, you didn't tell me you were gonna get a Rolls-Royce. No.

Yeah.

I, 'cause maybe you don't like that car. Maybe you'd have some subconscious little, you know, counterintention. But she likes private jets. So we're talking about getting a private jet. We can share that dream together and we can work together as a team on it. You know, let's—

with who?

With my wife.

Oh, with your wife. I'm sorry, I didn't—

yeah.

So wait a second. So now you're at a level where you have money for a private jet again?

No, not yet. But I'm still looking for one because that's the next trip. You can't look at how much money you have and then figure out what you can buy. You have to figure out what you want and the money will catch up with you. You have to dream big first before the money will come up. You don't say, well, this is how much money I have, so what can I fit in there? No, you go, this is what I want. Money, come on, get moving. You gotta move faster. That's how it works. So you start looking for things when you can't afford it. You start dreaming. Now you don't live in a dream world, but you have to start dreaming now. And this is what every single person does. Walt Disney was here in California. He just got wiped out, but from his business partners in New York, they stole his cartoon character Oswald the Rabbit, which nobody even hears about.

Right.

But he was bankrupt and he said, wait a minute, they stole my cartoon character, but they didn't steal, steal my ability to create. '48. And he goes that that was the day that he wrote down and scribbled Mickey Mouse. And that's when he started working on Disneyland when he was flat broke. He said he started dreaming about this place and he said the happiest place on earth, which is what they call it now, Disneyland. But he was dreaming about it when he had no money.

So you say to yourself, I want, I want a private jet. I want to be this way, that way, that way. And then you work, you reverse engineer it.

Well, I let the universe supply the how. You can't get caught up in the how. You have to get caught up in what you want and let the universe present the how to you. There was a great scene in one of the Star Wars movies. I think it was the very first episode, you know, in the lineage, actually the fourth movie made, but the first episode where the Jedi Knight is, they're deserted on some deserted island and they don't know how to get out. Their plane's broken or whatever. And he's just not worried at all. And the other Jedi goes, what are we going to do? And he goes, oh, I don't know. Something will present itself. Because it's like, something will present. I don't know. So people say, how are you going to make the money for that? I don't know. Something will present itself. And then magically something does. All of a sudden I get a phone call and a guy says, hey, there's this company right in Chicago. They love you. Everybody knows about you as the marketing guy. And they're already gonna become a multi-billion dollar business. Maybe you can help them out or give 'em some advice.

They'd love to meet you. I go down, I meet the guys, they offer me a board position, some equity in the company. Well, the company already went from a $10 million valuation to a $5 billion valuation. I mean, that fast. Okay, that's a miracle. It came from nowhere, comes from nowhere. So how, why did that present itself? Yourself. Because I have a dream of some of the things I want for my club, for my members in the club, how I want them to benefit, the finances we're going to need to give them these benefits. Okay, good. Universe, figure out how to make this happen. That's your job. My job is to dream. The universe's job is to figure out and present to me the how. And then my job is to not poo-poo it like an idiot.

Poo-poo it.

Yeah. And go, oh, That's— yeah, it— they're giving you.

So don't poo-poo.

That was, that was— and I remember this from the first time when I get two guys offering me to do infomercials and I'm going, that won't work. And I'm telling them, no, I don't want to do that. I get the universe presenting me on a silver platter the answer to my dream and I'm trying to push it away like a moron. And then I real— I woke up in the middle of the night going, going, wait a minute, this is the answer to what I was asking for. How dumb am I? Of course I'm gonna take the deal. And, and the, as they say, the rest is history. If I didn't take that deal, who knows what would've happened?

What's the number one question people ask you besides, of course, the prison jail thing?

That's not the number one question.

What's the number one question?

The number one question is, how do I do it too?

Mm.

They go, Kevin, you're incredibly successful. You've been successful multiple times in your life. You've had business.

And you came back again.

And, and the first time you went into, you know, this meteoric rise, you got everything taken away and starting from zero, you've accomplished more in just a few years than you had in the previous two decades almost.

Not really.

Not really.

But have you made millions again?

Yeah. Yeah.

In that, like, are you making like 10 or like over 50?

Well, altogether we've done well over $50 million already since you've been back. Oh, yes. Since I've been out. Yeah. Yeah. Way above.

On what?

Yeah. All the businesses. We have the publishing business, which is doing really well with Your Wish. We have the consulting business, Trudeau Consulting, Training and Coaching. We have the Kevin Trudeau Fan Club, which is bringing in huge revenue. We have a partner program there. I do a monthly Zoom call for my partners where I answer their questions for 2 hours so people can become a partner for a small monthly fee. They can get on that live Zoom call. So I have a whole host of businesses. I started the World's Best Nutritionals and Organics because people ask me, 'Cause of the Natural Cures book, what supplements do you take? And I go, there's nothing out there that's any good. I have to make my own. So we are producing the world's best, most expensive, exclusive nutritional supplement line in the world. So that's gonna probably go public. That'll be a billion-dollar valuation potentially.

Who's buying this stuff?

Everybody. Remember I had this huge following and because of the internet, they, they can find me now. So we're all over social media. We're on, you know, Instagram.

I saw your social. You have like what, a couple hundred thousand or 300,000 people following you?

I don't know. I actually, I never have been on social media. My team does.

You crack me up. I'm looking for you right now.

I know on YouTube we have 175,000 subscribers, but we're getting, I think, 4 or 5 million views a month across all of our social media platforms on all the things we post. Wow.

You're like a rocket ship. It's really amazing.

And it's a lot of fun. And again, I'm doing it. Remember, you know, people sometimes get a wrong impression. They think, oh, he's money motivated. And that's not true. Again, when you look at my history, one of the things I never did was tell people how much money I give away because that's nobody's business. I'm not giving it away to get publicity. There was a great example of this. There was a major, major corporation that gave $100,000 to a women's shelter for abused women.

Okay.

Domestic abuse. That sounds like a wonderful thing.

Yes.

They spent $10 million advertising it.

They did?

So they gave $100,000 to the clinic. Good for them. But then they spent $10 million running ads telling everybody what a great company they are, that they gave $100,000. Give. You follow me?

I totally know what you mean. So they just wanted to have the— I know why they're doing it for their own personal—

that's correct. So they did it, but then they spent $10 million advertising. Why didn't you give the $10 million to them?

Of course.

I mean, but that's not always the way it is though. Yeah, it's not always the way it is. It's the way it is most of the time.

You're right. I shouldn't always be so, um, cross-blanketed. You're right. It's not always, but mostly.

But mostly. You're right. You're right. You're right.

Okay, I have a question because I just saw something. Why do you always tell people to use black ink and not blue? No, why do you tell people not to use black, black ink, or red ink, or green ink.

It's blue ink on a piece of paper that's white. So we have white.

Okay.

Then we have blue ink. Blue is a color of the rainbow, correct?

Okay.

Every color in the spectrum has a different frequency and vibration, correct? We all know this.

Yes.

Common sense. We know that if you paint all of the walls in this room red, that there's going to be a higher level of agitation and energy in the room because that frequency is permeating us. If we wear red, like a beautiful red pantsuit or outfit or dress, or if I'm wearing a red suit or whatever, it has a vibration. Blue has a calming vibration. The wavelength of blue helps synchronize the left and the right brain hemisphere so that they're operating very similar in an alpha state. So when you take a white piece of paper paper and you have a pen with blue ink and you write in cursive, ideally, the number of neural pathways that get triggered and get developed in the brain while the brain is close to or in an alpha state go up dramatically. This way, when you stop writing, the brain has now— it's been embedded with that desire or that wish or that dream or that goal, and therefore it's vibrating it into the universe 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, even when you're sleeping.

So never use black ink, only use blue ink on white paper.

It's not right or wrong, it's good, better, and best. You can use a piece of— you can use a pencil and a yellow piece of paper and write your goals down. That's better than not writing them down at all.

That's so true, right?

So it's, it's not right or wrong, it's good, better, and best. Ideal scene versus, you know, not the ideal scene.

Okay, there was another one here I saw. You're saying the wrong word. Is that the word that you said? But concerned versus—

that's one of them. Yeah, but people use the wrong word all the time. Here's an example. Terrorific. How are you feeling? I feel terrific.

Terrific.

Yeah, it sounds very positive. I'm going to be positive, so I'm going to say terrific. Well, look up the word. Where does it come from? It comes from the word terrible.

Terrific does?

Yes. It's not a positive word. It's a negative word. That tornado was terrific, which means it was a terrible tornado. It was a powerfully terrible tornado. So terrific is an increase in terrible. That's where it comes from. Yes. So when you use this word, we think it's going to be positive, but we actually have a vibration from the origin of the word coming out of our mouth. We haven't illuminated that word and activated that frequency. So if you illuminate and activate words, and therefore you can use words properly, you're going to get a much better result.

Okay. So what are some good words to use?

Well, think about a good word. I mean, enthusiasm. Enthusiasm. Look up the word. Where does that come from? It comes from the Greek, God within us. Right? So enthusiasm is, that's wonderful. It's like almost like it's some, the God energy coming out of us.

That's right.

And we're living it. Right? So be enthusiastic. That's a wonderful word. Right? Inspired. Another word. Look up the meaning of that word. Look at the history where that word comes from. Tremendous. Another one. It's a really powerful word. So there's a lot of words that we can can use that give us power and influence in dealing with people and also over ourselves.

What are some of the words like terrific that we always use and we don't even know they are negative or bad?

Well, I wouldn't give a list of words because depending on the culture and where a person comes from— remember in the old days in the Valley here outside, you know, we had a certain lingo. What I would suggest people do is look at the patterns that you we use out of habit. You know what I mean? That's one of them, right?

Yes.

People just say that.

You know what I mean?

You know what I mean? Yeah. Right? You're not even thinking. You hear what I'm saying? I mean, it's just automatic and whatnot. It's just automatic and yada, yada, yada. Yeah. I remember that from Seinfeld, right?

Yeah.

Right. But the point is we have patterns that we speak and we don't even realize it. So really pay attention to the words that you're using. It makes a big difference. And I will give a person one powerful thing to consider. There's two words, I am. Be careful of what you put after that. When you say, I am such a loser. Oh my gosh, what have you just done to yourself? You've just hit yourself with a sledgehammer. You're not a loser. You're the pure extension and expression of God's love. Just as God is love, so are you. You're this wonderful energetic being of love and light. Don't say, "I'm a loser." If you want to say something, say, "I am love," and start saying that more than one time and start letting that truth come to surface. It's really going to make a big difference. But be very careful what you put after the word I am, because it has massive amounts of power.

Are you tired yet? Because I know I've kept you here for hours.

Well, surprisingly enough, even from my advanced age, I do have massive amounts of energy and can go on.

Enthusiasm.

And enthusiasm. So, uh, whenever you're good, I'm good.

And I'm good now. I just feel like I have all these questions, but I'm tired because I had a 3-hour before you.

I promise you, since I love coming out you invest, uh, as much as I do, that I'll be more than happy to do one of these again with you.

You're so fun. You are so fun.

Well, you make it easy because you're like the best interviewer I've ever had.

Oh my gosh, thank you. Well, you make it easy because you have, you have such an exuberance and enthusiasm that it is very fun to sit here. Like, I actually am like, okay, I really have all these other things I want to ask him, but it's been 3 hours. I think I should probably let time, go home. Um, when are you back?

I'm not sure yet.

Will you let me know?

I will. We'll make sure we organize something.

No, I'm serious.

Yeah.

Okay, I want your phone number because if I have a question I want to ask you, like, you know what I have?

I actually have— and your, your audience probably has never seen one of these before— it's actually called a business card.

Yeah, what's that?

Yeah, exactly.

Let me see this.

So that has my, my number on it.

Oh my God, you actually have a business card?

See, see, I don't know.

What are you gonna do with— like, do people— do you give—

I just gave it to you. See how effective it is? You just asked me for my and there you go.

It's— do you have more than one?

I have more than one in my pocket in case something— he asked me for— maybe she'll ask me for my number.

Is this really your phone number?

It really is my phone number. You don't give that out to anybody. It's got my seal on it and everything.

Well, like, you realize— I don't know, when you were in prison, did they tell you that people don't give these away anymore?

I know they don't, but people don't wear double-breasted suits either.

They do not.

But I'm wearing one, ain't I?

You sure as hell are.

And I'm wearing a fedora over there too.

Oh, trust me, I noticed the fedora. Yeah. But like, you just have your own style.

Years ago, years ago, I met LaToya Jackson. We were in Las Vegas, we were having dinner, and she was dressed up and she looked amazing. And everybody was staring at her. And I goes, boy, you have this great style. She goes, yeah, and you don't. And I said, what are you saying? Be a little more direct. She goes, you need to have your own personal style. And I go, what does that mean? She goes, well, what type of, what do you like from watch? And we started talking and I said, I like old black and white movies. And I like, you know, this and that. Dress like a gangster. She goes, dress like somebody from the 1940s. Wear a fedora, get double-breasted suits, you know, dress like— So she—

LaToya Jackson told you to dress like a gangster?

She's the one who basically encouraged me to get my own style and made a suggestion that maybe I should look like somebody from the '40s because I like the clothes. They fit me really well. You know, they're— I have cuffs and, you know, wider pants and they're high and they have pleats.

Yeah, you like that look.

I like it. So this is what I feel comfortable in. I'm comfortable all day long. I like to overdress. So when I go out for dinner tonight, for example, I don't know yet, but I'm not going to be wearing a t-shirt or look like a homeless person. So when I'm going out to the restaurant, you know, you like to have it on. I like to dress up.

I love that. I love the fedora. I was like, I was— I wasn't sure who it was.

I got a dozen fedoras.

You do?

Because this one here is for California. It's the Monte Cristo. And then, of course, I also brought in case it was cold. A gray felt one, you know, beaver felt.

Yes.

Which is also the same style, but that would be for if it was cooler.

Who are you friends with? Like, do I know any of your friends? Like, are you friends with anybody that I would know?

I don't know.

You are such an interesting, unique person. You'd be fun at a dinner party, right?

I like dinner.

You do like dinner.

Exactly. I like food, so I'm always open for an invitation.

I'm telling you. Can you please tell me when you're back in town?

I will.

You're so interesting. Guys, okay, the book is called Your Wish Is Your Command, and, well, it's Kevin Trudeau, You, he already told you everywhere you can find him, kevintrudeau.com. He's got a million different places that you can see him, whatever, even on Instagram. Very good stuff on Instagram actually.

Yeah. You know, we're getting great views and great responses.

Yeah.

Well, he's very positive, very upbeat, you know, very inspirational stuff.

I think it's more than that. It's actually helpful.

That's, that's the idea. Yeah. The idea is I only put together stuff that I think if somebody watches this, will they take something away that will improve their quality of life and standard of living and make them a better person? Person.

Yeah, I love that black ink situation. I'm sure there's a million more like that.

It's blue ink.

Black ink is not—

black ink—

don't use the black ink, only use the blue.

Or prison, not jail.

Yeah, prison, not jail. Exactly. Thank you. Okay, thank you. We're out.

Bye.