Transcript of BONUS #169: What 11 Years in Prison Taught Us About God And Money: Behind the scenes conversation with Kevin Trudeau

I got a 15-year prison sentence. Let's just say I got caught with a plethora of cocaine.

Every saint has a past and every sinner a future.

I was the most miserable I've ever been, and I made a lot of money doing it. My good qualities were used in a bad way. People always ask me, how did you overcame prison? I said, I didn't overcome shit, I caused it.

Knowledge is power, but only if it's remembered, because if it's not remembered, it can't be used. You're a Christian and a spiritual person, and there's a scripture that says, seek first the kingdom.

Yeah.

And everything else will be added on.

People like us hurt feelings because we say what you need to hear and not what you want to hear.

Your body will tell you, I'm tired. Your body will tell you, I can't go anymore. Don't listen to your body. You tell your body what to do. What some of the biggest lies do you think about that people are being taught about making money?

Where do I start?

Money, you're rich, I'm rich. Health, you're stupidly healthy because you're like 20 years old. But I'm really old. I'm 92 and I'm really healthy. And we're both really happy. I mean, we live amazing lives. But why should anybody listen to us when it comes to making money or being healthy or being happy? Like, what credentials do we have?

I'd say life credentials. I don't need 900 letters after my name of learning a bunch of garbage that doesn't relate to anything that we do back and forth. I want to talk to people that have lived it. You've lived it more than me, but we've both been in those trenches. We've both been around people, seen it all, done it all. I don't care about studies that are filtered and they're coaxed into being whatever they want it to be. I care about going through and seeing what people are going through and living it, getting real feedback, being around it, experiencing it. I don't need somebody to tell me some facade that they create. I mean, if you're not living it and you're not a part of it, what are you doing? What are you doing? I don't see the point in any of it. I'm certainly not going to listen to somebody telling me what to do that's never done anything, that's pulling it off of a textbook or what they're told. Because a lot of the people, they're being told by somebody else that's being told by somebody else that's never done anything. So, I don't care about any of that.

When it comes to making money, we were talking earlier, there's a lot of lies out there. Okay. What's some of the biggest lies do you think about that people are being taught about making money?

Oh, where do I start? Everybody's got some sort of shortcut that leads to a longer road, or somebody's got an excuse as to why they're not making money. Right? Everybody's got the next get-rich-quick scam. Do this, take this shortcut. I mean, you've been around it now long enough, and I've been doing sales since I was born. Basically, I was born into it. So, I've seen and been around everything. I mean, now everybody thinks, like with a peptide, for example, something comes out, we're going to explode and everybody's going to get rich. Doesn't even know what it is. And it's basically people that try to come into an industry, never been involved in it, don't know what they're doing, take advantage.

Right.

What are you saying?

Well, yeah, you know, there's one thing that people don't talk about. I mean, look, there's a lot of guys on the internet, a lot of guys doing seminars, a lot of guys teaching courses, and they're making a fortune teaching courses and writing books or doing seminars on how to make money and how to get rich. No one really made any money before they started teaching courses. I mean, I did $20 billion in business before I ever gave a lecture on anything. I was always the guy behind the scenes. I never taught success. I just became ridiculously successful by applying some principles. But there's one thing, and this is why people out there know about success, but they really don't know it. They don't even know what they're really doing to succeed. They don't even know. But here's what it is. The brain is both a receiver and transmitter of frequency.

Mm-hmm.

Now we know that, right? That's okay. You get all the frequencies, you get gamma, you get beta, you get alpha, theta, and delta. Okay, so the brain, vibrates or broadcasts frequencies, and it's picked up by other brains. Science knows that. So if I'm putting out a frequency, it's picked up by your brain. If you're putting out a frequency, which we both are, so we're both transmitting and receiving frequency. And if 2 people are together and they're on completely different frequencies, they have nothing in common.

That's right.

Right? There's no connection. And then 2 people meet and they're on the same exact frequency, and they're like best friends or instant lovers. And it's like, oh, it's like, I met my soulmate. or whatever, right? They connect. Okay. Wealthy people broadcast on a very specific frequency.

Yeah.

As you know, right? It's right at the bottom of alpha and it's at the top of theta. So it's this wealth wave, this billionaire brainwave. So they're broadcasting. Poor people or broke people, people that struggle financially who are always bitching, whining, and complaining about something, and they broadcast on beta.

Yeah.

Okay. The poverty wave. Now, you go into a bar with all these losers who are all broadcast, right? Okay, that's what it is, right? They're all losers, okay?

Yeah.

Right? They know everything about everything as they're on their 8th beer, right?

Right.

And they, and they just bitch, whine, and complain, and they're skeptical about everything. If you have a dream, they laugh at you. They try to steal your dream. They put rats in your head. But you go in and hang around with them. But if you go into that room that bar, that nightclub, and you're surrounded with these people who are all broadcasting on the slave wave or the poverty wave, your brain is like a tuning fork. So when you walk in, guess what happens to you? Your brain, even though you're all motivated and inspired when you walk in, changes.

Right.

Because it's overwhelmed by the number of brains, physical brains in that room that are all vibrating on the slave wave. And so now you start vibrating on the slave or poverty wave as well, and you stay broke.

Yep.

Now, let's flip it. You're on that slave wave. You're struggling. And then you walk into your room. It's a fancy cocktail party. You go— we're in Beverly Hills. You go down to Beverly Hills. We're all— you pull into a restaurant where there's a lounge there, and there's Ferraris and Rolls-Royces and Lamborghinis and Bentleys and Porsches. And you go in and and you just sit at the bar and that whole restaurant is filled with people that are making $1 million a year or more. They're all vibrating at the wealth wave, but you're not. So, guess what happens? Your brain, like a tuning fork, begins to change.

Yeah.

And it now begins to vibrate on that same wave. So, this is one of the greatest, I think, one of the best-kept secrets of making money that nobody knows about, which is what Aristotle Onassis said. Your income is gonna be the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with, listen to the most, and watch. Because you become like those people.

Yeah.

You mimic their speech patterns, you mimic the way they think, you mimic their body movements, and your brains are connecting and you're mimicking automatically. You don't have any control over this. You're mimicking their brainwave frequency. And therefore, if you are hanging around people that are at your income level, you cannot make more. It's virtually impossible.

Mm-hmm.

But if you're hanging around people or listening to people, podcasts, listening to you, listening to me, listening to other podcasts, listening to audios, reading books, autobiographies and biographies of super wealthy people, you now start tapping into that energy. If you're physically in, that's why people join success clubs and they want to go to local chapter meetings or meet with people in a weekend event that are positive, motivated, inspired, making money. They want to hang around with people that make a lot more money than them. And every wealthy person, You look, talk to any wealthy person or any successful sports person or any successful musician, they all say the same thing. I had a mentor.

Yep.

Which means they hung around somebody that made more money than them, that was way more successful than them. They watched, they started mimicking their body movements, their language patterns, and their brains started syncing. That's the key. And that's one of the big missing secrets of all time. One of my best friends is Mike Siegel. He's a 10-time world champion pool player, winningest pool player of all time. I watched him shoot pool, and I would just watch him and watch him and watch him and watch him and watch him. And then when I shot pool, a guy saw Mike on TV shooting pool, running 150 balls an hour to win the championship. He sees me on the table, he goes, you stand and play exactly like Mike Siegel. He goes, you have the same mannerisms as him. I go, yeah, because I watched— that's who I watched.

Yeah.

And I said, Mike Siegel did that to a world champion named Irving Crane, who was one of the greatest players of all time, if not one of the— in the top 5. And Mike, when he was a kid, he watched Irving play. So Mike picked up all of Irving's little twitches and little hand movements and, you know, little things like that. 'Cause I watched Irving and I go, that's Mike. And then I watch Mike and that's me. So you mimic and model that successful behavior. But the biggest thing is the brains sync.

Oh yeah.

And you know this, right?

Well, it's like this, in the nutrition world, you are what you eat. Well, it's the same thing what you're talking about. You become what you surround yourself with, right? So, exactly what you said. When I got into all the trouble I ever got in, I go back and I go, look at the line of people of who I was hanging out with. What the hell was going to happen to me? Look at them. And I don't say that derogatory. I say it's just a fact. They were doing nothing. And then I became what I hated. I became exactly the polar opposite of how I was raised and who I really was. But you don't really have a choice when you're in the— when you put yourself in the environments you're in. And I hate that. One of the things I despise, and I don't care whose feelings this hurt, 'cause I'm a feeling hurter. Because you know what? People like us hurt feelings 'cause we say what you need to hear and not what you want to hear.

Mm-hmm.

When you live with built-in excuses, it's my gender, it's my race, it's this, it's this. No, no, fucker, it's not. It never was. Yeah, that stuff exists here and there, but that's not the reality. The reality is you have a built-in excuse for your inadequacy. for your failure instead of going home and looking in the mirror and going, you know what? I just didn't have it today, or, I just don't have it right now. What do I have to do to fix it? Then you get around people like you said, you start to see success, you see behaviors, you see people that don't have excuses. They actually like to fail because it encourages them to win or teaches them how to win. I look back now at all the things that I thought were, oh, you're so terrible, I beat myself up for. And now I said, why the hell would I ever beat myself up for taking a licking and coming through it and learning from it. We need that. See, people don't want to be challenged. They don't. They want to skate through life. And those are the people, like you said, they don't make it.

Well, it's losers or failures. We'll call them failures. Failures are always good at one thing, making excuses.

I was just going to say, they have a problem for every solution, right? And I can't stand that shit because In life, how the hell would you ever know success if you didn't know what failure was? You wouldn't really know what love is if there wasn't hatred. I mean, I hate that there's hate, but you wouldn't know the difference if everything was like that. You would never know if we didn't get challenged. If I didn't push you, you didn't push me, and we never got pushed, what would we be?

Mm-hmm.

I wouldn't want to hang out with you if you didn't push me. If you didn't push me to be better and say, Dylan, man, you fucking suck today, I'd be like, thank you. See, I don't get hurt feelings. I get raged up to like, go be successful. If you point something out to me, I tell my wife every time we leave, if I look like shit, if I'm being annoying or something, you tell me. You tell me. It's not going to hurt my feelings. It's going to hurt my feelings if you don't. But you got to— you have to like be a person with emotions and not be emotional. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

That over-emotional, all of that shit doesn't work, man. Not in the real world. You know that.

Yeah. And dealing with adversity, right? Or challenges or failures or whatever you want to call it. It's really a mindset difference. I'll tell you an interesting story. I just flew in today from Dallas. I was at the U.S. Open Pool Championship with Mike Siegel, the world champion, and all the top players were there. Earl Strickland, Johnny Archer, you know, on and all the, all the Hall of Famers. So Mike and I are watching this match. And the guy was down 2 games. He, he was tied up, and then he missed the ball. The other guy wins. Now the guy just has to win 1 more game. He's got the break, big advantage. He's got to win 1 game and it's over. And the guy next to Mike says, ah, it's over. He's got the break. He's gonna win. Mike says, you don't know that.

Right.

Anything could happen. He could scratch on the break, which doesn't happen very often. And, and I go, I, I like I like Mike's attitude. Well, guess what happened? The guy scratches on the break. Earl Strickland, who was playing, jumps up out of the chair. He runs out, wins that game, it's tied, and then breaks and runs out to win. But that's the difference. And he said, and Mike was saying, see, he was yelling at the guy, goes, that's the difference between a champion and a loser. I never thought I was out of it. I always thought something can happen.

That's right, dude. I love that you point that out. You manifest shit one way or another. And if you start telling yourself, I'm always gonna be sick, I'm gonna lose, I'm gonna do this. Guess what? You're gonna fucking lose every single time. I can't tell you how many times I used to live that way in everything I do. And now, and this was more when I got better and deeper in prayer and closer to God where I started to go, you know what? What the hell am I worried about?

Mm-hmm.

What am I worried about? I don't think I'm invincible. That's ridiculous. But I also in my head know now it's like, man, I know God's on my side. I know everything else I'm doing, I can do, I can do all of this. So why would I ever tell myself I can't? Or why would I tell myself that I'm going to lose or I'm not going to win or something's going to happen to me? When I start doing that now, I quickly catch it and I'm like, now get— it's like a get behind me, Satan thing you say. And I always say in my head, now I talk shit in my head and you don't want to know what I say, but I tell him like, get the fuck out of here, dude. Like, who are you talking to?

You don't remember Flip Wilson. You're right with Geraldine, right? You remember Flip Whistlin' and Geraldine, right? The devil made me do it. I love it.

No, but it's all mindset. Literally, you know, I spent the last 15 or 20 years and my whole focus and premise was how do I maximize everything I can with someone's nutrition and their body? How do I make like the most amazing athlete or somebody that looks like they're 20 when they're 50 body-wise and take their genetic age backwards? And I didn't realize how much I was missing right up here. And I started to piece this together where, man, every— the mind controls everything. If you think about when you're an athlete even, well, I train you and you can do anything, but if you tell yourself you can't, you're— even if you have the physical ability, you won't. But I got athletes that maybe aren't as good, but they're up here, they're so much tougher, they can do anything. They can do anything.

And I did a program called Patent on Leadership. I don't know if you remember that. general during the Second World War, General George S. Patton Jr. They made a movie called Patton.

Yeah, yeah.

He was the greatest general according to the Americans in the war. Of course, a lot of it's true, but Patton made a lot of statements and I did a program called Patton on Leadership. And one of the things that he says, you have to push your body because your body will always yield to the will of the mind.

Yeah.

And you listen to any athlete, whether you're going up You know, Mount Everest. I was with a guy, we were hiking up here in Calabasas, and I had trained for this big hike, and I'm winning. And I didn't know this Korean guy who was part of our troop, who he was. Well, at the end of the 12-mile hike, I'm leading. I'm, you know, I'm Mr. Marine. I'm going okay. And all of a sudden, this Korean guy comes flying out of nowhere and passes me for the last 100 yards and beats me to the van.

Hmm.

I want to strangle him. And he doesn't speak English. So I'm talking to the guide. I go, who is this guy anyway? Oh, he's the guy who climbed Mount Everest twice last year.

Oh, shit.

And I says, well, he doesn't count. He's a professional. I won. But I talked to him via— and the interpreter that was there who wasn't on the hike, but the interpreter. And I said, you know, what's your mindset? And he says, oh yeah, your body will stop. He says, your body will tell you, I'm tired.

Yeah.

Your body will tell you, I can't go anymore. He goes, don't listen to your body.

No.

You tell your body what to do. And your body, like a dog, If you are the alpha dog, it will yield and it will do what you want.

That's right.

So you have to, you have to tell your body. And guess what? The universe also yields to your will. When you make a decision, I'm going to do it, that's it, period. Nothing is going to stop me. The universe says, oops, okay, we have to open up, you know, all the doors. We have to make all this happen because the universe is your ally.

Yeah.

It'll work with you, but only when you're serious. And only when you are forceful enough and have enough willpower and you make that decision that you're going to do it. Now, we both, by the way, have some prison experience.

Mm-hmm.

There's a— I was, I was with— I was in a house up here in the hills. My buddy has this $65 million mansion. So I'm with him and with all these other guys worth $200, $300, $400 million. We're all sitting around and we're all looking at each other and we all realize what we all did time. And this one guy goes, hey, If you weren't indicted, you weren't invited.

That's good.

And we all laughed like idiots. And now I said, yeah, but Kevin, you were for contempt of court, so you didn't get indicted. So maybe you shouldn't even be here. And we all giggled like, oh yeah, I didn't get indicted. Contempt of court. But you had some problems back, right?

Yeah.

What happened there?

So I was acting and modeling, and I was over in Italy modeling and I could not do the lifestyle. I wanted everything, and I mean everything. I wanted the custom suits, I wanted the cars, I wanted the jewelry, and you don't make that kind of money doing that. And I was around everybody that had everything, at least I thought at the time was everything, which I realize now isn't shit. But that's what I wanted. And I was not like I am. I don't take no for an answer. So, my good qualities were used in a bad way. I'm figuring this out. So, quickly, I saw, well, this guy, where am I getting all the cocaine I'm using? Right? And I started to just go ask, hey, how much money are you making? And then I saw, and I'm a math guy.

Hmm.

I'm a numbers guy. I've always been a finance guy. And I quickly started doing the math and I was like, huh, well, I could get this car, this, this, this, this, and this, and have all of this shit and not have a worry in the world. And then I figured out, how can I run this to where Well, he's a pretty boy. He would never do this. How do I do this to where it's going to pass and I'm never going to get caught? There's no longevity in that kind of drug sales, right? But I managed. Anyway, long story short, that was a straight-up business plan of mine to sell as much cocaine as I could and make as much money as I could with no exit strategy of any kind. No, what am I actually going to do with my college education and all these certifications and everything? No, no, no. This was just about me. How can I make as much money as I can, but then blow it all at the same time? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right?

The more money I made, the more I spent. And I didn't have credit back then. This was all cash buy. So then, you know, if you don't have credit too, then that money's just gone. So, my safe was always empty, right? I had a lot of stuff, but, you know, and I didn't understand, you can't walk in and pay $15,000, $20,000 for stuff without it getting flagged.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, I had people at the bank I was paying to put money through so it wasn't flagging the $9,999.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right. I had everything covered.

I worked at a bank and I had people that were buying shit from me that were helping me put money through and get it through. But eventually you're going to get caught.

And you were doing this in Italy?

No, I was doing this back here.

You kind of got the idea when you were there? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. I met, I started meeting people there when I came home.

Because you don't want to be in an Italian prison. I can tell you that. I had a friend of mine who was there. No, no, no, no.

Okay.

So you didn't do it in there. You did it here. Definitely not.

No. And you know, Then there's the whole tax side of things and the money and how you're going to hide it. That's a whole nother story. I got a 15-year prison sentence. Let's just say I got caught with a plethora of cocaine.

Federal?

State.

Oh, state.

Thankfully.

Wow.

Thankfully.

If that was federal, you do 85% of your time.

If that was federal, I would have barely been out by now.

That's right. Wow.

Really?

Wow.

I did 2.

Wow.

Of 15. So in Iowa, when you get a sentence, It gets cut in half the second you walk in the door.

Instantly.

Instantly. And I thought at the time, oh, I've got a mandatory minimum, I'm screwed. That's what saved me because they were forced to see me. And when I went in there and after I quickly realized like, what am I doing in here? I was nothing but business. And I mean, I was out there working out 3:30 every morning. The counselor was watching me. Everybody inside was watching me and they helped get me through. Like the— you have to go to drug treatment, even though I wasn't like this avid drug user, that there's things that you have to go through. I didn't even see the parole board. Nobody in there ever had that happen but me. They just put my name up and it said release. And, you know, I went from a prison in Iowa that was hooked onto a psych ward, paroled to Maui. My parents had moved to Maui. I got released on the 4th of July, which also never happened. Nobody got out on a holiday.

No, no, no, I know that. Yeah.

4th of July, 2011. So this year was 15 years on the, on the 4th of July that I had been free. And I started my life from scratch in Maui.

But you, you actually knew you did something wrong.

Oh yeah.

You took responsibility. 'Cause when I was away, I was there for contempt of court. I got 10 years in federal prison, which means I did 8 and a half. And I wasn't charged with a crime.

I know.

I was charged with contempt of court 'cause of my book, Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About, and exposing the drug companies. It was highly political. The drug companies wanted me shut up. The media wanted me shut up. The US government wanted me to be shut up. So they discredit you. There's pretty much a modus operandi that will happen. And that was fine. So I went away, but I did, you know, 8 and a half years for 10. But when I was away, Half of the guys, I didn't do anything wrong, and they absolutely were criminals. And there was one guy named Art, and he was there, I think he got a 15, 16-year sentence. Actually, he was coming down through the system. And we don't usually ask, what are you in for?

Right.

You know, you don't do that. But sometimes if you build a relationship, you kinda discuss a little bit. And Art and I became friends, and I said, you know, what was your situation? And he goes, real simple. I sold drugs to the DEA. He goes, and let me tell you something. He goes, I sold drugs for so many years and didn't get caught. And I used an AK-47 and did a lot of bad things and didn't get caught. I got caught and I am so grateful I got caught. I did wrong. I learned my lesson. I ain't never doing it again. This guy was the greatest guy because he was like, yeah, he took full responsibility for all of the terrible things he did. in life, which he didn't even get caught for.

Right.

And he says, I look back and said, I was a bad person. And he goes, I'm not a bad person. He goes, I figured out I did bad things.

Yeah, yeah.

He says, you know, I'm a good— and this was— this guy was like, he's like a guru, like all this, you know, he's like beautiful. He said, I'm a good person who did terrible bad things. And I, and I told him this, and I says, well, that's good. I remember this phrase. I said, Every saint has a past.

Right.

And every sinner, a future.

Right. I love that.

And he looked at me, the guy almost started crying. He goes, I'm going to hold on to that every day for the rest of my life.

That's really good. You know, I call this, I did an episode on this and it was called The Lost Art of Accountability. And people always ask me, how did you, you overcame prison? I said, did it, did it. I didn't overcome shit. I caused it. You can't say I overcome something I caused. I got through it. But what I did take from it, and I think one of the biggest things that— of qualities that I got that I was the polar opposite of was accountability. I was the guy that no matter what, oh, it was because of this. Oh, it was because of that. Now, anything, I'm like, man, I fucked that up. Like, I got to fix this.

Mm-hmm.

I do this practice sometimes where I go into the mirror and I'll be like asking myself out loud. And when you say something out loud, it's very, very hard to go back to that excuse-making because you say it. And when you say it and you hear it and you look at yourself in the mirror and it sounds a little weird or crazy, it's not.

You know why that's important? Okay, when you— do you ever hear yourself on— of course you have because you record all the time. So you hear your voice on a recording. Yeah.

Right?

And does it— doesn't sound like you, does it?

Not often.

No, it's like That doesn't sound like me. I talk all the time. I know what I sound like, and it doesn't sound like that.

Yeah.

Well, that's exactly how you sound to everybody else, because everybody else hears your voice 100% through their eardrum. So that's what they hear. But when you speak out of your mouth, 70 or 80% of the tone that you hear in your brain goes through your vocal cords, up through your skull. It goes through bone. And so the whole brain vibrates because the bones are vibrating. And then some of the sound comes out here and hits your eardrum, but only 20% hits your eardrum. 70 or 80% is vibrating through bone, and you don't— that's why you sound different. But when you speak something, your whole brain is affected.

Right.

But when you just hear it, a small quadrant of the frontal lobe is activated. But when you speak, the whole brain is activated. So that's why an affirmation or saying something, I'm a winner. I'm going to get over this. You say out loud— people come into my house, they do what's called fly-on-the-wall training. They live with me for 24 hours. Now, they're invisible. They can't talk. They have to be over there watching and observing. And before we start, I tell them a few things. I go, number one, I talk to myself all day long. It isn't for your benefit. It's for me. I go, so make a note of that. And invariably, at the end, they go, I couldn't believe how you were giving yourself a pep talk all day. Cycle completed. I'm ahead of schedule as always. I'm so efficient. I have such a great memory. And I do it automatically.

Yeah.

So, they wrote that one— this guy, one guy wrote down all these little things I said. And he goes, let me just— I wrote down all these things. It was like nonstop. I can't believe what you're doing. I go, I'm programming myself for success because when I say it, it's gonna vibrate through bone and register in my brain.

I love it.

As a truism and a fact.

Right.

So, what you do when you go in front of the mirror, and what do you say out loud in front of the mirror?

It just depends on what I did that was wrong. And oftentimes I'll say, did you really just say that? Did you really just do that? And then I'll think, man, and that'll make me go say to my wife, I'm sorry, or go make a call real quick and say, you know what? I think I need to change what I just presented here or do something a little different. A lot of the times though, I just say things out loud that I may have overreacted over on the surface and the moment, because you know when you say something off the wall or wrong, we all do. I don't buy that shit. When I fight dirty or whatever, I know I did. You know, you do. And so I try to A, stop doing it, but B, if I go tell myself like, you need to apologize, I'll go do it. Boom. Right away. Because I'm looking at myself in the mirror and I can see my emotion.

Yeah.

And I'm like, you can't lie to yourself. I mean, you gotta, you gotta be a real shitbag to lie to yourself.

I grew up with all these Italians, right? All these mob guys and everything. And they would say something like, you no good, your mother is a no good. And then they'd say, then they go, I didn't mean that in a bad way. I didn't mean that in a bad way. What do you mean you didn't? What type of way did you mean that? You just called my mother like a whore or something and you didn't mean that in a bad way? Oh man. I didn't mean that in a bad way. I go, What are you talking about?

That's Italian guilt because we feel it right away, man. Like, I do that too because I— that's like my family. And I'll say something like, yeah, you know, I didn't mean it like that.

Yeah, I didn't mean it. I didn't mean that in a bad way.

Let me ask you this, because you've been doing this longer than me and you put out books and things that were just, let's just say, controversial. I don't see them that way, but people do. And you brought it up earlier, but I want to ask you how you've dealt with this over the years, because things are different now. There's more people that come at you on social media. But beforehand, you know, there wasn't a lot of this. It's the credibility thing that we started talking about, because I get pissed off now at this point, because for me personally, it's a lot of people listen to me. So I, I know that I carry a lot of weight on my shoulders.

Influencer. Yes.

And I don't look at myself necessarily as an influencer, but it's like that as a teacher. And I know people count on me for reliability and credibility. And a lot of people will go out and say shit that they just say. And it's like it comes down to fearmongering or they know they're full of it.

Or they're just repeating something they heard. They have no facts to back it up.

Exactly. But I know that you, because I actually knew of you way back, And I knew that you took time and that you actually got into what you were doing. It wasn't just about money. It was about presenting something that you could make a difference with. You don't do things like you were doing because you are just doing it for money. You don't take that kind of risk. You do it because you have something.

Mm-hmm.

But people are going to attack you. For me, the credibility thing, like I had somebody write me, well, I stopped listening 'cause I saw the jewelry or the tattoos. And it's like, okay, Okay, fucker. My professor at Harvard didn't tell me that if I had an earring that it took away my— yeah, my, my stature. But you have been attacked from way back and still now. What do you— what is your way of— because combating it with anger or talking shit back does not work, right? Well, what do you do?

Number one, I don't care because I don't try to teach anybody or educate anybody at all. That's not my thing. If somebody comes to me and has a question, I'll give them an answer. And even then, I'm kind of hesitant because most people don't want to hear the truth. They just want their own opinion validated. So they don't want the truth, they just want their opinion validated.

Ask 99 times till they get the one answer.

Exactly, so I'm not interested in that. And I don't go into a room like a lot of friends and say, oh, let me muscle test you, let me help you, let me work on your energy, let me do— I don't do any of that stuff. I hate that stuff. I just mind my own business, I live my own life, Fine. And the— I mean, I had businesses. I, you know, I owned real companies around the world that were operating companies. I wasn't training success or whatever. The first training organization I ever launched was the American Memory Institute, which taught people how to improve their memory because I had a terrible memory. I took the course, it helped me, and I thought, okay, this is a good business to help business professionals and students improve their memory.

Yeah.

do better in school. They can get straight A's with less study time. Knowledge is power, but only if it's remembered, because if it's not remembered, it can't be used.

Mm-hmm.

So knowledge is power only if it's used, but it can never be used unless you remember it. And so training the brain was important. So I started that, and I remember this was the first time my credibility was actually attacked. I would— there's this one particular, uh, event. I was in New York City. I walked into a Chambers of Commerce meeting, you know, that's about 300 or 400 people there. I met about 150 people before the meeting started. And I said, if I met you, stand up. I said, I'm going to go around the room, call you out by name. If I get your name right, have a seat. If I don't, you're going to have to remain standing for the rest of the afternoon and hear my talk. And everybody kind of laughed. So I went around the room and I got everybody's first and last name correct by memory. And then I did a couple other memory demonstrations and everybody was blown away and they all bought my course and it was very profitable, but they were also going to get great value. It was a good exchange, right?

Yeah.

So this real nasty reporter with like 2 journalist degrees from Columbia or some baloney, and she was a real, you know, skeptic and negative, kind of a, you know, one of these investigative reporters. And she says, uh, you know, you don't have any college education, you, you barely made it out of high school. What qualifies you to be teaching a class on memory and the brain? And I says, well, I remembered 150 people's names, first and last. How many can you remember with all your degrees from Columbia?

Right.

I goes, clearly you don't qualify.

Right.

And I goes, why don't we find any professor that's got 10 PhDs, and if they can't remember 150 people's names, then clearly they don't qualify. I goes, I qualify.

Right.

Because I can do it. And she was just like, oh. I mean, she didn't know what to say. And I go, that's what— because it's not a degree. It's what you do.

Yeah.

It's what you do and how you perform. You look at Thomas Edison. Oh, wait a minute. Let's look at a guy by Albert Einstein. I mean, he flunked mathematics, right? I mean, he didn't qualify to be a genius and come up with the theory of relativity, but he did. Tesla, he didn't qualify. He doesn't have the degrees, but he actually came up with the inventions. Thomas Edison, he didn't— look at Elon Musk. What qualifies him to be a genius and launch all these companies? Steven Jobs, what was his qualifications? He flunked out of school too. Yeah, right.

That's what pisses me off more than anything, is it's when people in power, or whatever you want to say about them, they want to attack credibility. That's their only way out when they know they're wrong. And when you start asking questions— and this is how I know when I'm dealing with a real piece of shit or somebody that's actually knowledgeable. when you ask 'em a question and they answer with anger. If somebody starts answering you with anger and can't just sit and have a back and forth like me and you, 'cause you can ask me whatever I want, I'm not gonna get angry 'cause it doesn't hurt my feelings either way. But I'll sit here and say, look, this is the way I see it. What do you see? But when they get mad and they get angry, that's when you know you can't trust 'em.

Mm-hmm.

Because they don't have the answer and they don't wanna be challenged because they don't want you challenging their bullshit narrative.

Correct.

And that's what I see everywhere that I go on people that attack like my credibility. Well, you don't have a doctorate. Yeah, well, I got 25 fucking experience or years of experience in the trenches doing shit that you'd never do or see or never be willing to experience, that I've worked with thousands of people all over the world that I see. I don't need your bullshit study that has people that are 65 years old with this condition and that condition so it can work out the way you want. I don't care about that shit. I care about everyday people that I'm observing and watching doing it, and I'm taking notes and studying it day in and day out and living it like my whole life. But these people, they do that and they want to attack credibility. Do you know what doctors are taught when they go to med school?

I mean, what the fuck?

They don't tell 'em— you go, you ask me one doctor you've ever been to that says, well, let's look at your mitochondrial health. How about let's look at your gut microbiome? Let's look at these different factors with maybe, how about we test for some mold? How about we look at micronutrients? How about we ask you how you slept? They don't even ask you that. It's, well, your cholesterol looks like it's 1 degree over.

They go to college. The colleges are paid for by the drug companies. So drug companies dictate what the books say and what drugs are supposed to be prescribed. So if a drug company has a drug, They make a large donation to the college.

Right.

They get their drug in the book. And this is all— this is not controversial. This is how it works. And when the doctor goes there, he's taught one thing, he's not taught others. I'll give you an example of this. I was hiking here in California a couple years ago and I was running up the trails. I had a weight vest on and I'm running down the trails. I mean, I'm an old guy.

Yeah, man.

And I'm like, okay, so all of a sudden my hip starts hurting. I go, I kind of tweaked it. I think I pushed it a little bit too much. Well, it got worse and worse. I went home, rested, I got some physical therapy, got some chiropractic, got some more physical therapy, did some yoga, stretching, red light therapy, laser therapy, you know, just trying to get it all goosed up. And it wasn't really getting any better. So I thought, you know, I need to get an X-ray on this, maybe even an MRI, see if I, you know, injured something. Maybe I got a fracture, who knows. I don't know. So I go and I think, you know, I want to hear a real a real doctor's opinion. So I'm going to go to an orthopedic surgeon, right? And I'm going to go to 3 Chicago Bears, their top guy. I went to them.

Yeah.

So I went in Chicago and I said, yeah, I got a little pain here in my right hip. I think it's my right hip, not sure. All right, so let's do an x-ray. They don't even do an MRI, so they throw up the x-ray. I— this is the greatest thing. First thing when I walk in, uh, what insurance do you have? And I goes, What do you care? I go, I'm just here for an evaluation. Well, we need to know what insurance you have. I go, so I'm going to pay for today's visit out of my own pocket. Yeah, I have a credit card here or cash, and I'll pay for the evaluation. No, no, we need to know what insurance you have. I go, why? That's what we need to do. I know why. Yeah, because they want to see how much they can charge you and what they can sell you, right? Because they're going to sell you what insurance will pay, the maximum, so they can make money. This is a money-making machine. I know the scam. So I said, I got Blue Cross Blue Shield because my company, it offers it.

I get it. Okay, fine. So I have that. Oh, you have the catalog open. I go, I bet you I'm going to be offered everything.

Right.

So I go in, the guy, swear to God this happened, and it happened on 3 separate occasions. 2 doctors walk in, they push the button, the X-ray comes up on the screen of both of my hips. The guy looks at the X-ray for 2 seconds. Turns around and goes, you need a hip replacement. He goes, the good news, I can do it next Tuesday and your insurance covers it. I go, timeout. Did you actually look at that? He goes, well, you have pain in your right hip, right? I go, yeah. He goes, I can do a hip replacement. We can do it next Tuesday. She can schedule it in. Everything's paid for. I go, timeout. What's wrong with the hip? He goes, well, it needs to be replaced. I go, but why? And he goes, it's age. It's just age. That's what happens when you get older. it starts to happen. I go, but wait a minute. I go, both hips are the same age.

No shit.

I go, how come one hurts and the other one doesn't? He goes, listen, I do hip replacements. This one has pain, I can replace that. If you want both of them replaced, I could do that too.

Yeah, right.

I go, holy shit. And I go, no, I don't want anything replaced. I want to know what's causing the pain. He goes, if you do the hip replacement, you won't have any pain. I go, how do you know that? You don't even know what's causing the pain. And he goes, what did you come here for? And I said, I came here for an expert medical opinion by someone who cares, who could tell me what potential my problem is. Clearly that's not you. And I said, let me get out of here. So I went to the next 2 people, it was the same scam. They don't even care, they didn't even look at it. And I go, why are you gonna replace that hip? It looks exactly like the other ones. There's total cartilage, there's nothing wrong, there's no osteoarthritis.

Did anyone take an MRI?

Oh yeah, I finally demanded one. And I go, there's nothing wrong here. And I asked one doctor, I said, well, what about something like PRP, platelet-rich plasma injection? He goes, I don't know anything about that. Yeah, of course. I go, how can you not know anything about that when that's a protocol that's even the standard medical community uses? How come you wouldn't even consider that as an option before you recommend a hip replacement? And the answer is, doctor, that's your business.

Yes.

You make money by doing that. And the insurance company pays for it anyways. So the point is, you're, you're 100% correct. The, the, the medical community, everything is, people are getting scammed. We're telling people what they don't want individuals to know about that can improve their life, quality of life, and standard of living. And look, at the end of the day, you ask me how I handle, I don't try to pick a, I, I don't try to make a pig sing. A guy told me years ago, he goes, if you try to make a pig sing, you waste your time and annoy the pig. I gotta ask you, because we've been talking about a lot of stuff here, but— and we didn't get to longevity, but we, we have to— we're gonna have another— that's a whole— that's a whole conversation. But of all the things out there when it comes to success, and people are teaching, do this to be successful, make more money, be happier, be healthy, whatever success— we'll call it general success in life— is there anything out there that you would say is a big lie that People are being taught that really just isn't true.

You know what I found more than anything? When you— when, when your whole life is around chasing it and you lose sight of everything else around it, you're the least successful. When you actually do things for a purpose that matters and it makes a significant difference and you're not worshiping the dollar and it's not every single thing And I lived this, and I can just envision the years that that was all I cared about. And it breaks my heart kind of to think that I was that way, to be honest with you, because I know back then what got me into trouble. And then I know the things that my wife would say to me, and she would try to— without coming straight at me, like never attacking me. But I can envision some of the conversations just sitting here thinking about the way she'd say stuff to me. And I knew what she was getting at, but I didn't give a shit because all I cared about was how much money I could make.

Chasing the dream, chasing the dream.

Everything that I chased was about how much money can we make.

And it was always chasing instead of understanding the journey is the reward. That's it, right?

When I stopped chasing the most, and I cared more about my impact and what I was doing, I've made the most money I've ever made in my life.

Now, I'm not—

anybody that comes up here and tells you they don't care about money, you run the other way because that's all they care about. I don't want to hear that shit.

Correct.

But I will tell you, when every single thing from the moment when I woke up to when I went to bed was centered around that, I was the most miserable I've ever been. And I made a lot of money doing it. And when I stopped doing that and I cared, when I woke up in the morning, it was say a prayer of thanks, feel gratitude, get myself together, take care of my family, be, be more mentally acute of what I'm doing and more just embracing my life. I'm the richest I've ever been.

You're a Christian and a spiritual person, and there's a scripture that says, seek first the kingdom.

Yeah.

And everything else will be added on. And because they're talking about prosperity and money and food and health and all this stuff. And then it says, hey, seek God's kingdom first, or connection with God, or enlightenment, or whatever you wanna call it, but seek the kingdom first.

Yeah.

And then all this other stuff, the money, the wealth, the status, the health, the relation, that all, you'll get that anyway.

Yes.

But if you seek it in, in the right order, I would say that the biggest lie being perpetrated out there is the BS line that says you can Be, do, and have anything and everything you want. Whatever you desire, all you want, anything. There's nothing that's unlimited. All things are possible. Anything you want, you can have. Really? Well, I want to become the heavyweight boxing champion of the world. I am not going to do that. There's no chance on God's green earth I am ever going to be. And I really do. I want to become the heavyweight. I always wanted to become the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, and it never happened, and it's never going to happen. It's just not going to happen, okay? I want to be Tiger Woods every time. No, it's not. And even when he can't play now, he still can beat me, right? So I think that's the biggest disaster and myth. If you go back to Napoleon Hill when he wrote the book Think and Grow Rich, he said, whatever the mind of man can conceive and bring itself to believe, it can achieve. And people forget that phrase.

You have to 100% believe you can achieve it.

That's right.

It's not a wish. Belief in that context means I am confident with 100% certainty I can get this. If you can't get to that level, you can't get it.

Right.

And then Napoleon Hill's original phrase said at the end, whatever the mind of man can conceive and bring itself to believe, it can achieve within reason. People forgot that little— yeah, they threw that, they edited that out of the book, right? It was within reason. It's like, it's got to be reasonable. Yeah, it's got to be a target that you can So, the BS line is, you can be, have, and do anything you want. Just dream it and you can have it. No, you can't. No, you can't. Dream, yes. Think big, yes. Fantasize, yes. But then come back and say, okay, what's my next logical step? What's my objective? What's my target that I know that I can hit? Let me focus on that. And then one step at a time, inch by inch is a cinch, right?

Yeah.

Yard by yard, it's hard. Go one step at a time and dream big dreams. Yes, but don't live in a dream world.

Yeah.

You know, Gordon Ramsay said that. He goes, you gotta have a dream, but you can't be living in a dream world. Some people are delusional.

Yes, yes.

Absolutely delusional. And the people out there that are on stage saying, you can do it, anything you want, you can have, they are lying and they're keeping people broke. 'Cause people then are shooting for things that they have no chance of ever achieving. They're gonna be disappointed. Yes, dream big dreams, but then come back and say, but what's the next logical step? Let me go as far as I can see, and when I get there, I'll see from there.

That's temperance and people that sell a dream. I don't sell shit. I give you a reality. I try to give you a purpose or motivation, but this selling a dream and all this, I don't— that is just It's so nonsensical. The best teachers have probably made the most mistakes. They don't make 'em twice. And that's what you need to teach people is the real way to teach people to be successful is to know how to overcome adversity, to have accountability, and to never be willing to take no for an answer. Those are the keys.

The Chinese proverb, fall down 7 times, get up 8. Yeah. I love it. Good to see you, my friend.

You too, my man. I love it. Thank you so much.

We're gonna do it again.