EP:50 Tony Grebmeier on Addiction, Recovery And a Failed Attempt at Suicide

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Went into my medicine cabinet, pulled all my stuff that I was addicted to. Uh, seven out of the eight things that Heath Ledger was uh addicted to as well. Just said, screw it, I'm gonna go. And I started writing my uh kind of my note on my phone, my suicide note, and my phone rang, and a buddy said, Hey man, what are you doing? I'm like, nothing. I'm you know, I'm just chilling. He's like, Well, I'm gonna come and see you. And it was so crazy how I I believe in a higher power of God. My angel showed up about five minutes later. Yeah, I had to put all my stuff away. And he walked in and he gave me a big hug. And John said something that also changed my life forever. He said, Your life has meaning and purpose, but what you're doing right now doesn't. And that literally kind of shattered who I was because 20, 30 minutes earlier, I was told I don't love you anymore. Now somebody tells me my life doesn't have meaning and purpose. I kind of want to kill myself more. But over the next hour to two hours, he really spoke truth into me and he really showed me what the opportunity that was there. He said, you know, hey, you can fix your family, you can repair the stuff with your business, you can you can make it, man, you can pay your bills, but hey man, it's not time to go. It's just time to get started.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

What's happening, friends? Sebastian Rusk here, your host. As always, hey, welcome to the show. My guest this week is Tony Grebbmeyer. Tony started a company about 21 years ago called Shipoffers.com. They provide white labeled products for marketers, online marketers specifically, where they can slap their own logo on it and they'll go ahead and drop ship that product for them. Great business, profitable business. About 10 or 11 years into ship offers, life showed up for Tony. Tony uh found himself binded with the chains of addiction, on the verge of suicide, getting divorced, losing his family, de all of the above. And then uh God sent an angel to call him right before uh he was gonna do something really stupid. Thankfully, that happened. He was able to turn his life around, keep his business, keep his family, and now he serves others that are struggling with addiction, recovery, and de all the above. Friends, please help me welcome to the show, Tony Grebmeier. Tony Grebmeyer, what's happening? Hey, man, thanks so much for having me.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

My head was down because I was I was saying what an honor it is to be here today with you and just get myself centered. Uh, one of the things as an entrepreneur and a business owner, we go to like the next thing, the next thing, and the next thing. Just real quick. There is nowhere to get, I've decided. It's where I'm exactly needing to be, is in this moment with you right here. So I'm 100% present, ready to rock, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Bring it. Couldn't have said it better. So you and I connected through a mutual friend of ours, Mr. Jeff J. Hunter. I still think he should be a rock star with that name. And he took a picture with you, and uh it was, it was, I don't know, it was at some event or a dinner or something you had hosted or some specific event. And he was very distinctive in his description of his relationship with you, saying that, you know, this guy was truly the game changer for me. And I thought, wait a second, I'm a marketer. We probably know a lot of the same people here. I want to know what this guy does. I want to know how he changed the game. Uh, and let's get him on the podcast. So it's funny how we connect so, so, uh, so quickly these days, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Well, the thing that you said is the thing that I do, which is connection and community. So I create connection really, really fast, deep. I don't sugarcoat life.

unknown 3:42

Right.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

I I go deep as I possibly can, get to the the the real root or the ball of it. And then from there, I help to build community around what it is that you say you want to do, and then I introduce your world to mine. And uh my role at Dex is built over uh 40 some odd years of being a working professional, more or less. Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

That's outstanding. So let let's let's help our listeners understand. Of course, we're gonna back up to the beginning of the story. You said uh it's been 22 years that since you've launched your brand, which is shipoffers.com. Uh, before you explain how that all came about, let's just tell everyone what Shipoffers does, and then we can kind of reverse engineer the conversation from there and how it all got started.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

22 years as an online marketer. I started basically in 96, 97. It took me a couple of years, uh, one other dot-com supplement company slash fulfillment company to eventually roll this in 2001. So uh we provide white label products or private label products to online marketers. We've got a catalog of over 50 products you can slap a label on and we'll ship them to your customers. E-commerce, digital marketers, those are the type of ideal customers we find. Uh, we printed books uh for authors or somebody who had a digital product, maybe on Clickbank and they're ready to transition it to a physical good product. We can help you do that. Um, survival space, uh anything in CBD, greens, that type of stuff is what we do, primarily focused on helping elite marketers get to the next level. And we do that one shipment at a time. We've been doing that, like I said, 18 plus years. Uh business partner, childhood friend, known him since I was four years old, lived with him when I was in high school, got busted a little bit, went to live with his family. Um, and we've been running this business and really helping people to do what Jeff J. Hunter said, get to the next level. Or, hey, he's responsible. I don't necessarily think I'm responsible for anybody's success because they have to market and put themselves in the right space. However, I can introduce you to people who can take you to the next level. And along the way, um, I'm vetted in my networks and I try to bet everybody that I work with so that anybody that comes into my world, even yourself, with the backstory of Jeff, uh, he came to one of my very first uh events that I ran and he got a chance to speak. And that was, I think, one of his first speaking gigs ever. And I remember him at the end of it, I'm like, dude, you killed it, bro. Like you brought what I knew is inside of you. But when you go from corporate world to kind of this fantasy online game, sure. Um, a lot of a lot of stuff is like, well, I don't know how to do it. Well, nobody handed anybody a manual. And if you did, it was probably the internet for dummies. And you had to figure out a lot of stuff by click, click, click. Yeah. Well, I figured out a lot of stuff right at 2000. Uh, and the click, click, boom. And I was a part of the internet bomb. And I was partners with some of the biggest names in the world. Uh, Ted Williams' son, John Henry Williams, uh, Richard Dreyfus, Brian Tochi, had a 13-year-old CEO. We were on 2020, Cynthia McFadden filmed us, and we were exploding. We were about to sell. We had offers from Warner Brothers and Sony. Uh, they didn't go through. And so we were left kind of figuring out what do we do. And that's really when we said, well, let's go and just keep this whole thing going, which is figuring out the internet one day at a time. And Chip Offers has been an amazing ride. We've been in an Inc. 5000 company the last five years, just really helping people to avoid uh the pitfalls of the internet.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

That's fantastic. So, 22 years ago, you started the brand, and then um roughly 10, 11, 12 years later, uh, life showed up. Um let's let's let's talk about that segue real quick.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

Yeah, life did show up pretty bad. I mean, part of my story is my recovery story. Um, anybody who knows me knows, um, I'm gonna tell you. Um it was October 9, 2008, and I've been separated from my wife three years. I've been in and out of the house. I have two young kids at the time. My business is, you know, year nine, whatnot. And uh I had made a ton of money, 24, 25, 26, you know, instant millionaire. Next thing I know, I've got, you know, 28, 38, $48,000 in nice cars, houses, all that other crap coming, and I'm not happy. I'm kind of empty and really feeling meaningless inside. And one of the transitions was I came home from an event where I just gotten back uh from vacation and I called my my wife and I had filed for divorce. And I remember in that moment after seeing my kids and my wife, and she got out of the car and she said something that changed my life forever that day. Um, she says, I don't love you anymore. And I remember that so distinctively because it was the first time that I had ever been rejected or felt that in my life. Right. And so I uh I told her, okay, and she went about her way. I got home, sat on the couch, I called her one last time and I said, Hey, I think I'm just gonna end it. And I'm paraphrasing, she says, you know, you need to do what you need to do. And so I said, Screw it, man. This is shit's over. I'm done. And uh I went into my medicine cabinet, pulled all my stuff that I was addicted to. Uh, seven out of the eight things that Heath Ledger was uh addicted to as well. And I just said, Screw it, I'm gonna go. And I started writing my uh kind of my note on my phone, my suicide note, and my phone rang. And a buddy said, Hey man, what are you doing? I'm like, nothing. I'm you know, I'm just chilling. He's like, Well, I'm gonna come and see you. And it was so crazy how I I believe in a higher power of God. How my angel showed up about five minutes later, yeah, I had to put all my stuff away. And he walked in and he gave me a big hug. And John said something that also changed my life forever. He said, Your life has meaning and purpose, but what you're doing right now doesn't. And that literally kind of shattered who I was because A, 20, 30 minutes earlier, I was told I don't love you anymore. Now somebody tells me my life doesn't have meaning and purpose. I kind of want to kill myself more. But over the next hour to two hours, he really spoke truth into me and he really showed me what the opportunity that was there. He said, you know, hey, you can fix your family if you want to. You can repair the stuff with your business, you can you can make amends, you can pay your bills, but hey, man, it's not time to go. It's just time to get started. Yeah, and uh from that point forward, it took me roughly 45, 50 days to finally humble myself after a 44-minute conversation with my mom to admit that I had a problem, got into the rooms of recovery, and I've been sober ever since 1215 of 08. So I just celebrated 10 years not too long ago. And the most important thing is I don't know what my life would have looked like if the knock didn't happen, if my wife didn't tell me that, because I don't necessarily know if I would have gone to the part of wanting to kill myself. I just don't know. But those two things back to back just caused me so much uncertainty about who I was. I didn't like the person I was in the mirror. I was totally depressed, totally addicted to tons of drugs. Multiple knee surgeries caused me to have prescriptions and call my you know pharmacists on the phone and and brag and bullshit and try to manipulate getting more drugs. I mean, that's what my life looked like. And when John gave me a hug and told me my life had meaning and purpose, I made a vow in that kind of conversation to turn my life around. And uh I work really, really, really hard every single day to go help others to realize no matter how bad, no matter what they've done or have experienced in their life, that they can change up until the very last breath. And that I'm somebody who cares, not only as an entrepreneur, but as a human being. And I live by the mantra that I heard a long time ago from Gandhi. It says, be the change. Yeah. You can say that you wish to see, that's awesome. But for me to change and for me to like affect people around me, I have to start it here and I have to go dig deep. So I go to the root and be honest and pour my life out into that and let my kind of testimony for life and God and everything be the way I live and walk and how people talk about me. Um, that makes me really, really uh feels good because I get out of bed every day for contribution.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Right. Yeah, in service, in service. Well, you know, first of all, congrats on that and and being able to really uh you know stick to your guns for your own self and for you know what what you're stepping into your power, if you will, to not get too Tony Robin Z. Is that a word? Um But it it is true when we start believing in ourselves and we actually step into the power that we've been blessed with, you know, I my my biggest fear is is is me leaving this earth and not God not using me mightily on his behalf. I mean mightily, and that's not for any other reward system other than knowing I was given this gift. If I don't use it, it's a you know, it's a it's a waste. Uh do you do you think sobriety is is sustainable?

SPEAKER_02 12:07

Oh, absolutely. Anything's sustainable one day at a time. And I'm I'm just a simple believer. Like, see, the lineage on my father's side tells me proof that I now have an understanding of I didn't, I didn't even know what an alcoholic was when I walked into the rooms of recovery. I my mom just said, hey, you know, you your dad was an alcoholic, grandfather died at eight, and when that's my age, uh, your great grandfather, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The lifeline just went bad. And everybody was an alcoholic. And I was like, wow, that's interesting. So when I went in, I kind of went in at first, not to save my marriage, because that wasn't something I even was thinking. It wasn't to really repair my kids, it was to figure out why I felt the way I felt. Right. And I remember uh a gentleman who handed me my very first big book right after a meeting. He's actually in the hospital, he's quite a bit older than me, just celebrated uh his 10-year mark just a uh week or two before mine. And he's been able to maintain, and his sponsors got almost 30 years of sobriety. And the sponsor that I currently work with has 43 years of sobriety. So I am surrounded by people who have proven to me if I if I work the program, follow the steps, and I make sure I do what is the hard work, and I make sure I never stop doing the hard work, that yes, I believe it's obtainable if the desire is great enough, and that you also truly believe in your heart of hearts that you're ready for a change. And not to uh appease the court or a partner or uh a spouse, but like literally deep down inside, you have that desire to change.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

I believe the program works phenomenally. I like that a lot. It said, you know, you got purpose and meaning, but what you're doing right now does not. Um and uh that that that makes a ton of sense and it really puts things into perspective on, you know, again, it's all about what you want out of your life and what you want out of life. And everything's a decision. Some people are just okay making 30 grand a year and coming home and having a couple Budweisers and going to bed. And that's just, you know, that that that's just how they roll. Um, some people are all or nothing. Um, I think, you know, we're we're we're we're all I listen, it's two or 20, okay? That's the rule.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

So I I I say this, and this is the way that I ripped it off. Um, I don't have a dimmer switch. I'm either all in or all out. So I'm on or I'm off. There is no dimmer, right? And so uh a lot of people, my dad was in the interior design business and lighting business, and I used to say, Dad, you know, you got dimmers everywhere. I'm like, I can't dim. I can't have one French fry, one Big Mac. I can't have one Coke, I can't have one hot dog. I'm I'm an addict through and through. And so I just used my power, go from one addiction to a healthier addiction, and I reframed my habits. I reframed everything that I was doing that wasn't serving me. I just said, hey, look, I'm not gonna destroy it because it got me to where I'm at. But it Buckminster Fuller comes to mind and says, you know, if you want to change an existing reality, you you gotta go and build a new one. You gotta go and build a brand new reality that you've never seen before. And it's fun, it's kind of funny when you go, the people that got you to where you're at won't necessarily take you to the next level unless you level up your game. People can only carry you so long. Yeah. And uh, for me, uh, I surround myself with phenomenal mentors and coaches. I mean, I pay coaches to coach me to the elite status level, um, to play a bigger game, to stop making excuses. And then that's been able to help me in so many areas of my life to enrich my relationships, to enrich my parenting, to being a husband, to being a son, to being a brother. Um, because I just don't stand for your bullshit. Like when you start making excuses, I just stop you or just hang up the call. I just don't have time for it. It's not disrespectful. And I'm like, you're stuck in your old reality and you're not willing to work on the new one that you so say in one moment, but then two minutes later you're bashing it and you're like, well, it's this person's fault. No, it's always yours because you have a right to never talk to that person again or do the work to actually make the relationship better. But if you don't, you just complain about it.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

I don't want anything to do with you. Right, right, right, right. Yeah, and I I think that's part of part of doing the work too. And right when I say doing the work, the general statement of us do doing, you know, our personal, becoming our best, living living our best life, as my 17-year-old would say. Uh, that's daughter, by the way. Um Welcome to the real world.

SPEAKER_02 16:11

That that's gonna be tough, right? Yeah, for you being a father, you have your concerns about a 17-year-old. Like you just have like, like, I'm not gonna make this really this bad, but this is my biggest fear, right? My kid can go out and get a lot of girls pregnant. Your daughter can only get pregnant one time, right now, right? And so I I have a uh 17-year-old son as well, who's got 50, you know, eight days until graduation. I have some big fears, but you know what? What's so crazy is like they're both both of my kids, one's a second-year uh sophomore in college. They're just phenomenal kids, right? But you know, in my head, man, I can beat them up, bash them, I can say like they did stupid stuff. I'm like, who am I? I was the one doing all the stupid stuff, right? They just haven't got caught yet.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Right, right, right. No, I've had caught her. I mean, her mother's a raging alcoholic and uh and and severe bipolar depression, it's been in in AA for forever and a day and still drinks. So that's why I asked the sustainability question. Uh, and it does all come down to a decision and actually going and doing the work, but I've seen the havoc that it's just wreaked on my daughter's life and just everyone around her, with her, you know, just being, you know, the the way that she does it. So I've had clear conversations with my daughter to say, you know, you are I'll never forget I heard Dr. Phil say this like 15 years ago. I was I was genetically set up to be an alcoholic, so I never touched it. Um and I told her that I said, You're you're you're fucking wired to to to to go. And she's like, I just she's a devout Christian. She, you know, she she she has been since she was five. And I didn't do anything but take her to an awana meeting one time, and uh, that was game on since then. So um, you know, she's all she's going to a Christian university, which doesn't mean a lot. Um, uh, but uh, you know, I'm I'm stoked that she's at least has a foundation there to say, hey, this is what I built on. You know, she got her heart broken when she was 16, and some guys across, you know, the guy that she was dating across some boundaries with, you know, respect and this, that, and the other. And she cut it off immediately. And I so to be able to see these strives take place with her growing up and me at least laid on the foundation and say, hey, listen, you know, you do you can do anything you you feel is right, but your gut is never gonna lie to you. No. Um, you know, and it's it's cool to be, you know, it's cool to not drink or be be the be the sober girl these days.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

Like the no, I I I think I want to clarify something so people, anybody listening right now, like I'm still a fun guy to hang around with, but I still struggle with like, you know, like I kind of blew up some friendships over the fact that I got sober and I stopped hanging out with those people. And but then there's another part of it where you know who your true friends are. Yeah. And um, you know, I I caused a lot of wreckage in my childhood. A lot of I'm so lucky and thankful to even be here today with you, not just because I thought about suicide, but all the crap that I got involved in and the and the things that I had done. Um, but the the biggest takeaway kind of from my childhood to that conversation with my mom at 44 minutes when I finally admitted that I had a problem, is that she saw right through me, and I think so many times, you know, your ex-wife and that kind of stuff. I if you go back to the statement I said is be the change, like she never gonna change. Right. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever in your eyes until she does the deep work. Right. But if you do the work now, which more continuous around, um, I can give you some tools offline, um, just some cool things that I've learned. And and uh, we talked about it resentments this morning. Like, I got a ton of resentments, right? Um, but I've done a lot of work around them to alleviate the pressure of those resentments. Compassion helps. Huh? Compassion helps. Oh gosh, I I tell people all the time stop comparing yourself, start having compassion for the people around you. Right, good.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Everybody's going through something, like that did. It flipped the switch for me for her, right? Because I was like, I'm not here to change baby mama, and I'm about six months away from there's really no communication now. My daughter's in college, I really don't talk to her as it is. But I of course want the best for it. It's my daughter's mother, but I zero expectations for her because I know the fact that, you know, it's I I'm doing the work, and the more work that I do, the more aware I become, the more aware I become, the more compassionate I become. I couldn't fucking imagine being a human being like that. I couldn't fathom it. I feel terrible for my daughter, and these later years have been the worst, you know, because now even the book of recovery talks a little bit about it.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

Um, you know, we need to treat those people like sick people. Yep. Um, and we just need to distance myself. My sister said it to me. My mom used to tell me all the time, you're not talking to your dad, you're talking to the bottle. And that really made an impact in my life because later in life, when my dad uh developed Alzheimer's and eventually died because of it, um I was able to see kind of my part in my life a little bit more clear and realize, you know what, no matter what, like I think everybody does. I don't I read this the other day and it really hit me. Nobody wakes up uh in the morning and says, I'm gonna go be an asshole today. I don't think that happens, right? I think what really happens is is that that they woken up so many days being an asshole that the pressure is so big, and then they decide to try to alleviate the pressure, and they think maybe shooting somebody or robbing somebody or doing something to someone is gonna alleviate that pressure or the pain. And I feel sorry for them, and I really, really do. And I think in our society today, it's frowned upon to say, look at that guy over there. Um, the problem was I was like that guy over there. I was I was the guy that nobody wanted to be around because no one could trust me. No one would is Tony really gonna come through with what he says he's gonna do. And today it's completely opposite. It's my word is the only thing that I've got. So I give everybody my word um because if I say I can do it, I'm gonna do it. Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Be impeccable with your word, right? Is that the four agreements? Yep. Um what what do you think about the um the the the comment uh how how you do one thing is how you do everything?

SPEAKER_02 21:56

How you do one thing is how you do everything. It's in my it's in my journal. Uh I truly believe um I wrote a bookslash journal. It took me two years to kind of put it out because I'm a perfectionist. My buddy Ian Garlic helped me one day. He says, you know, version done is better than version none. True story. I'm I'm so wanting it to be just right. And in my journal, I talk about how you do, you know, one thing is how you do everything. I and I and I think 98% of that is really true. I think there's 0.5 or so that it's still a little off. And here's here's why. Um I don't take a dump the same way every time. I just don't. Like it just comes out a little differently. But like I try to clean up the best I can. Sorry to use that descriptive of a of a visual, but it's the idea behind it. Like I come in every day, Monday through Friday, I'm a rock star, man. I get up early, five o'clock in the morning, work out, write in my journal, pray, meditate, get to a meeting, get to the office by eight. I do more by eight o'clock than most people do in their day. But on the weekends, though, that's a completely different how I do one thing is how I do everything. My weekends are completely different than my work days. Right. And that's why I just want to say there's a little, just a little discrepancy for me. And that that term gets used a lot in this world. And like, hey, how you do one thing is how you do everything. I'm like, not true. In my heart of hearts, what is true is your intention of how you do one thing, if you keep doing that one thing over and over, it will improve and it will get better, and the things around you will get better too.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

I've had way more success with intentions than I have with goals. Yeah. Um, I stopped writing goals down because I never hit them. I get the end of the year, I'm like, shit, I didn't do anything. Um, but my intentions, I'm like, my intent is to fucking world domination, right? Yep. So um, so you had a lot of success over the past 22 years, life showed up, you're able to pull yourself out of that, and business continued, thankfully, right?

SPEAKER_02 23:45

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Um, and things continue to grow and and and you continue to grow as an individual. And you you you you decided to stick with this whole mission of saying, you know, I've been blessed with essentially a second chance, right? Um, and I know there's gotta be other people out there that have been through what I've been through or worse, or they're about to go through it, or they're in it, or they're going through it, or they know somebody through it. I've got to do something about it. I've got to leverage my network, I've got to leverage my knowledge, I've got to leverage my resources and do something about that. Um, you and I were talking about this before the show started. So let's let's let's chat about this because this is some really cool shit. And for you guys listening, this is a phenomenal example of doing shit that matters. Just a quick plug for doing shit that matters.

SPEAKER_02 24:30

So let's talk about Jeff. He's a great example of somebody who uh worked in the corporate world, made the transition to kind of being his own boss, and faced a lot of fears. Faced a lot of like, uh, man, is it working? Is it not working? Should I charge more? Should, you know, should I cancel these? And so we just started breaking that kind of like that mindset down to chunks. Like, you know, it's hard to eat an elephant in one bite. You've heard that, so it's easier in chunks. So we just started chunking. Or with barbecue sauce. Huh? Or with barbecue sauce. Yeah, well, yeah, even. And one of the things that we we decided early on was let's talk about your fears, right? And nobody really wants to discuss their fears because at service level, they're like, well, you know, I'm afraid of failure. I'm like, all right, cool, that's gonna happen. What are you really afraid of? Well, I'm afraid of not being financially, you know, uh independent enough to take care of it because the federal government and all that, there's like only 3% of the population in the United States that can retire at the end of life and not need help from their friends, family, or the financial institution of the government. Like, that's like a pretty phenomenal statistic. So it means 97% of the people um are fearful of that. The second part of this whole kind of conversation was well, what is it that you want to do? And uh I created, and I'm happy to share it. I'll get you some uh downloads for it. Um, I created your personal dream life and I really unpacked kind of what you you say you're up to, kind of what you do with your friends and your family, what you're working on as your dream, and then how you pack everything in, which is called your work life. And when you chunk it down into time, you can realize that you have the time, but you've just never spent time actually seeing that you, wow, at the end of the week, if I do this exercise, Tony, I found 30 extra hours. I can stop telling myself I don't have the time and start transitioning it to like the things that I want. And when you get to people like Jeff or whoever who have dreams, not that they're small or big or wrong, they're maybe just not in alignment with their soul's purpose. And my job through my programs and the stuff that I do is to help you get more in alignment with your soul's purpose and stop being fearful of being rejected because rejection is gonna happen. And actually, rejection's like the one of the best things that you'll ever face. The more you can face it, the faster you can face it. Uh, from John Rulin from Geftology, uh Perry Marshall, I've had a lot of amazing guests on my show, Roland Frazier, and and these types of people talk about how you have to have failure. There's a Japanese proverb that says, fall seven, get up, eight. Right. So when the pressure is applied, are you gonna just go, oh, I can't do this? Are you gonna say, I need to do this, and here's why. My why is big enough, it's crazy enough, it's big, it's it's hairy, it's scary. And at the end of the day, you don't want to give up like me. And so I use what I went through to help inspire people that I was at the lowest of lows. And here's what. So, Jeff, what's your biggest fear? Well, I'm gonna raise prices and my clients are gonna run. I'm like, who cares if they're run? The right ones will stick. The right ones that are fitting for your business are gonna stick, the wrong ones are gonna leave. And you know you got a price point issue. Uh, if you don't have people really questioning your prices, and the moment you raise your prices and they start questioning your prices, you know you're kind of getting closer to where your prices really need to be in the market. And so we just went back to that very basic scenario. Jeff, what are you fearful of? I'm fearful I'm gonna raise my clients and they're gonna leave. So let's do it. And you know what he did? If you ask him from a year ago till now, he will tell you he's so much more happy and purposeful, and his more intention is spent on his family and his friends, and he he just seems more alive. Yes, he probably still has the fears and the pressure, but it's more in alignment now, and he feels like, man, I'm on the right path. And the only way you get really on the right path is when you get honest. And most people are so afraid of getting honest and keeping it real, yeah. And uh, you know, I spent a lifetime trying to look good to avoid looking bad, and part of that is uh in my book as well. I talk about this process of saying, hey, you know what, I fucked up, but okay, so what? Right. The only reason it's a problem is if you decide not to do something about it and you keep doing it over and over again. That's what they say is the definition of insanity, expecting something to change. But if you can be so intentional with what you've done, clean up your mess, make your apologies, work on it, chase the winds, study the lessons, and never give up, you will get to where you want to go. However, there's no real any place to get. You're exactly where you need to be, doing exactly what you said you wanted to be doing until you don't want to do it anymore. And that's the kind of stuff I love talking to people. I'm like, are you ready to make a change?

unknown 28:52

Right.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

You know, I sat yesterday with a cat for uh lunch. We talked for 45 minutes, you told me a salary. I I I mean, I if you can't sit with me and be honest with me, I don't even want to hang out with you. So we we started talking about money and what's he worth, and you know, I'm like, well, you're worth what somebody's paying you because that's what you accepted, but you know you're worth a lot more than that. And you have to get your mindset to that level of I'm worth a lot more, and then watch how that unpacks. And so I built programs, uh, journals, online course guides, and everything. I give 99% of my stuff away for free because I want to help people to see that they've got everything they need right in front of them. They didn't need to go buy some expensive course or some this to go help them. Uh, you and I, we were talking a little bit before, we did a similar uh program together, didn't know each other, and it had such an impact on your life, and it sounds like my life as well. And one of the things that I walked away from is you know, it's available to everybody, but not everybody will do it. So a lot of people will say it's a cult or it's this or it's that. I'm like, dude, that's what they said about me walking in the program. It was a cult, it's this or that. I'm still here to tell you, I keep coming back, it works, and you have to begin to shape your mindset around that. Like, I believe without a shadow of a doubt. I grew up a Jew. Uh, my dad was Catholic. Um, so I my dad sent me to Catholic school. I live with a Christian family and I married a Mormon, put it in a Vitamix and hit puree. And I just believe there's got to be something bigger for you and for me in this world. And I'm out to help people to figure out what the heck that looks like. And it isn't money. It isn't money. Uh, I interview guests all the time around uh the one question what you what is your definition of success? That's the only question I ask on my podcast is what is your definition of success? And I can't even begin to tell you over the hundreds and hundreds of episodes and thousands of interviews I've done in a lifetime, um, money very rarely comes up when you get connected to the heart. The ego is what gives you money. Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Yeah, I I I asked the same question too. A lot of my, as I'm on the journey to become a millionaire, um said I was gonna do it by the time I was 40, but I just turned 43 weeks ago. So maybe 50, maybe 45. But um something really clicked when when when Tony Robbins, who's one of my mentors, told me what Jim Rohn told him, which is Tony, become a millionaire for who you become in the process. And that right then and there it's just clicked. I mean, I know exactly why I'm doing what I do, but I've got a gift, I've got a story to share, and my and stories allow you to shift people's mindset. And when people shift their mindset, they're able to change their life and you're able to leave them differently, right? And I always say if I become this well, you know, this, this, this world famous MC bowtie, keynote speaker, storytelling extraordinaire. I always get asked why I want to do that. And I want to do that so that I have a platform because when you have a platform, um you are able to, you, you're able to to to change people.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

Not change people, but um I think show people what's um what the opportunity or their potential is. I I love holding up mirrors in front of people when I do one-on-work with them. I actually remove me from the equation, I put a mirror in front of us and I just start asking them to look at themselves in the mirror and describe them. And that's why I do a five-minute smile exercise, and I tell people if you want it, I'll give it to you as well. Um, the five-minute smile exercise, you start out with a minute a day just looking at yourself in the mirror. Just look at yourself in the mirror and start to look at that person and see if you can start smiling at that person. And by the by day five, you're you're laughing at that person. Five days.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

I mean, I need like 35 seconds, maybe. I look in the mirror.

SPEAKER_02 32:21

Yeah, but not everybody's like you. And and what I tell everybody is like it wasn't always like that, though.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

It wasn't always like I looked at the I there were days that I've woken up and looked in the mirror and said, What in the fuck have you created for sure?

SPEAKER_02 32:32

Yeah, but that's the the the gift today is that you know what your life was like, and now you've done something to make it completely different. So, what I I'd said is you have that fall safe back switch, you know what it looked like, and you know, okay, shit, as long as I do all these things, I don't have to go back there. Um, that's always gonna be there. And that's part of like my recovery. I'm always an alcoholic, even though I was gonna say, yeah, you're an addict forever.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

You know, I don't think that it changes. My best friend tells me that all the time. Um, and he he went through a big change two years ago. Um, oh, actually three years ago, because his daughter just turned three when his daughter was was born. He got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. And by the time he got from his bed to the toilet, he was out of breath. And he said, That's great. Wait a second. Am I I'm 38 years old? Am I out of breath right now? And he said, You know, I don't want to not be able to bend over and pick my daughter up like I struggled to tie my shoe. And from literally from from that point, he called his best friend who's a trainer and said, He said, Meet me at the park this morning. And uh and said, We're today we're just gonna walk. Okay. And tomorrow we're gonna try cutting out 25 calories. And they just took it day by day and ended up dropping 80 pounds, is in the shape of his life, hasn't had a drink since the day his daughter was born. Um, and this was a true full-blown as he would tell the story and talk about, you know, he was, you know, and again, in a professional too, consummate professional, attorneys, doctors, et cetera. Those are the ones that can rage with the best of them, right? And he like he would say, if you could smoke it, whatever, you snip it, drink it, I was your guy and completely functional. And then I ended up, you know, 100 pounds overweight and realizing I'm out of breath going to the bathroom. So he he you know, he made radical change, which is extreme, he's very, very strong, strong mindset um on that. But we have a conversation a lot because he busts my balls about, I mean, I'm a craft beer, I'm a craft beer guy, and that's just what I do, and I have a beer belly. So it's an ongoing conversation of are you always gonna be fat? Are you always are you always gonna uh he's a friend that tells me the truth, right? You know the drills.

SPEAKER_02 34:34

Those are the best friends to have. And and and here's what I'll tell you, friend. Good job. Because you you know that when you're ready, you've got support around you, and that's why I want you to know that's cool that you got a friend like that. Oh, it really is, man. And I don't I tell people this all the time like I like challenges. Like, I I literally am like on two months with no caffeine. Um, I've been eight months as a vegan, I've tried plant-based eating. My wife's been one for 25 years. Um, I'll I'll kind of pivot and do I've got 20 some odd days in a row riding my Peloton bike, right? So, like, I like challenge, I like things. I'll do a challenge for a penny just to say I I did it so I could beat you. I have this addictive personality and I I want to go out and conquer what you can't do. I don't think I'm as crazy as the guy in Free Solo. I watched that a couple weekends ago. I was so freaking anxious the entire last 20 minutes of that thing. But like I love his determination. He he'd fall and he'd just reach up and go again. Reach up and go again. And I think there's something unique about certain humans. I don't think everybody is like that, even though I believe every human that I've ever come in contact, or you will, or anybody on this planet, has greatness inside of them. And my job is to help through just kind of the work that I love to do, is help to activate that for you to see it. That's why I hold up a mirror. Um but dude, your friend is awesome because he's great. We we need people like that um who who just like love us regardless of our flaws or our defects. And I don't even think having a beer or two a day is a problem. I would say if it got in the way of you performing and doing life and what your career path you said you wanted to be a damn.

SPEAKER_01 36:02

I'm up at 4 30 every day ready to go, and I'm at the gym. Because I listen, you're gonna play, you're gonna pay. Yeah, definitely. That that's basically how I how I what's it called? But I think I'm I'm at I'm getting to a crosswords, crossroads where listen, beer belly abs, like you've got to make a decision. And you may never even get abs, but to even get remotely close to something that resembles abs, right? You gotta create leverage on yourself. So uh, you know, to to be determined on that. But yes, I do have a friend that tells me the truth constantly, uh, brutally, brutally honest to the point that, you know, he says, Are you gonna be a fat alcoholic for for your entire life? And I'm like, Well, I don't really see that when I look in the mirror, but he goes, No, somebody needs to tell you who you fucking are, okay?

SPEAKER_02 36:45

Yeah, no, hey, I I part of my my program is not for me to tell you that you're an alcoholic. That's like one thing that I bite my tongue on because I really want to tell you. Um, I just found out that if I keep my side of the street clean and you keep your side of the street clean, I'm never gonna have a problem. Right, right, right, right, right, right, right. Well, alcohol is a lot of people. I use a lot of programming language because it's also it's programmed in me. Um, every day I get a chance to defrag and let go of the stuff that isn't working in my life and remove that and fill it up with stuff that is working, just like before the show. You're Trag. Defrag.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

I haven't heard that word in a while. What? Defrag. Remember the disc defrags we used to do to get more space on our computer?

SPEAKER_02 37:20

Well, think about your phone. If you got an iPhone or an Android, you know, it fills up a space, your drop box doesn't fill up, like it fills up, and you're like, no, what? You can just buy more. I kind of said this around alcohol. Um, I had an allotment of it, and I became an alcoholic when it was gone, and I was starting to steal others. And I kind of look at that like as all things in my life. So um, I was running out of space on my my phone and in my computer and my life. So I started defragging all those things that weren't serving me and started replacing them with good things, positive things. And one of my coaches, Sean Stevenson, has a very simple Oh, that's my homie. Yeah. Sean and I uh we talk about uh he has his when life works list, and you just get up and you put 14 things down on a piece of paper when your life is really, really working, when you're going to the gym, exercising, eating right, relationships are strong, you're dressing well, you're shaving, you're taking good care of yourself, whatever your 14 R is. And then every day try to do four of those. Just try every day to you know do four on that list, and you your life works. And you already know when your life doesn't work, and he has it like when life doesn't work right. And uh Sean wrote the foreword in my journal. Uh, Sean and I are really, really good friends. And one of the things that comes up every time we talk is I I'm in awe of somebody who's gone through so much.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Right.

SPEAKER_02 38:33

And I think I've gone through a lot.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 38:35

Right. And I'm like, how many, how many bones have you had fractured or broken? He's like, over 200. And I'm like, oh man, I've got like 11, right? And I just think about all the pins and the rods and everything stuck in them. So I'm like, I've got a story. And he's still at the gym every day. Yeah, and but like everybody's got a story, and and I don't like when people say, like, oh, I've been in your shoes. I'm like, you have never been I've never been in your shoes, you've never been in my shoes, I've never been in Sean's shoes or Jeff's. All I can say is I have compassion for you and I have utmost respect and love.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

Yep, absolutely, absolutely. Well, this has been a great conversation, man. It's it's so it's uh definitely a blessing to connect with you further here, uh especially learning about all the cool shit that you're doing, um, specifically with just the work of the stuff that's that's not monetary. It's heart-based work, it's service-based work. So I commend you for that. And and I look forward to connecting further. For those of you listening, you can connect with Tony online as well. Just head over to his website. It's Tony Grebmeyer. That's G-R-E-B-M-E-I-E-R dot com. Uh, ways to connect with them, get in touch with them, uh, book them to speak at your next event, uh, connect with his podcast. Make sure you subscribe to that. And um, all the products he's talking about here, all those links are gonna be available in the show notes. So don't fret about finding those. We will make it easy for you. Well, Tony, look, listen, man, we're gonna have to do this again uh sometime soon. I do appreciate your uh your time today, and I I I really love the conversation, man.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

Well, first off, thank you. Just like we started, I I want to leave you better than I found you. So I'm gonna flip the script and then you can dump me after this. Uh, what's one thing that you need help with right now in your world? And I always do this, try to get it recorded because I want you to say it to the world so that I can hear it and then we can go make it happen.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

I need to be booked solid, crisscrossing the globe, sharing my gift as an MC and or keynote speaker on stage, helping people better understand that you can go from nothing to something and instill, you know, instill some some some some hope, a different point of view, and a mindset shift in people. I'm here, I'm here to I'm here to leave them. I'm I'm here to leave the world uh a better place as well, too.

SPEAKER_02 40:41

So um no, I want I wanted to ask you that because here's here's the interesting part. Like you have service on your heart. So you get up and you go meet great people and you talk to them, and maybe you meet some A-holes along the way, too. But the the the gift at the end of it is like we forget to take care of ourselves. We're putting the oxygen mask on so many other people first, we forget to put it on ourselves. That's why I wanted to frame it so that you get some love and respect. So I can give you some love. I've got some names afterwards, I'll pass your way, um, and and really begin the next step for you. And then I look forward to the opportunity to interview you on my podcast because what I'm after is the people who are not after the money, but they're after, you know, how to help people get to that next level. And that sounds like everything you just did on your show today.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

It just, I mean, I it really that's I I I I I spent so many years when I hated myself being pissed off that I wasn't where I thought I should be, right? How do you get rich? I don't understand. I've interviewed people, I've done this, I worked my ass off, I worked six days, I just don't get it, and then you end up mad and frustrated, right? Which is warranted, it happens. And then I start having conversations with real millionaires and people that actually care about me, care about my journey, or have seen me speak, and and they tell me things like, Sebastian, money is the money is just the the byproduct of doing what you love. And I'm like, that doesn't make sense. And it's funny when you step into your power, you start believing in yourself, like really believing in yourself. Um, all these things start to start to click and start to become more realistic. I see myself on stage, I see the hotels that I'll be staying in, the clients I'll be connecting with, because my perfect model for MCing and speaking around the world is perfect for what I do with my agency work. I help businesses tell their story by launching a podcast and creating buzz videos in a YouTube strategy. Everybody, every stage I speak on will probably want to have a conversation of some form. So I've got it all mapped out in my head and I see it and believe it. So the next step is just to start, you know, starting out.

SPEAKER_02 42:30

So you just gave what I love to call. Sorry to talk a little long on your show. No, it's all good. I call it uh F P R. Fantasy, possibility, and reality. In between possibility and reality is a gap, and your job, my job, anybody's job is to help to bridge the gap to make it simple steps, right? Fantasy is talking about it in your head, sharing it with somebody becomes a possibility, and then there's a way to make it a reality, and you just got to do the work. So I just want to say thanks for allowing me a space to go and just be what I do every single day as a person who just passionately loves helping others. I my mouth is foul. I apologize for none of it. Um sorry if some of what I said offended you, it's not my intention. Uh my intention is to hard to offend people these days. Well, yeah, but I tell people my intention is to love one another because somebody took enough time to love me and help me. So I'm here today to to share that kind of recovery story with people. And that's really what I do every single day is to show people that, you know, despite everything you've gone through, there are people like Sebastian, there are people like me who want to help you get to the next level. And you should stick around and find more of those types of people in the network around their networks because most likely they're gonna they're gonna be building relationships with people that are like-minded and similar. And you've heard it in Thinking Girl Rich, you've seen it probably in in newspapers or magazines. You know, you are the sum of the five people you hang around with. So for a long period of time, I had to I had to do that, but I moved it to the aside because it was my wife, my two kids, you know, and maybe my sponsor. And I'm like, where's the growth? And then what I realized was I needed to have the sum of five people in multiple parts of my relationship. So I did a spider chart off of me, and I started looking at my relationships from one of the courses that I did, and I started spidering these things apart. And I next like, wow, I got do I have five really good friends in that network? Do I play basketball with five really good stand-up people who, when I'm gone, they won't talk smack about me. They'll talk smack to my face. Do I have those types of people in my life? And that's the kind of stuff that I want people to work on. That's the real way. And then you never have to look in the mirror and go, I don't like myself. You actually look in the mirror and say, I like that guy I see today.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

Oh, yeah, constantly checking in. Nobody wants to do it because looking inside's messy. Oh, it is messy. Hey, Tony, I appreciate you, brother. Let's do this again sometime soon. And uh, thanks again, man. Enjoy your afternoon. Thank you. I appreciate you. Hey friends, Sebastian here. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. I sure do appreciate it. Hey, speaking of podcasts, have you been thinking about launching one for your brand? Maybe you have an idea, maybe you've got a concept, maybe you've got a brand, and you know that this is naturally just the next step. I created a free course for everyone. It's available online. Just go to freepodcastlaunchclass.com. That's freepodcastlaunchclass.com. Any questions about launching your show? Feel free to drop me an email. My email is at Rust S R-U-S-K at socialbuzztv.com. I'm signing off from our beautiful studio here in WeWork Coral Gables. I'll talk to you next time.