How To Radically Change Your Life and Start a Movement: Ryan Stewman - Hardcore Closer

SPEAKER_01 0:04

This is the Beyond the Story Podcast. A show that goes way beyond the story. Ryan motherfucking Stewans in the house. What's up, dog?

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Dude, the guy just said, the camera guy just said, no cussing, and we're just gonna start the thing off that way, huh?

SPEAKER_01 0:30

I don't know that you and I are rule followers.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Oh. Well, I didn't know if you cuss on your thing. I was like, well, maybe this is like a children-friendly podcast that sucks. I don't know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Welcome to Beyond the Story, man. It's uh it's good to have you here. I want to kick things off. First of all, um thanking you for what you've created with uh Apex. I don't look at Apex as a as a mastermind group. I don't look at it as a business networking group. I look at it as a movement uh that you made a conscious decision to start. And from the stories that I've heard from the people that we get to do life with in this group, it's you've you've you've been on quite the journey yourself. And we're gonna unpack a little bit through this conversation. But thank you for what you've done because the ripple effect is absolutely mind-boggling. To think that I was my hand was shaken as I gave a credit card to join Entourage and make my first payment two and a half years ago, and we're sitting here two and a half years later, and my life has been radically changed, it's just mind-boggling. And um, I appreciate your brother. I really, really do. I know we joust back and forth a lot, a lot of jokes and have a good time, but um to really just share my heart with you and let you know that dude what you're doing here and what you continue to do, uh, I'm all in for. And uh yeah, man, it's been a wild ride, and I feel like we're just getting started.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

You know, it's the hardest thing I've ever done. It really is. You know, um, I get a little emotional, but you know, I raised a family and a wife and been adopted and been to prison. And I really feel like my whole life, 99% of the people that I trusted and loved fucked me over in one way or another. My dad, you know, the court system, lawyers I hired, wives, and and again, it I'm I'm not denying my own fault in that. It's just that I'm blindly, I've always, since I was abandoned, I've always looked for something to belong to. Yeah, and for years I tried to belong to other people's groups and stuff, and and I'm not saying anything bad about those people, but I could tell they didn't care. They were just there to get money or they had a hidden agenda. And look, I I need money too, just like anybody else. Money makes the world go around, so it takes money to be a part of this. But man, I when I say it's the hardest thing I've ever done, you have no idea how hard it is to turn down things and and miss out on money and and have to kick people out because they haven't done the right thing or they've stolen from people and then have to. I keep like when someone in my program does wrong, I bear the brunt of that responsibility for the the network, you know. And it's been it's uh it's also at the same time the most gratifying thing that I've ever done because I get to listen to people like you say, hey, despite all the hardships that you've had to go through to build this thing, it's changed my life. And more important than that, because and people don't know this, but because of Apex, uh we've been able to rescue over 200 sex-trafficked kids long before the sound of freedom, long before people knew who Operation Underground Railroad was, we were on board with that helping. And we don't talk about it a lot publicly. I'm gonna talk about it more now that it's more mainstream, but like this isn't just something that we're building to put, like, I don't take money from this. All the money goes back into the facilities, the employees, these kids, the charities. I don't take a salary I never have from from Apex. That's how much I wanted people to know and see that I cared unlike anybody else. Like, there's this this saying is like for me, I looked around. I looked around for the man that had the great family, that had that had the great family and the money, that had the great employees and the business, that had the the cool things that I like, watches, cars, that had the rent, that that had it all. And everybody says they have it. Hey, you can have it all, you can have it all. But I look around and none of them had it. So I went fucking got it. Yeah, and I'm bringing it back to us.

unknown 4:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

But it it hasn't, I mean, you talk about you've had a wild ride, and your childhood was rough, and you said you were adopted and had all kinds of constant flow of abandonment that took place on here. Um you had a rough time as you were growing up, as you became an adult, making the wrong decisions, finding yourself in situations you didn't want to be in. Yet the consistent mess the consistent thing that I've seen in in that story and that you've shared is that you you've always come out of it and done something to move the needle forward to get yourself out of it. It's almost like you were so desperate to get out of that space of not only abandonment, but that I mean somebody doesn't teach you to do the right thing.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

You don't know how to do the right thing. And, you know, I I see you do that with with your kids constantly, man. You share stories about and it's and and I think a lot about your life because I'm the polar opposite, man. We're almost the same age. I'm I'm 44. Um same here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Oh, we'll be in a month.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Yeah, yeah. All right, there we go. Close enough. And um, I had a kid at 20 and raised my kid, you know, on my own. And now I'm I'm 44 and I always joke, no one needs me home for dinner. You know, and then I pull up Facebook, you know, and I see your beautiful family, man. And I don't see you just going, man, look what I got. It's it's more of look at what I build and uh built and what I continue to build. And it shows what's possible. Not that I'm looking to settle down, have kids and family and all that. I don't know if that's in the cards. I want what God wants, but to see you embrace that, man, it warms my heart as a single guy, just like kind of, I'm doing me now. I spent 18 years focused on my little girl, making sure she had everything. She's good. She graduated from college, just moved to Texas, she's 22. And again, no one needs me home for dinner. And I love it, man, because I can hop on a plane and just go. And I've been doing that. And um your life is not only an example, but it's an encouragement to people. I think people see what's possible. A lot of that happens in this business mastermind world, and you're exactly right. They just want the money, but they really don't care. I ran into that and learned my lesson, got my hand slapped real good earlier this year, joining one of these groups with the boats and the cars and the this and the chains and the that. And I asked one question about growing my business, and the person responded, You should probably run Google Ads. I mean, could you imagine we're in a QA together and I'm asking you like about my business, and you're like, open up a Google Ads account.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Yeah, run ads.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

And I thought, We run ads, Senator. This guy doesn't give three fucks about me. But if I pay my pay my dues, I'm sure, you know, and get a proximity. Yeah, that's what they sell. Proximity and this, and I, you know what? I just said it came time. I only did 90 days, thank God. Got in there to find out, and um, I said, man, it's it's apex or nothing. Uh, because I have a family here, I have people that legitimately care. But more importantly, I've been able to show up for me, and that's what you teach is that this whole machine is not just a business machine, it's a life machine. And if you take these things and apply them, dude, my mind's just blown on a daily basis. I wake up every day and I'm like, this is, and I haven't made it yet. Made it to me is I got more money than I can probably ever spend. I got a nice house. I got, you know, and I'm we're we're getting there. But I never in a million years when I joined Apex thought that I'd be doing multiple six figures with the freedom. And I thought about it yesterday as I boarded my first class flight. We got a great story about first class. And I sat down and they bring you a drink as soon as you sit down and your lunch in the whole nine, and you're chatting with people with a different mindset on there. Um, one of the first times I came out here, I flew first class because I got upgraded. And I remember tagging you, you and I didn't know each other yet, but I said, This is all your fault, Ryan Stewan. You actually loved that post. Um, I was on that triple seven and that my own little cubby in the whole nine. Let's go, Apex. But it's just wild to see when we make a decision for ourselves to step into ourselves and say, hey, you know what? I know there's more available and I'm willing to get around the right people. I know you're going to get me where I need to go. I don't know where that's gonna, I don't know where that is. But I've seen where you've gone over the past two and a half years, and I want to be in that camp. So um, I think I a lot of us in this group share that sentiment. Um, masterminds can be transient. Some people get thrown out, some people just leave. There's a lot of it. Well, it didn't work for me. Yeah, but I always like to say there's no reason that if you're in business, you should not be part of an organization like Apex. And if you don't believe me, just ask Sammy Knight because he doesn't need to be in Apex. There's a lot of people who don't need to be in Apex at all.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

At all. We have three billionaires in there. They don't need to be in there. What the fuck? I'm gonna teach them. They just want to be a part of a movement. They believe in what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

They want to be around it. So let's back up a little bit. So you know the the childhood was rough. You you you were adopted a couple times. Let's just kind of run through that real quick and what really brought you to, I don't want to say bad decisions, but they're bad. They were bad decisions that led you to a place of um of pain that you knew you didn't want to be, and um just just kind of what really brought us to present day.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Well, um, you know, I don't think God intended for me to so one time I did drugs in like a ceremony thing, like ayahuasca or something like that. It's been six or seven years, but when I was going through this hallucinogenic transformation thing, you know, and it's not for everybody, I'm not sitting here saying, hey, go try this shit because, you know, I never did it again. I did it once. You know, I hear it's funny you say that I was gonna ask you for that. A lot of people, you know, but I've I've been trying to find answers to shit my whole life. You know, I watched this show the other day called Jesus Revolution, and this guy's like, all these hippies are doing drugs because they're just trying to find out God in the truth. Yeah, you know, and that was me. I was just doing this drug to find out, man, maybe this will open my mind to something. So anyway, when I'm on it four or five hours into this ceremony, I'm having this conversation with God. Obviously, I'm frying my mind out, right? But I'm having this conversation in my mind, I'm having this conversation with God, and I'm telling him, hey man, why you know, I I I I'm not saying I'm the best example of a human, but but why so much shit in my life? You know, like this is for one question why why so much pain and turmoil and fucking trauma in one person's life? And he looked at me and he said, You said you wanted to do it hard and prove that you could do it the worst way possible. I presented you that opportunity. And so at that moment, it was like, man, this struggle makes me stronger. And so if I can show people that I've struggled through, because here's what happens with most people it doesn't matter my past or anything else, as much as it matters that people say, you know, you go to prison. And when I went to prison the first time, you know, people were like, Oh, that's you know, it's over with for you. You're a felon, you'll never make it. I never believed that because even before all this ceremony or anything else was like, there's a reason I'm here. I don't know what it is, but clearly it's not to do time because I'm not like those guys, right? And so when I got out, everybody like doubted me and everything else, but I never quit on me. And in my process was like, okay, I'm a felon, I got a GD, I'm you know, a useless member of society, but I can go be useful somewhere. So I went to work for a car wash, you know, for my stepdad. That was only, you know, it was those things like nobody's gonna hire me, but family will hire me. So they treat you bad and abuse you and shit like that when you work for family and they know they got an upper hand on you. But that made me a hard worker. It made me who I am. And my thought process was I'll just be the best fucking car wash guy on the planet, you know. I just want to be the best at something. So I'll just be the best fucking car washer. Yeah, then that led me to another opportunity because somebody saw my hard work. And then within a couple of years, I'm actually a millionaire, you know? And then 2005, the cops think I'm selling drugs, is how I got this money. They kick in my door and a long bunch of circumstances that's my responsibility, but not necessarily a crime that I committed. I end up going back to jail for some fucking weird technicality. And the again, everybody's like, hey man, he's gonna fail this time for sure. Nobody comes back after that second round, right? I came out 10 times stronger. The reason why I say that is not, I'm not special, y'all. I'm not, you know, I'm not a smart person. I'm not a an engineer, analyst, a thought-provoking person. I'm just a person that simply believes that I was put here for more than what I've having to deal with, and that I refuse to quit until I figure out what the fuck I was actually put here for. And I realized a couple years ago, I'm just put here to be an example. You know, I'm not an example to all. Somebody like Joel Osteen, I'm not an example for that guy. I'm an example what not to do for that guy. You know what I mean? He's a preacher who's lived a good life. He came up all this stuff. Like, I'm not an example for him. I'm not an example for Pastor Keith or maybe some of these other people, but for folks like you that came up through hardships like I have, that have had hard times in their life, it's like, hey, that motherfucker's gone through some shit worse than I have. And he came out smelling pretty fucking good on the other side. Maybe if I can do one tenth of that or one one hundredth or one one thousandth of that motherfucker, my life will be happy too. Yeah. You know, and and that's the thing with that that really I'm I'm gonna be hammering on people pretty hard is uh the more successful people get because here's what happens to most people they they chase money, right? They they chase money, they chase money, and money comes and goes. Economic cycles happen, the stock market investments go bad, they chase money, they chase money, they lose money, they chase money, they get money. And at some point, this is what happens to wealthy people. They they chase money, they get money, they get wealth, and they chase more money. Why? If I got a 100 million, and I know some of you be like, well, why would you sell yourself short like that? Like, look, I'm wearing a fucking $20 t-shirt and $30 pants. I don't have expensive habits. I figure out how to get jets to pay for themselves, I figure out how to get cars to pay for themselves, I figure out how to get watches for free. Like, like I've figured out how to do this shit, and and I don't need a lot of fancy stuff. So let's just say, you know, I got, let's just say I got a million dollars and that was my goal, right? To make to become a millionaire, I got a million dollars. And in my lifestyle, with a million dollars, I can put it up in an account and make 10 grand a month or six grand a month in interest from that million dollars, and that funds my life. So a lot of people could live that lifestyle and in and it worked for them. But for me, I feel like I chase money. I got it. Cool, I got more than I could spend. I really do, you know, and I don't say that to brag, I say that because God bless me, because you know, I've given more money to charity in the last four years than I've taken home myself.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

You're an incredible steward of it.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Yeah, I'm I'm I'm and I don't owe anybody money. I don't, there's not a motherfucker walking around. Always a plus. Yeah, I don't, there's not anybody walking around that's like Suman ripped me off, he owes me money, but never, and which is the hard way, you know. But because of that, I realized that I'm an example of of what's possible for people. And so I chased this money for a long time. And now the example I'm trying to be is like, once you get money, you got to get a life. Yeah. That's the side, that's so many people they're miserable because they've got money because they never chased the life. I I chased the money, I got the money, and then I'm like, I'm gonna go use this money to build a life. I'm gonna go build this, use this money to create a great marriage. I am I have the perfect marriage. And I may not be the perfect marriage for you, but it's the perfect marriage for me, right? Everybody's different, who they love and who they see, and beauties in the eye of the beholder, but I have the perfect marriage for me. I have the perfect woman for me. I have the perfect kids. Well, she knows how to love you, like you need to be loved. Exactly. And and so I don't need to chase money. Money comes, right? I'm still working, we're here obviously doing this, but I'm chasing life. You know, I'm chasing what's gonna make me better, being healthy, right? Being being someone that holds people accountable, being a good leader, being an example. I'm trying to chase life. And you know what? The more I chase life and having a good life and being that example, the more money shows up.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

That's been my life through Apex, man. It was it, I went from scarcity, I don't know how I'm gonna pay for this to man, it just always works out. It always works out. Just continue to show up and continue to lead from your heart. And God has not let me down yet. I don't think he's gonna start now. And just continuing to be able to lean into that thought process. But there is a huge distinction there. That constant chasing of money. I had a conversation with Sean Whalen a couple months ago. Great guy. And phenomenal human being.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

Man, what for almost a decade now.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

First thing I said to him was before you came out and gave your talk at MDM last year, you edified Stuman. You brought him out on stage, you told him that you loved him, you showed everybody in that room, this is his stage, this is what's possible, and you can do it. And uh he said, Yeah, man, you know, he is. And I said later that evening I said, So you've had a lot of success, man. You know, what what's next? He goes, Man, I'm good.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Sean and I are a lot alike.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

I have everything I could ever hit sacks right next. Beautiful kids, family, ranch, race. I'm racing cars. Like I there's not much more that I want. And when you continue to go more and more and more, I didn't realize how gigantic the clothing line was. I mean, that that in and of itself is a monstrosity.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

Dude, they've sold millions of articles of clothing in the world. It's just unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

But to be able to be out there, you know, having a cigar with a guy that's like completely where anybody could probably dream of making it, for him to go, I could go get more, but I'm good.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

He's chasing life. And you know what? Because of that, his shit goes, you know, because people see, oh, he is being a lion. He's being a lion for his family. Lion's the king of the jungle, so he's being the king of the jungle for his family. He's being the king of the jungle for his business, he's being the king of the jungle for championing his brain. Sean goes through some shit. You know, he he's built an amazing company, and then the FCC lied on him and tried to shit on him and shut him down and say, you know, they changed this. This is how the government, this is how they got me, right? Like a lot of people shit on Sean, and I would want to defend him for a minute because they say, oh, he was replacing labels from China. That's not what happened. Just like the government lies. I don't know if you motherfuckers don't realize that, but like, Sean's got no reason to lie. The government lies, right? And so Sean builds these shirts that say fuck Joe Biden and shit on him. The government obviously doesn't like that. So they come in and they they they made a new rule and they don't sit like so. In the state of this is why I went to prison the second time. State of Texas, five years after your release, they send you a piece of paper in the mail that says you're off parole, or I've already been off parole. Five years after that, they say you get your right to vote back, right to bear arms, all this shit back. I get this fucking note. But in the feds, it doesn't work that way. But the note doesn't say, except for it's not federally legal, right? And so here I am thinking I'm doing the right thing and I end up going to prison behind it. I had a gun in Texas, you can have a gun in your house as a felon if you're five years after your release with no issues. You can have you can't buy it, you can't go hunting, but you can have it in your house. That's that's what I did. But there was a technicality from the federal government that passed an additional law. When laws are passed by Congress, we don't get notification. You don't get an email email going, hey, this is illegal now. Quick heads up. Yeah, quick heads up. It's just like you find out the hard way. You know what I mean? Like, oh yeah, surprise, motherfucker, you're going to prison. Right. Right. And so that's what they did to Sean, minus the prison thing. And you know what? It wasn't even that big a deal because he only paid $100,000 or so fine. And a lot of people think, damn, $100,000 is a lot of money, but the government typically sues people for billions. You know what I mean? Like when you see the government go after somebody like that, they're typically taxing them for billions. So, you know, he he is a great guy, and he's a good, another great example of someone who is a family man in chase's life. I went to dinner with him. He was here about a month ago in in Dallas. And so, you know, he calls me, he's like, hey, let's go to dinner, the four of us. And uh, you know, we sat there the whole time, and I don't think we ever talked about a Lamborghini or or a Rolex or anything. You know what we talked about? Our kids, our wives, you know, the the friends we have, the time on the ranch, fishing, you know, stuff like that. Um and I just I appreciate people like him. But, you know, on the other hand, it's uh it's it's it's a curse money for some people. Yeah, you know, they're they're cursed to chase it, they're cursed to be addicted to it.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Well you said that. Remember when we were in Miami for Fleshman's event a couple years back now, which is crazy to even say. But you were talking to that dude, we were out there in that little garden area, and you said, Man, this job that I got is not easy. It ain't. And and I thought, huh, another perspective shift. Because I'm thinking, this guy's got it made, you know. And when you choose a role of leadership like this, weight, you gotta carry the weight, you know. How the how is that?

SPEAKER_00 20:07

And and I tell people that all the time. They see me, they don't realize I've been doing this for 13 years. I've spoken on a thousand stages, I've got 4,000 YouTube videos, ain't none of them getting watched by nobody, but they're there. Right. You know what I mean? I've got two, three thousand podcast episodes. Like I got more experience than fucking anybody, right? I may not be the I'm I may not be the best at it, but I'm by far the most prolific. You know what I mean? And and so I say that because you know, a lot of people, they look at me and they say, oh, Ryan just leads this movement with ease, and they don't see, you know, anybody that's good at something, you go watch a surfer or golfer on TV, and you're like, fucking golf looks easy, dude. Surf, they're just floating on a board, right? You get your ass out there, yeah. You're fighting for your fucking life wave. Yeah, a three-foot wave will kill you. Yes, you know what I mean. And you don't really, those guys out there just like ducks with grace, right, right. They're experts, and then you go out there as an amateur and you like fucking almost die, and you're like, dude, these guys, wow, there's a lot more to this. And I think a lot of people see me and they're like, Oh, you make speaking on stage look easy. He makes podcasting look easy. But what people don't realize is if you go back to 2011 to my very first podcast, when I was sitting in the front seat of my Lincoln MKS recording on a cell phone to you know just release that SoundCloud. Yeah, exactly. To blog talk radio. Oh, let's go. Even fucking older. Yeah, yeah. And and so people don't see that I've got fucking 13 years worth of doing this shit. Of course I'm gonna make it look easy. I've got fucking 30,000 hours in this shit. You know what I mean? Versus the the folks who, you know, think, oh, well, I'll just go lead a mastermind. Like anybody can dupe somebody into following them, but can they keep them? You know, how long do you say you've been in Apex?

SPEAKER_01 21:41

Two and a half years.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Our most of our members have been in there for years. Yeah, there's some people been in there seven, eight years. I mean, and that that's a there's a lot of people, like you said, are transient. They come in and out of programs. The only reason someone would stay for two and a half, four years, five years, eight years, like we have, is because I've been real with them 100% of the time. They haven't found They could, oh, you know, he says this but really cheats on his wife, or oh, he he says he does this, but really he's a crackhead, or oh, he says he does this, but really he's stealing money from people. You know, a couple of years ago, we had a lot of people raising money and funds and shit. You know, that Cardone started that trend, and everybody just jumped on board because people copy success and that makes sense, right? And he did really good. I mean, he raised like 450 million dollars and shit. So the average person, and he's an expert at it, so he made it look easy. So the average person's like, oh yeah, I'll buy multifamily two or whatever the fuck, right? And you know, all these people doing this stuff, and man, I a lot of them offer me, hey, let's go make money from your people, let's go sell them this, that, and the other. And I had to turn it down. I probably missed out on millions of personal income that I had to choose over that group. You know what I mean? And and and the thing is, like in that group, I chose the integrity to take care of them. Now, it doesn't mean that some people still didn't invest, or maybe I didn't invest, you know. I I did, I invest some deals that some work, some don't, but at the same time, it's like, man, this this role, you know, we watch a lot of people come in, folks talk them into doing deals and stuff like that. Next thing you know, their neighbor, their whole community's pissed off and they they leave them. You know, I've done my best to just always think group first. You know what I mean? Like whether I'm doing my life with my family or doing life and business, I think, hey, if Apex knows I'm doing this, yeah, is that a good reflection for them? Because if I'm the supreme leader of the group, the founder of the group, then everything rises and falls on me. So the last thing I want to do is saying, hey, this is what winning looks like, and it's cheating.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Yeah. You know? Well, it's contradictory to be able to do it. Well, another thought I think I thought of to the point when I was chatting with Sean, and it Sean's just one of the people, but what people say about you when you're not in the room is what I absolutely love. It's sometimes you run into some characters who are they want to run their mouth because you know they hate.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Because I probably kicked them out of the old.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

They hate on me because they ain't me, right? Um, but more times than not, it is uh Wes Watson's another one. Stuma's my homie, man. I love that guy. And uh I go, uh, what did I tell Watson? Oh, I go, Wes. I go, he stuma sure likes to bust my balls. He goes, Oh, that's because he likes you. Literally. You don't fuck with people you don't like. Literally five minutes later, I go, hey man, you're gonna be an MDM. Let's shoot a video for my for my uh for my Instagram. And he goes, I shoot no video for your fucking Instagram. And I'm literally, bro, I was shaking. My tails put in my head. So I go, Oh my god, my bad, I shouldn't have said anything. Literally a minute later, he comes over, he goes, What's up, dog? You want to arm wrestle? I nearly shit my pants, but I'm like, damn it, I told him this Duman likes to bust my balls, and he took that and ran with it. Now every time I see him, he asks me when we're when we're arm wrestling, but I told him he don't want none of this. But um, so here we are. Apex is how old now?

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Um, well, I started something called the tribe back in 2014 or 13. Yeah. And in 2016, I was at a gentleman named Frank Kern's house. Yep. And it was November of 2016. I remember this like it was yesterday. And I'm sitting down at a table in Frank Kern's house that he lived in. I think he still think he moved back into there in Rancho, Santa Fe, California. Sure. And beautiful mansion with like a great neighborhood lemon orchard and shit in it. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Like West is out there too, I think.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

This yes, Wes is right down the street in the house that Frank used to rent, right? So Frank's actually rented both of those. And so, or at least I'm 99% sure. I haven't been to Wes' uh house, but I'm pretty sure that's the one, right? When he was showing that Koi Pond, I was like, I realize it right there. So, but I say that because I'm sitting down at Frank's table and with Brooke Castillo, who's life coach school, who's probably the top information marketer out there. She's very low-key. If you don't know her, you don't know her, but her company's like fucking hundred million dollar a year company. They're bigger than Cardona, I think. She just, if she's in her niche and her level, and she doesn't really get into the cool person crops, smart for her. Great lady. Um, I think Alex Hormozy was there. I think uh a couple other Carl uh White, which is like the mortgage market, like smart people were in that room that are successful, way more successful than me. Uh maybe now, but for sure then. And uh Frank says, you know, the biggest mistake I ever made because this is what I did. I did uh 25 grand for a year, and after a year, it's like thanks, Sebastian. Now I gotta find somebody else to take your spot. It's a transactional relationship. Sitting down with Frank and he goes, I started this recurring monthly thing back in 2009. I quit in 2010 because that's what Frank does. He like he tries stuff and stops. That's just how he rolls, right? It's good for him, it works for him. But he goes, Man, I wish I'd stayed consistent this whole time because I did the math, I'd be making nine million a month. And I'm like, that's significant. So I started that monthly thing and called it Apex Entourage, right? First we call it Breakfree Academy Entourage. And um and I started it. And at the end of two years, we had a couple hundred members, you know, paying a few hundred or a thousand dollars a month or whatever the price was. And it's like, hey, after years, they didn't leave. They like got the value. It's like, oh, you know, I'm not charging them 25 grand, but after a while, then in 2018, I was like, man, Breakfree Academy, it it's it's a great name, and but it doesn't really represent what we're doing, you know. And I needed something, so I'm driving through Spokane, Washington, and there's a sign, right as I'm having this thought, there's a sign with an arrow, and it says the apex, and it was pointing to the top of a mountain, and I was like, that's fucking a sign for me. Wow, that's a sign for me. I've never been to Spokane, Washington. What the fuck, but I'm like, that's my sign, that's exactly what I'm gonna do. And so I went home, just changed the name, kept rolling with it. But but Breakfree Academy is like, oh, I belong to a school, right? Apex is like, you know, you're apex, I'm apex, we're apex. You know what I mean? Like that's like that that became a brand versus a school, and so you know, over time, people are like, hey man, how do we get more time with you? How do we get so we created other levels and things of that nature? And you know, we look up and last year we did, I mean, I hate to even say how much money we make, but it's a lot, you know what I mean? And a whole lot. Like if I told people, they'd be fucking mind blown because you know, I again it's nobody's business but me and the IRS, but it's a lot. And and I look back, doggy. And people say, how do you get 2,500, 3,000 people into a program like that paying, you know? And first of all, people don't even realize the shit that I've done because I got 14,000 paying clients in another company that I own. You know what I mean? Phone sites got 14,000 fucking clients. So people don't even realize the the shit that we're doing behind the scenes over here because I'm not like these other guys. But I look up, we create other levels, look up in 2019, 2020, even when the fucking economy was crashing, we were growing. And because we provided resources to people, that's what we do. And so I look up and people would say, Hey, how do you get all these people in your group? It's like, man, I didn't just like Rate, for example, they opened up and like a thousand, two thousand people were in there immediately. Right. And it's kind of stayed the same since then, but they were there immediately. I built that shit since 2016. Brick by brick, yeah, brick by fucking brick, right? So by 2020, I got four years. So if I had a hundred people first year and they stayed and then they actually liked it, let's say 80 of them stayed and they actually liked it, then I had like 200 the next year because the group grows, the team grows here in the office and everything. So we got 280, and let's say uh like 250 of them stayed. So we do that four times, and as we grow in referrals, because we got two 100, maybe they send you 50 referrals. You got 200, maybe they send you 100 referrals, you got 500, maybe they send you 300 referrals. Right. We look up, then the way that we've been able to build this thing is to keep people from leaving. So, how do you keep people from leaving? You have to A, make them feel like they're an actual belonging member that likes you got to care about them. And B, you gotta keep providing good stuff for them. But the biggest thing that we've done is we've set a standard. You know, we have core values. You know them. What are our core values?

SPEAKER_01 29:51

Integrity.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

Yep. Come on, come on. We do the work, it's rise. All right.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Uh integrity. That's the I. Service service. Yep. Uh we do the work, which is excellence. Excellence and uh rise above. Uh fuck your excuses. Which is responsibility. Responsibility.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Responsibility, integrity, service. You gotta work on that, sir. I'm gonna hold you to that.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

G code and core values, got it.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

So when we created these core values and they work like this, it's rise. Responsibility means we make no excuses. The opposite of an excuse is responsibility. When something happens, anything happens. Like money's missing from me, an employee does something wrong. That's my responsibility. Because when you take responsibility, you're also taking ownership of the lesson. A lot of people, they pass off responsibility and they never get the lesson and they never give them more responsibility. Responsibility is a gift.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Me being responsible for my kids, that's a gift. Me being responsible for these employees, that's a gift. Me being responsible for the portfolio that I have, that's a gift. Right. And a lot of people, they don't want responsibility because they think, oh, a lot, the burden that comes with it, but I love that burden because it keeps me responsible. Integrity, we do what we say we're gonna do when we say we're gonna do it. So that's simple, you know? And I always tell everybody if you can find somebody I ain't kept my word with, I'll make it right with them. I say that all the time. You've been saying that a lot lately.

SPEAKER_01 31:09

The most expensive thing I've ever done is keep my fucking word.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

It's cost me tens of millions, legitimately tens of millions of dollars keeping my word. There was two years ago, there were two apex guys and myself that invested into a deal. Okay. We invested, those two guys invested $200,000 a piece, and I invested $100,000 a piece for a total of $500,000, right? COVID hit. We invested in 2019. COVID hit fucked the whole fucking deal up, right? Like you just still to today, we've never gotten paid back. It's just shit happens, right? And uh doesn't doesn't mean anybody was was trying to screw people over, just fuck none of us saw COVID happening and it shut off the fucking money making thing that we were on, right? It's bad timing. And I owed those guys $700,000. Okay. I put in $100, lost all of it. I owed them double their fucking money back, $700,000 total, right? My hundred, they're $400 each. Okay. And you know what? No, I'm sorry, my hundred, yeah. They're it was $700,000. They're $250,000 each, right? And then my hundred, whatever the fucking math is. And uh they put in $200 each, I owed them $300. That's what it was, and then my hundred. So I'm out $700,000, what I'm saying. I paid both of those guys. Even though that deal went bad, I wrote a check. You can ask Scott Simons, he was fucking one of them. I wrote a check to Scott Simons for the full amount with the fucking interest that was promised on there, too. And you know what? I bet Scott hears this right now and goes, fuck, he wrote that out of his own fucking book. He I never told him, I never said, hey, that deal didn't go through. I fucking Scotty, cats out of the bag. I fucking paid it like I was supposed to. You know, Jeff Duscharm was the other one. I fucking paid him. You know, and then Jeff goes, well, don't pay me the interest if the deal went fucking bad. And then about two months later, Jeff Duscharm hits me up. I'm selling a watch on Instagram and he goes, Man, I really like that watch. I'll send you the 15 grand or whatever it is for. I just sent him the watch. I was like, hey man, there you go. You know, how the fuck am I gonna let you pay me when I fucking didn't keep my he wouldn't let me keep my end of the deal. He's like, do not pay me, pay me my 200 grand. I'm fucking good. But then again, I gave him the watch. And I still feel like if there's somebody I owe money, it's Jeff, even though he he he hasn't taken it, you know what I mean? But again, I came out of my pocket 500 fucking grand plus the thousand I lost or 100,000 I lost, so 600 grand that I lost to keep my word. So that's just one example of some shit. And a lot of that happened over the last couple of years. You know, I had a really good fucking, I'm still living off of 2018 money. I'm just saying, right? That's how I live my life. I'm again, I'm not a I'm a flashy person to an extent, but I figure out ways to make it. You're conservative, flashy like, and so um, like I might drive a nice car, but I wear cheap clothes, you know what I mean? I'm my my kids are in private school. That's the flashy shit for me, right? And so, you know, I'm still living off of older money, and so you know, we go through this, and that happens a few times, and I make it right every time. Learn some lessons along the way, too. But you know, meanwhile, the people that owed me the money, they didn't give two fucks. That's what it's just like the mastermind community. They didn't give a fuck about me. I'm the only one that cared in the equation, so I made it right with everybody. And over the years, me having that integrity and keeping it right costs a lot of money. Next is service. Uh, we believe in service here because we go above and beyond. So we don't look at it as service as like uh like a waiter or waiter waitress. Just being in service. It's being a servant, correct? Right? So we believe being servants and servanthood. So we want to serve people by going above and beyond. We want to exceed people's expectations, you know, which sometimes can be a little dangerous because you know, takers take, you know what I mean? And so they do. Uh, and then last is excellence, which excellence and perfection are not synonymous, right? A lot of people think, oh, excellence is perfection. It's not. Excellence just means we do the work because excellence comes from taking pride in work, right? If you if you believe in excellence in your body, you have to work in the gym and a diet. If you believe in excellence in your business, you have to work on your core values and your culture and your profitability. So all of that requires work. So we say responsibility, integrity, service, and excellence. And those are the four things that we like, me personally, and I'd like to believe a lot of our apex members and for sure all of my employees live and die by. If it doesn't check all those four boxes, we won't do it.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

It's funny, I didn't have those memorized, but because they are ingrained in my head, um, I do believe my life by that. And yeah, I I haven't told you this before. Um, but there's been many times over the past two and a half years that I've had like, I need to, I need to hit Suman up and ask him about this. And then I just stop and check in real quick and go, motherfucker, you know exactly what the answer is. And he's gonna punk you when you reach out and ask him because you already know the answer. And it was funny. I asked, it was a random question about my new course and how much I should price it. And you did it was a couple of jabs back and forth there, and you were finally like 350, leave me alone. And I go, Great example there, because of what you teach and how you show up, it becomes obvious. I almost feel dumb reaching out because you already know the answer, type deal, of where it's at. So I just wanted to point that out. Like what you teach and how you show up, if you're paying attention, it it it's contagious in a very, very good way. Because I think about that and integrity. I'm never I'm not I'm never worried about stepping out of integrity because I got this crazy thing called a conscious, and I love sleeping at night.

SPEAKER_00 36:14

So that's what people say, hey man, do you stay awake at night? No, I sleep good because I don't know nobody gonna sleep real good.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

And there's some been some people that I've met in the business world and in masterminds and whatnot. Even past members have been kicked out where I'm like, how do they sleep?

SPEAKER_00 36:28

I wonder too many.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

And I'm grateful that I have that, that, that, that, that, that God check-in. Do you check your heart real quick and knowing? Yeah, God's my accountability partner, just by the way. 100%. My sister always says that gut feeling is God's whisper.

SPEAKER_02 36:43

Yeah, and I like that.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

I never ever forgot that. Speaking of Jeff Desharm, at my first Apex event, I had uh, and I don't know if you know the Apex story, it's pretty wild how it all happened. I'd been hearing about you. We started around the same time. I started in 2010. Uh, Social Buzz TV was my first company, and I was an MC and I wore bow ties and I did traffic and conversions, and we probably met in an event, didn't even know it back in the day. And uh in 2016, I went through a big personal development where I needed to figure out how to fix Sebastian. And I'm like, I hate what I do, I hate what I'm doing, this social media work the whole nine. But what I found out was that I hate it myself. So I went through this personal development course, and I'm so grateful for it. I met a girl on a dating app. She made me join, she paid for it, she broke up with me in the middle of it. See you later. And uh I came out of that learn how to love myself.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

But she was there for your life for a reason. God sent her man to be your girlfriend or to have sex with you in that to get you through that door. He's like, hey, pussy will lead a man wherever he needs to go.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

Holy cow. That was that was exactly it. And I made it through that whole thing and very resistant. I don't know how you are with the personal development early on there, but I was like, fuck this, I don't need this shit. And um, I came out of that and I learned how to love myself and I learned how to take full accountability for my life and realized that every single thing that happens to me in my life is my fucking fault. It always has been, it always will be. It's not dad's fault, it's not mom's fault, it's not anybody's fault. And when I stepped into that space, Ryan, it was a level of freedom that I had never experienced. But on the back of that, I said, now we what are we gonna do with business? And I said, What do you want to do? You want to wear bow ties? Nope, we're done wearing bow ties. You want to MC? Nope, we're done MC. What do you want to do? I want to speak, I want to communicate, I want to leverage the platform, my gifts on the stage, and I want to find my thing within that digital space because we've already built a brand. You know, I met Gary V in 2011. He put me on and showed me how that whole personal brand thing started to work. I didn't want to lose that. And somebody called me, ran it. So I got done with that personal development course. Uh, and I said, All right, we need to get back in this business game. Um, I'd taken like the whole year off, lived on a line of credit, tried to unfuck myself. It worked really well. So I went and rented a desk in a co-working space. And I'm in the elevator and I run into a girl that I had known. We were getting mic'd up at an event together, and um we had just been like business buddies. I said, Hey, what are you doing? She goes, I have an internet radio show. I go, what's that?

SPEAKER_00 38:57

She goes, Well, it's prior to podcasts, that's what we called them. Well, no, it was 2016.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

So I was like, What's an internet radio station? I'm thinking Blog Talk Radio. Like I was getting like past trauma showing up. So um that platform never worked. Uh, and uh, so she goes, uh, I go, well, it's good to see you. I'm walking out of your car real quick. And I said, you know, you can start a podcast. Like I've had one, but I'm not real consistent with it. But like you can start one and record from your house. And she goes, Why don't you start a solution, like a course some to help people? Ryan, when I tell you the antennas went up, the light bulbs went on. I went back to that rented desk and that co-working space and I mapped out what would become the podcast launch lab. And that was the end of 2016. I literally have not looked back, went full all in with it in 2019. And then, of course, 2020 had everyone starting a podcast. And I had heard of you, and I started. Everyone was bored. Yeah, no kidding. I had heard of you, and I had started to hear of Apex, and I had a guy hit me up on a training that I did. He goes, hey, man, it was a great training. Can I can I holler at you real quick? I'm in a group right now called Apex. I go, damn it, I keep hearing about Apex, that Stuman guy, right? He goes, Yeah, man, listen, there's a podcast guy in there right now, killing the game, bro. And you and I just met. We don't even know each other. You need to get in that room. I'll make an introduction to one of the sales reps or whatever it was, Toby Ripito. I'll never forget that guy's name. And I don't know if he's still in the group or not, but I was he didn't get me, he didn't end up getting me in the mix or making any introductions, but I saw your post that said, My team's gonna kill me. But here's what we're gonna do. I remember that. 500 bucks a month. It was June or July of 2021. And I commented and Sasser slid into my DMs and he said, We have 1,100 members. We teach people that they need to start a podcast as part of building their machine.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

In 2021, we had 1,100 members and we're close to 3,000 members. I knew you were gonna say that. I knew you were gonna say that. I bested my team the other day because we aren't growing. Because, man, I'm speed. You know what I mean? Like, let's go. We got lives to change, we got people to change, man. But well, you saying that, man, makes me feel really fucking good.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

Well, you're doing it, brother. You're doing it, man. It was, you know, I and I I was as nervous, I was shaking like a leaf. And I joined and I showed up in my first Apex Live, and I walked in, and there's red and black, and I was like, oh, the church of Satan has arrived. Where am I? I didn't know what the fuck was going on, right? And I didn't know anybody. I may have known one or two people, and of course, Zach who had signed me up, but I walked in Apex Live at the Addison, and I was just like, and I'd done a lot of events, man. So to be on the you know how it is to be on the other side of the fence is different, you know? And I walked in and I was like, what are you doing, man? You're normally on the other side of the fence. Ego starts to show up, just that and the other, and I'm like, I don't know if this is for me. And then Jeff Ducharme hits the stage, and I go, huh. And then Sammy Knight came on with a testimonial.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

And I said, I think Sammy's speaking downstairs right now, actually. If not, he's next up.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

That man is a uh, I know he's a big influence in your life and has been in mine, but those two, that was a turning point for me. And then five months later I called Zach and said, I can't do this Facebook thing. The group. I people are getting on airplanes and flying in. And uh I signed up in December of that. If you're in.

SPEAKER_00 42:01

You know, uh Sammy. I got two things to say. I want to say this about Sammy. Um I took my kids last week on a private jet, just us, to Cancun to uh six-star resort. All you can eat, all you can drink. The kids they can go get food whenever they want, live the life on the beach, whole nine yards, in you know, in Plantel Carmen, not Cancun, but we get on the jet to come back home. I'm about to go on Instagram, so I hit the record button and I'm like, yo, they're sitting behind me in the jet, and I'm like, yo, is this not the best place you've ever been in your life? Was this the best vacation ever? You know what they all three said? No, I'd rather go back to Sammy's. Well, and then they go, or your ranch. Do you know Sammy's ranch is fucking rough? You live in a trailer home and it's 150 degrees in South Texas in December. You know, and but but my kids, they were like, hey, I like Sammy. Sammy's my grandpa.

SPEAKER_01 43:02

Well, they lit some deer up down there, so they were hooked up.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

Jackson, my oldest, killed seven deer. Yeah, that was the shoot.

SPEAKER_01 43:08

Right.

SPEAKER_00 43:09

Um, and so anyway, I want to tell this story because I think there's somebody out there that needs to hear this. Um in my whole life, I knew I wanted to be something significant. Not from a narcissist standpoint, but I just calling God put me here for something. I remember when I was seven years old, uh, I was at Christmas at my grandparents' house, and I went up there in front of everybody and like ding ding ding. Hey, I got some stuff to say. And I remember standing in front of the old wooden square TV that my grandparents had, and I I sang a song and then I preached, you know, and but I was making fun of preachers, you know what I mean? So I was just being funny, you know, and and I thought, man, you know, that's my thing. I'm I'm supposed to be like a comedian, you know. And then I got into music and Started playing guitar, which I still play, and I'm like, you know, maybe I'm gonna be a musician. But but then I wound up in jail. It's like, oh, maybe I'm a drug dealer, I'm a loser. But then in 2005, I feel like God did this for a reason. Here I'm a drug dealer. He's like, I'm gonna put you in jail and show you that that life ain't for you. I go back to work, become the hardest worker at the car wash, learn how to lead people, be a manager, and I go into the finance business, I start making money. And I go to church one day, and Pastor Keith says, What a force. I think you I think everybody here should read this book, Think and Grow Rich. You know? And I'm like, okay, I never heard of it back then, you know. I'm like, okay. But I'm a an excessive person. So if I do something, like my integrity costing me a lot of money, I'm all the way in on it. Right. Uh I'm married to my wife. I don't even think about other things. I couldn't imagine being naked next to another woman. That's just I'm all in on something, I'm all in. Yeah, right. And so I read this, I buy that, I don't buy Think and Grow Rich. Instead, I buy this book called The Law of Success, which Think and Grow Rich is an excerpt from. Law of Success is 1400 pages. Now I'd never read nothing but novels in prison prior to reading this book. It's 1400 fucking pages and it's as big as this. Okay, so it's a big fucking book before it's like a Bible. Right? Took me a couple months to read it. There was a chapter in there. I was I was dating this lady and she was at my house, and there was a chapter in there, and I read it. And that night while we were, you know, she came over or whatever. I remember like Tom Cruise, man. I jumped up on the coffee table and I was like, this is what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to talk to people, I'm supposed to teach them these principles. I'm supposed to be this fucking guy he's talking about in this book. That's me. Yeah, you know what she said? Dude, you just went to prison and you're on uh pretrial release to go to prison again. What the fuck are you gonna teach people? And so I'm like, man, how many times in in your life, listeners, have you told people what you were called to do, whether you believe in God or not, that's your problem, but told people what you were called to do, and then some agent of average in your life shoot down your dreams because they're not capable of it. What she was saying was, there's no way I could do that, so how can you do it? Right. But I didn't realize that. I'm like, maybe that's not for me. So I end up going to prison for about 15, 16 months in federal prison, and I get out in 2008. And while I'm in prison, like I don't know this, I'm connecting the dots now, Sebastian. But while I'm in prison, I'm sitting here watching TV because we have limited access to information and the TV in prison saying mortgages are bad. It's the only job I've ever had besides the car wash and drugs. Mortgages are bad, people are dying, fucking blah, blah, blah. It's the end of the world for mortgages. So now I get out and I go try to find this job. So I'm thinking, okay, mortgages are bad, so I can't go back into that. I'm not gonna wash cars or sell drugs. The fuck I'm gonna do, right? So there's a credit repair place in Dallas called debt solutions, credit solutions, something like that. I go up there, I it's like a wolf of wall, it's like a boiler room type of interview. There's like a whole table of eight people, and I don't say anything, but like, you know, my past or whatever, like, you know, yes, I was top producer for this mortgage company. That's about the end of it. They call me back for the second one-on-one interview. I get the job. Friday, bragging to all my friends. Motherfucker, I got a job. I'm gonna be fucking killing the top producer, blah, blah. Monday morning, 7:30. I'm supposed to be there at nine. 7:30, they give me a call. Hey, we ran your background. You didn't tell us you had all these fucking charges on you and stuff like that. You can't work here. I mean, this place was the top floor of a building. They got Red Bull on tap, good looking people working there. And I'm like, fuck. My so the so Monday, my friend calls me. He's like, Hey, how's that new job? I was like, Man, they found out I was a felon. I gotta go find another job. And he goes, Man, we're hiring over here at Texas Lending. It's like, man, that's a big bank. They're not gonna hire me. He goes, I think I can get you in. They're pretty desperate for fucking producers right now because the because 2008 was a bad time in the mortgage business, right? Fuck, I got no choice. So in jail, God, prison, God's telling me, don't go back to mortgages, but it's the only thing I know, so I'm just attracted to the familiar. Two years I've come top producer over at Texas Lending within like 90 days, and for two years ran that fucking just reigned over that place. March of 2010, Dodd Frank goes into effect, and they say, Hey, if you're a felon, you can't get a license. So they like now I'm out of a job. I can't go, God, God, shut that door. And God's like, I told you. Fuck, what the fuck are you doing? Right? Somebody get them the fuck out of there. Right. Right, right. So 2010, I'm like, man, I don't I don't know what to do. You know? Yeah. But luckily for me, I had when I got out of prison, my sister was like, hey, you need to get on Facebook. My space is old, you need to get on Facebook, that's where it's at now. So I'm on Facebook and I wanted people to know I wasn't a loser. So I would, hey, I'm top producer, take pictures, and people would hit me up, end up getting a lot of business from it. So I'm like, shit, maybe I can teach people Facebook to get business from it. Maybe I just teach loan officers. I've done it. I can show them what I did. And it seems like, okay, that makes sense now. But in 2010, people called it Spacebook. They didn't realize, yeah. You know what I mean? They they like, dude, social media, it's a fad. It's a trade. Remember, people used to say that shit. In the wild, now everybody is talking about. I tried to sell management at $100 a month, and motherfuckers thought it was a waste of money.

SPEAKER_01 49:13

Send us a proposal.

SPEAKER_00 49:14

However, uh, Dustin Black was like my third third client. I'd say he's doing pretty well. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. Um, there was uh two other people, I can't remember their name now. Franklin or Frederick. Frederick Eklund, Josh Flagg. So there were some big people that I I helped over the years, you know, and uh in the beginning. And so, and you look back now, it's like, man, me and Frederick had like 5,000 likes on his Facebook page when I took that shit over. We took them to half a million within like six months. There were, dude, it was just unreal. And so, anyway, it was very difficult, but that door was shut. And then I'm like, damn, what do I do? I go to work. The next thing, my my wife at the time gets pregnant with Jackson. It's my ex-wife now, but she was my wife then. She gets pregnant with Jackson, and I'm like, fuck, I gotta go get a job, man. This, you know, I got so I go work at a car dealership. And I think, hey, I'm I'm all in. I'm gonna own this motherfucker one day, right? I'm gonna own this motherfucker one day. I'm there, I'm the baddest motherfucker there, top producer, story in my life. And it's not that I'm a good salesman, I'm not even gonna say that. I mean, I might be okay, but but I just work, you know what I mean, dude. I never in my fucking life, Sebastian, never in my fucking life have burned through souls on shoes in nine months working for that dealership. I burned through souls on three shoes. That's how much fucking walking I was doing was a fucking lot sharp when I'm fucking ready, man. Yeah, but I was selling, you know, 30, 40 cars a fucking month, you know. And crazy thing is most of them were half deals. So I'm really selling 40 to 80 cars a month, but I'm doing so many, I'm passing them off to the other guys, right? It's fucking so I'm gonna own this bitch, you know what I mean? And one of the dudes that I was locked up in prison with was the general manager, so you know, it's like fuck me and this dude are gonna run this shit, right? And then one night, it's nine o'clock. I fucking hate it. Working till nine o'clock. Fucking hated it, right? Because after seven, nobody comes to the fucking dealership, and it's a waste of time for us to be fucking open. And dealership dudes are so fucking just controlling, they won't let you leave even though nobody's fucking coming in. Sure. I hated that shit, right? Uh, like on Saturday, like one o'clock, I just leave every week. They're like, we're gonna fire you if you do it again. We ain't fired me yet. I'm leaving again next week. You're fucking kidnapping.

SPEAKER_01 51:22

Nine to one's good Saturday, and so and so it's nine o'clock at night.

SPEAKER_00 51:27

I'm waiting on this fucking dude that's buying this Lincoln from me to fucking get out of the box from signing. And there's another dude sitting at a table with a guy named Evan Cox. And uh Evan's kind of a goofball at the time, right? And I don't know where he's at these days, but he was kind of the dude everybody fucked with in the dealership. Yeah, and Evan comes over to me, he goes, You know that guy right there? I said, I never seen him in my life. He goes, You know what he just told me? No, but what did he say, Evan? Again, the craziest messenger, you know? He goes, That guy says that he knows who you are. And he asked me why you're here. He actually asked me if you own this place. And I went, Really? How does he know? He goes, he said that you did business with a dude named Todd White, and you made Todd White millions and millions of dollars within about six months, and he's never seen anybody ever fucking do that again. Todd White was the manager at the car wash turn realtor. Wow. And I sent that guy hundreds of fucking deals when I was a loan officer, and he got rich as shit, got a drug addict, and fucking died, right? Shit happens. But that guy saw that, and he goes, and Evan goes, nah, he just works here. This is what Evan said to me. Goes, and I told him you just work here. And he goes, This is what he said to me. He goes, That guy is special, and that guy, I don't know why the fuck he's working here, but you need to link up with him because there's something about that dude. I still to this day, like this, I don't know how that dude must have worked in that Ebbie Holiday office and saw Todd as top producer or some shit like that. He just happened to be buying a car. But it was at that moment that I realized God was saying, Hey man, you're not supposed to be at this car wash just or this car dealership, just like you weren't supposed to be a loan officer. These are steps on the way, right? And you've proven your worth, but you're supposed to do that thing that I told you to fucking do in 2005. I walked out of there that night and never came back to that dealership. Leaned back in on the fucking social media management, ended up getting about 70 clients, you know, and it sounds like a lot, but at 100 bucks a month, 500 buy down talking about a lot of work, bro. And I didn't have a team, I didn't know how to hire, I just did I was just a workhorse. We you know, we do the work. Sure. And so um a few years go by, picking up some momentum. Breakfree academy starts picking up momentum. I've helped a lot of people make money, shit like that. And I look back and I'm like, man, God put me in all of those places to prepare me for where I am today. I can bitch about these things and I can cry about these things, but the whole time God gave me a plan in 2005, and every time I refused to follow his plan, it ended up prison, divorce, job loss, all these other things. As soon as 2011, when that guy said, I don't know what that guy's doing here, but he's special. You need to lock arms with him. It reminded me of who the fuck I was. You never know who that fucking messenger is gonna be. And I'm like, I am that motherfucker. He's right. I have helped people, and I fucking went in and I started helping people, and now I can look back and tell you, whole hard, not counting book sales. I have helped a hundred thousand, a hundred and three thousand paying clients. I can't tell you how many millionaires have come, and I'm not taking credit for them. I've like, for example, in the roofing business. And again, I'm not taking credit, I'm just saying they're part of our culture. There's been about eight big exits in the history of the roofing business, right? And maybe there's a couple more than that, but we're talking eight, nine-figure exits. There hasn't been a whole lot of those. Four of those eight are out of our camp. Some of the top producing loan officers in the fucking world were in my program back then. And and I look up and I'm like, this is what I was supposed to do all along. And then I asked myself, did I, did I, did I cheat myself by not sticking to the 2005 plan? But I had to go through this stuff because here's where I am today. Somebody can say, Well, Ed Milette, he's, you know, he's never been to jail. He grew up in a suburban life, you know. Of course he's gonna be rich, right? Somebody can say, oh, Grant Cardone, you know, he's from Florida or wherever the hell he's from, and you know, he's a good salesman. Of course he's rich, you know. And and someone can say, oh, this, that, and the other. But they look at me and they can't say, oh, well, he's had it made, or oh, hey, they can say, I resonate with that guy. I've been in trouble. I've been on drugs, I've been divorced, I've been in prison, I've been, I've I've had a medical misfit. It's the whole misfit. It is, but here's the thing people were misfits because they were trying to fit in with shit that doesn't fucking fit them. I we're not misfits. We were just misfitted into the wrong fucking leadership or the wrong people that bought us into how society works. Now we're fitting perfectly in to be in this movement. Now we're fit, and and now it went from making people money to making people have a better life. Here's what I noticed. I made people money in the beginning, they get a drug habit or they cheat on their wife. Right, you know what I mean? Money's a magnifier, Sebastian. Yeah, sure. The the more money you get, the more you become. It's like, oh, I got money now. You can't tell me shit, right? I've noticed that less money I have, I'm a fucking degenerate. But the more money I get, I'm a great, generous person. I believe we're more like God when we're generous, and the more I get, the more I give, right? But you take it all away from me. I can have a capacity to be a bad person, but money's a magnifier of who I really am. It's also a magnifier of thieves, it's also a magnifier of liars, right? So I watched it magnify a lot of darkness in people, and I thought if I don't solve that problem, then I'm not fixing their life with money. So I created the G code. It's like, hey, money's a part of it, it's the third G, right? In the in the in the hierarchy of shit, it's the third thing in a row. But if we don't have the right grateful mindset, we don't take care of the genetics that we are given, then that grind ain't gonna matter, and we're not gonna have a group of people to spend our time with. And now, 2023, I'm bigger, better, and than I ever had a vision for in 2005. All the I mean, I've sold out stadiums. I mean, it's fucking crazy. Two years in a row, we've had thousands of fucking people pour into a stadium, not because of uh A Rod or Logan Paul. They're just they're they're like, and I'm not shitting on those guys are fucking obviously great guys, but people came there to see the Ryan Stuman show. Yeah, but Jake Paul and number parsley, they they they were just there on the plate. You know, it's a great benefit, and you the parsley's cool looking and it's great, but but they were there for me. And it and and I looked up last year specifically, and I thought, because last year was the first, you know, we'd always 500 a thousand, and last year it's like, man, these people were here for me. There was fucking 2,000 people going, Ryan, motherfucking stupid.

SPEAKER_01 57:46

And you're like, what?

SPEAKER_00 57:47

It's the fucking vision I've had in 2005 jumping on that table. Yeah, I'm like, fuck, this is it. This is fucking in it. And when I stepped in, this is what I'm telling you. When you step the fuck into what God's calling you to do, that's when you'll become what you've wanted to be your whole life. You want money, you want power, you want respect, you want friends, you want love. Any of those things come from stepping into that voice in the back of your head or the gut that Sebastian's talking about. There is every time that I tried to deny my calling, I was poor, I was distressed, I was in prison, I was divorced. The second I said it, you know what? I'm gonna listen to you. I've tried it my way, fucking idiot. I'm gonna listen to you blindly, trust the process. And here we are. More money than I can spend, everything that I've got it all. Yeah. I really do. I've got I'm trying to be the example of the person that's got it all. I don't say this to brag, but I've got the family. You you like cars, I got the cars. You like watches, I got the watch. You like jets, I got the jets, you like real estate portfolio, I got 23 fucking million dollars of it. You like businesses, I own 160 fucking businesses. You like software, I got 14,000 fucking paying clients. You like, you like masterminds, I got 103,000 satisfied fucking customers. I got a beautiful white cat, I got a fucking ranch. You like horses, I got horses. You like cows and steak, I got steak. You like to fish, hunt, fucking whatever the fuck you want to do. I'm trying to be an example that it's possible. And so that people can't say, oh, well, because it's because of, you know, well, he had disadvantage or this that I've had every fucking, this is why God uses me because I've had every disadvantage that anyone can fucking have. And I've shown you that when I tattooed fuck your excuses on my hand, I fucking meant that shit, you know?

SPEAKER_01 59:20

And you live it. You absolutely do, and you leave all your heart too. Yeah, you got a gigantic heart. And uh our relationship's been continuing to grow as I've been a member here, and I'm just grateful to be in your camp and uh to share this vision on where it's at. I know I've had a lot of those moments where I've stepped on, I've stepped on stage in 2009. I said, This is it, this is what God put me on this stage to do. And when I got saved and found the Lord at seven, that minister put his hand on my and said, The Lord's got big plans for this boy. And I never saw that until I was able to get out here and share my gift. One of the first things I say when I hit the stage is, Are you willing to give up who you've become to be who you are? And that rattles people's cage.

SPEAKER_00 59:56

And the I had to give up being drug dealer, fucking gangster, Ryan. You know, to become the fucking world-changing person that's here. But let me tell you this to end this. God does everything for a reason.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:08

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:08

So in 2008, I was sent to federal prison for some questionable crimes, right? Did I do them? Were they fucking gray area, whatever, right? I went there. I'm a responsible person. I didn't have all the facts. Let me sign off on my time and go do my shit. While I'm in there, they put me in a place called Seagullville, Texas. Okay. Seagullville FCI, it's a minimum security, it's inside of a fence, so it's not a camp, uh, but it's inside of a fence, it's a minimum security. Pretty easy time in all reality compared to the state time that I did. But they put me in this building seven, and building seven is the gang building. Okay, let me tell you a crazy fucking story. It's the gang building. I'm not gang related. Okay, I don't have any fucking Nazi tattoos on me or none of that shit. Um, or any any white gang tattoos, right? Me either. And so despite spending a lot of my fucking time in the prison, I have managed to find, you know why I didn't have to join a gang? Because I never snitched on anybody. They didn't have a reason to badger me into it. So anyway, I go into federal prison and I'm like, you know, God, I don't cuss. I uh I'm married, I got a good job, I go to church, I tithe. What the fuck am I doing in federal prison? You know, for why have they forsaken me? You know what I mean, right? And I go in there, I'm in the gang building. Okay, and the first thing they do is they put you in a room about the size of this office here, and you're with four or five other people, and it's a day room. You stay in there for a little while and they get you assigned to a cell after a couple months. I'm in there for three days, I get assigned to the best cell on the entire compound. I get in there, my roommate goes, Oh, fuck, you're a new guy in here, you're gonna have to fight for this. I'm like, fight for it. And he goes, Yeah, dude, but there's a waiting list of like 10 years to get in this unit. I don't know how the fuck you bribed a guard to get in here, but you're here. I'm telling you, people are gonna want to fight you tomorrow when they find out you live here.

unknown 1:01:51

I'm like, fuck.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:52

I'm gonna have to go back to the goddamn day room, right? Because I don't feel like I'm in the gang building and I'm a solo dude. I don't want to fucking deal with that shit, right? My roommate in federal prison, after nobody ever fought me. Matter of fact, they embraced me, they loved me, they hung out with them, right? My roommate, my cellmate in prison, I did his mother's mortgage. His mom came to visit him one day. She goes, I did my mortgage with that guy. So I'm in this building. One day, my cellmate tells somebody else, yeah, this financial guy is my roommate. He's been he did my mom's mortgages, he's been telling me about real estate investing. He's always reading some fucking real estate books and shit like that, you know. And the gang leader comes down, or the the the hitman, the henchman for the gang leader, they lived upstairs, comes down to my cell, knocks on my cell door. My cell he looks up and he goes, Oh shit, Juan's here. He goes, What'd you do? Fuck I don't know. Who the fuck is Juan? You know what I mean? And where's two? But anyway, I'm like, I go and I open the door and he's like, Wawa wants to see you. And I'm like, What the fuck is Wawa? It's on you, right? So I follow this dude upstairs, knowing for sure I'm about to get like, okay, I'm about to fight for this room, right? And this dude, uh, Juan is fucking six foot four, fucking 290 pounds of like been working out in prison, got a life sentence, fucking tattoos all over his face and shit. I'm following this dude upstairs, like I got a choice. And they take me into this little cell that they've got upstairs, and it's two beds. There's three guys in there smoking fucking blunts, their own iPhones. You know what I mean? And back then it was blackberries. So they're fucking smoking blunts, they're on blackberries. I'm like, y'all living way fucking different up here than I'm living. You know what I mean? Like, way fucking different. Let me hit that. So the gang leader looks at me and he goes, I heard that you're good with money. We got about three or four years before we get out of here. We've got millions of dollars we need cleaned up. Can you help us? And I'm like, Well, if you mean doing paperwork to help you, no, but I can tell you what you can do and how to clean it up and how you can take your drug money and buy real estate and then refinance and have debt against it and blah, blah, blah, and how you can create an LLC and take money or like I should show them some shit they're not proud of, but you know, whatever. I'm in prison, what are they gonna do? You know what I'm saying? So I go teach these guys, then they tell other gang leaders. Before long, I'm teaching seminars in the prison library, right? How to launder your drug money, right? Like the legally, and so that when you get out, right? Legally being uh drug money, so it's not legal, period, but you get the point. And so I get some favor on the compound, you know what I mean? Like people, the gang guys are like, don't fuck with students, living a pretty good life on there, you know, and and not having to suck dick or any of that shit on there, you know. Always a plus. It's always a plus in prison, you know what I mean? And so uh a lot of motherfuckers be like, Oh, I wouldn't do that. I seen a lot of people say they wouldn't do it, do it, you know. And so luckily I don't have to deal with that shit. I got some favor with God was looking out for me. So before I leave, the gang leader he says, uh, man, let me get your address. You know, I'd like to stay in touch with you and let you know how this works. And I'm like, man, we're in prison. This dude's fucking brother was killed. Like, this brother killed a cop and was executed by the state of Texas. His dad's a fucking this dude did 17 years for like 20 tons of cocaine and fucking murder and shit, right? And I'm like, I don't like my parents, so I gave my parents' address. I don't like lying either and be like, I wasn't gonna say no, so I'll just give them my parents' address, right? But whatever happens to them, happens to them. Unfortunately, that's how I felt at the time. Still do. So anyway, every now and then my mom would call me and say, the dude that writes a weird letters from prison that you gave our address, sending you a letter. Come pick it up, right? And I would read it. One day this guy sends me a letter in 2016. He's like, uh, hey, I made parole and uh I'll come work for you for free. We own real estate, we own houses, we own all this other shit. He's like, I don't need money. You can pay me nothing or minimum wage, at least so I have a check. And I was like, Look, man, I'm not trying to deal with prisoners. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, not trying to do it, dude. No, I'm telling you, I'll do anything you want, clean my life up, blah, blah, blah. You come here. If I find you do one thing wrong, the prison shit don't count here. If I find you do one thing wrong, you're gone. That's Jose Escamilla. Wow. Yeah, he still works for me. He's my best friend in the fucking world. I'm baptizing him Saturday. Wow. It's changed hundreds of. Of gangbangers' lives. Juan works for us too. He's changed hundreds of gangbangers' lives. Brought them over to Christ, brought them over to being the good side. Brought him over to running real businesses. Like, dude, drugs don't make money. That's some Hollywood bullshit. Yeah. You went, I have never gone to a nice neighborhood to buy drugs. I have never bought drugs from a mansion. Very true. That is some fake fucking shit. It doesn't fucking people like, oh no, I know a motherfucker. No, you don't. You know a motherfucker that might have a Lamborghini that lives in a fucking trap house. There's a fucking difference. There ain't Bill Gates ain't making cocaine money. That's Microsoft money. So we teach these guys, hey, you flip bricks the same way you flip fucking real estate. Guess what? Real estate's legal and more lucrative. Right? Yeah. So cool. He still works for me. Right hand, man. Best dude to ever do it. Love that motherfucker. December, I buy a ranch. You know, was about to buy this $5 million house on a PGA golf course. And God told me don't do it. And I mean, my wife was mad. You talk about a shitty Christmas. Going from, hey, baby, I bought you dream home to I didn't tell you this, but I canceled the dream home and bought us a $3 million ranch. What? Yeah, it's just raw land. With some cows, you know. What? What? We had our dream home. Ah, fuck that dream home. We got land. Oh man, it was a rough fucking Christmas because I didn't ask permission. That's the thing about me. I'm just an action taker, you know? And we'll work it out later. We'll work it out later. That's that's this my ex-wife told me the other day. She goes, You're just like your son. You do shit, and if it's wrong, you fix it. I'm like, what's wrong with that? Sounds like a great plan to me, you know? And so uh at least I fix it. Yeah. So I buy this ranch, and I show up on the first day after I bought it. Okay, you know, you buy, you put something under contract 30 days later, you buy it or whatever. So I saw the property, loved it, bought it. When I when after I paid for it, you know, and been through closing and everything, I go out there to learn how the whole ranch works. Like where are the electric fences, what are their property borders, all that shit. So the ranchers that owned it prior to me meet me out there. They're showing me the place, and we're going on the four-wheelers looking at everything. And one of the guys that works for the rancher looks really familiar. And I go up to him after the second time I go out there. So a week later, I show back up out there, it's just him. His name's Mac. I show up out there and I said, Mac, you ever been to Seagoville, Texas? Now, my ranch, for those of y'all that don't know, is in Oklahoma. So I ask him, Have you ever been to Seagoville, Texas? He goes, Well, hey, buddy, if you're asking me, I imagine you've been there too. And I said, Yeah, man. Uh, I lived in building seven. I think you were in '54. Uh, but I remember who you are. He was the shot caller for the Oklahoma boys, which is a white gang in prison, federal prison, Oklahoma guys. They all stick together, biker dudes, right? Uh, he's like the leader of a biker gang or some motorcycle club, whatever the fuck they call him, like sons of anarchy type shit up there. I think he got he was in it on an ATF hole for a lot of guns and shit like that. So it's like literally real-life sons of anarchy shit, right? He runs my ranch, like rip, you know, from Yellowstone. And he goes, So you've been, you obviously you've been there too, good buddy. You know, why are you asking me? I said, Man, I did 15 months in there. I remember seeing you over in 54 building, and uh, you know, you kind of being the man on the weight pile and shit like that. And he's like, Oh man, we're gonna get along just fine. So I tell you that story because I walked into prison. Why have thou forsaken me? And because of those two dudes and my leadership, I swear there's been lives changed, lives saved, drugs averted, people fucking change, people see what's possible. And man, everything that we go through is not against us, it's for us. It's just gotta make us struggle to where we get stronger, to where we appreciate the things are for us. Everything that I've gone through in my life taught me a lesson and got me closer to move the needle to where I am today. So I can look back and be mad that I was adopted. I can look back and be mad that I was divorced or in prison, but without going to prison, Jose and Mac wouldn't be in my life. I wouldn't be in theirs. Without going to prison, I wouldn't have lost my ex-wife and had an Amy. Without going to prison, I wouldn't have the kids I have because I would have maybe made kids with somebody else. Everything happens for a reason. Yeah, man. And we just got to appreciate those reasons. You got to look for the reason as opposed to look at the problem, you know?

unknown 1:10:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:14

Ryan Stewan, you are the example. And I appreciate your time. I love you, my brother. And it's a privilege to be in your camp and uh to be doing life with you. I appreciate everything you've created here and um the opportunity that I get to experience it and experience you and everything we got going. I still feel like we're just getting started.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:31

We are. We are. We're at Apex, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:33

Yes, we are. Ladies and gentlemen, Ryan Stewan. Until next time. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story Podcast. We're sure to appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. We're sure to appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast, launchlab.com studios. We'll talk to you next time.