Wade Houston: From Rock Bottom to President of a $100M Company | DSH #1770

I always tell people having a mentor saves you decades of time.

Decades. I mean, I would have never been able to manage employees in this way.

I will go to him all the time and be like, I became fairly self-aware.

And I'm like, look, I'm not a good leader. I'm not nice to these guys.

I'm condescending. They don't look up to me because I'm just a dick to them, you know,

my sales guys. And it was a guy, let's start working on, you know, how we manage people.

And that was the first thing, like emotional intelligence,

communication, leadership. That made the biggest difference.

And with them, I knew enough about sales and marketing and operations from a technical

standpoint, but that mindset and also the stoic mindset that he really helped me with.

I legitimately thought life was about money. And he really helped me see that, well,

bro, you've already made a lot of money and you've been miserable before.

So that's not what it's about. And he started to help me develop this stoic mindset.

And that's coming from a billionaire to say, though, yeah, that's pretty crazy.

And I have other mentors on the street that confuse some of the stoic mindset that are miserable.

Really, you know, in some realms, they're miserable.

And the coolest thing for me is that they've come to me in later years and been like,

hey, we've watched you change your mindset and grow and quit drugs, quit going to the strip club.

And there's still some things mentally that we struggle with and they've come to me for advice.

Okay, guys, we got weighed out here in Miami. What's new with you, man?

Happy to be out here. We got the Miami 2 in Vegas, you know, it feels like a desert Miami out here.

You picked Fountain Blue, so it's perfect. And they have like poppy steak and all of the

a lot of the establishments in Miami are here in Vegas. So it feels comfortable.

Yeah, yeah, it's like you never even laughed. It's just dry.

Yeah, I know you are out here a lot when you were doing 10x health, too, right?

Yeah, yeah, it's, you know, there's two sides of Vegas and there's two sides of Miami, right?

You can party and gamble and do whatever you want, but then there's like a health and wellness

side of it. And, you know, luckily I was able to find that out here. That's my side of it.

Yeah, it's nice, right? Yeah, I actually don't party. I don't drink. I don't really smoke.

Nice. Give it up. What about you?

Yeah, I mean, either I've been sober for six years. Yeah, yeah, I'm not like completely sober.

Like I'll have a drink here and there, but oh my god, you should have seen how I used to go.

What'd you do? I used to drink till I would like, they call me tomato face.

Yeah, I'm allergic to alcohol. Yeah, so my whole face would be red.

And then I would just make a fool out of myself. Yeah, just a lot of insecurities back then.

Oh, I have a very high tolerance for all drugs and alcohol. And so I would drink until I blackout

and nobody would know that I was blacked out. She is.

This one summer, I pissed the bed like 30 times. Holy shit.

Pissed on a cop car. They got aggravated assault on an officer.

You are drunk, Pisser. Dude, I had three DUIs and three assault charges within four years.

Holy shit. But from ages 17 to 21, 22.

And so after my third DUI, I got court mandated to go to AA and to stop drinking.

And that's when I at least partially, I stopped drinking, but I never stopped doing drugs.

So you were an angry drunk, it sounds like.

Oh, dude, I was the worst that the thing is, nobody would know.

So the people with big weights completely sober. He's the best out of all of us.

Give him your car keys, let him assume responsibility, and I'd be blacked out.

And so I'd wake up in the morning and I would have got a DUI or I'd have a fight with somebody.

My third DUI, I call my buddy Pete. I'm in a jail cell.

I'm like, yeah, I get my one call. I'm like, yo, Pete, can you come pick me up?

And he leaves me there for like three hours, doesn't pick me up.

And I don't get a second call. So I'm like, man, what the heck?

Like I thought he said he was going to come pick me up. I'm sitting there.

I'm sitting there. He finally comes.

He's got a huge shiner under his eye. And I'm like, yo, bro, what happened to you last night?

And he's like, you fuck, he's like, you gave me your car keys and told me not to let you drive.

And then you beat the shit out of me and stole your car keys.

And that's why you got your third DUI.

No wonder he didn't come.

Dude, I was just a mess, man. I was a mess.

That was like, yeah, when I was 21.

Oh, you got a good friend for him to forgive you like that.

I know, right?

He's.

Yeah, you ever missed drinking?

Not at all.

No, I never even think about it.

You know, there's like, I think ketamine and mushrooms to me were the things that I really liked the most.

And I think there's some really nice therapeutic benefits to them.

And I think that they have good properties for people in general,

not just for like recreationally use, but I think for therapeutic use.

But nothing else do I even think of it's never even like on my radar.

I don't even really like drinking.

It's been.

Yeah, if I had to pick one class, I would lean towards psychedelics myself.

Yeah, yeah, I had the best experience on those.

Yeah, I mean, they're awesome.

There's a lot of research right now talking about some of the benefits for even longevity.

Like Brian Johnson just had this thing and I don't know if he's treated him to any research,

but about some of the longevity benefits of psilocybin.

Really?

Yeah, I mean, we'll see.

Wow, he does some pretty thorough research.

Yeah, when I hear something like that, I actually get really excited.

Yeah, me too.

I was like, wow, this is pretty cool.

He's someone who I really started asking questions about health was like myself.

Like once I started seeing him do all that stuff, I'm like, I need to get myself right totally.

Yeah, I mean, just next level.

Yeah, you know, for me, it was when I first met Gary, I was like,

Breka, I was like, holy crap, I'm not optimized in my health at all.

And I thought I was, you know, I was disciplined.

I worked out at eight fairly healthy, but Gary showed me so many things.

And then when I saw Brian Johnson, same thing, I was like, wow, there's a whole

another three levels ahead that I'm not paying attention to levels to.

Yeah, what were your health issues when you met Gary?

So I had autoimmune hepatitis.

So 10 years ago, I got diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis.

And I changed my entire diet.

I started doing some glutathione injections.

I got off all the prescription medication that the traditional doctors told me to be on

and put my autoimmune in remission completely.

Within six months of getting off the medication, changing my diet,

doing these glutathione injections, my liver enzymes were completely normal and the doctors were

in shock. They were actually, I went back in and they're like, wow, holy crap, the medication

has worked incredible. It's been, it's been six months and we haven't seen anyone have these

effects of the medication. And I'm like, I was so pissed, I don't know, I was such a prick at the

time. I was like, fuck you guys, I've been off the medication for six months.

And they were like, wow, no way. And I proceeded to try and educate them on what had learned

because I had hired a nutritionist. I went deep on autoimmune in the liver and I read all

these books and I educated myself. And they were like, yeah, but that's not in our scope of

prescription and our scope of education. So that's when I started to see the difference

between traditional and functional medicine. And then years later, you know, got into functional

medicine. But I also had a lot of intestinal issues. So even even later on, I had to really fix my,

my enzymes. I had to fix my gut microbiome. And so I worked with a lot of nutritionist over time

as well. So were you working with Gary before it was 10x all? No. I, at the beginning of COVID,

I took over a clinic called health gains. So very similar to streamline medical, which is what

Gary was running before he got acquired by grant. I had heard of Gary because he started working

with some celebrities. And I had also seen, so I don't know if it was on YouTube or where it was,

but I saw some stuff of Gary where I was like, wow, that guy's really freaking smart. And I love

the way he talks about some of this medicine. One of my employees left health gains and started

doing IVs on the side for Gary at streamline. And he called me and he's like, hey, man,

this guy's really next level. He's doing IVs on all these celebrities. He just got acquired by

Grant Cardone. I said, yeah, I just saw the news article. And he said, they actually probably need

someone like you to mix medicine and business. And I said, great, you know, tell them what's up. And

so I got a call three hours later from Grant's team. And that's how it eventually became president

of 10x. Wow. Did you immediately get the president role or did you have to work the way up?

Yes. So no, I've president right away. So in the year and a half before they called me before

I had my interview, I had went from sales manager to director of growth to CEO of this company called

health gains. And we scaled from 4 million to 12 million in the year and a half that was there.

And when they were at 4 million, when I joined, they were losing 500k a year. When I left at 12

million in top line revenue, we were doing about 1.4 in net profit. And my mentor is a 10 figure guy.

And I got really, really blessed that he helped me all along the way. But I rearranged everything

about this company. I mean, we rearranged the sales process, the marketing funnel, the operations,

the SOPs, the culture. I mean, dude, I went in there and it was like the most

micromanaged, stiffest, worst culture I had ever seen. And I literally said, guys,

untuck your shirts. I'm going to start playing some future. We're going to have fun. I'm going to

teach you some shit. And I'm also going to teach all of you about your minds because a lot of you

have the skill and the capability, but you just don't have the mindset to be coachable,

to grow, to get through your fears, to have focus. So I started teaching all of them.

Every single morning, I would lead an all teams meeting and I would do a 10 minute guided

meditation. And I also gave them a book called Mindset by Carol Duacan. So I started teaching

them about their minds and every single morning I would remind them, guys, if your manager gives

you feedback about something that you did, they're giving you feedback about an action that you

took, which is something that you can change. They're not attacking your personality or your

character. So don't internalize feedback. If you're not getting feedback, it means that we're

not growing. And if we're not growing, you're never going to achieve your goals. And if you're not

going to achieve your goals, and you're not going to make more money and live this life. If I

created this personal development culture, it was just wildly successful. I made a lot of mistakes

along the way. But once I went to my interview at 10X, I did so much research. I funnel hacked

them three different times under three fake names. I took one of my employees from health

games, this company and I said, Hey, go apply to 10X for a sales position. Tell me what the manager

knows, asked him all these questions. So she did and came back to me. That was seven days she got

an interview turned around. My interview was two weeks later. So I go in knowing everything about 10X,

their process, their holes, everything that they don't know. Plus I had literally just scaled a

business from a small little Florida clinic to nationwide, 300% in a year. And so when I went up,

when I went up there, they asked me, what have you done? What are your qualifications? I told them

real quick. And then I just asked them like 20 questions that they were like, she said, I don't know

we're going to do that. I don't know if we're going to do this. I'm not going to do that. And for

for that 10X community with big ego and a massive vision, who just acquired the most prolific

traditional or functional medicine provider for them not to know the answer to these questions,

they were like, damn, we need someone like you. Wow. And so it was a 20 minute conversation with

Brandon Dawson, a few other executives. And he was about to go speak on stage at his carton

adventures event. After 20 minutes, he goes, all right, this has been awesome. He said, Dwayne,

Jeff, he said, wait, what position do you want? I said, president. He said, Dwayne, Jeff,

figure out his comp, figure out his equity. I got to go speak on stage. And he got up,

tripped my hand and left. Holy crap. So you got it on the spot on the spot. But then we

negotiated for almost two months, my comp and my equity took so long. Dude, we just went back

and forth and back and forth. And they had no idea how much I knew about deal structure, about

comp and about about equity. My mentor is it was a deal guy. My mentor is a lawyer. He was in private

equity. He's on investment banking firms. He's been through like hundreds of deals. And he owned

his own company also. And so they had, I mean, I'm going back and forth about my investing schedule

and cliff equity. And I'm talking about, hey, I think this is fandom equity. And I don't think

this is right here and there. And they're like, Jesus, we had no idea. And I went through all my

non-complete, my non-compete and everything like really with a comp. And I just don't think that

they expected that. I think they thought, oh, you know, this is a kid that grew very quickly. But

that he might not have the acumen that I had. And so we went back and forth until everything

was exactly to my, to my liking. And to theirs too, I think it was a fair deal. And then I started

and it was just game out from there. Well, that is not. You mentioned you have a 10-figure mentor

earlier. How did you acquire him? Okay. So it's crazy. May 6 of 2019 is when I hit my lowest point,

my rock bottom. I got drugged and robbed at a club in Miami. I really haven't drank in 14

years. But there was this three day period in which I actually did drink that brought me to my

bottom. I was born coke and doing ketamine. And so I get to this point. I get to my bottom.

And I said, hey, May 6, 2019, I'm going to change my life. I'm going to go to AA. And I'm going to

get a sponsor. And I'm actually going to do the steps because I'd known what A was, but I'd never

taken the program series. So I did that. And within three weeks, I meet this woman, this older

lady from New York. And she says, Hey, why don't you talk to anybody? You seem like you speak

really well. You're a social kid, but you want to talk to anyone. And I said, and I feel hopeless.

And she said, why? I said, where's all the ballers? And she goes, what do you mean? I'm like,

I don't want to be like any of these people. Like, I'm trying to be rich. I'm trying to be a baller.

Like, I'm trying to drive a Ferrari. I'm trying to have a hot wife. And she was a college.

She's like, look, I'll put three guys on paper here and their numbers. Reach out to them. But

before I do, let me just text them first to make sure it's okay. One of them happened to be my

mentors. This is by complete random chance. Wow. I go and have coffee with the guy. And he's

not really. He's working with like two other people. But he's not like he has a program. He's

very, very, very selective guy and super private guy, very discreet. So I walked everything with him,

my whole story and everything. And he goes, look, I'll work with you. But two things. If I ever tell

you to do anything, don't question why you're not in a position to do so. And you got to meet me

at my house every Saturday morning at 7 am. If you're a minute late, I'll never talk to you again.

Holy crap. Yeah. Bro, he's, he was, he's a savage. And he's the craziest background I've ever heard.

Like, his family got killed in gang violence in New York City when he was a kid, brother,

gone. Like he, he made his way out and became like a super successful lawyer, super well polished.

But he also has like that street tenacity in him. And he's literally the smartest person I've

ever met. Wow. So yeah, I got really, really blessed. And I would show up at 650. Every single

Saturday, we'd go take a walk and we started playing tennis together. And then I started and we

would become really, really close friends. That's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. I always tell people

having a mentor surgery decades of time, decades. I mean, I would have never been able to manage

employees in this way. I will go to him all the time and be like, I became fairly self aware. And

I'm like, look, I'm not a good leader. Like I'm not, I'm not nice to these guys. I'm condescending.

They don't look up to me because I'm just a dick to them, you know, my sales guys. And it was like,

let's start working on, you know, how we manage people. And that was the first thing. Like emotional

intelligence, communication, leadership. That made the biggest difference. I knew enough about

sales and marketing and operations from a technical standpoint, but that mindset and also the

stoic mindset that he really helped me with. I legitimately thought life was about money.

And he really helped me see that, well, bro, you've already made a lot of money and you've been

miserable before. So that's not what it's about. And he started to help me develop this

stoic mindset. Wow. And that's coming from a billionaire to say, yeah, that's pretty crazy.

And I have other mentors on the street that could use some of this stoic mindset.

That are miserable. Really, you know, in some realms, they're miserable. And the coolest thing for

me is that they've come to me in later years and been like, hey, we've watched you change your

mindset and grow and quit drugs and quit going to the strip club. And there's still some things

mentally that we struggle with. And they've come to me for advice. These are people that live

on North Bay Road in Miami. Wow. That's not stupid. It's been pretty cool journey.

Dude, that is awesome. So how long were you with 10 acts a year? A year? Yeah, one year. And then

that's before I went. Pretty haywire right? Yes. I left a December of 2022. I actually stayed

on and consulted for them for the next year. Okay. Look, when you're working 18 hour days and you

have four offices and you're speaking all over the place, like I was still an employee, even as

president, like, yes, I was still an employee. And I really wanted some freedom. So I started

consulting agency. I started consulting for them and a couple other major functional clinics.

When I left, there was no longer the buffer that I provided. The diplomatic buffer that I

provided between Gary and everyone else there. And I think over time, that friction really

became so apparent. Look, even if I was there at some point, this was destined to happen.

But yeah, then I watched. I'll never forget like eight months in August of 2023. I started to

really see the fireworks. And I was like, kind of on my way out. And then I finished my consulting gig

and then right when I finished, I was getting all these messages from people being like, well,

it's getting really bad. And then they're lost. It was really thereafter. It was a very interesting

story because their revenues were going up, right? Yeah. They were like, how explosive was the

growth when you were there? So we went from about 800 K a month to five, four and a half million.

Holy crap. Yeah. Bro, that's hyper growth. And imagine hyper growth in an industry that's not

mature yet, right? So we're trying to scale functional medicine nationwide, which is very

difficult because you have different regulations for medicine in all in all different states.

So you have to follow different regulations in every state. You have to get different

license, different doctors, different certifications. You have to create this crazy complex web.

And everything has to follow HIPAA. A typical business doesn't have to deal with nearly as many

complications or compliance as this. So not to mention, you have the tenix brand and the events.

And those events produce unpredictable massive spikes in revenue. We're talking like, okay,

so typically I was taking somewhere between 50 to 120 orders for a genetic test per day.

All of a sudden, in one weekend, we would take 4,000 orders and even trying to forecast the

demand, we'd be like, okay, so last year we took 1,700. This year looks like based on the

attendance, whatever, we're projecting 2,400. So I'll say it'll be about 3,000 and then we blow

through it and it's 4,000. Now, the provider for the person that the vendor that would help us with

the genetic test, you know, process the results, their capacity was like 150 tests per day.

So now we're 45 days out of them being able to process, right? So now I'm scrambling. I'm looking

for all different vendors to try and process these. But it's not really that developed. The industry

hasn't been that developed. It's not like there's a player that's like, oh yeah, we can do 5,000

a day. We're good. So now it just becomes at hyper scale, it became a game of acquisition.

Where we're like, hey, this vendor cannot grow and cannot scale fast enough. Even if I used to go

into these vendors and be like, hey, look, what do you need to increase your capacity? And they'd be

like this machine that costs 250k. And I'll be like, yo, I'll give you 150k. I'll front load you 150k.

And then as we order that many an invoice, you can take it off that and the other 100k you front

and get this machine. I'm going to grow your business and I'm going to give you money upfront.

Like, let's do this. They'd buy one machine and then they, but they'd be hesitant to buy two and

three and enter. So they'd have to go in and be like, hey, what's your timeline? When do you want

to sell? How much do you want? And so it just became a game of acquisition. In order to scale from

9,000,000 to 50,000,000 in one year, it just became a game of how quickly can we acquire other

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Dude, a year and a half before that, I was a sales manager and now I'm heading M&A

of a nine-figure company. Yeah, that's crazy. Dude, every single day I'm calling my mentor,

like Steve, what do I do? How do I have these conversations? How do I acquire? He's like,

brother, a good thing that you're good at sales and communication because it is all sales and

communication. When I joined 10X, we acquired the company that I built before. So all you do?

Yeah, so I built health gains and then when I had the conversation with 10X, I said, hey,

guys, look, I have a non-compete within 30 miles and there's no problem. You can have an office

in Scottsdale, so you're not competing as void anyway. But would that company actually help a scale?

I was like, yo, I just built the sickest platform, sales team, technology, ops, compliance,

everything that we need. We can plug this into 10X to be able to scale more quickly. So yeah,

within three weeks of being president of 10X, we sent health gains at an L.O.I. and we closed

after three months and then integrated that entire team that I just built into 10X. That's nuts.

Yeah. How many companies did you end up acquiring in that year? Four. Wow. So every two, three months.

Yeah. That's so crazy. It really was. For me, it was the coolest feeling in the world to build a

company, then leave, not tell anyone that I might potentially come back or acquire them,

have all these employees be super sad, right? Because they went from super micromanaged,

working for an owner that they hated to like the chill guy who taught that meditation,

personal development and listened to rap music. And then I leave, they're crying.

Literally, I have people crying and I'm like, guys, I promise I'll be back. Couldn't say a word,

didn't talk to any of them for three months because I didn't want to blow the deal. And 10X was

like, yo, you don't have any communication. And then three months later, I walked back in the door,

me and Brandon into health gains. None of the employees have any idea this is going on. It's

on a Monday afternoon and we walk back in and they're all kind of looking around like, what's

way doing here? And I got my little 10X shirt on as me and Brandon and Brandon's like, guys,

congratulations. We're super excited. You know, as you know, 10X health is blah, blah, blah.

We've just, you know, acquired you guys and we're super excited for you to be a part of the team.

You know, you guys all know who Wade is. And Brandon says, look, I don't have any part in the day-to-day

operations on the CEO. I run Cardinal Ventures, but Wade is the president and he has all, you know,

day-to-day operating authority. And so, dude, for me to have gone into this company year and a half

before as like a test out sales manager, to then coming back in and acquiring the company,

being president, taking the owner's corner office, like sitting back, I'll never forget. And I

go, Brandon, what office should I take you guys? That's the coolest. That's not. And you were

under 10X Ventures, the biggest company in there too, right? Yeah. You probably had a lot of pressure

from grads to perform. Yeah, so it was, and we were, we were performing, you know, really well.

I think the biggest thing that happens when you have such a marketing vehicle, right? We have

the 10X name. We have Gary, who's who's a firepower and he was working with all these celebrities.

We were growing by word of math like crazy, hardly spending any money on marketing. Now,

when you're growing the fastest, it's just all about fulfillment, right? It's all about fulfillment,

customer service, and instead of the expectation for some of these clients that they're going to have

a delayed process. And that was the hardest thing, like we just could not possibly keep up with the

demand scale, no matter what we did. Do you think that delays what started the downfall? Yeah, I think

there was, there was a lot of issues there because well, what started the downfall is this,

running, scaling a functional medicine company in which your top of funnel is a,

an ad home genetic test, then moving people into a blood test, and then having other services,

scaling that nationwide is way different than Gary running a concierge medical practice with

40 A-list celebrities and another 200 of like the top people in the world. Right. So you have

to operate these two businesses very, very differently. And we were operating out of different

systems, different CRM, different medical records, and there was no congruency. And so the issue was,

when there was any overlap in there, eventually became a lot of overlap with somebody handling

and servicing some of Gary stuff and then Gary feeding people into this system, it became

very messy. And that's where everything was, was the downfall because Gary didn't want to really

fit in this new corporate style system. Right. And, and honestly, I don't blame him in some ways

because when some of these A-list celebrities want an IV at 11 o'clock at night and Gary would

actually just go and do it, he might have not recorded things in the way, in the corporate way

that was needed. And so yeah, that created problems like he should have, but by the same token,

are you going to fault Gary for going to do an 100 K or a 50 K IV at 11 o'clock at night? Like,

guys driving revenue. Yeah. And so that was sort of the battle that they always had was like having

a medical provider fit into a business system and then having a business system catered to the

medical needs. Yeah, it's almost like mixing up personal brand with the corporate business,

right? Yeah. Find a balanced style. Yeah. And look, it's tough. You're always going to have,

when you when you have big egos, like at the end of the day, you know, you have a big ego in

in the 10x brand and then you have, you know, Gary, it's there's always going to be some form of

clash. Yeah. Yeah. Egos always been an issue in any business totally, right? We saw it before

in in health games. So when I joined health games, they were like, yeah, we actually had a doctor

who was the face of the brand, but his ego got so big that he wanted to do this and he just left.

And now we're left with the business without a face doctor. And that's where I came in. So I

had already seen it in the industry before. Yeah. You know, it's it's and especially in medicine,

if a doctor starts to grow a personal brand, they start to work with celebrities and then they're

really saving or altering people's lives. It inevitably their ego is going to grow, right? If

you're saving someone's life, like you're going to start to think, wow, I'm I'm moving up in the

chain of command in the world. I have some hour that other people don't have. I don't care who you

are and how humble you are. You're going to develop some form of an ego that will show at some

point. Yeah. And in any business, right? Yeah. podcast. You could be a doctor, a lawyer,

entrepreneur, it doesn't matter. And once you start experiencing success that ego creeps up

totally, then it becomes a matter of keeping it a bet. Yeah, keeping it on track, right? I think

ego is very important to drive things forward. Like, you know, if you can channel your ego and have

a certain level of belief and confidence, that's really good because you're going to need that

to persuade, you know, people to move in the direction that you want. But keeping your ego in line

is also very important because if it gets in the way, then you're going to turn people off. Yeah,

you're not going to have a business. Was that ever an issue for you? Yeah, for sure. You know,

when we first started experiencing success, right? So my first three months at health gains,

if I went from sales manager, should director of growth, and then my ego was like, I'm sitting

there in executive meetings thinking, well, I'm smart with an all the people, right? And

it definitely got in the way for a while because instead of me letting a lot of my executive

make mistakes and empowering them, I would just tell them what to do over and over and over again.

And I would always get to the end of the meeting and they'd be like, wow, we hadn't thought about

that. You fucking idiot. Have I got to do everything for everyone? And they could see that

that my ego was coming through that I thought I was better than everyone. And so eventually,

I did become aware of that. And I told my mentor, I'm like, yo, Steve, like, I just don't think I'm

doing the best job I could with my in my executive meetings. And he was like, yeah, brother of like,

your relationship with your director of operations from what you've told me, you're just running

her over all the time because I was running sales and marketing. And I was forcing her to make

sure she delivered in the operations in the way that was best for sales and marketing. But sometimes

I wasn't keeping the medical practice in mind that the doctors also had an agenda and she had to

deal with these doctors who also had an agenda and an ego. And also she comes from a compliance

background. Right. So there's always this sales and marketing versus operations because operations

is fulfilling and they want to make sure that they do everything right. But sales and marketing is

trying to push revenue as much as possible. And so I would just run her over. And then eventually,

I got to this point where I'm like, what am I doing? I need to educate her on business. And so I would

I started 30 minutes a day. I started taking time and helping her understand lead funnel. How much

we spend on leads where our conversion was what the sales process of like, how much we paid these

guys, what our net profit was. And once I explained to her everything, I was like, listen, now that you

understand this, let me negotiate a new package to the owner that gives you a 10% bonus based off

of these certain metrics. If you can fulfill on the revenue that I need you to help you with.

And I changed her life. I taught her all about business. I increased her package and then eventually

she moved up and took it. But had I continued to be a dick, she would have been like, fuck you and

we would have never grown. Wow. But so that that was for me, there was a huge turning point. Yeah,

that's huge because a lot of leaders lead by fear, right? They'd be by being a little mean, a little

hard high standards. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, it's just it's never going to help you get

to the to the level that you want. And what I realized was it was one of the best feelings of all

time for me to walk back into that business and have everyone in that business be like, we love

working with this guy. This guy is a leader and to see how their lives had changed. To see that

that woman who had these two boys and like barely affording her car and barely affording their

school and always dressed in crappy clothes and always telling me she couldn't afford anything.

To eventually, I ended up helping her way more than 10%. We got her comp up like 40% higher than it

was when she initially started. Well, and eventually when she when we were at 10X and we acquired

this old company, I moved her up to director of operations. Now she's making like 3X what she was

driving a nice car, nice shoes, feeling good, kids are on fire. And for me, it was just like

one of the most emotional feelings to really change somebody's life. That's beautiful. And you

can't do that by being a dickhead and just letting your ego get in the way. Yeah, you would have

fired them. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. That's so cool. So after 10X, what was the transition? What was

that like for you mentally? The saddest few months of my life, bro. Yeah, because you went from

6X in a business in a year or two, you're on your own, right? Chilling. And I don't think it's

funny that you understand that that quickly. It was so difficult to be the golden boy

moving at such a high pace that everybody wanted. I would get 300 emails a day. I would get

WhatsApp, Slack, text, Instagram calls, people in my office helping salespeople, helping my

executives. I was wanted all the time to phantom phone rings. You never had a text. All day long,

I felt like my leg was ringing and I would pull out my phone and nobody wanted me. And after

taking my phone out of my pocket, like 200 times in three weeks, it was so sad. I was like, man,

like, I'm not the guy anymore. And even though I was consulting for them, I was maybe working

like 10 hours a week, not much. And so I actually got really lost in my life at that point. I felt

sad. I felt depressed. I felt like I didn't know what I wanted to do. I felt completely out of

discipline. So I had built myself personally by being very disciplined. I started waking up early

and praying and meditating, eating healthy and working out from the beginning of COVID all the way

through. And that really helped me as a leader as well. Because people saw, wow, this guy's

disciplined, changed my mindset. When I left 10X, I started waking up at 9.30, 10 o'clock. I would go

to this workout class only because the models went there. I just literally like, I would go home.

I would take a bath. I would jerk off. I would look at some cars. I would answer two emails.

I would take a nap. I'd wake up. I'd go out to dinner with one of the models that I grabbed

from the workout. And then I would go back home and do it all over again. And it was so unfulfilling.

And after two months of that, I was talking to my mentor. And if they brought, like, you're

pretty off, like, you're hiding some stuff from me. And I was like, yeah, man, I'm actually really

unfulfilled right now. I've lost my discipline. And I just, I don't know what I want to do.

So we went back to the drawing board. And he was like, okay, do the old exercise. What are your

skills? What's your experience? What's your interest? What's your purpose? Pray on this topic,

meditate on this topic and start journaling. Like, what should I do with my life? And ask God,

like, really, what should you do with your life? So after two months of doing this, I did not

receive one sign of inspiration for God zero, nothing, nothing changed in my mind. I like,

just didn't feel any different. And then my friend invites me on a boat. And on that boat was

West Watson. You know, this is yep. Okay. So I meet West for the first time. And okay, by the way,

I have this consulting company. And in this consulting company, I had started building out

supplements for some of these brands. So I made all of 10 X's supplements and these two of the

brands I've made their supplements. So I have a supplement manufacturing company that I created.

I meet West on a boat, start talking to him. He asked me my story. I tell him, you know,

the abbreviated version. And then I'm like, and what do you do? And he kind of tells me,

and I look up his Instagram real quick. And I'm like, looking through, and I'm like, brother,

do you have your own supplement company? I see your rep in like first form. And he's like, no,

man, like I don't, coaching is good. And I'm like, dude, you don't have to do anything. I'll make

all your supplements for you. I'll create your logo with a packaging, formulation,

third party logistics, everything. I'll do a handle it for you. I was like, I bet you I can add

two to three million dollars bottom line next year, just, just in your supplement company. He's

like, motherfucker, I net more than two million dollars a month. And I was like, doing that coaching?

And he's like, yeah. And I was like, damn, man. And he was like, look, the real question is,

why are you not coaching? And I was like, bro, I don't want to take selfie videos. Like, I don't want,

I don't want to do this content shit. And he goes, do you really think that you've been through

everything that you have drug addiction, overdosing, judicial consequences, being in debt,

pulling yourself out of all that, getting sober, getting healthy, becoming a businessman,

scaling companies to stay quiet and not help other people? And I was like, and then I realized

I'd been praying for two months on the subject. Like, what should I be doing? What should I be doing?

And I started thinking like, well, I've just been praying about this. And I was like, no, man,

you're right. A hundred percent. But I just don't want to make content. And he was like, why? And

I was like, my ego, like, I don't want to be judged. And he was like, you selfish fuck. And I was

like, damn. And I was like, man, I think maybe I should do this. And I go down stairs in the boat.

And on that boat was also Brandon Carter, Keito, and Microsheet. And I go to have we're talking

all this stuff. And by the end of the conversation, they're like, bro, you should get online.

You should really do online coaching. And I'm like, damn, I went back upstairs. I'll go

west, send me the link for three months. Let's get going. So I did. I signed up with him right

there. And he's taught me how to coach online. And when I open my online coaching business through

Instagram, I had 3000 followers. I just started posting stories exactly like he told me 12 people

reached out in the first week. And so we've been waiting for you to open a coaching program. We

had been hoping that you would eventually have a mentorship. And so do my very first month

or 3000 followers. I netted 30K. Holy crap. And I was like, Holy shit. There's there's something here.

And what I realized was through my past two, three years, I had already been coaching people

and mentoring people. I had personally developed all my employees. I taught them about mindset and

goal setting and daily habits and nutrition and meditation. I had taught all these executives

more about business and other realms than they knew I gave them a new life and new. And all these

people like Holy shit, you've already helped us so much like we got to sign up with you. And so

I opened my coaching program. I still had my consulting business. And I was like

working a lot at that point because now I'm trying to make content, figure out Instagram,

have my coaching business. And I'm still doing the consulting. And so I did that for six months.

And as soon as I got to 80K net per month in coaching, I was a guy that I can sunset the

consulting because my consulting was doing 80K a month. So I did that. And then I was at like

15,000 dollars. And I still wasn't at like a crazy. And now you're at how many?

Like 175. So you've done extra followers and so on.

But dude, the craziest thing has happened for me. I got to a point on Instagram where my strategy

no longer worked the way that it used to. And I had to really change my strategy. Like the

amount of stories that I post, what I talk about, what I do. And you probably experienced

a stupidly. I think everyone on a scrumhouse. Yeah. And so I didn't even realize it, right?

Like I just, I was like, holy shit, I'm not. My sphere of influence is no longer one degree away

from that natural market that I have now. It's so far away. And I've grown through the

explore page. It was just my reels were going viral. I didn't even have really many collaborations.

I wasn't paying for anything. I never paid for it. Following up paid for anything. It was just

the reels. And so I got to a point where a lot of my audience wasn't necessarily qualified for

my offer. Right. So eventually I got on YouTube. And dude, I only have 9,000 subscribers on YouTube.

I've been after like six months. My income from YouTube is now outperforming my income from

Instagram. That's how it is right now, man. Even King Keto, who you just talked about, he does

500k a month. And it's he doesn't run any Facebook or Instagram ads. It's all YouTube ads. YouTube.

Dude, it's so crazy. That's where the monies are right now. I have a video with 783 views.

783 views. And that video's already done me like 75k. Holy crap. Just because it gets to the

right people, it says how I scale the business from 4 million to 12 million. So anybody in that

bucket, any business owner that's operating at that sort of revenue level sees that I walk through

everything that I did, like a simple audit. And then I went category by category the changes to make.

And I have people just click that link and be like, yo, bro, I don't even need a sales call. Yeah,

I'm just that I'm sold off that video. That's why I think Cormosi does so well too. Totally. His

target persona is like a high-end buyer that can afford a $5,000 workshop. Like it's nothing. Yeah.

He's done such a good job. Yeah. Watching that masterful $100,000, $5,000. Oh my god. I just

watched Dan Henry's breakdown of it. I got to watch that. Oh, dude, it's epic. Like he just really

walks through everything psychologically in the most unbelievable way I've ever seen. Yeah, he's

simple. He makes everything simple too, which I like. Like I saw his landing page. It was very simple.

Yeah, very. You know, since since they won, he's done the best job at distilling high-level business info

for a fifth grader. I've never seen anyone make it so simple. Yeah, he dums it down, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a very powerful skill to have. Yeah. A lot of politicians have that skill too.

The best skill. In fact, I would say that the main reason for a lot of our success on the medical

side at 10X was I made a focus on teaching doctors how to speak to patients in a way that they could

better understand. Because traditional medicine, a doctor can speak to a patient anyway they want.

You got x, y, and z. Here's the prescription. Insurance will cover it. Don't worry. So a patient's

not really going to question anything. They don't even care that it doesn't matter if they don't

understand because they don't have to pay for it themselves. But in functional medicine, you make a

prescription and the patient's going to pay for it themselves. So now they're going to make a

decision with their own money. So they better understand because now we're talking about a business

decision. Yeah. And so if the doctor wasn't able to articulate to the patient in a way that they

could understand persuasively and almost like a simple sales language, then we were never going

to scale. Once I taught doctors how to speak in that way. And it was game over there. Now they're

teeing up the patient so that when someone calls them to close the order, the doctor already made

it very digestible. It's a good point. It's a very good point. I just, I go to holistic dentist now.

But I pay 10 times the price because insurance doesn't cover it. But they fill your cavities

in a way where there's no microplastics in it. Nice. So I don't mind paying that. But they had

to explain it to me that way. Yeah. So if they just said they're filling the cavities and didn't

explain why and the price was more, I wouldn't have paid. Dude, those, those, a lot of the fillings,

like traditional fillings, yeah, can cause some of the most problems. Oh, yeah, especially the

mercury. Ever. Yeah. It just leaps into your body. Yeah. It's bad. Yeah. Gary Brackett talks about

that a lot. Yeah. It's like even in root canals, right? Yeah. Root canals are the worst. Yeah,

man, we're talking to Luke Belmer about it because I remember he was having some issues with his teeth

and they went in and this doctor in Mexico really like educated him fully on it. And then he just

became so passionate about it. He's a he thought he had a parasite because he was like struggling so

much. And essentially that's like how it was functioning. Yeah. Yeah. You've been traveling a lot

lately, right? I think I saw you on someone's vlog the other day. Uh, champs. Was that champ? Yeah.

Yeah. We were, we got Scott probably. Yeah. Uh, so that, you know, was that your watch or his? No,

that was his. That was his. I, I, I wore no jewelry. I actually haven't been wearing any, I mean,

I have some chains, but I haven't been wearing my watches. I don't wear them anymore. Traveling,

like once in a while at home, I might wear them to dinner. Dude, I don't wear them anymore. Yeah.

It's not worth anxiety. No, it's not. And, and I don't know. I guess there became a point where I was

like, I don't, I don't care about it as much as I used to. I guess if I had a Richard, I would or,

you know, but I don't know at the end of the day, I just haven't traveled with them at all. And

also I spent a lot of time in Columbia and the very first time that I was in Virginia, I got

extorted by the cops. Holy shit. And so I was like, and dude, I'm in bright camo, you know, camo pants,

pink hoodie, like driving a Mercedes S-Class, which in Medellin, like doesn't exist. And so, like,

I immediately got extorted and had to pay him off and shit. How does in Mexico, too? Yeah, totally.

Yeah. You got to, when I travel, I always go with the local now. Smart. Yeah. You got to be with

some of the speaks of language, talk your way out of situations, because we are targets. 100%.

Yeah. Yeah. I try and dress like so simple. Basically everywhere I travel, and now I just dress like in

black, very, very simple. But luckily I speak Spanish fluently, especially. Yeah, in Miami,

you have to, right? 100%. Yeah. Yeah. How's the dating scene out there? Oh, man, it's, it's

tough. It's tough. I mean, any major city is going to have, yeah, any major city is very tough,

you know, I think. Also, I don't go out. I don't drink. I don't party. Not that I want that kind

of a girl anyway, but that leads me to meeting less girls per se. Right. I would meet girls at the

gym and at church, but at church, I'm not trying to like, you know, move a conversation down a line,

right? And it's like, in passing, you see girls, it's not like I'm like spending time doing it.

I also have done so much work on myself that I'm going to need a girl who's like pretty mature and

developed, but I also like a certain look. The look doesn't rarely ever have the intellect and

maturity and open mindedness that I'm looking for. So I'm, I'm, I'm looking for a unicorn. That's

a valid point. Initially, the more attractive ones have not as much development on the mental side,

right? Totally. Just in general. In general, yeah. Obviously, there's outliers. Yeah, for sure.

You know, it's the tradeoff I've noticed. And I am a pretty intellectual, you know,

observed person. I've observed many areas of my life. I've developed a spiritual relationship.

I'm healthy. I'm all these things. But I'm also, I have like a very hood street background.

I mean, I sold crack when I was younger. I spent a lot of time in areas that I shouldn't have. And

so I have some tendencies that wouldn't usually ever have the same intellect or, you know, observed

mind as most people. So usually I'll find a girl that's like in this lane, but maybe she doesn't

look this way or have any of the like open mindedness that I would want or it'll be in another lane.

So anyway, I'm just very picky. Yeah, that's tough. You might have to go into national to find

the one for sure. Yeah, I think America's Spain was really good for me. We were in Marbella.

Yeah, that was the champ's vlog. We were in Marbella and there was definitely some,

there was definitely some winners out there for sure. I love the innocence too in certain countries.

Totally. I always say this like, but then there's, okay, there's this other balance of like

in Miami, a lot of girls have these expectations and those expectations are not the woman's fault at

all. They're the fault of the men who give these women these expectations. They're like the

middle-aged, rich guys who are just buying a lot of shit. Right. But think about it. If you're a

hot girl and your friend's like, hey, this guy invited us to go to like this table tonight. We can

like go to a club completely free and they have like a driver and a phantom and all this stuff like

and you say yes one time. And then you're like, wow, that was really nice. You start to have this

creep, this lifestyle creep. And then when they're like, oh yeah, he's got a jet and he's going to

fly us to Tulum for the weekend. And you can bring 10 of us. And he's like a really nice guy.

I wouldn't date him. But he's like a nice guy like you guys want to come. All of a sudden they

start to become really accustomed to that. And then they think that's normal in real life.

So that when they come to find a 38 year old guy who's like ball and but doesn't have a jet

and who's not paying for everything, they're like, which way do I want to go? And so they have

these inflated expectations. Instagram has just completely messed the mind of girls completely.

Yeah. Made them like not humble at all. But then if there's a girl who maybe hasn't become a

custom to that life, I want to make sure that she can at least hold her own in conversations

around higher level people, right? Like let's say you and I are at a party with some people.

Let's go to this event tonight and I have a girl with me. The last thing I want is to meet the

CEO of symbiotic or something and have this girl who can't even hold a conversation.

Right. Because she represents you represents me. And I'm like really picky about that too

because I can pretty much get along with anyone and I'm genuinely interested in people.

So if she can't hold a conversation, then like this is not going to work. Yeah. So that's

valid, man. Your girl is a representation of you. That's what some people don't realize.

And vice versa too. Yeah. Yeah. Every time I meet a girl, I'm like, it would this girl be a good

mother, right? Because I'm at the point of my life where I'm like, okay, I'm a kid too. I'm

the day to girl. Like I want to get married and have kids. And so if she's not going to

potentially be a good mother, like I'm not trying to waste my time. Yeah. You said you're 38. Yeah,

38. So you've held on. Yeah. Hold on for quite some time. Well, I, I, okay, imagine from age 13 to

31, I smoked weed and ate Xanax basically every day of my life. She's every girlfriend that I ever

had during that time knew less about me than you know about me now. Well, like I was just a

close book, bro. I wasn't this social. I was just drifting through life. When I got so about

31 for a year and a half, I didn't speak to a single girl. I just literally went into monk mode,

like going to AA, working with my mentor, building myself, then I took over that company,

health gains, scaled that, then it became president, scaled that. So for four years, I was so focused

on just digging myself out of debt, digging myself out of that position, building myself as a human being,

that I had this late start. I started my life at 31. So from 31 to 35, 36, I wasn't focused on

girls and dating at all. Yeah, because a lot of the good girls are in their 20s. You kind of missed

that window, right? Yeah. And then so at 36, like, you know, it's like, damn. And then I got

online and built a personal brand and I'm out here talking about like mindset. And it's just like,

the flood of applications in my inbox is the craziest shit. Dude, I would have never had any idea.

Really? I mean, I've never like had a problem like talking to girls, but it's insane. Like,

it just blows my mind. Dude, the amount of messages I get, just straight news, like off the jump,

like, hey, love your mindset. Newed video. What? It's unbelievable, bro.

Girls out here are really doing that. Unbelievable, dude. It's crazy. My sales team will message me

if I got, I'll be like, bro, I didn't, I didn't open this one for you. Like, I'll put it in primary.

It's, yeah. I mean, because I think also they see content where I'm talking about money's not

everything, but I have money. You know, material possessions aren't everything, but I like this stuff.

Being observed in your mind, being poised, being emotionally intelligent is really important.

Finding contentment and happiness is imperative. God is imperative. Health and wellness is

imperative. And so when they see, wow, this guy like has been through so much, he talks about

all these things. They're like, well, that's, that's what I want. So they feel like they know me

in a way before, ever even. It's not just like, oh, they're so attractive guy. It's like, well,

I like what he stands for. I can see that. That's definitely a rare mix of traits to have at your

age and still be single, to be honest, right? You know, that's a very, I feel like that's an older

perspective. And I'm vulnerable. Like, I really don't care, bro. Like, I, I'll tell you all this

shit, not because I care. I'm worried about people judging me, but I got through the point of being

fearful of being judged. I just want to help people. Yeah. And God made it so clear that like,

bro, your past happened so that you could actually help people overcome the sanction.

So I think my vulnerability too, a lot of times they'll see that and be like, wow, that's

like a mature trait. That was my biggest fear growing up, fear of being judged, public speaking.

Now I'm still trying to overcome public speaking. Like, I'm starting to speak more, but it's

definitely a little bit of a fear still. I know you're getting into public speaking more and more.

But dude, you're such a, you're such a clean speaker on podcasts. Yeah, public speaking is a

little different. You know, you got a live audience. I'm getting better, but just growing up in

school, I hated it, dude. You know, wow. Whenever I see your content, I'm like, man, you speak about

as clear as anyone I've never seen on social media. Yeah. I guess, well, I'm 1800 episodes in

now. So I've gotten better, but you should watch the first like 50. It's cringe. It's disgusting.

But my first story on Instagram, I posted a story and my ex girlfriend was the first person to

comment. And she goes, I don't think this is for you. Wow. That was the first comment I ever got on

any social media on any selfie video. Did that motivate you or did that? Yeah, I did it motivated

the shit out of me because I was like, fuck this girl. Like, I'm a good speaker and I'm here to help

people. And luckily, Westhead drilled into my mind, like, you're going to get hate. You're going

to get all the people that don't want to see you win. You're going to get all this people in your

natural, you know, market that that don't want to see you do better than them or or get online.

And so I was like, all right, nice. Like if this guy's telling me that. Yeah, fucking. Yeah,

hates inevitable. I'm at a great relationship with it now. I've accepted it. You could be Mr.

Beast and still get hate. Yeah. You know what I mean? I think the day that I started getting hate

comments is when I realized I had arrived. Because for maybe three months of my content, I never received

a like real hate, like not any comments. And what I realized was my content was lukewarm. It wasn't

controversial. And if I wasn't taking a stand for something and making a change in people's lives,

then I would never get hate comments from the people who didn't want to make that change.

So as soon as I started seeing these hate comments, I'm like, oh, wow. I'm being polarizing

enough to make a change in somebody's life that somebody else has to hate. Right. That's when you

know you're being yourself. Yeah. Yeah. If you're not getting any hate, you're putting on a mask in

my opinion totally. Yeah. Because you got to be able to piss someone off and agree with everything.

People say, yeah, 100%. You know, a way that's been cool, man. I can't wait to see what you do next.

Work with people. Find you work with you. Become a client and everything. Instagram's the easiest

place. Instagram or YouTube. My Instagram's at Wade Houston. But we still don't answer all the

DMs. So just treat me a DM. That's easy. Slide in there, guys. Peace.

I hope you guys are enjoying the show. Please don't forget to like and subscribe. It

helps the show a lot with the algorithm. Thank you.