How Authenticity Built a Global Brand | Sean Whalen x Ryan Alford Podcast

0:00What does true success really look like? And are you brave enough to pursue it? Put on your big boy pants and get after it. In this episode, we sat down with Sean Whalen, founder of Lions Not Sheep. Listen in as he shares his raw, unfiltered journey into building a multi-million dollar brand by speaking his truth and encouraging others to do the same. A lot of great insights from this conversation that starts right about now. This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes.

0:43You ready to start snapping next and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now. I know we could go a lot of rabbit trails, a lot of things. I don't want to cap us too much, but as we build towards where you've taken lions, not sheep, and all the e-commerce growth there, maybe let's just back up. Let's give our audience, you know, the recap of Sean and I'll keep it super simple. I mean, I, I was really successful at a young age. I grew up in a single parent home, built a couple of companies and made a lot of money in my twenties. And I talk about in my book, how I felt like I was juggling bowling balls.

1:17You know, I essentially quit juggling all the bowling balls and I don't know what a midlife crisis is, but I left my marriage. I left my business. I stuck my head up my ass for over a year trying to figure out not how to make money, how to build business, but like, why was I even here? Like, what's the purpose of all this? I went on an interesting journey. I got really depressed, suicidal, and found myself in a really, really, really dark place and ended up hiring a coach, trying to figure out how do I get out of this mindset? How do I shift things around? And one of the things that he had challenged me to do was to start sharing my thoughts and what was going on on social media.

1:53To make a really long story short, I ended up sharing one night, some real dark shit and really just told the truth for lack, for lack of better words. I just fucking told the truth for once. And that post ended up going viral. Millions and millions and millions of people thought I went from having like 200 friends on Facebook to almost 40 ,000 followers in a matter of 10 days. And in that process, you know, I, I left the company, I left everything. And I, one day the phrase lines, not sheep came into my mind. I was looking at this catalog and there was another company, it was something kind of similar.

2:25And it just popped into my head and it just resonated and it just, it wouldn't go away. And I kept thinking to myself, like looking at everything in life, like, like I have a choice, right. To follow and do what everybody else is doing and to buy this because he bought this or build this because he built this, or this is what this needs to be. And it was like, no, dude, fuck that. Like, like, what do I want to do? Like, who do I want to be? like what life do I want to build and when uh Lions on Sheep came to me I uh I called my buddy who owned a clothing company one day and I said hey man can you can you make me a t-shirt he said sure and um I was wearing it one day and I had a picture and I posted on Facebook and all these comments started coming in dude where that's badass where'd you get that can I get that shirt and I called my buddy I was like I don't know how to sell t-shirts like how the fuck he's like I'll set you up a Shopify store and whatever and so that kind of started the whole Well, for me, it was just my mantra.

3:16It just became my way of thinking, my way of being. It was very personal to me. And I saw a lot of people gravitate towards it. A lot of people connect with it. And it became and what is now a huge movement where, you know, millions of people engage with the content and know about it. And just recently, we've had some people that have got me and Smith, who's in New Jersey, who the governor was trying to shut his gym down. I woke up one morning, this is probably a month ago, a month and a half ago. And I had been tagged like over a hundred times in this post. I'm like, what the fuck? And I, you know, I opened up Instagram and there's this guy who's like super defiant, like screw the governor or whatever, whatever.

3:57And he's got a line's not sheep hat on. He ended up just seeing one of our ads and bought the hat and his post went viral. And it was really interesting over the course of the next couple of days, he was on CNN, Fox, Tucker, Carlson, all these big, big shows. and he was wearing the Lions Not Chic gear and our free man t-shirt. And it was just really cool to see that he didn't know me per se, but he vibed with the brand. He recognized it, resonated with it, and decided to buy a shirt and a hat. And it just kind of brought me full circle. Like, it's pretty freaking amazing. How enlightening was it?

4:33I can only imagine, like you said, you felt like you lived, not necessarily a lie, but you never felt comfortable being transparent. Maybe vulnerable, if I can use that word. Sure. How enlightening was that moment when, holy shit, I'm being myself and I'm garnering the attention. Not that maybe you were seeking before when you were copying everyone else, but just the irony in that had to be just fucking amazing. It was. And what's interesting is we're all programmed to lie. I don't care who's watching this, black, white, gay, straight, rich, poor. All of us were programmed the exact same way. And when you really stop and think about it, like we've been indoctrinated since we were children to do as we're told to speak words that will be pleasing to everyone.

5:19Don't wrestle anybody's feathers. And that's literally what we do. We're told, tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth. But the ramifications for telling the truth are dark. They're bad. So we just lie. And as you get older, you become a man. It's like we don't talk about emotions. We don't talk about where we're really at. You just man the fuck up, you know, put on your big boy pants and get after it. And the truth of the matter is that, you know, more men killed themselves in 2018 than during the Great Depression. Why? It's not because there's a lack of money or lack of opportunity or lack of chicks or, you know, ass running around.

5:54It's because dudes are like trapped in this box like I was 10 years ago. I'm like, dude, I'm not happy with where I'm at, but I don't know how to talk about it. And my boys are like, hey, man, how you doing? I'm like, I'm good. Well, now I'll say no shit, Bob killed himself. We didn't even know Bob was sad. Bob looks like he's got ideal life. Well, no one thinks that they're lying. The reality is, if you're not speaking the truth, then what is it? And if you're not sharing what's really inside of you, how you really feel what's really going on. It's not an issue of political correctness, or I don't want to piss anybody off.

6:24It's like, what are you doing? Are you speaking your truth? Yes or no? I noticed two things that happened. Number one, people resonated with my message. Millions of people resonated with it. And the second thing that I saw after I shared this was that I felt better. It was almost like, okay, I got that out of the way. You know what I mean? And so when I talked to entrepreneurs and business owners and people, I'm like, dude, you're a better father when you feel better. You're a better mother when you feel better. You're a better everything when you feel better. Lying doesn't feel good. Lying is scary.

6:57It's do they know, do they know, do they know, where you just fucking tell the truth and you got nothing to worry about. Something has shaped Sean Whalen at some point in life. Well, well before you got lost or you got found or anything like that. I feel like there has to be these opinions and these beliefs that kind of formed all of this. Something shaped that. I was actually a really quiet kid. I was really reserved. I was chubby little kid. And I think for me, when looking back at it, when I went on a Mormon mission, I went on a two-year Mormon mission. That was where I really started to kind of find my voice.

7:32I mean, you're out basically selling God and you're going door to door, pitching God to people. And it was something I was really passionate about. It was something that like, I didn't grow up in the Mormon church. I grew up Catholic. And so it was kind of a recent convert to the church. And I just started realizing that people love to connect. People love to talk and I was really good at it. I was good at just talking to people. And I know that sounds really weird, but like there really is an art form of communication. There's an art form of being able to not just tell us. So, Hey, how's your water?

8:01Like, why do you like that water? Okay, great. You know, whatever, but like really fucking listening to people and hearing them and knowing what's driving them. And something that I've always been fascinated about and with is, is what's behind it. Everybody knows they're being sold something. So we've already got that out of the way. But what are you trying to tell me? What are you trying to communicate with me? If the answer is a simple no, then just fucking say no. Right. But I love being able to look at complex things and I break it down in my brain to just like coloring book kind of conversations.

8:31Like, yeah, this is what this really is. And it's just more, to me, it's more fun that way. You know, we're an ad digital agency here and we work a lot of brands and, you know, they come to us and they have great products, but they have no story. Right. And I will take a company that has a purpose and a story all day because that's, it's organic. You know, again, it just becomes about blocking and tackling. It's real hard to figure out the Hail Mary, you know, the message. What have been some of those mechanics of, you know, because I've heard you talk about it. You know, you started the company, you were selling t-shirts, you had a message, you had a plan, but something poured gas on the fire for the tactics and some some of the ways with which you've seen growth.

9:11Can you talk about some of that? I found for me that I embodied lions, not sheep. It literally was for me. You know what I mean? Like when I wrote my book, which has sold over half a million copies completely organically. I mean, I wrote a book that I wanted to read. And so for me, lions, not sheep, everybody's been telling me, dude, you're in the perfect storm now with the whole political climate and Trump, because it's like, we're all, you're one or the other, right? You're picking the lion or you're the sheep, which is great, you know? But everybody now wants to jump on that, right? And they want to plug into that emotion.

9:42They want to plug into the political climate and whatever, whatever. And you really don't have a track record. You don't have a tribe. You don't have any of that. I didn't set out to do that. And I think that's what really makes Lions Not Sheep unique. And I think a lot of people need to wrap their head around this. And it's really difficult to do is having the consistency of delivering content and messaging for the long game. Because now we're in a perfect fucking storm. Now we're crushing because so much content has been put out there over the last couple of years. And it wasn't with the objective of selling t-shirts or selling hats or selling any of that shit.

10:15I believe that the very best salespeople on planet Earth are never selling anything. Like you go to my Instagram or my Facebook, you will never see me selling anything. Yet I'm literally able to make millions of dollars through coaching and consulting and other companies that I have. Where are we going? You know, I know you're, you're, you're knee deep in a lot of things. I know this is open doors and that, you know, you're coaching how to make shit happen is the book. Everyone listening, go check it out on Amazon. Is it Amazon or just your personal site? Yeah. Amazon. But what's, where are we headed?

10:50Where are you going? Well, right now we're trying to put the wheels back on the, on the bus. We, we got our asses kicked in production. We grew so fast. I turned everything on back in March. And what I mean by that is I hired a team to come in. you started running ads. I'd never run an ad before. I'd never put ads out there. And we went from that to, um, you know, we were doing two to$3 ,000 a month of just apparel sales. And we did $463 ,000 last month of apparel sales in basically 90 days. And it, and it, it fucked some things up. And I learned some very valuable, expensive lessons on production and being able to keep up.

11:27You know, I really do. I'm passionate about this, man. I'm passionate about the ability of, especially with men, to really fucking step into who they are and not in some hippy-dippy way, but like I'm 41 years old and there's a lot of 41-year-olds that are like, okay, I got the house and the car and the kids and the thing. Like, why do I fucking hate my life? am I not doing anything I want to do I mean my my wife and I we eat at the same place we fucking vacation at Disneyland once a year like what am I doing with my life and Lion's Not Sheep and me specifically is you know I'm coaching a lot I've got multiple facets to the business but I really want to show people that it's possible you know what I mean like building a really badass life is possible it's not whimsical it's not because I got a silver spoon in fact it's anything but with me I've worked my ass off for this and and I want to be able to show people and show kids and teenagers, like we got one shot at this reality.

12:23We have one shot at this life. Like go build the shit you want to build. That's my end game is I want to leverage what I've got now through social media and the following and connections or whatever. But I want somebody to be able to see this hat, see this message, see this t-shirt, resonate with it and have the same feeling of empowerment and power that I do. I don't want to ask you, what do you want to, you've said it, I've, I've interpreted where you see your legacy, but I do want to kind of ask it because like, what do you, you know, when they go Sean Whalen in 50 years, you know, what, what, what do you want people to think?

12:58My legacy is my kids and it's not wealth. It's not assets that can be distributed. It's not, you know, you know, 401ks and IRAs and kids are splitting, you know, my kids are splitting up. If I play this game right, I've empowered my children to become their own entrepreneurial, independent creatures. My legacy, if you will, is that is if I can help these three kids break the chains that I came from and having dysfunction and having, you know, a divorce at a young age and having a dad that was never around, you know if I can be that man to where I'm laying on my deathbed knowing I don't give a fuck about the money but my kids know that they literally live the fullest life with me that's my game but I want to be able to sit back and not have any fucking regrets know that I played the game I was all in I was all in every single day like with my with my lover with my kids with my business with my message like you can go back and watch thousands of videos and you know that whether you like me or not, whether you agree politically with me or not, you know that I'm spitting my truth and you know that it's coming from my soul.

14:08I feel like I'm on a pretty good track for that because that's how I feel literally sitting here. I think you're living it. And as someone that doesn't agree with every single principle of yours, I respect the hell out of you and wanted you on the podcast because I see that is as clear as day. Yeah. We're smart. You know, you and I, everybody, we think we all think we're smart, right? I mean, we should, you shouldn't think you're you're you're dumb but like if you're smart i love to study and i love to read and i and and if you think about all of these great men that have come before us the carnegies the rockefellers the steve jobs the steve covey's these literal like industry creators and they just have changed the face of the earth they all say the same thing at the end of their book all of them without questioning they all literally say at the end of their books their biographies like if i could go back and do it all over again.

15:02I would have spent more time doing the things that I wanted to do. I would have spent more time with my family. And I consider myself a pretty smart fella. So if, you know, Carnegie Rockefeller, Steve Jobs is saying, if I could go back and trade places with Sean at 41, and I'd spend more time playing and doing the things that I want to do, then I get what Instagram is trying to tell me. I get that I'm supposed to be balling and Lambos and Jets and the whole thing. But at the end of the day, I'm enjoying my life. I'm living the life and I'm taking the counsel from those guys. Um, you know, and, and it seems to be working.

15:35It works really, really well for me. And I've, I've literally never been this happy before, man. I mean, I got a great business. I had a phenomenal family. Like I literally wake up every day. I'm like, I'm fucking doing it. I love it, brother. I really appreciate your time, Sean. Been really enlightening and love what you're doing. So, uh, if you're looking, follow Sean Whalen on all the social media channels. If you just Google Sean Whalen, W-H-A-L-E-N, you'll find him, seanwhalen.com, lionsnotcheath.com. Go find him, man. And find your truth as well. Sean, really appreciate it. Hey guys, you don't find us, ryanisright.com.

16:11You'll find highlight clips. You'll find all of my social links at Ryan Alford. Got that blue check before you could buy it, baby. We'll see you next time. I'll write about now. This has been Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. Visit RyanIsRight.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.