Time, Freedom & Happiness: James Malinchak’s Blueprint for Defining Success

0:00Most people look at business like this, and they become a taker. And you know why? Because we get a bib placed under our chin when we're born and we come into this world. So that gets embedded in our subconscious mind. And we go through life thinking, oh, it's about me. And what can I get from people? And what I always say, if you really want to get in with folks, you have to consciously take the bib from your neck, put it over your arm like you are a server in the finest dining establishment and approach people with how can I help this person? You could achieve goals in your life. You could get through tough times.

0:33And so to me, it's a very simple formula. And this is the way I think people should always tell their story. It's before or struggle, turning point and after or success. Big Money Speaker Ninja tips on how to convert from the stage, how to make big sales, how to actually get paid to speak. These are some of the things that James Malinchak is a genius at. We connect through our messes, not the successes. And you'll see some people that come out on stage and they go, Hey, look how great I am. And I did this and I did this and I never failed. and you're sitting there going, I do nothing that makes me unhappy.

1:06How you get paid to turn your knowledge into amazing success secrets for other people? Let's join James Malinchak. All right, James, your definition of success. You know, for me, it's happiness. It's just waking up and being happy with your life and having freedom, you know, financial freedom to give you time, freedom to give you relationship freedom. You know, a lot of people miss the financial freedom part, right? You know, I just want to go out there serve the world. I'm like, well, that's cool until you can't pay a monthly mortgage. So for me, it's happiness, freedom, and peace of mind. Not having to worry about a bill forever.

1:45And just basically living my life like I do nothing that makes me unhappy, meaning nothing. Hey, come to this event. I don't want to go to that event, so I don't go. Or, hey, you should work with this person. I don't like that person. That person's a leech. That person takes from people. I've seen them do that. I don't want to be around that back a little though. It kind of always been that definition and that way. Young you, what was young James's definition of success and then how did it progress? Yeah, it was achievement. Achievement of? Of anything. It could have been in sports. It could have been in business.

2:23It could have been in school, it's just like grinding, going for more. And then the turning point for me was when my sister was diagnosed with a brain tumor unexpectedly and rocked my world. I was like punched in the belly. And three and a half months later, unfortunately, Vicki passed away. And I was like, damn, you can always make more money. You can lose all your clients and come back and be better and go bankrupt. But you can't get more time, man. That taught me about valuable lesson that my time is probably the most important thing. I know it's the most, next to breathing and faith, that's the most important thing I got because you can't get more of it.

3:02I mean, think about this, Brad, every second that you choose to waste on things that don't bring you happiness for whatever you like to do is the second you don't get back the rest of your life. You don't get a do-over. So that changed me from like striving for achievement as success to striving for freedom and peace of mind and what makes me happy. Prior to that, I was a yes person. You hear that thing, say yes and figure it out. There was a movie on that, wasn't there? Yeah. I quickly realized when I started looking back at patterns, well, that's why I was so unhappy because I had no time. I had no freedom.

3:44When I was on the Secret Millionaire TV show, I said yes to everything. I'm sleeping three hours a night. I was the most miserable person, you know, gearing up for the show. And I couldn't figure it out. And I left. I just dropped everything. I had a three book deal with all these things booked. I couldn't figure it out. So I just, I left for three days, went to Malibu. Nobody knew where I was going. Was at the Malibu beach in just trying to like reflect. Why the hell am I so unhappy? I'm about to appear on ABC television. Yeah. Why am I? And I started tracing, looking for patterns. And I'm like, I went back to the old James, the old success.

4:19Say yes to everything. Figure it out. And I was the most miserable person. Flew back here to Vegas. Pulled people together. Started cutting it. Cut the book deal. I didn't want to write three books. Yeah. You know, with a publisher, which they control you. I have no time. They're controlling me. I just started cutting things. And I got back to what made me happy. Success. You know, and peace of mind and freedom and just enjoy my life again. Therefore, then the secret millionaire was fun. Yeah. So then if you think about it, then is there a formula for success in your mind or some ingredients that create success?

4:57I can't speak for anyone other than what works for me. And that's all I try to share with people that I bless to help. And so my formula, my definition is if I wake up in the morning and I look in the mirror and the person looking back at me is happy, meaning time, peace, freedom, then that's a good formula for me. If that guy is miserable looking back, then I'm doing something wrong. And then I always say also, I have this little theory. I'm kind of old school. If I get this bumblebee flying in my stomach where it's miserable, like, and just, oh God, I don't want to do that. That's like, why the hell am I doing and my sister died and time's the most important thing.

5:39Why am I allowing this to creep in and control me? So then I just switch. First part of all transformation is awareness. Once you're aware, you can switch that fast. And so once I become aware of it, I'm like, oh no, no, I'm controlling this. I'm getting rid of this stuff that's making me unhappy. Yeah. It's funny. I used to book things early in the morning and then I was like - Why? I hate doing things early in the morning. I watch these people like the 5 a.m. club. I'm like, I hate 5 a.m. You know what I want to do at 5 a.m.? Sleep. I don't like that. I like starting my days around 10 a.m. 10 a.m.

6:13is a good time for first meeting of the day. Well, that's what makes you happy. And that's exactly the way I do it. How do you see the relationship between failure or mistakes or failing and success? So one of my best friends is Joe Theismann, used to quarterback the Washington Redskins NFL MVP. Joe actually got me into speaking like 25 years ago. I didn't even know about speaking. He taught me the speaking industry. And Joe said something to me years ago that always stuck with me. He says, you know, I've never, I asked him, how'd you deal with failures? I've never had a failure in my life. I'm like, huh?

6:49He said, I've only had educational experiences that did not go my way at that time. I was like, oh, ding, ding, ding. I got it. I got it. So I look at failure as fertilizer, right? It could stink you up or it could make you grow, right? So the other thing, Brad, that I always look at failure as is it's just part of the process, right? Whatever I want to do, I've always encountered failure in the beginning. And I make this simple example. Think about the first time you tried to ride a bike. You failed. Oh, yeah. You wobbled. You fell off. first time you drove a car parallel fail that bad on a car no but you hit the curb or something right and you were scared you were nervous so in essence we we so the way i look at if you look at timeline therapy right you jump back don't stay in it you jump back and you look at it right realistically and say ah you know this is just the part of the process in the beginning it's part of it it's the growth right it's fertilizer it's making me stronger and so that's the way i look at the relationship between failure and success.

7:50Why don't people want to be in that zone though? Because that zone is what makes success. How do you get people into that zone? I know, you know, when I coach people, sometimes I just have to like push. Yeah. Well, I think the first part is awareness, right? If you study anything, when we become aware that we could do it differently, then you could change that fast. But if you're not aware, you just keep doing the same old, same old, right? The same old rut. Other thing is people are stuck in their old story. They like the victimhood because it's easy, right? People - Always done it that way. Brad, you don't understand my family, my city.

8:31I came from this side of the tracks. And you know why people I've found in my years of helping people is why they do that is it's easy because they'll always get, It's like puppy dogs, right? Puppy dogs on a cold day, what do they do? They all go crowd in the corner and, oh yeah, it's cold and we don't like it. Well, that's what happens, right? Oh, my life doesn't work. Oh yeah, my life doesn't work either. And you start getting that. That's just also at a low level. That's at a 10 million, 100 million. Whatever level you get to, you get to your comfort, ceiling comfort, goals of ceilings as well.

9:07I like using that and I want to get on to marketing with you just for a moment. I like using marketing example of failure because 80 % of marketing doesn't work. You know, it just doesn't. You go and throw out 10 ads, eight of them get almost no result. Yeah, but you're one step closer to finding the right way. Correct. Two out of 10 gets some result and then we move forward. You use a term boomerang in marketing. Explain that. Yeah. So I believe that we don't throw anything out unless it's bringing us the right quality leads back. Right. That's what I mean, boomerang. You throw a boomerang out, it comes back.

9:43So whatever you throw out comes back at you. So I'll give you an example of speaking. So in South Florida, where I also live, there's a life coaching group down the freeway 20 minutes that for four years, they've been trying to get me to come speak. And I said, well, how much does everybody pay to come to this monthly thing? And they said, nothing. I said, what's the yearly dues? They said, nothing. So there's strike one, freebies. People who pay, pay attention. They're not paying anything. Then I started looking at the back end. I said, we were talking about back end. What kind of back end can I get from this pond I'm going to fish in?

10:19Well, broke people. Well, I don't really want to go there and boomerang those leads back because they can't afford a back end program. So everything I do in marketing is boomeranging. I went on the secret millionaire TV show, Blessed. ABC was going to put me on prime time, eight o 'clock Sunday night. And most people go thinking they're going to be the next Denzel Washington. This is my, right? My 15 minutes of fame, I'm going to make it. I looked at it as 15 minutes of opportunity from a business perspective. Yeah. I said, this is - It's a good ad. It's a good ad. Yeah. I always say there's two sides to every, that's why my logo for Big Money Speaker is a coin.

11:00On the one side, we got what we do to serve and help people. Most people stop there. And I said, no, there's a flip side. It's called the business of all this stuff. So if we look at the television show, that's a media. That's no different than running a classified ad, a Facebook ad, an Instagram. It's a way to, if you do it the right way, boomerang leads back. So I quickly realized this is 15 minutes of opportunity. And if I do it the right way, I can boomerang leads back. So I planted things in what I said. I sat there in my home office with flip charts and I thought, okay, what could I say that would make a Brad Sugars see the trailer or see me on the show and say, who's this guy?

11:41I don't know, but I like what he said. Let me go Google him. Then I had like 30 different opt-in pages coming up where people would opt in. I'd pop up and say, hey, this is James Malachek featured on the new hit TV show, Secret Millionaire. If you want some free video training on how I grew my business that would help you, put your name and email in here. Yeah. And we added over like 300 ,000 some people. Yeah. And people said, what's the big deal about that? Well, they all spend$50 with you in a year. You just made 15 million bucks. Well, they spent 100. Brad, I still have a lot of those people who had no idea who I was on that show because I boomeranged, planted the seed to bring the right lead, not just any lead, the right lead.

12:19I still have people this day still buying from me. Yeah. So that's what I mean by boomerang. Let's not put anything out. If you're going to do a talk, if you're going to do a media interview, right? If you're going to talk one-on-one with someone, you should be dropping those seeds that's going to bring that right person back. He or she raises their hand and said, I love Action Coach. I want to be a business coach. I like that raise your hand term. That's a really good book. I didn't see that. I love that. Very handsome man wrote that book. I love that, man. Josh is the handsome guy. I'm just the other guy.

12:49I promise anybody watching or listening, I did not do that on purpose. I did not even know that was the title. You know, when I always talk about marketing as two hands raised, one, I'm interested, one, I'm ready. Yeah. Because you got to get them on the database, I'm interested, and then you got to keep communicating to them. And it's interesting because the cadence used to be, you know, when it was way back in the day, it was monthly letters, then it went to weekly letters, then email came around. Fax blasting. Weekly, fax blasting, postcards. Nowadays, though, the cadence has gone to daily in email and even more often if you're using texting with things that the cadence just keeps getting faster and faster.

13:37And we've gone to this point where people are getting, you know, it used to be there wasn't enough information. Now there's too much information. Let's look at conversion then and how do we convert people in an age where there just is too much information, I guess. How do we break through and get conversion, the sale to actually happen today? Yeah. So the first thing I always try to share with people is most people are putting stuff out incorrectly. They're putting stuff out that they want to put out instead of sitting down and strategizing, right? Flip chart, whiteboard, whatever it is, right?

14:15Of, okay, if I were my ideal prospect and I see this ad, I see this email, what would it have to say to make me raise my hand and say, oh my God, Brad's speaking to me. I get it. And nobody does that. They don't write from that perspective. They write from, here's what people need. Well, how do you know what they need? Have you really sat in their shoes? When I create anything, I'd never create from James. I create from, okay, I'm the guy on Instagram that saw video. And is what Brad's saying on that video, if I'm writing one for you, is what he's saying, is that going to make me say, I want to learn more from him?

14:57If I get an email from you, is that going to make me say, like if you're running an event, is that going to make me say, I'm not kidding, this is how I think. Oh my gosh, I have to go to Brad's event? Because it's speaking directly to me? Oh, wait a minute. I'm getting married that day. Okay, I better change the wedding date because I got to go. That's how it should speak to me. Yeah. I have two avatars I write to. One, his name is John. He's my older avatar business owner. Been running his business 20 years. So that avatar I have to write to. And then I have Abby, who's my younger avatar. She's just new in business.

15:32So every time I'm writing, I'm writing to those two avatars. I literally will sit down and plan, like even my emails, I'll plan 300 yearly emails at one sitting. That's smart. By sitting down and going through it. And these days I use Brad GPT, like we've created the AI Brad. So it thinks like me and uses all my stuff, but it comes up with all of their problems. What are all of their issues? I don't know about you, but why is it that marketers think more about their product or their thing than the problems? What happened? Where did that come about? So I think it's old, out-of-date salesman marketing training that's been passed down.

16:17I'll give you an example. So a few years ago here in Vegas, I did a talk at, I think it was Bellagio, and I was on my way home. It was like 10, 30, had nothing really to do. So I thought, you know what? I don't really need a car, but let me go kill some time and look at some cars, right? So go to a car dealership. And what happens? I start looking. What happens when you walk on a lot? The vultures come out. The guy, the next one up. Next man. Yeah, exactly, right? And so young hotshot dude, 28, comes over-ish, 28 is, and says, hey, bud. First of all, he called me bud, right? Hey, bud. You look like a bud.

16:53He says, hey, bud. And I listen like you. I listen to people's languaging, right? Hey, bud, you thinking about buying this car? I said, well, you know, I'm just kind of, yeah, looking around. And what's the first thing he does, man? He pops open the hood and starts talking to me about the engine and the carburetor and the spark plug. And I'm like, I just let him go for a while. And then, like you, I love to be sold because I like to see what their skills are. I didn't say anything. After about a minute and a half or whatever, I said, hey, excuse me, would you step back for a second? I said, step back.

17:24And I shut the hood. I said, let me teach you how to sell me this car. I said, first of all, size me up. I'm in a pretty damn nice suit, costs about$4 ,000. I've got shine shoes on. I got a white shirt, gold tie, and pretty decent watch. Does it even look like I know what the hell a spark plug is? Right? But you still shouldn't assume. You should say, sir, with this particular vehicle you're thinking of getting, what is most important for you? Yeah. Now, if I walk on the lawn and I got a mechanic shirt, got some grease here, got my name here, right? Now, I probably am interested in the carburetor and the spark plugs, but you still Shouldn't assume.

17:57If you were to ask me what's most important for me, I would tell you I want two things in this car I'm thinking about. I want to go fast and I want to look cool. At that point, you ought to toss me the keys. Yeah. Say, take this puppy out on the 215. Let's see how fast we can go. Exactly. Put the top down. Let's see how cool we do look. So I take it off the lot and unbeknownst to me, you have a colleague of yours jump in a car and follow me. And I'm flying around. Take a video of me. Yeah. I'm flying on the 215. I get up to the stoplight. I'm going to turn and come back to the dealership. As I'm stopped there, this guy, unbeknownst to me, pulls up next to me, toots his horn and says, hey, bud, that car goes fast and you look really cool.

18:34Brad, I wouldn't be able to get back there fast enough to write a check. Why the hell is he selling me spark plugs? Because that's what he was taught to do, the features of it. I don't give a... You've got some great cars. How many times have you walked to get a car, went on a lot or threw your broker and said, hey, I want to get this car because I need that carburetor that's in that car or the spark plug. That's what salespeople marketers do. They sell the thing instead of getting in the heart and the mind of the person who's buying. Yeah. There's so much information. I think customers get into overload and it's almost our job to take them out of that overload and put them back into.

19:18Because how do people even know what's important to them, I guess, is probably the hardest part for a salesperson today. Yeah. So I have this new formula that nobody's ever heard of that I created. It's called ASK. Mm-hmm. Ask. Yeah. Right? I mean, come on. Let's take somebody's on an online course. Yeah. Set up a survey monkey and just ask your ideal potential person or go into a Facebook group. Yeah. Right. And just ask, hey, I'm doing some fact finding. If I were doing a course on time management or whatever the title is, what would be the one, two or three most important things that you would need to see to want to get this course?

20:01And then you take all the data from the 27 people that answer and you look for patterns. Oh, these four things keep popping up and this one pops up more than any. So maybe that ought to be my headline. Yeah. Right? It's how? It blows my mind. We, because Action Coach is a franchise business. When people apply. The best, by the way. We ask them. It is one of the best for sure. We ask them, you know, out of the things that you look for, there's eight categories and we give them a choice. You know, what are the, there's 30 choices or 32 choices. What is most important to you in a career transition to owning your own business?

20:37and out of the 32, there is four that keep coming up regularly sort of thing. So guess what all of the marketing then goes to be? Every Facebook ad, every direct mail piece, every email keeps coming back to what your prospect wants. Yeah. I mean, I just think it's too easy. If you listen, it's easy. If you listen. And you know the other thing, too? In school, I don't know how it was when you grew up, but I took a course on communication, right? How to talk. Took a course in college, how to talk. Never had a course offered on how to listen. Yeah. My dad was the only one that taught me how to listen because he talked a lot.

21:25And he won't mind me saying that either. But he was like, two ears, one mouth. Shut up. My dad said the same thing. He used to always say that to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I got to tell you this about my dad. My dad, we grew up in a very tiny steel town, about 6 ,000 people. My dad was a steel worker. My dad went on to become one of the top six college football officials in the country. He even did the Orange Bowl game, the national championship, right? And I always, I would always ask dad, how did, how, you're this little guy from this town, how? And he goes, I always remember two ears, one mouth should be used in that proportion.

22:05I keep my mouth shut. I don't speak out. I don't say. I listen to people. I listen to our commissioner. What is he looking for in a field judge when refereeing these big games? And then I work on those things to become that guy he wants. I thought, oh my God, that's so easy. So let's talk about, you know, you and I have shared stages. Actually, who's the favorite guy or gal you've shared stages with? Give me a couple of your favorites you've shared stages with. Anthony Hopkins, Sir Anthony Hopkins. Sir Anthony Hopkins. I've got a few of his paintings at home, but I've never shared a stage with him.

22:42One of the, I got to tell you this. This is why. I just love his thought process. So I literally was on stage with him at one point. I got to interview him. And I said, Mr. Hopkins, you are Academy Award winning actor, Anthony Hopkins, one of the greatest top 50 actors in the world of all time, stage and movies. You're knighted. You're Sir Anthony Hopkins. And Brad, I asked him like the dumbest question I ever asked. Here's what I asked. I said, you don't still like have an acting coach, right? Look at that assumption I had. Yeah. Right. Here's this great guy. I bet he said yes. I'm guaranteed.

23:22Oh, no. He blew my mind. He said, oh, no, James, I have seven. Seven. I didn't know what to say. I about fell off my stool. I said, I'm sorry. I literally he dumbfounded me. I was stumped. I said, wait, wait, wait, what? What do you mean? He said, well, I have a movement coach for theater because you move differently in live theater with an audience than you do for movies. I have a movement coach for movies. I have a tonality coach for movies because you speak differently with a boom mic above you. and I have a different tonality coach for theater. I have a nutritionist because at my age, I got to be healthy.

23:59We could be filming until four in the morning. Yeah. And it kept like four, when they did the movie four years ago, he said, we had a$200 million budget. If I get sick, I put all these people out of work and the studio loses$200 million. And he kept going through, I have a personal trainer. And Brett, I sat there and then when he finished, I said to the audience, I said, are you all catching this? There are people here in this audience that won't invest$10 in a book to be better. Mr. Hopkins has seven coaches. A guy put his hand up and said, oh, well, he's Academy Award winning actor. Therefore, Anthony Hopkins, therefore, he can have seven coaches.

24:34I said, oh, no, no, my brother. You got it wrong. It's because he has seven coaches that he is Academy Award winning actor. Yeah, yeah. So Anthony's one of my favorites because of his psychology, the way he thinks about life. You would love him because you think the same way. Yeah, I got to feed him. He signed paintings for me. He's a phenomenal guy. But, you know, I'm blessed to be on a program with Michael Jordan. You know who I like to be on programs with? My favorites are people who epitomize excellence in their profession. Yeah. And there's nobody better than Michael Jordan for basketball.

25:08There's nobody better for Anthony Hopkins for acting. Because I love to see the discipline and the commitment. and i think i love it when when guys and gals who are great in the green room if they're great in the green room i like them and then you get the other ones who and we could share war stories of it of the guys and the gals mostly guys who are assholes in the green room and it's like and then they always run over time that guy always runs over time on stage they never professional finish speaking speaking of professionals as speaking. Okay. You said you got turned on to it by Joe. You've taught now thousands of people how to speak and make money out of speaking.