Leave Nothing To Chance

 

We all want to become better versions of ourselves. Self-development is the path to that, and we are here to guide you to it. John Solleder and Gian-Carlo Torres team up to talk everything about improving yourself. Self-discipline, finding the right mentors, and consuming the right content are steps towards the best you. Learn more about transforming yourself to the best you can be with Gian-Carlo’s great insights.

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An Old Guy And Young Guy’s Views On Self Development With John Solleder And Gian-Carlo Torres

It is my privilege to welcome, for the second time Mr. Gian-Carlo Torres from Atlanta, Georgia. Ripping it up since we last talked, he ranked advanced in his company once. He is about to do it again. If we have any young ladies out there that are single, he is a ripe old age at 24 and he is making a lot of money. His mom is looking to marry him off. In case you are interested, ladies, Mr. Gian-Carlo Torres is available. How are you, my friend?

That is probably the best introduction that any podcaster could do for me and for free.

It is one of those online dating services. There is one here in Dallas. I see their building all the time. I cannot think of the name of it. Forget all that. Come to the John Solleder show.

John, I am doing great. To talk to you is a privilege. You know I love it.

You have come such a long way in what, to me, is a short period of time. To you, it has been about 20% of your life at this age. I am watching you grow up in the industry and develop. One of the things that I love about all our conversations is how much we talk about self-development and how important it is. You are a student of it. How did your personal development start?

It all started when I joined network marketing. I remember when I joined, we have got the kit. In that kit, I opened the training material because I was hungry. I wanted to know. The first thing that I saw, I recommended five books. One of the five books was the second edition of your Moving Up. That was the first time I saw your name. I said, “Who is John Solleder?” I found out that you were a big leader in our company. I saw Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by Harv Eker and Rich Dad Poor Dad. I saw a couple of books. I remember I said, “If I want to make this business my own, I have to get some.”

Nobody accidentally succeeds. For you to succeed at anything, you have to be intentional. Click To Tweet

I got Moving Up and I remember sending you a Facebook message. I said, “This is Gian-Carlo. I am this guy in the company. Where can I buy your book?” You sent me a link, “Here it is.” I bought your book and I read it for the first three days. I remember I also bought Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, which changed my mindset about money in general. I noticed that I did not have a good money mindset. When I bought my first book, it gave me this fire inside. I had a big desire when I started this business. Personal development added to that fire.

From my first book, what I can say is that I made it a habit to do something involving self-development every single day. That could be a book, podcast, or video. That could even be some time with a mentor. That is self-development. I have never stopped since. From what I can tell you, John, we will talk about this in one of the conversations. In business and life, there are ups and downs. What is going to keep you in the game is self-development. I can say that with all the certainty of the world. If you do not feed yourself and your mindset when the challenges come because they will come, you are going to give up. That is the best part about self-development.

Let’s talk about being intentional. Why should you be intentional with your self-development?

In nowaday’s world, there are so many distractions. Let’s talk about social media. Social media is a great tool. You and I have spoken about this many times with our business. It is an incredible tool for business and it is a good tool also to talk to the family. I love social media. If you know how to use it, it could distract you in many ways. Everybody wants to sell you something online. Everybody wants to distract you somehow. If you are not careful, your whole life is either watching a TV show or movie in your free time or using social media because everybody wants to distract you.

Social media is not intentional. Everybody uses it. Nobody thinks about your social media. You go through your phone, you tap on Instagram and Facebook, and you use it for hours sometimes. Social media and the internet have this power that does not have to be intentional, but it is not self-development because self-development is like exercise and doing a business. Not everything in self-development, exercising, and business is fun. There are a lot of things that I do not like about exercising and I know probably maybe you are the same.

There are some things in business that I do not like either. The more you do it, the more you know that, “I have to do this because I love to do it.” Self-development is the same. One of my favorite authors is John Maxwell. He talks about, “Nobody accidentally succeeds.” For you to succeed at anything, you have to be intentional. Any personal growth plan has to be intentional. You know how they say, for example, how money can change people. If you have a lot of money, it shows your character. Now, what happens?

Let’s say that someone gets into network marketing or business in general. They succeed because they have these amazing skills. They make a lot of money. They become wealthy. They had the skills, but they did not grow their personal growth. Now, what happens? They have this great wealth and company, but since they were not intentional in their personal growth, they might become greedier with their money. They might mismanage their money and be extremely unhappy because they were not intentional with their personal growth.

When you come into business or life in general, you are intentional in personal growth and then you are also intentional in your actions, what happens once you do get what you desire? Your personal growth is going to match. If that does not happen and then if you are not intentional on this, you are maybe going to get what you want, but then you are going to be super confused. That is one scenario. The other scenario is personal growth. Once you are intentional about personal growth, many things that seem hard do not seem that hard anymore. It expands your mind in such an amazing way.

For example, when I got into network marketing, I saw these ranks. At the top rank of our company, I saw the points and said, “I do not think I could ever do that.” The more I studied and the more I was intentional about self-improvement, the easier it seemed. Let me be clear. It is not easy, but now, self-development is expanding my mind like a rubber band. A rubber band is only useful when you stretch it. That is self-improvement there. Now, I see those ranks and I am like, “With work and a cultural attitude, I can achieve all of that. If it were not for personal growth, I would have never come to that conclusion.”

I go back to my own experience with Jim Rohn. I only ever had a chance once to spend real time with Jim over a meal. It is different than when you are talking to somebody in a hotel room with thousands of people there. You get 30 seconds to talk to them and you think you had a conversation. You did, but you did not. It is different when you are sitting down and having a meal with somebody. I will never forget there are so many things that Jim said that made so much sense. It still made so much sense and Jim is gone a number of years now.

For example, it is based on some of the things you said. You cannot pay somebody to do your pushups. The richest man in the world is Elon Musk. It might be Jeff Bezos. They are both up there. Either one of those guys goes to the gym. No matter how much money they have, they cannot say, “Come here. Here is a $100 bill and do 100 pushups. I get the benefit.” No, they have got to do the pushups. That is the same thing with self-development. You cannot pay somebody to teach you self-development. You have to spend the time in the books, on the podcast, reading the material, and making your notes.

Another thing Jim taught me was to think on paper. I was pretty good at it already. I went to that lunch meeting with two of my colleagues, one of which was the owner of the company I was working with. They are both very successful guys, for that matter. When Jim chastised all of us for not having our little diaries with us to take notes, it was not because it was necessarily something he would say. As he referenced it, I will never forget this. He said, “What if the waiter says something that is important and you never see the waiter again? That becomes yours.”

You have heard me say this in countless trainings, “Once it leaves that person’s lips, it is yours. They do not have a patent on what they say. Words, you cannot patent.” At the end of the day, that is what happens with self-development once you read, whether it is any of the books that you referenced. Thank you for including one of mine in there, whether it is Jim Rohn, Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar or you go back in time to As a Man Thinketh. It is the first of two books I read on self-development. As I got older, I do not remember which one it was, but I remember where I was.

I have shared this with you, but I will share it with our audience too. I was seventeen. I was in the hospital having spinal cord surgery. It was the first of nineteen surgeries I have had in my life. My father was a member of AA. He had given up drinking for several years at that point in his life and my life. He brought me As a Man Thinketh and a book by Dr. Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking. I do not remember which one I read first. Honestly, you are groggy, on drugs, and in pain.

I remember two concepts that stuck with me. I was only seventeen years old at that time. I was very young and there are two concepts. One was from As a Man Thinketh’s, “You attract what you are and not what you think you are.” If you want to attract good people in your life, be a good person. To your point, you can have $1 billion but if you are a terrible person, you are still a terrible person. You can have $3 to your name and if you are a good person, you are still a good person.

That is what you are saying. The other thing with Peale’s book was the idea of, “If you think you have problems, go down to the local nursing home or funeral parlor and you will realize you do not have problems.” I do not know where we are going with that. Let me ask you this. Network marketing has been a place where so many people started their personal development or self-development journey. Why do you think that is?

I was listening to a podcast also on John Maxwell. I am attracted to the Johns. It is the John Solleder or the John Maxwell when it comes to self-improvement.

I appreciate the comparison.

In the self-improvement world, that is the John Solleder for me. I remember that he was talking about network marketing. He said that in his travels around the whole world, he saw one thing and he was fascinated about it. Eighty percent is a big number of the most successful people that he met and entrepreneurs. Whenever he asked them, “How did you start to fall in love with personal growth?” They all said it is because they joined a network marketing company first. Eventually, they left or built businesses. They build their own thing, which is fine.

In business and in life, there are ups and downs. What's going to keep you in the game is self-development. Click To Tweet

Eighty percent said that they started on self-improvement in network marketing. That was fascinating because everybody in network marketing that I have spoken to did not read so many books before network marketing. Do not get me wrong. In my family, we have always been readers. The Bible has the other main one and many other publications and all that. When it came to books like yours, Leave Nothing to Chance, Moving Up, health books, and things like that, I did not start with those books until I came to network marketing. Why? It is because I was exposed to it. That is what networking marketing does.

You have been in the industry for quite a while. The great-grandfather of the industry, for example, is Jim Rohn. People like Jim Rohn and Larry Thompson fueled that self-improvement world. Now, every single network marketing company encourages that. I cannot think about one network marketing company that does not encourage self-improvement. I know it is because of Jim Rohn, Larry Thompson and many others that encouraged that. Why? It is 80% mindset and 20% skill. It sounds cliché, but it is not.

I was talking to my mom. We are business partners. I said, “The number one challenge I have with my teams is not the skills. It is not learning the products and the marketing system. It is none of that. It is their mindset. If everybody had the right mindset, our business would be a piece of cake, but why is it here?” There are people that joined the business the same day you joined and quit two months later. There are people that joined the business the same day I joined the business and quit two months later.

You and I kept going. Why? Self-improvement is the best answer. The reason why you have been in the industry for quite a while now and why I do network marketing is self-improvement and personal growth. If I had not done that after six months, bye-bye network marketing. Why? It is because network marketing encourages that. It has to be because of the founders of the industry.

It is funny that you say it that way. You are right. I have been in this a long time. I started in April 1983. In May 1983, I graduated college. Maybe one of my first self-development or motivational talks was by President Reagan. I am paraphrasing but he, more or less, said, “The past does not equal the future. If you want to figure out what to do, find a mentor who is going to teach you something that you are interested and passionate about.” I had already been in network marketing for 30 days when I heard the president say that.

When I heard him say that, it resonated with me so much that I went from sitting in the back of my chair with my arms folded to the front. I was taking on every word at that point, going forward with what he had to say. About 30 days later, I am in Hartford, Connecticut. I hear Larry Thompson say, “For things to change, you have to change. For things to get better, you have to get better.” I was not going to hear that at 891 Manhattan Avenue in Western New Jersey from my parents because my parents’ view of the world was very negative.

My dad was a union guy. There is nothing wrong with being a union guy. I am proud that I come from a union family. At the end of the day, my dad looked at anybody in business with distrust, fair or unfair. He had some contractors be unscrupulous with him. He also had some that treated him like a part of the family, but at the end of the day, he always felt like they would try to get over the working guy. My mother had pretty much the same position.

I was raised that way with this jaded opinion of people in business. I hear Reagan say that. I hear Thompson say that 30 days later. All of a sudden, I realized, “If I want to have a different life than my parents had, I was going to have to do some things differently than my parents did.” If I had never walked into the doors of that network marketing company 60 days before that, I never would have heard those words. I was not going to hear them doing it or whatever else I might have done for a living. Maybe I would have heard something similar.

In network marketing, I heard them at a tender age like yourself. I heard this stuff when I needed it. When I was young, broke and hungry, I wanted an opportunity for myself. My family wanted to live a better life than my folks had lived. Eventually, it shifts from you to your family to your neighborhood, and then it shifts from, “How do I make it a better world?” Once you get into self-development, you realize, “What I do may impact my kids and me, but it is also going to impact my next-door neighbor and how I live my life.”

A good friend of mine moved up to Johnson City, Tennessee. I was talking to another friend in the industry in Virginia. I did not know the distance between the two cities where she lived and where he had moved. We were talking about that and I said, “I have got another friend in Nashville.” This was a guy who was seventeen when I met him. This New York-New Jersey guy had a ranch in Texas. It is 19 acres. That is another show, The Agricultural Hour with John Solleder. I even had goats on there and I have got a tax detached. You have no idea, farmer John.

I was traveling a lot to build my business at that time. I was at a lot of public speaking on top of it and a lot of consulting in network marketing. I had this big ranch. I have got all these animals. This young guy knocks on my door one day and says, “Would you like some help on your ranch?” I gave him a job. It is a local kid who lived down the street. Long story short, he came to me when he turned eighteen. He was graduating high school. Unfortunately, he did not have a dad. He came to me for a little bit of fatherly advice. He decided that he was looking at the Marine Corps.

I encouraged him. I said that that would be a good place for him. He went in for four years. My wife and I had dinner with him and his now-wife in Hawaii a number of years ago. One of our incentive trips with the company I am still with was in Hawaii. Long story short, he now owns a number of computer businesses and retail stores. His wife had started a vineyard with their kids. Where does he attribute that to? It is not only the conversations with yours truly but the self-development books, Think and Grow Rich and As a Man Thinketh. It is the other things that I put in his hands and said, “Take this over and read it.”

He graduated high school. What did I do? I gave him ten books from our friend, Dr. Tracy Jones. Her dad is the late Charlie Tremendous Jones and his company for him to read. I could have given him money but he would have bought a beer with it. I could have given him a lot of things, but I gave him self-development. That young man is no longer a young man. He is pushing 40. He is super-duper successful. Why? He is not in network marketing, but he got the food that I got in network marketing that I shared with him. It helped him to go on and build a successful family and brand.

He is a taxpayer and an upstanding member of his community. He has done some great things with his life. That is the thing about self-development. It transcends network marketing and it goes to all those other important aspects of life. Whether you are coaching a little league soccer there in Atlanta, which I know you are probably going to be bound to do at some point with your soccer background, or whether you are coaching wrestling or judo like I still do from time to time with youngsters here. They are not just developing their bodies. They are developing this and it is more important.

If you don't feed yourself and your mindset, you will give up when the challenges come. Click To Tweet

I have to mention something that you said. It was the first a-ha moment for me in personal development. It was what Jim Rohn said, “If you want things to change, you have got to change. If you want things to get better, you have got to get better.” I am not sure if Larry started that. I do not know who started with that. The whole point was that the first time I heard it, it was from Jim Rohn. I remember in my personal growth and business, I had planned an event with one of our leaders in our company. He is a big leader.

The first time it did not turn out too well because I was in Atlanta, funny enough. There was a big storm that day and no one came to the meeting. I was very bummed because I was like, “I brought the big leader of my company. Nobody came, but there was a circumstance.” There was a big storm and the tornado-watch action. Nobody wants to drive to the meeting. The second time was in Jacksonville, Florida. He called me again and said, “Do you want to do a meeting? Let’s do a meeting.” Maybe 15 to 20 people confirmed to show up. I was still new in my writing skills and no one came, basically.

My parents supported me and my little brother, Diego. A good friend of mine came to support me and some random person I had via online who never even bought the product. I have got another friend. It was 4, 5, or 6 but half of my family. It was an embarrassment. I remember that was the hardest day in my network marketing career. I remember the event was done. I went home and my parents were like, “Do not worry. It happens.” I was so sad.

I remember I asked this to myself. It is the most daunting question any entrepreneur can make. The question is, “Am I good for business? Am I cut to be an entrepreneur?” That is the scariest question ever. I remember that even though I asked myself that question. Right after I asked myself that question in my subconscious, what was ringing in my mind was, “For things to change, you have got to change. For things to get better, you have got to get better.” That was in my mind that day 500 times.

I understood, “I am lacking maybe on the skill of hosting events. I lack the skill of preparation, but it is something that I can get better at. I can change. I can get better at this.” After that day, I said, “I want to get better.” Since then, we have grown a big business. If it is not because I would have heard what Jim Rohn said in that podcast, “What if I stayed in business?” I ask myself that question all the time, “What if I stayed in network marketing?” John, maybe not. That is incredible. A quote can change your life. That is what personal growth does and I want to share that.

You are ten billion times right on that. I will give you two examples that come to mind. It was two people I have interviewed and two guys that I consider friends. The Ontario people will know this. The 401 Freeway runs throughout the province of Ontario. That is about an 800-mile long road in the big province. Dan went down to do a meeting for a guy who promised he was going to bring at least 100 people in the first meeting. Dan was doing business. He is a lot older than you are. He is in his mid-30s and he is new in the industry.

 

It was a nice February day in Canada. It means it is not snowing and the sun is out. He goes down there in the daytime. This guy has promised all these people. He is paying for the hotel room and gas. At that time in his life, he was broke. To pay for the gas, about a four-hour ride is probably $50 in a gas round trip, he drives down there. Needless to say, it gets to be about 8:30 that night. It was a Saturday night and he realized there was nobody showing up, including the guy who was bringing him the check to get started and the 100 people.

At least if the guy showed up and came in, he would have felt better but nobody, not a soul. He gets back in his car and starts driving back to Toronto and then it starts to snow. When it snows in that part of Ontario, you cannot see. They call them white-outs. All you see is white in front of you. It is very dangerous. He pulls off the road to go to Tim Hortons. He has a cup of coffee and says, “This is not for me. When it comes Monday, I am going to look for a job.”

Once again, there is something in his self-development because he is a student of self-development like you are talking about. He has read the books, done the work, and decided not to quit. He and his partner are the number one distributors in the company that they are in. There are 1.5 million people in their downline around the world. He told me, “John, I was done that night. That was it. I am leaving a job and giving up on my dreams.” Thank God he did not because he has helped 1.5 million people later.

You mentioned Larry Thompson, my mentor and dear friend here in Dallas. Larry was in El Paso, Texas. This was way back in the late 1960s. Bobby DePew was running the company that Larry was with, who was Larry’s mentor. Jim Rohn was in that company and so was Les Brown, for that matter, in that company and a lot of other guys that you and I have heard of. It is some of the past before I even was in the industry. They are legends in the industry. We are not particular about the company.

Larry was sent down there by Bobby. I was the 58th person he talked to on the telephone that showed up to the point where he uses the reference Tears on My Pillow. He was talking to his wife back in California. They had their two daughters at that point. He has got a young family, making no money. He is in El Paso, Texas and he does not know a soul. He does not even know somebody to go out and have a hamburger with. He was done. It is the same thing.

What if Larry Thompson had given up? Think of the influence that guy has had over not only me but Jeff Roberti, Dan Steinman, Dan McCormick, and so many of us that he influenced. We think it is about us and, in the moment, it is about us. At the moment, it is, “I am done with this. I quit. I am going to do something else. I do not need this aggravation. I am going to work at Starbucks or Walmart. I will do something and get somebody to pay me.”

If you do not give up, as you did at that moment, look at what you are doing. You are doing amazing stuff. You have not even started yet. At 24, you are starting this process. Think of what it is going to be when you get to this stage of the game. You look back and say, “How many lives did I change for the better?” It all goes back to self-development because you are doing the work. I see the growth in you every time we talk. One thing I know about you every time we talk is, “Here is what I am reading. Here is what I am listening to. Do you know this guy or that guy?” That is how the growth comes is to be that sponge.

If you want things to change, you have to change. If you want things to get better, you have to get better. Click To Tweet

Way back, it was Tom Hopkins. Tom is a little bit of influence in our industry, but he is more in the real estate world. I went to see Tom. This was back in New Jersey when I was about your age or maybe even been younger. I will never forget this. I am 6’3”. You may not like me saying this, but Tom is a short guy. He is about 5’6”. He was coming out of the men’s room and I saw him. Here I am, I am paying money to be at his seminar and I am like, “That is Tom Hopkins.” I go up with like, “Mr. Hopkins, it is my honor to meet you, sir.” We shake hands and we get talking. It is just him and I for about two minutes.

Nobody noticed that he was there. I had this captive audience with him for about two minutes. In the end, he said, “Let me ask you something, son. What keeps you up at night?” I said, “I have a fear of talking to people.” He said, “Okay.” He took out his business card. He wrote on the back of it, “Do what you fear most.” I do not know what has happened to that card, but at least for the next 15 to 20 years, I had that card in my wallet. When I finally made it to the point where I was proud enough of myself, I wrote him a letter to thank him for that. He wrote me back and sent me a new album that he had done.

What you are going to find with most of these guys and self-development women in self-development that write about it is they are good people. They do care about humanity. They want to see people grow and do well with the information that they share. Let me ask you this. How has this shown up maybe in your personal life? It is not so much your business life. We know how it has influenced that. What about your personal life?

When it comes to failing, there are some things in our lives personally that we fail all the time. The more I realized this, the more I realized that when I was younger, I did not see failure as my friend. I thought it was my enemy, which is why I was scared to try many new things because I was scared to fail. In my personal growth, we talk a lot in the self-improvement world about failures and how to see failure as your friend. The first time I ever read that was in your book Moving Up and then I bought your master books. The first time I ever heard of failure as your friend was in your book Moving Up and that resonated with me. Once I studied about failure, everything started to change.

When it came to problems with certain relationships with certain people, situations and circumstances in my personal life changed. For example, my little brother Diego is serving in volunteer work in New York. Whoever knows my family and me knows that Diego is my best friend. We were always together. We have laughed and cried together. The month of January was one of the toughest months in my life because he left on December 30th. We left him there because of the whole COVID situation. It was limited with the mask and everything else. Even though we said goodbye, it was a cold goodbye because of what we were going through in the world.

In the month of January, when we came back from New York, I was fine. I was on the airplane fine with my friend who came with us, bringing bourbons. We were traveling and talking about him of how proud we were. We arrived at our house. I go to his room and see his toys, gadgets, and pictures. I cried so much for such a long time. Not many people know this, but my parents were so sad to ride back home and not be with him. It was devastating.

In the month of January, everything I did was mechanical. Spiritually talking in business, I was not there. I was so lost. On my friend’s side, they were like, “You are lost, aren’t you?” I was like, “Yes, I am lost.” In February, we are getting back on track. One of the things about personal growth is to follow up a little bit more about what you are talking about, John, and how it has affected me personally. Personal growth is not only reading books or listening to podcasts. Personal growth is having mentors like yourself. It is not only having mentors but having those mentors as your friends.

 

One thing is reading the book of John Solleder, which is awesome. I love it. If I ask you, John, you can read ten books by Jim Rohn or you can have a chance to talk to Jim Rohn one more time for an hour, which one would you pick? Conversation. That hour could be 500 books. I have a good friend who is a mentor of mine. I am telling him what I am talking about. I was sentimental and sad. I was expecting him to be more empathetic, “I understand.” This friend of mine has been empathetic, but he realized that that is not what I needed.

He woke me up. He was like, “You just do something little right now.” He sent me articles and publications on that topic. After that, for a second, I was mad like, “He did not show me empathy,” but then I was like, “That is exactly what I needed.” The day after, I felt like my emotions from being stuck woke up. That is what I needed. That is personal growth. In that same week, he said, “Gian-Carlo, if you have an hour through FaceTime, let’s talk.” He gave me an hour of mentorship. Do you think I appreciate that? Yes.

You and I are friends. We are buddies. We love to talk. This show is not for you and me. This show is for the people. That is the only reason why we do this. If this show was not shared with people, there is no reason to do this. We talked on the phone but there was no reason. We are doing this because we love people who we want to get better. This show is mentorship. One of the things that I want to share about personal growth is that personal growth is finding the right books that will improve where you are trying to improve.

First of all, find the right podcast. Leaving Nothing to Chance is an amazing show that has helped my teams and many people. It is not only Leaving Nothing to Chance as a podcast. There are also many podcasts. Leaving Nothing to Chance is one of them. I cannot emphasize more mentors. The more I grew up, the more I realized that my parents, to who I am eternally grateful, intentionally put my siblings and me in places where everybody was bigger and faster than us.

I did not realize how amazing that was until recently. I was like, “My parents put us there with people so much better than us, but that had a stretch.” These people who are 20 or 30 years older are still my friends nowadays. Why? They helped me when I was 12 or 13 years old, John, like you helped that farm boy. Many of the things that I quote is because of them. Why? It is because they did this. Another part of personal growth is to intentionally be in places where you are not that good. For example, go back to network marketing. The events that network marketing hosts are the conventions.

For example, we have a convention for our company. I love these conventions for many reasons. One of the reasons is because everybody is better and bigger than me. Everybody is faster. They talk, communicate, and sell better. I am privileged to get my notebook, write all of that, talk to them, maybe interview them, and then maybe even text them. That is how I met you. Why? It is because I have got my notebook. I love those events because I noticed that I am not that good.

That is one of the keys to personal growth. It is books and podcasts. I love the podcast world. A podcast is popular now. It will be ten times more popular in the next twenty years. Joe Rogan has probably the biggest podcast. He started a podcast like you. Now, because of many controversies, which we are not going to talk about that, but for many reasons, they want to put his podcast down.

We don't see failure as a friend. We think it's an enemy, which is why we are scared to try many new things because we are scared to fail. Click To Tweet

The whole point about the story is that Spotify offered him $100 million to buy his podcast and that is just the beginning. The podcast world is going to grow in the next 10 to 20 years and then we have mentors. Find a way to talk to mentors. For me, one of the best ways to find mentors for free is through network marketing. Be in places and events where people are bigger, better, and faster than you. If you do those five things, there is no limit.

Your parents did not just put you in some sport where everybody got a trophy. Do you mean your parents made you compete? As a parent, as somebody who has been around sports and been an athlete his whole life and coached sports, it always gets me crazy how people think. If little Johnny or Susie does not go to practice but they still deserve a trophy, what do they deserve a trophy for? Is it showing up? If little Johnny or Susie do not do the pushups, but the other kid does the pushups every day and then they compete against each other, the kid that does the pushups smokes your kid. Your kid deserved to be smoked.

What your parents did was say, “You are not the prettiest, best or brightest, but you can be better than where you are. You can be the best version of yourself. Let me show you people who are better than you, whether at this juncture of your life, be it athletically, intellectually, scholastically, or in business.” That is how we grow. It is not only in America, but it is throughout the world. We have gotten to this place where we do not want to offend anybody. That is not what I am trying to do here.

You are absolutely right. To grow, you have got to be in an environment where people are going to push you. For example, on Saturday night, I had the opportunity here to go to an international wrestling match where we had our US Olympians wrestle the world. I was looking at some of these young men. I have known all of them. I do not know them at another time and place. I knew a lot of Olympians and such, but I did not know these particular guys. In that building, you would have appreciated this.

We had Kendall Cross and Tom Brands, Olympic champions in 1996. Bruce Baumgartner was a two-time Olympic champion in 1996 and 1984 and then a two-time medalist from my home state, New Jersey. Jordan Burroughs, who is still wrestling, was an Olympic champion in 2016. Kyle Snyder is our youngest Olympic champion in history. At nineteen years old, he won at the Olympics. I forget some of the other guys. Helen Maroulis is the first female Olympic champion from the United States in wrestling.

Here is what I can tell you about all of those people. I know Baumgartner and the old guys, but the younger guys, I do not know them at all on a personal level. If you took all of them and put them in a room, their parents did what your parents did, “Wrestle a kid who is bigger and stronger. He is probably going to kick your butt. You are probably going to lose, but that is okay because that is how you are going to grow.” All of them went on and became phenomenal in their sport. They have all done well in life, business, coaching, and everything else.

I am using wrestling because it is in my mind. That is how we grow. You do not grow with people who want to grow with you or grow themselves. You look at our minds. I read a lot about the brain and I know you do too. We talk about this from time to time. The best number I can find and there are different numbers. We use about 16% of it. I got to believe guys like Einstein and maybe Elon Musk are contemporary on this planet now and a few others. Certainly, it is some of the great scientists and such. They probably use 17% or 18%, but that still means that the majority of the brain is not used.

I would love your opinion on this. When we challenge ourselves with self-development ideas on a consistent basis, whether we 100% agree with them verbatim or not, because sometimes you read stuff. You go, “I do not know about that. Maybe it goes against the grain. Maybe it is new information.” How do we challenge ourselves to get that brain to grow? It gets that gray matter, white matter, or whatever is up there to grow and expand. You used the example before of the rubber band. The rubber band is meant to stretch. It is not meant to stay the same way.

 

Jim Rohn used to say, “Those kindergarten desks are made very short for a reason. You are supposed to outgrow them. You shouldn’t be in high school and still not be able to count change or write an intelligent sentence to people.” I would love your thoughts on that. How do you grow that mind and push yourself? Whether you 100% agree or not with every single thing that you read, but to constantly be challenging your mind, capacity, and brain to get it to be bigger and better.

The greatest part about what we are talking about is that in 2022, we are going to have 500 more things to share on this topic.

Let me ask you something else here because this has happened to me. It is funny because it is in the years that you and I have known each other that this has happened. I made some health changes, as you well know. I became a student of self-development. It is not so much in the business sense, although it is all business at the end of the day. I started to study people in alternative health spaces.

For example, Wim Hof, who I talk about a lot, The Iceman. I am listening to him and he wants to reach one billion people with his message in the next five years. That is a big hairy audacious goal. Will he do it? He may do it. If anybody could do it, that guy can do it. It is him or some of the other people that we have talked about. How have you stepped out of the network marketing space, maybe in your own development overall in other things?

You have used the self-development tools of Wim Hof, David Avocado Wolfe, or Jack LaLanne. I am going back in time to my parent’s generation, not yours. Your parents were in my generation. It is any of these people that are an alternative type of people. It is the Juiceman, Jay Kordich, for example. Whether it is in health or some other area of your life, how have you used that training in self-development to say, “There is something else that I am interested in? Let me find out who the authorities are over there and what they have to say.”

It all started with my parents’ journey when my mom had cancer years ago. When you get a disease like cancer, you challenge all of your thinking. You say, “Whatever I thought I was doing that was good, clearly, it is not good if you have cancer.” You start to change your thinking rate. My parents decided to not only use conventional medicine, but they decided to use natural medicine, which was where I got passionate about natural medicine in general because of what they did.

We are grateful that she is alive and healthy. She is a great entrepreneur and person in volunteer work. Many of the things that we did or that they did years ago, they do not do nowadays. It is completely different and a lot has to do with that self-improvement. For example, I will talk about some doctors when it comes to health in general. Dr. Mark Hyman is phenomenal of a functional doctor. He has a book and I have the book somewhere, but he has many books on that.

One of the best ways to find mentors for free is network marketing and being in places and events where people are bigger, better, and faster than you. Click To Tweet

He breaks down a lot of things that we used to believe that was bad but then were good. For example, fats in food like avocado are fantastic for you. In the ’80s or ’90s, they were saying that was bad for you. I am not a doctor, so I am not going to get any claim on that. Things like that years ago, my parents and I thought it was bad. By starting this self-development exercise, I read and said, “That is right. This is pretty good.” I would say 80% of the things that we thought that was healthy years ago and we do not realize they are not healthy nowadays. It is self-development. I was traveling from New York to Georgia.

I saw that Tony Robbins has a new book on health. It is 400 pages and he interviewed lots of doctors. I have got the book and bought it. I showed it to my parents and my parents said, “I know what you are going to do now. You are going to be stuck at that book, aren’t you?” That is what I do. I am reading about all these new therapies and alternatives. Why? It is because I made the self-improvement in exercise. With health, for example, I am not reading, “What am I doing wrong? What is wrong? When did I think it was wrong that is not wrong?”

I was reading something right before the show that I loved. I am going to quote it before we keep going. It is an amazing quote because it is so true. It says, “You have to continue to learn, unlearn, and relearn.” That is in every part of our lives. In this case, health is one of them. Sometimes, we think it is good because mom and dad did it. I am going to say something that is true. Maybe mom and dad were wrong or grandma was wrong. I sometimes know that hurts our feelings a little bit. It is not because they are bad people. We are not saying that.

Maybe they were wrong. Maybe what they said about these types of people was wrong. If grandma said that fat was bad, it is not that she was wrong. She did not have the right information. Maybe she did not know. Some people say, “I heard that network marketing is a pyramid scheme.” You are wrong, first of all. Second of all, I heard that a friend had told me that maybe your friend was wrong. We have to continually learn, unlearn, and relearn.

It is funny you say that because I was saying this to a doctor and friend of mine. I was quoting Jack LaLanne. Jack had a lot of great expressions. People will know this. Jack was one of the people who helped create the self-development industry that we know now. It is things he was doing in the 1950s and 1960s. He is quite a guy, but I never met him, unfortunately. Keith Hooper, I had met him before at one point. Jack said, “Nutrition is king. Exercise is queen. If you put them together, you have got a kingdom.”

I think of that from a health standpoint. When we say health, we always think you say, “I am at the gym. My arms are big. I am benching or squatting a lot.” All of that is true but it goes so far beyond that when we talk about health because health is mental, physical, and spiritual. It is not one area. You might get one right, but if you get the other two wrong or you ignore the other two, you do not grow. Self-development is a continual pursuit of asking more questions. The book by Tony Robbins, I picked that book up. I did not know that he had done that.

I met Tony a number of years ago at an event in California. Tony shared with me he was drinking what we used to call swamp water, which was green drinks. He was the first green drink guy I ever met. He got a lot of the network marketing companies that he went in and spoke to. He got a lot of them by selling green drinks. He has never been a distributor in the industry but talk about a guy who had influence in our industry and just about every other industry, for that matter. I have got to pick that up.

 

I have not been to a bookstore. I am embarrassed to say this. It is probably in a month, so I did not even know he had. I have been busy. I have been doing podcasts and all kinds of network marketing stuff and jumping in cold water. For the benefit of the audience, what we are talking about here, whatever you are interested in, there are authoritative people in it that you could study. Be it by YouTube, books, podcasts, and other media.

Take the time and invest the money in your self-development. If you read our show, you are in network marketing. We have mentioned some names here and there are a lot more. I know you had some crazy success in your business. What is ahead? Tell me what twenty years from now looks like for you. You are a 40-plus-year-old guy at that point. What are you going to accomplish between now and twenty years from now?

One of my friends is an entrepreneur. He once said that what drives him are growth and contribution. He says, “If I am growing but I am not contributing, I am empty. If I am contributing but I am not growing, I am bored. I need both. I had to be constantly growing and contributing.” In the next twenty years, that is going to be my focus spiritually, business, and relationships. I want to grow in all of those avenues and accomplish so many more goals. All of these goals are completely connected to contribution.

I was thinking about some professions where people earn a lot of money, but they are not connected to contribution. I was thinking, “I could never do that, but once you have both, it is incredible. It is fuel. You never want to stop.” In the next twenty years, to answer your question, I am obsessed with intentionally growing and contributing spiritually and financially in business. I want to continue to unlearn, fail, and learn this process. I know that with this attitude and good health, hopefully, we will go along with it.

You mentioned relationships. I value the one you and I have had. Why should you grow? It is not just growing your business. Your business has grown very nicely, but you are from a 19-year-old kid out of high school to a 24-year-old man. You are a leader not only in your company but in the practice of your religion. I know you are a leader there as well. I know you spend a lot of time there. You have got so many gifts and tools to contribute to the world.

Somebody shared this with me. This is the value of doing shows where you get everybody else’s good stuff. They said, “John, what is the most important ship?” You start thinking, “I do not know. Do you know what I mean, like the Titanic? I am thinking in history.” They were like, “The most important ship is relationships.” I had to share that with you and the audience. Folks, it is yours now. Put it in your notes. Gian-Carlo, it is always a pleasure. Give me the last word and sign us out.

For the ones that are reading, I know that you want to grow and contribute. Jeff Bezos said something that I love, “To be successful, you have to be stubborn in the vision and flexible in the process.” That is my message for everybody because if you are reading Leaving Nothing to Chance, you want to grow and contribute. This is your step to personal growth and greatness. Do not forget to be stubborn in the vision and flexible in the process because life is going super quick. You have to change and adapt. That is my message for all of you, John. I love this show. I hope that many thousands of people get value from it.

We are going to do this on a regular basis every couple of months because I know a lot of people that read our show. They come back to me and they are like, “How is that young guy from Atlanta doing?” I am like, “He is doing great.” Some of it is moms looking for daughters to have this young guy that is going in the right direction in a lot of ways here. I have not shared your phone number yet. I am going to start a new business brokering you to meet all of these beautiful young women that want to meet you. A lot of our audience are people that admire young people that are getting into not only the industry but having an impact like you are. Keep it up, kid.

Thank you, John.

Important Links:

• Gian-Carlo Torres – LinkedIn
• Moving Up
• Secrets of the Millionaire Mind
• Rich Dad Poor Dad
• As a Man Thinketh
• The Power of Positive Thinking
• Leave Nothing to Chance
• Think and Grow Rich

About Gian-Carlo Torres