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Nick (00:00)
Hey, what's up, everyone. This is the Million-Dollar Sellers podcast. I'm your host, Nick Shucet. Today we have a very special guest on the show. I'm really stoked to sit down with him today. It's Shawn Cannon. Shawn, what's up, man? How have you been?
Shawn (00:18)
I'm good, man. What the heck's up with you?
Nick (00:22)
Nice, nice. Just another day in the office here, man. It's recording day. So I'm sitting down with you to do this podcast, man, and I'm excited cause we don't get to chat very often. I know we're both very busy men doing stuff for the kids. So you know, Shawn, you've been in this Amazon game for a little bit and you know, I wanna dig into your story about like how you got started and you know, how you ended up where you are right now.
I know you've recently moved and you've made some big changes in your life and have accomplished, you know, quite a few things. And, and I've seen you go through, you know, that period where you're heavily involved with arbitrage and you know, like reselling from Alibaba and stuff like that. And now you've kind of transitioned to where you are now.
So, you know, why don't you just jump into like, you know, what you've been up to recently, but also like where did you get started into this eCommerce journey?
Shawn (01:19)
All right. So where, where I am now, I'm... I'm more into brand management. So I… I work with… I work with brands. We… We primarily like to focus on European countries. My niche is Canada. Yeah. I'm not Canadian. I have a Canadian partner, but we're selling… we're selling in Canada and we do filter down to the United States, but I figure being a bigger fish in a smaller pond’s a lot better than where we were at.
So, we're, it's growing… it's growing entirely. It's definitely not where I started, but it's… I've reached that point where … you know, what is an expert? Right. You know, I, you know, but I've, I've reached the point where I feel like I reasonably know a lot more how to establish value to somebody, especially particularly where in that… when they're in that bootstrap phase—where a lot of times companies, they think, you know… they think they know what people want.
But they really don't know. You know, they're almost like kind of pushing people into that stuff and I always worked off that value proposition.
Shawn (02:17)
Where we started was way better like 2014, you know, is when… so seven… eight years… almost pretty much the length of my relationship with Becky. We started… it was…. It's really technically her business. We… we started for her and moved from there. But how, how this get going? I was a financial advisor. I worked with, you know… I specialized in retirement distribution, you know, all the other—all that other good stuff, managing money.
And Becky wasn't too happy with her job. And I was always like an extrovert. I never understood corporate nonsense. And so she would tell me these stories—like she was like… she was in a meeting and her hands were…were folded over like this because she was cold. And she got like a demerit somehow, somehow, like they mentioned that in her review and I'm like, “What”?
Or she crossed her legs in the opposite direction of the person who was talking. And I'm like, what world is this? Is this… is this even in… you know, so I told her, I was like, “Go let's… let's start a business”.
If I ever have any talent or superpower in life, it's solving problems.
And we were originally gonna do a laundry mat slash bar and we were gonna call it ‘suds’. You know, you go in there, do your laundry, and then go, you know, get… go—get faced and then, you know, go, you know, finish up your laundry or whatever. And through that process, you know, she didn't know how to raise money. And at the time I didn't really know how to raise money, but I knew that I knew people.
And that, that was a big thing. I always figured, like, if someone else does it, it's not… like, it's not impossible for me to do. I just gotta figure out how, how to do it. And then, and then really just get it done, you know? So through that evolution, no wheels were really turning, you know, for her with… with you know, I told her to get a business plan, get all this stuff written up.
And then my… you know, I'm… I'm always looking to solve problems. I think that's probably, if I ever have any talent—superpower in life, it's solving… solving problems.
Shawn (04:16)
And so I was trying to solve, this problem for her, which then inadvertently put me in the middle of this problem. And I was thinking, okay, let's just get some type of business going anyway. And a… and a former buddy of mine down, down in Florida had introduced me to this, this whole concept, of Amazon.
I had no idea what it was. He sent me… he tells…. he sends me a link one day to this death star silicone mold—ice cube mold to buy it for a dollar. Okay. Whatever, I'll buy it for a buck. It's the stupidest thing in the world. They didn't work. You know, ice was everywhere. Like two weeks later. He's like, “Hey man, did you get that… that silicone thing”? And I'm like,” Yeah, it’s okay”.
“Can you… can you, you know, gimme a review?” and I'm like, you, a review?” And then that's when he was breaking down all of FBA at the time for me, Amazon was literally just Amazon. I didn't understand that Amazon had third-party sellers and all that other stuff. I figured it was just inventory with big businesses that Amazon had worked with.
And that really intrigued me and I…. I had…
Nick (05:23)
What year was that, Shawn? What year was that?
Shawn (05:27)
I wanna say 2014. I think it's 2014. I'm almost sure now, like it's weird cause like COVID… that COVID year really the year that disappeared, you know, a lot of times I'm like “two years ago”, I'm like, well, that was three years ago. You—you know was the year that disappeared. But anyways, so… so that ball started getting rolling and I was trying to… you know, I was learning a little bit more about it…
It wasn't really, for me, it was originally to get something going for Becky and then also getting something going for my mom. You know, my mom was always just looking for like little additional income, you know, she… she's fine with retirement, but she was… any little bit more could help for her, you know, to keep her busy and all that other stuff.
And to this day she's still… She's still an Amazon seller. She's still… she does arbitrage.
Shawn (05:23)
So I started in the arbitrage for those that don't know that's where you just literally go into stores, buy things, and then flip it—flip it on Amazon. And that to me…
Nick (06:21)
And I… I think that's still one of the best ways to get in if you're at that stage in your life where you're like… you're ready to grind, you got a little bit of money and you know, you got a little bit of personality and… and kind of, you know, you gotta have some secret sauce to go into these stores and scan stuff and yeah. You gotta be a, you know, on a mission. So to say like…
Shawn (06:47)
Yeah, you got… you have to know. And I remember like there were guys that had like scanners attached to their like gloves. They had like built-in glove scanners. And to me like… I was appreciative of the income, but I remember like one time I'm…I'm like pushing like this cart full of Hello Kitty, like plate ware. And I'm like, there's gotta… like, there's gotta be a better way. Cause I like, I was a financial advisor.
I can imagine my client turning the corner as I'm scanning like cat food on aisle 12. “What are you doing Shawn?” I'm like, “I don't Like… I don't know, man. Like, I'm just trying to, you know, I'm just buying cat food”. You know what I mean? Yeah. And it was always like this level of deceit because it became like stores didn't want… you know, it was always this thing.
So I—I started gravitating towards, well, you know what you know, like what can we do? And then that's when we…
Shawn (07:39)
We were private labeling before I even knew that was like an actual thing. Cause Becky had worked for this company that did merchandise, you know, so they made Choki stuff for a company and it was… And I was like, “Let's go into that”. So they looked at one of their hot sellers and then we adopted that and that was a waterproof Bluetooth speaker that—that we started with.
And when we started and this is like late 2014, maybe even early 2015 now, when you think about the—the economics of Amazon at that time versus now we—we had ordered… we had bought I think 200 units. I don't think we spent even more than $2,000 and we had a $5,000 line of credit and our first order got seized by customs. Right, because it was… we had the name ‘Bluetooth’ on it and—and this is… this is like…
So that would've killed a lot of people right then and there. They started something, they lost 1200 bucks, you know—you know what I mean? And, to me, that was a problem that needed to be solved. Right?
Shawn (08:38)
So then… so immediately I placed an order again. So I put up another like, you know, 2000 bucks or whatever it was, and we eventually got it. We actually—actually eventually get the old stuff too. I had to pretty much be my own lawyer, like working with customs and figuring all this out to get… to get this inventory towards us. But we had an OEM container that had, you know—and you know, China has no idea how to market, you know, in terms of like making anything look pretty.
So it had Chinese lettering, letters were backward, you know, all kinds of just ridiculousness. And we had picked out a logo, picked out a brand, and all that other stuff. And we went to Office Max and we bought a circular sticker and we slapped that right on top of the thing and sent it into Amazon and all of them sold like… all of them sold.
And we turned around and we did it again and we did it again and it grew so quickly.
Shawn (09:29)
And this is before anybody knew how to order any, you know, like say shipping, you know, like I'm… It's amazing what we know now, you know, then it was just like, get stuff on a plane and get it here. Like what, what's a boat, what's cargo, what's a container? You know what I mean? That was just like, that was big business stuff. That was just like a world that didn't even make sense.
You know, we were still getting stuff through the air and—and what… We ran into a problem where we couldn't fix, like I couldn't fix like what was going wrong with some of these units, you know? So we changed the design, we changed the style, but like the electronics of it at the end of the day, it wasn't jiving.
Shawn (10:06)
So then from there we… we went for—we've done and I've… we've probably done like over—easily over like a hundred different types of products. You know, some my tools, some like creation stuff, some that we've wholesale to other individuals, sex toys, you know, all kinds of just craziness. We ended up like my… my thought process was every listing on Amazon to me was like a doorway—you know, like a way to get in Amazon.
So like, I would rather if I was gonna sell like a thousand units, like in a month or a day or a week, or what, whatever arbitrary number of this, I would rather have a thousand listings that sold one unit than one listing that sold a thousand. Cause I saw a lot of times the struggle that people had to—you know, get their product to the first page of Amazon, you know? And I didn't—I didn't want… I—I just didn't want that.
Shawn (10:56)
So we gravitated towards where things that had the most amount of SKUs and we found that to be cosmetics and we found that to be in grocery. So we thrived—we thrived in that environment. We built that business—in hindsight. I, you know, I don't…I can't say I have regrets cause it took me to where I'm at now, but I think I would've always just stuck with a brand rather than just going real hardcore wholesale, you know, and whatnot, particularly cause we built it out of our home.
Shawn (11:22)
We had four employees at one point working out of our home and—and I would like to think I was like a cool boss, you know? I mean I had a bar, I had weed. I was like, “Here's the job, get it done. Yeah. You know, if you wanna smoke something or drink something like I…. who am I to stop you, you know”? At one point it was all women. And so there would be like this, this needless drama and I'd be like, “Right, time out! We're all getting drinks, you know?”
And then we, you know, just have a little retreat, you know, and that was cool. And you know, we just grow, we… you continue to grow through the ranks and learn more and more and more. And there's this point where you realize that you've given yourself a new job.
Being an entrepreneur isn’t like a job, it’s a lifestyle.
Shawn (12:08)
And, and then the question is, do you like what you do? And it was a really easy answer for me to say, “No”. You know, I didn't really enjoy… I wouldn't do it for free. You know? So then I… I—I really started adopting the mentality. I—I did actually do this really early on, but really started getting aggressive to it as we were starting to develop out our—our team.
Shawn (12:25)
But I…I was… I focused on two things, things that I'm great at. Right. And things that I loved and anything else in between, like somebody else could do it. Like I don't take out the trash. I just don't like maybe randomly, if it happens to be there and I'm walking towards the trash like I'll, I'll take it out. Then I don't do the dishes. I don't, I don't do anything.
I don't spend any time. I don't clean my own car, you know, cause somebody else could do it. You know? Like why would I…. there's some weird pride that people have in knowing how to do basic things, you know? I don't know any of that stuff.
Nick (13:01)
Yeah. Well, I think… I—I think you bring up an interesting point, like in the… it's like the difference between how an entrepreneurial community thinks versus like you know, a—a non-business-savvy community thinks, right? There's all these things that—that there's these differences that are like, you know, really they're big, they're... there's a couple that are just like big differences. Like the way that you see those things.
Like, no, I don't care about how to do everything. I don't care that I can't fix this door in the house or whatever. Yeah. I don't want to know don't want like, I'm—I'm happier these days. I'm happier. Not knowing things.
Shawn (13:40)
It's you have so much time in the day. Yeah. And—and I've learned that being an entrepreneur isn't like a job, it's a lifestyle. Like I wake up an entrepreneur, I go to bed, an entrepreneur, I wake up in the middle of the night, an entrepreneur. I take a shit as an entrepreneur.
Nick (13:58)
It's not a nine-to-five.
Shawn (14:00)
It's… you don't—you don't turn it off. Yeah. And, and that's something that, so knowing that you wanna be able to like to make a life that's conducive around, you know, around that. And so, yeah, I think, I think what it comes down to is like, people are always trying to assert their value. And when you're in a… and when you're in a circumstance where you don't have all this control and how… what's my worth, what's my value, you know?
Okay. So for some guys… and I'm not—not getting any of this stuff, but maybe sports is more important to them because now they know everything about sports and that's how they assert their value. Maybe they can eat a 70-ounce—what do they call that—like some steak or something like that. And that's like, how they feel that “Hey, this is my value, you know, to the world”.
I enjoy having soft hands. I enjoy thinking—with my mind. And—and I—and I find that the goals that I have, the way that I live, my life are in tune with the goals that I—I have for myself.
Shawn (14:52)
And I find that I—I set higher goals. Now that wasn't the case, because the thing is, when you, set a goal, like sometimes you're afraid to acknowledge what your goal really is because you're not afraid that you can't do it. Well, maybe, but you're really… What you're really afraid of is you're afraid of the perception of other people on you. You know?
And so I have this little thing where it's like—like the secret to success is like, think of something that's baller that you're good at… set a good goal for it and tell people about it. And if they think that's just easy for you to do, reset that goal. Set… you know, change it, elevate it to a point where you get the naysayers and the sneers and like, “Oh, well, good luck!” and all that other stuff.
Now, you know, you're onto something.
Shawn (15:43)
Then go find the people that support you at that point. The people who align with you believe in you even have the resources to do it and then knock that out and then do it all over again. So I've been finding that the relationships that I've had, the people that grow with me… like why we even still communicate is we're growing in the same direction.
Maybe not on the same journey, but we're growing on the—on this… within the same path.
Shawn (16:05)
And there are people that I've had in my life where I've… you know, like, Hey man, like the time served, doesn't equal time ahead. Like value to me is a check that needs to be cashed on a daily basis. Like every day, like I have to add value to you today. You have to add value to me today, tomorrow the same thing. And at some point, if there's no value proposition, we need to rethink the time that we're spending with each other.
So yeah. I've let go. Like I think of all my college friends, I think of all the people that I, you know, from… I—I know them, you know, I hang…. but I—when we get together, I have nothing to share with them because I'll start talking about the things that I'm doing and the growth that we're having. And then it's an awkward conversation because they want to b*ch about their boss.
And I'm like, “Dude, I just knocked out some really impressive things”, you know?
Shawn (17:00)
And that really came to fruition with our move, you know. We moved to—we moved to Puerto Rico in—in July and how that is like… For MDS, you know, MDS for all the good for all the bad it is—it is definitely… it's changed my life. I mean, that's… you know, it's—it's not… say it could change anybody's life but like the interactions and the relationships and the way that I leveraged the—the—the network that I had with MDS has been like paramount, you know.
Shawn (17:32)
How that even started was Alan Stevens was talking to me, we were talking about costs and marketing and you know, and all that other stuff. And he just kept… he wouldn't stop talking about this Palmas. And so then he sends me this video and it's like—it's like the propaganda video, like this—this is the video like, oh my God,
Nick (18:00)
He's—he's pretty good with his video editing skills. I've seen his Facebook stories.
Shawn (18:05)
He didn't make that one though. He didn't make that one. But yeah, he is otherwise like, just very talented, even on the fly. Like he'll just make some little stuff and he'll make like an average evening look like super baller just, you know—you know what I mean? Like he'll pet an iguana and make that really entertaining somehow, like here—here's Allen petting an iguana.
But—but—but anyway, so that he… he initially planted the seed and… and at the time I'm just getting sick of winter. I'm in Wisconsin right now. And it's like probably like 12 degrees and I'm not looking forward to going outside. And… I remember just going to Becky when she had woken up in the morning and I was like, “What do you—what do you think about moving to Puerto Rico?”
And I just was assuming, like, we can't do that, you know, finances, business, all these other things. And maybe I just called her at the right time.
The secret to success is, to think of something that you're good at… set a good goal for it, and tell people about it. And if they think that's just easy for you to do, reset that goal.
And she was like, go, you know, and then it was a matter of, okay, now we're gonna move to Puerto Rico. But when? You know, when are we gonna do this? And, so then more and more people from MDS started moving down to Palmas—Palmas Delmar and I'm learning a little bit more, you know—about—about that community. So I'm talking to Sanja, right?
And, and on a related issue, some investment stuff. And, and so I—I didn't even know he was in Palmas. I'm like, you're in Palmas too. Like, there's like 12 of you guys down in Palmas. And everyone kept saying how great this is. It's like this thriving community of entrepreneurs and the community's wonderful.
Shawn (19:23)
And I, so I kept having excuses COVID this, a business that, and he pretty much told me, he was like if you're not—if you're not gonna come stop saying you're gonna come. He didn't say it like that cause he is a nice guy, but he pretty much told me to… you know, get off the pot. Right. So, and that disturbed me, you know, cause you know, it's awesome when friends can call you out, you know what I mean?
So right then and there, after that conversation I bought—I bought two plane tickets for my… and I figured my 42nd birthday was coming up, went down, told Becky, “Hey, just so you know, we're going to Puerto Rico in—in like two weeks, three weeks maybe. And just to check it out, get a lay of the line, hang out with people down there, see what's going on.”
And when we got down there on the second day, I… we fell in love and we—we—we rented a place… you know, we… So then we came back home and we gave away our entire—our entire life. We shut down our business. That was a big decision to like shut down a profitable… because I didn't… I couldn't take that to Puerto Rico with me. You know, but I also have a talent in the—in the market.
So there's, you know… plus we're building out this brand management. So I knew that, Hey, we could go down there and we could—we could survive. You know? And so we did. We—we shut down everything. We gave everything away. We started a brand new life. And I gotta tell you that was probably one of the most liberating experiences I've ever had in my life where you—You—you… the things that you think are important to you when you're watching them being thrown away, you realize it's just garbage.
Like it's just—just trash. So I found that my joy now is not in owning things, but in the like… having experiences—having memories and—and I'm always trying to enrich, you know, like those types of memories. And like, if I buy something… like Becky just bought a purse and I told her, I'm like, “Hey, you can yeah—get a purse, but you gotta replace it.”
You know? So now we gotta get rid of something. So we don't really, we don't really add—add to that.
Nick: (21:22)
Yeah. That's good. Yeah. I like that. That's a good cause. It's so easy to like…
Shawn (21:26)
Oh, it's so easy.
Nick: (21:28)
I've got three kids in the house. Right. And it's like, you know, you get a McDonald's and they, like, they throw a bat, they throw a toy in there. Yeah. And it's like, every day you got a toy and like, they're just leaving them out there. And they got buckets and buckets and you know, parents just buying more buckets.
Shawn (21:43)
Every child has way too many toys. They have a way like—and they—and they use it for….
Nick (21:49)
Like category on Amazon's crazy, man.
Shawn (21:52)
yeah, it is. It is. I mean… and—and it's more—it's more accessible. There's more variety, but—but either way. Yeah.
Shawn (21:59)
So Amazon—Amazon for me now is still very relevant in—in my life, but it… it has gravitated more to commerce and just general, you know, and like—and like developing out networks and—and looking for opportunities and efficiencies.
Shawn (21:59)
And what's awesome about MDS is like… MDS used to just be really like an Amazon-only type of environment. And now it's—it's full-on eCommerce investments, real estate. I mean, there are so many people with so many different backgrounds that are doing so many amazing baller things coming together. And it's—it's one of the—the better master…
At the time before I moved to Palmas before I moved to Palmas, MDS was the absolute best mastermind I've ever been. Now—now that I'm in Palmas—Palmas is 10 times—10 times… Cause there's billionaires—there's billionaires in that space. But it's still, it… it reminds me where of how MDS is still growing.
And where… and the barometer of where—of where we're gonna reach, you know, cause like right now the market, you know… study the market real, real closely. And like the market's taking a dump, you know, and….
Nick (23:16)
Yeah, Shawn, actually… for like everyone who's listening, Shawn is actually one of the most active people in our other… other MDS group—the investments group. And like, you know, Shawn is really well known for doing in-depth chart analysis and you know, people will like to tag you and post, “Hey Shawn, what do you think of this? Like give, you know, give me some insight” and Shawn hops on.
You know, so I'd really say, 'cause I've—I've known you for a while. I've seen you go through the community. I see you… you active over there, like providing a lot of value, just like you have in, you know, these other communities, those spaces. that you've participated in.
Shawn (23:52)
I love that. You—you know what I mean? And I'm really good at it and I love it. And so that goes back to the tenets of my existence. Like do the things that make you great and do the things that you love. Yeah. And despite all the, the frustration that I could have in the market… you're gonna have frustrations in anything, whether it's any… anything, you know, but at the end of the day you know, I—I do a lot, I do it for free, you know, I do—I do.
I mean, I do it for free for specific individuals, you know, of those that, that in return have this value reciprocal, you know, at the end of the day, you know, from various projects, investment opportunities you know things like that. But the point where, where I was saying was like, MDS has reached a… we're above the clouds, you know, like, like the market could—could go—to, you know, the stock market could just plummet and—and sharks always swim.
You know what I mean? Like, like sharks, swim, you know, we're—we're the… I have—I have a fervent belief that—that every time the earth resets, right? Like some cataclysm happens, some great reset, not just an economic reset, but like Earth 2.0 3.0, 4.0. It ain't the smartest that make it, you know, right? It's, it's not the hardest workers that make it, it's the problem solvers. It's the innovators, you know?
Cause like, let's say we're hanging out the world ends. Right. And the… it's just me—me, you, and our wives or whatever. And we're like, “Okay I don't know how to make the internet.” “What's the internet?” So we're gonna—but we're gonna figure it out. Right. We figured out a method of communication. Maybe we can, you know, we—we still know some things, so maybe we get birds to do some things for or whatever.
It doesn't take much between, you know, the second, third, fourth generation before they even talk about the internet again. And then now whatever we started creates this whole new technological tree that goes off into big things. So I think guys like me and you are the—the true survivors, you know? Yeah. Where, when—when the shit hits the fan, you know, like I always look at like how people respond to like emerging emergencies.
You, you know what I mean? And it's like me, I immediately like… I trust my instinct to the…
Nick (26:11)
Like, whatever it is.
It’s not the smartest or hardest workers that make it but the problem solvers.
Shawn (26:12)
Yeah. Cause I have a lot of like, I have engineering partners and stuff like that, that they won't go outside that bubble of their structure of how they actually see everything. And—and it's difficult to have those communications sometimes because it's like… I'm like, let's just go for it. Like what happened? I'm like…I trust myself enough that when I get there, I'm gonna know that there's gonna be a set of problems that we need to solve.
You know, I don't know what those problems are, but I know that they're solvable, you know? And in so long that space, you know, that's—that's the direction I'm always gonna move into, you know?
Shawn (26:46)
I believe—I believe that like… I believe that there are three things in life that…. that we all focus on. Right. And that—that's like our—that's like our finances, that's our health and that's our mind. But most people are stuck on the finances. Yeah. You know what I mean? They—they spend all of… and I still do. I spend a great deal of my time, you know, accumulating, you know, money.
But here's what I know that can be solved. I can earn enough money where I don't have to earn enough money. There's no amount of learning that I could have where I'm like, okay, I'm good. Like that doesn't exist. The more, you know, the more, you know, you don't know. And then you're just on this forever pursuit of just self-education, self-knowledge, same thing with health.
Like there—there's no such thing as perfect. There's always… your age. So as you age, your body's literally dying. So it's like, you're, you're doing by just understanding how your body works just a little bit more, you get to—I get to be 43 and not have a wrinkle on my face.
Nick (27:51)
I think it's important. It's like, yeah. It's like, you're setting those targets in your financial life or your health life that, you know—know that of… bring happiness to you. Cause I think if you don't do that, then you get stuck in that circle of knowledge where you learn more and you just want to know more and you haven't set like a point where you're gonna say, “Hey, okay, this is enough for me.”
And you know, maybe when I get there, I might decide it's still not enough for me. And maybe I do want more, but you know, at least you're making, you're aware of that decision. You know, I think as you get older, especially like that the habits that you are building, you know, start to drive you even more compared to being young when you're a little more curious and you know, what, if this, what if that, whereas you get into your thirties and you're busy.
Like, you know, I feel like in my life habits have kind of, you know, they're—they're steering more of my decisions during the day versus when I was a kid.
Shawn (28:49)
Oh. Of everything. I mean, it's, it's all a habit like…
Nick (28:53)
That's so you gotta build those. Right. You know, those, those right habits, you know?
Shawn (28:56)
Yeah, absolutely. And that's not easy. I struggle with that daily, but I know I'll be able to do better when I—when I wake up one day and that day is like, I don't have to even earn a dollar 'cause it's already solved for me, you know? And I'm hoping that's gonna be within the next two to three years. You know, I have a goal, I have a goal of $20 million and you know, that—that's my goal.
Nowhere near that, you know, I'm in the—I'm in the seven-figure range, but nowhere near an eight-figure range. And for me that's, that was a goal that I was always never comfortable talking about, you know? Cause it's like a, you know… it's a big deal to some individuals when they, you know, there are some people in this world that work their whole life and not even accumulate a million dollars.
And—and for me, I, I still don't feel that that's even a big ask. When you think of, of like all the amount of money and all the potential and all the people that are out there and the billions and the trillions that are out there, nobody, I could have, I could have a hundred million and nobody would know who the hell I am.
Nick (29:54)
Yeah, yeah.
Shawn (29:56)
You know what I mean? 2 million, nobody knows who there's, you know? And it's like, so—so when you, when you start setting a goal enough, like an actual goal and you—and you, and you are dead set on that, one of, one of two things are gonna happen. You're gonna achieve that goal. You're gonna die trying to achieve the goal. Like that's it.
Nick (30:19)
Or give up, right? Yeah.
Shawn (30:21)
Well, if you quit then that's why even set… like quitting—quitting—quitting… I—I think people misunderstand what quitting is, right? Like, so let's say, let's say for instance, that, that, you know, I want to have, I wanna have good health, right? Like right now I'm about 15 pounds overweight, you know, you know what I mean? So, and, I have bad ADHD.
So like sticking to any one thing is a very difficult thing for me to do. I'll do one thing and then I do it for like two weeks and I'll stop and start something different. But what's happening is even though I'm starting and stopping when I'm—I'm still always moving it forward, you know what I mean? Like the goal of optimal health still hasn't changed even though…
So every process I take it still does… that is hopefully that—that makes like a degree of sense, you know, where it's like, so I think when I stop something, I don't feel that that's quitting.
When you set a goal, one of two things are gonna happen. You're gonna achieve that goal or you're gonna die trying to achieve
Nick (31:19)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Man, I think it boils down to like a few things that drive a lot of humans that you've—you've kind of touched on and like that one for me, I would boil it down to guilt. Like people feel guilty for—for quitting. Yeah. Right. I think that's like, that's an element that every human can identify with.
And you know, when, when you just say, “Hey, I'm gonna quit, cause it didn't work out for me or, you know, I gave it my best shot and now I'm gonna try this”, you know, as long as, you know, in your head, like you're confident that like that's your truth and you've owned it. I think—I think the damage starts to happen when you lie to yourself on a regular basis.
Right? Like you tell yourself this bullsh!t story and you know, it's bullsh!t. Like… and that—and for me, like I'm, you know, reflecting on some of the things I've been through, like, you know, that's really what was leading me to make all these poor decisions, you know? Like I'm okay with making a bad decision, right?
Like at least I'm making a decision, but if I know there's something else out there that I should have done and I didn't do it for some stupid reason. And like, you know, like in the moment where, you know, you just get drawn into something else because it's pulling on some other human element that just drags you into it. And you're like, oh, you know, you're in love with some chick.
And, and you know, you make a bad decision because you know, you were in love or, you know, and that, you've got 20 grand invested in a product and things go wrong and you should quit. But you know, you should just quit. But man, I've got 20 grand invested in this product and I'm gonna make it work and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that. Right. And you get all egotistical about it and you know, then you're 10 grand in debt—10 grand more in debt before you quit.
Shawn (33:11)
There's—there's so… so there's… it's the word “quit” right? You know that that's the big word. I'm gonna—I'm gonna—I'm gonna lay out two scenarios and I'm gonna—I'm gonna just give you the answer. So we don't have to play that game. But there was a poll that was done on individuals that if you were guaranteed… you had options A option and B.
Option A is you're guaranteed to make $3,000 or B is you have an 80% chance of making $4,000, 20% chance of making nothing. Most respondents pick A. They—they wanted the sure thing. Absolutely. Without question, It made—it made sense to them. Now when the second scenario flips it, and this is where it gets really interesting. If you had option A a 100 percent chance to lose $3,000 or an 80% chance to lose $4,000 and a 20% chance of breaking even, most people took option B.
So they're willing to… even though like… The point is—is you need to know when to cut your losses. That's not quitting. That's not failure. I mean, it's failure—it's a failure, but you have to know like, okay, this is where—this is where it ends. And this is where… this is where now I need to go or else you're gonna on that… I always like in the trading world, always talk about like, hope isn't a strategy.
You know what I mean? Like, it's not like… you can't just launch a product and I've, I've seen that. How many times have we seen that? You know, like,... Like—like rock stars. You know, I was in this group that we, you know, we—I built it up with this Charles to like 50 some thousand people. Not now everybody was active, but…
Nick (34:56)
Yeah. Remember that you guys had a cruise and everything we…
Shawn (34:59)
Yeah. We had… there's a lot—There was a lot of—a lot of people and, and the reality is they all had,...they all had the same knowledge for the most part. I mean, every Monday I'd sit there talking for hours, just freely giving this information out. And yet, so few people actually ever, you know, like did—did anything, you know, because it's more than just…
Just knowing something isn't enough. Like it's not like… you know, you can know a lot of things, but how are you? There are a lot of smart people that don't accomplish sh!t in their life, you know? And—and I give—I give way more credit to somebody that… I give way more credit to somebody—who tries and fails, tries and fails, tries and fails than the person who is afraid to even try.
For when people say like, there are people that just won't do New Year's resolutions because most people quit. And I'm like, that's dumb. You should at least make a good positive decision. Even if you knew that you were gonna fail. Even if you knew that you weren't gonna last, like we… I did—I didn't last. I had—I got—caught COVID, but that was a nice excuse.
That was a nice excuse. We had a January whatever. And you know, it's a just viable excuse, but—why after COVID did I not get right back on it?
Nick (36:16)
Right.
Shawn (36:16)
You know what I mean? But I did learn my lessons and, you know, and all—and all this other stuff, you know, to keep pushing things up.
Nick (36:24)
Did you always have that idea of—around failure? Like, you know, growing up as a kid and stuff, did you—or did you kind of fear failure…
Shawn (36:35)
I was—I was a… I built myself. I don't know how to say that…
Nick (36:44)
Yeah. I could relate to that 100% man. Where I was broken down to nothing….
Shawn (36:49)
I—I came from nothing. I have no college degree. Yet I'm—I'm not… I'm probably one of the smartest guys, I know you. You, you know what I mean? I'm a… I'm a dumb…I'm a dumb, stupid…. But like, in terms of the number of things that I know and—and what… what it is, what it is—is it's, I've always… anything I wanted to know, I would become obsessed about it and I would have to know everything that there was to know about.
And I did that at like, even at a really early age. You know, like I remember I was like 12 years old or 10 or something, something really young, just…I look at my kids and like, they're 13, they'll never do this.
Shawn (37:36)
And there was a kid that came by knocking on the door and he was selling my mom, like trying to sell my mom…like candies and—and carts. And like that, I was—I'm like what? I was like… I kept asking, like, who, what was he doing? Why was he selling that? What, you know, what was going on? It was for church or whatever. And then I'm like, I could—I bet I could do that.
I was like, I bet I… for me though, like, why do I gotta do it for like….just do it for me? So there was a company called Olympia Sales and they gave you this little catalog. And then for every sale you got like two bucks, or I can't remember what it was something nominal. And I went door to door at age 12, like knocking on all my neighbor's doors.
And like, I—I did, I made like a hundred bucks or something—something like that. I gotta tell you I was terrified.
Nick (38:19)
Yeah.
Shawn (38:21)
Freaking
Nick (38:21)
I tell you what, if you're—if you're afraid of rejection, go get a sales job.
Speaker 2: (38:26)
Oh my God. Oh my God. I think…
Nick (38:29)
Sales job, do it for a few weeks. You'll get over that.
Shawn (38:32)
I—I became a financial advisor. I was always good at like… I was always presentable, you know, for the… I think for the most part. And I was always… I always used my words to my advantage, you know? So I ended up… I got a job. I got a job as a financial advisor. And what—what did you just say? Cause I was going somewhere with…The fear—the fear!
So I—I had my natural market, but my… at the time I was a standup comedian. I was selling cell phones at Verizon.
Shawn (39:01)
So my natural market was not people that you're gonna be making any kind of money with. So I realized that the money to be made was talking to individuals who made over a hundred thousand dollars a year. And I didn't know anybody—I didn't know anybody that did that.
Shawn (39:16)
So I went—I found this Rolodex of people that worked at Kohl's department store. And I found out that if you called—their number, it would say, you know, type in the name of the person, it would ring their desk. And then there was LinkedIn.
Shawn (39:31)
So then I would start, I would start cold calling and I was scared outta my mind. So I used to go across the street to this bar, I think it was called McGail… or something like that. Some Irish bar and I would get like two, three shots of vodka, like in a short succession period of time. And I would go back feeling a little loose and I would drill—I'll draw these calls.
Shawn (39:49)
And I remember telling myself if I can get to a hundred calls if I can just get to a hundred calls, I'll never be afraid of the shit ever again. And so I was terrified.
If you’re ever afraid of rejection… get a sales job
I was freaking out, I couldn't sleep on the weekends, and that—that—that chiseled me really. You know, I went to the mil… I was in the military, I went through boot… I went through boot camp and I remember like, you know, I was in the era where general sergeants would push you and hit you. And you know, just that shit that you couldn't even do anymore.
Screaming, saying the most profane shit in your face. And then I remember I came back, you know, when I came, you know, I came back and…, I was working at, at this cafeteria and there was this old… Italian guy that had… it was barking at all these kids. And they were all—afraid of him. And I'm like, “This guy, ain't not… like, Jim is… you're afraid of this guy?”
You know what I mean? And people allow—people allow their fear to prevent them from doing… from just becoming greater. Like the—like, I remember… I think there's even a book on it and I never read it, but, “The Enemy Called Average”. You know, like—like me and my ex-wife… My ex-wife likes to differ on that dramatically. Right? So like,—` like any time, like my kid wants to get in an acting class.
So like right away, I'm like, “Great. You wanna act? Cool. I can manage that stuff. I can get you some auditions. I'll tell you what, when you're like 17, 18, and you need an apartment, I'll take care of the apartment. I'll take care of your basic necessities provided that you do auditions because acting ain't being in the movies, acting is all about the auditions”.
And then my ex-wife—nice lady, you know—you know, but she's very average, you know? So like… she's like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's bring it down!” I'm like, why, why bring anything down? Why? Like, if you're gonna… if you're gonna do anything—like if you're gonna do anything, why not be, why not at least attempt to be great at it?
And then you get to figure out like what your actual natural talents are. And I'm convinced every single person has this natural talent of something that they're—they could be amazing at. And they won't even—they won't even hone that skillset because, you know, basic—just fear man. And… So people look at, you know, like my… people say, well, you're not afraid, you know?
Or and I'm like, yeah, I am like, I'm constantly afraid. I'm constantly intimidated. I'm constantly uncomfortable. I'm just so used to it. Like if I have to have a clue and… I had a partner where I felt like he was making some bad decisions and I—and I recognized that I wasn't talking to him like I needed to talk to him, you know? So I, you know, I read this book called “Honest to Greatness”. I was like, I gotta be honest with this guy.
This is like, actually like two weeks ago. So I'm hiking. This is where I knew the universe wanted me to talk to him because I was gonna call him on my phone when I was taking a hike. And I decided against it. But as I was putting my phone in my pocket, my hand—my thumb hit the call. So I called and I was like, “Hey, you know, Hey person, I need… I'm gonna be real with you.
I was like, I need to talk to you like an entrepreneur. And I can't…and it's holding us back because I'm not being forthright with you. And the decisions that you're making while you think are good….”
If you’re gonna do anything, why not attempt to be great at it?
And that's the thing. In the…when you're—when you're achieving something, everybody looks at things vanilla, you know, right or wrong. Right or wrong is… Is my ex-wife wrong for wanting my child to be average? Could you say—can you actually say that that's wrong when she provides for them, cares for them, works for them, loves them, you know, is that wrong? No, it's not, it's not wrong.
It's just a totally different perspective of how I view the world and, and how I wanna achieve that. And the scariest thing for me is, like dying… I don't want to die, not having made an attempt to be my best. I just don't. That scares the living shit outta me. And I feel like… and I'm—I—I've not reached everything that I needed to reach, but if I… if I died today, I don't wanna die.
You know, but if I died today, like I'm not mad at myself, you know what I mean? Remember, I give this kid that literally went from homeless shelters to like living on the… dude, every floor in my house, I see the ocean, you know what I mean? Like I live a pretty amazing lifestyle. And, because I'm in a—I'm in an association where everybody is… you forget.
You forget. And… I don't know, man. I'm like….
Nick: (44:46)
I think you're touching on some really great stuff, man. And like rejection and fear and like it's all there and like, right…. And you know, and then the idea of right and wrong, you know, it's, it's like the way that we're taught about those things is we're growing up. Doesn't really support us. If, you know, I guess some people would put a label on it.
If you have ADHD, right? Like I'm diagnosed with ADHD
Shawn (45:10)
Same here,
Nick: (45:12)
And then, and if you study the characteristics of it, you know, you—you chase new things. Right? You get tired of things quickly, the things that you enjoy, you're able to really focus on and you might get obsessed with them for weeks or months, or even a year, you know, years. Maybe it never goes away. Right? There's some interesting stuff you can learn about these things.
The Andrew Huberman podcast is great and he talks about dopamine. Right. And like, that's, what's actually going on in our minds and that, you know, you study ADHD and you learn that the dopamine communicates differently. Right? And when we're growing up, we were taught that that was—what did they, what was it called? It used to be ADD- ‘attention deficit disorder’.
So it was negative cause it had the word ‘deficit’ in there. Now it's ADHD, ‘attention…
Shawn (46:04)
‘Attention’, ‘Deficit’, ‘hyperactive’. ‘Disorder’.
Nick (46:07)
Yeah. Something like that. I know they changed it to like, not sound as negative or something like that. But you know, all the things that you've mentioned, you know, are… it—it's just what we want. Right. It's just what we're chasing. It's what we want in our lives. And then you have these people who don't have this condition that are like, “No, you know—they're like… no, get back down here with us.”
You know, you need to…
Shawn (46:30)
Because it's contradictory to a semblance of normal society. Right? Like society—society was created. Society—there are rules that then created the framework, code, I guess you would call it off—of like of society and somebody with… ADHD entrepreneur. We—we are natural contrarians, like natural and I question everything that doesn't mean I'm like some grand conspiracy theorist or anything like that.
I just recognize that humans are humans. Like the—the more—the more I see people of success, the more I'm like “That guy's dumb… too”. You know, it's almost like—it's almost like liberating. I'm like, he's an idiot. I'm not insulting it. Cause I'm an idiot. You know what I mean? I'm like, wow, that guy's a Mor… you know, and to me, that's like—that's like, okay.
The difference between me and you now is time. It's just time passing. The decision's already been made. I'm in that direction now it's—it's time passing, you know?
Nick (47:38)
Man, if we could, like… how could we cause Shawn, like, you weren't always here. Right? Like you struggled a little bit, like, I'm thinking, how can we package this for someone who's struggling? It’s probably something they've heard a million times, but you know, right? Like, I mean, what—how were you when you were growing up? You know, like didn't you have money?
Were you always like this?
Shawn (48:00)
No, Man, we were… I was just talking to my mom about that, you know, cause my mom travels the world and all that other stuff and… but she—she was poor, man. Like …if I told my story, dude, there would be a day. Like you… people watch like, you know, like The Pursuit of Happyness and they're like, “Wow, that guy really came like…” Dude—I like….
My dad's a criminal. I have a—have a criminal father. I have murderers in my family, you know, it's just outrageous. And… but then all of that has built my framework. In terms of relationships with people, and value, just because you have a title that doesn't mean a boss. What's boss to me? You know, I remember my kid was getting bullied at school, you know? So I go to the school…
Nick (48:48)
I remember this.
Shawn (48:49)
Oh yeah. That I lit it up. And so I go to the school and they don't—they didn't know who I was. You—you know what I mean? I was always just casual. I can't—I'm not gonna be talking with these Catholic school moms about big sales and like that. So I was just sitting there at the time with… I was always representing the Deeg life with my hat and my hoodie.
And you know, I was just like this mysterious guy. And I show up and they're talking Dean of students and I'm like—I was like—you keep saying these things, like, it means something, I'm the father of the check that trumps all of this. Yes. You know, it trumps—it trumps all of it. And there are so many people who like to try to fit in. They try to compartmentalize all of these aspects of their life to try to create some type of normal normalcy.
You know, I guess around it, and here we are as entrepreneurs where it's like, you see something and because you see the goal—you see the goal of—of how you can get there. You recognize how poorly the process has been made for you to be able to achieve that flat out—flat out. Not everybody gets to be middle class. There's, you know—I know that they always say that there's enough resources on the planet.
There are enough resources on the planet to feed people. There are enough resources on the planet to keep food over your head. There's not enough coastal land that everybody gets to live on oceanfront property. There's not—there's not enough batteries out there where everybody gets to own two cars or whatever, you know…. There—there's just not enough.
So of those—of those resources that—that are available, how does that get divided up? But by those who actually pursue it. You know, and so few…
Shawn (50:25)
So I run… I like… I get criticized a lot cause I have a block list on Facebook of like probably like 3 - 4,000 people. Do you know what I mean? Like I'm not even kidding. Like I remember what time I was just showing my block list one time and I was just scrolling and I kept going—kept going because it's like, for me, people will criticize me. Right?
They'll be like, ” Oh, you just only want people around you that agree with you”. “Yeah. Yeah. I do!” You just—you just, you know, we all live in a bubble, all of us, we all—we all live in this bubble. So why wouldn't I live in a bubble of like-minded people provided that I'm happy? They're happy. We're all growing together. Why do I have to care about what your perspective is on anything that's not aligned with me?
You know, like I don't… I'm not a Democrat, I'm not a Republican, I'm… I think all of that is ridiculous because it's something that's like being fed to us and that doesn't….
Why do I have to care about what your perspective is on anything that's not aligned with me?
Nick (51:14)
Yeah. And it was created. Right. I actually agree. Like I'm not a political individual and—and…
Shawn (51:20)
It's not stuff was… people will because there's a sense of identity and a sense of value. Yeah. And—and, and because like back in the day, you know, like, you know, I'm.. I'm old enough to recognize—remember a world that was before the internet. And—and at that time, you know, when I was a kid, 10, 15, 20 years old… I didn't get the internet until I was like 21, which is kind of crazy when you think about it.
So I've only had like 20 years of the internet that—that you only hung around the people that—that's how… that's your clique was literally people that aligned with you—agreed with you, you all shared the same thoughts, but as we've started… The internet started exposing so many different ideas. There's this idea that I have to accept everybody else's thoughts, you know?
And… you know, and it's like, I let—let people be how they wanna be. But I still get to think being trans is weird, doesn't mean that they shouldn't have a bathroom and rights and all this other stuff. And even saying trans is a really weird thing. And maybe I should say transsexual or whatever, but like, I get to be ignorant of the things that don't really matter to me.
If it's not even something that's in my normal environment. Now that's said, since we're all getting all controversial, the universe had a—had… I got gay kids! I have a lesbian daughter and an omnisexual daughter. I didn't even know what the hell that was. You—you know what I mean? I'm like, all right. And I—and I was like, okay, I'm just gonna—I'm gonna be real with them, just letting you know.
You love whoever the hell you wanna love. Thank you actually, for being lesbians, by the way, cause now I don't have to worry about all the dicks of the world. You know what I mean? But… I was like sometimes—sometimes daddy says some stupid shit like, “Hey, that's gay”. And when I say that, I don't mean it that way. I don't… I'm going on some stupid tangent now…
Nick (52:12)
No, I mean, in my opinion, it's like, I—I feel like it's stuff that everyone is dealing with. And then so many of us put on the—the facade of…
Shawn (52:22)
It's…
Nick (53:23)
But instead, you could just be authentic and be like, “Oh, you know what? I think that's… it's freaking weird, but like, Hey, you know, you're cold. Oh, you need my shirt. Here you go”. Here's my jacket off my back. But right. Like the—it—it's that it can be like that. And I think that's, you know, a message that you don't hear growing up is like, “Hey, you're, you're allowed to think something and that's okay.
And you know, just cause you thought that doesn't mean you have to act on it. Right?” You don't have to be hateful about it. Yeah.
Shawn (53:55)
The… Hate—hate is a… hate to like… I don't hate anybody, you know. There are people I don't like, but there's…but it's for me, it's going back to the blocking thing. It's really easy to just remove them from my life. Especially—especially on the internet, which is mind-boggling to me that like, you know that nobody promotes self-censorship ever.
It's like… so Facebook is a platform where—where if you don't like something, it's like really easy, you just block. You just…
Nick: (53:28)
Yeah. Yeah.
Shawn (53:30)
And then you never have to see it again. You never have to—you get to literally remove somebody from your life. And then like VR’s coming out now—now I'm going real life, VR’s coming out. Like the first week of VR, some lady was like, “I was gang-raped in…” and I'm like, come on! Like if… I'm telling you right now, Nick, if you are gang-raped in virtual reality, my friend you wanted to be gang raped.
You wanted… at any point, you could have just picked up the vice, like I'm good. Or in VR, like… I don't know if you've ever been in VR…
Nick (55:04)
I've been on one. Yeah. I've been on it a couple of times.
Shawn (55:06)
I literally just block people. Like I remember there was like this—there was this annoying kid, you know, we were playing—I was playing virtual poker and this kid just think—it—just gone... It's instant—It's instant gone. Like think, cause we're—cause then the thing is like, there's the fear of lawful? What happens if like there's—there's so many…
There are many billions of people that are on this planet. I'm supposed to like all of them? They're all gonna work for me in my favor to—to help me achieve what, you know, what it is I want or what I'm gonna help them achieve what they want. Nah, man. I only have so many people, dude. I used to have a friends list of 5,000 individuals. And that was an insane amount of people for one person to have.
Like it's unnatural that more people know you, then you know them, you know—cause you know, I'll go around… And people to this day, you know, like they'll… my inbox still gets hit up, you know? And it's like, I don't know these individuals, you know? And… and it's like, so where—where's my time best spent?
Shawn (56:06)
And I—and I had spent a good deal because I came from nothing, you know? And, I always—I was always wanting to put myself in a position where—where I was creating a platform for other people to follow. You know what I mean, where I would always talk about like scale buildings and not mountains, you know?
Cause like a mountain there's just a few—few on top, but a building, you know, you get to the top of the building, you could fit hundreds of people on top of the building. The problem is that I found that—that some people want to get to the top, but they want you to take them.
Shawn (56:42)
They're not really willing to grow. And—so Clint, an MDS, he shared his story with me that I'm gonna share with you that Michael Quinn had shared with him, that another guy had shared with him. And this was like one of those conversations that was like a pivotal decision. Like a pivotal point. It literally changed my life. I told him, I'm like, you—you there are points in my life where I could say this changed my life.
This conversation was one of them. And—and so he had said that there's a lighthouse and this is the story of the lighthouse in the tugboat, right? The—lighthouse and the tugboat, both serve the same purpose… in terms of getting ships to their destination. But how they go about it is incredibly different.
For when, when a tugboat goes out and it gets the ships that can't do it for whatever reason that quit along the way, are too broken or beaten up, or whatever the case might be. And it sits there and drags them through the ice or the mud or whatever it is to—to be able to bring them back on shore. And then it's gotta go back and do it again and do it again and do it again.
And tugboats… When you think of a tugboat, you don't think prestige, you don't think, you know, beaten up, weary, beat… you know, just, just defeated. And I had—I… man, my blood pressure through the roof, everybody's problems were my problems because I'm trying to help everybody. And they—they can't get there on their own, you know?
So the lighthouse shines its light brightly and it's like, “Hey, here I am. Here's the destination. Here's where you wanna be, figure out how to get here. Here's where I am. And here's that bright, you know, that bright light”.
And the boats that are able can make it—and if your boat can't make it, get your life preserver out and swim, do whatever you need to do at least, you know, the destination, and you're not just sitting there waiting for someone to come save you. And I have realized that like in the process of what I was doing, I was bringing people—they became anchors in my life—significant anchors.
And—and it had cost me a great deal of time and money, you know, considering the number of people that I had—I have coached and helped that have become successful to the… I mean I've coached thousands maybe. I mean, it's really hard to—it's really hard to quantify, you know, I'm no Tony Robbins or anything, but in this little ecosphere, I've helped thousands of people and only like seven to maybe top 20 maybe became anything of it.
You know, where they actually did something and they came back. And you know, what was funny about that is I always tell them like, it wasn't me, you came with the right questions. You know, and that was a big—that was a big thing for me. Like if you remember, I used to piss a lot of people off cause I would be like ask a better question.
I was like ask a better question and it's a kind of a dick thing to say. But at the same time for me, that was a problem. It's like the—you know, when somebody, like, I know—I know when I'm talking to somebody now, I've seen enough.
I know—I don't care how bad they want it. I know how—how well that they're willing to succeed simply based on how—the questions that they ask because the questions that they ask are—is indicative of how their mind works and processes and solves problems.
Nick (60:04)
And the effort that they've put in already before asking.
Shawn (60:06)
Yeah. Yes. And that—and that's so yeah... So like for me, like I'm no—I will no longer… I no longer do it. I no longer will... I just remember—I just got a message from somebody like maybe a couple weeks ago they were like, “Hey Shawn, can you help me pick out a product?” And I'm like—I'm like, “Do you realize how much I have to rewind to get down to like picking a product?”
You know, that's like—that's the most like… Do you know what I mean? Like I'm not…. I can't—that's not a good use of my time anymore. Right? Like, like not even—not even remotely, you know?
Nick (60:47)
I think it's like a good… like it's indicative of how you've been able to adapt in order to get the things that you want in your life. And if you look like—even since I've known you, I've seen that change from, you know, starting out and reselling and then teaching. And then, you know, now where you are now and in Puerto Rico, like, and you've even physically made a big change as well.
Like you're—you're doing it, man. And—and you know, I think there's a lot of elements that yeah, it's done. Right. You're done. And you're living.
Shawn (61:18)
No, no, it's not. It's not done. I still have a ways to go
Nick (61:20)
Okay. Okay.
Shawn (61:21)
But yeah. But yeah, I—I appreciate the benchmark of where I'm at right now.
Nick (61:25)
Yeah. Yeah. And that's… just it's where that's—I mean, isn't that where everyone wants to be? You know—and you know, deep down like… and I think there is a checklist of getting there, you know, and I do think any human being that is born in a normal condition, even if—even if not, they can achieve these things and it's not taught out there.
And you know, sometimes you just have to—you just have to go for it, man, and surround yourself with the right people.
Shawn (61:57)
You had mentioned that, you know, is there a framework, right? And I'm not saying I have the framework, but I believe I have a variant of the framework that works.
Shawn (62:08)
I used to go around—I used to talk about this. It's called… I call it—we call it mindset. I… I and Becky call it ‘mindset ROI’. And it's the process like, you know, cause a lot of times people think that it's the knowledge you… if you get a lot of knowledge that you're gonna—you're gonna… it's gonna solve all your problems and it doesn't. Right?
Then there are people that think if they put in all the work, it's gonna solve all their problems, you know, and neither one of them does it. It's… it's your thought process. It's the thought process of what problem are you solving the most. You know what? I'm sorry, what—what problem are you at?
So like—let's say for instance that you—you get a… you get like a series of negative reviews, you know, there's gonna be some sellers that will take the time to try to reach out to these buyers, you know, swindle them in some way to changing their review from like a one star to a five star, or you could recognize the root problem is maybe your products is shit. You know what I mean?
And maybe it's gonna cost you some more time, energy, and effort to solve that root problem. But now you're not—you're scaling a business that's dramatically more efficient. You know? And—and so for me, there's… when I'm—when I'm doing anything in life, I'm always trying to figure out what problem is it that I'm really trying to solve.
And that's actually helped me, even in my relationships with my partners, Becky cause we would, you know… relationships… When you're like in a relationship with somebody, you know, you're—you're gonna—you're gonna…there's gonna be times where words aren't nice to each other. You know—you know what I mean?
And for me, I… I would—we had made a decision that we would, and this is any really true of any of my… when I'm just thinking in terms of my personal relationship, that if we're not fighting for the same thing, it's not even worth fighting. Like if you—if I'm fighting this way and you're fighting that way, we will… there will never be a crossroads that we're gonna connect on and it's literally not even worth us fighting.
So now we hardly like—we hardly fight. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, you know, cause disagreements… But at least then when we're fighting towards the same thing, you know what I mean? It's like, we're gonna crossroads where I'm like, okay, this is okay. We're good. We're good now.
Nick (64:15)
It's good. If you know you're going in the same direction, right? You just might have a disagreement—on how to get there.
I'm telling… anybody listening to this, watching this, assess every single relationship that you have in your life.
Shawn (64:20)
Yeah. And that's…Picking the right people in your life is such an under… it's so—it's so… Nobody… it's—it's undervalued of how important it is to have really good people. And like, I'm—I'm telling you if for anybody listening to this, watching this, assess every single relationship that you have in your life. And if that… if today you would not be friends with that person, then you should not be friends with that person.
Simple as that, you know. Like just for me, I would unfriend them on Facebook and see how I felt about it a week later. Cause I can always re-add them, you know. And… chiseling out a really good network has been super beneficial to me—to my just growth, my happiness, my journey. I don't have… I don't… my brain is not bogged down with things that are entirely irrelevant to me.
And I try to—try to get rid of it, you know. Cause right now Russia's doing whatever with Ukraine… And so this morning, I'm all riled up about it. And I'm like, why, why, why? Why there are so many other things that are going on in this planet that like right now there's somebody that's like, you know, I'm gonna do the so… store, but there's somebody right now dying of like—this is their last day on the planet.
You know what I mean? What—how much… Does Russia and Ukraine have any value to somebody whose last day on the planet is today? And if it's not important to them, why is it important to me?
But well, you know what, that person—that last day on the planet, you know, I bet you, the loves that they have in their life, the memories that they have, you know, those—those are the things that, that really matter—if that matters to that person, their last day on this planet, that that's things that should matter to me today because today could be my last day on this planet.
And I—and I… It's a fight. But it's like—it's a thing that I constantly try to, to bring my, my—you know—myself back to… you know, I'm evolving. I've… accepted that I'm not the same man that I was yesterday. I'm not who I was five years ago. I'm not who I was 10 years ago. You know, and I look forward to like seeing who I—who I continue to become because I, you know, I think I'm a really good dude at the end of the day.
You misunderstood, a lot of times I'm crude, I'm a Dick, you know, and I'm all these bad things, you know, but I'm all these amazing things that—that at the end of the day, we all are, man. Like we all are, we all just play this character of—of how we want to be perceived in life. And… nobody really will ever know you, Nobody. And—and so I… I do my best to—to just try to leave it out.
You know what I mean? Like, just try to give, like, this is like… this is how I talk to you is how I talk to my mom. It’s how I talk to my kids. You know what I mean? I'm like, what are you doing? This dumb? You know, it's like, you know, like you swing for your kids. I'm like, yeah. When they're 18, they can say whatever they want, you know, but till then.
You know, but it's,—so there's, I think that's what I think that's what at the end of the day is, is what people are. That's my brand of charisma.
Nick (67:43)
Yeah. People appreciate that.
Shawn (67:45)
That like, you know, at least, even though I might not agree with Shawn, you know, cause I'm not right…some of the time
Nick: (67:53)
That's what, you know, honestly, like that's what people need. You just gotta get comfortable. Like, in my opinion, rejection is a qualification, right? Like, “Oh, you reject me, great.” Yep. I, you know, we are not gonna get along. Okay.
Shawn (68:06)
Yeah. That—that makes it—makes it easier. And there's people… I don't—I don't like, and they don't like me, but it's not… it's not a, not a negative thing. It's just like this is life, right? It's life. It's just how it is. Everyone's not gonna like me. I'm not gonna like you. So…
Nick: (68:19)
Shawn, it's been like…it's been so cool to watch your journey and, you know, just—just to be a part of it, you know. Fun fact, you referred me to MDS. So, you know, back when I got in. So yeah, man, it's just—it's just been great. You know? It…, I appreciate like being a part of your journey in this way, you know, like it's, it's been amazing to watch and it's so cool to see you move down to Puerto Rico.
Shawn (68:44)
You gotta come down, man.
Nick (68:46)
I'll be down.
if you don't make the decision, the decision will be made for you. In one way or another… you gotta make it.
Shawn (68:49)
Everybody… It's not,—it's not Puerto Rico. And I'll—I'll wrap this up real quick. It's not—it's not Puerto Rico per se. The—thing that really gets me is the community of individuals that I'm literally surrounded by 24 hours a day. And… and everybody needs that in their life. And everyone else, that's not a part of that, you don't need them. They have their own journey.
They have their own success and hopefully, they achieve whatever it is that they want. But if it's not in line with—with, you know, where I'm going…
Nick (69:20)
Yeah. It's one of those moments where it's like, it's—it's sad. It's kind of like fear, right? It's like, oh man, you're looking back on this life that you've lived, you know, and it's sad cause you care about these people and things, but you know, you have your life to live. Maybe you have a family and other people to consider and a goal and a vision.
And you know, you need to be around people that push you closer to that goal. Not hold you back from it. You know, at some point you just have to make that decision, man. It's tough. But that's… if you don't make the decision, the decision will be made for you. In one way or another, Hey you gotta make it. Yeah.
Shawn (69:54)
That is the truth.
Nick (69:56)
Shawn. You are the man. I wish we had more time just to hang out and kick it. We definitely gotta get up more calls. Do whatever, man…
Shawn (70:04)
Do like a monthly thing anyway. Just say if it's been too long, memories, those smoke sessions.
Nick: (70:10)
Yes, yes.
Shawn (70:11)
Let's do it again. Let's do it. Let's Do. Let's do it all.
Nick (70:14)
Sounds good, man. I always do it in the evening anyway. All right, man. Good seeing you.
Shawn (70:22)
Okay. Take care.
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