22: The Power Of Sharing Your Journey And The 2 Biggest Lessons That Forever Changed His Life | Interview With Josh Forti

What Is This Episode About…

In this episode, John and Chris welcome Josh Forti, a 25-year-old entrepreneur, and expert in the Facebook group industry. Josh has helped his clients grow and manage over 5 million followers on social media and generate over $3 Million in revenue. 

He has a 30,000+ member social media and digital marketing focused Facebook group, is a speaker and recognized thought leader featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Grant Cardone TV, and Chicago Area Radio.

He is very passionate about sharing the most modern and effective marketing strategies with entrepreneurs and companies aimed at making the world better. He’s a really fascinating individual and he comes on to talk about his journey as an entrepreneur, and share all the actionable lessons he has learned that we can apply on our own entrepreneurial journeys. Stay tuned for all that and more.

Key Points Discussed:

• Overcoming all odds and becoming an entrepreneur: Josh’s backstory (02:45)
• Starting out on the quest to finding out how to be successful in all areas of life (14:27)
• Livestreaming his way to success and following Gary Vaynerchuk’s advice (17:06)
• Sharing the vulnerability tied to a vision even when you don’t know how to get to the vision (23:10)
• Being uniquely yourself but modeling what’s working (30:13)
• How shifting his identity and practicing objective thinking changed Josh’s life (34:01)
• Creating your identity and brand starts with you (48:50)
• Getting success by becoming a person who is worthy of not letting go (55:08)

Learn More About The Content Discussed…

Join The Facebook Group –> http://bit.ly/yogaentrepreneur

When Was It Released…

This episode was released November 20, 2019

Episode Transcript…

Disclaimer: The Transcript Is Auto-Generated And May Contain Spelling And Grammar Errors

 

Josh:               00:00:00 Objective thinking probably changed my life more than anything else ever in my whole life ever, except for maybe my faith. It allows you to see clearly when nobody else can, or nobody else does. It allows you to look at things for what they are, not for what you want them to be, not for what they are positioned as, but it allows you to have the clarity to see facts. And, when you use objective thinking, you can look at any situation and you can remove yourself from it, even if you’re involved in it, and you can look at everything including your emotions as facts.

 

Intro:              00:00:32 What’s up everyone? You are listening to Yoga Entrepreneur Secrets. I am Chris Yax, and I’m John Yax. We are part of a small group of yoga entrepreneurs who are committed to making a living, doing what we love, without feeling guilty about making money, or ashamed of being successful, because we know the real value of yoga and how the world needs it now more than ever. This podcast is here to teach the strategies and tactics so we can thrive financially as yoga entrepreneurs. We are the Yax brothers and welcome to Yoga Entrepreneur Secrets.

 

Chris:              00:01:02 So, welcome to Yoga Entrepreneur Secrets. We are super excited for this episode, because we are interviewing a good friend of ours, Josh Forti. Now, go ahead John.

 

John:               00:01:12 So, we met Josh at a mastermind event called OfferLab and one of the coolest things is when he sat down in front of… really in front of anybody, but when he sit down in front of us, he broke us down as far as what we needed to do on social media like, like literally like, we just paid him a couple thousand dollars to do it. It was so much information, so good, and so life-changing. And, speaking to everybody at the event, he did the same thing with everybody too. He just loves to give and loves to change lives.

 

Chris:              00:01:39 Yeah. Loves to serve and like, and so we’ve now… we’ve… we went to OfferMind, and we hung out, we went on a run, we like chilled, we had great conversations for like all hours of the night. So… so we know more about him, and like, he has this really awesome, interesting, like the backstory to his upbringing. He’s accomplished so much already. He’s owned multiple businesses, he’s sold businesses, he has hacked and is an expert on social media, and now he’s like in this process of reinventing himself. So, we’re going to dive into all that, but first, we just want to say thank you so much for taking the time to be on our podcast.

 

Josh:               00:02:12 Yeah guys, I am so excited for this. And, it has been really quickly that we’d become friends. When was OfferLab, was that like May, I feel like?

 

John/Chris:         00:02:21 Yeah. 25th. Yeah. End of May.

 

Josh:               00:02:23 Yeah. End of May. And like, now here we are. You guys came on my podcast, I’m on your podcast. We’re like homies. It’s like… great.

 

Chris:              00:02:30 That’s right. So Josh, tell us where are like, the… are people who are in like, entrepreneurs, but in the yoga space.

 

Josh:               00:02:36 Yeah.

 

Chris:              00:02:36 So, you’re an entrepreneur through and through, and tell us like, how you came to be that, like what… what was your backstory? How did you get to where you are today?

 

Josh:               00:02:45 Oh man. That’s… I don’t know how people that are like, in their forties, fifties, sixties, that have been entrepreneurs their whole life answer that question, because I’m already like trying to figure out how to answer that question. But long story short, when I was 11 years old, or on my… over my 11th birthday, my family… my dad quit his job, sold our whole house, packed everything that we had in the back of an RV, and we drove from Los Angeles where we were living at the time, to a little itty-bitty farm town in the middle of nowhere in Indiana. And so, from there, grew up on the farm, always had like this entrepreneurial bug. Right? Like, trying to start businesses on the farm, and like, hustling and working, and long story short, after many failed attempts, and going in and out of like serving jobs, and sales jobs, and like things like that, I finally was like, “I’m going to go be an entrepreneur.”

 

Josh:               00:03:28 I didn’t know what that meant, but I was like, I’m going to do it. And so for me, I didn’t have any money and I always thought that to be an entrepreneur you had to like how tons of tons of money and or take out a loan or something and it was, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars in overhead. And then I found this thing called Instagram. And you know, at first I thought Instagram was the dumbest thing ever until I watched a little masterclass, little webinar, right? And they were like, you can make money on Instagram. And I was like, no way. This is awesome. And so I got started on Instagram and really just started posting valuable content, actually started in kind of like the motivational space. And then actually ironically moved into the fitness base, which I was not like a fitness person back then at all.

 

Josh:               00:04:05 Like I had the worst diet, I had the worst habits, I the worst, everything. And uh, but Hey got followers, right? So started growing pages there, started making some money there and that kind of just blew up and led one thing to the next, to the next. So fast forward, gosh, it’s been like three and a half years now. I started an Instagram agency, sold it to my business partner or got out of it, I should say, kind of a sale. Like it made a little bit like a couple of grand, but no, bring them really the sale part of the ways and then learned more marketing side of things and I’m really, really summarizing everything. But through a transition of a bunch of things, I made a good deal of money and had a fair amount of success early. Very blessed. Nothing like earth-shattering or shaking, but earth-shattering or shaving for my life, you know what I mean?

 

Josh:               00:04:45 Like coming from a farm town, a background of making $25,000 a year, you know what I mean? Like all of a sudden you make like a quarter-million and you’re like, Oh my God, gosh. You know what I mean? Like it’s insane. Right. Um, and so then had a quarter-life crisis, if you want to call it that, like kind of hit the top for me. And then like just [inaudible] tanked because I didn’t know who I was and I was super stressed out. I was working 18 hours a day and that’s when I really started focusing on success in all areas. And that’s what I really started focusing on. My mental health, my physical health, um, my eating habits, my mindset habits, building sustainable businesses, um, and things like that. So that was like a year and a half ago or just over a year, a half when I kind of hit rock bottom in the last 18, 19 months for me has been this process of learning about mental health, learning about mindset, learning about physical health, learning about like everything involved in that, along with business and building a business.

 

Josh:               00:05:37 I recently just sold my agency and we’re getting ready to go travel and just super, super cool. But what kind of my backstory is social media. My background is social media, social media marketing, 5 million followers, grown and managed on social media. About 3 million in revenue done. Not like, not only personally, but like, you know, for the clients and staff that we’ve served. So the free plan.

 

Chris:              00:05:54 That’s awesome. Yeah, that’s huge. And so when you got it initially and you found social media and Instagram specifically, was it purely like, man, I just want to make money. That was like the overarching, like this is what I’m doing. I want to make money, I want to make money as an entrepreneur. I don’t want to work for anyone else. Or is there anything else that was there that was like, man, this is why I want to get into this?

 

Josh:               00:06:11 Yeah, no, it was pretty much just I want to make money honestly. But more importantly though, it was, I wanted to be free. And I think in my early days, the vision was I want to make a ton of money. Right. But the immediate, like the ultimate driving factor, you know, when you look at human psychology, which I mean huge on [inaudible] no, there’s two driving factors in every decision that every human makes. We either want to move away from pain or towards pleasure. And that moving away from pain is a much stronger driving force. And that was what it was for me. The pain of not having money, the pain of not having freedom, the pain of I had to report to a boss and I am not a good employee. Right? Like I clash, I have a strong personality. And so when I first got started, it was Holy cow, I can make money and I could quit my job and I don’t have to have $100,000 to do it. You know what I mean? And that was like this like earth-shaking, groundbreaking moment for me when I realized that I didn’t have to take on debt or go into raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to go start a business.

 

Josh:               00:07:07 Yeah, yeah. So you were saying like your first message business blew up and you were like rock and rolling and then you kind of nosedive like life kind of news dot nosedive for you. Like, tell us a little about what that, what the struggle was or what, looking back at it now, what was happening at that moment that like kind of forced you into that nosedive and kinda hit you hit rock bottom and have to rebuild again.

 

Josh:               00:07:29 Yeah. So it was interesting because it wasn’t, so my first, well I don’t want you to say my first company, there was a lot of failed attempts, right? But my first like, excuse me, success was a, excuse me, an Instagram story or I’m an Instagram growth. Hey, with a, an agency. And so we would, you know, people would come in and hire us to grow followers and we would like easy get 10,000 followers a month on an account, right? Like, and this was back in the days when you could do like 80% of stuff wrong and still grow. Now you have to be like 80% of stuff, right. And still hope you grow. And so there’s a little bit different back then, but we would go and do this. And so my business partner and I had two different visions for what the company was going to look like, which is why we split and no animosity towards him whatsoever.

 

Josh:               00:08:10 He’s gone on to do very well for himself. And you know, I have nothing bad to say about him at all, but he wanted to go more of the agency route and I wanted to go more of the education route. Like some people like want to have courses and do teaching because they think it’s easy. Right? And I’m like, if you think it’s easy, you have no idea what you’re doing, right? Like it looks easy because of, Oh, the profit margins are super, super high, right? And there’s instant deliverables and you have so much flexibility in what you can sell, but like shoots, it create a sustainable education. Business is hard. Like it is not easy, but I’m a teacher at my core, at my, my root. Like I love teaching people and I’ve been blessed through a road [inaudible] plus the amount of trial and error and trying and you know, doing it over and over and over and over and over again.

 

Josh:               00:08:55 I’ve been blessed to be able to learn how to teach really well and I can connect with people and I can break false beliefs just naturally. Um, oftentimes I don’t even know what I’m doing. Like it comes up consciously because I’ve trained my mind so much to do that and I’m like, I’m just so much more intense and passionate about it then other people are. And like that’s an element I don’t, I don’t think you can teach. I like some people have that gift. And so that’s why I say like entrepreneurship I to a certain extent, I think building a business is training like trainable. Like you can teach someone how to do it and like coaching is important. But there is an aspect of that teaching though. Like some people have that gene and some people don’t, more so than others. Right. And I think that that’s one of my guests.

 

Josh:               00:09:31 And so for me, I wanted to go that route. And so when I, when I pieced out from him, like I still had this element of like teaching, but I didn’t, I didn’t know what I was doing. Right. And so naturally when you’re a charismatic person that’s putting out content, like I’ve been told many, many, many times that I’m just an interesting person to follow. Right? And so I got people’s attention. I don’t know how I did it at the time, but I just did it. And so I had these big huge clients coming to me like Dave Woodward and Todd Dickerson and Steve Larson and like, like big names that are like, yeah, Hey, we want to hire you. Like, Hey, can you grow an Instagram account? Because it was like this new field. So what I’m going to do, I tell them no, right? I’m like, heck yeah.

 

Josh:               00:10:10 Like give me no money. Right, right. Let’s go. So that’s what I did and it was, it was super awesome and, and I served them really well and they were happy with everything. And actually I think every single one of them, I was actually the one that terminated the contract and Steve Larson was the single hardest personally then to do that for right? Like, Oh, that one was like a bullet. And I like almost didn’t send the message and almost incented almost incentive because like I love like I really liked working with people like Steve and Todd Dickerson and Dame and like these are like not only clients were, they were friends and so, but I got to this point where I was working 18 hours a day. [inaudible] I didn’t have a team, I didn’t have systems, I was doing everything and I was way too egotistical and way too prideful and way too arrogant too.

 

Josh:               00:10:51 Ask for help. Right? Like I wasn’t about to go get coaching. I had made it this far. And what are you going to tell it? A 24-year-old blonde shot kid that made a quarter-million bucks. Oh yeah, go get coaching. I mean like did you make a quarter-million dollars 25 or 24 years old? And it was just the worst. It was horrible. And I’m like, I laugh out about it now, but like I was super prideful, right? Like I was super egotistical. And so that would, what evidence inevitably led to my downfall was the fact that I wasn’t willing to ask for help. I was trying to do it all myself and I was not healthy at all. I feel like I grew up on a farm. You don’t really have a choice, you just work, right? And like you just worked so freaking hard. And so you have that in you.

 

Josh:               00:11:30 And then I’ve always been the go-getter. And once again, I think this is driven by my ego a little bit. Like I like to be the best. I am ridiculously competitive. So when everybody else would work 12 hour days, I’d worked 16 hour days, right when everybody else was clocking out at 8:00 AM working the night shift, I was clocking out at nine 30 right? Like I would just always go and I would push the envelope. And so for me, like I was hustling, hustling, hustling, and I finally got to this point where I’m like, I can’t do this anymore. You know what I mean? Like it’s, it’s not sustainable. And it’s always so funny because I’ll never forget like November, November of 2017 this is right before funnel hacking live, like three months before funnel hiking live of 2018 I remember sitting there thinking, someone’s going to break.

 

Josh:               00:12:09 You know what I mean? I don’t know. But it’s coming, right? Like, and I knew that and it was three months later, you know, like I pushed it out for three or four more months and like you get through the holidays and it’s nice because like I was away from family, so like I could still stay focused and hustle while all my clients were like kind of taking it easy. And so then all of a sudden like new year’s hit and then it was like the new year and then they’re all hustling again and you’re like, like, I can’t take it anymore. And it broke. And that’s when ultimately, so I broke, I canceled everything. And thankfully I’m the one that canceled it all. So I saved a lot of relationships. I did have to refund money. I did lose a tremendous amount of money. And I told ’em actually you might, you know Colton woods, right?

 

Josh:               00:12:51 Um, Colton’s awesome. And I told him for the listeners that don’t know, Colton kind of runs in our circle. He’s the brains behind Steve Larsen from like a logistical thing. And I told him, I remember at offer lab, actually when I met you guys, I told them this story, I was like, I blew like tens of thousands of dollars. Like trying to figure out my life then right? Like flying from Vegas to Miami and [inaudible] way too expensive hotels, like just trying to find something right then like just trying to figure the whole thing out. And when I hit rock bottom I was like, I thought I had a good mindset, you know what I mean? And I remember like laying there on the floor of my apartment actually behind this wall, like and like just having the whole weight of the whole world on my shoulders and like going like, now what?

 

Josh:               00:13:38 And when I canceled everything, I laid in bed for like six days and like just try to figure it all out. And it was this weird, like this weird sense of I don’t know what to do. And it was the first time that I had felt that since I started my whole journey, like I felt like that a lot beforehand, but not since I had started making money. Like I was used to getting up four or $520 paycheck every couple of weeks, right? Like as or every week, like I was used to be really like broke, right? Like, and then I had made money and now that was it’s not, I mean, I had money in a bank, but like when you go from getting $50,000 a month to like two grand a month, like that’s UB radically new idea. And I was just like broken inside. And I was like, what do I like, where do I go?

 

Josh:               00:14:27 Like what I do? And I remember lying there thinking, if mindset’s the answer, then I don’t have a good mindset. Hmm. And I’ve got to figure out what that looks like because I thought I did right. Like I was convinced that I was killing it and I was convinced that I was on my way to the top and all of a sudden now I wasn’t. And so that led me on this journey to, I mean, I ultimately started the podcast from there. I mean it didn’t for almost no eight months or nine months later. But the podcast, when you do an intro, it’s like w my big question was what does it mean to be successful? [inaudible] all areas of life, health. Well [inaudible] relationships, you know, spiritually like, and that was the big question. The big question that I have now, I’m going to figure it out.

 

John:               00:15:09 Yeah. So, so it’s almost like hitting rock bottom, Josh forced you to look at all the areas that it wasn’t just about financial success, it was, I need to now look at why am I here and what’s not right about all the other aspects of my life.

 

Josh:               00:15:24 Yeah.

 

John:               00:15:24 And that was also the birthplace of the thing. Different theory, correct.

 

Josh:               00:15:27 Yeah. That’s where it came out of a, huh.

 

John:               00:15:29 We’re like, okay, now I’m going to make this difference in my life. And I’m going to start teaching people how to do the same. Is that correct?

 

Josh:               00:15:36 Yeah. Well, and more so with the podcast, it wasn’t even to teach others how to do the same at that point. Like I knew it would eventually blossom into that, but it was just like, I am an attention hog. I get it. You know what I mean? Like I want eyeballs on me. Like having an audience changed my life. Like I’m not gonna lie about it, right? Like, it’s awesome. You know what I mean? But like I had the heart to help people and I was like, I bet you I’m not the only one here and maybe no one else’s has it this bad right now. I’m sure someone does. Right? But like maybe my audience doesn’t, but like they’re asking me what I’m changing and they watched me go through this. No, they don’t know all the details, but they like, they’re watching me of all.

 

Josh:               00:16:12 And so I’m like, I’m just gonna start a podcast and I’m just going to tell my story. I’m just going to go figure it out. And I haven’t made a dime for my podcast yet. You know what I mean? And like just teaching people what I was doing, like sharing the story like, and I just tell him, I’m like, I hope this betters your life. Like I’m not going to create content specifically for these people yet. Like I’m just sharing what I’m going through and I hope you guys can resonate with it. And it took me, I mean it was six months before I started bringing people on. I did three episodes a week for six months solo, which is a lot harder to do than it sounds.

 

Chris:              00:16:46 Yeah, no, you’re listening to this and you don’t do a podcast. It’s hard to or like to put your mind in the place that what’s required to be able to fulfill on that three days a week. Now we’re doing right now one day a week and we’re like, all right, it’s manageable. We can do it. Triple that. And we’re like, we’re crashing and burning. There’s no doubt.

 

Josh:               00:17:06 Right. And so, and like the dynamic of, and I’m not trying to like downplay you guys at all, remember, but like the dynamic is different when there’s two people, right? Like when there’s one person, like I like having other people there. It’s way easier, right? Like I’m the live stream dude. I live-streamed my way to success more or less. Like what put me on the map was I live stream for like, I don’t know, I was like 200 and some days in a row, right? Like every day I didn’t miss a day. Right. And like that really set me apart because people would like, couldn’t get away from me. I was just in their newsfeed all the time.

 

Josh:               00:17:37 And so for me, like doing that was great, but I was able to have conversations because people could talk to me in the comments and so that was what I was used to. And then all of a sudden I’m sitting in front of a mic and I’m staring at a wall and I’m talking and there’s no feedback coming back. And I’m like, well this is radically too, you know? And so like going through that, it took me six months to really find my voice and I always went back to, you know, Gary Vaynerchuk, what Gary Vaynerchuk said was like, you just keep putting out content and you just keep doing it and you keep doing it and keep doing it and keep doing it. Al will tell you, there were so many days when I’m like, no one’s listening. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, we’re getting downloads, but I’m like, where’s the feedback?

 

Josh:               00:18:19 Right? I’m promoting this on my Instagram. I’m talking about it, I’m doing it. And like I’ve got followers, right? Like I had 20,000 followers when I’ve started, you know, 25,000 when I started this. And I’m like, why are you guys interested? You know what I mean? Like I would get great feedback in person and every now and then like people be like, dude, I love the podcast when I would ask them, but I was like, why aren’t people resharing my content? Right? Like why aren’t people telling me his stories? And then like, you know, six months into it, that’s when it started happening. And it was like one person would reshare then too and seven and this and now all of a sudden it’s like, Whoa, they’re all starting to come out of the woodworks. Right. And like, Oh my gosh, like my podcasts actually doing something.

 

Josh:               00:18:53 And it took six months of, it was a hundred episodes, a hundred episodes every I ever, and like that really, really changed and it was just me sharing my journey and sharing my story and I was building a business at the time, right? Like this was not my source of income. So like that on top of the business, which actually I think gave me content, right? Like God, I can just share the struggles of that. But it was like I’m going through these mindset shifts. I’m going through my identity. My brother died during the time of it too. Like that’s a whole like that one mess you up and like so like sharing the story, like trying to be in the Headspace to lead. Yeah. It gave me like my podcast became this outlet of just, I was able to just share my thoughts unfiltered and if people wanted to judge me for it, great.

 

Josh:               00:19:34 Like just don’t listen. You know what I mean? Like I’m just trying to figure out who I was and because like we have a, a pretty solid group like ever since I started, cause we look at like the metrics and the data and like downloads are going to be all over the place, right? Like some days you’ll get like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars and then the other day I’ll be like, Oh you got like 170 downloads today. Right. You know, like it’ll be like all over the place. But the one thing that I look at is like unique listeners. Right. And ever since I just started, once we kind of leveled off after the first month, like there’s been this core group of like three to 400 people. And like we’ll go in one week we’ll have like, you know, a couple thousand unique listeners and the next week it’ll be like this. But it kind of stays around that there’s always at least this 400 core group of listeners.

 

Josh:               00:20:12 When I first got started with it, that straight it has stayed with me like right from the beginning, like right away, like there’s three to 400 and I was like, those three to 400 people get to watch me evolve. And you know what? And like Russell Brunson talks about like your core thousand fans, like a thousand true fans, a thousand true fans. And I’m like, I know you guys are part of it. I thank you for that. And I would tell them that like on the podcast, I’m like, I’m figuring this out so someday we’re going to be big and someday it’s going to be awesome. But right now I’m just trying to figure me out. And that vulnerability allowed me to heal myself and allowed me to go and like I used to high key make fun of yoga. Like I used to like just that was for lunatics.

 

Josh:               00:20:48 Right? I’m like, you do yoga. Okay. Right. And then my girlfriend, she’s like, she would do it. I would do like yoga practices and I don’t claim to be like a yoga professional by any means, like even remotely, but like the breathing exercise that I would do and the meditation that I would do in the stretch. And I was like this, this heals me in ways that like, you know, medicine would, and this, this brings this sense of calmness that relieves stress and that like I can take so much more stress now. Yeah. Because I know how to just channel it out of me. Right? Like it’s like it takes me, I processes and I push it out. Right. And when you figure out how to do that, like that changed my life. And so this podcast was like my mental yoga, right. And the physical side of things as I was going through and just like sharing my story and sharing my story. So it wasn’t even so much to teach at the beginning. It was just to share and now it’s grown into something. That’s super cool. Yeah.

 

John:               00:21:44 That’s awesome.

 

Chris:              00:21:44 I just want, yeah, I want to stop for a second and just highlight for the listeners, like some of the gold. Yeah. That was just like expressed, which is like, one, the struggle is real. You know, like I don’t care. We all have a blind spot into other people’s lives that we don’t see that any successful person, whatever success means to you and to them, like it’s riddled with failures is grit with like waking up and not wanting to get out of bed because you don’t know what you gotta do that day to make it work and make yourself like go for the next mile and have no idea to, to continue to put out the message even when you don’t know exactly what the message is but, but to document the journey allows people to follow you in a way that is authentic and real.

 

Chris:              00:22:29 Because of the, I think for what’s really, really important is that most people want to present themselves as perfect. And I’ve got it figured out and until I’ve got to figure it out, I’m not going to put my message out because I want to be Bulletproof. And the real truth of what you said is the vulnerability to be willing to say, listen, I don’t know. I don’t even know. I don’t even know if this is for you yet. This is for me right now. And but to still continue to do it is the key to success because in the process of putting your message out of being willing to say, listen, I don’t know, that’s what people are like thirsty for folio, authentic, genuine, like human emotion, not some sugar-coated Polish DS that people are putting out there.

 

Josh:               00:23:10 Yeah. And I would also say like when you don’t know, cause like I see a lot of people that will, they’ll take that in, they’ll be like, well I just don’t know. And then they’ll go to tell it to their audience. I’ll just be like this emotional mess. Right. And it’s like, okay, that’s right. That’s fine. Like you can be emotional and you can share. But I would also add to that like share the vision. Right. And then when I would get on there and I would, I’d be honest with people and my Instagram stories it, it’d be like, cause um, I don’t know what I’m doing with my life, but like, you know what I mean? Like I know I don’t know what’s gonna make the podcast grow. Yeah. I don’t know where I’m really, but I do know one thing, this podcast is like, the vision that I’m going is we’re building something big and we’re going to go solve life’s big problems. I don’t know what that looks like yet, but this is where we’re going.

 

Josh:               00:23:55 And when this vulnerability tied with a vision tied with this thing of just like, I dunno where, how we’re going to get there, but I know what I’m after, right? Like, and everyone’s like, well, I don’t know what I want out of life. I don’t know what I want out of life either. But you know what, I, you know what? I know what’s important to me and when it’s important to me is finding truth. And what’s important to me is knowing truth and what’s important to me is making a positive impact in the world and asking big questions in life. And so I just share that. I was like, I don’t know how I’m gonna get there. I don’t know if it’s going to be a podcast forever. I don’t know if it’s gonna be this, but people you’ll buy into that. And it was so cool.

 

Josh:               00:24:27 Like even just yesterday I made a post in my Facebook group, I have a Facebook group of 30,000 members and it used to be like just this raging Facebook group. Like it was so engaged. Like I would post in there and I’d get hundreds of comments on like every post, whatever. And just through my whole life crisis of everything and whatnot and starting these businesses like that kind of died. And so the engagement isn’t great in there anymore. Right. And so I made a post, an edited, I think it was yesterday, and I was like, should I kill the group or should I bring it back to life? And the amount of comments that people that were just like, well, whatever you do, I don’t care. Just like tell me where I can follow you. Or, Hey, Josh, like I’m just a fan of you.

 

Josh:               00:24:59 Like I’m not, I don’t care about the hook that you use to get me into this group. I’m like, I’m following you. And I’m like, Whoa, that’s so cool. Right? Like I don’t know why you’re following me. Like I wouldn’t follow me. I don’t think I’m that interesting. But all these people, you know, they, they connect to you emotionally when you have this bigger vision. And for us as entrepreneurs especially, I think that people in the yoga space to like really get it. Like [inaudible] we’re called to a bigger purpose. Like we understand there’s that, there are, that spirituality plays like this huge part in our lives, especially in entrepreneurship, right? Like, what’s going to set you apart from the other businesses out there? The other yoga studio, the other teacher, the other, whatever it is, is like you just being vulnerable and being yourself.

 

Josh:               00:25:37 Right? And just being like, I don’t know, but here’s where we’re going. Right? Like, and I’m not gonna stop and I’m not going to, you know this and hope you can come with me and I, that’s how I, I mean, I just have, have a sales program, right? Like I teach sales and like in that group, I went in there and I was like, guys, they’re not perfect yet, but I want you to know that like, even though I don’t have it all figured out, I will not stop working until I do and I’m going to commit to serving you no matter what. And I hope that I can earn your trust, right? Like, you’ve given me money and I’m not gonna let you down. Right? And like people respect that, especially in today’s world because in today’s world, like, it’s super easy, simple to get someone to give you money, right?

 

Josh:               00:26:14 Like, you can connect with anything. So like they have 72,000 options. So when they buy from you, give them a reason to stick around, you know what I mean? Like, give them a B different. And the way you do that is your single greatest differentiation factor. Like is you, and like we all have that superpower. And it’s like, Oh, well if everybody has the superpower, then nobody has it. I’m like, yeah, this is the one thing where that does not actually apply. Every single person is different and they have, nobody has the same story but, and people are like, well, no one’s going to relate to me. Yes they are. You know why? Because we relate in what we relate in emotion and there’s only so many emotions in the that every human being can feel. So like while we all have our own unique story, we all can relate on this human emotion spectrum because we all know what pain feels like.

 

Josh:               00:27:00 We all know what sadness feels like. We all know happiness and excitement and desperation and inspiration. Like we all know what those things feel like. And so if you can use your unique story and people just buy into that, they’re going to have this emotional connection to you that they’re never gonna want to look away. And if you can just bring that intensity and bring that being like, here’s who I am and if you don’t like it, there’s somebody out there that’s going to, and you do that with just love and passion and just people will stick around for it. And it’s just so funny to me and I don’t, I don’t want to get political here. I mean, unless you guys want it, I’m happy to talk politics if you want, but like if you don’t want to go there, this is not a political statement, but it’s always funny to me because I’m a pretty vocal person.

 

Josh:               00:27:38 I am pretty open in my support of particular candidates, right? And there have been people that just rail on me. I mean just to the straw. And you know what? When I put out my offers and when I offer my strategy sessions, guess who are the people on there signing up? And like I just recently did a push and I was like, there are three of you on here. Absolutely. Just hate my guts on the internet. But as soon as I’m here to help you, you’re right there. Yeah. People buy into you. Right? And if you’re truly yourself and you’re truly authentic, deep down inside, as much as people will never admit it, they are able to look past differences. [inaudible] follow you. They might hate you, right? But they will come around if you are [inaudible] if you flip flop and you change, they’re not gonna like no one’s going to care. But if you stay the same to say this is where I’m going, this is where I’m headed and yup, here’s how I’m getting there. Now there if they buy into your vision yet, like I’ve flip flopped all over the place. I’ve flip flop from Instagram to Facebook groups to just social media, to podcasting, to sales, to a bottles. But you know, it’s all been the same. My big time vision of where I’m going and that’s what people buy into. So sorry about that little rant there, but like people need to understand

 

John:               00:28:50 it’s gold. Joshua’s gold. If you’re listening right now, you like go back and listen to that again. Cause that was like, that was brilliant. That was brilliant.

 

Chris:              00:28:57 So let me ask this though, ’cause it’s true, like to be your authentic self and to present that and hold true to that is like what is the biggest magnet that you can hold up to attract people to eventually follow you, buy from you, whatever it is that your end goal is to help them. Right? But at the same time there’s this big push to model others and to have a framework that you’ve learned from others and then like, so where do you balance the two of like it’s in the entrepreneurial world of like, okay, I want to like I want success leaves a trail. So I want to model the people that are successful and do what they’re doing now. But I’m also like have to be an individual and express myself in my own unique way. How do you balance that? Yeah. So

 

Josh:               00:29:35 do you guys want football at all? A little bit here and there. A little bit here and there. So like, I don’t know if this is the best analogy, but it’s the one first came to my head, right? There is a set of rules that every team in the NFL must be followed by, right? A playbook, right? You’ve got to field, you’ve got rules, you’ve got guidelines, there’s a framework upon which you run your team, you’ve got 13 P or have you got 11 people on the field right off as defense or whatever. But the Miami Dolphins and the New England Patriots, our two very, very, very, very, very different teams. Right? One is like the most dominant team of all time ever. And the other one, well Cleveland Brown’s Miami don’t like someone just sucks. Right? And they’re very different. Their office looks different, their dynamic looks different.

 

Josh:               00:30:14 Tom Brady is a different human being than any other court, you know what I mean? Like they’re just different. They all follow the same framework, right? It’s all the same stuff. Like [inaudible] they all have the same materials to work with. But Steve Larsen I think said it best when he’s on, when he was on the offer mind stage. Uh, two years ago, not this past year, but the one he said success is 80% frameworks and 20% you okay. So there is a piece of you [inaudible] you get to be free to express your own creative genius and then there’s like 80% of it that you just follow the frameworks. A skyscraper. All every single skyscraper ever built has an amazing foundation, right? It has to, it all has to have pillars that hold it up. It’s all got to have yeah. Windows and meet all the codes and requirements, whatever.

 

Josh:               00:30:56 Yet skyscrapers can look radically, radically different inside and out. Okay. All the fundamental foundational principles of how to build a skyscraper don’t change, right? So when you’re being yourself, like there are laws of influence. I wrote a guide called, I don’t want to pitch here or whatever, but like a, it’s a sales framework, right? And it’s called the ultimate sales framework and it talks about the eight principles of influence, right? It’s free. I’m really not pitching you. Okay. But it talks about that and when you understand human psychology, human psychology was the same 3000 years ago. A thousand years ago. It today and will be in 20 years or a thousand years for as long as humans are around. Like human psychology and decision-maker is not going to change. Same principles with business. The principles upon business don’t change the way we deliver those principles, the way that we build the business, the way we use those may, but the core foundation doesn’t.

 

Josh:               00:31:46 So what you do is you model the framework, you look at it and you go, okay, I know that I need to provide value. Like that’s the thing that we all have to do. How you go about doing that, that’s up to you, right? So I know that I need to go and have a core offer to build my business. How you do that might look very different. Like my core offer may be a $5,000 offer. Why somebody else’s core offer might be a $97 offer and they’re selling to masses and I’m selling to high-profile business owners, right? So like the way that you go about your messaging or whatever, like it has to follow psychology and it has to follow the frameworks of business. But you get to deliver that in a way that’s uniquely yourself. And some people buy into it. Like, remember there’s 7 billion people on the earth, right?

 

Josh:               00:32:27 You are not unique. All right? Like you are unique because you’re you, right? But so is everybody else, right? So like my point is is like your audience is out there and so when you go and just become uniquely yourself, but model what’s working, then you get to basically build your skyscraper and make it look however you want it to look, but still make sure that it’s not going to fall over when the wind comes. Right? And when the storm comes. And that’s what ultimately allows you to be different than everybody else. I’m really weird. But if you look at my business model and my success, you can draw parallels to every other person that’s had success. It’s just delivered differently.

 

Chris:              00:33:04 Yeah, that was great answer. So let’s pivot a little bit. You kind of talked about it. You’ve been into positive psychology. You’ve been into like you’re getting quantum physics, you know, number science and like, and you’ve been deep-diving into all of that. Right? So and this is a big question, like all the information that you’ve gathered, what’s like one or two of the lessons within one of those that has been like that? Like I know, I know it’s stuff that is still it because it is a John like one of the things like we’re cut from the same cloth because like we love those topics and then dive deep into it. It’s really all about yoga but that has impacted your life, your business like generally had the biggest, like the biggest impact on me.

 

Josh:               00:33:42 I wrote a book or a guide called mind shift playbook, like just under 70 pages talking about the five biggest shifts in my life that ultimately led me to where I’m at today. And I would say the two biggest ones there, I’ll start with the one that is less profound sounding but is more of an act and that is objective thinking. Objective thinking probably changed my life more than anything else ever in my whole life. Ever except for maybe my, like my faith objective thinking allows you to see clearly when nobody else can or nobody else does. Objective thinking allows you to look at things for what they are, not for what you want them to be, not for what they are positioned as. But it allows you to have clarity to see facts. And when you use objective thinking, you can look at any situation and you can remove yourself from it even if you’re involved in it. And you can look at everything including your emotions as facts. Okay? So when I look at a situation, I can be like, Aw man, that situation is so depressing. No, it’s not. That’s how you feel about the situation. So when I use objective thinking, instead of looking at that situation and going, Oh, that situation sucks.

 

Josh:               00:34:51 I look at the situation for what it is. And one of the facts of that situation is that that situation makes me feel sad. [inaudible] so that emotion now becomes a fact, right? That’s how I feel about it. That is simply a fact about the situation. Now I can take a step back. I look at a three-D version or three-step back version of the entire situation in life, no matter how small or how big I can look at the world, I can look at everything through a lens objectively and take myself out of it. Think of it like looking down from outer space, right? Like you’ve ever had an out of body experience. That’s what it’s like, right? You look down and it’s like, Oh, here’s what it is. You look down from a plane and you see all the cars and you know everything moving around.

 

Josh:               00:35:25 You kind of have a different perspective of how the, that the city works, right? That’s what it is that you’re doing. That single greatest thing freed my mind more than anything else because it allowed me to go, all marketing is crap. All politics suck. Everything that’s out there is literally just a big ploy to make you do whatever it is that they want you to do. Now, are those things bad? Well, look at it objectively. We can say that some people think that those things are bad and some people think that those things are good. But once again, those are simple facts about this scenario. So we look at that and you can now take every situation and flip it on its head and you can go, Oh man, I just lost $100,000 and I’m $20,000 in debt now and my business stocks or whatever.

 

Josh:               00:36:07 I stepped back and I look at objectively and I go, okay, that is one fact. In the grand scheme of life, how does that fit into all these different pieces? And now I can have a much more clear picture of what I need to do moving forward. And when you look at things objectively, it’s literally, and it’s weird because like it’s actually like this, it’s literally like stepping out of the matrix, right? Right. It’s literally like breaking free and removing yourself from that. So I, everybody else is caught up in their emotions and how they feel and all that. You get to be like, piece, I’ll be right back. Take yourself out of the situation and be like, yeah, those emotions aren’t great and I might want to feel that way, but I shouldn’t look back to reality. Here we go. I’m gonna change my emotion now so that I can get to the result that I want to. I think that is the single greatest skill that I think I’ve learned.

 

Chris:              00:36:50 That’s awesome. Let me, let me pause. Yeah, yeah. Cause there was a second one there. But yeah, just describe is like yoga one Oh one present moment. Awareness. Being able to detach from the emotional content of a situation to be able to look at it objectively because each moment is called like a decision. It’s called for. And if you can be objective, just like you’re saying, you make better decisions, which means literally the course of your life. So now that it’s great, but how do you do that? And like practically in, in the moment of emotion when you feel like you’re called to be like his dog or angry or you know, like, like, because isn’t there an application to that? The concept. Awesome. But how do you apply that in the emotional moments of your life?

 

Josh:               00:37:29 You started small. So like I didn’t start like I used to be a PR, I got mad a lot. Like, you know, I grew up and you know, certain like my dad, I love my dad to death, but he used to struggle with anger. Life totally radically transformed human now and he’s one of the nicest, kindest, you know, things, whatever. But like I just struggle with anger too. Like I get super pissed off and upset about stupid things, right? And I’d yell or scream. I’m like, ah, but I didn’t start using objective thinking right then and there in that moment because I didn’t know how. So what I did is I started small and I created a ripple effect. So I asked myself simple questions of like, Hm, why am I doing things? Like why do I eat the way I eat? Let me, let me look at that.

 

Josh:               00:38:06 Right? Why do I go to [inaudible] bad when I go to bed? Right? Why did I get, and sometimes I had to reflect and look back at things. I’d get super upset and be like, why did I get upset at there? And so then when I’d go into a situation and I’d be like, I wonder if I could predict what I would actually do if something came up. And I’d be like, if so-and-so were to say this, I would react this way, Y right. And I would start to look at like kind of these trigger points, right. And, um, we’re gonna talk about, actually the next one kind of ties into this as well, but like, I started doing that at this very small level. And when I started realize that, yes, I was going to have to go into the next one here, but like when I started to realize that like, we’re kind of preprogrammed to do what we are going to do, right?

 

Josh:               00:38:42 Like our identity, our subconscious mind, and like we’re, we’re 80% 90% of what we do is kind of preprogrammed, right? Like, you don’t really have a decision about the next one. So if you can rechange change that programming, and that starts by little tweaks, you’re not going to go and beat an elephant. You’re going to take the first bite though, right? Like that’s how you go and do it. It’s not a one big Swallet. So like you go and you start on a daily basis and it takes time. It’s not like you just snap into it, right? Like this was months and months and months into making that I had to do this. You just go and you start to identify these little things of like, man, I got a rail on John here, man. Like, man, not zoom. Zoom was not working when we recorded this. His computers sucked, man.

 

Josh:               00:39:22 We didn’t have audio then. He wasn’t recording that as [inaudible]. So like I used to get pissed off and stuff like that. I’d be like, Oh my gosh, wasted my time. Bye bye. Why am I getting pissed off at that? Right? Like what would need to change for me? Not, why is that so upsetting? And then I just look at it objectively and go, Oh no, well how can I use this as a teaching moment? How can I use that as a learning moment? And like when you take back and objective thinking and you look at the big picture as a whole, you start to realize that all these little moments make up big moments. So if I can start to change the little moments, then I’m okay. When I get to the big moment, my subconscious mind is going to be programmed to not react in the way that it used to react.

 

Josh:               00:39:53 Now it’s going to be more programmed to react in such a way that is going to use this as a learning lesson rather than get pissed off and you know, be super upset about everything. So like starting small and it sucks because we all want to change immediately. I get it right like I want $1 million tomorrow and I want to be the perfect human tomorrow and I’m going to want to be the grand yoga master right tomorrow or whatever you call it, right? Like you know what I mean? Like I want to be that person now, but you can’t get there. It’s a little incremental thing just like everything else in life.

 

John:               00:40:21 And so the programming the mind is the second piece. So excellent.

 

Josh:               00:40:25 I identity identity identity is the second piece. So like, Hey, identity slash the subconscious mind. So by the time you’re 30 years old, the subconscious mind makes up, depending upon who you talk to, it’s 70 to 90% of everything that you do is subconscious, right? So the way that you think, the way that you act, what you do, how you talk, everything is subconscious where you’re going to live the choices you’re gonna make, everything. You just do it because you’re programmed that way. And I apologize you just program that way. So you look at that and you’re like, okay, well how do I change my program? Like what does that really look like? Right? Like why is my subconscious mind doing that? And it’s doing that because it has been programmed in the way that it’s been programmed. Like what’s causing me to go do something because I know that I will do things that are really, really hard because they are me. Even if I hate them. For example, like I might, and this is a perfect example, okay, it might be negative 20 degrees outside and it be so freezing ridiculous to call it.

 

Josh:               00:41:22 And I’m all nice and warm, cuddled up, whatever it is. And I want ice cream, right? Like for whatever reason I want ice cream and that’s just part of who I am. I’m an ice cream addict. I love ice cream or whatever. No matter how cold it is outside, I’m going to go get that ice cream, right? Because that’s part of who I am. I am just an ice cream fanatic and every Thursday night I’ve got to have my dairy queen. So I’m gonna bottle up and get warm or never when I would not normally do that, most normal sane people wouldn’t. But now why can’t I convince my mind to go do that same thing when it comes to staying focused on my business, right? Or all these things. And I’m just like, so I started to like study this. I started looking at it.

 

Josh:               00:41:55 I’m like, what makes somebody, or like, you know, for example, a drug addict, right? They will go to insane links to go get drugs, but they won’t. So stop doing drugs, right? They can’t stay. So why, and then I started looking at that and when I realized that identity, which the definition of identity is your view about yourself, when your identity is wrapped up in something, your body, your mind will go to insane links to get that thing done because you believe it is part of who you are. And when you believe it is something is part of who you are, there’s virtually nothing that can stop you because your mind now says no, that is who you are. You think that some snowstorm is going to stop you. You think that $100,000 in debt is going to stop you. You think any of those things are just heck no, it’s not right.

 

Josh:               00:42:43 Because that is literally your deep-rooted belief about yourself. And so that’s why like, you know, religion is still powerful, right? Because like for me, like I am a Christian, right? And so like my whole life, you know, I watched my parents or whatever, so like to, to violate something like that or to do that, like that is a huge, massive shift that needs to happen. So I started looking at that and I was like, well, what if I could just program my identity? That’d be pretty sweet. Right? And so when I started realizing how identity works and how identity shifts and how habits will go and change your identity, that fundamentally changed my life. And so when you can understand how identity works and how to change your identity, you can literally become any human being you, you want to be like you can accomplish anything that you want to, you simply have to take the identity of the version of the person that already has what it is that you want.

 

John:               00:43:34 Hmm. Yeah, that’s gold. We just, Chris and I just finished reading a book called essentialism in that list, essentially. No, it was, I’m sorry, it was a ton of cabinets.

 

Josh:               00:43:41 Ooh, I’ve heard that. I’m, I’m, I just ordered it.

 

John:               00:43:43 It’s so good. It’s a game-changer. He said, you will not rise to your goals, you will fall to your systems. And another, you can replace systems with standards or identity. Yup. We don’t rise for our goals. We fall to our identity. It’s exactly what you said. An athlete will always be an athlete, right. They’ll always see themselves as an athlete. So they’ll get up and do the run. They’ll get up and do the workout. They’ll go and do it. And we see people taking on the identity of yogis. The meaning I’m going to practice every day. I’m going to sit and meditate every day. I’m going to eat, right. I’m going to do these things that allow me to thrive. [inaudible] my body and what I’m doing.

 

Chris:              00:44:16 And the very reason people don’t do things is because it doesn’t align with their identity. Right.

 

Josh:               00:44:20 And I, this is exactly the right.

 

Chris:              00:44:22 And so adjusting the identity first, becoming in your mind, the runner is what will then compel you when you don’t want to get up run. Because I’m a, and that’s it. That’s interesting mental jujitsu that has to happen.

 

Josh:               00:44:35 Yeah. And I think one of the, probably the, yeah, craziest or the most blatant example of that is if you’ve ever been around a mother who has just given birth like their first child. Right. And I got to experience this firsthand. One of my best friends, like she like recently became a mother and like it was cool way cool to watch because the mama bear mode of like just caring and loving. Like she would do it anything for that child because that is her child and her thing went from, I’m an entrepreneur too.

 

Josh:               00:45:05 I am a mother. Right? Like, and so like when you have that and you see that, you’re like, Whoa, all right, don’t mess with mama bear. Right? Like, because that is her identity. There is nothing in the entire world ever that would stop her from projecting her child. Like until death pulls her away, she would go do anything for that. And like when you take it identity that seriously in business, if you can create that identity for people to buy into, like you look at Russell Brunson [inaudible] the die-hard. I mean, he calls him the die-hard funnel hackers, right? And you look at what he’s done in business and like you know, Steve Larson, probably the most identity field person with click funnels, right? Like if you weren’t a rip open my heart, it would bleed red and blue with gears inside. Like that is an idea density, right?

 

Josh:               00:45:50 Nike the same thing like arguably probably the biggest identity seller in the world. Right? Like it or at least in America, right is Nike and like the brand that they created, like listen, I don’t wear Adidas, compare it to Nike. Nike is my thing. If Nike puts it out and is automatically assumed to be good in my eyes. Right? Same thing with iPhone. I like that whole thing. I know you couldn’t pay me enough money just which to an Android-like you crazy. No way. Right. And that’s it. So that like when you realize that I will spend disproportionately too much money on these, the stupid thing, right. I will spend $1,200 or whatever it was to pay for the stupid thing. Why? Because even though the Android is cheaper and they say it has better features and they say it was whatever, doesn’t matter.

 

Josh:               00:46:39 I always laugh when Android users are like, iPhone 10 is caught, finally has the features or whatever is finally catching up to Samsung, whatever, two years ago or whatever. And I was like, and maybe someday Samsung will catch up to Apple when it comes to identity and actually building a brand, right? Like you guys, you know what I mean? Like you think features are stronger than identity. You’re out of your mind, right? Like who cares? Because we’re not just buying features. That’s not what makes the product. That’s not what makes the person, the person. People don’t care. We live in a consumerist society and so when I looked at all those things using objective thinking and I’m like, people do stupid stuff based on their identity. So I needed to figure out how to go out and change it identity and how to become the person that I needed to become, which ultimately happens through habit changes and changing your habits.

 

Josh:               00:47:23 But that was [inaudible] those two things. Objective thinking and identity shifts are probably the two single greatest that I’ve learned from a practical, normal human standpoint. I mean quantum physics is kinda huge deal, but like that’s the average [inaudible] it’d be like go learn quantum physics. Okay. Like that’s not practical. Right? So rev reality, right, right, right. Just go study the whole creation and design and the entire universe would you right. Like although it’s actually a good thing to do. Heck yeah, it is like it’s awesome. But like everybody can use the objective thinking like that doesn’t cost you anything. It’s very like it’s very practical. You can start practicing objective thinking today, right? You don’t need to take a course on it or anything like that. Like you can just do it. And same thing with identity shifts. Like you can go and learn about identity, you can start to change your identity.

 

Intro:              00:48:15 Like studying quantum physics is like a life long Trek to understand a fraction of a percent of it. You know what I mean?

 

Chris:              00:48:22 Yeah, totally. And as far as like we’re talking entrepreneurs now, like that identity shift piece, that one little bit of information is everything in success or failure of business. Yeah. You’re not connecting people on that level of identity. I don’t care what you’re selling, it doesn’t matter because you’re not offering what they really want, which is I want to belong to a group that looks and feels like me and that offers me the things that aligned with my values and my beliefs here.

 

Josh:               00:48:50 Yeah. And if you don’t like, and I think the interesting thing to is like Korean in the identity and your brand. Like yes, you do have to be intentional about putting it out there and whatnot, but like it just first and foremost starts with yourself, right? Like you ultimately set the tone for the identity of your brand, especially in like a personal brand type deal. Because like people watch what you do. Like people ask me all the time, they’re like, Josh, how’d you just keep showing up every single day? And I’m just like, how do you not? Yeah. Right. Like, you know what I mean? Like, what do you, what are you talking about this, this is my life, this is what I do. So like people would ask like, Josh, how do you live stream every day? I’m like, because I literally can’t fathom not right. Like if I miss a day it would be like missing a day of eating. Do you think about eating? No, you just do it. I live stream every day, right? Like I don’t have any more. But like you know what I mean? And so like that was the identity that I have.

 

Josh:               00:49:35 I was the live stream guy and so Ty Lopez, I was watching an interview with him with Tom bill billion and he was talking about how a large majority of his target market is 18 to 25-year-olds. Right. And a lot of people thought that in business like the, they’re the people that don’t have any money or like all this stuff and whatnot. And he goes because 18 to 25-year-olds are still figuring out their identity and who they are right after the 25 26 years old. Like you’ve kind of have a set idea of who you think you are as a human right. And the only thing that changes your identity, unless you’re intentional about changing it, the only way that say a 30 35 40-year-olds going to change because they’re in a routine, they’re in a rhythm, they have, they have accepted who they believe that they are, whether they like it or not, they’ve accepted it and now that has been their identity.

 

Josh:               00:50:19 The only thing that changes that is trauma. The only thing that’s going to change that is a massive trout traumatic event in their life. And you know, recently back in March, I went through a massive, massive traumatic event in my life or the death of my brother and like aye have watched how much that has changed my life and I am 25 right? So like my own identity shifts or like, Oh I can’t imagine someone going through that identity shift yet. 40 right when they’ve been in, in the, in their zone for 15 or 20 years. I’m just accepting things. And so to get someone to change their life to change who they are is very, very difficult. The older that you get, it’s possible. Right? It’s going to take time. But that’s why like I’m always trying to do dramatic things. I just sold my company and I’m putting every penny that I have more or less like into, okay.

 

Josh:               00:51:04 Camera equipment and editing crews and everything. We’re about to go take this huge world trip. It’s crazy. Like I said, people would realize the behind the scenes of what’s going in and the risks that we’re taking and I’m going to, I’m going to be making posts about it [inaudible] shortly about like some of the investments in the, in the risks that we’re taking with everything. People would be like, Josh, you’re an idiot. Why would you not just take the cash invested into a nice little something and just get your payout and like be safe for the rest of your life. And I’m like because the second that I become comfortable is the second that I be unwilling to change. Right. And if I’m not willing to change, if I’m not willing to shift and adapt, my identity needs to remain that I’m able to adapt.

 

Josh:               00:51:39 And if I let my identity go into this rhythm, uh, you know what? I wake up, I do my work, I come home, I watch Netflix. Nothing wrong with that, but that’s going to prevent growth. And that’s not who I am. I want to continue to grow. My identity is in growth. So, therefore, I forced myself through my identity to keep taking risks after risk after risk and hope that goes right. And you know what? If I hit rock bottom, you know what my identity says? [inaudible] says, we wake up the next morning and we do it all over again. You know what I mean? Like this is what you do. And so when you, when you take that now, your life is changed forever. And I was just laughing. People were like, what if I fail? I’m like, if you’re worried about it, if you fail you in the wrong business anyway like you’re gonna man, like it was wake up and do it again.

 

Josh:               00:52:21 Like if you’re worried about that, like yeah, it sucks. Like, yeah, if you’ve got kids like you got to think about them and like making sure that they’re protected and whatnot, but like, yeah, I ain’t going to make $1 million tomorrow and if you do, you’re going to lose it all the next day. You know why? Because what comes fast goes fast and you’ve got to build that up. So just like put your identity into his back, like be okay with you, you’ve gotta be okay with yourself. If you’re worried about what other people think of you and this whole entrepreneurship game, you’re going to either just die and not make it or be depressed the entire time. Because I can look at my buddy and I just did a post on, on Instagram the other day where I was like, winners focus on winning and losers focus on winners, right?

 

Josh:               00:53:02 Like if I am constantly looking to see what everybody else is thinking about me, it would be like, it’s so easy. Like, I have friends right now that are my age that are making $200,000 a month. I’m making $200,000 a month, all right, I got, I’m not doing that right. So I’m like, I could look at him all day long and be like, well I’ve got to catch him or whatever and as soon as I catch him, then there’s going to be somebody my age making 400,000 a month and as soon as like has to happen. You know what I mean? And so like you just stay in your lane, take your own identity, be okay with you and you should be able to look at yourself in the mirror and if you got 10 million bucks in the bank or if you have $0 million in the bank, basically have the same version of like opinion of yourself, right?

 

Josh:               00:53:37 More or less. And be like, I’m cool with me and my identity is not going to change based on the amount of money that I have in the bank or the amount of success that I have. And once you reach that point, then it’s all becomes a game and then it all just becomes, how do I build really cool stuff? And when you take this identity of an entrepreneur, of a creator, of a builder, you know my whole thing is I’m a free thinker. I am D free thinker and ever all my people were free thinkers, right? When you take this identity of a free thinker, you go and go like money comes and goes and like you’ve got the internet now. You ain’t got no worries man. Like you know what I’m saying? Like I don’t know why anybody’s worried about anything anymore. I’m like, you lose it all.

 

Josh:               00:54:09 Who cares? As you got the internet, like you can be in jail and make $1 million as long as you have it. You know what I mean? Like literally though, you know like you don’t have to be anywhere. You can sit in a hut somewhere and make millions. So like once you understand that and you go, all right, cool what I want to go build, then you can just go and do that. But it all comes back from identity, but you’re not able to see that identity. You don’t understand what identity that you need to take. You don’t understand like where you want to head until you learn how to use objective thinking because objective thinking brings clarity and you’ve gotta have clarity. If you want to know where you’re going,

 

Chris:              00:54:40 man, it’s a recipe for success. Everything just said we could just end it right there.

 

John:               00:54:45 Chuck people that kind of bring that point home to the listeners, know people that are stuck in nine to fives that are striving for security, they can get fired tomorrow, I think don’t have, is a false sense of security. So this idea that I’m gonna take, I’m going to stay with the 95 because it’s going to give me that sense of security and I don’t have to fail and I don’t have to actually try to build something myself. You don’t have security there either.

 

Josh:               00:55:08 And like even, yeah, I think that’s so important. And the one thing that I would say to nine to fivers is like, don’t get me wrong. I have done my fair share of hating on people that go to college and people that work jobs. All right. Like I get it. Like I’ve been rude to you guys. I don’t really apologize cause it serves a point. But if you are a nine to fiver, that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. But if you want to become a nine to five-person that’s successful and you want to have security become a person that is worthy of not being let go. Right. Cause like there’s always the bottom feeders and there’s always the top leaders, even if there are two employees in your company, you know what I mean? Like I have, I have two employees that actually work for me.

 

Josh:               00:55:43 Right. And you know, like if we were to have a month where I couldn’t pay there, like, like we didn’t make enough month in my business for me to pay their stuff, you better believe that it’s going to come out of my pocket. I’m going to make, you know, pay for them until we get back on track. Why? Because like they’ve proven themselves, right? They’re there, they become indispensable. And so like when you take the identity of a producer, right? Like, yes, you could have a nine to five and still be majorly successful, but like go out there and become the person worthy of that. Perfect example of this is Dave Woodward, right? Like, look at, I mean that dude, he works for click funnels, right? He’s not the owner, but that dude has become so indispensable from ClickFunnels. ClickFunnels wouldn’t run without David. You know what I mean?

 

Josh:               00:56:23 Like, and so like when you have that, all of a sudden now you become someone of value. So is Dave and entrepreneur. I mean, I don’t technically by definition, probably not right? But it’s Dave and entrepreneur at heart and understands that identity like way better than a lot of people. Yeah. Because Dave has like made himself this person of value. So if you want security in life, become a person of value. Because when you become a person of value, when you become someone that like when people are around you, their life is better. People will always find ways to, to be around you and to, to include you into their, to their lives. So like there’s great depression, 2.0 and everybody’s out of work and you’re like, you know, you lose your job or whatever. If you bet a top producer, if you’ve been someone of value, you have proven yourself over and over and over again, guess what, you’re going to be the first person to be picked back up.

 

Josh:               00:57:12 Yeah. People are going to come begging for you when times get tough. And that’s why like, like, yeah, I do, I want to see the economy crash. No, but it’s Ghana, right? Like it’s common I guess on point. And so like, do I ever plan on working a job again? Like come on, but like, no, right. Like, no. But at the same time when the economy goes through, you know, crap or let’s say there’s a, I personally think that there’s a chance that it’s gonna be worse than the great depression. Will it? Maybe not. Maybe, but like when that happens, guess who’s going to come running the, the people that have the power. The people that you know are, are in control still. Cause there’s always going to be those people that they’re looking for the smartest, most brilliant people. They don’t care if you were an entrepreneur or employee beforehand. All they care about is can you help me right now? And when you’re that person of value, you’re going to be picked up just like that. And that’s the person that needed to become, whether you’re in a nine to five or not.

 

Chris:              00:58:05 Yeah, man, that’s awesome man. I had like a thousand more questions, but honestly, at that point, I think everything, if you’re listening to this right now and like you just literally everything, identities, everything, make yourself valuable, make yourself, I don’t care what job you’re in, make yourself indispensable is so, so good. So we’re going to finish this and we’re going to ask you, what is it? Five questions on this? The speed round. Speed round. Speed down. Ready for speed round. Alright, you go first. Brought me an aside. We’ll go simple first. You should have to finish the sentence. Oh yeah. Okay. My favorite food is

 

Josh:               00:58:41 at stake. I’m sorry.

 

Chris:              00:58:42 I know [inaudible] entrepreneur podcast, remember it? Could it be like no bullshit?

 

Josh:               00:58:54 No. Do you want to know what the, the real, the is a medium-rare filet like I’m so sorry. There is not a single food that like I like a lot of food like that. I just, I like, I love pizza and I love like, I like healthy foods too. You know what I mean? Like I love but like there is nothing that is more delicious than just a steak and [inaudible] to, I grew up on the farm where it was a hundred percent organic grass-fed, no grain-free range. Like I eat healthy steak, right? Like I, it’s not like an antibiotic filled that I don’t go to the Walmart and buy my steaks. Right. Like so like it is a much more natural version of it. Sorry. All you people that don’t eat meat but I love it.

 

Chris:              00:59:45 All right. Number two, the book everyone must read is.

 

Josh:               00:59:49 the Bible, but if it’s a nonreligious book, I would say Psycho-Cybernetics. Yeah. I think that’s singlehandedly the greatest book I’ve ever read. Non-religious.

 

John:               00:59:57 All right. Number three. Number three. I’m happiest when.

 

Josh:               01:00:02 when I’m myself, I dunno. I think I’m, I’m a pretty happy person. I think I feel most alive if I can change that question just a little bit. I feel most alive when I’m teaching on stage.

 

Chris:              01:00:10 Money is.

 

Josh:               01:00:11 a tool. It is the bloodline of what makes society works because it speeds up the process of exchange of value. Good answer.

 

John:               01:00:22 My number one passion in life is.

 

Josh:               01:00:24 making the world a better place and showing people that they can break free and know truth and literally live their best life that they possibly can ask. My why in life and why in life is to inspire people to break free no truth and live a fulfilled life by going out and doing what they love, making the world a better place.

 

Chris:              01:00:43 Freedom means.

 

Josh:               01:00:45 the ability to, how do I want to say this? Freedom is discipline. Freedom is the ability to choose to do something and stick to it and equally choose not to do something and go away from it.

 

John:               01:00:55 Good answer. Good answer. God or source God. It is.

 

Josh:               01:01:00 love.

 

Chris:              01:01:02 All right. Last one. When people remember me, they’ll say,

 

Josh:               01:01:06 gosh, I don’t know man. There’s a lot of things that give you remember by here’s what I would like them to, to think.

 

Chris:              01:01:12 Yeah, what’s your legacy? What do you want?

 

Josh:               01:01:14 Yeah. I would like to be known as the person that thought differently about everything that I did that sought truth above all else and lived in the truth that I knew to live someone that was completely sold out. Four God in whatever aspect, that truth, root God revealed himself through truth and someone that truly served others in a way that was so passionate and genuine because I actually cared not because I had an ulterior motive to do so, and I would also venture to say that that will change slightly when I have a family and I think that I would probably put loved his family as well in there, but I’m not quite at that stage in my life yet.

 

Chris:              01:02:03 Someone wants to continue to follow you and find you. Where do they do that?

 

John:               01:02:06 So we’ve got an entrepreneur, we got yoga studio owners, yoga entrepreneurs, other entrepreneurs that aren’t doing yoga and they need your help. How would they go about doing that?

 

Josh:               01:02:16 Instagram is the best place to stay in touch with me on a daily. I post stories there every single day. I can’t remember last time I missed one, like probably years. Yeah, adjunct, @JoshForti and we’re going to be starting a YouTube channel. Once I go on this world trip, we’re leaving guys. We’re leaving in like 21 days. Oh, I know. 23 days. I’m like, that is crazy. I’m like freaking out. But I would say YouTube, but I would say just Instagram. I have all the updates there, so Instagram @JoshForti and then I ThinkDifferentTheory.com is the podcast. You can check it out, listen on your favorite platform, all that jazz.

 

Chris:              01:02:49 Yeah, it’s awesome. If you haven’t gone go rate review and subscribe. Yeah, go search for that one and listen to it. That’s awesome. But then rate, review and subscribe and just keep downloading because it’s just like it will literally, it’ll just change how you think about the world. It is so valuable. I follow him on like Facebook on Instagram every single day and it makes my world a better place. Yeah.

 

Josh:               01:03:12 W we try to, we try to bring on really crazy cool people to like, yes it’s entrepreneurial related and yes it’s but more importantly it’s about like changing perspective and thinking differently. Like today for example, actually you guys might like this one. We brought on a lady who she was told like she’s going to be sick her whole entire life and that basically she’s got to die essentially by like top doctors in the whole world and she healed her whole like she healed herself through holistic medicine and like it’s like normal now again. And so like people like that we bring on like dude, perfect big YouTube people like their manager. We had him on there. I’m Mr B’s manager. We bring out like Ryan Stewman, Steve Larson’s been on there like big, big time freethinkers people that are like really going about things. And thinking differently than the norms. So it’s, there’s some out there podcast for sure. Oh, and [inaudible]. I don’t know if I can say this yet actually yet, but I’m going to say it anyway. We’re working on and it’s not confirmed yet, so don’t hold me to it. We’re in talks right now. Would you have Jordan Belfort on there? Yeah. Well for wall street baby, let’s go. That’s going to be Epic if you got them on there. Yeah, we’re gonna try.

 

Chris:              01:04:13 Nice. Oh man, thank you so much for being on. It’s been a pleasure and man, I can’t wait to see what Think Different Theory ends up as at the end, what you’re like, what you’re doing, your world trip safe travels and I will definitely stay in touch.

 

Josh:               01:04:25 Thank you so much. This was so awesome and I appreciate you guys. I love what you’re doing. I can’t wait to come down to the studio sometime when we get over and I get back and thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it. It was an honor

 

Chris:              01:04:34 for sure. Josh, thanks so much. Right everybody listening. Thanks. And remember, do the work, honor the struggle and the world a better place. So you guys faces.

 

Outro:              01:04:44 Yes, thanks so much for listening to Yoga Entrepreneur Secrets. Do you have a question that you’d like us to answer raw and uncut on the podcast? If you want your questions answered, all you need to do is head over to Apple Podcasts, and do three simple things. One; rate and review telling us what you think of the podcast. Two; in that review, ask anything you want related to yoga, and three; if you want to shout out, leave your Instagram handle or name and that’s it. Then listen in to hear your question answered Live, raw and uncut. Join us next time on Yoga Entrepreneur Secrets Podcast. Thanks.