What does it take to become a champion? Ed Mylett, one of the premier business leaders, peak performance experts, and motivational speakers in the world talks about his passion for mentoring and coaching others on what it takes to become a champion in life. Ed shares he got started by mistake. He was drafted to play professional baseball when he got an injury that ended his baseball career. He ended up back at home living with his parents and unemployed for about a year before his dad got him a job at a campus group home for boys whose parents were either dead, incarcerated, or had molested them that they had to be removed from their families. From that time on, Ed’s life changed. He went from being an ego driven athlete to serving people and making a difference. Ed shares his story of how he went into business to make money to serve people and how he got into coaching others to become a champion in all areas of life.
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What It Takes To Become A Champion with Ed Mylett
With us is Ed Mylett, our very special guest and is one of the premier business leaders, peak performance experts and motivational speakers in the world. He has a passion for mentoring and coaching others on what it takes to become a champion in all areas of life. He shared the stage and has very close personal relationships with other business legends such as Tony Robbins, John Maxwell, Phil Knight and many others including our very own cohost, Kevin Harrington. He also built one of the most prolific financial services businesses the world has ever seen. Ed, thank you so much for joining us.
Great to be here. Kevin was on my podcast.
Let’s go back in time a little bit because you didn’t start out a thought leader, motivational speaker, champion, world prolific financial services and company builder. How did you get started?
I got started by mistake. The Reader’s Digest version is that I was a college baseball player. I got drafted to play professional baseball. I got an injury, which probably ended a career that was going to end anyway. It was going to end but I played with enough great players to know that I wasn’t a great player. I was a good player. That career ended. I ended up back at home living with my parents, with my college degree, living in the same bedroom I had grown up in, same teddy bear on the bed, posters on the wall and I was unemployed for about a year. My dad had recently gotten sober. He came home from one of those meetings you go to when you’re in sobriety that he still goes to 30 years later. He goes, “I got you a job. Get your ass up tomorrow morning and show up at McKinley in San Dimas.”
I didn’t know what McKinley was. I show up there. I don’t know what the job is. I walked in and said, “I’m here for the job.” They say, “What job?” I say, “I don’t know.” They said, “Who’s hiring you?” I said, “I don’t know.” They said, “That’s the door. Come back when you know what you’re talking about.” As I got to the door I said, “My dad says his name is Tim.” They go, “There’s a lot of Tim in here.” I said, “I know he’s an alcoholic.” They’re like, “Drunk Tim, he’s in cottage eight.” What McKinley was in short is a campus group home for boys. The boys, they’re all wards of the court. Their parents are either dead, incarcerated or had molested them and they were removed from their families. It led to my financial career. My life changed in an instant. I walked in cottage eight. My boys are seven to ten years old. They just had those eyes. All kids you grow up with any dysfunction have a little bit different eyes. I have them and I instantly changed my life because they wanted a dad. They wanted a brother. I was there. I lived with them. I was there on Christmas, birthdays, Halloween.
My life changed. I went from being this ego-driven athlete guy, who’s after recognition, wanted to be famous, wanted to be rich. I found out I was like, “I love helping people. I love serving people. I love making a difference.” It was like God put me on this journey that I had to learn that lesson first and it altered me, because I’d never helped people. I was always getting all the attention. It was while I worked there that the financial business I’m now in approached me that I started part-time. I stayed for a couple of years part-time because I didn’t want to leave my boys. Just financially, I knew I could make a bigger difference in the world with boys like these or young people if I could get some capital together and contribute. I went into business to try to make money to serve people and so it made a big difference. That’s how I got started long time ago.
Become A Champion: There’s nothing wrong by the way with the guys who do monetize this space.
We’re going to leapfrog forward to the point where now you’re on Grant’s show. Grant was on our show. You’re speaking at 10X. You’re jet setting around the world. How do you make the jump from, “I’m going to go to this financial services company part-time to make some money to help out these kids that I’m working with,” to top of the world?
What happened was I went out the next twenty years and just candidly became real wealthy. I built a seven-figure income when I was 30. I built an eight-figure income by the time I was 40. I had a nine-figure net worth by the time I was 43, 44. I built a following, I guess maybe credibility to some extent. Through that I’ve been speaking on stages for twenty years in front of millions of people. A really good friend of mine is Tony Robbins. That’s who I knew first was Tony and he encouraged me to get into the space. I’m a very introverted, very shy person. I like speaking on stage but I like leaving and being alone too. I had no Instagram account and no social media eleven months ago. I made my first posts and that’s grown into several million followers, the podcast is on the top ten. I’ve done all those shows, they’ve done mine. I’ve done no advertising, not $1 Facebook ad, not $1 on Instagram.
Actually, I take that back. I spent my first dollar on Facebook. That’s not true. Prior to that, I did not. I’ve met all these guys because I’ve spoken on stage with them. Some of those names you’ve mentioned, I’ve mentored them privately before this. I called in a bunch of favors and then I’ve met a bunch of them. The really good guys that have great content, I want to support them because I think there are a lot of not so great content on social media as well. It becomes a mutually beneficial, Law of Reciprocity relationship with some of us. I’ve learned a great deal from them too because I knew nothing about this. I didn’t know what a podcast was before. I didn’t even know they existed. Now, I’ve got one and it does okay.
That is an awesome, incredible journey. If it isn’t in a book, it should be filling one.
It is in a book. It’s coming out. I will plug this because it’s going to be free. I’m going to give it away. I’m not in this space to monetize. I’ve made my money. I want to pay it forward now. There’s nothing wrong by the way with the guys who do monetize this space. I think it’s wonderful. It’s just not my outcome. I do have a book coming out. It’s called Max Out Your Life and I’m going to get five chapters on specific areas, your body, your business, your finances, your identity, your self-confidence. That’s coming out and about. There’ll be a book out on that.
Congratulations. Do you have a publisher for that?
I don’t. I’ve had meetings with probably ten of them. I know you’re raising your hand too. The reason I don’t have one is that I’ve debated it. I want one because I know it’s a bestseller. I’ll have more than 10,000 sales the first three or four days. I want to give it away. It’s a little bit of the rub for me.
You can absolutely give it away and still have a publisher. That’s one of our secrets. We publish five to ten business books a month and one of the things we do is a big free giveaway promotion to start building the buzz, start getting the word out and to help more people because if more people will get it, if it’s free, you’ll change more lives.
Let’s do that. You should email me because the rest of the guys want me to make it $29 and I don’t want to do that to my audience right now.
You’ve got a couple of different audiences that you’ve got a sub-segment. There are the people who are in our world who would pay $50 to $100 for your book and there’s no problem taking that money. Then there’s the people who could benefit even more from it, like the kids you used to work with and probably get back to now and $30 would be groceries for them.
That’s exactly what I want to get. We may work well together because that’s who I want. I want everyone to have the books but I really want young kids to be able to get their hands on this stuff. It’s their learning stuff they’re not going to use in school the next day.
[Tweet “There’s always going to be areas of your life that are spiking and some are regressing.”]
They’re not getting taught it in school. I’ve been an adjunct professor of marketing because there’s no direct response marketing class at any college I could find. I was the first one to teach one. I’m thinking let’s take those books and put them in every boy’s and girl’s club, every youth center all over the country. Just give them away.
We need to talk.
You’ve got this empowering message that you want to get out to the universe that you’re obviously spreading on a massive level now. What gets you up in the morning? What gets you excited?
What used to get me excited was recognition, was competing, was winning. I’m a competitive dude, I want to win. I feel like it’s a calling. In fact, we had a little in disagreement because I’m working eighteen, nineteen hours a day again, whereas I’ve got a pretty good life going a year ago. A lot of lay on the beach, a lot of golf, a lot of boats, a lot of all that stuff. I bought a jet to fly around the world that now I use to go work. I get to tell you, it feels like a calling to me. I really want to help change people’s lives just a little bit. Give them the tools and keys to build their confidence, to learn how to communicate better, to navigate the haters in life and all these other things that really plagued people that plagued me.
There are a lot of people like me that when you meet somebody who’s outwardly very confident, like I think if you met me now, you’ll probably say, “That’s a pretty confident guy.” The reason I probably looked that way is because I had to come from such a scarcity space of it growing up, very insecure. I was smaller than other guys. I got teased a lot. I come from a dysfunctional family for a while with alcoholism in it. When you meet someone who’s super confident, it’s usually because they had to work so darn hard to overcome their lack of confidence. I want to help guys like me and ladies like me who don’t feel like they have everything they need to win. I want to get the message out that it is all within you now. We just need to pull it out of you. I have strategies in real tactical stuff. People say all the time, you’re a motivational speaker. I hear even guys like Tony, my buddy’s like, “I’m not a motivational speaker,” as if that’s a bad thing to motivate people.
Motivation is temporary. Inspiration is permanent.
You got it, and to be in spirit. Having said that, I want to change people’s states. I want to elevate them, but then you’ve got to create an environment and have the tools, tactics, and strategies to deliver or you’ll just end up backwards where you were before. That’s the stuff that I want to teach people that’s worked for me. I’m a product of making lots of mistakes over 25, 30 years of business and I could save you a bunch of time. I’ll just tell you what they are. I will help you not make them. That’s me.
Have you read the book, The Introvert’s Edge by Matthew Pollard?
No, but it sounds like I need to read that.
It’s an awesome book. We flew him in to speak at our mastermind group. It’s all about why the introverts make the best sales people and speakers.
Someone else told me about that book about a month ago because of how introverted I am and I didn’t catch the title of it, but I know exactly what you’re talking about.
I have a top ten list of top ten books of all time in business marketing and personal development world. I now made it a top 11 so I could include his.
Are you introverted or no? I’m just curious.
I am not, but there are a number of people in my mastermind group who are. We had him come in. At first, I was like, this is for everybody else. This is for those people, and then I’m listening to the guy speaking, I’m like, “Holy crap.” I bought the book for everybody in my group. I’m reading the book. I’m like, there’s a lot here that I resonate with without ever even labeling myself or thinking of it that way.
I’m getting it. It will be done.
You’re getting this message out to the world. What’s your biggest challenge?
With getting it out to the world or overall in life?
Just overall.
I think my biggest challenge at this stage of my life is navigating all of the elements of my life. Some of my athlete friends, but I always tell some of my buddies, you have a big life. Just a lot in your life between your friendships, your different businesses, your financial stuff. You’ve got to keep an eye on your family, your faith. I don’t believe in balance. I don’t think there’s really such a thing. I think a perfect balance is boredom. There’s always going to be areas of your life that are spiking and some are regressing. For me, it’s navigating and getting the most or maxing out these other areas of my life.
I have this addiction. I’ll just tell you really quick. My overall belief in life is that at the end of my life, I’m going to meet my Maker. He’s going to introduce me to the dude I was born to be, who I was destined to be, who I would have been. People say, the ultimate version of you. I think he shows you this dude. If you believe in the universe, God, whatever you’re believing, I think at the end of it you go, “That’s who I could have been. This is the journey I could have taken, the people I could have helped, the places I could have seen, the experiences I could have had, how I could have felt about myself.”
Become A Champion: When you meet someone who’s super confident, it’s usually because they had to work so darn hard to overcome their lack of confidence.
I’m obsessed and I’m in a crisis to get to that dude. My biggest challenge is not feeling like I’m getting there fast enough. It’s probably my challenge. I want to get to meet that man someday. I think the ultimate end of a life is you meet him and you’re like identical twins. A tragic end of your life is you are total strangers like, “Who is this person? He’s completely different than me because he took a different journey and a different path, make better decisions, showed more courage, became more confident, took more risks. I want to meet that dude and I want us to be identical twins,” and it’s not a saying for me. Anyone that knows me, I’ll tell you a story quick real fast.
My daughter, we’re having dinner, she jokingly said, “Daddy, are you in a midlife crisis?” I’m like, “What would you say that for?” She was like, “You grew up this beard. You’re taking all these selfies on social media. All of a sudden, you’re this Instagram guy.” I said, “Yes, I’m in a midlife crisis and before you were born I was in a young man crisis,” because when I was at a car wash, my son was little. He was six years old. This man looks at me and he goes, enjoy that six-year-old, because when he turned seven, the six years old is gone forever and when he turned seven or eight years old, it’s gone forever. Any of us that have children, we’re nodding our heads right now. I didn’t mean to be mean. I said, “When did that stop for you?” He just looked back at me like, “What do you mean?” I said, “When did that process start for you? At what age did you stop having the 24-year-old go away and the 25-year-old was brand new?” He stared at me, he goes, “I don’t know.” I said, “You have to figure that out and you can change that.” That process should never stop in our lives. The 46-year-old me is about to turn 47 next week. That 46 will be gone forever and there ought to be a better 47-year-old version. If you stack up all those years, you’ll meet that person at the end of your life. It is a crisis. I told her that. That was my answer. I’m in a midlife crisis and I was in a young man’s life crisis. I’ll be an old man in crisis too, I hope someday. You get to that next better version of me just like the six-year-old sheds himself and becomes a seven.
That’s such a good reframe. It really is.
We ought to ask ourselves, “When did that stop for us or when did it slow down? Is the 35-year-old me that much different than the 33-year-old me or we’re too similar? Am I really growing and changing and expanding or am I existing with once in a while I get a little better?” That’s not a great life.
If you don’t have a talk book, info product course on that already, you need to. I know your time is super busy. Thank you so much, Ed, for joining us. For all of our folks who are listening, resonating and say, “I want my 44-year-old to be better than my 43-year-old,” or whatever age they are, where do they go to either get on the list to get the book when it comes out, to go follow the podcast, the social media? Where is the hub of all things, Ed?
At EdMylett.com or my Instagram or YouTube, any of that stuff. Probably the best place is my website. Get on the email list there. We’ll get you the book when it comes out. Thank you.
We’ll have to have you back another time and we’ll got more time because we have a separate financial services edition of the podcast. I love to talk to our financial guys about what you did with WF. Thank you so much for joining us.
Links mentioned:
- Ed Mylett
- podcast – Kevin Harrington on Ed Mylett’s podcast
- Ed Mylett on 10X
- The Introvert’s Edge
- EdMylett.com
- Ed Mylett’s Instagram
- Ed Mylett’s YouTube
About Ed Mylett
Ed Mylett grew up in Diamond Bar, CA. as the only boy in the family with three younger sisters. His father was his first example of what it takes to succeed in life.
Ed decided from a very young age that since he would have to work in life, he might as well work for himself and call his own shots. He realized right away that he was not going to spend his life working for someone else and building their dreams.
His wife Kristianna, who had been his sweetheart since they were teenagers, shared that same vision of life. Her father was an engineer who worked hard so her mother could stay home with her six children.
