Writing the Book on Getting Entrepreneurs Out of Their Comfort Zone featuring Brad Blazar

Rob Kosberg:     

Hey, welcome everybody. Rob Kosberg here with another episode of the Publish Promote Profit Podcast. I’m very excited to bring you a great guest today, Brad Blazar, the best-selling author of several books with a new one coming out. His very first book, On the Wings of Eagles, was the number one book for young entrepreneurs; a very, very successful book that young entrepreneurs have really latched onto. He is the host of the Beast Nation Podcast, one of the highest rated shows helping people deal with COVID, which is a very interesting topic. We can maybe get into that a little bit. He is also the host of the Capital Con event in Houston, Texas, and of course the founder of The Art of Beliefology. There is a lot there. Brad, thanks for being with us today on the show.

Brad Blazar:     

No, it’s great to be here, Rob. It’s a pleasure.

Rob Kosberg:      

Yes, it’s very exciting. I am looking forward to talking with you about all the different messages that you’re getting out. I think there is one common theme and thread for your messages. Then of course, I want to talk a little bit about how your messages, in the form of books, have made an impact on you, but maybe we could start with the most recent thing, which is your live event in Houston. You’re just coming off the tail end of that. Not many people have done live events these days. We’re just getting started with them again, which kind of dovetails into the COVID aspect of your podcast. Tell me, what was the purpose of the event? What were you looking to get out of the event, and what kind of impact did it make on people?

Brad Blazar:     

Well, last year we did a number of virtual events. Right after COVID hit, I was on the phone talking to a lot of coaches and speakers and we came up with this idea to have a virtual event. The very first one we did was called Conquer the Crisis. We had some big-time speakers; Tim Story, Bradley from Dropping Bombs, and four or five people that have all spoken on Grant Cardone’s 10X stage. This was like 10X in a virtual environment. We promoted that largely through social media and we had over 850 people that joined us for that first event, and we did them about every month. In total, we did four over the course of the last year, just to build relationships with people and get out there and stay in front of people as best as we could, because obviously, we can’t speak live and get on stages. Then, in late November, I launched a new division in our coaching business called Capital School which largely teaches people how to attract, how to close, and how to basically raise high-net-worth investor capital. This is because capital is really one of the things that most entrepreneurs in most businesses lack or need access to.

              

In my career, I’ve raised over $2 billion through my efforts and the efforts of teams I’ve led, so we started this coaching division. It was very “nichey” in the beginning. A lot of the people that were coming through the coaching were real estate entrepreneurs and business owners, and very quickly, in about three months, we had close to 100 students around the world. We now have students in six countries, and I came up with the idea of doing a live event, where the students that had enrolled, as well as anybody else, could come to one live location. It was a live, in-person, attended event where you could hear from some of the best of the best; people that are doing multi-family syndications, people that are raising money, people like Kevin Harrington, and discussions on how to pitch your deal effectively, and what to say when you’re in front of an investor. It was a huge success.

              

When you commit to an event of that scale and size, day one, before you ever sell a ticket, it’s going to be a major cost. I had no idea how I was going to sell tickets, but I faced my fears. I said, “If I want to speak on the biggest stages on the planet, I’ve got to do this to position myself in the minds of some of these big people and pull this off as a huge success.” I always say fear can be a great motivator of humans; you can either forget everything and run or you can face everything and rise. So, we got my team and we pulled off a great, world-class event, and everybody that showed up said, “Man, I can’t believe this is your first event. You have 100 people here; you probably have $300,000 in audio and visual in the back.” The team came all the way from Colorado and did a great job for us. Largely, it was to do two things – it was to bring an audience of people together in a live setting, and also it was to prove, to both myself and some other people, that I am now ready to get on some of the larger stages and speak about raising capital, and what we’re doing in Capital School with our coaching.

Rob Kosberg:      

Nice, I appreciate the honesty of that. Bestseller Publishing has done books for over 1,000 authors, and I always ask authors the same first question, “What’s your goal with your book? What are you trying to accomplish?” One-hundred times out of one-hundred, they’ll say something like, “I really want to help people. I really want to make an impact. I really want to change lives.” I believe that, and I think they believe that too, but truth be told, there’s always an internal motivation having to do with yourself, to do these things. You’re taking on the risk of capital, and everything else, to put on the event, and that gives you the ability to take the next step and to get on these bigger stages, so I appreciate the honesty in that. That’s very, very good.

You have the second-highest rated podcast helping people to deal with, and cope with, this pandemic and COVID. I would imagine that a lot of the psychology that you must be helping people with also goes into putting on your own live event and doing some of the things that you’ve done just over this past year. Tell me about the podcast. How do you actually help people? How have you helped people with their COVID pandemic thinking?

Brad Blazar:     

The whole focus of the podcast, and the reason we came up with the name, Beast Nation, is, I run a six-month coaching program called Build Your Beast, and it largely has to do with mindset. I have found by being around, and interviewing some of the most successful people in the world; people like Dana Cavalea, the performance coach to the New York Yankees who gets to mess around with people like A-Rod and Andy Pettitte, and all the big players, and I just asked him, “What’s the difference between somebody like a Michael Jordan, or a Tiger Woods, or a Kobe Bryant; somebody at the highest level, and everybody else?” Everybody else is talented, they’re on the team, they’re professionals, but there are those that are, as we know, head and shoulders above everybody else. He said, “It largely comes down to one thing. They’ve made the decision to go pro in everything they do. They show up, they give it their all, they’re constantly practicing, they’re constantly improving.”

              

As I’ve studied human psychology, and as I’ve talked to Dr. Kevin Elko, a sports psychologist who coaches college and NFL football teams at the highest level; he took the eagles to the Superbowl, Alabama to a national championship, works closely with Saban, and personally has thirty-one championship rings, he said, “The big difference is we, as human beings, are largely programmed to retreat to a place of comfort; you have a roof over your head, you have a car to get around, you go to the grocery store to get food, if you want water, you turn on the faucet. Once your comforts are met, you largely get to a point where you’re not pushing, and you’re not exerting daily for more abundance or more money.” A coach that I’ve come to really admire and create a wonderful relationship with, Coach Michael Burt, talks about this thing called prey drive. He said, “Prey drive, if you study it, is something that’s present in dogs and your large predator cats; your lions and your tigers.” He said, “I believe that prey drive is something in humans as well, it’s just that it’s dormant. It needs to be activated by an external force, someone like a coach that can activate that for you and help you flip the switch.” Once you do that, and you’re able to see a bigger potential in your life, and then take forward motion to attain that, that’s where positive change and significant transformation really begins and develops.

              

What we have done in our coaching program is trademarked this concept called, “The Art of Beliefology.” We have a trademark on that. The philosophy behind that, which is what I talk about in the book, On the Wings of Eagles, is, if you can understand that your reality is largely defined by a belief system – there is self-doubt and limiting beliefs that hold us back from doing big things in life – and If you understand that you can challenge those beliefs, that’s where change takes place. We have a saying, “If you change your beliefs, you can change your life.” That’s really the premise behind this coaching program called Build a Beast. It’s challenging the limiting beliefs and the fears that are really holding you back from doing bigger things in your life. I think that’s one of the reasons that the book, On the Wings of Eagles, has had the success that we’ve seen. In that book, what I really do is, I take the stories of the many very famous people that I’ve heard speak, that we’ve worked with, or that I’ve met in person; people like Kevin O’Leary, George W. Bush, Shaquille O’Neal, Earvin Magic Johnson, Joe Namath, and Chloe Grace; they represent the eagles that I refer to in the title. When someone reads through that book, they’re not only learning a little bit about me and my background as a CEO of an oil company, they’re tapping into the minds of those great people that are sharing stories about their careers and their lives, and what’s made them a success.

Rob Kosberg:      

Very cool. You said something, and just mentioned it briefly, but very, very intriguing; prey drive. Tell me a little bit more about the psychology of that. Can you elaborate a little bit more on what that is and how to recognize it in yourself?

Brad Blazar:     

It’s a great question Rob. When I speak in public, and I’m up on a stage, one of the questions I ask the audience is, “How many of you here feel that there’s another gear inside you that has not yet been activated?” Invariably, every hand goes up if we’re honest with ourselves. I say, “The problem is, all of us were designed as twelve-cylinder, Italian Supercars by our maker, but the majority of people here today are putting around on six cylinders, like a Hugo, and the reason is that you haven’t really been taught how to flip the switch.” There’s a wonderful book called Flip the Switch, very similar to what we talk about in activating that prey drive. Prey drive is being present. It’s understanding that having clearly defined, written goals, are so very important. It’s blocking out the noise.

              

When I’ve interviewed some of the biggest, most successful people on the planet; people like Bradley with Dropping Bombs, or people like Coach Michael Burt, people like Dana Cavalea, or Shay Hildebrand, a professional baseball player, he said, “What really has attributed to my success is, I’m able to focus and I block out what I call, the noise. I don’t listen to the naysayers. I don’t listen to the haters. I’ve got a goal and I’m just focused on that goal. My prey drive is focused on that goal, and as I move forward and I make daily progress, I’m consistently getting closer.” One of the big problems I think most people have is they start buying into the naysayers, they start buying into the people that say things like, “You’re crazy for trying to do that. What do you know about starting a business,” or, “Why are you walking away from your full-time job where you have the benefit of paid insurance and a 401(k), to take the risk of doing something bigger in life?”

              

People that have attained great success, don’t pay attention to those things. They block out the noise, and boom, they go. Prey drive can be activated by a number of things; one is by being exposed to big thinkers. One of the great things that I’ve learned is that you become the average of the five to seven people you spend most of your time with. If you look around you, where you are economically; the house you live in, the amount of money you have in the bank; it’s probably somewhat representative of the people you’re spending the majority of your time with. I always tell people that if they really want to turn things around, to go to some of these events. Yes, they cost a little bit of money to attend some of these events, but now you’re in a room with people that are seven and eight, maybe even nine figure earners running very successful multi-million-dollar businesses. They think differently. They’re going to get you to think differently, and once you start thinking differently, you start realizing, “Hey, I can start doing these things as well, because this person isn’t any smarter than me.!”

             

What I’ve largely found about very, very successful people, is that they want to help. Most people are scared to ask for advice. Most people are afraid to reach out to somebody because we’ve never really been taught to do that. I think what really has amazed people about myself and my career is, how in the world I know these people. They are like, “Dude, you’re talking with me, and you’ve got them on your cell phone.” Kevin Harrington, Sharon Lechter, Matt Knowles, the CEO of Music World Entertainment, whose daughter happens to be Beyoncé; I’m talking to all of these people on a daily basis. It’s really just about understanding the power of connection. Once you’re introduced to somebody, it’s asking, “Hey, Kevin, who are you connected with that I need to meet,” or, “Rob, who are you connected with that I should be introduced to?” It’s leveraging those connections that really allows you to transform and grow and start doing bigger things with your life that maybe you weren’t doing a year, or two years ago.

It’s also taking action and having that goal and dream, and never giving up on it. It’s one of the things that I see so many people do. They get into their seventies, or eighties, and they start having a life of regret and saying, “Man, I had so much potential. I would’ve, should’ve, could’ve.” I feel it’s very hypocritical for parents to drop their kids off at school every day and say, “Hey daughter, go out and make it a great day,” but then your daughter, conversely, isn’t seeing you put in 100% yourself.

Rob Kosberg:      

Very good. I see the connection with what you’re saying about the five to seven people. Those of us that are in any kind of self-improvement, we’ve heard that in one frame or another for a long time, but I’m still trying to make the connection with large prey animals because there seems to be something innate in them; it’s not that they are in a pack and they have to be like the others.

Brad Blazar:     

Well, I think it’s largely that Rob. I think it’s an innate prey drive where they’re always hungry. They’re always chasing something. Let’s face it, dogs chase cars down the street. They see a squirrel, boom, they’re gone. It’s just that innate prey drive to go chase something. That prey drive in a human is the ability to see something in your mind and not give up on that, and to be able to pursue that.

Rob Kosberg:      

We have to be able to turn it off and on. I was comparing it to what you were sharing with us about being in a group of people and being motivated or inspired to raise our levels, whatever those levels are; relationship with spouse, being a better father or husband, or making more money, because you and I both, I’m sure, have seen people in our lives who, at the cost of their marriage, built a great business. Who really wants that? I’ve been married for 30 years, I run a multi-million-dollar business, and I have three kids. I’m thankful to God because I could have very easily been the guy that just chased one car until I got run over by the rest of the traffic. We have to be able to turn it on and off. We have to be able to look at the big picture.

Brad Blazar:     

Well, it’s funny that you bring up this subject. I’ve got a great word for you today that I want to share with you and your listeners. One of my great people that I really love, and that I’ve come to respect, is Rock Thomas. Rock Thomas is a self-made multi-millionaire. He’s a disciple of people like Deepak Chopra, and Covey, and of course Tony Robbins, who he’s worked with for 16 years. When I was interviewing Rock on my podcast, Beast Nation last year, he said, “In our M1 movement, Brad, we create fulfillionaires.” I said, “What did you just say? Explain that word to me. It’s a wonderful word.” He said that it largely comes from the works of Stephen Covey. If you’ve studied Covey, or you’ve read The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, he talks about this concept that we call, “the whole person theory.” It’s your mind, it’s your physical body, it’s your spirit, it’s your soul. You just touched upon it. What good is having wealth if you get crappy health, right? What good is it to be a successful business entrepreneur, if you’re a terrible husband and father.

              

So, his word was fulfillionaire. It’s having a fulfilling life of abundance in all areas. I believe, you really need to focus on abundance in all areas. It’s about waking up and exerting yourself physically, whether you go to a fitness center or whether you run; I usually start most of my mornings by going out for about a four to six mile run just to get my blood going, and to give my mind a chance to think as I’m out there on the road; and that’s largely about the fulfillionaire lifestyle. It’s about buying into the whole person theory that Covey talks about, which is, read, expose yourself, become more knowledgeable, learn from others. Obviously, your fitness is important, and then of course, there is the spiritual side, and a soul. When we talk about prey drive and stepping into a bigger future, or seeing a bigger potential, that largely taps into what we call your spirit. Covey talks about that element as “the whole person theory.” The spirit is where that prey drive comes from, or where it’s activated, as well as being able to see for yourself, potentially, a bigger future and stepping into that, and doing the things to make that happen.

Rob Kosberg:      

I love it. I love this subject matter. So many people have success in one area of their life, but what good is that if you’re really not fulfilled? There are so many elements that bring fulfillment to a human being. Maybe we could talk about that for just a minute. You mentioned a little bit about your morning routine and the importance of health. In Beliefology, or in The Beast coaching, is there a methodology, or steps, to take a look at the whole person and fix what is broken, or on the way to being broken?

Brad Blazar:     

Yes, great question. The answer is yes, absolutely. This is what I’m actually writing about in my third book which is called, A Blueprint for Your Better Self. It takes the art of Beliefology, in my first book, and really unpacks that and creates a blueprint for people to implement positive change. What you have to realize is that your beliefs are largely reinforced by habits, and a belief really needs to be exercised for about forty-five to sixty days to become concrete and to start defining a new belief system. If you give up in a couple of days, or a couple of weeks, it doesn’t foster a new belief.

              

I’ll give you a story representative of this, which is actually a true story. I have a coaching student, and we never met, it was largely a course through Zoom. I never really noticed this until after he hired me as a coach, but I firmly believe that two of the most powerful words in the entire human language are the words, “I am.” “I am,” followed by something positive as an affirmation, that you say to yourself daily, can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This, of course, has been studied. People like Napoleon Hill and Zig Ziglar talk about the importance of self-fulfilling prophecies. So, one day in one of our coaching sessions, he said, “Brad, I’ve got something to share with you. I remember you talking about these positive affirmations, and looking at myself in the mirror and saying, ‘I am.’ My challenge is, I don’t see anything that I’m excited about. I don’t see any goodness. As a matter of fact, I hate myself because I’m roughly 420 pounds and I’ve allowed myself to get to this point. I’m just an overweight, ugly dude and I just can’t think of anything positive to say.” I was like, “Wow. Now I know why he never shared his image on Zoom.” He was always blacked out on video. I said, “I’m so sorry to hear that, but here’s what I want you to do. I want you to wake up in the morning an hour early tomorrow, and I want you to go for a three-mile run.” There was a long pause, and he said, “You got to be kidding me. I can barely make it to my mailbox.” I said, “No, I was just testing you but I do still want you to get up an hour early, and here is what I want you to do; If you don’t commit to this, you don’t have a chance in hell, but here’s what I want you to do; I want you to get up an hour early, and I want you just to walk for 30 minutes and I want it to be brisk. I want you to be swinging your arms. I want you to really work up the sweat. For thirty minutes, just walk, and you’re going to do that for three days. On the fourth day, what I want you to do is, I want you to look for the telephone poles or the light poles in your neighborhood, and what you’re going to do is, you’re just going to alternate. You’re going to walk from one to the next, and then you’re just going to lightly jog to the next pole, and then you have my permission to walk again to catch your breath. You’re going to do that for five days. After that, you’re going to just double the distance; two poles, two poles jog, and then you can walk again. Do that for five days, and each time you do this, I just want you to slowly increase the intensity.”

            

Well, fast forward, roughly three months, we were on another call and he said, “Remember a couple months ago when we were talking about positive affirmations, and you told me to start walking and jogging, and stuff like that?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Now that I’ve been doing it consistently, I’m doing about three to five miles a day, and the great thing about this is, in that journey over the last three months, I’ve lost close to 90 pounds. For the first time, when I looked in the mirror today, I had something positive to say.” And I’m like, “Man, I can’t wait to hear it.” He said, “For the first time, Brad, in almost 10 years, I saw an athlete looking back at me.” I said, “Bingo! See what we just did? We just created a new belief system for you. Now that you see yourself as an athlete, you’re going to start internalizing what athletes do. They eat nutritiously, they work out, and they think differently. I have no doubt that you’re going to lose the next 200 pounds because what we’ve done is, we’ve created a new belief system for you that will now drive a new reality.”

              

Today, when you look at the guy, he could be on GQ. It was because, what we did through that daily habit, we fostered a new belief system, and through those habits, that new belief system became his reality. That’s largely what The Art of Beliefology revolves around. It’s about changing your beliefs and changing your life. The way that we bring about that change is through reinforcement of daily habits. At the end of the day, our mind is largely designed to do one of two things; either stand and fight or stand and run; fight or flight. It’s understanding how the brain is wired and realizing that your mind is like a garden; you either get weeds or you get saplings that are going to grow into towering oaks. Any time that you sense there is a weed that’s growing in your mind, that’s holding you back, it’s about the ability to just yank it out and get back to realizing that you can rise and increase your confidence, and really transform yourself, by doing some of the things that you largely thought you could never do. I tell people, as an endurance athlete, running a marathon has nothing to do with physical endurance; you have to train for it, but it’s self-talk. When you’re thirteen into a marathon, it’s the self-talk that is getting you through that next thirteen miles. David Goggins talks about something he learned in SEALs training called the 40% rule. He said, “Most people will give up in the mind first before the body will fail.” The Navy Seals have learned that when your mind is telling you to stop running, your body has only delivered forty percent of what it’s actually capable of. That’s why seals, endurance runners, and athletes have learned to tap into self-talk. It is so that the body can deliver the other 60 percent to get them across the finish line.

Rob Kosberg:      

I love it Brad; great stuff. We just gave a mini-seminar right there for people to make some adjustments and changes in their lives. Obviously, people need to go out and get your first book which is available. Your next book is going to be coming out in the next few months. Maybe we could switch gears for one moment. We’re going to give people links where they can find you and get information, but let’s switch gears for a moment. You’ve written books that have made a big impact; number one book for young entrepreneurs, and you’re writing a book that, from everything you’ve shared, sounds like it’s going to be a wonderful hit. Your books have done things for others; tell me what your books have done for you. How have they helped you put your coaching business on the map? How have they helped you raise your own authority in this space? Give me a little taste of that.

Brad Blazar:    

Sure. I actually started the process of writing my first book roughly 20 years ago. At the age of 23, I dropped out of college and I started an oil company not knowing anything about business. My parents went ballistic when they found out what I had done because, of course, they were naysayers, but what happened over the course of the decade is, I built a sizeable multi-million-dollar business. I had 35 employees and was raising millions of dollars a month with drilling programs in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. When I was forced to collapse the business due to changing tax laws and a collapse in energy prices, I just said to myself, “There aren’t many twenty-three-year-old kids that go out and create multi-million-dollar oil companies. Let me write a book about that,” and so I started the process, but then life took a turn and I had a child, got married, and it was never finished. One day as I was cleaning out the office, about three years ago, I saw the floppy disk and I said, “I’ve got to finish that now that I’ve got a daughter. I want to create a legacy, and it’d be kind of cool that, as she gets older, she could recognize the benefit of writing a book.” I dusted it off, changed the format, and wrote On the Wings of Eagles. Shortly after I wrote that, not knowing what success I would have, if any, I published it on Amazon and I got a call from a friend of mine, and he said, “Hey, I was trying to buy your book, and so I Googled it, and your book is number one.” I’m like, “Where,” and he’s like, “Well, apparently, there’s a big literary blog and your book is the number one book on the list for young entrepreneurs.” So, I have no idea of how it happened, but sure enough, over in the United Kingdom, some big literary blog that was putting together a list of the top 10 books, put my book at a number one.

              

So, what does a smart kid do? I started calling universities that have entrepreneurship programs; universities like Rice University here in Houston, and the University of Houston. I started talking to the deans, and the people that run these programs, and I sent them a copy of my book with the copy of that article that showed my book as number one, and that largely got the ball rolling for me. I started getting invited in to speak to the student body, radio stations started to pick up on that, and that naturally led to radio interviews, and that became the snowball that has consistently picked up momentum over time. Today, it has me talking on stages with people like Sharon Lechter and Kevin Harrington; doing big events and doing some amazing things in the coaching business.

              

The books, while they weren’t necessarily intended to be monetized, have certainly monetized themselves to turn into a seven-figure coaching business to do what I really enjoy. It’s almost like it isn’t even work to me because I just really enjoy helping people become successful and showing people how you can use social media, how you can become a person of interest, and really how to take those steps to use the book as a way to build credibility. Today, when I go out in public, people always ask me for a business card. I haven’t carried a business card in over two years, and I say, “People lose business cards. I have something better,” and I’ll just autograph a copy of my book. I say, “Most people don’t lose books. Here’s a copy of my book and it has information in there on how you can reach out to me and my team.” It’s just become a wonderful calling card and something that has, nationally, opened doors for us, not only in personal coaching, but also in corporate coaching as well, because my second book, Put Some Thrive in Your Hive: How to Unlock Potential in Any Organization, is largely geared towards business owners, entrepreneurs, and managers. Its whole message is how to create a culture in any organization, to get the employees to buy into that culture, and then of course, how to take that business and company to a higher level of performance. What that’s done is, it has opened doors in businesses and corporations, that have had me come in and speak to their senior management teams, and things of that nature.

Rob Kosberg:      

I Love it. Well, congratulations. Unlike many of my clients, it sounds like it was more accidental, meaning that you didn’t set out to monetize it, but you can certainly monetize a book when you are proactive, and you are clearly proactive Brad, so thank you. Thank you for being with us today. Where can people best get more information? They can get your book on Amazon, but let’s send them to your website. Where would you like people to get some more info?

Brad Blazar:     

If you’re interested in either of the two books, you can go to Amazon and just search for the books by my name. It’s Brad Blazar. If you want information on our coaching services on our online academy, or better yet, if you’re an entrepreneur or a business owner, and want to learn how to attract and raise investor capital, you can go to our website. It’s just www.bradblazar.com. Across the top you’ll see the tool bar with different headings as it relates to the coaching program, or our live events, and the books, and other things. The best way to follow me is at the website, bradblazar.com. I’m on Facebook, and you can go to Instagram and follow Brad Blazar on Instagram as well. That’s largely how we’re followed; end me a DM, send us an email, give us a telephone call. We’re here trying to help people, and more importantly, just trying to help people better understand themselves and, as I like to say, become a fulfillionaire.

Rob Kosberg:      

I Love it; great word and a great way to end. Thank you so much, Brad, for being with us today. Thanks for sharing the wisdom. We’ll make sure that we direct people to the books and to the website as well. So, thanks again, my friend.

Brad Blazar:     

Absolutely. Thank you so much for hosting me today, Rob.