Success Academy With Brandon T. Adams

Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments

17.07.20

There’s no singular way to becoming successful. Each person has their own journey to success, but there are certain building blocks that make it much easier to become as successful as you desire, your own way. Brandon T. Adams is an Emmy® Award-Winning Producer and Host of the TV series, Success in Your City. Joining John Livesay, Brandon explains some of the most important building blocks for becoming successful. Let this lively conversation between Brandon and John serve as a call to empower you to become successful on your own terms.

—

Listen to the podcast here

Success Academy With Brandon T. Adams

Our guest is Brandon T. Adams, who’s a successful entrepreneur at a young age. He tells a story about how he wasn’t even confident and couldn’t speak that well when he was a child. Now, to see him as confident and speaking all around the world around the skills that he’s acquired as an entrepreneur and how to be successful is quite inspiring. He said, “If you want to build your network, the quickest way to get someone’s attention is to make them money, and that when you work with the best, you are seen as being the best.” Brandon shares his passion and enthusiasm in a way that you have never known before. Enjoy the episode.

—

Our guest is Brandon T. Adams who is an Emmy Award-winning producer and host of the TV series Success in Your City. He’s a podcaster, speaker, inventor, adviser, crowdfunding expert as well as a media expert. He’s a serial entrepreneur and he owns a stake in a number of businesses including the Accelerant Media Group, Live to Grind, Young Entrepreneur Convention, Success in Your City, and more. He and his team have worked with high profile clients like Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank and John Lee Dumas, XPRIZE, and many more. They’ve raised over $35 million to date and he’s the Associate Producer and the youngest feature entrepreneur in the movie Think and Grow Rich: The Legacy, which is based on the classic book Think and Grow Rich. Brandon has been featured on the cover of Inventors Digest, USA Today, NBC News, and was listed among Seven Millennial Influencers to follow in 2008 by BuzzFeed. Brandon, welcome to the show.

Thank you. It’s always weird hearing your intro, it puts you down memory lane, but I’m excited to be here with you and provide massive value to your audience.

Are you still a Millennial? Everybody’s dying to know you’re in the top seven in 2018, now it’s 2020. Did you cross over?

I’m still a Millennial. I’m 30 years old. It’s crazy. I can’t believe I’m 30, but time flies. I’m still young.

Take us as far back as you want. You could go to childhood, high school, your college days at Iowa State. When did you decide you wanted to have this career being an entrepreneur and doing adventurous things?

I was born an entrepreneur. When I was born on December 31st, 1989, my dad was happy because I was a tax cut and my mom was mad because I wasn’t the New Year’s baby. Instantly, I came out and I was an entrepreneur. My dad was already trying to figure out ways to make money off me and for me to make money. I’ve always been an entrepreneur. I grew up in an ice business. I sold packaged ice and I can sell ice to an Eskimo. My dad was a wholesale distributor. We delivered bag ice. Envision cubes of ice in your drink. Every time you have a drink of water with ice or a drink of whiskey, you’re going to think of me. We sold packaged ice for a living and growing up I was in that business. It was ingrained in me about working with customers, buying and selling things, and this whole entrepreneurship thing. I saw my dad running the business. I saw the ups and downs when he was about to lost it all, and then when he had the ups in the business. That was ingrained in me at a young age.

One disadvantage I had at a young age that became a part of who I am is I was born with a speech impediment. As a kid, I had a lisp and I couldn’t communicate like other people who bothered me. I made it my burning desire to become a great speaker and overcome my speech impediment. At nine years old, picture this kid looking in front of a mirror and doing, “I am a great salesman, I am a great speaker, I am a success.” I was driven to overcome that. I’m never getting bullied. I would cry. I would tell my parents, “I don’t want to go to speech class and all these things.” Eventually, my disadvantage became my advantage. I started putting myself out of my comfort zone. I always volunteered to speak in front of the class even though I wasn’t a good speaker. I would go and do things that scared me. Eventually, I started to become a better speaker. By high school, I lost my speech impediment. By college, I got better at speaking and I went to be a paid speaker. It’s crazy where things go. I’m going to college. I was at university. Some people go there and they get great grades. That wasn’t me. I got a 1.68 GPA in my freshman year. I stay a little bit of sex, drugs, and alcohol a lot. I got kicked out of my dorms five days before we were done at school for fighting. I was down this path of I didn’t know where I was going to go.

[bctt tweet=”When you work with the best, you are seen as the best.” username=”John_Livesay”]

Where I had this change pivot part of my life is when I was introduced to the book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. If you haven’t read the book, everybody should read it. It’s a game-changer. Here’s what I took away from the book. People like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Andrew Carnegie, all these people that pioneer the things that we have now, I saw what they achieved. They weren’t 4.0 students. They weren’t the smartest people out there but this is what they had. They had a burning desire. They had a vision for themselves. They surrounded themselves with the right people and they didn’t quit until they got something. When I was reading that book in my college apartment, wondering what I was good at next, I realized that anything was possible for me if I kept going. That ultimately became what changed my life. I went forward in anything I took on. I had this mindset of I can achieve it and I had this confidence about myself that no matter what it is, I’m going to take it on because if I keep going and keep pushing, I’m going to be a success. That formed me into who I am now as an entrepreneur. The things that I do from producing TV shows, speaking, being able to speak with people like you and impacting people’s lives in a positive way.

Let’s take this story of origin, which is certainly fascinating. Getting in trouble right at the end of school. I had a similar situation where I was never somebody who got in fights and then somebody was constantly picking on me. Several days before graduating from junior high, we were on some field trip and he started on me again. We got into a fight and he had gotten his braces off and I happened to pop him in the mouth and the front tooth came out. You can imagine the drama of that. Luckily, they find the tooth and put it back in his mouth. That’s something you can do now but it is an unexpected behavior outcome. Everyone has a breaking point and you can also not judge yourself or anybody else based on one particular incident.

Getting in a fight or hitting somebody in the mouth is not life-changing where you get kicked out of school permanently. There was some talk about, “Should we let him graduate?” I haven’t thought about that in years. It does feed into the concept that everyone’s got a story and because you see a person at a certain level of success or confidence doesn’t mean they were always there. In your case, with the stuttering and the fact that you transformed that into being a speaker. Let’s fast forward to your relationship with Kevin Harrington from one of the original sharks on Shark Tank. You don’t just have a casual relationship with him. How did you at such a young age relatively speaking, because Kevin’s not in your generation and neither am I. I’m always impressed when somebody young breaks through the noise and the clutter and finds enough of things in common that that person says, “I’m going to spend some time with you.”

A lot of my friends and mentors are 20, 30, and 40 years older than me and I clicked with that. I believe I’m an old soul and I relate with people that are doing big things, people like Kevin Harrington or other people I’ve connected with and work with. It started with me first doing a lot of research. The one thing I learned about life and then thinking the rich and businesses would, for one, you understand a person, you understand what they’re trying to achieve and you can find ways to help them achieve that and become a person of value to them. Eventually, you’re going to get to work with them. You look at history and you’ll get Edwin C. Barnes who put himself into business with Thomas Edison. He went to him and he said, “I’m here to go in business with you.” He knew he already made up his mind before he got on a train and went to see him. It took two years before he got past sweeping floors. He went into business with him and became wealthy because of it. I look at somebody like Kevin Harrington. When I came to him in 2015, back when I wore a suit and tie and all that. I created a personal video in front of my computer and I sent it to him. It got to his assistant and I said, “I wanted to work with him in some way and that I wanted to help him.”

That video led to five more months of negotiation and conversation with his assistant to even get to talk to Kevin. I want him to come to speak at my event. I ended up committing a large sum of money to get him to come to speak at my event. At that time I didn’t have the money, but I committed and figured it out later. I ended up meeting with him. He had seen what I had done back in 2016. I helped a guy named John Lee Dumas do about a $500,000 in a month for the book, The Freedom Journal. He wanted me to do that for him. I had created this value proposition. I had created this expertise in an area and I use the expertise to add value to people like Kevin Harrington. Ultimately, what I did is I made them money. The quickest way to get somebody’s attention is either you pay them or you make them money.

There are a lot of people that talk and they say, “I’m going to help you. I can do this for you.” Talk is talk. Can you walk the walk? What I did is I walked the walk for a lot of people and it was a lot harder than I thought it was. I would say I’m going to do something, but I realized it was a lot harder than I thought, but I always did it. When you have that track record, that street cred, what happens is other people get attracted to you. That’s how I built a relationship with Kevin. He spoke at my first event in 2016. I wound up going on to coauthor a book together. We then went on to do multiple multimillion-dollar deals and we advise companies together. He’s become a good friend. I have a father that I love dearly and he’s like another father in the space that I have. That relates to anything. No matter who you want to connect with and being in business with, it’s simple when you think about it. How can you help them? How can you help them make money and how can you help them get towards their goals? If you do that for them, they will reciprocate and they will help you in return.

We’re going to make that a tweet, “The quickest way to get someone’s attention is to make them money.” You also mentioned John Lee Dumas. For those people who may not know who he is. He hosted a wonderful successful podcast called Entrepreneurs on Fire, which I’ve had the privilege of being on and I got one of his Freedom Journals. It’s a big tool to help people write down what their daily goals are and stay focused. What I love about the Kevin Harrington story that I wasn’t expecting to hear was, you told a case story as opposed to a case study, which is what traditional people do. They would say, “Here’s my case study. On this date, I did this, and then I did that.” It’s dry and you told the story.

Becoming Successful: Whatever it is, you can take it on if you have the confidence. You can be a success, so keep going and keep pushing.

A good story has a little bit of struggle. It took me five months talking to the assistant to get in front of Kevin and then the little surprise in that story is, “I’d done something for somebody well-known in the podcast business.” John Lee Dumas publishes his revenue of how much money he’s making on his podcast for people. It’s inspirational and transparent. That course begs another story, which is what great storytelling does. People are intrigued enough to want to know more. Let’s back up. John Lee Dumas is a successful guy like Kevin Harrington. You’re this twenty-something-year-old guy going, “I have some expertise already that you don’t have to help you sell this Freedom Journal.” Can you tell us a little bit about what that expertise was and how you got it?

I want to add quickly to Kevin Harrington’s story that I realized as we were talking about this. When I initially got the first meeting with him in person, somebody said, “I can get you a twenty-minute conversation with Kevin in person in a car ride. You’ve got to be in Florida tomorrow, fly here.” I flew to Florida and I went there. I took the opportunity to get that and that’s where we made the deal to work together, just so you know.

Here’s the lesson. What are you willing to do that most people are not willing to do? How bad do you want it? How much are we willing to invest in it? When I was interviewing for a job, I flew myself to New York. I said I was going to be there anyway seeing friends and I wasn’t. I remember meeting Michael Phelps and asking him what his secret was. He told me that when he was young, his coach said, “Michael, are you willing to work out on Sundays?” “Yes, coach.” “Great. We got 52 more workouts in a year than your competition.” That is, “What’s the takeaway?” What are we willing to do to become an Olympic athlete level in our business life that other people aren’t willing to do or haven’t thought to do? A lot of people will be like, “I don’t have the money. Flying all that way just for twenty minutes, is it worth it?” All of that shows your character and your tenacity as opposed to you telling us you have it. That’s why I want to circle, underline, highlight with a couple of other stories to amplify your story. Now, people have three examples.

It’s taking action. You have to burn the bridges like you’ve done to go to the interview. You burn the bridges behind you. You assume the sale, the opportunity, and you just go. You can’t have any defeat in your mind. You have to have the sole focus of, “This is going to happen. I’m going to do this.” That’s how I’ve lived my life. In the last few years, I’ve lived that way. It’s allowed me to get a lot of amazing opportunities. Going back to the expertise of how I got to work with John Lee Dumas, and this is a great lesson and this is the beginning of where I got into podcasting. In 2015, I started a podcast show called the University of Young Entrepreneurs, which is now the Live to Grind Podcast. We have over 400 episodes. What I did is I wanted to learn from other people around the country. I wanted to pick their brain. I didn’t say, “Can I come to pick your brain?” I said, “Can I bring you on my show and share it with my audience?” I didn’t have any audience at the time, but I’m going to share it with my audience.

John Lee Dumas was one of the people that came to my show. While in this process of doing podcasting, I was starting to build my brand as a crowdfunding expert. I had not that much experience in crowdfunding. I wrote a book on crowdfunding to build my brand. I started going on TV shows and morning shows around the country because when you’re on a morning show, when you’re on video and people see you as this expert, whether you are the expert or not. I was doing all these things to build up the street credit and credibility as a crowdfunding expert. When we got done doing that interview for him going to my podcast show, at the end of every show, I always said, “I’m a crowdfunding expert. If I can help you in any way, please let me know.” Always let people know how you can help them. He said, “I’m thinking about doing this campaign for a book called The Freedom Journal. Maybe I’ll call you up on your services.” That was it. As soon as the show got done, I rescheduled the call. We jumped on a call. I gave him all the advice I had and I took the initiative and spent a whole day creating a campaign page for him. He did log in and say, “Let’s do this.”

I took on the campaign at no fee because I saw an influential person in podcasting. I knew that if I could prove to him how good I was, he would share with his audience and I was right. It was five months of me working with him at no cost. When we launched a campaign, we made it the fifth-largest crowdfunding campaign in history for a book. This is what’s happened from that. He brought me on his show four times. Every time I’ve been on the show, I’ve made money. Once I made $50,000 from going on one of the episodes. That experience led me to work with Kevin Harrington, XPRIZE and Think and Grow Rich: The Legacy and being part of the movie Think and Grow Rich. That one thing that I did to take the initiative to add value. First, I built up this area of expertise, crowdfunding, and then I offered value. I gave massive value and then that was the catapult domino effect for my career. That’s why I get the opportunities I do now.

A lot of people have also heard about XPRIZE. We know you’ve made a splash from investing in yourself and believing in yourself and getting proof of concept, which got to Kevin and say, “I want that too.” What did you do with XPRIZE?

[bctt tweet=”You never know where a conversation will lead.” username=”John_Livesay”]

This is a funny story. I turned XPRIZE down first.

Do you know why I love this so much? I’m constantly teaching people about storytelling genres. In a classic romantic comedy movie, 9 times out of 10, the couple that ends up together doesn’t like each other at first. The people that you’ll hear about, I read that the guy who played Captain America turned down the part because he wasn’t confident enough, Chris Pratt. You can’t imagine anyone else in that role and then you hear the backstory of, “I turned it down. They haven’t talked me into it because I was too insecure about my ability to do it. Not that I think it was a good part or that I was too good for it, but it was the opposite.” You’ll start looking for them and going, “There’s that classic scene where they hate each other and then they end up liking each other.” First of all, most people would be like saying, “Would you like to go on Oprah, when she was on?” “No, I turned it down.” I can’t wait to hear how this goes. I did want to take a beat and under. Already, you’re leaning in because who in the world would turn down XPRIZE?

It’s funny because it’s this whole demand when somebody they can’t get something, they want even more. When this happened, they hit me in a time of my career where I was focused on one thing. It was when I went on this endeavor to create the TV series Success in Your City. I had stopped everything else. I had a company I was doing well in and we stopped that. I went all-in on the show and right when I was going all-in on this show, they wanted me to help them fundraise and be a part of a project. The project was called the Ironman. They want to do a $10 million crowdfund for people with ALS. It was this exoskeleton suit. At the time, I didn’t know that’s what it was going to be, but they wanted my crowdfunding services. I did a call with them initially. I added a mass of value to them and showed what I did. They kept following up and I was busy. I didn’t respond, then I did respond. I said, “I’m busy right now.” It got to the point where the CEO called me on my cell phone. Marcus was his name. They have a different CEO now. He left me a voicemail, “Brandon, what’s it going to take for me to get you to come to XPRIZE?”

I said, “Let’s do this. This is my ask, by the way.” I initially said, “I will fly out and I will pick two people that I know are the best, and we’ll come in and we’ll give you everything we know. These I believe are the best people in the country for crowdfunding.” My ask is, “You have to sponsor my event in Iowa and I want Peter Diamandis to come to speak at my event.” That was my ask. They said, “You’re going to ask big. You never know what you’re going to get.” They said, “Peter doesn’t even come and speak at our events. Let alone in Iowa, but we’ll give you our CEO and he’ll come to speak.” That was where that happened. They flew us out. They sponsored our event. They paid us a good sum of money and he was committed to speak. The sad part of that story is before the event, he had left XPRIZE and then he couldn’t speak anymore. He apologized. He was like, “I got scheduled to meet with Tony Robbins and Richard Branson and these people. I can’t miss this meeting.” I was like, “I get it.” That’s how that happened. How I got the opportunity is because I worked with influential people.

If you want to become the best in your space for one, you may not be the best at what you do, but if you can show that you’re the best at what you do, if you can work with the best, you are seen as the best. I worked with celebrities. I worked with the original shark from Shark Tank. I worked with John Lee Dumas, the top podcaster. I worked with Think and Grow Rich and The Napoleon Hill Foundation forward working on the Think and Grow Rich movie. I worked on all these sexy projects. I might have not been the best in the whole industry, but I was seen as the best. Because of that, that led me to get to work with XPRIZE. For me personally, one of the greatest accomplishments to say I got to work with them because I had read the book Bold. I had studied XPRIZE. I love what they’re doing with advancing our abilities in life. It all came back to building up my expertise in one area, showing a few select people that I was worthy, and then the rest brought itself to me.

There’s our second tweet of the episode, “When you work with the best, you are seen as the best.” I love it. This concept of Social Proof. That’s why having footage of yourself or being quoted in magazines and press all of that gives you the social proof. From an advertising standpoint, we used to call it co-branding with people and brands co-brand with each other. Back in the day, United Airlines cobranded with Starbucks and they served Starbucks on United exclusively to get people to sample it before it opened up in their city and to have a competitive advantage against another airline.

Think of yourself as a brand. It’s the first step to co-branding like you’ve done and given many great examples. It would be interesting to hear about your experience being on live TV and being in a movie because a lot of people think about that. In my experience in live TV, the adrenaline is going so much. It’s almost like the three minutes flies by and being on the soundstage. I remember the first time robotic cameras came at me and then I had to talk about tips on being confident and my heart was racing. I was like, “Where are the people pushing the cameras?” That’s what I had at the other studio. There are lots to being comfortable on camera. What have you learned on your journey?

Becoming Successful: When you communicate back to people, it gives you a way to converse with them by speaking to their pain points, and giving them what they want.

I’ve learned a lot. I’ll tell you, it’s addicting. It feels amazing. It’s like an addiction. You go on TV, there’s no other feeling like it that says, “It’s a lot.” I’ve been on 50 morning shows across the country. In 2015, I was going to a lot of morning shows. It was like I’m this eagle thing. I want to see how many shows I could get on because there’s a whole process to it. There’s a lot of work but I know how to do it. I learned that for one TV storytelling, all of it is entertainment. Can you be entertaining? Can you keep people’s attention? Can you tell a story? It’s elevating your voice, going loud or going low, using your hands, smiling, all these different things, and using words that people can think of. Names of people or stories that people can relate to because if they can relate to that, they’ll be able to relate to your message and you’ll get your point across.

Morning shows and live TV is becoming the ultimate storytelling. Sadly, you look at morning shows across the country or news channels, there are a lot of dark and sad stories. Anytime I went on a show, I was in positive energy. I wanted to bring the fire. What I’ve learned from going on morning shows is learn to master your communication. Be exciting and entertaining. When you can be exciting, entertaining, and communicate your words into descriptive graphic in terms of people can visualize that, you will be a hit. You’ll get your point across and you’ll get what you want out of a situation. It helped me become a better storyteller and communicator. I’m doing it at a point because as you said, it’s like 90 seconds clip to 6-minute. Usually, the 2.5 to 3 minutes you have, it goes quickly. You have to know going into the interview what you’re going to say. Also, you have to be good at controlling the conversation because if you let the host do it, you will get what he wants you to say. I’ve been on morning shows where I feel like I was better than the host and I helped them with communicating the interview.

Were you talking about crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding. The first thing I did was I found a niche everybody wanted to hear about. Everybody wanted to know what it was like to raise money through crowdfunding. I found that was a sexy topic people want to hear and I utilized that to get on morning shows. The thing I did, I call it unique like a local hook, is I pick the campaign at every city that had a crowdfunding campaign live and I promoted them and said, “I want to promote this local campaign in Reno or California.” I loved it because these people didn’t even know. I got a guy in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I called him up and I said, “I want to get you on the morning show. This guy doesn’t even know me and he couldn’t believe it. I’m like, “No, seriously, they’re expecting you.” I got him a TV segment. We went on together and then he got another segment. I’ll never forget, he came up to me like, “Brandon, I don’t even know you. Why would you do this for me? Thank you so much.” I’ll never forget the emotion I had. I’m like, “I get something for someone I don’t even know.” The feeling I got was more than anything I could have ever got from this situation. That’s my TV show experiences.

To give people some tips so that they can try to figure out how they could get this experience that you and I have had. Not everyone has had it. You need to think of a sound bite that’s going to grab that producer’s eye. A lot of authors like to try to get on TV and very few do. My book Better Selling Through Storytelling does not sound like a book that you’d have on a morning talk show. It sounds like something for MSNBC, which is fine. The pitch that publicist and I came up with was, “How to go from invisible to irresistible in your dating life and in your career?” They were like, “That’s it.” They show the little ladder and then of going from each step and then you go back and forth between the dating and this and that. Typically, you give the people questions and you’ve got to stay connected to the hosts, whether you’re on a podcast or a TV show, they are the ones that have the audience.

The more you use the host’s name and stay focused on them, don’t look at the camera. All these things you can do if you’re a rookie that makes you not come across confident. I remember one of the guys said, “You’re also a speaker. I give talks, but I get nervous still. Do you still get nervous?” I thought to myself, “I’m not going to make it about me so much.” I said, “Would you say you get butterflies in your stomach?” He said, “Yes. Exactly. That’s what happens to me even though I’m on camera every day.” I said, “The goal is not to get rid of those butterflies, but to get them to fly information.” That’s a soundbite that works every time for my talks and on TV. He didn’t know it. He thought I made it up at the moment. You talk about talking and controlling the conversation, he was trying to go off the script about, “Do you get nervous when you speak?” I made it about him and then pulled out that moment where I asked him a question that goes, “Are you feeling this?” then do that so everybody at home can watch it.

What I like about what you did there is you coached him on a live TV and you have that clip.

[bctt tweet=”Learn to master your communication.” username=”John_Livesay”]

The producer said, “Monday morning is hard to get them to laugh because they’re up so early after the weekend of being off and you did.” You can see in the last few seconds when we were off the script and they were riffing. I make them laugh by that comment. You have to be comfortable with silence when you’re a confident person. I wondered if you had any thoughts around that topic, being comfortable with silence.

Silence is a powerful thing. It’s awkward for some people because people want to talk, they don’t want to silence. Sometimes the silence at the right time like your public speaking or let’s say you’re doing something that’s impactful, it lets your communication and point settled to the audience. It gets it across. Silence, they say the person that talks the least is the one that wins and sells. If you listen, this goes in the storytelling. I used this all time and I know you do too. When you talk with a potential lead, you talk with a potential client or a business. When you can let them talk and share everything about them and that you learn about their pain points. You learn everything about them, their avatar. When you communicate back to them, it gives you a way to communicate to them speaking to their pain points, what they want, and doing it through storytelling.

You can say, “Here’s a passive experience of somebody I’ve worked with.” You can pull it. I have all these stories. I call these files in my mind. Depending on who I’m talking to, what show I’m going on, or who I’m potentially going to work with, I look and I think, “What file am I going to pick from here and apply to this conversation?” The more you listen, the more ammunition you get to be able to take on their conversation to win, and then you take on the conversation with a story. That is ultimately why people are successful in sales. They utilize storytelling, but they also utilize power listening and then communicating to that person’s need.

You also have a Success Academy where you help people become number one and figure out their potential and get seen, which is your expertise. Tell us a little bit about who this is for.

I’ve worked with people all over the country in terms of building their brand influence online, doing it through communication, and the power of video. It’s storytelling but mainly through utilizing their story and their expertise on video. I’ve worked with a lot of real estate agents. I’ve worked with the top 1% of real estate agents all over the country. I’ve worked with actors, speakers, authors, you name it. I created that because personally, as we talked about building my brand as a crowdfunding expert, I built my brand as a crowdfunding expert, as TV producer and host, and I’ve helped other people build their brands. I wanted to create something where I could share with them how to build their brand influence. There’s a system, it’s utilizing things like TV, books, telling your story, podcasts, and all these different things that I did. I didn’t know it as brand building at the time. I thought, “This is how I’m going to get myself out there because I don’t have any money to promote myself.” I applied these and then I realized, “This is how you build a brand.” I’ve been working with hundreds of entrepreneurs over the country and helping them build their brand influence online specifically through video content with the Success Academy.

You also have something cool and I signed up for it, which is people can get a text that’s going to motivate them every day. Tell us about that and what do we do? What’s the number and how do we get those text messages?

We had it going daily and what I do is I send out texts here and there to people. If you text my name, Brandon, to the number 64600, what’s going to happen is you’re going to get a text from me and I send out free texts and I give people motivation. I love it. People reach out to me and they’ll say, “Brandon, I needed to hear this.” That reminded them of me. If you want to text my name, Brandon, to the number 64600. Get hooked up to my text list. I don’t send spam, I send motivation. It’s my way to get back. I’m always trying to find ways to add value to a more standpoint. It’s top of mind. People would text me instantly, “It’s Brandon.”

Becoming Successful: People all over the country are using communication, especially the power of video, to build their brand influence online.

If people want to learn more about the Success Academy, either launching a podcast, writing a book, getting on TV, becoming a speaker, and figuring out the proven step-by-step system you have, how do they do that? 

If reading and you want to find out everything about how you can work with me and stuff, go to BrandonTAdams.com, everything’s there. Honestly, if you want to connect with me and have a conversation, I am good at direct messages on Instagram, @BrandonTAdams, and it’s me. It’s nobody else. I love having a conversation because you never know where a conversation can lead to. Send me a direct message on social media. I’m @BrandonTAdams everywhere.

That will be the last tweet and the last great way to end the show. You never know where a conversation will lead. It could be a twenty-minute conversation with a former Shark that changes your career. We were in a group and it was in a breakout room and there were 5 or 6 of us. We were only there for six minutes. There was something about you that made me say, “I want to get to know this guy more.” Since then, there you are on my show. It turns out we know a lot of the same people and that’s the energy you talk about. Brandon, any last thought, any last quote you want to leave us with?  

First, I thank you, John, for everything you’re doing. You understand the power of storytelling. This book Better Selling Through Storytelling is something that all people need and I mean that. My life, everything I’ve done through podcasts, speaking, and video, it’s storytelling through different mediums and the most powerful, influential people that have impact people’s lives I talk about this when I speak. You look at Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Steve Jobs, a lot of their success came through storytelling because they learned how to tell a great story of their products. A great story to build a following and influence people. If you can master storytelling, you’ll have success in whatever it is you do. For one, hire you or understand the power of storytelling because it will change your life.

My quote is, I always say, “Create something great and become unforgettable because life is too short not to.” Life is short. It’s fragile. You don’t know. No day is grand for us. This could be our last day and I always say, “Figure out how to be the best person you can be on that day because you don’t have regret.” I personally do not want to wake up one day and wonder, “What if I were to do this? What if I had done that?” That’s how I live my life. Always going after things that I believe in. Taking so-called people see as risks, but for me, it’s going after my dreams. If you do that, you’re going to live a happy life seriously. From all the hundreds of entrepreneurs I’ve ever interviewed, they said they went after what they wanted and they had no regrets. For you, go after the things you want and you’re going to live a fulfilled life.

Thanks so much, Brandon, for sharing your passion for life, your wisdom, and your incredible enthusiasm. You have been a great guest. I’m looking forward to having a lot of people read this.

Thank you.

Important Links

• Think and Grow Rich
• Kevin Harrington
• The Freedom Journal
• Entrepreneurs on Fire – Podcast
• Live to Grind Podcast
• XPRIZE
• Bold
• Better Selling Through Storytelling
• @BrandonTAdams – Instagram
• @BrandonTAdams – Facebook
• http://BrandonTAdams.com/
• Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course

Wanna Host Your Own Podcast?

Click here to see how my friends at Podetize can help

Purchase John’s new book

The Sale Is in the Tale

John Livesay, The Pitch Whisperer

Share The Show

Did you enjoy the show? I’d love it if you subscribed today and left us a 5-star review!

• Click this link
• Click on the ‘Subscribe’ button below the artwork
• Go to the ‘Ratings and Reviews’ section
• Click on ‘Write a Review’

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!

• Here’s How »

Join The Successful Pitch community today:

• JohnLivesay.com
• John Livesay Facebook
• John Livesay Twitter
• John Livesay LinkedIn
• John Livesay YouTube