But today, fast forward, and he is a millionaire entrepreneur. He runs six different businesses. He's published four different books. He has three healthy children and a loving wife… He has really cleaned up his life, and has become an expert in sales and entrepreneurship.

Now you might be asking yourself at this point: “I mean, his workload sounds pretty superhuman. His time management sounds pretty superhuman. But what exactly is superhuman about this guy?” Well, first of, we do get into all of that: The entrepreneurship that he learned throughout his struggles. We get into what you can learn from such a challenging and trying experience, and how you can learn something like entrepreneurship. But beyond that, we also get into the skill of sales, and why I think it's an important skill that anyone should have, whether it's selling yourself at a job interview, selling yourself to that attractive guy or gal at the bar, or selling in your day job.

Throughout the interview, we talk a little bit about what good salesmanship or saleswomanship looks like, how you can learn it, and why we feel it's a skill that will allow you to unlock your superhuman potential. There's also some pretty touching personal stories in here, and obviously the story has a happy ending, because you can check out Ryan and all of his incredibly successful businesses today. Finally, there's some instructions at the end of the episode that will get you a free copy of his book, so check that out!

This episode is brought to you by Organifi. Save 20% on their highly-recommended green juice products with coupon code “superhuman.”

This episode is brought to you by my online course, Branding You. Get 95% off using the link above today!

In this episode, we discuss:

• Who is Ryan Stewman, and what is he known for?
• A walk through Ryan's extremely troubling childhood, and the path it lead him down
• How did Ryan Stewman end up going to jail – twice? Why was only one of them justified?
• When did Ryan discover entrepreneurship, and how did it save his life in many ways?
• What, if anything, did Ryan Stewman actually gain during his time in prison?
• What is HardCore Closer, and why did Ryan decide to focus on sales training of all things?
• Why is sales so important to Ryan? What does it mean to him and what's his mission?
• What differentiates Ryan and his business to his competitors?
• What are all of the (many) companies that Ryan Stewman runs, and how did he start them?
• How does Ryan learn, and how has he learned so much so fast about his industry?
• How has Ryan's perspective on business been influenced by his rough past?
• A discussion of sales, why it's important for everyone, and how you can learn this important skill authentically
• How does Ryan Stewman manage his time so he can run 6 companies and balance his personal life?
• What does his daily routine look like? What time does he wake up?
• What are Ryan's top books?
• Where did he learn to write so well?
• What's the #1 takeaway you should remember from this episode?

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• HardCore Closer
• BreakFree Academy
• Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends & Influence People
• Ryan's top book reviews
• Kickass Copyrighting Secrets of a Marketing Rebel by John Carlton
• ClickFunnels
• ElevatorToTheTop.com

Favorite Quotes from Ryan Stewman:

Transcript:

Introduction: Welcome to the Becoming SuperHuman Podcast. Where we interview extraordinary people to bring you the skills and strategies to overcome the impossible and now, here's your host, Jonathan Levi.

Jonathan Levi: This episode is brought to you by Organifi, you guys one of the only things that every nutritional expert that we've had on the show seems to actually agree on is that we all need to eat more vegetables, eat more greens, eat organic, cut out all the processed junk. Well, who has the time, right? Who has the time to go out, do the shopping, make the salads, make the juices, make the smoothies?

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Have you been listening to the past episodes and been inspired by some of the guests that we've had, who are able to share their knowledge, share their expertise with the world and earn incredible livings doing so from the best-selling authors to the online course, creators to the podcasters? Do you want to know how to do this? And do you have an urge to inspire people and earn a living by being financially independent? If, so this episode is brought to you by just the right course. It's called Brandon you, and it's my collaboration with Dr. Anthony Metivier who himself is an expert in the field we've gotten together and we've put together everything we know about creating a dynamic cross-pollinating brand ecosystem of books, podcasts, courses, mailing lists, blogs, you name it, and we teach you how to do it, to check it out and get a 95% off coupon. Plus a 30-day money-back guarantee. Check out JLE.vi/brand and start becoming financially SuperHuman today.

Greeting SuperFriends, and welcome to this week's episode. You guys, today, we are joined by Ryan Stewman and his bio, honestly, you can't make this kind of stuff up. Ryan started out life with a very, very challenging upbringing used adopted, got into all kinds of trouble. Got arrested for selling drugs. Got out, got arrested again, spent pretty good amount of time in prison guys, and came out, and today, fast forward, we're going to get to that whole story in this episode. Today, he is a millionaire entrepreneur. He runs six different businesses. He has published four different books. He has three healthy children, wife, everything has really cleaned up his life, and has become an expert in sales and entrepreneurship.

Now you might be asking yourself at this point. I mean, his workload sounds pretty superhuman. His time management sounds pretty superhuman, boy what's superhuman about this? Well, first off we do get into all of that, the entrepreneurship, what he learned throughout his struggles, we do get into. What you can learn from such a challenging and trying experience and how you can learn something like entrepreneurship.

But beyond that, we also get into the skill of sales and why I think it's an important skill that anyone should have, whether it's selling yourself at a job interview, whether it's selling yourself to that attractive guy or gal at the bar or selling in a company, your job, whatever it might be. So we'll talk a little bit about what good salesmanship or saleswoman ship looks like and how you can learn that and why we feel it's a skill that will allow you to unlock your superhuman potential. So we cover all of that. There's some pretty touching personal stories in here, and obviously, the story has a happy ending because you can check out Ryan and all of his incredibly successful businesses today.

And there's some instructions at the end of the episode that will get you a free copy of his book. So check that out. I'm sure you guys are gonna love the episode and if you do make sure to let us know on the Twitter machine. All right guys, without any further ado here, is Mr. Ryan Stewman,

Mr. Ryan Stewman. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to the show. I'm glad we finally crossed paths. Made it happen. How are you doing today?

Ryan Stewman: I'm awesome. I am awesome. And, uh, yeah, I'm excited. I, when, when you're busy, you know, stuff happens and sometimes things don't always go according to schedule.

Jonathan Levi: Totally.

Ryan Stewman: I think I had a kid though. I think that was why we had to reschedule is because like my son was born.

Jonathan Levi: You sound surprised by that, but that's like a really good reason.

Ryan Stewman: Yeah. I'm not wanting to give excuses, but I think that was the reason we had to reschedule is because Colton was born. So. It was, it was no going back on that.

Jonathan Levi:  You know, you had a kid, you just think it was the time that we had to resched so you are a hundred percent sure on the, having the kid.

Ryan Stewman: Yes. I've got three kids. I'm a hundred percent sure about all of them. They all look just like, ah, dude.

Jonathan Levi: I love you're like “I think I had a kid” I'm like, um, that's kind of one of those things you want to be sure about. All right, cool. So that is this gentlemen, excuse for having to reschedule. I respect that. I totally respect that. Ryan tell us a little bit. For the audience who hasn't had a chance to read up on your bio, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Ryan Stewman: Well, I do a lot of things and I'm really am. I'm an extremely busy guy. I'm a full-time entrepreneur, that's the CEO of six prospering companies, but really that's, you know, there's lots of people that make money and have businesses and stuff.

I think really what I'm best known for is being a guy that's really overcome a lot of bullshit in his life. I mean, I've, I was adopted at an early age, uh, in seven years old, I was adopted by the time I was 15. I wasn't going to school anymore. By the time I was 17, I had officially dropped out of school.

And the, uh, I think the eighth, the ninth grade, I think was the last eighth or ninth grade was the last year that I actually. I think I went to the ninth grade since how dumb I am. I don't even remember what part of school I dropped out, but I think I went to the ninth but I don't think I ever passed it.

You know what I mean? So I think that's what happened. But anyway, the rule is you got to show up at school in order to pass class. So I never went to school on Sunday to go to work full time when I was 17, decided that work sucked. So by 18, I was selling drugs full time and I got busted. Like most people that have been adopted drop out of school and ended up selling drugs like prison was in my imminent future and so I went and did a two years in a state prison. And while I was in there, I gave my life to God and prayed every day. And I'm just kidding. While I was in there, I tried not to get killed. And when I got out, I really did make a change in my life though. I joke about the religious that's, what people in prison do.

It's like they go there and then all of a sudden they're like the most religious person on the block, you know? And, and so, um, made a promise to never sell drugs or break the law again. And I didn't, and, uh, worked my ass off at a carwash. And at this car wash, I was offered an opportunity to get into the mortgage business, which I took and I made millions of dollars selling mortgages.

And I'll be damned if the cops didn't get in my business again. And they thought I was selling drugs and I was not selling drugs and that pissed them off because people with egos hate to be wrong. And so they basically planted some charges on me in regards to the guns. And I beat the charges and then the shady Bestard's bribed the ATF and to pick the case up and you know, nobody, other than John Gotti's ever beat the federal government, that game is not leveraged for the criminal to win, you know, and even if you're not a criminal and you're just charged with the crime.

And so, I ended up doing another 15 months in federal prison this time when I was right before I turned 30 years old for some shit I didn't even do, like I sold drugs and admittedly needed to go to prison the first time, the second time it was these Barney five cops that made some mistakes and I don't even think they would have lost their job.

I think they just didn't want to admit that they made a mistake. That's crazy how they can ruin a life like that. But I got out of prison, you know, became number one loan officer inside of another bank or one of the biggest banks in the entire nation. And in 2010, the, one of the last things Obama did before he left the office was he signed something called the Dodd-Frank act.

And what it did basically is it took financial licenses from a state level to a federal level. And since my case is a federal case, evil bastards in the government, wouldn't give me a license and you know, it was down on my luck again. And I happened to stumble across this internet marketing business and decided to go all-in with it in 2012.

And I've been building a few brands break-free Academy and hardcore closer through the internet since 2012. And you know, now I have a thriving business, several employees, we got about a quarter of a million people that follow me on Facebook and every day I get people that reach out to me and they feel comfortable enough to tell me their story, probably a story that they haven't told in a decade, or maybe never in their entire life, because they've been embarrassed or ashamed or trying to conceal it. And I've been able to reach out and really help a whole new genre of people who were otherwise, you know what I would say, unchurched by like your typical gurus.

I'm not saying I'm a guru, but I'm just saying that you know, there was a large amount of people that were just passed over because nobody could connect with them. And even though I've been through all that bullshit in my life, Jonathan, I really feel like I went through it for a reason. And that reason was strength conditioning so that I would be strong enough to help lift up the people that I'm doing in the manner that we're doing it today, man.

Jonathan Levi: I love it. Wow, Ryan, there was a lot of different elements of your story that I took away, you know, tenacity, recovering from some serious setbacks, but also I think what's interesting is entrepreneurship for you. I mean, I, so I studied sociology, right. And so I could tell you all the statistics of just how ex-convicts are so discriminated against and even folks who clean up their act, even folks who might have been wrongly convicted. So entrepreneurship for you, it sounds like, and it's starting your own business, taking all these risks. You kind of didn't have a choice. I mean, it sounds like, although you did say you went back to the banks and stuff like that, it sounds like after the second time your options were significantly limited. You had to succeed, what'd you say? That's right.

Ryan Stewman: Yeah. Well, you know, in 2010, when I lost my license, I told myself, I was like, damn it. I got to find something that nobody no governing licensing Bureau and no CEO of a company is in charge of my future. I need to. You know, be my own man.

And, and that was really my only choice. I think that's what happens to most convicts is they either become an entrepreneur or they go back to prison and I didn't want to go back again, a hell I didn't want to go back the second time. And, you know, I've tried my best to, you know, put myself in a position, working at a bank and solid job, and then that didn't work out for me.

But again, I think that the universe has a plan for you, and oftentimes when you're getting smacked around like I was getting put in prison or maybe you're going through divorces and everything else, but as you're getting smacked around, I think that really, you're not getting smacked around. I think you're just getting redirected.

I think that the universe has a plan for you. And when you step off that plan, it kind of smacks you back into the plan from is a lot of people don't realize that's what's going on. So they just keep running right back into the slap, you know,

Jonathan Levi: I want to ask you Ryan, a really tough question. That might be the shortest answer.

It might be a one-word answer. The shortest answer I've ever gotten on the show. But did you learn anything in your time in prison that helped you be a better entrepreneur, father, husband, you know, the person, or was it all for you just waiting?

Ryan Stewman: Well, yeah, of course, I learned some things, you know, and here's what I do know when you have a lot of time to think.

You know, when you're out here and what, like the convicts, would call the free world, you've got phones and TVs and all these things to distract you. And you don't really think like you're using your mind and you're scrolling Facebook or you're on a Skype with somebody having a conversation. Well, you're not quiet and thinking.

And you know, obviously, I've had four years of my life to spend a great deal of time thinking, thinking where I went wrong, thinking what my next move is going to be thinking about how I can improve and what I wanted from life. And prior to going into federal prison, it's almost self I never wanted kids, but coming out, I had a change of heart, you know?

And decided that, you know, I needed something bigger than me to keep me in line and to keep me from making another mistake. And, uh, even though, like I said, the second time was complete bullshit. There's still some things that I could've done to avoid that now education was part of them. Hell, I didn't know, you couldn't have that gun.

So that would have been a nice thing to know upfront. But the other thing is, you know, not just paying more attention, so absolutely it made me better, but it's because I had a lot of time to think and reflect.

Jonathan Levi: Wow. I think that's really interesting. And it sounds almost like you were able to create this vision.

We talk a lot on the show about vision and planning and setting out a vision for your life. And it sounds like that's exactly what you did, you know, and I've done a little research on your background and you made a decision at the age of 24 that you were going to become a millionaire by the age of 40.

And it sounds like having this time away to put it in a nice way. Gave you the opportunity to plan this out, say, you know what, I'm not going to be dependent on some governing body. I'm going to be an entrepreneur and you're going to do it this way and this way and this way. So tell me about that. I mean, obviously, you had these skills that you and I both value in our businesses, which is the ability to sell, the ability to market, the ability to get people, to follow you.

So you get out and you decide to build this business. Tell me a little bit about hardcore closer and the businesses that you're running.

Ryan Stewman: Well, you know, I've never had a salary job or like a, a job where I've been on anything other than commission. I've never taken a paid day off. I've never taken a personal day off that I got paid or paid vacation.

I've always been in sales and through all the bullshit in my life, man, sales has been the one thing that's there. I get out of prison. I get a job in sales. I'm back where I need to be. You know, I, I go to prison, I get out and get a job in sales back where I need to be. I got divorced, you know, sales got me back to where I need to be. Having a rough time financially sales gets me back where I need to be, you know? And so like, you know, sales is literally saved my entire life and it's the one thing that I could rely on. You know, if all this stuff falls out the window, then sales is the one thing that I can rely on. And. And, you know, there's a lot of people that do it wrong. Sales to me isn't cold calling and door knocking anymore.

Like I think that if you have to go harass strangers, that is like a lowlife way of doing sales. It really is. And because there's that we have the internet, we have, you know, direct response marketing. We have the ability to make funnels. We have the ability to make videos and use SEO and run ads on websites.

And. All of these things where people are at who want to talk to us. And I think like if you just bug people, that's not real sales. And so hardcore closer, it's a different type of sales training. And really it's like 1% sales training at 99% Legion and systems. And I noticed though when I started this business in 2012, and I noticed that you got guys like Cardone and Brian, Tracy, and you know, whoever else, Jeffrey Gitomer or whatever, out there that were in the sales world, but, you know, Cardona, the Scientologist and, and Brian Tracy is like a nice Christian Guy and get immersed, like whatever, you know what I mean? But nobody really resonated with all the misfits that I had met over the years.

Like the guys that don't wear a suit and tie that are covered in tattoos that are adrenaline junkies, that. You know, go out and blow their paycheck on a Friday and then come back in, broke on a Monday. You know, those guys like Tracy and Cardona good, you know, nothing against them, but they're selling to the manager.

I wanted to sell to the actual salesperson and help that guy. You know, I never had a job in management. I was always the sales guy. So that's who I am. I was never a Brown noser. I was always the top producer. And I noticed that those people in the marketplace, they were being unchurched. You know what I mean?

They didn't have somebody that they could look up to that would get them. And I know that most people are in sales because they don't have an Ivy League college degree and they weren't born with a silver spoon up their ass and they've had to bootstrap their way to where they're at. And this is the only chance they're going to be able to make, you know, 50, a hundred, 200, a million dollars a year.

And I get that and I wanted to help those people. Because that's who I am, you know, and that's how I got to where I was in life in sales. And so I wanted to help those people. And at first, man, I wasn't really accepted, you know, people didn't like the tattoos or the cuss words and stuff like that. But if you look five years later, your top guys out there and now cussing and talking about how they used to do drugs, wearing hoodies and stuff like that.

It's safe to say that I disrupted this whole industry pretty rough and made some enemies along the way and that's okay. But you know, our program that hardcore closers different than everybody else, because all those people that I just named their good salespeople, but they can't build you a funnel and sell and teach you how to run a Facebook ad and show you how to get money on Instagram and show you how to edit videos.

Like they don't know how to do all that. They don't, God bless them. They're all like, you know, 60 years old. So they just didn't grow up with that technology like I did. And I've been able to not only just sell. Through the phone or through a meeting or whatever the case, but I can sell on Facebook. We made $2 million last year, just from Facebook ads alone.

And so I'm teaching people the new way of sales, which I believe is like, it's like the New Testament in the Bible. It's the only righteous new path to the divine universe.

Jonathan Levi: I love that.

Ryan Stewman: That's kind of my thing. And then I have a break free Academy, which is our seminar company and same thing, you know, I go to a lot of seminars and it's always like, here's a bunch of stuff you need to do.

And then now go out there and do it that the seminar is over. And it was like, well, shit, why don't we do all this while we were there? And it will be so much easier. I've done it while we were learning about it and then not have to do it when I go back to work on Monday. And so I created the seminar that you come to and on day one, you learned some stuff on day two, you do everything you learned on day one and day three you're back in the office working, and you have a completed funnel with an ad run into it in a sales system in process. All for just taking two days off. So, you know, I keep seeing needs out there in the marketplace and I keep filling them with different companies. And our last, our break-free Academy is we charge five grand a ticket.

The last one, we had 89 people at it. So it's obviously a work in, I've been doing that since 2014. And we got so big to where now we're booked out on all of our lives because we're supposed to only take 75 people per class. And so we're so far booked out that we created a program. Now that's like an online program called “Entourage”, and it's a monthly continuity program for, you know, how to learn all the stuff that we do. We launched it in December and we already have 600 and something people in that program as well. And it's $297 a month. So we have these really good programs that people are getting huge results. And, and I've been around for, I believe in past that tipping point long enough now to where, you know, people are starting to see that we've got hundreds and maybe even thousands of testimonials at this point and everything else. So, and then I own, you know, some supplemental companies like, uh, since I do so much real estate and mortgage business, I own an alarm company. And since I've worked with so many realtors, I own a real estate company because I like to buy houses and flip them.

And then I own a property management company. So it's just like a little bit of everything. And, you know, I'm just the CEO. So obviously I've got people working for me and everything else. So it's all about. The people, me being able to leverage them and everything else, but, uh, it's over and I didn't start them all at once.

Once one became successful and I got it to seven figures, then I built another one to seven figures, then another one, and then I just do my best to replace myself all the way out of each business on the way up.

Jonathan Levi: Incredible. Really incredible story and it resonates so much with me on so many different levels.

One from the never having, you know, a steady paycheck in my life, but also just what you've done with Facebook ads and the way that you've scaled your business is so similar to the way we've scaled our business using webinars and things like that. I want to ask you a little bit Ryan, about how you learn, because as you said, you've been in this entrepreneurship thing not that long in it. You've clearly mastered it and you're teaching it to other people. So how do you go about learning? Something like that? I mean, how did you dig in and decide to learn? And then what did you do to do it?

Ryan Stewman: I think the best way to learn is just through taking action and gaining experiences.

Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose, sometimes you fail, but each time you learn. And so, you know, I just started doing shit, man. I made a bunch of mistakes, just like I did growing up. And I just started doing things and, you know, obviously, I would hire mentors and watch videos on YouTube and not paid probably a quarter-million dollars at this point to different masterminds and stuff like that.

And into private events, with like smart people and things. But, you know, the key is really just depended for me to do something. And then, you know, I'm just a crazy enough pasture to where. I've lost everything so much, but I've got it back every time that I'm not really scared to lose it. You know what I mean?

And so I just go out there and take action. And you know, when you've been in my position that you've been in some really rough positions in life, like prison and selling drugs and things like that. Uh, you know, taking a risk in business, isn't really that much of a scary thing. It's like, like if I have a loan for one of these properties, we just bought from my real estate company, if something happens in, you know, heaven forbid I can't pay that loan back.

I got to worry about, yeah. Bank of America coming to track, break my knee caps, or anything like that. You know what I mean? It's like, dude, I'm just running off paperwork shifts around and they go get the debt service by, you know, Aquaman servicing or something like that, as opposed to, you know, if you owe debt $500 cause you didn't pay him for the cocaine you fronted from last Friday. It's a lot different stories. So this stuff doesn't really get me worried that much.

Jonathan Levi: I like that. That's definitely a different story than we've heard on the show. Although you're not the first person to say they went from drug dealing to, you know, helping people online and training people online on the show.

But definitely, the first one too, uh, have their kneecaps almost broken. I would say, tell me this right now. I want to touch on sales, because, like I said, at the beginning of the show, I've always told people that every interaction in life is a sale. And people think that that's such a, like, stuck up entrepreneurial way of looking at the world, but it's not because when you meet that beautiful woman in the bar, that's a sale and you know, five years down the line, when you're trying to tell her. Dave, I want to have another kid that's a sale. And even when you have that place that you want to go to dinner, that's a sale job interviews or a sale.

So I really look at the world as interactions and I look at those interactions as sales. So I really believe in the reason I wanted to have you on the show is I wanted to talk about authentic salesmanship, not this like, and if you buy, we'll give you this, but selling something like loans, you really have to provide value for people and selling the kinds of products that you do, $5,000 trainings. You have to provide value for people. And so I was hoping you could share some insight with folks about what the sales process looks like today and how and why they can benefit from becoming better sales, women, and salesmen.

Ryan Stewman: Well, if you believe in what you're selling like if you're selling life coaching and you know that you can save people's lives, you're kind of an asshole. If you don't get good at sales, in my opinion,

Jonathan Levi: Yes.

Ryan Stewman: Because sales influence. And if you believe in your product, you should be wanting to put it in the hands of people. And I mean, think about it. If you have the cure for cancer and all they had to do was take two pills and call you in the morning. And cancer was over with what you be trying to sell the shit out of that to somebody, even if they argued with you and told you no. And was like, dude, no, I don't believe it works. It's not going to work for me. What you be doing everything in your power to sell that shit to somebody. Yes. Because you'll be saving their life. And so in one way or another your products, the same thing, you should have that same conviction or you shouldn't sell it. But here's what I do know. This is what I teach my real estate and mortgage clients.

And it's easy just to explain it, using them as the example, but you can transfer this to anything, but people don't want a mortgage and never in the history of mankind. And somebody rolled over in the middle of the night and went, honey, we need a mortgage, right? Like that's just not the conversation that happens.

But what they do is they say we need a house. And the only way you can get that house is by getting a mortgage and the mortgage is something they don't want. It's a consequence they have to withstand in order for them to get what they want, which is the house.

Jonathan Levi: Right.

Ryan Stewman: And so the way that I was able to become one of the top producing loan officers on the planet when I wrote loans, felony convictions aside was because I didn't sell mortgages.

I sold their ability to get in that house in the mortgage was just part of the process and part of the plan. For real estate agents, you know, you see them put their pretty faces on signs and stuff like that. Nobody gives a shit about a real estate agent. Nobody in the middle of the night goes to read, totally need a real estate agent.

No, they're like, we need to sell this house. Right? We need to buy a house. And a real estate agent is someone who gets in the way of them and getting a house, but it's, it's somebody who's needed. Right? And so the real estate agent, just like that mortgage as a consequence, Do you have to be able to endure in order to move into a house?

Same with insurance. Nobody wants insurance. The government forces it on us. What you don't want is you don't want your car towed if you're pulled over because you don't have insurance. Right? And what you don't want is you don't want to get hit or hit somebody else and have an accident. And then you own a bunch of money because you don't have insurance.

And so if you'll start thinking about whatever it is that you sell is like, Hey, you know what? A lot of people are like, Oh yeah, still low rate mortgages. Like nobody wants that. I'm looking at it as like I sell houses. And there's only a finite reason that somebody would buy a house.

They got a kid coming. They have kids that move out, they're relocating for their job. They need a bigger house. You need a smaller house, lifestyle upgrade, lost their job, relocating for work. There's only a finite amount of reasons that someone would want to pack all their stuff in a box and yell at everyone around them for two weeks while they unpacked those same exact boxes that they just packed up inside of another box that they just moved to.

There's a significant reason. So your job is to know what reasons. And what results in the people that you sell to are wanting. And so that when you're talking to them, you're asking them questions, trying to figure out which one of those reasons it is. And then you sell the solution to that reason, not, particularly what you sell.

Jonathan Levi: I like that. It's the whole, nobody in the world wants a drill, but they want a hole. It's, you know, getting to the thing that they actually want reminds me a lot of Dale, Carnegie, how to win friends and influence people where he talks about always, always, always speak in other people's interests. Right? So don't talk about what you're going to benefit from the sale.

Nobody cares. Talk about what the person wants, what they're trying to get. So you know that restaurant, well, they have that thing that you like, and it might sound like manipulation, I think to people who aren't familiar, but. In life, everything that we're doing is communicating and trying to influence the way other people react, behave, and feel. I believe, so yeah. I love that. Really brilliant.

Ryan Stewman: Yeah. Well, the thing is, people aren't necessarily interested in you if you seem very self-servicing like most people are self-serving. So if you seem that way, they're like, well, he's self-serving and I'm self-serving, that's a mismatch. Right? But if you're like, I'm self-serving, but he's a servant of others.

Shit, that's a match, you know?

Jonathan Levi: Yeah. And I think everyone wants to be around people who make them feel good and help them achieve their interests. Right? It's kind of basic human nature. We look for synergy. We are the most collaborative species on the planet. And so we look for opportunities that say, Hey, like you've got apples and I've got oranges, we should trade. I think that's a uniquely human characteristic and it, and some people certainly know how to make those opportunities more apparent to the people that they're communicating to. And that's exactly what you're doing here is, Hey, I've got great loan rates right now, and you're looking for a home and let me articulate to you how I can help you achieve your goal because no one cares what your goal is, how many loans that you want to sell.

Ryan Stewman: Yup that's it but imagine me as a loan officer, if I was like, once you lock in your overprice loan with me this month, I'll be at 23 for the month, which means I'll have made $30,000. Aren't you happy for me? Like who the hell gives a shit about me? Right? But instead this, I do want you to talk in this loan with me. It might be a little bit more expensive than Quicken, but here's the guarantee come the 1st of February, you will be in your house.

You won't be in a U hall. You won't be living in your apartment still. You won't be worried about where in the hell your next payment's going to be. You won't be worried about what the price is. The place is going to be or what your monthly payment's going to be, or where are you going to live? You're going to be right there, unpack living there, celebrating Valentine's together.

Jonathan Levi: Incredible. Yeah, that gets the job done ay. Ryan, I want to ask you this, time management. You're running all these businesses, father of three, how the hell are you doing it?

Ryan Stewman: I am very focused. And I run my entire life by a schedule. And so if it's not on my schedule, it doesn't exist. And time with my kids is on my scheduled time, with my wife it's on my schedule and I do not deviate from it. I just don't. And that's how I knew that we had rescheduled because I had a kid was because I don't deviate from the schedule. You know what I mean? But unless something life-altering like Colton being born, what happened and every day I wake up and then I look on the schedule and see what I got to do so the day, and I don't stop working until it's done. And if there's other stuff that I want to do, that's not on that schedule. I know I got to wake up earlier or stay later. And, but even then I put the stuff on my schedule, man.

Like you can literally go on Google calendar and you could review everything that I've done for the last five years of my life.

Jonathan Levi: Same, I'm the exact same way. It just makes things so much easier. I spend so much time thinking about decision-making capacity and if I have to choose what I'm going to eat for breakfast and what I'm going to do that day, which piece of work I'm going to work on, who I'm going to meet when I'm going to call them. It's just so many more decisions than if I just say, look, Tuesday nights are nights that I host dinner parties. Every Tuesday I have a dinner party. You know, sometimes I have my assistant pick six random people, other times I actually put in some thought, but it just eliminates so much. And you just do what you say and say what you do very simply.

Ryan Stewman: Yup. And it keeps you on point, you know, if you have a schedule to stick to, there's no time for bullshit, you know?

Jonathan Levi: That is absolutely true. Now, do you split time? In any kind of specific way or is it just catches catch can? Do you know, do you spend one day working on one business? Do you have a family day? Tell me how that all works.

Ryan Stewman: So I don't have like a family day because I spend time with my family every day. I got three boys under the age of six and I spend time with them every day. We got a golf cart and live in a golf course community. So we're always hanging out, having a good time, but yeah. As a matter of fact, next week, we'll be going to Florida to the beach together for the week.

So that's been an actual, a lot of time with my family every single day, but, and I work on every business every single day. I just run a schedule depending on what needs to be done. If I need to write a blog post, make a video of a meeting, talk to one of my business partners, uh, go to, uh, an event or whatever the case it is.

It's just all right there. And I don't have a, you know, what I do is my schedule starts at about 9:00 AM every morning. But I'm usually up by four 30 or five. And so I get a little bit of work done before. So like I usually wake up, let's say at five o'clock and from five to six, I'll get a lot of work done because there's nobody awake.

There's nothing being distracted or anything like that. Then I'll go to CrossFit from, let's say six to seven 30. And then, uh, count, drive time and stuff. And so by the time I get back, I worked from, let's say seven 30 to eight, take shower, hit the road, I'm in the office by nine. And then I usually leave here about six and I live in Dallas, Texas. So it doesn't get dark till nine. And I'm five minutes from my house. So leaving here at six, o'clock getting home by six 15. That still gives me plenty of time to. Hanging out with the kids for the evening.

Jonathan Levi: Awesome. Ryan, I just realized we're running up on time here and I don't know how that happened. So I'm gonna start asking you some rapid fire questions, if that's all right?

Ryan Stewman:  Let's do it.

Jonathan Levi: Tell me a little bit about some books that have changed your life. Are you a reader? I imagine you had large periods of time in your life, where you had a lot of time to read. Any books that really stood out,

Ryan Stewman: Man, you know, I have a whole list of books that I love and I have written reviews for on hardcore closer.com under the book reviews there.

Jonathan Levi: Okay.

Ryan Stewman: And I don't like, it just depends on what subject, but yeah, absolutely. I've read a ton of books. There's like a hundred books that I've reviewed. And I read a book every single week. I just finished “The Dirt” by Motley Crew, which absolutely has nothing to do with sales or business, but it's awesome.

Jonathan Levi: Amazing. Any, uh, like one book that stands out for you?

Ryan Stewman: Well, the book that taught me to write is called “Kick-ass Copywriting Secrets of Marketing Rebel” by a guy named John Carlton. And it's like a $200 book, man, but it legitimately taught me how to write. It taught me what English teachers for nine years of school couldn't teach.

Jonathan Levi: Oh, wow. That's really interesting. I love reading copywriting books. I'm a big fan of Gary Halbert stuff, which a friend of mine turned me on to. And I think learning how to write copy will just change the way that you communicate. You know, even in Facebook posts, I'll write something like I have, you know, a $10 widget that I need to sell because you know, or I bought a new iPhone. I want to sell my, all the iPhone on a Facebook group and I'll go on there and I'll be like, dear friends. Have you ever discovered that dah, dah, dah, the odd inspiring power of technology? Like you'll just write amazing shit and people respond to it. I want to sell like a beard trimmer for twice the price that I paid for it.

Well, I got a half-off discount, but I sold it at retail just cause I wrote a killer copy, like killer ad copy. And that was it. So incredible skill to have out there.

Ryan Stewman: Words matter.

Jonathan Levi: Words matter. And as my good buddy, Dr. Anthony Mitsubishi, I always say all wealth in one way or another comes from writing. I think that's probably true. Ryan, let me ask you another one, which is best a hundred dollars you've ever spent.

Ryan Stewman: Well, damn, that's a really good question. I have no idea, man. That is a really good question though.

Jonathan Levi: A tough one, right? I'll give you an easier one, a follow-up on which is what's like a product or service that you use every day that you just couldn't live without.

Ryan Stewman: You know, uh, click funnels is, uh, something that, you know, we run a lot of our business around and, and Russell Brunson's a good friend of mine, the CEO, and, and, uh, I really do like their tool a whole lot.

Jonathan Levi: Awesome. I've been meaning to check it out where our tech stack doesn't fully perfectly integrate with it, but I think we're going to give it a try soon in our stuff.

So, Ryan, I want to be respectful of your time here. I'm going to go ahead and start wrapping up, but I want to give you an opportunity to let people know where to find you and maybe your various different businesses.

Ryan Stewman: Yeah. So the best thing you can do out there for those of you out there, listening to it, just go to elevatortothetop.com, elevator to the top.com and you get a free copy of my paperback book.

We've sold like 20 or 50,000 copies. It's a lot, right? It doesn't matter. It's just a lot. And uh, I'd like to give you a free paperback copy. You can go there. And once you get on that site, you can just go through our process and you can see some of the things that we sell and some of the different social network sites that you can find us on, but it's all right there.

And that's the best thing to do is just let me mail you a paperback copy of the book, go to the elevator to the top.com. Enter your information, tell us where to ship the book. We'll get it to you. And then you can check out everything we got going on from there.

Jonathan Levi: Awesome Ryan. I'm going to do that right now. And, uh, we'll put a link to that for everyone in the podcast episode. So everyone can go ahead and get that without having to click around.

 Ryan, again, I want to thank you for your time. And I do want to ask one last question, which is one that we ask every episode pretty much. And that is if people really only manage to remember one thing, one big takeaway from this episode, what would you hope for that to be.

Ryan Stewman: That no matter how many times you've been f***** life, you can still turn it around. It's never too late to turn it around and you can still have everything you want. Because even though you know what these setbacks through prison and everything else, I have more money and more assets and more happiness and friends and better clients and beautiful view from the office. Like everything that I ever dreamed up, I still have, because even though what looked like failure in some people's eyes, it was just a setback in mind.

Jonathan Levi: Brilliant and great words to end. Ryan. I really want to thank you again for sharing your wisdom. Definitely, a conversation that I enjoyed and I'm sure our audience learned a ton.

Ryan Stewman: Yeah, I appreciate you having me on Jonathan.

Jonathan Levi: A pleasure. Let's stay in touch. All right?

Ryan Stewman: Alright my man, thanks again for having me on.

Jonathan Levi: All right. SuperFriends. That is all we have for you today, but I hope you guys really enjoyed the show and I hope you learned a ton of actionable information tips, advice that will help you go out there and overcome the impossible.

If you've enjoyed the show, please take a moment to leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher, or drop us a quick little note on the Twitter machine @gosuperhuman. Also, if you have any ideas for anyone out there who you would love to see on the show. We always love to hear your recommendations. You can submit it on our website, or you can just drop us an email and let us know that's all for today, guys.

Closing: Thanks for tuning in to the Becoming SuperHuman Podcast. For more great skills and strategies, or for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode, visit www.becomingasuperhuman.com/podcast. We'll see you next time.