Brad Lea is achieving at the speed of light! Brad Lea is a leading authority on web-based training. Experienced and proven in sales and marketing, he is a seasoned professional with a strong base of sales management coming from 25 years in the automotive industry.
You can find out even MORE about these boosters in Glenn’s bestselling book The ABCs of Attitude: Discover Your Secret Formula to Achieve Success in Your Personal and Business Life, Increase Your Emotional Intelligence and GET ATTITUDE! (Attitude Is Everything) ▶︎▶︎ Here: http://bit.ly/theABCsofattitude
On today’s podcast…
1:14 – Brad Lea introduction
3:29 – Who was Brad Lea before he bridged the gap?
9:57 – A mentor was the difference
17:49 – The four ingredients you’ll need if you’re going to train effectively – Good Content, Repetition, Practice, and Accountability
22:37 – Brad’s training system is called https://www.closerschool.com 27:59 – Have a mentor and copy him or her
35:27 – Leveraging your money for time
36:25 – The attitude lessons from athletics
39:04 – What was the chance to get you over the bridge?
41:42 – Knowledge through the decades. Advice as a newborn baby – closed mouths don’t get fed
43:46 – Knowledge through the decades. Advice as at the age of 10 – more inside than imaginable
46:32 – Knowledge through the decades. Advice as at the age of 20 – give up what you have to get what you want…and a story about Bill Gates (Microsoft) buying a Honda NSX
50:28 – Knowledge through the decades. Advice as at the age of 30 – the mindset path
52:03 – Knowledge through the decades. Advice as at the age of 40 – weed your garden
55:16 – Knowledge through the decades. Advice as at the age of 50 – Be grateful
1:00:21 – Show close
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Brad Lea
Founder, Chairman & CEO of LightSpeed VT online training platform
We are with the one and only, out of Las Vegas, Brad Lea. Waging war against average. That’s the attitude that our GAPers want. If you are not waging war in your life, if you are sitting there going, “I know there is more to what I am doing.” If you are just passive and you’re not squeezing the juice out of the lemons of life, you’re crazy. We got the guy that’s going to help you wage war against your apathy, against your average.
His name is Brad Lea. He is the CEO of LightSpeed VT. He is the Founder of Closer School. He’s got the Dropping Bombs Podcast. We hope you review, subscribe and rate his podcast. I saw something, Brad, that you had called the ALL-IN Growth Conference. You are doing everything. You’re waging war. Welcome to the show. It’s great to have you here.
I appreciate you having me.
It’s awesome to have you as part of the show. What we always like to do is try to take people from where they are to where they want to be. From who they are to who they want to become. You’ve been at this LightSpeed VT for nineteen years and I love to know where did you come from? What’s your story? When were you fed up? When did things change for you? Let us know the Brad Lea that was standing at the beginning of the bridge before he walked and covered the gap.
That’s a long story. It was filled with change. I’ve had to adapt and change my entire life. I like to say I had to learn it the hard way. Although, if I could start over, one of the main things that I would do differently is to seek knowledge faster and basically realize that you don’t have to learn everything the hard way.
I grew up in the Northwest to a blue-collar family, to begin with. We started to make a little rise. My dad was entrepreneurial. He had a little mishap, went back down to nothing and we stayed there. To me, it seems he gave up a little bit. In fact, that’s what did happen. He started to get a little bit and then crashed. I got kicked out of my house because I didn’t mow the lawn on a certain day when I said I would.
Ultimately, my dad didn’t mess around. He quit school because of recess. He doesn’t play. At the end of the day, he booted me out of the house because I didn’t mow the lawn. I’m like, “Why would I have to go to school then?” My dumb ass decided to drop out of high school at the same time because I had no adult supervision.
I had a ‘77 Camaro, a half tank of gas, a full pack of Camel Lights and a bag of clothes. My dad basically said, “Beat it, kid. Go out there and make yourself a living.” I bounced around and did side crap here and there, but decided to get a real job. I went and started to fight forest fires. I applied with the Forestry Service. I thought I was going to be a lumberjack with flannel shirts, fighting fires and crap, looking all cool. I showed up the first day and it turns out, they got me carrying around this 10-pound backpack filled with water. They called it a piss bag. I was a piss bag operator, not a firefighter. I thought I was going to be cool. They said, “No, you’re the piss bag operator.”
That’s called marketing is what’s that called.
I put this 10-pound bag on my back and I had to squirt on stumps to keep them from re-igniting, where the real firefighters would have to come back and fight fire again. I was squirting stumps like an idiot. I got poison oak on my arm, just a little quarter size. I go to the supervisor and I’m like, “I’m not going to be able to make it in for a couple of days.”
He rips his shirt off and his whole body is covered in poison oak. He had it on his earlobe. It was everywhere. He’s like, “That’s part of the job. You got to get out there and tough your way through it.” I walked out of that freaking office and I’m thinking, “I don’t like this hard labor, manual labor crap.” I had to change right on the spot. That was about 16, 17 years old.
I opened up the paper and I found a sales job. I walked in there to apply for a sales job. I get to wear a suit where I look all cool. I walk in. I’m already feeling good. I’m in a suit. I think I look and snappy. It’s a car dealership. They hired me and they tell me to freaking go pick out a car. I’m like, “What?” They’re like, “Go pick a car,” and this is a Pontiac Volkswagen store. There’s Trans Ams on the lot. I’m like, “What do you mean?” They’re like, “Go pick out a car.” I’m like, “Why?” They’re like, “You have to drive a car. It’s called the demo. You get a demo to drive while you work here.” I’m like, “Are you shitting me?”
I went from poison oak mandatory to freaking Trans Ams, not optional. I’m like, “I’m liking this already.” I picked the Trans Am, started to kick booty and started selling. That began a career in sales. I’ve sold Ark RVs, vacuums, candy bars, door to door at six years old. I slayed it by the way. I spent a career mastering sales, closing, persuasion, etc. At about 30 years old, I was running a car dealership. I had the responsibility to train salespeople and management because if you’re running a dealership, you’re responsible.
I was training and creating managers, and high-powered salespeople left and right. There was this hardworking individual in the back of the lot and he was making minimum wage, but he was a good and hardworking dude. He reminded me of my dad. My dad worked hard his whole life but never got anywhere. People say, “All you got to do is work hard.” I’ve seen people work hard. There are people working hard every single day and they’re not rich. If hard work was all it took, everyone in the military would be rich. How many people in the military are rich?
Not financially, zero.
Hard work isn’t what it takes. You got to have a mentor. You have to understand that there are people out there that can help you. People are like, “There are no shortcuts.” There are shortcuts. If you don’t know them, then you’re stuck taking a long way. You know who’s telling you, there’s no shortcuts? The idiot that wants to take a long way. My whole life has been me. I’ve been that idiot. I’m turning it around at 50 years old saying, “There are shortcuts. Pay attention. Get a mentor.”
Brad, thanks so much for bringing that up.
I’m not done with my story, Glenn.
No. I’m not going to get it but I want to clue our people in what’s happening with most of our people, we say, “Pick one of the boosters.” We only are getting the best, the biggest influencers in the nation. They always cover all ten. Brad’s topic is to have a mentor and copy them. He said, it’s probably the thing I need to work on most, which is odd because most people don’t do that. You’re 50. You’re changing things because the hard work road and the dip shit needs a mentor. He needs to get smart.
At 50 years old, I’m still learning. Anybody that thinks they know everything, stupid. The more I learn, the more I learn I need to learn. At the end of the day, we know nothing. Walk around and expect and assume that everybody you meet knows something you don’t. Instead of being an arrogant prick with a bad attitude, why don’t you realize that some bitch might know something you don’t?
I was 30 years old and I’m training all these high-powered people because I’ve mastered sales myself. I can break things down to the basic level, so pretty much everybody understands. I take this kid out of the back, hardworking dude. I say, “I’m going to teach you how to sell.” He says, he doesn’t sell. He’s an introvert. I said, “I know you are. I’m going to teach you how to sell and you’re going to change. You’re going to make money. Your kids aren’t going to be walking around here in two-year-old tennis shoes. Your wife’s actually going to like you again. Everybody’s going to be happy.” He said, “Okay.”
He comes out the front. I changed his life. His wife is in love with him. His kids are walking around in designer clothes. The guy is a good dude. When money is given to good people, don’t believe the hype that it’s bad. Good people don’t turn bad because they get money. Money amplifies who you are. If you’re a prick, money just makes you a bigger prick. If you’re a good person, money makes you a better person because you have the ability to help more people, which is ultimately what I learned to do at 30, which changed everything. I changed all my life.
People are afraid to change. They’re afraid to be judged. It makes no sense. You should expect change. One of the five factors of success that I preach is to make adjustments. You cannot put blinders on like we’re taught and pretend that there’s a beeline to where you’re going. There are things in the way. They’re called obstacles, challenges and situations.
You can have a bad attitude and you can see the problems or you can focus on solutions to those problems and play it like a game. You make adjustments and keep on rolling with a good attitude. I have friends of mine and their whole hair is gray. They stress over everything. Every time I call them, “How are we going to do that? We don’t have their emails.”
It’s like, “Are you focused on the problem? This is an opportunity. They gave you an opportunity and you’re worried about the problem. Is that what you want to focus on?” When you focus on the crap, Glenn, you get more of it. What you focus on grows. Focus on problems, get more problems. Focus on solutions, get more solutions. What do you think you ought to do?
We always talk about emotions are big in the attitude and I always say, “What you’re focusing on, you feel.” If you focus on crap, you feel like crap.
I’m 30 years old, I changed this guy’s life and that felt good. Now, for the first time in my life, I’m worried about helping other people. Until 30 years old, it was all about me. What could I get? How do I get rich? Why don’t I have that? Who’s to blame for all my conditions? The president? My dad, who never loved me? All this bullshit that people tell themselves when in reality it’s the same person who can get them out of it. It all begins with mindset.
It all begins with perspective. I’ll give you an example of perspective. There’s a lot of people that will say I’m rich and successful, a multi-millionaire dude. I’ve made it right. I know other people that will tell you I’m screwing up a billion-dollar opportunity. I’ve accomplished the same thing in life. One side of the fence says I’m screwing up crap and potential. One side says I’m the coolest thing on the board. Who’s right? The ones that think I’m everything or the ones that think I’m screwing up?
My guess is, you’re right.
The answer is it doesn’t matter what they think. How do I feel? What do I think? That’s what matters. I’m showing you the two different perspectives, show you in two different lights when you’re doing the exact same thing. You know automatically that it’s a decision, a choice and a perspective of how you look at things. You can look at the problem or you can look at the solution and the opportunity.
I’m 30 years old, I helped this kid and I’m like, “I want to start a training company. I want to start to help other people make more money and change their lives.” I quit my job. I started a training company. I went out and I started charging $10,000 to show up for the day and spew my magic. They liked my magic. It was fun. People liked me. It was like, “I’m cool. Everyone’s listening to me.”
I traveled around and did that for a while. I quickly realized, “The people I’m leaving behind is not learning crap.” They’re not being successful like the last batch of people I was getting addicted to helping people from. Why? Because I saw their lives change. I saw them transform. I’m like, “Why aren’t these people transforming?”
I have integrity and ethics, so I’m not going to continue to charge someone $10,000 a day to show up and not do the job. I’m starting to think, “I got to quit charging people or we got a problem.” Because I know these people aren’t learning, these people aren’t changing, these people aren’t transforming. I sat there and I thought to myself, “What is happening?”
I took myself back. I mapped out everything I did with the managed employees that I had developed and hired and was working great. I compared it to what I was doing out on the road when I was trying to do it for other people. There were four key ingredients I discovered that most companies do not have in their training and that makes it ineffective. That makes it almost as good as not training.
There are people out there trying to train people, but they’re doing it wrong. It’s almost like they’re not training. They’re investing in training. They’re just not getting the return. I thought to myself, “This is crazy. Let me see if this is real.” As soon as I realize this, I said, “I got to test this.” I tested it and it worked. It proved what I thought and it proved what I discovered. I started implementing that and then that blew everything up to where we are now. There were a lot of changes along the way there. At 30 years old, I discovered the four ingredients. That made a whole change. That made another shift.
We’re ready to get attitude. We’re ready to eat. Why don’t you lay those four on us?
You don’t have to learn everything the hard way. Click To TweetThe four ingredients that you have to have if you’re going to train effectively are good content. You have to have good content because if you train someone effectively to do it wrong, they’ll do it wrong. You don’t want that. You want how to do it right in the first place. That’s good content. The second thing you need is repetition. Repetition is the mother of learning. Repetition is the key. That’s why schools are twelve years and not twelve days. Remember back in school, we learned the same thing all year over and over. Why? Because that’s how we learn. The repetition has to be there.
Third, there has to be practice. I learned how to shoot a jump shot, but it doesn’t mean I’m not going to practice it. Fourth, there needs to be accountability. If those four things are not included, it’s not necessarily training. It’s more like exposure. You’ve been exposed to information. Exposure, as you know, is very dangerous. You can get arrested for exposure. You can die from exposure. You don’t want to just simply expose your employees, your team, your customers, your fans or whatever you’re doing.
You don’t want to just expose them to your content and information. It won’t work very well. You want them to be effectively trained. You have to have good content, repetition, practice and accountability. Go look at all the companies in the world out there. They think because they sit someone down and make them watch a video and check a box that they’re trained. No, they’re exposed. Most companies have exposure programs, not training programs.
I realized this and I’m like, “Holy molly.” I looked around, there was nothing out there. This was many years ago. There was no internet. It just came out. I’m like, “I have to figure out a way to provide these four things. Good content, repetition, practice and accountability.” I was doing it when I worked. Because they worked for me, I can hold them accountable. I could practice with them every day. There was repetition. I went over it and over it.
When I was out on the road, there was no repetition. I said it once and left. There was no accountability. They didn’t work for me. I couldn’t see if they were doing it. I couldn’t inspect what I expect. There was no way to practice with them. I was delivering good content. There was no repetition. There was no practice. There was no accountability. I said, “I got to map this out and figure this out.” I started approaching these people that were building internet-type things. We created LightSpeed Virtual Training, LightSpeed VT. I think nowadays everyone thinks it’s the podcast. They told me to join Cameo.
I’m like, “Isn’t that for like real celebs?” They’re like, “We get people asking for your name. We thought that we’d invite you to be one of our celebrities.” I’m like, “Okay.” I get on Cameo. I’m scrolling through and it says like so-and-so’s on there, basketball player, so-and-so singer, I finally see me and it says podcaster.
How many folks are following you on your podcast right now?
All I can see is how many downloads I get per episode. I’m getting about 60,000 to 70,000 per episode.
That’s big, that’s a good number.
It’s not as big as the big ones. It’s on its way. It’s doing well. Let’s just hope people keep sharing and like it. It’s a little bit juvenile. I quit my company, invented LightSpeed and said, “This is working so well. I’m going to get rich. I’m going to be a billionaire.” I run out and started selling all these companies. I could only get about 60 to 80 of them on at one time.
I was charging $1,000 a month to access my training system that worked. This one works. It’s on demand and it’s accountable. You can see all the people and all that. I couldn’t ever get past 60 because I’d run into companies going, “We use Tony Robbins or we use Joe Verde or we use Grant Cardone, or we use Jeffrey Gitomer, we use Zig Ziglar and Tom Hopkins.” I’m like, “I’m better than all of them because I believe I was, I still do.” My content is strong as mules.
Is there a name for your training system?
I have CloserSchool.com and that’s teaching people how to be better humans. That goes beyond just closing in persuasion. That goes into like building your confidence, learning how to treat people and become a better human. It’s masked, dipped in sales and persuasion training.
Do you have a sales training platform that you put out, promote or that people hire you? Because number one, I know all the speakers that you just said are clients of yours. They are on your platform.
I wish I could take credit. It was the technology I created. I solved their problem too. It made their content more valuable. It could allow them to grow and scale their audience, make bigger impacts and help more people, which is what they all wanted like I did. I thought I can compete with these guys or I can collaborate with these guys. I basically went and closed them on using my system.
I said, “I’ll take my name out and my content out.” You put yours in there and do what I did. I know people that want it because I knocked on their door and tried to sell a mine. They said, no, but if it was yours, they’d buy it. I can give you the customers that already want your stuff. What are we waiting on? Let me just get a little piece for my niece, a sliver to deliver, a little fraction of the action, a tad because I’m Brad. You go out there and get all these customers that I can’t get because they love you. They support you. They said, “Cool.”
They did it. LightSpeed VT crew was created. However, it took about eight years of everyone telling me I was crazy for all that to take place. I’m condensing everything. At the end of the day, that’s what I do now. I’m the CEO and founder of LightSpeed VT. My mission in life is to get the knowledge from the people who have it to the people who need it because I believe that’s how we all live in a more successful world.
People are going out of business because they don’t know how to close deals. They don’t know how to source financing. They don’t know how to generate leads. They don’t know how to freaking manage people. There are reasons they’re going out of business. No one intends to fail. Why are people failing? They don’t have the right knowledge. Why? Somebody knows how to do this shit.
It goes back to what you said, “You asked the wrong question, you get the wrong answer.” If you’re reading the wrong content, you’re getting the wrong delivery systems.
There are girls getting pregnant at fifteen. What’s that tell you? Bad parenting? Why don’t those parents know how to keep that kid from getting pregnant? There are people dropping out of high school, businesses closing, marriages failing, people falling away from their faith. Why? Because they don’t have the right knowledge. Because I saw that dude transform and I could have helped my dad if I have known this while he was alive to where no hard work, isn’t just the answer.
You work your ass off all your life and die, tired and broke. The LightSpeed technologies allowed me to do this because it will deliver track and measure. It will allow you to create, deliver track and measure, interactive media, which is usually and generally applied towards training. It’s also now being applied toward lead generation, customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.
It’s blowing up like crazy. I’m the founder and CEO of LightSpeed. I started Dropping Bombs Podcast because all those people that I was talking about kept coming here to film content. I’m thinking, “If my mission is to share knowledge, why am I not sitting their asses down and tapping into their brain for an hour?” I said, “Let me get two microphones.” They dropped two microphones in one of my studios. I walk in there and I start snatching people. “Sit down, let’s have a conversation.”
My style is I keep things real. It’s like, “If someone says something I don’t agree with, I don’t care who it is. You’re the guru of this. Here’s my question, why is this, this, this?” Some people started to think like, “It was a grilling podcast when it wasn’t. It was an open conversation and people have different opinions and that’s how you learn.”
Readers, pay attention. This is not rocket science. I had to learn this the hard way. If you want to change what you’re getting, you have to change what you’re doing. If you want to change what you’re doing, you have to change what you’re thinking. If you want to change what you’re thinking, you have to change what you believe. If you want to change what you believe, you have to change the people you’re around and the books you’re reading. You have to seek knowledge to compare it against what you do believe to see if it changes.
You know one thing, you need to change. Change is paramount. Everyone’s afraid to change for some reason. Because they fear judgment, that’s another thing I don’t get. Why would you fear judgment? Here are your options, “Speak and someone’s going to be pissed or shut your pie hole.”
Also, learn. The answer to many of the questions you posed brings us back to have a mentor and copy them. Why does the girl that’s fifteen get pregnant? Why does the guy fail? Why won’t the person change? Because a lot of the failure in America is because nobody is seeking mentors and nobody is seeking to mentor.
What I’m hearing from you, Brad is your mission. What you’re doing is you’re mentoring. That’s really what you’re doing is mentoring your customers and everybody. How does that make you feel? Oprah Winfrey said it best, “Being a mentor can change your life, but mentoring others changes your life more.” I understand I got to be a mentor.
It’s like AA. It’s the same thing. You get sober by helping others get sober when it’s all said and done. You’ve thrown out 190 questions so far in 23 minutes, it all comes back to this. I’m open to having a mentor that’s got the right information. I want to know this, how do you define attitude, what is your attitude and what do you see the biggest mistakes about people’s attitudes when you look around?
My attitude is abundant. If you can figure out how to get an abundant mindset, your attitude follows that. What’s the difference between attitude and mindset? I think an attitude is your opinion of things. I have an attitude about eating, about friends, if I’m jealous, I don’t like people talking to my girl. You got an attitude against something. What is an attitude versus a mindset by your definition?
I believe attitude is the way you dedicate yourself to the way you think, which is an opinion. When it all comes down to it, it’s the way you dedicate yourself, which means you have a choice about how you think about things. The problem is nobody thinks about things. The great Napoleon Hill said it best, “You become what you think about all day long.”
My question is to most people, what in the hell are you thinking about all day long? Do you know what failures think about? The greatest soap opera in America’s live cable news or reality TV shows. They’re trash, but they’re entertaining. Soap operas are gone now. The new soap opera is all this reality TV stuff and you can have an opinion. Sixty million Americans are watching this stuff every single night. It affects the way you dedicate yourself to the way you think, so that’s how I define it.
Let’s define mentor because a lot of times, I keep heading the word mentor. There are people out there saying, “Pay me $50,000 to be your mentor.” This is just my opinion. My grandpa was my mentor. He’d put his arm around me and teach me shit for free. He wants me to do well. That’s a mentor. Most people are consultants. They want to get paid for their knowledge. Those are not mentors. Don’t make a mistake and say they’re your mentors.
I get a lot of people hitting me up on my phone, “Can you be my mentor?” I’m like, “No.” Number one, I don’t know you. Number two, I don’t know the situation you’re in or enough detail to give you sound advice, because a lot of that matters. Number three, I got things I’m doing. I’m making money. I need to continue to make money, build my empire and help other people. I keep going down the list of why I won’t be your mentor.
If they’re asking the right question, “Can you consult me on things?” “That fits right into my plans.” Have you got a check behind that? I can consult people on things, mainly creating interactive training systems to empower their employees, their consumers or monetize their brands and knowledge. I show people how to make money.
Grant Cardone, when I met him, he was running around the country, 300 days a year making low seven figures. Investing it all into real estate, which was very wise of him. He got scared because of the crash and realized, “I need to diversify.” I talked him into letting me build that training system with him in it and go out start marketing and turn that into something.
He turned that into something that does seven figures a month, it could be eight figures soon. It catapulted it also into everyone knowing who he was. Now, people are investing in his Cardone Capital which is literally making him a billionaire. It scales brands, connects consumers to products, it trains people and it shares knowledge. LightSpeed’s making the world a better place.
We got big-time entrepreneurs. We got big-time salespeople. We got speakers. We got authors. Everybody knows Grant. The one reason that they know Grant is because of this guy. If you want to scale your business, if you want to get an attitude about what the hell you’re doing, you need to call LightSpeed VT. Boost your profile and help the world. With what you’ve done, look how many more people he can help.
Anybody who thinks they know everything is stupid. The more you learn, the more you need to learn. Click To TweetHe’s helped tons of people and he continues to do so every day, even when he’s sleeping or off a gala event. I roll with the punches. People always you got to roll with the punches. That’s not my advice.
What’s your advice?
Duck.
Let them miss you.
I don’t get why we stick to everybody’s advice growing up. My grandpa, my dad and all these people gave me all kinds of advice. Many years later, it’s BS, dead wrong advice. I loved them to death. They loved me. It wasn’t intentional. They were taught wrong. End of story, wrong advice. It’s like, “Save your money.” Don’t save your money. Use your money. Money is a tool.
Money is a tool that buys your freedom. I heard that one, which I liked. In other words, the reason you make money is so you can pay other people, you can live your life to pay everybody. There’s only so much time in a day and money allows you to buy more time and your freedom, so you’re not doing the same task day after day that you’re not getting paid for.
That’s basically leveraging money for time. The average people in the world, leverage time for money. Meaning, they’ll trade their time for some money. Truly abundant people that think abundantly, they’ll trade their money for time, which means hiring people to do it for them and making a smaller profit but over scale and volume.
Were you an athlete ever as a kid?
You know I was.
Where did you play and what did you play?
You’re an athlete if you got a body.
I got you.
It’s true, Nike says it. Growing up in school, I played baseball and football. I tried wrestling, but I went out the first day and they made you wear a singlet. You go wrestle with a bunch of dudes. On the first day, some guy had me in a headlock with his armpit in my face. I’m like, “I’m not wrestling.” I wish I did though, because now all the MMA guys, that’s the foundation. It makes them the baddest ones. They have a foundation in wrestling. I did not know I’d be a badass. I quit because some dude’s armpit was in my face and I’m like, “Pound.”
People always ask me, “Glenn, what do you think about wrestling?” I said, “Let me give you the deal with wrestling for your children. It’s the greatest thing. It teaches you humility.” I said, “Wrestling’s good if your kid wins all the time. If your kid doesn’t win, don’t have them wrestle. If they win all the time, there’s no better sport than wrestling or boxing or anything.”
If I would’ve went back, I’d have been a bigger athlete. I played football and baseball growing up. I excelled at it but never went to college. I dropped out of school at sixteen. The highest I ever made was varsity football. I was the only ninth grader on varsity.
I’m a former football player. I still am. I coached. You seem like a football guy. That’s why I asked you, I figured this dude had to play some football.
Football and baseball. The reason why I didn’t do wrestling or basketball is because of that wrestling thing. Basketball, one time I was on the team and the whole place was filled with all the students, families and whatnot. We’re playing this other team and I snatched the ball away from some dude. Everyone screams and cheers. I got so excited, I ran down and did a layup.
To the wrong goal.
On the wrong damn basket, I couldn’t live it down. I was humiliated. I’m like, “Screw basketball.” Not only that, I hated guarding people. I’ll shoot, but I didn’t like to actually do the work and guard everybody.
It was funny, I was getting ready to ask you the biggest disappointment in your life. We can certainly put that one there. I’d love to know, when were you disappointed or when were you standing at the foot of the bridge and said, “I got to get over?” What’s that story when you said, “I got to change?”
Believe it or I’ve been learning lessons the hard way my whole life. I got a book coming out called The Hard Way. It’s lessons I learned the hard way, so you don’t have to. It starts out, I’m two years old. The opening line is, “Death is the best teacher.” I died at two years old because I wouldn’t listen and stay out of the cabinet that had turpentine in it. I got in there and drank turpentine. They rushed me to the hospital. They had to bring me back to life and the whole nine yards.
I learned that lesson. At six years old, we lived in a little crappy house, but it was on a hill in the Pacific Northwest, surrounded by affluent homes. There was a doctor and a person that owned grocery stores. I don’t know how. Nowadays, you would never see this, but a shit ball house next to a bunch of nice ones.
All the neighborhood kids were rich and we were blue-collar average. I started lying because it’s six years old, for some reason, I felt ashamed that we weren’t rich like everybody else. I think right at that point in time is when I decided I need to get there. Everybody else is rich, has new shoes, has new clothes, gets tons of Christmas presents. I’m a dirt-faced little kid that has no supervision and is allowed to play out in the woods. I’m poor, but everyone else had money. That is when I decided I want it, I need it, and I got to get over that chasm.
However, I went about the wrong way. I started lying. I told all my friends that my dad owned Disneyland. I’d come out with monopoly cards trying to convince them that those are all our properties. We were living in this shit house, driving those shit cars because we want to. We’re rich, really. It backfired and everybody hated me for like two years. I had a bad reputation for being a liar. It was almost weird why I would lie. There’d be no good reason other than I wanted to fit in? I thought they’d like me. When the backfire dude, that’s when I realized, “You got to keep shit real. You got to be authentically you.” It’s six years old, I learned that.
That’s a big benefit because there are people that are reading this who may be 20, 30, 40, 50, that’s still, aren’t authentically themselves.
That’s a big problem and you better get on that right now.
It’s a blessing that you’re here. Brad, we got this cool little thing. This is how we always wrap our podcast. If you can revert back to your childhood, what would the newborn, Brad Lea, share with us about attitude or what’s the lesson of a newborn?
Closed mouths, don’t get fed.
Tell me why you came up with that one. That may be one of the best answers I’ve ever heard. Talk to me about your philosophy on that.
Enough about me. What do you all think about me? Realistically, I would say that because of one thing. I think of a newborn baby as fresh, brand new. If they’re all swaddled up, not saying a word, nothing happens, everyone just looks at it, cuddles it, you get nothing. What happens when they start screaming and they start crying? What’s the first thing adult humans do? We stuck a bottle in their face or a tit in their face. We’re like, “You’re hungry.”
Too many people are afraid to ask for help. They’re afraid to say something. They go through life frustrated internally and then ended up depressed or worse, homeless and indigent. Why? Because they don’t just open their mouth. The newborn tells me, open my mouth, say something and ask for what you want. Get what you want. It’s all there to get.
We should’ve left it at that. I think everybody got it. Honestly, that was one of the best damn answers. You remember two, you remember six. I love you to go back to when you were ten. Do you remember being ten? What was the lesson you learned? What was the mindset that you could share that will help our GAPers reach out and get something?
At ten years old, I learned that there was more inside me than I had ever imagined. I was not even fractionally close to what was actually inside me. I already knew I was capable of so much more and I had no idea of how much capability I actually had.
Was there an instance that a tipped that off to you?
There was a couple. My dad, I told you he was starting to do a little entrepreneurial thing. He started this little newspaper. As part of marketing, he would put clues in the newspaper to find a treasure that was hidden around town. All the people would get the paper to get the clue to try to find the treasure, which was $1,000 or whatever.
As a little kid, I got my bike and I’m getting my dad’s paper. I’m getting the clues. I’m hunting and finding. Sure enough, I found the damn treasure before all the adults in the town did. I run into my office, proud like some bitch, showing my dad, “I found it.” My mom and my dad were like, “How did you find that?”
If you want to change what you're getting, you have to change what you're doing. Click To TweetI told them the clues and how they led me to where to find them. They’re freaking out because it was for adults. A kid goes and finds it. I got in trouble because I’m not allowed to find it. I was part of the family and in the rules, it says, “There are no family members.” I got in trouble for finding it, which taught me a whole another lesson.
When I’m ten years old, I realized, “I’m as clever and just as capable as full-grown adults.” I thought I was like King Kong, like we do when we’re young. Now that I’m 50, I realized that was not only a fact, but I was capable so more at that age that I never tapped into. Whatever age you’re in right now, you have so much more potential inside you. You have no idea. That goes to show you that at ten years old, I had no idea. At 40 years old, you have no idea. At 50 years old, you have no idea. Your mindset is your limit. You have way more inside you. That’s what I think of at ten years old.
I got to give your old man credit. I don’t know who the hell gave him the idea of the treasure hunt for the thing, but that’s brilliant. Sixteen years old, you’re done with school. Things are happening and you’re twenty.
At twenty years old, I was living in Seattle, Washington. I was freaking champion. I was dating five different girls. None of them thought we were exclusive, so it wasn’t cheating. I just happened to have five really good girlfriends at the time. I think in Seattle at twenty years old, that’s when I realized that you should be willing to let go of what you have in pursuit of what you want.
Too many people are worried about letting go of what they have to get what they want. Yet, they don’t want what they have, which would be stupid not to be willing to let that go. I had five girlfriends. I had a demo. I was working at Acura of Seattle. I called a buddy down here. He told me to come to visit. I said I’m going to come for a visit and ended up staying my whole life. I was willing to give up a job, five girlfriends, and the ultimate life for a twenty-year-old.
You’re selling the high-end Honda’s at twenty years old.
That’s when I sold Bill Gates an NSX.
Did he pay cash?
If anybody knows Bill, asked him if he bought an NSX from Acura Seattle back in ‘89 or ‘90.
You think he’d buy something a little bit more expensive than that.
No, he wouldn’t. Not only that, in order to get a test drive in these things, when they first came out, you had to throw a credit out. This guy walks in. I talked to him. I sat him down. I’m like, “Can I get your name?” He’s like, “William Gates.” I didn’t know who Bill Gates was. A lot of people didn’t back then. While I’m filling it out, I got to the gross monthly income part, and I said, “Gross monthly income?” He goes, “Just put 300,000.” I said, “Monthly.” He said, “Just put 300,000.”
I put 300,000 and this dude’s full of crap. I go into my sales manager and I’m like, “Here’s a credit of this guy who wants to test drive the NSX.” The guy looks that credit up looks over the computer. He’s like, “Go, go, go.” Apparently, he knew who it was. I went and test drove him. He came back and said, “How much is it?” I said it’s X amount of dollars. He said, “Okay.” and wrote a check for it.
Did you get the repeat and referral business from him?
I did not. I still had lessons to learn.
You went down to California, too. That’s what ended up happening, right?
From Acura of Seattle, I went to Las Vegas. I went to California before Seattle. My life is a series of events, like you wouldn’t believe. Someone said, “What did it feel like when you hit rock bottom?” I said, “I’ve never hit rock bottom.” They said, “Didn’t you say you were homeless on the beach in LA?” I’m like, “Yeah, but number one, it’s sleeping on a beach. How bad can that be?”
You’re sleeping on a beach. The ocean crashes in, you wake up, you’re in LA with a perfect weather. That’s not rock bottom. He’s like, “It’s amazing how you can see it that way.” I’m like, “I can’t see how you see it any other way.”
Perspective, back to what you said earlier.
I choose to be there. It was a choice. I could’ve gone home to my parents. I would have had the tail tucked in my legs. I wanted to stay. I wanted to try to be an actor. I wanted to be a movie star. I’m willing to do what it takes. Sleeping on the beach, it’s sand, it’s comfortable. All you need is a little bit of a blanket. A few of the nights, someone was there with me to keep me warm. They didn’t know I was living there. They thought we were just spending a romantic night on the beach.
You go through your twenties. You’ve made some moves. You’ve definitely lived. All of a sudden, it’s your 30th birthday. Did you have a birthday cake when you were 30? Do you remember the day at all? More importantly, what’s the lesson? What was your mindset at 30? What’s the attitude lesson that you can give our GAPers today about being 30?
It’s when I realized now, looking back at 30 years old is when I truly made it an opportunity to be successful. Because if I would’ve continued going down the mindset and path that I was on, even if I would have made financially more money, I would have been a completely different person. Morally bankrupt. I would have been a selfish prick that was taking from the world rather than contributing to it. Thirty years old is the pivot that I realized, “Help other people how you live fulfilled.” Ironically, Zig Ziglar says it best, “The best way to get what you want is to help others get what they want.”
My favorite Zig is, “You know if you see a turtle on the top of that fence post, he didn’t get there himself.” You go through your 30, your LightSpeed VT and you started this thing. You got this ten-year build process, a ten-year ramp-up process. You know in your gut where it’s going, I’m sure. Forty hits you. Talk to me about knowledge at 40. What’s your knowledge at 40? What’s the attitude at 40? What’s the lesson of 40?
The attitude at 40 was a possibility. I wasn’t looking backwards. I was looking forward. Too many people want to live in the past and come up with all the reasons and excuses that it’s too late. Forty years old is new 30. Fifty is the new 40. Even if it wasn’t, at 40 years old, my attitude was like everything’s possible. Quite frankly, I truly believe the whole entire time, from 30 to even today that 90 days from now, it’s a whole different scene.
Literally, my second book is going to be called How to Get Anything You Want in 90 Daze. I believe that truly blew up 90 days when I started my company. Ninety days later, I thought, “It didn’t happen, in 90 more days, it’s crazy.” Ninety more days later, I’m like, “ I’m not there yet, but I’ll tell you right now in 90 days, the whole world is going to be different.”
Then 90 days later, “No, it didn’t happen yet. I’m telling you right now, these 90 days, it’s over.” Really what I realized looking back is I got everything I wanted in 90 days, the question is which cycle did it happened. I didn’t stop. At 40 years old, I realized that I was finally gaining momentum. All the hard work that I’d been putting in and all the lessons that I’ve been learning the hard way are starting to actually compile and provide fruit.
That’s when I started to learn how to weed the garden. My 40 lesson is weed your garden. If you’re trying to grow fruit or vegetables, you plant in a garden, there are weeds all over, you’re not going to get as much fruit or potent fruit, so you have to weed your garden. What does that mean? That means look around and get rid of all the negativity in your life. Get rid of all the negative people that are putting you down, making fun of you, making you doubt yourself, et cetera, just get rid of them.
What if their family? I didn’t say you had to stop loving them. I said, you got to get rid of them. You can love them from a distance. How do I know? Because kids grow up and move off. Relatives go away and you don’t see people for years. That’s life. That’s going to happen. Even if you have family members that are putting negative information into your head on a regular basis, you got to get rid of them. What you put in is what you put out? What you let in your head is what comes out and manifests. Only allow positive, good stuff, weed your garden. That’s my 40-year lesson.
You just banged 50, so you get to answer this question. How did you feel about turning 50? You’re sitting where you’re at, tell me where you’re going. What’s your attitude for the next 90 days? What’s your attitude for this next decade? What do the 50s bring? Talk to me about expectations. Fifty, what’s our attitude lesson?
When I turned 50 years old, I celebrated. I was extremely excited to have the opportunity to live that long. That’s half a century. I was mighty grateful and thankful that I got to turn five-oh. I know all my friends were jealous who are younger, I got to do it. I celebrated profusely. The attitude is gratefulness, first of all. Being grateful is a massively important thing. Imagine if you gave a kid really expensive toys. They looked at it and snipped their nose and walked away. You’d get tired of giving that kid toys. You’d stop feeling gratitude from that individual.
You would stop wanting to make that person excited with these expensive gifts if the kid shows gratitude, even over the littlest thing, like you give him a little pen and he’s just so grateful. It makes you want to give him more gifts and nicer gifts. Think about the universe as the parent and think about you as the little kid. If every time you get opportunities, you’re whining, bitching, and complaining. Why would you get more?
The universe is like, “This guy is an idiot. This ungrateful little fricking brat. How about fucking, let me show you some pain. You appreciate that a little bit.” If people appreciate every opportunity they get and they have the right perspective, mindset, and understand that every day we wake up, we should be grateful. Let me ask you a question. I’m going to prove it right here once and for all for Glenn Bill. Would you be excited if I handed you a million dollars?
Hell, yes.
Would anybody be able to rain on your parade?
No.
Your attitude would be good all day. You’d be excited all day?
I would be excited all day.
Patience can kill you. Don't put things off. Don't procrastinate because we're not promised anything. Click To TweetHow about even a week? Would it last a week?
Absolutely.
Would you rather have a million dollars or live?
I would rather have my health and live.
We all would answer that way and we would. We’d rather live than get a million dollars. Every morning, when you open your eyes for the first time, you get the news that you get another day. Yet, we’re not excited like we got a million dollars. We’re not grateful like someone just handed us a gift. We’re fucking miserable. We’re sitting there now. Going to complain about what we have to do, instead of what we get to do. We start complaining about who we have to deal with. Instead of figuring out, we get to deal with them, and everything.
Including every moment we’re alive is a gift. I learned that at 50. I realized that at 50 and growing through it. More importantly, I also realized that “Be patient is one of those bullshit things. Don’t be patient. Patience can kill you.” My dad, when he brought me into the hospital, was a little dead baby. The nurse thought I was already dead. Told my dad, she’ll get a doctor to sit down and be patient. My dad freaked out, kicked in the door and started screaming for a doctor. I was able to be saved. The doctors told my dad if he didn’t barge in there, I was on the brink of never being returned.
Patience would have killed me. I have other stories where patience would literally have killed people, then we get told to be patient. No. Patience says that you can experience challenge, delay, and pain without being upset. Don’t do that to yourself. We don’t have much time. You’re 50. I don’t care if you’re ten, it’s the same answer.
You don’t have much time. Time is valuable. Time is precious. That’s also what 50 told me. Increase your activity, increase your actions, increase your consumption and increase your enjoyment. Don’t put things off. Don’t procrastinate because we’re not promised anything. That’s your 50-year lesson.
You’re freaking dropping bombs.
That’s why they call my podcast that.
There’s no doubt of that. I think about the people in our audience. They come to this show to get attitude. They come to this show because they’re not sure what their attitude is. I’m trying to change the world one attitude at a time.
You should think bigger. Scale that bitch.
I’m changing the world.
We’re running out of time. You can do more than one at a time. I can help you do that.
Do you know who else told me that? Said the exact same thing to me, Les Brown. He said, “Let me tell you something. You’ll never change the world if you’re doing it one person at a time.” I tell you what, you were dropping bombs from the sixteen-year-old kid that came from a blue-collar family that put out forest fires with poison oak. The lessons of patience. I loved what you said, closed mouth, never get fed.
Taking us through and introducing us to all the content that you have. All the opportunities that you can give our people that read this. All of our business owners, entrepreneurs, speakers, and authors, what an unbelievable 40 minutes that we just spent. Jason, would you say it was probably one of the better ones we’ve had?
Yes, that was gold. The first one was five words.
Less is more.
If that’s the truth, all I ask is you go out and tell someone on social media. Tag OBL.
LightSpeed VT, you are the light of the world. You are the light of the show. That was freaking awesome. When I’m in Vegas, I’m going to come to see you. When you ever get to Naptown, if you get to Indy, you look up your boy GB, and I’ll show you a good time.
I will do so. When you come to Vegas, you got to come in and do a little dropping bomb.
I will be dropping some bombs with you. I got plenty of stuff to say. I listen on this one, but if you want me to talk, I’ll talk. I appreciate it.
Let’s go.
Brad, be good. Take care. Thanks for your time.
I appreciate you.
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About Brad Lea
Brad Lea is a leading authority on web-based training. Experienced and proven in sales and marketing, he is a seasoned professional with a strong base of sales management coming from 25 years in the Automotive Industry.
Brad’s thought leadership has been instrumental in helping guide some of today’s most effective and productive sales professionals worldwide. Brad is also the author of the Real Deal Lease Presentation.
Engaging, authentic and dynamic, Brad is passionate about helping companies discover and develop additional recurring revenue models and improving existing systems and processes.
As the Founder and CEO of LightSpeed VT, Brad has revolutionized the online training world. He has set the gold standard for how training is delivered, tracked and reported on ensuring maximum performance, accountability, retention and results.
