Jeff Ross (00:08.908)
Hey Jeff, how are you man? Good man. How are you? Very good. Very good. Thanks so much for having me on the show, man. I appreciate it. It's going to lot of fun. Thank you for your, the other episode the other day. Like that was a lot of fun. I loved it. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely man. Cool man. All right. Well, let's dive in. Dive in. Shall we? You got it, man. Well, good day legends. Today we have an absolute powerhouse here with us with Eric Allen from the Eric Allen show.
he's globally, they're on the one, what is it? One and a half percent of globally in the top podcast around the world. Blah, blah, blah. Put my teeth back in. Let's study in. You got it. Cool. Get get it, these guys nerves out of the way. I get it. It's all good, man. I've done it many, many times. Well, good day legends.
Well, good day legends. We've got Eric Allen here from the Eric Allen show. He's, he's known as one of the top podcasters around the world. He's up there in the 1 .5 globally. And, such an honor to have you on the show, Eric. Thank you very much for joining us. Jeff, thank you so much, man. It's an honor to be here with you, Man. So I just, we had a podcast interview. We didn't want to be able to swap and, you had me on yours the other day and it was, it was so much fun. I loved it. And, you don't know if it was at 500 episodes now. Is that right?
Yeah. So I've done 274 episodes of my current podcast and I used to have another podcast called the top rated MMA where I just talked with MMA fighters around the world and I did 256 episodes of that show before retiring it. Wow. Wow. Well, you've definitely got a lot of experience in this space and someone like myself is just getting started. I could definitely learn a thing or two. So love to be able to, you know, get in an interview, you know, someone of your wisdom and your character. So thank you very much for, for jumping onto the Laptop Lifestyle Dad Show.
Most definitely, man. I'm excited. Man, so let's get started. So I always like to start with people's stories. Their, their hero's journey, you know, what sort of, you know, where did they start? What were some of the trials and tribulations that they're faced and, and, you know, what it took for them to get where they are today. So Eric, what's your hero's journey? Man, you know, if we go back to where I grew up, I grew up going to church. my parents say, you know, we had a typical lifestyle, man. was playing Little League.
Jeff Ross (02:30.798)
Went to church every Sunday. My dad would take my best friend, Dave and I literally throw us in dumpsters on a Sunday morning and or Saturday morning and say, go find treasure. We did dumpster diving as a kid, you know? And then my parents got divorced when I was 11 years old. I didn't know why, but it was interesting to me at that time. I'd never, I didn't have any friends that had been divorced. It was this new concept to me. And then my mom immediately got together with a man who was very physically abusive, almost to start.
And I remember there's times where they'd be fighting and I'd be outside and I'd be looking through the bedroom window and I'd see him hitting her in the head with a cordless phone and I'd call the police and they would show up and my mom would never press charges and it was this rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat over and over and over. And then when I was about 12 years old, they did the smart thing, they got pregnant and they decided to move us from Washington state up to Stevensville, Montana. It's this population of about 1200 people in this town. And they
rented this house on five acres. was a beautiful property, two big ponds and lots of open space. But the problem was the house had three bedrooms. There was one for them. It was one for my little brother. There was a months older that time and one for my younger sister who's four years younger than me. And they said, Eric, you get to live in the garage. So I literally had a plastic tarp down the middle of the garage that separated the truck from my bed. And luckily my half of the garage had a fireplace. So it would keep me semi -warm in the negative degree winters of Montana.
But that was more I stayed. And when I was about 13, maybe 14 years old, there was a moment that really changed the trajectory of my life. Brushing my teeth one night, they came home arguing, wasn't anything different than any other night. But I remember in that moment, I was not walking with Christ at this moment. We didn't go to church. I knew of God and said my prayers at night, but I would say I did not have a relation with Him at this time. But I remember brushing my teeth one night and they came home arguing. And as I was brushing my teeth, I just felt God say, man, you've got to turn around the corner and see what's going on.
And so the way the house was set up is if I peeked my head around the corner, it was to the kitchen, to the pantry, to the garage door my bedroom was at. And as I did that, I see this man on top of my mom. Boom, boom, boom. Punched her in the face as she's lying on her back on the floor. And I walked up behind him and I grabbed a cast iron pan and I swung as hard as could and I split the back of his head open. And he turned around and he said, what then, as he did that, I smacked him again in the forehead and split his forehead open. Still didn't knock him out. And
Jeff Ross (04:53.186)
The cops finally did show up. but I remember as I hit him that second time I'd fallen over and he was standing up over me and he was yelling, was bleeding down his face. My mom showed up something like mama bear and hits him like five, six times. There's blood on the wall. I mean, it's crazy movie scene. And the cops finally showed up, take him to jail. My mom does not press charges. And it wasn't much longer after that. I had about three months left in my freshman year of high school. I got kicked out of that house. I had to go live with my buddy forest slept on the hardwood floors of his house and we would walk to school.
And that set me on a path of destruction for the next 10 years where I went back to live with my dad. I would battle addictions all through high school doing drugs. I was in jail at 18. I moved. I got kicked out two weeks after I graduated high school from my dad's house. moved 21 times between the age of 18 and 21. And by the time I was 21, was $28 ,000 in debt and I had to file bankruptcy. It's just a crazy, crazy undoing for 10 years where I was very lost in the world. Wow.
Man, such a powerful story, right? And, we've all got one and we've all got a lot of pain in our stories. You know, some more than others, but man, thank you for the transparency and just sharing your heart with us. So for sure. Yeah, man. Like you obviously haven't let that hold you back. If anything, you're probably that to be fueled for the fire. Right. So, I suppose my question for you right now is what inspires you to get out of the bed each day and do what you do. For me, it's, really my wife, my kids, you know,
Part of my story is I was working at Starbucks. I was depressed and didn't have any friends. And I get invited to church by a girl who came in who doesn't drink coffee. And it was a really cool thing for me to go to that event. And I gave my life to Christ. And it was about a month later, I woke up after a night of partying and just really felt like this. I wanted to talk to that girl. wanted to take her out on a date. And she's now my wife of 19 years.
She came from a broken home, I came from a broken home, and we both knew what we didn't want in marriage, but we didn't have good examples of what a great marriage looked like. And so here we are 19 years into this, we've got two awesome kids, 14 and 11, and we know that when we said I do, when we said at our wedding, we meant it. And so for me to wake up, my first thing initially, I mean, immediately, as soon as I step out of bed, I mean, I'm saying it quietly so I don't wake her up, and I'm like,
Jeff Ross (07:17.294)
Thank you for another day to see and hug and hold my family. That's what drives me immediately. And then for me, I make my bed. And so in my brain, I go, okay, cool. I got to make my bed every day. So I made my bed. There's two wins in 15 seconds. One, I woke up and two, I made my bed. So I'm already firing on all cylinders going, we're gonna make this day a killer day. And that's what kind of helps me to get to the place that I'm at. But immediately after that, hop in the shower, come upstairs, and it's worship time. It's quiet time for me. I have to spend that time with God every day reading the Bible.
listening to worship, spending time in prayer, putting it all at his feet and surrender it all to him. Those that's my non -negotiable morning routine that really helps set the tone for the day. Yeah. It's a, all about those disciplines, right? And to help you get not just the mindset, right. But the heart set. And I always find that, you know, we need to figure out ways to get out of our head and get into a heart and operate from that space. And you know, it sounds like you've got your routine down pat to help you to do that. And you know, operate from that, that attitude of gratitude.
Love that. Cool. Well, this is the social selling and AI mastery podcast. So let's dive in and shift gears into that space. So with your extensive experience in podcasting, are you using any AI tools in this space? And if so, how they impacted your processes with your podcast and overall just for your online business? Yeah, most definitely.
was a little skeptical when AI really first started getting popular with chat GPT and things like that and started testing it around. I'm like, man, this stuff's actually pretty cool. And so I used to, and I still edit all my shows myself, but I used to manually watch my episodes after I would record them. And I would sit there and take notes and go, man, that was a good point. that was a good point.
And now what I do is I use a couple different platforms. One, use a platform called video .ai, V -I -D -Y -O .ai, and I take the full recording of my show and I upload it to that. And what that does is it then creates 15 to 20 clips that are up to a minute long that it pulls. Some of them are good, some of them are misses, right? But for the most part, I can pull three to five really good shorts out of that that are just impactful points from the show. And then from there,
Jeff Ross (09:32.064)
I will download three or four shorts. release those for my episode, but I'll also take the full transcript or trans yeah, script transcript from video cause it'll give me that. And then I'll go over to chat, GBT, and I'll put it in a prompt saying, Hey, here's the show notes or here's the transcript in this episode. Please write me a short show notes in three to five sentences. That's going to be impactful. So then I do that and I take that and I kind of go, okay, that sounds good, but let me tweak it a little bit here. Right. I kind of make it my own sound.
And then I say, hey, based off this transcription, give me 15 really good key discussion points. And I take 10 of those and I use that on some top of my, you know, shorts that I created earlier. But then I also at the end of that go, hey, based off this transcription, give me 18. And the reason I say 18 or odd numbers is because I already have some that I use, but give me 18 trending hashtags that I can use on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn that will help this.
I have a higher probability to go viral. And so I do use all that when I'm doing that. And so when it comes to the editing part, based off the timestamp of the clip that I pulled from video, I go into iMovie on my laptop and I just go, boom, there's my clip. I pull that, put it at the front, and I'm already done. It takes me 30 minutes maybe to edit the show where before it would take me hours upon hours because I was listening to it and I was taking notes. AI has saved my butt over the last year and half.
Yeah. just, I say, I say my marriage because I'm actually dyslexic. I left school at year nine. can't spell to save a life. my wife, I read everything before I published it. Then the, yeah, that's awesome. She's not doing it fast enough and all that. So I say my marriage champion. Wow. That's awesome, man. But I'll get, look, I just, I just did something similar. I took all the transcribed notes from my previous boot camps, uploaded it to chatty. and got it to write me a book and four hours.
It's an amazing tool, right? And that's right, but it's still just a tool. And our mantra here at the Laptop Lifestyle Daz, it's AI plus your heart equals your super -heart. And I see many people trying to use it as a replacement, but I loved how you're using it as a tool to help buy back some of your time, like the delegates, the tool and beautiful. So I mean, you've achieved some remarkable success with the Eric Allen show. So, you know, ranking pretty highly on Apple and
Jeff Ross (11:56.628)
know, a few other charts there. So how has podcasting helped open doors for your business? Massive, massive. I think everybody should have a podcast because it opens the door to so many connections. If I was to go up to Ed Mylett or Bradley and say, can I borrow your time? Right. Can I pick your brain? Everybody's going to say heck to the no. Right. But if I say, Ed, you just released a brand new book called the power of one more. I want to help you promote that thing. I want to understand how you wrote that. They're going to be like,
absolutely I wanna talk about my own product. Absolutely I wanna talk about that. So it's the way that you approach it. So I get to have these mini sessions with these folks that are experts in what they do and they get to talk about them and how they do things, but you have to approach it in, I wanna bring you value. Let me help you promote this product, this course, this book, this event. And so if you can approach your guests that way, man, it's highly impactful.
But some of my best friends today are people that I've interviewed and I've never met in person. I talked to them on a weekly basis and we've just connected and it's been this awesome thing. But podcasting has opened the door for trips, collaborations, partnerships, credibility, speaking opportunities. I mean, it's massive to be able to do that. And I think that a lot of people, get in and they just go, man, I'm going to do this podcast thing. But they have this misconception that they're going to have a hundred thousand downloads right away or they're going to make a
But a of money right away. Yeah. Totally. And I mean, I think the last stat that I wrote was like 90 % of podcasts don't make it to episode seven. And so I would just say, man, if you want to be successful in podcasting, just don't quit and you'll you'll let everybody else quit and you'll just continue to move up the ranks. Yeah. It's actually, I'm writing a book at the moment. It's called fail forward fast a thousand times. And yes, you know, I learned how to ride horses as a kid and an old Bushman back then, he said, you don't know how to ride a horse until you've learned how to fall off.
thousand times. So go long her off a thousand times, then you'll master it. I think that's that's a good mantra for anything in life. Yeah. So, so you, you know, your journey been, been quite challenging there at the start, you know, you're past to becoming a, a top podcast host, know, and, you're also a John Maxwell certified coach. that right? It is. Yeah. Yeah. It's an incredible, inspiring story. So
Jeff Ross (14:18.498)
How do you integrate the elements of your personal story into your social selling strategy and, how's this help you to connect with your audience on a deeper level? Man, I think for me, it's about being real and authentic. I don't want to come out and say, Hey, I'm a millionaire. And it was the easiest thing. I'm not a millionaire, but I'm saying like, I don't want to come out and say, Hey, this, all this happened because people can't relate a lot of times with
that David Meltzer who was on my show and he lost a hundred million dollars. Not very many people can relate to that. But as you saw on my show, the first question that I ask every guest, tell me about where you grew up and what was childhood like, because everybody can relate to that. We were all born. Then we all made decisions to get to where we're at today. Whether we made a good decision to get to where we're at or made a bad one, we all made decisions to get there. And so for me, it's about being authentic. It's about being real.
I'm not going to come out and say I'm a millionaire. I never wanted to call myself a coach if I wasn't actually a coach. And so for me, I wanted to invest money into a program that I believed in. looked at Tony Robbins, I looked at all of these other ones, but I resonate with John Maxwell because of his Christian faith. And I said, man, I want to step into that. I want to understand his goals and how he's doing things. And it opened the door to mass amounts of trainings that he's done. And it's helped me a ton in regards to speaking and how I coach people and how I approach
goal writing and how do I influence people and how do I become a leader? And so if I can intertwine my training from John Maxwell, biblical truth, me being authentic, I think that's what connects people with my story. And I can say, man, I overcame this, but I'm not letting my past or other people's opinions of me define my future. And then I can step into my purpose and start making an impact once I realize that. Yeah. As a really good old throughout the day.
top of his name, Donald Miller story matters. so really it's, you know, and that's why I always start a podcast with getting people to share the hero's journey, right? Because key words that you just said there was it's about helping people to relate and connect with you. And you know, that's, that's where it's that heart to heart interaction and that happens in story. And I, I just love that. The fact that when we can get people to have that heart to heart connection with them.
Jeff Ross (16:36.568)
then we can go deeper than the whole no like trust, right? We can go down to that whole relate and resonate stage. I love that. Yeah. I I just, love the friendships that I've gotten out of this. Just, just swapping stories with complete strength. Right. Yeah, totally. Down to the same level. Right. Yeah. Love that. Absolutely. So, man, if someone helps helps me realize their potential and break three from their past, what advice would you give to our entrepreneurs? You know, their moms and dads, their
They're frustrated affiliate network marketers. They're aspiring coaches, even some seasoned network marketing pros. So how would you, you know, what's, sorry. How would you give your struggling entrepreneur some advice to define their personal brand in today's age? I think you have to be confident in who you are, be confident in your story. Like don't, don't hold back. If you've got a crazy past.
Don't hold back in sharing that information. If you have been sober all your life, you never tried a drug or cigarette or alcohol or anything like that, be confident in saying that, man. Like, that's a testimony in itself for anybody who can come out and say that. You know, when people say, I never did drugs, man, that's awesome. I think that's amazing. So I think as men and entrepreneurs, we have to be confident in our story no matter what it is. We can't change the past, but we can certainly change the future. And we can impact people and we can connect with people.
through, like you said, stories. And I've had a lot of crazy stories and people all encountered stories, some good, some bad, some crazy. But if we can share their stories, then we can get through those struggles. And I think the one thing that has helped me step into being confident in that is I surrounded myself with people that were living life that I wanted. And there's a but to that though, because there's a lot of people that are living life that I want, but they didn't.
get there how I wanted to, right? Their values are not aligning with money. They might have lied to get there or they might have done some things to get to that level of financial success that I would never do. So you've got to find people that align with your values and that are living the life that you want. And then surround yourself with those guys and ask them, how can I live the life that you want, like that you're doing? Like, I want to step into that. Surround yourself with them as many times, as much as you can. Get uncomfortable, like step into
Jeff Ross (19:02.382)
If there's community events with entrepreneurs or speakers are coming down, get around people that you can, that are living a life that you want and just being around their presence is going to motivate you to be better. Is it actually John Maxwell who says we become like the, the five people we hang around the most? that, is that John Maxwell? That is certainly one of the things he said. think John Jim Rohn said something like that as well, but
Yeah, but I can't remember who I've got that from now. think it was John, one of the one of the greats. I mean, everybody uses the same sort of thing out there. I I think I read Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins, which is an older book from the early 90s. Right. And as I was reading that book and I just read it this year, I was like, man, there's like one of the five entrepreneurs that I know right now that are saying the same thing that he is saying. Right. It's like, wait a second. and this is my point, too. Right. We're all building on the shoulders of giants. Yeah.
You know, and there's nothing new under the sun, but what, what, what I love about this journey, especially in today's world is, is anybody can be someone's guide. And, know, like we're, our job, right. This is a guide is to take someone up Mount Everest, you know, and yes, you know, to be that guide, you have need to have climbed Mount Everest a hundred times. You know, like sir, Hillary was known to be the first person to cry Mount Everest Mount Everest publicly, like, you know, documented, but there was a guy who did it probably a hundred times before him. And that was his Sherpa.
You know, he knew where the, death defying cliffs were and the trenches were and the way up the mountain. Right. And, know, that's the thing with our stories is it doesn't matter where you starting on this journey, you know, like the definition of mastery is 10 ,000 hours, you know, and like, you know, the only difference between you and I in this stage is you've got 500 episodes under your belt. I'm only just starting. So, you know, you can share your wisdom and help me guide me through that. But at the same time, flip that.
When it comes to the AI space, well, then I've definitely got 10 ,000 hours that I've dealt with that one. And somebody could become a master in that space, right? I just want to love about this journey. I mean, it's been an absolute pleasure connecting with you and thank you very much for sharing your story and your wisdom with us. Yeah. You know, is there any other final words of wisdom that you'd like to give our listeners? Man, I would just say this. Don't quit, you know, whatever journey that you're on.
Jeff Ross (21:22.858)
If you're trying to be an entrepreneur or you're starting a business or you know, you're having a struggling marriage or whatever it is, just don't quit because when you quit, that's when you fail. Like we're all going to make mistakes. We're all going to fall short of what our expectations are. But man, if we just keep going little by little and we just don't quit even to the death, like you keep going, don't give up. That's what will impact future generations.
And man, that's the one word, man, just don't quit. And I promise you, if you don't quit, it'll be one of those things that'll legacies and generations to come will acknowledge you for that, man. Amen. Well, Eric, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you very much for our listeners to jump on here. Is there any way that our listeners can reach out to connect with you? What would be the best way to do that? Man, I appreciate this. Yeah. EricAlanMedia .com. It's just E -I -K -A -L -L -E -N media .com is my website.
Got a ton of resources from books and courses and connections and sponsorship opportunities and things like that. I do user generated content for brands. So if you're interested in that, that's all in there too. I'm probably most active on Instagram. So it's Eric ERIK, G Alan, shoot me a message, comment. I respond to every comment. I respond to every DM. I love connecting with new people. Those are probably my two biggest areas. Then obviously my podcast drops every Friday at seven a Pacific.
It's available on video, YouTube and Apple and Spotify and all that fun stuff too. But that's, that's the way to best reach me. think. Cool, man. Well, we'll definitely make sure all those links and resources are in the show notes below. So, mate, absolutely been an absolute pleasure. Thank you. And all of our legends who are listening along, thank you very much for your sponsorship, your support. Really appreciate you. Let's stay caffeinated. Let's go. Well, thank you very much for that. That was awesome, man. I loved it, dude.
Did Ross get better at it? Dude, I'll tell you, man, like when I first started, I had no idea what I was doing. I going to walk in a closet for almost 100 episodes. And, know, I ran a hundred foot extension around the bed in our bedroom into the closet because there's no plugins, right? A bad lighting, bad microphone. Didn't even look in the camera. And I mean, I've made some ultra bad mistakes, you know, like I didn't realize audio was off or, you know.
Jeff Ross (23:45.814)
I got on a phone call with Ken Shamrock and I was like, yes, I get to talk to Ken Shamrock. And he kept getting that text. And for some reason, the platform I was using that time, every time that he got a text, it would turn off my recorder. And so I was looking down at the clock about seven minutes into this conversation with him and my recorder shut off. At some point, I had no idea when. And I was like, this is an awesome conversation that no one will ever hear except for me. And I was so frustrated and flustered in that moment. And I just
I was too embarrassed to say anything to him at that point. I'd already said like early on like, man, can we just start over? It was like two minutes in and I was so embarrassed about it. And then the cool thing is his team reached out to me and said, Hey, Eric, how'd it go? And I was like, man, I'm really sorry. There was something that happened. He was getting a text and it turned up our quarter. I'm really sorry. I won't be able to reset. And I think it was his wife who'd respond, but she was like, dude, let's just rebook it. And man, we rebooked it. He jumped back on. had amazing interview. The killer to that though, was the day that I recorded that where it turned off.
two hours later, was speaking with Ed Milette. So my heart's going, this could not happen. You're talking with Ed Milette in two hours. Things that happened for us that happened to us. Right? So, but yeah, dude, this is absolute honor, man. And I'm definitely one of those guests that'll share it out. So no rush on my end, but whenever you decide to release it, tag me, collaborate me, whatever you got, man, I'll make sure that I'll share it out with my network as well.
Yeah, I'm not new to this whole digital marketing arena. I used to do blog challenges and all that sort of thing. going, going into this space with the podcast, I went and made sure I had 15 episodes banked up before. So I've got a bit of a bank there, but I mean, love the episode and I'll be probably putting it a bit out a bit earlier than that. I'll let you. We've Joe's dropping two weeks time. I'll probably look at probably. sweet. Yeah. Joe's a good dude, man. And I connected with him through just Instagram.
I don't know how five or six years ago, probably when I wanted early on, I connected with them on there, but, and that's how I booked 99 % of my guests is Instagram DM. but I never send a text comment to people when I'm, when I'm inviting them, I literally will shoot a video on my phone and I just do 30 seconds. I make sure that it's no longer than 30 seconds. And I just say, you know, I approach it just the same way that I would do ed.
Jeff Ross (26:07.616)
Ed, I saw you got this new book or this new course coming out. I want to help you promote that. Hey, let's have you jump on the podcast. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about that journey. Put it about them. Bring them the value. It's not about me. Coming on my show. was a drop in there. I just remember that. Damn, that's damn something I wanted to say on the podcast episode with you. It's the law of reprococity. anyway. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I would, I would say, you know, just, man, just approach your guests that way.
Bring them value. It's not about you. And I did that early on. I mean, I had Sean Whalen for episode eight. had Ed Milet for episode 12. I I had just started this thing. I didn't even know, but I just approached it differently. And they were like, absolutely. Right. So if you could approach it different than sending this copy and paste template to everybody. Right. I just do a personalized invite. They see my video and man, that's what intrigues them to want to join my show because I feel confident in that. And
Sometimes it takes 15 or 20 takes on my video, right? Like I'm not always going to be coming out for sure, but I make sure that I get it. And then I just shoot them the DM. Now Instagram has changed some of the rules where you can't always send a video to somebody now, but if that's the case, I do have to write a written one, but I just try to make it as clear and short and concise as possible. And it tends to work out, man. Yeah, cool. Well, thanks man. That's great advice. Appreciate you. Yeah. I'm present at times. So just want to just one thing.
So I have started our online church like last three months ago, me and my wife started this and we're probably down the road, probably more like two or three months down the road. But what I'm looking for now is men of faith, to be able to come in and, just do group discussion with us, know, so it's not Sarah and I doing the message. So it's the thing like we've got a bit of a mixture going in. Okay. man, I just love your story. And I think that's a powerful story. Like we're going through the books of acts at the moment. And basically the face is how can we be a risk taking church?
And how can we go from informed to empowered and equipped? I love to, you know, look at my calendar there and see if we can get you on for, you know, one of those spots and essentially anytime it's not like your traditional sort of, you know, know, speaking from the pulpit and got that. Sure. The difference here is, is it's basically it's group discussion. So, yeah, yeah. Yeah. The facilitator just goes through and shares their insights and learns. And then it's basically what I go, let's go through the why, the how, the what.
Jeff Ross (28:27.158)
So like we go start with why let's discuss, let's go now. Let's discuss what's going on and what are our action steps and what are we going to take away from that? And let's discuss. Yeah. Love it, dude. Yep. Definitely. Yeah. Count me in, man. I'm absolutely happy to help. Brilliant, man. I'll throw you some dates around and we'll see what we can do. Awesome, Jeff. Hey, thanks again, man. I appreciate you dude. Have an awesome day. Cheers, mate. Bye. Yep. Bye bye.