Nicholas: JLD, I am prepared to ignite.

John: Yes. Nicholas is the creator of Believe. He’s traveled to 33 countries, played football in front of 111,000 fans, and generated seven figures in revenue from partners like Google. His life changed in 2015 when he visited the Sacred Valley of Peru. He wants to help you find your true purpose, Fire Nation. Nicholas, take a minute, fill in some gaps from that intro, and gives us just a little glimpse into your personal life?

Nicholas: Sure. So I'm founder and CEO of the company called LOVE! And I've had a lot of tough times, and I've had good times as well. So today we're going to help people have their ah-ha moment. I'm really excited. I've done a lot of things in life, but the most important thing I can do is help you, whoever is out there listening right now, really have a breakthrough, so you can finally take action.

John: So you have done a lot of things in life Nicholas, but let’s really drilldown into one thing that you consider your area of expertise, what is that?

Nicholas: I would say that's helping people to finally embrace the darkness inside of themselves, to finally get to the point where they're going to take action. There are certain reasons why people don’t actually do things. As you know JLD, a lot of us at some point, 90 percent of people that might listen to an info product, or buy an info product, don’t actually do it what it says, and I've been there as well. So my area of expertise is finding out why people aren’t doing that, and touching whatever it is inside of them that's not enabling them to finally go forward and take action.

John: Do you find that a struggle sometimes to have people talk about the darkness within? I mean, I'm not trying to be coy right now, but I look at myself, like I don’t even really know if I'm aware of any darkness that's residing within me, so how do you start that?

Nicholas: Sure. Well, Perry Marshall, and you know Perry Marshall, JLD. He was on our show. And he said actually that he was looking around our website, and he said, “Hey, I noticed that you're not just talking about all the great things, you're talking about some of the tough things in life.” And he said, “You know, it san honor to be on your show.” He said this in the interview, “It’s an honor to be on you show because you're talking about things that are real.”

He said, “I know that it’s very easy to talk about all the good things, but it’s very difficult to get real and talk about all of the tough things. And some people – JLD, some people aren’t doing things, not because they're not paying attention to details, they don’t know the right traffic sources, those all can be true. They can be very true. But also it can be those things inside of ourselves that are preventing us from actually freeing ourselves up, so we can finally do what we're supposed to do, what we really want to do.

And a lot of times those dark things in our life are gifts, but they don’t seem like gifts. They seem terrible. And when we address those and embrace those, and actually love those dark things, we can finally free ourselves up to move forward and take action, and actually do what the info products are saying, do what we're hearing on JLD’s show, and to actually make changes.

John: Let’s talk about one of those dark things, like we don’t have to get specific with names etc., but I wan t a specific example of a time that you’ve encountered a dark thing, maybe with yourself, or with one of your many clients, what was that dark thing, and how did you break that out into the light?

Nicholas: Sure. Well, my brother died when I was very young, so I was almost seven. And all of us have had very tough things. Some people have had tougher things than that, but that was something that shaped my life. I would say that even through failure, success, playing football at University of Michigan for Lloyd Carr, all of these things, you know, I had a fractured back when I was 15. I was in a back – yeah, I was in a back brace, and then I went to play at Michigan. And I'm 5’8” and white by the way, which is fascinating.

John: Oh, me, too.

Nicholas: Yeah, so you understand. I know John; I think you went to Nepal. We all have these moments that, you know, whatever happened in our life, different things happen maybe when we're younger. In my case I had anger, it stayed, even through success and failure and success, and it was still there. And then gradually when we start to finally look into what the heck is going on? And in my case, for example, that I actually find that I wouldn’t have done many of the great things that have opened my eyes up to other things in life, and maybe had what I considered my greatest success or realizations.

And they continue to come, I'm learning all the time. Without that anger, and it was a great gift that my brother died, which was crazy to even think about saying, but that's an example of something that in somebody’s life could be there that seems terrible, but can actually be a gift. And when they work with that energy that they get from that thing that happened, when they embrace it and look into it, and trace, trace sort of what the causes are, or sort of what the greater meaning is, they can actually find some things that can actually enable them to finally make real changes.

And honestly JLD, that is why I am on this interview, in this interview with you, it's because of doing what I'm saying that led me here today. And I'm very proud and honored to be on your show.

John: So obviously that was a very difficult moment when you lost your brother. And you’ve been able to deal and cope with that over the years. So that was a difficult life moment, what would you consider your worst entrepreneurial moment, your worst business moment, that struggle that you had, take us there, tell us that story?

Nicholas: Sure. So the story begins, it was in 2008. The real estate market crashed. I was quite young, but I spent four or five years building up a little empire. I had five condos in Miami Beach, and I lost everything actually, because I was all in, and I was looking for other ways to make money. I saw all of the Acai Berry ads all over. And CPA networks were big. You couldn’t go to ad:tech or Affiliate Summit or anywhere and not hear about Acai Berry and supplements online.

And I looked at these landing pages. And I saw man, these landing pages are fake. They're using Oprah’s picture. They're using fake testimonials. And I'm like I'm going to build a supplement line. And I'm going to have 11 products, and I'm going to be honest. I'm not going to use these landing pages. And I think I can still make money. And what I didn't realize after spending a year, and sort of thinking about everything, I wasn’t paying attention to every single detail of what the competitors were doing.

Because they were getting the customers at a lower cost, because they were using these landing pages, and then sending them – you know, a lot of times it was affiliates, and then sending them to the vendor, or the owner of the offer, which was an Acai Berry supplement supplier or manufacturer. And so I didn't realize, you have to look at every single detail. Lloyd Carr, who is a national championship football coach, I played for him at Michigan.

He yelled pay attention and also be on time, which you love, JLD. You love when people are on time, me, too. You're actually very patient, but you're on the ball.

John: Yes.

Nicholas: I noticed you are on it. But anyway, that was a terrible thing. I spent a year. You have to pay attention in my opinion to every single detail. And I can do a better job of this more and more in my life and my business now. We're not perfect, but we go step by step, pay attention to details. And I spent one year, I didn't pay attention to how that was going to make their cu acquisition costs much lower. And I had friend of friends making a million dollars in like four months.

And I actually sold everything for a loss. I took myself down to not a lot of money, and I only ran like $1,000 of ads on Bid 4 Spots, which is now closed. It ski like – it was like Google Radio, where you bid on radio auction time. But $1,000 with radio ads is nothing. And so the project was – I lost patience. I didn't run enough money, and run enough ads. And I spent so long, and I didn't pay attention to those fake landing pages, were probably a big reason why those supplement offers were so big. So that's what happened.

John: So let’s kind of dive into what you think the biggest lesson, the biggest takeaway is for Fire Nation, for my audience, entrepreneurs, cybernuers, small business owners, what do you want to make sure that we get?

Nicholas: I’d say that people, we all can pay attention better. I’d say when I'm talking about paying attention, and taking action, paying attention would be: okay, so what's a landing page got to look like that’s actually making money? So you see something in an info product, will that work for somebody at that time? Things change very quickly online. I mean, I have a friend that analyzes hundreds of thousands of keywords.

He runs job’s websites. If somebody were to try to copy him, they would have to not only know what his frontend looks like, and then of course we know about the back end. But his email sequence, what his vendors are maybe paying out to him that he has in his emails, every single little detail. I mean, I have a friend that runs an e-cig company around in Miami. If he negotiates a lower percentage with his merchant account, little things like this can make or break a business being profitable or not.

I mean, literally, if somebody’s paying X amount on ClickBank for selling their info product and somebody else find the same way to do the same thing and get a much lower percentage on a merchant account, little things like that can eventually make or break you. So you have to look at every single little detail of what competitors are doing. And when you're going to change something or make it better, you better make sure that will actually translate.

And that's what I didn't do in my story, and it didn't work because I didn't pay attention. It can work, but you have to pay attention to every little detail.

John: Funnels are something that I've been focusing on Fire Nation for a couple years now. In fact, I brought Russell Brunson on the show multiple times, who is the founder of ClickFunnels, which is a great service that we use. And we do webinars, because we talk about the importance of funnels, and that's exactly what Nicholas is talking about here. When you see a company that might be selling something, you're like how are they making any money? They're selling it at or below cost.

Well, they might be, but guess what, their backend funnel as up sells, and down sells, and back sells, and all these different things that they know what their average cost or average earnings per customer is. And those are real numbers that we have to know on either a micro scale, if we're doing things micro, or a macro sale, if we're going to be going out macro. So a great webinar, if you want to check it out over at eofire.com/click, that's C-L-I-C-K. Russell and I chat all about this because it's so critical for your success.

And the exciting this is, don’t let this stress you out, just make sure your niche is small when you start, so you don’t have all these crazy high end competitors, and you just dominate and crush that niche. And then as you learn the game, you can expand outward. So that's eofire.com/click. And Nicholas, let’s move into one of your greatest ideas today, one of those ah-ha moments that you blew out of the water, take us there, tell us that story.

Nicholas: Sure. And by the way, I joined Podcaster’s Paradise. I think it's amazing by the way. I think it's amazing. And I love your webinar, so I definitely would hit that up. So I’d say one of my biggest realizations is that there's so much more to life. You know, there are scientific studies now that have come out that we're not just our physical body. We have Yale doctors, Dr. Brian Weis, who has done thousands of past life regressions, where they see a 6-year-old, they say they're a British soldier.

They go and find out that British soldier really lived. Now how do these things work into making money, because everything’s connected? A lot of these people, basically JLD, a lot of people don't take action, you know that. And again, getting back to my thing I talked about at the beginning of the episode, why? A lot of times there are major blockages from life events, that's why. Yeah, some people just don’t pay attention, some people are lazy, some people don’t have time.

They make excuses. But why are they making – why do we make those excuses? I certainly have made excuses. And I'm telling you it's because there is a bigger picture to our lives than just maybe what we think. We're not limited to just having a bunch of bad crap happen and dying. And you know that JLD, you’ve done some amazing work. You’ve gone to Nepal. You’ve had, from what I understand life changing moments yourself.

John: Yeah.

Nicholas: And now you’ve really changed your life, and you're doing so many amazing things for people. So, just when you start to kind of wake up, there's so much more to your life. I believe in you. You can do it, whoever’s listening, you're not alone. You are honestly not alone. There is more to our lives than our physical bodies. Hey, listen were radio waves still here before we knew about them, was the internet, was Wi-Fi? There are many things; we know just a sliver, so we can have hope in that.

And hope ultimately, along with an action plan and doing it, which JLD provides in his Freedom Journal and things like that, and on this episode. But have hope, and don’t be afraid to look at the bigger picture in life. That can actually allow you to make these changes and to take action and finally change your life.

John: Nicholas, what are you most fired up about right now, like, what here in 2017 just has you on fire?

Nicholas: Well, I think the world is changing. I think people are working up, basically working their way towards taking back and uncovering some things that were previously covered up. I mean, there are a lot of these things. MIT professors are now on shows like Ancient Aliens, things that seem absolutely crazy, that I would have thought are crazy, actually are becoming more and more mainstream.

The governments are changing around the world. There are people waking up. It's going to be a little bit of a possibly painful process, but all of this waking up is what excites me the most. And waking up is what can you make you actually take action. And you do have to actually pay attention, and then do things, and so do i. I have to do that, too. It's not like I'm saying everybody except me. I have to do it the most. And I think one of the biggest things we can all do is forgive.

I have to forgive more. We can forgive things that have really hurt us the most, forgive people, forgive ourselves. And when we forgive, that frees us up to take action. Pay attention to all the details in business, and really make a change, but put things into action based on how much time and money we have, actually start doing things that we can do, and then improve gradually and take action.

But forgiving, looking at the darkness within ourselves, noticing the changes in the world. Sometimes things that seem bad aren’t bad. And sometimes things that seem good, there might be more going on as well. So people are waking up and I'm really excited about that.

John: Well, Fire Nation, I know that you are completely awake because you're listening to this episode. You are fired up right now for the lightning round, so don’t you go anywhere, because we're going to thank our sponsors and be right back. Nicholas, are you prepared for the lightning round?

Nicholas: JLD, I am prepared.

John: What was holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur?

Nicholas: My mom would say I wanted to be a boss since I was like four years old, so I would say time. I went to school. I played football, like we said. That was my goal. And I graduated; I started Affiliate Marketing in 2004. And we're an SCO, where you could make money with SCO just by having keywords in your search terms. It was actually a very good time with Overstock.com and different affiliate programs.

John: Yeah. What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

Nicholas: Forgiveness stops the wheel of karma from the law of one, which you can find on Google. But forgiveness stops the wheel of karma. It stops the back and forth madness we have in our lives of getting ticked off at things, and feeling like, you know, crazy about why good and bad happens, forgiveness. I need to forgive more, and hopefully we all can forgive more.

John: What's a personal habit that contributes to your success?

Nicholas: The same as one that contributes to your success, JLD. You do this very well. Do what I say I'm going to do. Nobody’s perfect, but 95 percent of the time, I do what is absolutely I'm going to do and I'm on time. And I think you are, too. And we love attention to detail. You understand that and so do I, and I think that's a great habit.

John: I live by those words Nicholas for sure. And I think that you might have got that from your time as a collegiate athlete, you definitely need to honor your word. For me, I know that I got that as an officer. And so when I was 26 years old and I had my first job in corporate finance, after my four years of active duty as an officer, I was like: oh, wait a second, like when people say they're going to do something, that doesn’t mean they're actually going to do it.

Like, it was a whole new world for me. And I was like this doesn’t make any sense, because that's your honor, that's your integrity as an officer. And so that was crazy to me. And I just decided to stick by that. And I can tell you it did me really well in corporate. It did me really well throughout the rest of my life. So Fire Nation, be that person. Now Nicholas, share an internet resource, like an Evernote with Fire Nation.

Nicholas: Sure. This is going to be unconventional, business this interview, as you can tell, I love that you pay attention to detail by the way. Gaia.com, G-A-I-A.com, health, fitness, positive thinking, your purpose, thousands of video documentaries and original programming that can help you in so many ways. It’s the only network like it anywhere. And if you want to expand your mind, sometimes you're pushing the wall; you can just back up and walk around the wall.

But how do you walk around the wall? We can get business things that can help. And also it can help, JLD, you’ve gone and you’ve traveled. You’ve expanded your mind in other ways. And then things might open up. You might finally start to take action. You shake the foundation, and that's what finally gets you going, and Gaia.com can help you do that.

John: If you could recommend one book Nicholas, what would it be and why?

Nicholas: Well, JLD, you could understand, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Because JLD, you are on the ball from your time as an officer, and I didn't know that story by the way, I love that. But it's how to deal with people and the world. It's actually a very realistic book, because he’s kind of like – he’s kind of like, he’s not sugar coating things about the world that people are mainly concerned with themselves. But he’s also teaching people how to be nice in those tough situations. And we want to be nice.

We want to love and be actually thankful for the tough things, which is really hard to do, thankful for the craziness, but also he’s realistic about: hey, the world can be tough. So How to Win Friends and Influence People can help you in sales. It can help you writing your sales letters. It can help you dealing with people that don't pay you. Because Google pays pretty much on time, but some companies they don’t pay, like weird things happen in business.

So how do you deal with that, and also stay effective, but stay nice, that book can help you do it.

John: Let’s end today on fire Nicholas, with you giving us a parting piece of guidance, the best way that we can connect with you, and then we’ll say goodbye.

Nicholas: Sure. I would say believe in yourselves. You can do it. I believe you can do it. My show is called Believe. And we're changing media. We're trying to start a network that's bringing together some of these tough realties, and also maybe some spiritual things, maybe some advice in terms of money and business, but also what's happening in the world, the bigger picture. And we have great business leaders on our show.

It's at Believe.itunes.com. That takes you right to the iTunes page, Believe.itunes.com. And our website is Believe .love. And I really am so honored to be here. I know people are going to have their lives changed.

John: Yes.

Nicholas: I would buy everything JLD sells, personally. I actually have done that. And the webinars are great, Podcaster’s Paradise is great, but JLD you provide a great service. You are a great man and I really appreciate it.

John: Nicholas, I receive that. Thank you for those kind words my man. And Fire Nation, you are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with. And, I mean, hello, you’ve been hanging out with Nicholas and JLD today, so keep up the heat. And head over to eofire.com, just type Nicholas in the search bar. His show notes page is going to pop up with everything that we've been talking about today. The best show notes in the biz, timestamps, links galore. And Nicholas, best place that we can learn more about you?

Nicholas: Sure. Believe.itunes.com and Believe.love.

John: Nicholas, thank you for sharing your journey with Fire Nation today, for that we salute you, and we’ll catch you on the flipside.

Nicholas: It's a great honor, thank you JLD.

[En