John: What’s shakin’, Fire Nation? JLD here, and I have a pretty cool audio master class, because I have Jillian Michaels rockin’ the mic today, and she’s going to talk about how we can turn our passion into a true sustainable business.

Now if you don’t know who Jillian Michaels is, well, she’s a world leading health and fitness expert renown nutritionist, and wellness entrepreneur, and she’s also a best-selling author, creator of the award-winning My Fitness by Jillian Michaels app, host of the top podcast, the Jillian Michaels show, and cofounder of empowered media.

Jillian is a fierce advocate for refugees and works with UNHCR, the un-refugee agency to bring awareness to the global refugee crisis. And Fire Nation, we’re going to be diving into so much greatness as soon as we get back from thanking our sponsor.

Jillian, say “what’s up” to Fire Nation, and share something interesting about yourself that most people don’t know.

Jillian: Okay. Let’s see. Hi, Fire Nation. Jillian Michaels here joining the show today. Super excited. Something people don’t know. I could throw axes. I'm actually surprisingly good at it. I like there’s a – now that it’s a thing, I have done it a few times, and I’m pretty – it’s a gift actually. I’m thinking of a career change.

John: So, I know that you know I’m from Puerto Rico, or I live in Puerto Rico now, but I’m from Maine originally, so two years ago I went back to visit, and I knew Cross Fit Gym opens. I went there, and they were throwing axes. I kid you not. I picked one up. My first throw was literally bull’s eye. I should’ve walked away.

Jillian: Lucky.

John: Because my next 20 throws didn’t even stick to the target.

Jillian: Always walk away a winner, babe.

John: Dang.

Jillian: Always walk away a winner.

John: Next time. I’ve learned my lesson.

Jillian: Yep. That’s a [crosstalk] [00:01:57].

John: But Jillian, I have told Fire Nation all about you in the amazing introduction that your team sent over. So, you know, we’re all big fans. We love what you have going on, but one thing that you've done that’s super cool is you’ve been able to take something you’re passionate about and turn it into a career, a sustainable business.

Now Fire Nation’s heard about the importance of being passionate about what you do, but how realistic is it for our listeners, Fire Nation, to actually turn their passions into a sustainable career?

Jillian: When you do it you love, right, and you pursue what you’re passionate about and what’s authentic to you that the skies the limit, I've found time and time again that the more security people seek the less they have.

So, I mean I could tell you a million friends who took the, you know I should job, right? Like a million trainers that thought all right, that I was coming up with I need to be responsible. I need a grown-up job. Got into real estate. The market fell out of real estate in 2008 or whenever it was, and the people that weren’t truly passionate about it got weeded out.

But when you look at people who do what they love like Cesar Milan is a guy who really loves dog. Mrs. Fields was a woman who really liked baking cookies. Martha Stewart – [barking] oh I'm so sorry. I happen to have dogs here.

John: I think the dog heard you say the word dog.

Jillian: Yeah. She’s like me, dog. I've worked with Cesar. Seven, stop. I'm on a call. Quit it. But again, I mean it’s like if you look at people who are extremely successful, I would simply say, you know, again me, right, a kid that liked to do lunges. If you do what you love and then you study business and various business models, it’s not – I don’t want to say it’s easy, but it’s very straightforward if you can grind and you can put in the time to build a career doing what you love.

John: I mean this isn’t an exact quote, and I don’t even know who to reference it to, but there’s a phrase I’ve heard out there so often that you can fail at doing something you hate. So, why not actually do something you love, because you might fail at that too, but at least you’re failing at something that you love doing, and guess what, you’re going to pick yourself back up off the mat, if you love real estate and the 2008 recession happens, and then guess what? You’re going to be in this great situation, because that weeded out all the people that didn’t love it, and now you’re one of the 10, 20, 30 percent of people in real estate who are still doing that thing in a much more open field.

So, we learn from failures. We learn from mistakes. I mean let’s be honest, Jillian. You’re close to perfect, but you’re not 100 percent perfect, so give us a couple of mistakes that you’ve made while you were building Empowered Media.

Jillian: Oh my god. I got to be honest, John. I don’t think there’s enough time in this year for me to list all of the mistakes I've made and all of the failures I've had. Oh god, and they are really numerous. I mean I’ll give you a perfect one.

John: Sweet.

Jillian: So, we – for years – I'm a big supplement person. And a decade ago, the supplement world looked very different than it does now. So, pre-workouts were called that burners. And as a kid, I tried everything. I mean the good, the bad, you know, the ugly, the worthless. And I wrote a book called making the cut. It was a bestseller. And I talked all about different supplements like what’s dangerous. What helps. What doesn’t. And I said oh I really want to do a supplement line.

So, we did a line of that burners. The worst mistake I could’ve ever made, and the problem is I ended up getting into a deal with a company that really didn’t have any interest in kind of my messaging and kind of rolled over me and like oh we already printed the bottles. Sorry about your approvals. And I lost complete control of the product. It was a disaster. Even though they were totally organic, all clean, with green tea and fricken gotu kola and vitamin C. It doesn’t matter. It was an absolute branding disaster.

It’s one of the biggest mistakes of my career, because it cost me – even though I talked about it and written about it, and the product was everything I said. It didn’t matter. It was just a fricken disaster. It was a branding nightmare for me. Huge mistake. And there are so many of those. Shows that didn’t get picked up. Bad legal advice. I could go on for days.

And you’re right. The goal is to learn from it and re-approach the next challenge more intelligently.

John: So I love that, because there’s so much to learn from that specifically, but what would you have done differently? Looking back, what would you have done differently? Maybe not even that specific scenario of the supplement line, but just overall like and all those mistakes, what should have been the process?

Jillian: Oh my god. The truth of the matter is that we really did do everything right. They just didn’t care. So, they were such a huge massive multibillion-dollar corporation, that I have the approvals of my contract, they just didn’t care. They were like go ahead, sue us.

And so, the lesson there that I learned in business, and this is really sad, but this is the reality of life is that business is modern-day warfare in my opinion, and as jaded as that sounds, as cynical it may sound, I go into every opportunity looking at where I’m going to get screwed over.

And I mean I play it out like a game of chess. I’m like okay, you know, like there’s a perfect example. There’s a company with a fitness app, and it’s a tech company. They have a ton of money, right? Ton of money to market the company. They came to us and they said look, we really want Jillian to be a part of our project. We’ll give you guys 10 percent of the company, me and my business partner, and I looked at it every which way, and I said to my business partner, I was here’s the thing.

We have the Jillian Michaels app. If we do this, you know, they have more money to market. They’re going to use my name to market, and even though we own 10 percent, 10 percent versus 100 percent of our app, and you know, it’s – why would they want our app to succeed? And they’re really good people. They were like we would never do that. And I was like yeah, but I can’t take the chance. And I passed on the deal.

So, because the reality is they have so much money that is kind of like looking at what the first world does to the developing world, right? They rape, they pillage, they plunder. They take all the resources, and they screw you over. And they’re like yeah, come sue me, because they know how much it’s gonna cost you.

So now when I look at deals where even if we do them right, even if we everything perfectly, but there are too many ways to get hurt, if they potentially have conflicting interests, I don’t engage.

And with this one, I was like there’s a conflicting interest. Why would they want my app to succeed? There’s going to be confusion in the marketplace, and it’s just not worth the upside with the potential downside. So, I look at every single deal and all the ways it can go wrong, and I just think to myself you know what? Pigs get fat, but hogs get slaughtered. You know what I mean? My app, I make a good living. I love what I do, and I don’t need to take the risk with somebody who has way more money and way more experience in tech and who’s lawyers for days on salary. It’s like yeah, pass. I just don’t take the risk. I’m more risk-averse.

John: Jillian, I didn’t know this about you, but you are the queen of one-liners, and I'm not gonna lie, I have to repeat a couple of them for Fire Nation, because they’re just so classic.

Number one, business is modern-day warfare. Fire Nation, business is modern-day warfare. And this is coming from a military veteran right here, and I can tell you been in business now for seven years with Entrepreneurs on Fire, 2200 episodes, 75 million listens of the show, this is modern-day warfare.

I was in Iraq for 13 months. That was warfare. This is warfare. That’s the situation you’ve got to look at Fire Nation. And Jillian, when you said that you go into every opportunity saying where am I going to you screwed over, I was like yes. You know, that in some way sounds like a sad way to look at life, but the other way, it’s like that’s the way you have to look at business life, because that’s what is out there.

And again, I got to keep going, Jillian, because you just crushed this. What do the people in power do? They rape, they pillage, they plunder. Fire Nation, truth bomb.

Last but not least, pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. I mean it’s so true.

Jillian: I'm telling you, man. I'm sorry to say. It’s a very jaded way to look at things, and you know, I find that millennials are very full of hope, and they love to be optimistic and positive, but that’s a real dangers came to play. And so, I’m not asking you to be bitter, because Gen X tends to be a bit more bitter, but I am asking you to be realistic.

And it’s like hey, you got to play every scenario out. And if you can handle each and every one of them, you don’t engage. You just don’t. It’s like live to fight another day.

So, when there are – you know, there are so many fights I barely survived. And now, I just look at it, and I'm like it’s not worth it. Living to fight another day. And you know, the reality is that if you play out every scenario, and there is a scenario that you will not be able to survive as a business, do not go down that path. Do not take the risk.

I have been doing this now as a public figure for 15 years, and I cannot tell you how many times I get screwed over and it’s like if I know that it’s a foe I can't beat, I don’t engage anymore.

John: Jillian, this is not a jaded way to look at things. It is a 100 percent real. I mean what you need to understand, Fire Nation, is we’re human beings. I’m a human being. Jillian’s a human being. As great a people you might think we are, we’re looking out for number one. You’re looking out for number one, Fire Nation. Human beings are looking out for number one. That is at the core. No matter how nice Mother Teresa is, and she was a sweetheart, believe me. I didn’t meet her in person, but I’m sure she’s a sweetheart, she’s looking out for number one, period, end of story. That’s what it is. So, you just got to realize, Fire Nation, come at and every scenario eyes wide open.

Now Jillian, something that you’ve really been able to weather a lot of storms with is because you built a great team. Talk about the importance of building the right team?

Jillian: Well that’s really where you have to kind of put your ego aside, because we’re good at some things. We’re not good at others. And again, right, we’re human just like you said. So, we’re gonna have strong points and we’re gonna have weak points –

John: Totally.

Jillian: – and for me, I mean I'm great at fitness, I'm great at understanding nutrition, I’m really good at disseminating health information from other experts, and making it kind of accessible and affordable and relatable.

I’m not inherently a business person. I’ve been forced to become one over the years, but it isn’t – I’m not wired that way. And years ago when I thought all right, I love what I do, how do I turn this into a sustainable business, I started to look at other people who’d done the same, and I studied them. Whether it was a Martha Stewart, an Oprah Winfrey, a Susie Orman, Rachael Ray, and I thought all right, all of these people have a business partner. And they really did. Oprah did, all of them did.

Somebody who helped them grow their brand, who understood branding, and my first move was to find that person, and we’re still business partners 15 years later, and that’s my business partner, Giancarlo Chersich, and he has taught me so much, and now I think – I would say I have a decent understanding. I mean he still looks at things very differently than me and can open my eyes to many different opportunities in the way that he does business, but that was my first move.

And then from there, you build a company based on all right, who’s going to understand social media? Who’s going to understand branding and creating a really sexy modern cool anesthetic? All of these things like I don’t – that’s not what I do. I have a graphic designer and the person who manages the look of our brand, and then she sits down with me and gives me options, that I don’t sit there and go you know what, let me design are app logo, because I don’t know anything about it, right?

I don’t know anything about tech. I have a tech guy on staff that teach me all about being user friendly and this, that, the other, and how to turn our content into something that’s easier for people to do on their tablets, and you really just have to look at all right, this is my core competency. What don’t I know about the business I want to go into, and with that said, there’s going to be things that you are aware of that are going to come up along the way.

And it’s like it might make a little bit of mess, but don’t try to do it yourself. Get an expert in their and learn it. That’s the best thing you can do. So God forbid, something goes wrong, you know what to look for the next time when hiring your next person.

John: Fire Nation, straight value bombs and more are coming up including one of the most unexpected challenges Jillian faced while running her business, as soon as we get back from thinking our sponsor.

So Jillian, we’re back, and you faced a lot of expected challenges on your road. I mean things that you expected to be challenging and obstacles, you faced those, but what was one of the most unexpected challenges you faced while running your business?

Jillian: Extremely poor legal advice. My god, the wrong lawsuit, it will destroy you. And unfortunately the more successful you become, the bigger the target you’re going to have on your back, right? And I think a lot of us feel, and especially if we’re talking – we just, you know, spoke about getting experts that know what we don’t know, you still have to be proactive in every area of your business.

Oh god, so I had – I'm just trying to figure out if this case is even sealed or not. I don’t think it is, but there was a lawyer that sent me – you know, because I thought like I can't read this. Right? You get these contracts that are ridiculous. 50, 60 pages, and I was like well, I have a great lawyer. I don’t need to read this. Right? Sign on the dotted line. He told me how much money was going to make. He told me the services that I needed to deliver. Perfect. Sounds like a great deal.

To make a very long story short, very big company, right, decided they didn’t want to pay me, and at that time Biggest Loser, when I was on Biggest Loser, they had the right to approve television commercials. Well, Biggest Loser did not deny that my business – the other partner that I was doing business with run a commercial, but they decided they didn’t want to pay me. They’d gotten all their services, and they turned around and they said hey, you know what? It was never disclosed to us that we had to get our commercials approved by NBC, so we never would’ve got in this deal, so Jillian committed fraud.

She introduced us fraudulently when she signed this deal. Holy – can I say that on your pod – like –?

John: Yeah. Totally.

Jillian: It was such a disaster. It cost me millions, millions of dollars in legal fees. And you know what? I didn’t even know that my lawyer hadn’t disclosed it. To this day, I don’t know why he didn’t disclose it. I literally have no idea. None. To this day. And now, my business partner and I sit down and we go through every fricken page of the contract.

And the lawyer was like oh your Biggest Loser renegotiation wasn’t done yet. That’s why didn’t disclose it. And to make a long story short, the deals were signed within a day of each other. So, we thought maybe he forgot it, he missed it, I don’t know, but a move – someone else’s mistake can destroy your life. Destroy your life. You have to be proactive in every single piece of her business.

So, you don’t want to micromanage, but you don’t want to be like well, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know. I hired a great lawyer. So, hands off. No. You need to be checking in on everything regularly to make sure that things are on the right path and then before you sign anything, before you put your name on anything, then you sit down and you go through it with a fine-toothed comb to make sure that all the Is are dotted and all the Ts are crossed, because I guarantee you it will be some legal disaster that ruins your life.

John: Fire Nation, surround yourself with amazing people who know what the heck they’re doing, but at the end of the day, please take Jillian’s story to heart here. You are your best advocate. You are your best advocate, you are the finish line for everything that has to do with your life, with your business.

No Jillian, it sounds like you’ve kind of progressed in life to really be able to in tune with your intuition, to really listen to your gut. Does that matter listening to your gut?

Jillian: Oh my god, so much. If I could tell you how many times I look back on something and think I knew it. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. Right? And you don’t want to be difficult. So, it’s a woman thing I think in particular until like – cousin they’re like ah she’s such a – akh. She’s so difficult. Whereas with guys, it’s a little bit different. It’s like oh, he’s assertive, he’s aggressive. Okay. But with women, it’s like oh, she’s difficult. She’s a – and so, you kinda bite your tongue, even though you’re thinking like oh, this is a bad idea. Oh this is a bad idea.

And I'm gonna tell you right now, when it fails for all the reasons you knew it was going to, those people don’t ever want to work with you again anyway. Because what is it? Success has a million fathers and failure is an orphan?

John: Yeah.

Jillian: I mean a perfect example would be a show we did on Spike called Sweat Inc. And as it was going on, I was like, this is a disaster. They’re doing all these things wrong. This doesn’t make sense, and I was like guys, you know, this is scattered. This doesn’t make sense.

John: Let me cut in, Jillian.

Jillian: Oh yeah.

John: What’s like one or two things that they were doing that’s like oh man, this is just not the way to do it?

Jillian: They were trying to tell 10 different stories, and it was very unclear what the show was actually about. So, it’s like on one hand, it was about fitness entrepreneurs, but then on the other hand, they had people trying to lose weight. And it was like just the show didn’t know what it was.

And I was trying to say like hey, you’ve got to streamline this story. You’ve got to nail down the beats for the format of the show, and they wouldn’t listen. They’re executive producers. They’ve made a million shows. This one’s the height of the network. They know best. And of course, the show tanked for all the reasons I said it would, and I didn’t work with them again, because it’s bad blood, right? Nobody wants to repeat a failure.

But I wonder had I been more difficult, had I been more forceful, had I been able to actually fix the show, and the show worked, it doesn’t really matter if they like to me or not, because the show works, so you’re going to keep working together. If that makes any sense.

John: It makes a lot of sense, because, Fire Nation, at the end of the day, Jillian had the experience. She knew what needed to be done. I mean you know, she’s not always going to be right. She’s not always going to be wrong, but you know, you need to be working in an environment where you feel right, your causes are aligned, your intuition says you know what, this feels good.

Because guess what? Things are not going to work out when your intuition feels good about it, but you’re going to then not work out at something that you actually feel good about, and that’s not so bad of a thing. And amongst many, many things, Jillian, that I admire about you, you’ve consistently evolved over the years.

I mean an example would be back in your DVD workouts. I mean obviously, I don’t even know when the last time I saw a DVD player is, but you transitioned way early, cutting edge, to the digital app.

I mean you started a podcast, which of course I love, because you know I was one of those very early trenders with podcasting as well, and you were able to build a huge audience with a huge voice through that.

How did you know that evolving was so important in these different stages in your life?

Jillian: It’s human nature, right? It’s the way literally that life works on this planet. It’s evolve or die. And business is the exact same. What I will say – someone said this to me recently, so I’m not quite sure how accurate it is, but she said the Industrial Revolution happened over 100+ years. The tech revolution happened over 10. So, so many of us are not really being given a standard amount of time to adapt, grow, and evolve.

Businesses are falling apart underneath our feet. Publishing; disaster. I mean Self magazine; gone. Like it just wiped off the face of the planet. This Magazine. Cosmos is in trouble. They’re all in trouble. They’re all going away. Entire industries. Nobody watches cable TV anymore. Nobody. They might still watch the same content, but now there is streaming it on things like Hulu or Netflix or Amazon.

So, it’s happening so fast that if you’re not looking 100 miles – so far into the future, you will get left behind. And I think I always knew all right we got to be ahead of the game.

Now with that said, there’s a golden rule to this, and I firmly believe in that whole fast-follower concept of watching somebody cut their teeth on a business, for example, we got into video gaming, the technology wasn’t there. So, it did really well, but the technology wasn’t there, so people weren’t happy with the product. It was a Wii video game.

And then people watched us, and re-approached the space in a different way when the technology was there, and they were more successful. So now, we kinda sit back for a second. We look at different things that are kind of up and coming that are emerging, and a set of being the first in the space and making a mess of things, we watch other people fail, learn from their failures, and then go into the space early, but not first, if that makes any sense.

John: It makes a lot of sense. And Fire Nation, going through some of those processes that Jillian was talking about, Blockbuster; gone. TV commercials; the value, it’s gone. Who watches a TV commercial now? You have a phone in your hand. Gone. Toys “R” Us; gone. Circuit City; gone. I mean there are all these companies who refused to reinvent themselves.

In these are recent companies that most of the people listening right now have been in the stores. I remember renting from Blockbuster, it seems like a few years ago. I mean it’s crazy how fast these billion-dollar companies literally shrivel up and die because of the world we live in. It’s so quickly evolving, and if you’re not staying on the cutting edge, you’re ancient. You’re absolute history.

So Jillian, we’ve gone through a lot of cool stuff today. I mean you been very generous with your time. I want to kinda hand the mic over to you just as a last thing here for you to maybe just share something you really want to make sure our listeners that are entrepreneurs, they’re small business owners, what do you really want them to understand about where they are today moving forward and how maybe they can learn from your knowledge and what you have going on and then plus, we want to know where we can follow you, what you have going on, how we can support that is a think you for being on the show.

Jillian: Oh. You’re so sweet. I mean we did cover a lot of it, but I would say look, I believe you’re here for a reason. And that reason is to contribute your passion, your personality, and your authenticity to the world, right?

Some people are going to love you. Some people are going to hate you, but either way if you’re being authentically you, you’re and you’re making them think, and you’re making them evolve, and you’re making them grow.

The second thing would be you’re going to have – oh my god, massive, enormous, devastating failures. And any multimillionaire, billionaire, extremely successful business individual that I’ve ever had the opportunity to speak to personally has always told me some story of bankruptcy or financial the station. And they do exactly what you said. They pick themselves up, they learn from it, they re-approach more intelligently, and it’s persistence, passion, and patients, right?

And if you stick with that, success in a large part is a matter of attrition, right? So, you gotta stay with it, and you live to fight another day. And that’s the key. I mean I’ve had so many devastating failures and setbacks, screw ups, but yet I've lived to fight another day, and I continue every day to wake up and do business, and some of it works, and some of it doesn’t, but I went more than I lose now, and that’s enough.

John: Fire Nation, live your passion, and when you do that, listen, people are going to love you, people are going to hate you, but Jillian, what do you think about this quote?

“Love me or hate me, because there’s no money in the middle.”

Jillian: God that’s so true. I will say for me, it’s true. I do think that there are a lot of people that are very diplomatic out there that are successful. You know, everybody loves Michael Jordan. He has one of the highest Q scores, which is like a popularity score, one of the highest in the world.

I mean everybody loves Tom Hanks. Everybody loves Oprah. But I still don’t think – you can look for exceptions to the rule, you just mentioned, but I don’t think that you’re being authentically yourself.

And you know for me, you know, Bob Harper, the guy that I worked with on Biggest Loser was always very kind of diplomatic, right down the middle, never really took a stand on anything. One day he was vegan, the next day he’s paleo. Nobody cares.

John: Nobody cares.

Jillian: And Array [00:28:03].

John: You’ll never be on Entrepreneurs on Fire. Never.

Jillian: The guy was a yogi, and then he was into Cross Fit, and nobody cares. He’s like I did this, I did that, I don’t know, I like it all, it’s all fine, it’s all whatever. And nobody cares.

For me, you know, I've always been very consistent with my message, very opinionated, you know, the polar opposite, and I’m also successful. So to me, I think you just – no matter what, you have to stay true to your heart, because you can be successful both ways, but will you be happy both ways?

John: Wow. That’s a great kind of final phrase on this part of it, but Jillian, Empowered Media, the Jillian Michaels Show, which, Fire Nation, is a killer podcast. You’re listening to a podcast right now. Listen to her strong opinions. Listen to her passion. Don’t you want more of that? Check out the podcast.

Jillian, what else do you have going on that we can support?

Jillian: From me, it’s all about my app. My app basically, is called My Fitness, and it has hundreds of recipes, personalized meal planner, personalized workout programs. It essentially allows me to be your personal trainer. And digital is really where it’s at. It’s the best way to utilize technology to help people in my space.

So, that’s what I’m a very focused on nowadays is my app, and it’s called My Fitness.

John: My Fitness. And Jillian, I’m not sure if you just saw the keynotes of Apple that just happened very, very recently like a day or two ago, but they, speaking of being cutting-edge, just released an opportunity for people who have apps in the app store to now just make a solo app just for the Apple watch.

So, that might be something to think about to make a My Fitness only for the watch to kinda get on that cutting-edge thing there. Just a thought, but you are amazing, Jillian, for sharing your time, your energy, your effort, because Fire Nation knows this. They’re the average of the five people they spend the most time with, and you've been hanging out with JM and JLD today.

So, keep up the heat, Fire Nation, and head over to My Fitness app to the Jillian Michaels Show, the podcast, and just give her love to give her support, and Jillian, I want to say thank you for sharing your truth with my audience today. For that, we salute you, and we’ll catch you on the flipside.

Jillian: Thank you so much. I’m so sorry about the dogs and everything.

John: You are awesome.

Jillian: Until the next time.