Latest / Harder Than Life / Why Your Story Is the Most Powerful Currency You Have

Transcript

Why Your Story Is the Most Powerful Currency You Have · Harder Than Life

• 0:07
  I'm Kelly Siegel, and this is Harder Than Life, a podcast about self-love, self-awareness, business, and health. We tell outrageous stories and boil everything down to simple, practical advice you can start using today. Let's get living.
• 0:23
  Welcome back to the podcast. Today, we have a living legend, Dr. Forbes Riley. She's a TV host, award-winning author, global speaker, and queen of the pitch, having sold over two and a half billion dollars in products via infomercials, live home shopping, and online platforms. She's best known for her uncanny ability to take an ordinary message and transform it into a powerful, profitable pitch.
• 0:52
  With a career that spans Hollywood, fitness innovation, and entrepreneur coaching, Forbes is now on a mission to teach the everyday person how to sell themselves and their ideas in 60 seconds or less. She's trained over 28,000 students, built a multi-million dollar company with her daughter, and continues to change lives through her programs. Before we hit record, we were talking about love. We're going to get into all that. Welcome, my new friend.
• 1:18
  Kelly, Kelly, I've wanted to meet you and connect with you in a long time. This is a great conversation. So if you're an entrepreneur, if you're someone looking for love to uplevel your life, you're in the right space today.
• 1:29
  Look at this pitch. I have everything playing out, but I want to ask you a question. Gush about your husband like we were just doing. Oh, seriously? Okay, we're going to start there. Start right there because your relationship is everything. Well, it is. But let me start with something because you look at me now and people do. And I love being looked at now because I'm a role model that I wish I had 30 years ago. I became the woman...
• 1:52
  I've always dreamed of, and I dreamed of a romantic comedy. I dreamed of Julia Roberts getting kissed by a romantic wealthy guy. I dreamed of Cindy Crawford and Randy Gerber walking red carpets. And I said to myself that I wanted that. And to be honest with you guys, I am living that dream. I have a wonderful husband.
• 2:12
  I have two beautiful 22 year old children that I'm in business with. Knock on wood at 65. I'm healthy. I'm fit. I just crushed a bikini fitness competition after surviving a near death car accident. I'm going, wait a second, Forbes, you are living this movie. And if you backtrack to when I'm 20 years old and I said to my rather agoraphobic mom, who was Ukrainian immigrant.
• 2:33
  I said, mom, I just graduated college with two degrees in three years. I get that I'm smart. I'm kind of weird. I'm kind of lonely. I grew up. In fact, I was going to show you a picture of this because I like to preface the journey. There is no destination, by the way. People always ask me, Forbes, what do you want? What do you want now? You know what I want? I just want to wake up every single day and enjoy this life I created. And that's what I want because I worked so hard to get here. Not so easy to get here, though. And I think that's the part that most people...
• 3:02
  that I want to share with you guys because looking at me going, Oh, yay for you is only so good if it affects how you were doing. So if I'm going to share my screen here, Oh, I know. Right. She comes with pictures. This is my dad. This is me growing up in long Island, New York. Uh,
• 3:17
  We had a very small little 1300 square foot house. My dad was a, get this, a magician. He taught me to do magic tricks. I've been doing magic tricks since I was a little kid. On stage, in talent shows, in whatever show, so I can make all kinds of things appear. And when you're a magician...
• 3:34
  you live in a very different world than other people. You're always thinking about how to make them go, oh my God, that's so amazing. I can do that at a dinner table. I can make toothpicks dance. I can make forks. I can do all of this. And so that makes you feel like you're somehow special, that you know something. And I love this. But my dad was also an inventor.
• 3:53
  who never got any of his ideas out to the world, which is a very interesting part of my whole story because I firmly believe that life happens for you, not to you. And so when I went off to school, kind of cute, it was me in kindergarten, but my parents didn't really pay attention to how wacko my teeth were. So my mother who hoarded and saved everything, Kelly, this is my mouth from 1968. Get out.
• 4:15
  I still have it. I mean, how old do I have to get to still have this? But all my teeth went in very, very different directions. And there's a real problem with my jaw. So they put me in braces. Kelly, were you in braces? No. Oh, God. Really? You're like the three people on the planet. My daughter had them, but I didn't have to have them.
• 4:31
  Well, most people have them for what? One, two, three, five, eight years? Eight years. They took, and you have a daughter, you get it. They put this little girl in braces, full set of braces, and then they screw this thing to the top of my mouth. And so now for two years, I can't talk. And nobody wants to be my friend, because they can't understand a single word I'm saying.
• 4:51
  As if that wasn't bad enough. So I literally can't talk for two years. Then I had a broken nose. I hit a baseball bat when I was a kid. My nose started to get really deformed. My mouth is wacko. My hair is frizzy. I'm overweight. And I was an insanely lonely little girl. You have a little girl. So you can relate to, you know, the things that are important to little girls, one of them is just being pretty. Right.
• 5:15
  I wasn't that. The second one is just being liked and popular. Oh, God, nobody even knew I was there. And so I would watch a lot of TV and a lot of movies. And this is where me dreaming about having some romantic movie life came about, wearing gowns to the Oscars and going to being James Bond. I wanted to snowmobile and scuba dive and do all these crazy things, because that was my life. My life was not my friends. My life was not being a kid.
• 5:39
  And so one day, as if life wasn't weird enough, my beautiful dad is building this kind of printing press. He puts his hand on it and he slips. He cuts the whole front of his left hand off.
• 5:50
  Oh, it was a day in June. I'll never forget when they called us. My life was never going to be the same. He spent three years in the hospital. And you can imagine what your daughter would be if she looked at you every day as cool as you are. And you're stuck to a hospital bed for three years. I mean, it was it was kind of weird when I really think about it.
• 6:10
  And we were also broke. My dad was the only bread earner in a very not so smart, not so wealthy family anyway. And so when he lost his work, we all lost everything. And my mother turns to me, and I'm going to share with you, as much as I know how sweet she is, that's a very ugly girl. She finally got the teeth fixed, but the nose and the face and the... My mother says to me, Kelly, in the hospital room, kiddo, we have no money for college. I'm really sorry. Okay.
• 6:38
  And probably one of the sadder moments of my life comes next when she said, there's a beauty pageant that's giving a full scholarship to college. She looks at me and says, well, that's not going to work for us. Probably the downest moment when my mother looked at me and told me that I also was not pretty, not even close. But the weirdest thing happened, and this is where the magical world of Disney or some fairy godmother just did something. My dad's doctor overheard us talking.
• 7:08
  And he said, you know what? Your family's been through so much. How about I fix your daughter's nose for you guys for free? And he did. And the funniest thing was I woke up a couple of days later and this kind of cute girl looked back at me and something happened. I looked at her and I said, you know what? We're cute enough to win a beauty pageant. I don't know where this came from. We entered the Miss Teenage America pageant and I went to the very first meeting. There were 500 girls in this giant auditorium and my dad's there with a big bandage on his hand and I'm thinking, oh,
• 7:37
  One of these girls is going to be on TV, on NBC with Bob Hope, and it's going to be me. And so this is what I like to think about the doctor that changed our lives, because when you tell your story and people overhear it, this is me in a hand-me-down bridesmaids dress. There's lots of other girls there, and they just called my name because I won.
• 7:54
  I went from being the ugly girl to winning in a span of weeks. I mean, that's how quick this miracle happened. And do you remember who this is? That's Bob Hope. That's Bob Hope. There I am on TV at 16, 16.
• 8:09
  with Bob Hope. And I was smart enough to take the picture because back then we didn't have cell phones. And I ended up getting the scholarship. That's my mom, God bless her soul. I went to college and I realized at that moment, as young as I was, that you've got to take your life and your destiny into your own hands. And I created my version of what Forbes Riley
• 8:30
  was going to look like and be in this world. And it's completely life changing. And I live and breathe this concept every day because I went through it. There's so many lessons to be learned there. And then my mom, I got Europe on $20 a day, a book. And I said, I'm going to go see Europe because I'm going to be so famous, mom, that paparazzi are going to be everywhere. I have to go now. I went by myself for six months with a Walkman and a camera, my dad's giant camera I was so afraid of losing.
• 8:56
  and explored. And then I did crazy stuff while I was over there. I jumped off a moving train in Paguera, Spain to see a Salvador Dali museum. I know I have some crazy, I forged my URL pass three times. I just discovered who I am, you know, six months by yourself traveling, you get to really understand you. This is the other thing, crazy, 1980,
• 9:19
  There's no phones that really call long distance. Like you could call once a week and have them reverse the charges. There's no internet. There's no WhatsApp. There's no, we'll write letters to somebody who took six months to get a letter back from Europe. And so I'm going to share, you know, as much as I love Jay Shetty and his journey being a monk, I'm going to say that this time being with me set the groundwork for something kind of extraordinary because I, I said to my mother, I'm going to say that this time being with
• 9:47
  She said, why are you going? And I said, mom, I have this vision. When I'm 83, I'm going to be talking to my kids and grandkids and all of these kids and telling the most wonderful story of my life. And right now, I have nothing to talk about. So let's go write this fantastic story. And it has now been 45 years, and it's unbelievable.
• 10:09
  Wow. Wow. I have interviewed a lot of people and the podcast never started like that. Thank you for that. I highly suggest that anybody listening to this on the listening platforms flip over to YouTube and watch what she just put up there. It is remarkable. And you were right. There are so many lessons in there and having a 16 year old little girl who was battling life. There's all different things Forbes now that we didn't have to deal with. Oh, you know, right away if you're popular.
• 10:37
  How many likes on social media? Are you in or out of the group chat? It's a tough, tough life to live. But how old were you exactly when you got, when that doctor, what's that doctor's name, by the way? I don't know. I have no idea. I've had a lot of people in my life who've come and gone. I had a gentleman who saved my life.
• 11:00
  And I have no idea what his name is. Gosh, you're giving me the chills. Like, that really is. You started off with everything happens for you, not to you. I mean, there is a guardian angel, God, source, and everything is aligning for you. Now, one thing that I can tell from all those pictures is you were always smiling. Even when you pre-nosed, you were smiling. There was a magnetism. It's like you're the chosen one. Well, that's very sweet. Okay.
• 11:29
  I, you know, you know, it's funny because I'm not going to argue with you. I will tell you, because there's been a lot of moments in this crazy little life. And I've now coached not 25,000 like your last report coach, but I've got 77,000 students. I've always felt inside of me, and I think everybody does, but not everyone believes it. I've always felt that I was special. Now, what does that mean? Yeah.
• 11:50
  It doesn't mean anything. Anybody can decide they're special. Because when you decide you're special, you take special actions. You do special things. When people say Forbes, you're such an out-of-the-box thinker, my response is, what box? Why do you do that to yourselves? I mean, I can tell you, Kelly, I could tell you stories for hours. Yeah.
• 12:12
  Tell you stories of a little person of a little boy that I got his big brother, little brother when he was eight. And I just met my then husband and how we raised him for 12 years and how I had this whole black and white conversation because Dexter was a little darker than my shirt. And he didn't really like white people when I met him. And then he thought white people should buy him things. Best man at my wedding. And 12 years later, he's murdered by a kid from his neighborhood.
• 12:35
  And my wedding photo was on the cover of the LA Times and on the billboards trying to find a rescue. I have crazy stories like this that go on because they're not all good. This is what's really important to understand. You know, when I first met my now husband, Joshua, it's been eight years. We were eyewitnesses to the Las Vegas shooting. If you Google my name and go back to that same YouTube you recommended, type in Las Vegas and Forbes Riley, you're going to see hours and hours of interviews because I witnessed the most horrendous shooting in this country.
• 13:03
  What the, why? What's going on? Why? Are you talking about the one in the concert? Yeah.
• 13:12
  You were at that concert? No, I was above the concert. I had just was about to sign a deal to speak on the 10X stage for Grant Cardone. We were up at the foundation room with a whole bunch of his celebrity friends. Joshua and I, like you had said with your girl, we were just courting. We just really kind of gotten, it's been about three months. And he said, you want to go downstairs with Elena and me and go play poker? And I said, well, first I want to go out to take a picture with me and Joshua on the balcony. So the foundation room was on the 46th floor of the Mandalay Bay.
• 13:41
  We walk out there with my iPhone. And as soon as we get out there to take this little kind of selfie, we hear pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.
• 13:49
  we turn around going well where's the fireworks there's no fireworks and then we look down to our right and then there's people running like and you can only see people they're this big running at 46 stories up and then there's people not running and all of a sudden the pop pop pop doesn't stop and then we hear somebody yelling and screaming there's a shooter in the building get in here there then the next thing we hear and i mean i was in this the epicenter
• 14:15
  Thank God, not down on that concert floor. That was insanity. That's war. But I was watching it all happen, unfold in real time, and videoing it all on my phone. And then the pieces, you know, you start to hear...
• 14:30
  And you should never experience this. You should never experience being in the flood that the girls just dealt with. You should never experience being in the fire, wherever it happens to be, you know, in Los Angeles, when you're in the middle of something tragic, your brain just separates. You just go, what is possibly going on here? Kind of like you've been in a car accident and the world slows down and every perception becomes very unique. We're hearing that there's terrorists in New York, New York, because people were bleeding everywhere. I mean, it was a terrible nightmare.
• 14:55
  And the thing that for me, though, that happened just and by the way, everyone that you'll ever meet, because I've interviewed a lot of the survivors, has their survivor perspective story. And it's very challenging because those stories are very personal and they're you can't even believe some of the things that you hear. And so for me.
• 15:15
  We're all a little terrorized going, okay, look for the news on CNN. That was back then, six years ago. And then there's nothing there. I'm like, well, what's happening? Then you go to Twitter and you realize Twitter is real time blowing up. You are the news. And then this guy on the other side of the room bursts in with a machine gun. And he said, everyone get the fuck on the floor. And I'm thinking this is a shooter like in the push nightclub where he's going to kill everybody in this room. And I bolted out the door.
• 15:43
  back onto the balcony and the door closes. I'm telling you I'm the only one out there. I hear yelling and screaming inside and I'm terrified. And I call my ex and I said, guys, I said, kiss my kids. I think I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don't know what's gonna happen if I'm ever gonna see you guys again. And then I start crawling along trying to hide. It's a concrete, there's nothing, no place to hide. And I go to dive underneath a wet bar and this hand grabs me.
• 16:07
  And I will swear that my heart skipped a beat. Picks me up and it turns, it says SWAT on the front of his, but he's got a machine gun. It turns out that the guy who broke in was a good guy, but he thought the bad guy had to be in that room because we're the only balcony. No one imagined that somebody would shoot out a window of a Las Vegas hotel. Anyway, I experienced all of that. It's all on videotape. I got interviewed by every single person from CBS to Inside Edition. Yeah.
• 16:34
  And I have just survived, survived it. And also spent 11 hours in lockdown falling in love with Joshua, who was my biggest advocate and somebody who comforted me. And then, you know, I teach this now. I teach the idea of going live on Facebook. All right. I teach the idea of going live to help your career. Well, guess what Forbes Riley was doing at the top of this craziness? I was broadcasting to Good Morning Britain, Good Morning Japan, Good Morning Australia.
• 16:59
  They all wanted to know. I was literally on top of the epicenter of the world that night, and it was insane. I woke up the next morning, and I don't know what it is about me. I feel...
• 17:14
  that negativity. Like you had me going so high and then you just brought me back down to probably how you do your pitches. You're playing with my emotions. You took me real high for the meeting, Josh. And then now, and then we went down to the tragedy. I remember waking up that morning, just said, what is wrong with people? Like who could do that? But listen, I brought you on because I want to, I thank you for sharing that. Our editors were put some beautiful footage together about that. That's amazing. That's just wild that you were there wild because I remember it like it was yesterday. And that's,
• 17:43
  seven or eight years ago, nine years ago now. No, no, not seven. Because Josh and I have been together for eight years. Okay, seven years ago. Just a horrible tragedy. Horrible. All right, so let's bring it back to- Yeah, let's bring it all around here. Because, you know what? Here's the takeaway for anyone listening. Life is a rollercoaster. And I'm going to share with you, it wasn't a rollercoaster for my mother. My mother-
• 18:04
  just wanted life to be a flat road. She'd had enough trauma in her life that when I met her when I was born, she just wanted it, and she was a very boring kind of straight line. The problem with a boring straight line is it's safe, but there's no highs because you don't want any low lows.
• 18:19
  I promise you, roller coasters go up and down. And to be a functioning success story, to be a functioning success story, you have to have the capacity to go really high and celebrate it and really low and still stay here. Because you will experience all of those if you're living a life like I am. I say that all the time, life is a roller coaster. There's ups and downs, ups and downs, and it resembles a heartbeat.
• 18:45
  So you're going up and the beauty part about going down or in the lows is, you know, and high is coming right after it. So just sit in it, learn what you're supposed to learn and enjoy that ride back up. Now, as opposed to life's, if you flatline, you're dead. Or if you're on life's merry-go-round and all around, all you're going to do is throw up. So you and I are separated. I love that. So,
• 19:11
  Let's talk about, you took us through a great story. What point did you know you had the, I wouldn't even say grit, the it, the magic and resilience in you that said, was it right after you got your nose job? Or when did you know, like, oh, I'm special? I think it's tomorrow. Tomorrow.
• 19:37
  I love that answer. All right, so imagine this. I had a lot of people add the fuel to this fire. So I ended up in Miss Teenage America pageant, but while I'm there in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1977, I'm talking like this, and they're really not interested in somebody who's from New York who sounds like me. They're like, yeah, I have the funniest accent, I'm hired. The fuck you talking about? I have an accent? How we talk? What's wrong with these people? What is a bagel? What is a bagel? It's like a freaking donut without the sugar. You guys are weird.
• 20:05
  And I set out to do two things. One, to change my accent, because I heard how I talked. I sound like a freaking truck driver. That and only work for French Russia did not work for me. So I changed that. I went off to college. I was going to be a lawyer. My parents helped me pay a lot of money to be a lawyer. Poli-sci major, double major, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Senior year in high school, senior year in college, something crazy happens.
• 20:27
  See, when I was in high school, we did five or six musicals and plays every year, and I always got townsperson number three. I couldn't sing. I could dance, but I was always kind of chunky, and I got that. You didn't even find me on stage, but I kept thinking, I'm special. I'm special. Well, no one else thought I was special. Trust me. Nobody dealt with a whole lot of rejection with this whole special bullshit.
• 20:49
  I'm in college and my senior year, I auditioned all the time. It was Shakespeare's As You Like It. It requires a certain set of skills to do a Shakespearean play. And I go to the call board and I'm looking for townsperson, chorus, something, nothing, damn it, nothing. God, college is really hard. I didn't even make anything. And I had that moment where I was always torn, Kelly, between believing I was special and being told that I wasn't.
• 21:15
  That's a crazy dichotomy to grow up with. So even though you win the award, you're being prejudiced, it doesn't matter. It never matters. I always had this issue of rejection. And I looked to see who got the lead. The lead in this play is on stage for two and a half hours. She plays a man. She manipulates everybody. She's just this crazy character. Her name is Rosalind. And there next to her name, that was my name.
• 21:40
  What? And I went to the college professor and I said, I'm sorry, I don't understand. You just put me as the lead in your, no one's ever, you sure? Because he sat me down and he proceeded to tell me, Kelly, all the things that he saw in me. And he said, character, he said, you're my ideal Rosalind. For all the things that you do, the way you speak, the who you are, the light you have inside of you. And you wanna know the crazy thing about the name I do remember, Professor David Richmond?
• 22:10
  He was 100% legally blind. Wow. The first guy to see me couldn't see me. Did you believe him? Oh, fuck yeah. Oh my God. So much, sorry my French, but not only did I believe him, I'd starred in the play. We got rave reviews throughout the entire town and I called my parents. Now this is a huge investment we all made to get me to college. And I said, guys, I love you very much. I'm not going to law school. I'm going to New York to be an actor.
• 22:39
  And there was a little bit of silence. I was expecting to get yelled at. And they were like, we love you, want you to follow your dream, but we can't financially help you. And I said, it's okay. Kelly, I got the very first lead in a feature film was my very first audition.
• 22:54
  called Splatter University. And turns out I was right, because I went from there to other movies, to television. Now, here's the funny thing. So now I'm moving and grooving. I'm moving and grooving, right? I want to be on Broadway. I've got really freaking big dreams. And so you need to find an agent. I'm finding agents, agents who chase me around their office.
• 23:14
  I found an agent and I was very naive. I was a little virgin till I was 21. The internet was not around when I was there. I did not know about sex. In fact, I tell the story. I didn't even know what men look like. The first time I'd ever seen a penis was my dad's down the hall in a bathroom. I walked past, I'm like, oh my God, what's wrong? Mom, I think there's something wrong with dad.
• 23:34
  And then I couldn't find a picture of it for like another five years because nobody would show me. And I remember being fascinated going, what, what, what, what's, think about it. There's no internet. There's no magazines you can look at. There's no, there's no encyclopedia. I didn't, for five years I'm going,
• 23:50
  And then it goes where? And a woman? I had very weird confusions about that. So I get invited to a lunch from an agent at the hotel, at a beautiful hotel. And I go to, I think it's the restaurant. And it's not. It's up in his room. And I'm like, okay, we'll go up there. And there's a beautiful spread, but he also put me on the menu. And I'm like, and luckily he was shorter than me. And I'm like, you're chasing, what do you want? You've got to be freaking, I like smacked him with my back. Get the fuck out, you idiot.
• 24:16
  And so I came home and in this is typical Forbes Riley. I said, well, screw this. You know what? I need an agent. I'm gonna make one. What does that mean? I opened, got a piece of stationery, put CMA on it, Creative Management for Artists. I hired a woman named Lindsay Maxwell. And Lindsay thought that Forbes Riley was an extraordinary talent. And she would tell everyone this. She would pitch, oh my God, she'd make 20 phone calls a day.
• 24:41
  You need to know you need to meet this young woman. She's got something rather interesting. I booked soap operas, commercials, a couple of movies. As my own agent, I was Lindsay Maxwell for three years. No. Did they ever find out? Did you ever tell anybody? No. In fact, I didn't start talking about it until like five years ago. That's brilliant. I was afraid someone would like arrest me. I don't know, what can they do to you?
• 25:02
  Just think about it now. That's before all social media. It's before email. It's before – they could never even track you down. It's fabulous. That's brilliant. Everything about you has been brilliant and timely. But the one thing about you is how you massage situations. So how does somebody – I can tell somebody is listening to this right now. They're –
• 25:27
  How do they go from invisible to irresistible in under 60 seconds like you've been taking me up through this? Well, you know, it's funny because as you're seeing it, I have probably a dozen more stories. Oh. That are just, I mean, you know what the Laugh Factory is in Los Angeles? Yes. Yes.
• 25:44
  It's the premier comedy club. I have never done standup. I'd never been in a comedy club before. I had done a little bit of goofy stuff at ski resorts. That's a whole nother story. Cause I kept thinking I wanted to be James Bond. I talked my way into jobs. I've created situations and I've done this my entire life. And no one would ever, no one ever watched this. So the best part of my life now is going back and putting this together, going, you did what? What?
• 26:08
  Like I went off to Club Med on a vacation and I discovered that the entertainment at Club Med was all lip synced. And I said, I want to do that. I can't sing, but I can dance. I want to work for you guys. And they said, well, you have to go to New York and talk to them, blah, blah, blah. And so I'm 26 and I went to New York and I knock on the office door and I said, who's in charge of your entertainment? There's a guy named John Shelley. I said, can I speak with him? He said, does he have an appointment? And I said, no, he's going to want to meet me.
• 26:32
  Okay, a couple seconds later, he walks up. He's like, can I help you? I said, no, but I think I can help you. I said, I went to a club med, and I noticed the comedy that you guys do, it's a French-owned company. It was not resonating very well, and I'd like to help you. And he's like...
• 26:45
  Okay. He ultimately said out of that conversation, can you go to Mexico and spend three weeks there working as a host and blah, blah, blah. I literally, there was no job application. There was no read. I just, this is what I want to do next. And I've always managed to do this. I think you just answered the question that without even answering it, you just told. So you do it by creating value.
• 27:08
  And being confident. Yes. And confident when you're nervous. Because I'm definitely an introvert. And I do it anyway because... Well, because that little voice says, if you're special, this is what you have to do next. Even if you feel wildly uncomfortable doing it, do it anyway.
• 27:25
  And I've always done. Now, here's the fun thing. If you're listening to any part of this, you're in the right place. You know why? Because I have one student. My oldest student is my youngest student. That's a riddle. Go figure that one out. My oldest student is my youngest student. She's been a student of mine for 22 years. She happens to be my daughter. But I'm bummed.
• 27:44
  So she's still a baby, but I, now here's the funny thing. At 22, she's listened to a lot of the things that I've done. She became a millionaire at 18. She runs my company at 22, having not gone to college. But the point of the story is I wanted, and this is what I'm going to sell you to all of you, decide what you want.
• 28:03
  Seven years ago, I wanted a TEDx talk. I thought, I'm a good speaker. I should have a TEDx talk. So I apply locally in Tampa, and my concept is about how to pitch. Because one of the reasons you're listening to me now is the top of my world. I've grossed $2.5 billion in sales. I've hosted 197 infomercials and 30 years on home shopping, QVC, and HSN.
• 28:26
  that's a great legacy of history, right? But the people like, what have you done for me lately? So I wanted to, and I've isolated what it means to effectively pitch. I do my whole application. This woman calls me to yell at me. And I'm like, what? She's like, we don't want pitches here. We don't take pitches. This is not a stage to pitch from. This is TEDx. And she's like, no, I'm not going to pitch. I'm going to talk about, and we don't, you, we know you infomercial girl, you're going to want to sell something and hungs up. I'm like,
• 28:54
  All right, wow, I don't like, I'm good, I'm really good. And so for years, I don't even think about it. This last year I applied and to my wonderful greatness, have 85 rejections, literally 85 rejections.
• 29:07
  But then in March, I got my first acceptance. It was in TEDx Argyle in Nova Scotia. Then I got my second acceptance, my third, fourth, and fifth, all within two weeks. Wow. I'm like, what changed? Well, maybe something in me changed, which is not a bad idea.
• 29:25
  That is a lesson, by the way. Everybody needs to understand that. Sometimes rejection is just redirection, and it's you have to go work on your craft and become the person that you need to be to be able to be there. I'm going through that right now. I get the same exact thing happen. We got rejected by like five or six different times, and now somebody just called us and asked us to be on their stage.
• 29:48
  I love that. I'm going to tie this down, though. Keep going. Sorry. Because what's interesting about what you just said was give value. I teach that, certainly, and I teach how to pitch. And if we continue this conversation long enough, you'll get a little bit of that. But my daughter got the message. So here's the point.
• 30:04
  One of the TEDx's that I accepted is in St. Pete, my hometown. Yes. Very excited about it. And it's TEDxWomen. And they called and I said, look, I've been accepted somewhere else. I would love to, can I do both? And they're like, okay, but they have to be very different stories. I said, okay, this one I want to do pitch.
• 30:19
  As we're talking on the phone, and I love, this woman is amazing. I said, you should reach out and connect to my daughter. She's 22. She has a good story, but she lives here in St. Pete. She grew up here. Maybe she can help you. This is your first TEDx. So I call my daughter. She gets on the phone with her. And the first thing she does is say, how can I help you? You know, I know lots of people. You want sponsors. You want an audience, blah, blah, blah. Then the woman says, well, tell me about you. McKenna has listened to me her entire life. Sure.
• 30:48
  Now remember, seven years of rejections, 85 this year, rejections, not easy to get this. You have to fill out a form. It takes months. My daughter's on the phone with her. She called me when she hangs up and she's like, mom, I'm like, what? How'd it go? She's like, I've just been offered my first TEDx. I'm sorry. Wait, girl, you paved the way. Wait, wait, wait, wait. You didn't fill out an application. She's like, no, she just said she wanted me based on what I told her.
• 31:15
  So my advice, learn from the best if you want to succeed in your life. I'd forgotten you're in St. Pete. I have a house about two hours south of Cape Coral. We got to do something in person. I'm going to see you at Barron's. But everything, with 30 minutes into this, we've gotten a couple little nuggets. But I want to unpack and give the listeners some real actionable advice. And the number one, if I think of you, I think of –
• 31:43
  the initial introduction. So when people first come up, they're, oh, what do you do? And they start telling it. So what's the biggest mistake people make when introducing themselves? When someone asks you, what do you do? They don't care. They care about what you can do for them. Boom. And as soon as you learn that, you will stop laundry listing people. Hi, what do you do? Oh, well, I do this and I do this. If there's an and in your sentence, you're done.
• 32:09
  In fact, one of my biggest suggestions is to replace the word I. Well, before I tell you the secret, Kelly, answer the question. What do you do? I help people get me better. The answer just started right there. I should have prefaced this. If you say the word I help or I am, you want my training, my friend, because I didn't ask you who you helped. I asked, what do you do? And my question, Kelly, is why did you tell me? Why did you answer the question?
• 32:36
  Why did I answer the question? Because it feels like it's my purpose. So say that again. What do you do? It feels like it's my purpose to help people. What do you do? I inspire, educate, model, and motivate people to become their best selves.
• 32:52
  Well, good for you. What does it have to do with me? So literally, if I meet you, the response to that really is congratulations for you. I have no idea why you just told me that, but I guess you're good. And then it doesn't lead anywhere. If your intention shifts a little bit. So Kelly, let me ask you, hey, Kelly, what can you do for me? How would you answer that question?
• 33:15
  I would ask more questions about you. So when- No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't need to do that. This is what I teach you guys. And I'm teaching this right now, a thing called pitch like a pro. You have a solution. Your product or service, whatever you sell or market is a solution to somebody else's problems. So Kelly, what is it you really do for a living? IT, cybersecurity and AI. Okay, I teach cybersecurity and AI. Who needs that most?
• 33:40
  Everybody, every company to stay safe, to stay in business so they don't get threat actors ransomware. Right. But I'm not a company. You're meeting people who may work at the company. Does everybody need your service? What's the biggest pain point they suffer from? Not being able to do their job because their technology is malfunctioning. Great. How long have you been doing this?
• 34:04
  Oh my, now I'm going to show my age, almost 30 years, 27 years. And why, go back to more of your childhood, why is this so important to you? What is it about being safe and mixing technology that's so important to Kelly?
• 34:16
  I envision a utopian world where everybody is happy. No, no, no, hang on. That's future pacing. I want you to go back. I'm going to show you. I'm going to tie it together. I will. It's, I envision, and I'm going to do everything I can to build that world by keeping people safe. If you notice. No, no, hang on. Hang on. Kelly, did you have a safe environment when you were growing up? No, no. Okay. But this is what I'm talking about, not the future. So what does that mean? No.
• 34:44
  I was physically and emotionally abused by both my mother and my stepfather constantly. They were alcoholics, drug addicts. Okay. I would never say, that's why I'm a big guy because I created this persona to protect myself. And if you look at all of my...
• 35:00
  I'm sorry, all of my logos are shields to protect people. Even my IT company is a shield. This heart of life is a shield. I just want to make sure that people in this world don't have to deal with what I did. So I teach them all of the tools. I teach what the younger guy needed, what the little kid, little Kelly needed. Okay, I get it. But if you now realize what you said to me, you said, I help people, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's really not that interesting.
• 35:26
  But if you said Forbes, as somebody who grew up in a rather abusive household, my mantra is to protect people. I now do that through cybersecurity because odds are your bank account, your personal information and your data is all at risk all the time. If you don't know how to protect it, someone will steal it. And it's my job to help you.
• 35:45
  Break that down. That was beautiful. So you brought it back to the childhood. Go through the steps. I know you have them. Well, what I just did was I asked you the question of why. And this is really important. And when you hang out with me long enough, you start to see the patterns. I see. And you beautifully fell into it. And most people do. And it's just not interesting. I help people. That's someone else. No, you know, protection is my number one thing. I now do it through cybersecurity and AI. And I can help you. See, you thought you had to ask me questions. You don't.
• 36:14
  I teach what it means to make an assumption. My assumption is that everybody is on the internet and has a cell phone. That's true. My assumption is that most people have never been hacked and don't realize how horrible it can be and get your life destroyed. So I've got to bring that sense of urgency up. And then I'm going to mix it with my mission of what's really important to me. So for me, if you ask me and say, you know what, Kelly, I'm known as the queen of pitch because as someone who sold over $2.5 billion worth of product, I now...
• 36:40
  focus on entrepreneurs just like you to get you to communicate better, to get your ideas out there. And now you're like, Oh, she's talking to me. Okay. Nobody does this because the question itself doesn't set you up properly. What do you do? Yeah. I don't really care what you do. I care what you do in relation to what it does for me. And when you begin to isolate that, whatever your chosen job profession is today is,
• 37:06
  There's a reason that you do it. Not you want to help people. That's so altruistic bullshit. Everybody wants to help people. Everybody. The local ice cream guy wants to help people. You're going, that's, it's irrelevant. The why, if you could do your why in half a sentence, you went.
• 37:24
  Because then we go, man, literally. And if you started by saying, Forbes, as someone who grew up in a really destructive household, I'm all about protection. See these shields? That's what I do now through AI and innovation and cybersecurity. You need help? I'm your guy. How did you go from beauty pageant to this? Well, the beauty pageant wasn't a beauty pageant. The beauty pageant had a written test. We all wore the same clothes and no bathing suits.
• 37:52
  So the irony of that statement is it was not a contest based on how you looked, but who you were. And that's why I did so well. You were at the core. No, we literally took a written test. You had to have a talent, and you had to be able to interview with a personality. In fact, there were girls in that competition. This competition doesn't exist anymore, but it was perfect for me. There were no bathing suits. There was nobody looking at my body. There was a woman in there from Alaska who weighed 180 pounds. It was about who you were as a teenager.
• 38:22
  as a person, and it was the exact right experience for me to go through. Pitch yourself again so I can hear the things. Pitch yourself. Well, so here's the thing. I do, okay, so guys, I have two pitch trainings that I do. The first pitch training centers around what we call the elevator pitch.
• 38:40
  And the first thing it centers on is not what I'm saying, but the mechanism of why I'm saying things. That's why I created formulas. The second formula I call the ultimate pitch formula. And there's words in there that you've never heard, like febbit.
• 38:55
  What's a Febit? Well, Febit is features and benefits. And I've spent 30 years on home shopping. What does that mean? That literally means that you walk out onto a stage and I'm here to sell these glasses, right? Now, Kelly, I'm going to give you these glasses. I'm going to give you 20 seconds, pitch them.
• 39:13
  I wouldn't even know where to start because I can't, well, how would I, first thing we'll say is how's your eyesight? I mean, again, I start with questions. I'm an old salesman. Everything starts with a question. Well, but here's the thing I came on, I came from TV where you cannot ask questions.
• 39:27
  So while you're selling one-to-one, I'm selling one-to-many. So I use what I call my art of assumptions. I'm gonna assume a couple of things. If I'm doing home shopping and I'm on television at 9 a.m. in the morning on a Tuesday and you're at home watching me, why are you there? You're there because you've got an autoimmune disease. You have a little kid, you're taking care of a sick parent or maybe you've got the flu. You're not home at 9 a.m. because you're a successful, well, now you can be with doing business at home.
• 39:57
  So I all of a sudden made a whole list of those kinds of people. And now I've got these glasses, a couple of things that I do that most people never do. I never start with the product because nobody cares about the product.
• 40:09
  I only care about that. I know I've got this product. I call this the hub. I have a solution. Now let's go hunting. Hey, you know what, Kelly? How old are you? You're probably, you know, here's the thing. If anybody over 40, I didn't know, this is called a springboard story. I just went to the doctor not long ago, my eye doctor. And he says, oh, you're about 40 years old. And I'm like, excuse me?
• 40:29
  what are you talking about? 40. I look like I'm 22. He says, you may look good, but your eyes are 40 years old and spending 40 years on this planet. What happens is the eyesight deteriorates at that age. And that's when most people need readers.
• 40:42
  I was like, oh, okay. So are you somebody who's over 40? Yeah, okay, great. You need readers, but then what happens? You need to be able to drive and then you need to be able to read your email. And all of a sudden you need all these distances. What if I could tell you that there's one glass that now it's called a protective glass and it literally changes the vision when you can see far away, you can see close up with none of those lines. And the cool thing about my stylish fun glasses with the wings that open up like this so they never break
• 41:08
  is they look stylish, but they work. You need one pair of glasses and the best part, when it's really sunny out, these things go dark. One pair of, all of a sudden you're like, I want that, right? Kelly, you know I created a spin gym, right? I never tell you what it is. I don't have to, because you're not interested in the spin gym. But Kelly, are you interested in making your arms stronger? I'm always interested in making everything stronger. Okay, are you also interested in burning calories and not spending an hour in the gym?
• 41:38
  Tell me more. Are we going to do something weird? Right. So as soon as the other person is in the state of tell me more, you are willing, I call that an open door, you're willing to now let me tell you what I have for you. So I have a solution. I then ask permission. So Kelly, do you want to see something cool?
• 41:58
  Of course. All right. So now you just agreed to let me talk to you about what I have. The difference when someone asks you, what do you do? And you throw up all over them. They weren't ready to hear that. So now you're in this like, okay, tell me what do you, what do you got Forbes? I'm going to say, give me your thumbs.
• 42:15
  That's called an embedded command. Kelly and Steven, who's your producer, do you realize you just physically gave me your thumbs knowing I cannot touch you through a TV camera? No. All right. But if you were in front of me, I would put this in your hands and it would start to spin and you would go, oh my God. The reaction that I always get when people use my spin gym is, oh my God, I can totally feel this. I could use this sitting at my desk. And if I don't talk, people tell me the infomercial.
• 42:42
  And literally in about 90 seconds, because I don't have a whole lot of time to waste, they're going to say to me, Forbes, how do I get one of these? And I'll say, you give me 40 bucks, you can have this one. I do that in saunas. I do that in restaurants. I do that on airplanes. It's been one of the greatest pitches ever by never talking about the product and never selling it, but just providing something that I've convinced you that you want.
• 43:05
  I know you wouldn't be surprised to hear that when I used to first start or I still do this to this day. I write fabs features, advantages, benefits, because they don't know. You have to tell them this is why you need this.
• 43:21
  Oh, okay. So next lesson from Forbes Riley, we never use that word. Bad four letter word. Need? Yeah. And I'll tell you why. Because nobody needs anything. When we get excited about a product, we're like, oh my God, you need this. You really, you know, you need this new car. You need this insurance. You need this protection. Better yet, get people to want it and you have an effortless sale. Is there like a bootcamp?
• 43:45
  Every day. You know what? I teach. I want to come down. I heard about your whole setup at your place. I want to come down and spend a day with you. I would love that. I own a television studio here, by the way, in town. That's what I heard. I heard. And we just put our third podcast set in there so we can do podcasts for days. Well, I'll tell you what. For everybody listening, the nice thing is you don't have to come see me. Since COVID, I opened up Shop Online. And I will tell you every Sunday, get this, Kelly. I have over 800 people in my basic class.
• 44:15
  800 new people every week. Yeah, we've discovered something really crazy. I do, it's called a masterclass, Pitch Secrets Masterclass, and it started during COVID. And the funny thing about this, so Kelly, how old are your kids? My daughter's 16. Okay, what does she wanna be? Last check was a veterinarian, but I'm not so sure anymore. So I don't, that's why I'm gonna ask you about the college with your daughters. I think she's probably gonna end up taking over one of my companies.
• 44:39
  Well, bingo. So one of the things that I did with both of my twins was I let them sit on my lap. I let, if I was doing a call and one of them came in, I would have them sit here and you'd be interviewing her. I'm not one of those moms that, oh no, I'm busy. Go away. I decided I was 42 when I had my babies that I wanted them to be part of my life.
• 44:57
  And I was kind of a lonely kid. My parents are gone. My family's gone. So when my daughter loved to travel with me, the time she's eight. Now, here's a funny phenomenon about how this kid evolved. Now, my son got a little bit of this, but he's a different kid. He would prefer to stay at home, loves his dad. That's great. My daughter was on my arm. When I would go to home shopping late at night, she's like, mom, can I just come and sit and watch? Like, they don't, you've got to go to school the next morning. I just want to be there.
• 45:20
  She would give me notes. She was like six years old going, Mom, can I just tell you that your models weren't smiling? And when you said this, your host looked like she didn't like you anymore. Mike, really? How come my producers aren't telling me that? How come? And I paid only so much attention.
• 45:36
  So then she's eight years old and we go to, we do go to do a really big sell on my spin gym. And this one company wants to buy the product for a lot less. And I have to figure out some things. My whole team cannot figure this out. How do we reduce the cost of our product? My daughter walks in and she says, mom, why don't you get rid of the bag that has the nice branding on it? But that bag costs 55 cents. And I had to order 75,000 units. She saved my company $48,000. Okay.
• 46:05
  And I'm like, she wrote a book called Every Company Needs a Kid because kids don't see the rules that other people. If you ask your daughter something without telling her the parameters, she'll give you an answer from a very unique perspective. And you want that in your business. Believe me. So then at 12, I take her to meet Russell Brunson. I take her to meet Les Brown.
• 46:24
  Get this, I knew that she was online. I knew that she was doing some drop shipping and took some online courses and whatever. She comes down at 17 years old. It's the COVID just hit, it's 2020. My beautiful husband's been in a motorcycle accident, shattered his ankle, he's in a wheelchair for six months, loses all his body, loses everything, depressed, was horrible, and then COVID hit. Not a really good time, right? My daughter comes downstairs at 17.
• 46:50
  And she always said, mom, one of my goals is to drop out of Stanford. Like, what kind of goal is that? She's like, all the cool guys did that. They got into Stanford and they dropped out and opened up a tech company. I'm like, okay. So, and she's got a D in English. And she comes down and she says, mom, and I've already been teaching pitch a little bit live. And I have my live, I've been doing live trainings forever. I love live courses, but Zoom was a thing no one had really heard of yet. And she said, mom, how about I make us a million dollars?
• 47:17
  And I'm like, okay, could you just get a D, a C in English and I'd be happy? I don't know what the million dollars thing is. She said, mom, can I show you something? I'm like, what? She said, what are you working on? I said, I'm doing Facebook. I don't know. My world's shattered. And she said, okay, you know, all those people like Les Brown and Joe Theismann, I've been building things for them. I built their YouTube channels. I built their website. I know how to code. And I'm
• 47:42
  Really? Then she says, she takes out her bank account. It's got six figures in it. Kelly, how shocked would you be if your daughter showed you a six-figure bank account that you didn't know about? And I looked at her and I'm like, excuse me, little one, where did you get this money? And she said, mom, everybody pays me. Everybody believes in me but you. Ooh.
• 48:02
  I'm like, I believe in you that you're a 17 year old daughter of mine who's got a D in English. She said, mom, stop focusing on that. I can make us a million dollars in a year if you let me. She sits me down for three weeks and we work on me doing pitch online. I'd never done a webinar and I had ClickFunnels for years. I had no idea how to do one. I could build them, but I couldn't launch it and make all the buttons work.
• 48:25
  And so we created this pitch training for $1,000 that I would do for four weeks, okay? Teach you kind of one to many, but maybe a small class. I have only 25 people in my webinar my first time I ever do this, right? Only, that's good. Well, okay.
• 48:40
  Now I have 600, my friend. That's 25 is only what it is. So the 25 people, I spend an hour doing, teaching, talking, whatever. I go to my ClickFunnels account the next morning and I have to call her. And I said, McKenna, I'm confused. Yesterday and for three years, that account said zero. Today, it's got a K in it. What does the K stand for? She said, what do you mean? I said, it says 25K. What's K? Thousand. Yeah, it is thousand.
• 49:07
  Kelly, I closed all 25 people into a $1,000 program my first night in business. Four weeks later, we closed 100,000 because I did 25 each week. And nine months later, McKenna and I got our two-comic club award because we made a million dollars on one funnel. She did it.
• 49:23
  And she did it in such a profound way that now, after years of doing an organic training that we've done and building up what I do, and I've spent 40 to 60 hours teaching pitch, there is no one on the planet who teaches like I do. I know that. No one has my background and no one holds a Zoom room because I care so much that people get this. It's kind of crazy that now we have 6 to 800 people and we're where we are. What can I say?
• 49:51
  So how do people get into that room on Sundays? We'll put it in the show notes.
• 49:55
  Okay, you go to pitchsecretsmasterclass.com. What I would do when you show up is I would put in the chat, hi, I'm from Kelly, and I will pull you up on stage and do something special for you guys. They'll never do that. No, there's a lot of business owners that follow the show. So you may very well get that. So thank you for that. I can't help but think at six, you said 65, 64. I just got my social security Medicare card. Wow, you're stunning.
• 50:22
  But you seem more energized than ever before. So what's your secret? Okay, let me share this. My secret is right here. And if you don't say wow and you see this picture, I'll give you $100, okay? That seem fair? That's my husband. Oh, my goodness. When did he? What is he? How did he get that bond? That's even more. Tell me about him.
• 50:49
  Well, let's see. Let's look at his Instagram. Apparently, he's had his body for years, and he parades it on stage, and he's been a fitness and a fashion model forever. And you met him at that shooting in Vegas? No, no, no. I met him in my hotel room. I met him because of Spin Gym. By the way, I'll share that story in a minute. Remember, I said he lost everything. This is what he looked like after his accident in 2020. And then using his system, he built his whole body back.
• 51:18
  And he now looks like this because he built his body back. These are after photos, after losing everything, because he hadn't won the Olympia, which wait, wrong way, wrong direction, hang on. He won, after the accident, he won Olympia, which is there, oh, there's Olympia. And then, wait, there's more. He then won the Arnold, and that is Joshua at the moment.
• 51:44
  Forbes, how important to success is your partner? Oh my God, let me tell you something, you guys. So the crazy thing, by the way, there's a story about this particular picture. If you saw that guy drive up to your house as a woman,
• 52:00
  What would you just go, really? You're here to do what? I'm one of those weird guys that I will absolutely compliment another man. I'm good friends with Michael Hearn, who looks a lot like him. Michael's a great friend, yeah. Oh God, I love him. Michael and Joshua in that same, they're both physique bodies. He reaches out to me and he's like, you're a beautiful human, I said, I love you too. And I'm one of those weirdos, like when I meet him, I'm gonna hug him and kiss him.
• 52:23
  I just, I know what it takes. I'm 50. I got a six pack. I'm in the middle of doing 500 workouts. I know what it takes. So I gate game recognizes game. Well, Kelly, you might want to look at what Joshua does because Joshua builds muscle. He doesn't do any of the things that you do in the gym. Do you do pushups? Of course he doesn't do those. Do you do cardio?
• 52:46
  Yeah, I have to. No, you don't. He's 48. You don't hear, just buy into the phrase that you don't know what you don't know. Oh, yeah. The older I get, the more I realize I don't know what I don't know. I'll give you one example. Do you do overhead pulldowns on one of those bars? Of course. Why do you do that?
• 53:05
  Because it gives me a big back? Oh, no, it does not. In fact, here's the problem with that exercise is that Joshua's a 3D graphic artist and a biomechanic. He's taken the skin off of all of our bodies and in his trainings shown us where things attach. So for example, and I don't want to do Joshua's training. He's here in the house if you want to say hi. But your chest muscle, right? Your chest starts here in the middle of your body, right? And goes out. Where does that chest muscle end? Point to it. Right, right in my, almost in my chest bone.
• 53:35
  Well, that's where it begins. Every muscle has to pull a bone in some direction. This muscle starts here. Okay. So Kelly, you know, what's interesting now, hang on to that. Here's why that's not possible. And if you were to look at Joshua's course, it would show you that your arm, your chest muscle goes into your arm. You know why? Pull your arm in. What muscle you think does that? That's the chest muscle, baby. If it ended here, your arm would never move.
• 54:01
  This is what he opened my eyes to everything, how your body works. And when you work it smart and efficient, you get results like nobody's business. How do I know this? Okay, so get this.
• 54:14
  Really quickly, I'm in the National Fitness Hall of Fame. Did you know that? I got inducted in 2010. I didn't even get into any of this. I'm gonna have to have four podcasts just to get through you. Well, I got inducted because I've sold more on television. I've sold $2.5 billion worth of health and wellness and fitness products. That put me in a class all by myself, but I was never that fit. And I used to joke about not being that fit, okay?
• 54:38
  So the last five years, I turned 60. I'm like, oh, you know, give myself a break here. I'm going to, you know, feeling a little chunky. I got my body fat percentage done, right? I came in at 33% last January. Joshua was at 9% on his off season. But at a certain age, you're like, like, you're probably say, oh, you know, it's this, it's that. Okay.
• 55:00
  We go off to Iceland and I'm going to give you a really quick inspirational tour. It was my son's spring break. We go off to Iceland. And you know what's great about that? To me, it's like living James Bond's life. There's Joshua. There's my kids. I mean, we are having the freaking time. I highly recommend Iceland. It's like nothing you've ever seen. You're the second person in a week that just said this to me. I am loving. You just said the same thing. I am loving life.
• 55:24
  Until I didn't. We come back on a bus with 16 people and we get into an accident. The bus goes flying through the air, crashes down. I'm right behind the driver. My face goes onto the street, through the glass. This is last March. We get cut. I tear my shoulder. They pull us out. It was really bad. Luckily, nobody had life-threatening because we were an hour and a half away from the nearest bus.
• 55:48
  hospital, but I can't move my arm. Okay. Then on the way out of town, we run into the volcano. Like, I'm sorry, my PTSD is having a wacko-ness. I'm like, what the heck's going on here? We get on the plane and Joshua says to me,
• 56:03
  you know, in 99 days, in three months, there's a fitness competition in our hometown. And I said, good for you. This is me at the hospital going, get an MRI. I can't move my arm. Why are you telling me this? I'm in pain. He says, well, I have to enter this competition to qualify for the Arnold. Or I'm like, good for you. He said, well, there's a category for women over 60. I'm like, good for you.
• 56:23
  Well, good for them. What does that have to do with me? Now, Kelly God is my witness. I heard something say, go for it. And I'm like, go for what? I haven't worn a bikini since I was 15 years old. I was sexually molested. I'm not wearing a, what? I wouldn't even fit in one if you tried. I then take this picture, this before picture. And I said, you know what? I told my entire audience I was going to do it. In 66 days, I shrunk down to this.
• 56:49
  using his program in 99 days. I went from being a chunky older lady to looking like that in a dress. Because I mean, I went from this lady to this lady in 99 days, the accident happened in March. The bodybuilding competition was in June. I eventually got down to this. She is 64 years old. And then I got as a reward for all my hard work,
• 57:17
  I got to, do I have more pictures? I got to get a medal, get on stage, and look like that in my 60s because I flipped a switch and said, you know what? I can do this. Joshua's got a great workout program. His program does not require, this is the irony of life, my friend. His whole program doesn't require anything over here.
• 57:40
  You don't have to lift anything. If you're doing your lats, you're taking one cable and you're pulling in this way because your lats are built at a V, they're not up and down. And so I did all the things he told me. I lost 35 pounds, 13% body fat, got a medal, then went and competed two more times. And in the Arnold just recently, I got my third medal.
• 58:04
  At 65, you little self-proclaimed chunky kid, you got to, and I get to walk around in a body that I've never had before because that was, it was not my intention to be this fit. I mean, it helps my brand a lot, but I got to tell you, where's my little picture here? I talk about feeling better and looking better. I'm on, like, I'm on a massive crusade right now. Like you can't imagine if I could do this in 99 days, where's this one picture of me in a bikini? I'm going to stand here that we should all be doing this.
• 58:34
  Notice what she's doing audience. He's pitching me and I love it. And she's right. Cause she's gonna, now I'm gonna, I wanna know all about her husband. We're gonna do that separately. I have five minutes and I still got some things I wanna get through with you. So there's so much to you and I love it and thank you, but I wanna get the audience some more things. I'm gonna do a little bit of a rapid fire. So just so you guys know, her secret to being young is overcoming adversity, even though she doesn't call it adversity.
• 59:01
  bus flipping over shootings. And then she uses her, her center as her husband. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. Would you get the nickname? The queen of pitch? Well, it used to be the queen of infomercials. There were no other females in that world. Pitching is associated with being kind of sleazy, kind of used car salesman.
• 59:18
  And I crushed infomercials. I also had a TV series on Fit TV. I created a network called Fit TV years ago with Body by Jake, where we literally sold health and fitness products and pioneered the idea before QVC and H10 even started. So I've been pitching forever. I didn't want to. I just wanted to be an actress. Oh, that Laugh Factory thing, by the way, just bringing this full circle about a crazy skill set.
• 59:43
  I walked into the Laugh Factory. There was an open audition for a new host. I don't even know. I loved hosting things. I don't know why I said yes. I walk into the theater. I've never been on a comedy stage before. I walk in wearing pants, but I was wearing a dress, carrying pants. And they said, OK, we'll just get on stage. I'm like, no, no, wait, I have to go to the bathroom first. I can't be funny in a dress. They're like, just get on stage.
• 1:00:05
  They interviewed me. They introduced me to the owner of the club. They had seen people for two days. They walked me up to a guy named Jamie Masada, the owner, crazy, wonderful Israeli, who said, you're it, you're hired. Every Friday and Saturday night, you're my new host. I'm like, what am I supposed to do? He's like, I'll see you at five o'clock.
• 1:00:22
  Okay, so here's what I did. I'm terrified. I'm like, wait, what did I just book here? I booked Jerry Seinfeld, Ellen DeGeneres, Robin Williams. What am I doing on this? I don't even know what to do. So I went and I read Cosmo Magazine. Rita Rudner had written something very funny. I memorized it. I got on stage my first Friday night. I said, hey, everybody. And I did this routine like an actress. And Jamie's in the back. He's like, okay.
• 1:00:46
  I'm like, what? He said, come here. He said, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm being funny. He said, I did not hire you to be funny. I have funny people. I hired you, get on stage without a thought in your head, ask somebody where they're from and give me 10 minutes and then introduce the funny people. Three years I did that. Brilliant. I also started the X Games. Did you know that?
• 1:01:05
  No, these stories could go on forever. Listen, I got it. We're up against it. We're only in our show, but this is what I'm going to do. We are moving the show to Fort Lauderdale. I know that you do a bunch of business down there. The next time they're there, we're going to do this part two in person, and then I'm going to come to you in Tampa.
• 1:01:22
  What are some final, what do you want to leave? There's so many nuggets in here. I don't even know where to go because it's such a crazy, amazing, overcoming adversity love story, which I, which is just amazing to me. What is the number one thing that you want the listeners to, to take away from this?
• 1:01:40
  Okay, so we talk about it being a love story. It's a love story of me falling in love with myself. I'm gonna share with you the thing that you all wanna learn before you can go out and be in a relationship or be in business or work crazy hours is for you to look in the mirror and tell yourself that you're enough. You're never gonna be perfect and don't let the perfect ruin the good. But I gotta tell you, I've overcome so much rejection and negativity in my life.
• 1:02:05
  And I start each day and I look in the mirror and I'm like, congratulations. Not only are you still here, but you're thriving and you're wonderful. And if you don't tell yourself you're enough, don't expect anyone else to.
• 1:02:16
  That is the beginning of all this. And when I finally shifted that, because I was married after Dexter was murdered, who's the father of my children, we didn't want to be together anymore. Life was really challenging. For 10 years, I raised my kids. I was by myself. He was by himself. And I was not in love. And I was very frustrated and kind of angry for a long time. And then somebody pointed that out to me.
• 1:02:36
  And I took a moment. I have a process I do called breakthrough. And I did an evaluation on myself. I wish I could say there's a mentor out there, but it wasn't. It was me. And me being really challenging on me. I've always had those two sides where one is like kind of whiny. The other was like, you can just do it anyway.
• 1:02:53
  And I set out a list of what I wanted, who I wanted to find in my life. And Joshua and I met in my hotel room in Las Vegas because I was doing a video shoot for Spin Gym. I didn't even want to meet him. My videographer turned to me and said, you want to meet a two time Mr. Arnold? And I said, no, I don't like bodybuilders. They like three things working out food in themselves. And he showed up.
• 1:03:14
  And when he left, I didn't even think twice about him because he's 17 years younger. And he stalked me on Instagram and we became friends. And he wrote on his list that he always wanted to fall in love with his best friend. The other thing I put on my list at 57, not many of you are daring enough to do this. I said at the top of the list, all those things that I wanted were great. But I wanted someone who looked like he walked off the cover of a romance novel.
• 1:03:38
  Now that's one of the craziest things you can ask for. And when he showed up in my life, Joshua, are you here? Joshua?
• 1:03:47
  Come here for a second. One of the things that he said that changed everything, because he did pull up on that motorcycle looking like a poster guy because he worked for Chippendales, and he looked like a guy from Chippendales. And I said, what are you doing here? And he looked at me, and he doesn't, I'm not going to tell you. Joshua, come here for a second, really quick. Come meet Kelly. I know you're going to call Messi, but come here. But I want you to tell him when you first met me, you have to show me.
• 1:04:12
  No, no, no, no. Come on, let's see those muscles. Oh, wait, no, no, you can't see on me like that. I'm sure this never happens. We're on a live podcast and she's got you under a lot. She's such a beautiful, and by the way, I just want to tell you guys, so my girlfriend is 17 years younger than me. So we're the inverse of you guys.
• 1:04:29
  I love every part of this. I love how much she loves you. I love how much you love her. She's, we brought up your Instagram live and you're an amazing human. I'm gonna see you guys in person very soon. I own a house near you. We're gonna connect, but she wants you to tell me something and I'm all ears. What was the line that you said to me when you came to the house? This again?
• 1:04:50
  Well, because most people don't believe it. This again, yes, Josh. OK, well, she said, she asked me what I was doing there. And I said, well, I'm not very religious, but something told me you needed me. Did you teach me about love? Of course I did. Touched a lot of things. But see that, Kelly, you would not assume that. This man changed my entire life. What were you looking for in a woman?
• 1:05:13
  a best friend. That was my number one thing. She had to be my best friend. How's that working for your best friend? I love it. I love it. Listen, so I'm going to wrap this up and I'm going to say, say what I'm going to summarize. You just said, love yourself, love your partner and absolutely.
• 1:05:30
  Breathe into each other and find your best friend. So, you know, you're a new friend of mine. I love every part of this. We have been all over recovering. We only scratched the surface of what we're going to talk about. You and I are going to be friends for a long time. I love you. You are beautiful inside and out. And what you're doing is amazing. I love your pitch, guys. Absolutely go to her Sunday pitch.
• 1:05:52
  I'm going to take it. By the way, this men's perfectly in this new world of social media, having a brand and pitch. People don't know how to pitch themselves. Learn them both. She's a master at it. Watch her. Guys, until next week, be harder than life. And I love you all.
• 1:06:08
  Please rate and share this podcast. I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Segal supporters. Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with, delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity. Visit TrustNTM.com for more info. Until next week, be harder than life.