Below is the transcription for this episode:
Dave: Good Morning, my friends. It's your boy Dave sharpe here. And we have yet another exciting episode this morning. This digital marketer is just starting out and she's going to share this morning. Something super, Tonita Welcome to the show.
Tonita: Good morning. Thank you.
Dave: Tell us where you're calling in from.
Tonita: I'm calling in from El Dorado Hills, California. So I'm right smack in the middle between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe.
Dave: Alright, so what is your legendary story? How did you find us and what's happened since?
Tonita: So I found legendary on TikTok like a lot of people and I started following a woman that was half my age and she had started her business I was completely skeptical. I was like, This is too good to be true. There's no way she's working. At home and she's making this kind of money and this and that. So I was skeptical for a couple of weeks and then saw her continue to grow her business and she was very relatable. She had kids and she was working from home. And so I just thought, Well, why not? Why don't I just check out what she's doing if she could do it. I could do it. So I watched your video but didn't buy did not buy the 15 Day Challenge. And then another week passed by and I'm like this is just silly. This is no I spent more than that, you know, a month or whatever I can invest in myself. So I did and I think I watched a day or two and I was sold after a day or two of the challenge. I knew this is something that I wanted to do. And it was kind of an odd time because he was right during the holidays. So I went to the 15th and was super excited about it. I bought the blueprints and then I sat on it. I sat on it until January. I let the holidays go crazy. We had family in and out and then in January I really hit it and then I think I did the 15 day challenge again for the most part a decade in a day with you a ton of training modules. It was information overload. The train is incredible, so professional, and it just keeps growing. I mean, I take back every now and then there's more modules. So it's just awesome. I really, really liked it. So well back to the very first tic tac at the end. of January. And it was really quick for me at first I posted a tic toc. I made a condition the second day and I was ecstatic. You know I was like jumping up and down so thrilled and I continued to grow and I was really excited and then about six weeks into it. I got totally banned from ticks. So I had about 12,000 followers. I was super excited, posting regularly and I was just completely banned. And a huge, huge, huge lesson for me is don't keep all your marketing eggs in one basket. You know I was solely on TikTok and I hadn't explored Instagram yet I hadn't explored. And so I was dead in the water. So I had to create another account. And it grew like molasses. I mean it was so slow. The second time it was just painful. And a huge lesson learned. I, you know, you've got on Instagram immediately started growing that account, got another TikTok account, started exploring Facebook and haven't dabbled too much and we've done the modules and I'm going to do it again and get really present on Facebook. For sure. So that's my next challenge.
Dave: Wow. So you learned a lot, but didn't let it stop you when you got an account. Shut down. That really is the difference between treating something like a business and like a hobby right? Because, I mean, if it's a hobby and not really that big of a deal and okay, well I guess that's over business. It's by any means. The same way that TikTok just kicked you off with some robot to try to protect and grow their business. That's what they think they need to do to protect and grow there but don't care about what you're trying to do. But who cares about you? Well, you better care about you. Because now you have to, as an entrepreneur, do what's best for your business. And that might be diversifying. That might be as you said, diversify and create multiple streams of traffic. Wow. What lesson ? What else were you going to add?
Tonita: Huge lesson. Yeah, well, I mean, I was just that person who emailed TikTok every single day. I emailed them saying I love us and we will because this will be a real group, right? Yeah. It's embarrassing to say but like hundreds of times, hundreds of times I contacted them. And believe it or not, three months later, like I got the account back. So, I mean, I was shocked. I just kind of had written it off. Like I'm never gonna get it back. But it was just so you know, it was a habit for me. Email them or email them every day. And so I finally got it back. But what I got back was my account. But what they've done is I'm no longer on the for you page. So I'm only able to show videos to the people who already follow me. So I have other accounts, so it's fine and maybe someday they'll have mercy on me. And they'll start putting those because I'm going to still show it love. I'm going to still you know there's almost 13,000 people on there and I'm going to continue to live there.
Dave: Your audience right I mean, that's such a Yeah, I could see why that's an important group, asset, whatever you want to call it. It's its audience, an important audience that you want to continue to serve. And that is such that's there's such a powerful spin for me in that which is that if you said you are going to do something, follow through and do it anyways to spite the forces around you, which may be trying to take you down or maybe trying to divert you, whatever, you're still going to deliver to those people. And you're gonna grow elsewhere. Yeah, grow, you grow the audience elsewhere and you're still gonna serve this audience. This is huge. You could say Not another word. And there is so much value in what you just went through. In less than 10 minutes specifically, in most powerfully, I thought it was the fact that you had some robot on TikTok flagged your account and you lost it and instead of saying just Yeah, throw it all in, right. You're like, I'm not only going to email TikTok every day because guess what, that actually only takes 30 seconds to do right? The copy and paste or hi I'm still here. Just wondering if you saw my last message. Thank you very much, right? We're, we're respectful and nice, even if we don't feel that way. Right. That's the other thing that I want to point out to all of you who are trying to get things from TikTok. We're trying to get things from various companies out there. Make sure that even as frustrated as you are, that you continue to carry yourself in a professional manner, because then in those situations, you have companies who if they're a good solid company, and you've carried yourself professionally the entire time, will oftentimes admit they were wrong and reinstall your account and sometimes even apologize and in your case, I don't know if you got an apology, but you're consistent and professional effort of taking 30 seconds out of your day just to continue to email them got you a massive result back simultaneously. While you did not just focus on your problem. You focused on solving your problem, but then you were here and you were like Hell yeah, I'm gonna go crazy and grow and all these other places while I'm solving this problem, and I just wonder if if you have stopped at all in just just taking in that amazing effort and take it in that may have been just so many people don't that obstacle has taken them out or would take them out. And I just wonder if you were if that was just kind of you had your head down the whole time, or you are conscious like hey, these are my challenges, and this is the examples of what Dave and all these folks are talking about, of things that are going to pop up and I need to get through this. Yeah. Is there any of that awareness as it was going on? Like, these are my challenges?
Tonita: Yes, for sure. Yeah. I mean, definitely. I got a little emotional, mad, and sad. I was frustrated. And I didn't know why. You know, and I unfortunately played the comparison game because I saw other affiliate marketers on TikTok doing the same videos I was doing worklist you know, but I see you get the stupid funk that you, you know, distracts you and that's all it was. It was just a distraction and I believe in what I'm doing, I know that I can have success and I just continue putting one foot in front of the next pitch. thing for me that huge asset for me is these wake up legendaries the, you know, Thursday trainings the Facebook group has been huge because people celebrate successes, they, you know, encourage each other with technical things because I was frustrated. There were some days there where I was really frustrated, but I just felt like this was, you know, I went back to the original 15 Day Challenge and on that second or third day, I knew this is what I wanted to do. And I just kept reminding myself I'm capable of doing this and TikTok isn't going to stop me. It's so you know,
Dave: bigger picture than just TikTok even though we talk about TikTok a lot on this show. And in this community. It's a lot bigger than TikTok and really more than anything TikTok is a new launching ground. I mean, that's really what it's become. And it's not a place which has even been proven to build a long term stable business. What's proven to build a long term stable business on the internet is having a database of customers and audience that you own and can market to via email, and text message and spaces is the number one proven model. We use TikTok and we use Instagram the same way that they use us okay, so don't get it twisted any of you about what this really for the social media companies is about because they're using us they bring us in a free service we all can go and socialize with each other. We know that's not what happens. We're looking at judging. I don't know whether it's been you're not I'm not here to judge that. But the bottom line is they bring us onto the platform for free. So then they can go to advertisers and say, look at all these free dummies I got here who are just waiting to buy your products and then they sell that advertising. So don't get emotional and loyal. To TikTok, I'm just talking to everybody. Oh, boy. Oh, the TikTok doesn't get bent out of shape over TikTok. His Tiktoks is a silly company that ain't doing nothing but trying to get rich just like you are and they're gonna use you. They're going to use your family. They're going to use your kids. And as internet entrepreneurs, we need to talk about these things and we need to be aware of them. So not only we can be leaders of this industry, doing things right, really trying to be on the cutting edge of what's going on out here. But also so we can teach and empower our children how to navigate the Internet, because the internet is neither make you filthy, disgusting, rich, and provide you all of the happiness and peace if you can disconnect from it. When you need to. Or it can break you down make you suicidal make you depressed lots of stories all over the world of how the Internet has has, you know people have have had bad experiences with it. So we need to really fully understand the roles that all of these companies play on the internet and right up front I'm telling you all right now then TikTok. Instagram and Facebook are nothing but a place where we go to use and get you. That's a great point. Take Tiktok is using us the same way that we're using Tiktok why we actually want to educate in me I feel like we're actually making the platform better even though I understand what Tiktok is trying to do. They're trying to limit the kind of the duplication the in like, the content that looks the same. I understand that they don't want content that looks the same. But that's why we teach you all to put your own spin on it. And that's why we teach you you know what I mean? So I feel really great about what we're doing and how we're serving people on the platform. But I don't get caught up in my love for the platform, the platform I love for people on the platform, and that's what I'm trying to do because I have to go there. If I didn't have to go to TikTok I wouldn't even I didn't have to come on Facebook and use these tools to communicate and connect with my people. And I wouldn't I wouldn't use the tools. We just use the tools. And I think that's one of the big, big things that I really want to drill home right now is that we can't get emotional over losing accounts. We can't get a merge we just have to. We have to build our audiences that we own and the only thing you own is your email list totally. You don't own anything else. So you have to set up campaigns and things to brace these people off of TikTok because guess what? If you don't you're gonna be left with nothing. And guess what TikTok made money off of you while you were there? Because they sold people your attention. Oh, right. But if you leave and you didn't get any email addresses and you didn't generate leads, then if you end up losing your account, you leave with nothing. So we have to prioritize. That doesn't mean that we don't want to follow ticks guidelines. That means that doesn't mean we don't want to be compliant. That doesn't mean that we don't want to be just good citizens and just help people not hurt people. But removing the emotional whatever around these. Yeah. And also being real clear about what's the real asset and what's not, is also really important to absolutely drive sales right from your TikTok profile. I mean, if you have a loyal enough audience, you could drive, you could just put a link to a sales page in your bio and say everybody training available, go get it click the link in bio right now. I just made it live and you could drive sales right from your audience on TikTok. Most people as you saw need to just get lightly peppered on the platform, get a little bit of curiosity, and then they need to be brought off into a sales an isolated sales funnel, where there's time to educate the person more and to introduce yourself longer than a quick 15 second video. TikTok is the Tinder for gentlemen. Right? We're all just swiping okay. So the same way that people are now swiping for dates. People are also swiping for entertainment. And it's it's it's, all we have to do is get their attention briefly. And then and then get them off, collect their email because they're likely not going to buy on the first time. We can follow up with them via email in an intimate and more isolated manner where it's not as easy to just hit your thumb and just scroll on to the next person. But anyways, what came up for you is I was ranting about the difference between the platform and the audience and misplaced platforms and stuff.
Tonita: I love what you said because I think that I was in the mindset that tic tac was everything. This is how I was going to make money. This is everything. And I've accepted that it's very fragile. And then I'm not going to just focus on TikTok. I have to be focusing on other things. I use TikTok now. I think that's a great point. I do use them and I am doing things every day on two of my accounts, and I'm just gonna get followers . It's been very slow and to be quite honest, because I'm I'm I'm not on the page and floor. And so I'm just doing lines and I'm getting followers just organically. And every day I just get a couple more followers. It's been slow but they're real followers and they're really interested in what I'm promoting. So I would rather have 1000 loyal followers than have 80,000 who just thought a video I made was funny.
Dave: And that's what that is a great point. That is what most new people are praying for us to go viral and folks wouldn't crack up to me. It ain't what it's cracked up to be and it'll screw your mental up more than anything because now you'll be hoping for some big explosion when you need to be paying attention to the small sparks in your business. Yeah. But yeah, let me give you an perspective about how aggressive I think that we need to be in our marketing. And I think the biggest challenge a lot of us have is lack of aggressiveness. And the reason what I mean by that is that it does tie in to the TikTok thing. We all want to make sure that we're following the rules. Because where we come from, there's a lot of rules. We come from jobs that have assets, and protocols and schools that have, you know, all kinds of different traditions and rules and guidelines and practices and best practices and all this kind of shit that we've been sitting and following in our we're walking on eggshells with other people in our lives. And we just really, at a certain point are just trying to kind of, you know, kind of our way out on top and we kind of want to be seen but we don't really but we don't really want to break anything. We don't really want to get TikTok attention and yeah, it's just kind of like I want to be famous and get rich but I don't really and it's what we need to do is take all that emotion, set it aside those feelings and set them aside for a second and get militants get as if you are about to proceed into a battle and you need to build a plan to stay alive right you will usually get sober, emotionally sober and I will call it that because so many of us are emotionally we're just we're intoxicated by our feelings in general, but then we come into business and we're just we're just we're just intoxicated by them. We're just everything is a massive feeling of overwhelm. And everything's personal and at the same time, we don't want to break anything or offend anybody. And you go into battle. None of that shit matters. Okay, not that battle, but I'm imagining what it would be like to prepare now I've prepared for hurricanes. And I've prepared for other things here in Florida, not prepared for battle and want to be real clear about that. But I imagine that it's a real sobering feeling to know that what he cares about my feelings the enemy doesn't care about. The hurricane doesn't care about my feelings. Now if we can replace that with moving into this business Tiktok doesn't give a shit about your feelings. Facebook doesn't care about your feelings. They're you know, maybe not the enemy but everybody's mind is a win out here. And I need to approach this aggressively. So if I want to win in a battle, I need to take a look at sneak attacks. I need to take a look at surrounding my enemy. I need to talk, I need to think about overwhelming them. And you think about being everywhere. These are some of the strategies that we think would be smart to consider inside of a battle right? If I was going to take over a neighborhood that I just want to announce, I'm a guy a little bit over here. There are many but I don't want to offend anybody but I'm going to be coming in right in this one little place. And if you kick me out, oh shit, I guess. Yes, I lost. Nobody would do that in a battle. But that's how a lot of us approach our business. And what we need to be thinking about is how can I be more aggressive? And I don't need to be aggressive in 100 different ways. But maybe the way that I need to be more aggressive is to start today. Start to remove emotion and all this and I repurpose. Is anybody going to see this and be offended? By seeing this place or whatever other concerns I have immediately today. Start repurposing every tick piece of content that I put on TikTok, run it through SNAP, tick, remove the watermark and post it on at least three other platforms Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, that's a way to be more aggressive. That's just one example. Give me another example. Sneak attack as somebody said on the same platform, okay. Andrea She broke down.Over the last 13 months has gotten 200 million views on her TikTok videos. Tony, do you know how much that would cost in TV advertising? 200 million eyeballs. I don't know what but I assume a lot. And so how has she done that? Not by gently sensitively and hoping not to disturb anyone just invaded and curated content on one nice little account and just hoped and prayed that Tiktok didn't get offended with it because if they did, come out and just wipe my entire business out. She didn't do that. She has multiple accounts. She has multiple. I mean she's coming in. There's people out there folks who have IP address issues. You got a phone, it's called getting another phone. It's called getting an iPad. It's called Get aggressive. It's company says it's called entrepreneurship and business is the biggest game of cat and mouse that you've ever played in your life. And there are no rules. There are no rules because this is what's happened since 2010. When I come on the internet a new platform will pop up and everybody will go to the platform. Human beings are completely trashed. Look at what we're doing to the planet. We trashed Google and a bunch of marketers got kicked off Google in 2010. We trashed Facebook and a bunch of marketers got kicked off Facebook in 2012 or two that are 2014 through 2020. And now we all went over to TikTok and we're trashing it. Amazon drop shipping, comedy, you know, sex workers. It's all there. TikTok scrambling going oh, I'm not letting this turn in. I don't want my space right and and and you know what? It's none of my business how they don't become my I don't give two shits how they are because I'm just trying to make sure that it doesn't become myspace on the corner. Cardboard box. Where's right. That's what I got worried about. So we gotta be great. We can expect that we're gonna become this super you rich and we're gonna have all that we have to become more aggressive and the multiple accounts, multiple platforms. Those are a couple of real practical examples of how you get more aggressive. But we got to stop caring about the platform's feelings, platforms doesn't have any feelings. We got to stop caring about offending or disturbing. We have to stop getting so easily offended and taking things so personal. And when we do that, which is much easier said than done, and we want more to get your business, will I mean, how many different streams of traffic? How many is too many?
Tonita: Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. I've been thinking about getting another phone or two as well. So it's interesting that you said that I should definitely do that now. That will make a huge purchase
Dave: platforms just want to limit us they want us they want us to only be able to have 5000 friends right and all this dumb shit that their rules not ours. You know what I mean? Right and so in this world was created because somebody woke up and said, I'm going to just fall for everybody else's still played roles, right? Nobody got up and got rich that way. Somebody got up and said, You know what? That role is kind of stupid. I'll follow up but I'm gonna game the shit out of it. I'm gonna win, right and I'm not going to stop until I do or I'll go somebody else somewhere else. And so anyways, I'm ranting about this, but I didn't. I didn't think that I would get it but you've brought up such amazing points that have gotten me so excited about these things. What's comfort? I'm talking about this and what other things have you learned about you know, in your journey that would be a useful experience for our listeners?
Tonita: Well, I love the reality Reality kick you're giving me because I've kind of dabbled in Facebook and really haven't been doing it because I've been so busy creating content for TikTok. And so I hope that's a lesson for everyone. Don't do that. Don't don't get
Dave: told why it doesn't need to be different. Content. I mean just
Tonita: right. Right. Yeah, I can definitely repurpose the content you're absolutely right. Don't
Dave: you know what's gonna happen is people are just going to be like, this person's everywhere. And you know what? More somebody sees something, the more they trust it. Yeah. So the reason why you want to be omnipresent is because you build trust from frequency. Because the sun is just fine. It's fine. You looked great. There. You look better now. So it's wonderful. It's wonderful. When you're in California and you want to warm you come here and I'm gonna show you warm.
Tonita: Well, you've got the humidity, I've got dry heat, so it's like 100 degrees, but it's it's hot
Dave: AC down right now. So
Tonita: But you're right, yeah, plaster, plaster that stuff everywhere and I need to be more committed to doing that. You know, I'm preaching to myself here that I've I got to expand here and get
Dave: these are things that today this conversation, any one of you can take this and turn this conversation into both action and also wonderful content. I mean, this man and that's my hope is that you all are taking these points in absolutely absorbing them and but also, if they make sense and if they ring true then spread the word you know, then go out there and repurpose the content. into your own content and share it you know, everything that I say each morning is sure give credit where credit's due or put your own spin on it. I don't care but the point is to take the knowledge and also then go and share it with others because they're going to as much as you from hearing it and saying, Oh, wow, imagine what other people will also get that and that's what really this is about and it's what any business is about. It's why I would hire a fishing guide or why I hired a captain's coach to teach me how to drive my boat or why I would hire a market coach. Or buy a horse to learn because, you know, let me let me let me let me learn from somebody else's experience. So take this knowledge and this experience that we're talking about this morning, all of you and also turn it into value. I think that's one of the biggest things I want to ask you about. We always there's a big transition from going from customer to Creator. The customer is the one who is always learning and everything's always for them and they you know are taking notes and they're always consuming. The Creator is somebody who takes the knowledge that they have or learning or all in there then they're both sharing their experience or sharing people's experience. And then using that in many cases, the entrepreneur is the one who at the end of that pretty pretty pretty simply put, so as your journey could you describe from consumer to creator, Could you could you and we titled this it's all about mindset. Could you touch on that piece of the mindset as well as what else has been the big things that really move the needle for you, between the most important six inches, but also the most the most? It's a bad neighborhood up here for me. I don't know about you sometimes.
Tonita: With the money system,
Dave: I don't like to go up there alone. You know, I like to take a flashlight, but what has it been like for you to transition from consumer to creator and entrepreneur? Well, by nature, I'm
Tonita: appealing. And so I definitely cared what other people thought. And I don't want to, you know, embarrass myself or anything like that. So I really had to come out of my shell when I was beginning to create create content, but I also knew that what got me to get the 15 Day Challenge and by the 15th Lunch was I saw somebody like I said that was half my age with a lot of kids that I could relate to so I try and be relatable and be as honest as possible. I have never danced around and said I make $20,000 a month. I've never ever said anything that I don't already do or have or whatever. I just felt like I'm going to be as open and honest and real and genuine because people eventually are going to buy from me and not you know not not any lie or something that I'm saying on a TikTok or an Instagram video. Like I feel really I'm very confident that like I'm not going to have any false promises I'm never ever gonna promise to get rich quick. I'm never gonna promise Oh, and you know X amount of months you're going to be leaving your nine to five. I'm very, you know, very real and what my journey has been. So and I try to create content that is relatable to me, and I've just really tried to stop being shy being embarrassed being a people pleaser, you know, that sort of thing because I know that there's a lot of my friends see me on TikTok giggle and think it's funny and cute. What do you want to do? What is this thing you're doing? And so forth.
Dave: Women are funny dudes. Dudes are like that, too. We say dumb little shit to people. Yeah. You know what I mean? In a minute. Right?
Tonita: But it's yeah, like oh, you know, it's snowing. So good to see this and what are they going to do?
Dave: I know I know. I am convinced that never gets easier and better gets better. And the best way to do it is it's just separate it. I'm just I'm, I have not met anybody just because what are you going to do? To educate your friends and family and just they're all going to be educated in a it's just it's so convoluted in this particular profession. In my opinion. It's best to consider separating family friends from your business endeavors and if they happen to fumble, I will have this big conflict about posting personal stuff for people in my personal life like I have a Facebook, personal page groups, and then I have an Instagram personal page. And I haven't posted on that in over two years, either one of those pages and it's not affected my income that one time because guess what, your friends and family don't buy from you. a client will become a friend faster than a friend will become a client. Doing it for 10 years. never changes. I love my friends and family. We're so humble. And just so legit and cool. And the rest we talked about if they will know how to handle themselves and I don't know how to handle that honestly. And all of their limiting beliefs and bullshit and it's, Hey, look, I got enough to deal with that with my own shit. And then just the clans that I'm trying to the people who have actually given me money to help them, let alone you, who's my buddy who takes off too, for granted and thinks that, you know, it's just so crazy. I wanted to deal with your limiting beliefs and your skepticism, and I used to care and now I just don't know where you're going. It's been 10 years for me though. I'm actually at a place and listen, you got you all hope I'm not bullshitting. Like it's the friends and family thing that has legitimately been difficult to navigate. And it's you just got to find out what the healthy boundaries that you need to implement in your life. Yeah,
Tonita: that's interesting because they've seen your fabulous success and yet they're still
Dave: skeptical. They just get weird people are weird, you know that they are treating you differently and I mean, it's funny man, you know, I bet on both sides of the coin and when you're broke, you know in your No, you ain't got shit. Nobody wants to hear from you. You know, and we got and when they perceive that you have stuff and that's what the real kicker is, is when people perceive that you have things nobody. Here's the other thing, folks. I'm going to tell you something, though, like people, your friends and family are never going to be impressed by your $2 million stuff. But they're going to just go crazy when you pull up that $100,000 Range Rover usage to a depreciating asset they're gonna be like, yeah. Like, let me know whether you do it but seriously, so they're not even in cases where the right reasons. Yeah. So we have to be really careful about who we're trying to impress. For me. I got something that I wear around my neck right here. There's four names on three of my kids and my wife and I list that's it. I used to be the guy who was like, Oh, I got all these fans and shit out here who I'm impressing, but my wife was pissed at me. And it's like, you know, I gotta get our priorities in order as entrepreneurs. It's like I don't give a shit what people on the internet think. I care about what my daughter thinks. I care about what my son thinks. I care about what my wife thinks, you know, and these are people that I'm out to impress, you know, and they don't even want to be impressed. They just want me to take out the garbage and love on them. You know what I mean?
Tonita: That's so huge because I I feel like my my husband and my kids are my biggest supporters. And I don't want to let them down and I want you to be an exam. I want to do what I say I'm going to do. I told them I wanted to do this. They were ecstatic. Oh, you could do this. This is great. We'll help you. They helped videotape my first TikTok And when I got my first big commission, they were the up and down. I mean, I think they were more excited than I was and that means everything. And so that that that's a great point. It's those you know, I have four kids and a husband it's those five people that matter I don't care what my friends say and what people say so the comments on TikTok the mean comments Dude, she's people really are both on TikTok and
Dave: they'll never say to your face that's why you can you you can't we cannot even be bothered by people what they are saying and what they're projecting all their toxicity on to us. Excuse me. No, thank you. You know, we got to get rid of this and we gotta get real, a lot of conviction about who is important and who is no and it's not that I don't value my human life. I just don't value your opinions. You see what I'm saying? There's a big difference actually. There's a big difference and my friends and family love them for who they are. And as you know, somebody made a comment about separation of church and state. It's, you know, I try not to do business with my friends. Not because I don't want to support their businesses. It's just that I'm really sensitive about muddying up relationships. There's 8 billion people in this world. I do not. Johnny, my buddies. Money too, it's gonna ruin the relationship, learn how to generate cold leads, and you'll never refer to a friend again. You know, I mean, because this intrigued me to a lot of amazing people in my life, that fulfill all my business needs, and can relate to what I go through. So when I hang out with my friends, I never even have to talk about business. I can just go fishing. I can just screw off. I can talk about my recovery. I think that's been my solution. And people know that's how I operate and people don't know that about me now that I don't really want to talk about business and it's not that I don't want to explain myself. It's just when I'm off I like to be off. And so yeah, that's but but it's the whole trying to get friends and family to support you and understand what you're doing, my friends. Don't even bother. Find out and identify who are the most important people in your life, who are the four, three or four people, go to them individually and talk to them. And don't ask for their support. Tell them you're going to step your game on supporting them. As you know that you're going to be over here working on your business and you might not be as available as that and that's the messed up thing. That was a network mark. Had a guy. I can say his name but I want someone who says, “ Go and tell your friends and family for 90 days that they just need to leave you alone.” That's not how life works. Yeah. Not how life works. So we're going to take a route of massive personal responsibility, not of oh, I had a wild hair up my ass and want to start a business now the whole world including my most important people in my life, now, now all change. When they don't do what I want them to do, they're not supporting me. I gotta get clear. Who my inner circle is. Who is on the outside and I really do. I have Anna, middle and outer. Right? My inner self is my family. It's the four people in my outer friends and family. The middle is my friends and family. My outer is like everybody else. You know what I mean? I have people in the inner circle. I get to go to them and say I'm going to start a business. I want to make sure that you feel loved and supported as I go through this and to do this. Hopefully it works out and all that but the front end, then daddy is going to start a business and I need you to not come in here and bother me or say I'm going to start a business and I need you to leave me alone for the next three months and really support me. How do you think any human is gonna react to that? You're selfish prick take up No, we're not doing this, you know. So I don't know if I have a different approach. I think that a lot of the gurus out here, really this shit. The things that they say doesn't don't work in real life. You can't just go to your family and say oh, I need 90 days night. you know what I mean? So all of these things, including how, you know, this pursuit of friends and family validation, it's never going to happen. And these are the people who you really want to make sure that this all is beneficial to them too. I mean, those of you who have kids, aren't you doing this sort of thing for your kids? So it's like to show you as a father or a mother how to build a business and have a life and that's what I want to make sure that all of us are doing is not preaching the dream and living a nightmare. But actually talking about entrepreneurship, about freedom in designing our life in a way that creates freedom. We can't just, it's not just gonna happen like that. You have to define it. What real leadership is, is taking the role to say these are the important people in my life. These are who I need to really make sure I take care of and are supported and support me and here's the friends and family need to really be clear that I'm not ever going to get them all happy and they're mostly all gonna probably think I'm stupid, until I pull some big depreciating asset into the driveway and they're all impressed by that. And they'll think I'm successful. And then there's everybody else who you know, you have to really categorize people in terms of so that makes it feel pretty silly when you know Yeah, and Jack, Jack did from wherever to leave the shitty comment on my TikTok to it's like you're not even my middle circle.
Tonita: Right? You're not even Yeah. And don't you think the way that we behave in a way that speaks volumes to our children and ourselves when we say it's always what we do you know, the kids have seen me all the ups and downs and still pursuing and still putting one foot in front of the next just like I tell them I'm gonna be the hypocrite if I just don't like to talk account got banned. You know, it speaks so much to them that, you know, I'm just continuing. I'm going to move forward and this is how my husband is self-employed. He's a general contractor. He's had many many ups and downs especially in this economy and it's like you just what would that say to our kids, you know, nothing comes.
Dave: You know how to help with the taxes and everything it is that's a real you got to be good. We're in
Tonita: business for 20 years so that seems something he is he's he perseveres and it hasn't been easy and the kids have witnessed it all and hopefully, it's planted seeds in them that life isn't easy. No comes for free. Everything is work. And that's okay. The good stuff is at the end,
Dave: right? It has you know, our kids can never articulate or vocalize the impact but I have a 22 year old son and the the his ability and thinking and rationale and coping mechanisms and all these things that I when I was, you know, just just also, I mean, in some respects trying to figure out ourselves but my, my wife was or wasn't real because I got my older older son back in my life when I got clean. I was wondering if the things that we were doing were making an impact, because I got him full time with my wife and I when he was 10. Eight years, but man they watch, they watch, watch what they watch. And they can't particularly say what they're learning at that age. But when you see them doing those things, it's it's it's it's it's the most fulfilling feeling and I know your kids, I know your kids. will be filled with lessons and values from all the things that she has been persevere through, including this, including this. So if you were to give advice to your child saying they were starting out Don't let money succeed. And they're just getting started. They're maybe going through the challenge or they're just kind of trying because most people that are listening to this have already at least kind of the challenge or maybe they're thinking about getting the blueprints and are thinking about taking them seriously or seriously. They're wondering is this a cost? Is this an investment? Is this a waste of time? Is this an investment of time, like, you know, you thought and that you told us how you were skeptical and so forth. Would you speak to yourself back then and that person who was in that same spot wouldn't?
Tonita: That's a great question. I think just believe in yourself, have a great support system. Some do not have a support system. So you really have to believe in yourself. I'm a Christian, so I definitely have faith in God and I thought God you know, I prayed about it a lot. And I felt like this was the right thing for me in my family to do. I never thought it was going to be easy. And I knew that God taught me a lot. This experience and he has a lot. And so I guess my advice would be to just keep one foot in front of the next and continue pursuing knowledge. You know, just incredible, like I have gone back and listened to several modules over and over again and you get new information because as you get access in this business, you have a different mindset and you start looking at things a different way and you receive the information. Really, you know, that's why I love going back to the 15 Day Challenge. It's really basic raw information. And now I listened to it and I received the information so much differently because at the beginning, information overload is so much which is great, but you can only absorb so much. And so just continue being a student and continue being Learning never arrived. And I think you would even say that Dave, that you're still learning different things and I mean the business is constantly changing. I'm a total newbie, and I'm a newbie with so much to learn. I
Dave: I guess there are people who maybe think that I think I know it all or however I don't know, I don't know what people think. But if you could actually come in my body and you could feel what I see on a daily basis the anxieties, sweats and the flies in the stomach and feeling sometimes like something's boring, new or I mean, folks, nobody around. Nobody gets to a place where they don't feel anymore. I know that we are in this. I guess this is this weird social media society where everybody's just putting on a bullshit smokescreen. It's one of the reasons why I tried to do this show and don't create a bunch of stars short form because I really actually want you I really actually want to, like I'm not doing I'm doing this also because it's therapeutic for me and I can be well I can relieve a lot of the pressure of have all you sons of a bitches thing that I gotta get out. I don't get it. I didn't get any of it figured out. I mean, figure it out up until the first how to go from year to year 20. I know the damnedest thing about it. Yeah, I don't know that. This thing about how to live the day that I'm living in today Morrow, I because I've never done it before. Never. Yeah, why is that different from anybody else? Got it that there's some nuances about marketing about funnels and setting up some of the tech But folks, look, I just bought a 30 foot 30 boat Knology that I've actually considered or thought, well, I need a rocket scientist to actually understand how to operate, but guess what I had to do? Go through the trainee for God's sakes and get it you know what, this ain't entertaining training. It's a horrific owner's manual. It's just through it just for those of you who think that anything, you know, we see it all the time. There's comments Oh, the tech and I can't get the funnels and this and that. And it's like, anything you do. There is going to be a learning curve. You are not going to, I mean look alright, I'm done with the Internet. You know what I'm done with land. I'm just done with everything. I'm just gonna go fishing. I'm gonna just go fish, fish on commercial fishing boats. Ready? Go out to the dock the guy says you ever fished before you go No. Do you have any? Do you know anything about this group or boat? Do you know what kind of boat you know? I don't know. I just don't really want to get off. I don't want to get rid of it everywhere you go. You're gonna have to learn some things. You want to go work at McDonald's. They're gonna have to learn the oil thing. You don't get burned. Because I'm that type of biomass couple of five years ago at a family barbecue. We were grilling something there being a man, dad, president and a client what do I do? I place my entire palm. I'm just gonna somebody an asshole and put my entire hand on the top of the grill. Not even thinking that it was hot. Why? Because I'm not a chef. I'm not a grill. Cook, idiot when it comes to preparing. So if I think oh, I'm done with this internet thing, I'm at a restaurant. I need to go in and learn how not to enter the emergency room with all the oil and the ovens and the hot stuff. So there's always going to be a learning curve with whatever we do. Just choose your poison, right?
Tonita: Yeah, just go out there and do it. You know, like, a lot of people are afraid to do a live it's like as soon as you get 1000 followers and alone. Just doing something new every day. You know, push yourself. I'm trying to do a new module every day. I just try and do something every day to, you know, get my brain rolling and different. You know, watch one of your videos. I just think it's just to continue being a student and learn as much as you can.
Dave: Jeff says you don't get rich fishing except with a phishing formula. My mail from the blueprints the phishing form, yeah. Excellent. Love it. Love it. We'll end on that. No Tonina, it was a real pleasure. I really hope that if we invite you here in a couple of months, you'll be willing to come back.
Tonita: That would be great. Thanks so much for having me. It was a pleasure.
Dave: See you until your husband
Tonita: legendary. Thank you so much back to you. Alright, see ya.
Dave: All right, my friends. It is Thursday. Exactly 11 am Eastern Time. For exactly one hour , there were so many gold nuggets in there. You might want to be careful. You might get rich if you listen to it again. Alright my friends. We will be back here tomorrow for another episode. Another powerful conversation: do something that's going to make a big difference in your business today, or even do something that's going to make a small difference or be Legendary.
