460: This Simple System Turns Average Creators Into Millionaires

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: Think Media Podcast
Episode: 460: This Simple System Turns Average Creators Into Millionaires
Date: November 4, 2025
Host: Sean Cannell
Guest: Skylar Lewis, Founder of Rise Up Kings

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Episode Theme

Sean Cannell sits down with Skylar Lewis (Rise Up Kings) to explore the systems, mindsets, and tactical moves that elevate average creators into millionaires and transformative leaders. The conversation is a masterclass in actionable advice for both content creators and business builders, blending creator strategy, leadership philosophy, personal growth, and faith-centered entrepreneurship.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Four Immediate Moves to a CEO Mindset

(Starts at 02:14)

a. Massive Action

• Move quickly from idea to execution; don't let tasks expand to fill time.
• Practice "Parkinson’s Law": Shorten deadlines to speed results.
• “I get an idea, and then I’ll go implement it right away... I end up producing a lot more results, which is how I’m able to run multiple businesses.” — Skylar (03:53)

b. Leverage (Team-building)

• Hire early, outsource lower-value tasks (even if it feels financially risky).
• "Hire to free up your time for $100/hr, not $20/hr work."
• “The way you truly grow businesses is through building a team... you’ll find a way when your back is against the wall.” — Skylar (06:03)

c. Simplify to Scale

• Make business processes duplicatable, like the McDonald’s checklist system.
• “Scaling is simplifying something. It’s replication, it’s duplication.” — Skylar (07:35)

d. Mastering Marketing

• Treat marketing as a core skill, separate from content or storytelling.
• “One of the best skills a human being can learn is how to market something.” — Skylar (09:33)

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2. The Origin Story & Growth of Rise Up Kings

(Begins 12:09)

• Purpose: A faith-centered men’s personal development organization.

• Started from Skylar’s personal struggles and desire for authentic personal growth with a faith component.

• Began pre-COVID with a bare-bones event, taking massive action to validate the concept.

  “I gave myself two months to launch an entire three day event. I had never spoken for more than two hours… I had nothing for it… and just like, ‘Hey, I’m going to go find a way to do this.’” — Skylar (15:06)

• The first event was an “exceptional experience,” focused on deep impact, wow factor, and word-of-mouth referrals—setting the tone for future growth.

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3. Seven Transformational Principles Behind Business & Brand Growth

(Starts at 17:58, Expanded throughout)

1. Create an Exceptional Experience

• Surpass expectations—every customer touchpoint is an opportunity.
• Examples: Surprise packages, unique activities (blindfolded trips to cemeteries), personalized swag.
• “How do we create an exceptional experience…so they will be on their mind afterwards?” — Skylar (18:58)

2. Create Transformation, Not Just Transfer Knowledge

• Focus on leaving your audience changed, not just informed.
• Use experiential activities (e.g., writing eulogies, mud pit challenges, affirmation circles) to foster transformation.
• “How do we create a video that leaves them feeling different or really deeply affected?” — Skylar (21:52)
• Tip: Enable transformation even in digital products—activate your community, not just inform.

3. Double Down on What Works in Marketing

• Find and maximize a single marketing vein before diversifying.
• Skylar quadrupled down on Google Ads once he saw results, maxing out spend.
• Focus > Spread-thin marketing.

4. Be Real (Authenticity)

• Vulnerability creates resonance; share real stories, not just the highlight reel.
• “There’s a lot of fakeness and facades on social media. I started to just put out a lot of real content… and it ended up… bringing the right people to me.” — Skylar (29:29)
• Practice “responsible sharing”—share from your scars, not open wounds.
• “If you don’t fully share, then you'll never fully feel loved, because the people love the mask, not the real you.” — Skylar (35:54)

5. Build a Personal Brand

• Personal brands outlast and lift company brands; create social proof.
• Skylar leverages both (Rise Up Kings and his own) but now prioritizes growing his personal reach for greater trust and multiplication.
• “There’s just something about that social credibility and social proof that is hard to beat.” — Skylar (39:27)

6. Hire a Team / The “Number Two” Principle

• Always have a “number two”—starts as an assistant and scales up to an operations manager or COO.
• The number two allows visionaries to focus on their sweet spot.

7. Build an Ecosystem

• Move customers into your own ecosystem (e.g., apps, masterminds, coaching programs) for higher lifetime value, community, and retention.
• Skylar’s ecosystem includes proprietary software, daily tracking, gamification, and a support network.

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4. Leadership, Self-Management, & Power

(Starts at 48:56)

• Real leadership is about increasing the “ability to influence people and circumstances.”
• “The number one power killer is a victim mindset. Life happens for me, not to me.” — Skylar (49:40)
• Most important: Lead yourself first—keep your word, build self-esteem, model responsibility.
• Vulnerability, service, and genuine care create world-class cultures and teams.
• Notable: “People can sniff out inauthenticity. I had to shift from seeing employees as tools to seeing them as human beings.” — Skylar (64:47)

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5. Wisdom on Masculinity & Power, Social Media Influence, and “Hustle Culture”

(Begins at 55:34)

• Power is neutral; the aim defines whether it’s constructive (e.g., Mother Teresa) or destructive (e.g., Andrew Tate’s model of masculinity).
• Importance of ordering values: faith, family, fitness, then finance.
  “When those are misordered, that’s when chaos happens.” — Skylar (58:30)
• Hustle vs. Presence:
  Don’t use “grind” as an excuse to neglect family—balance massive action with intentional, quality time and a robust recharge routine.
• Skylar’s daily routine: Early rising, Bible reading, gym, goal setting—a non-negotiable recharge foundation.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On speed of action:
  “I figure out what doesn’t work much faster because I put so much stuff out there.” — Skylar (00:52)

• On vulnerability:
  “If you don’t fully share, then you'll never fully feel loved, because the people love the mask, not the real you.” — Skylar (35:54)

• On leadership:
  “The number one power killer is a victim mindset... Life happens for me, not to me.” — Skylar (49:40)

• On family/business balance:
  “Business is a rubber ball… you can pick it back up. Family is a glass ball—if you drop it, it can shatter.” — Skylar (59:31)

• On authenticity in company culture:
  “People can sniff out inauthenticity… seeing employees as tools is a poor way to build a great culture.” — Skylar (64:47)

• On content consistency:
  “Strategically put out consistent content. That’s my main aim right now—dedicating time blocks… I believe if I do that, over a period of time, that will produce results.” — Skylar (66:45)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Four CEO Moves: 02:14–09:33
• Rise Up Kings Backstory: 12:09–16:16
• Exceptional Experiences & Transformation: 17:58–25:45
• Marketing Deep Dive: 26:13–28:13
• Authenticity/Vulnerability: 29:29–35:54
• Personal Brand vs. Company Brand: 39:11–43:22
• Hire a Team Principle: 43:22–45:07
• Internal Ecosystems: 45:08–47:59
• Leadership Principles: 48:56–54:18
• Addressing “Hustle Culture”: 61:33–64:08
• Biggest Leadership Lesson: 64:47–66:27
• Who Wins in 2026?: 66:27–67:25

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Final Thoughts & Takeaways

• Speed, leverage, simplification, and mastery of marketing are key levers for creators and business builders.
• Growth is rooted in authenticity, transformational focus, and an exceptional audience experience.
• Power and leadership stem from self-mastery, intentional values, and stewarding your influence for good.
• Skylar’s framework (faith-family-fitness-finance) provides a grounded alternative to shallow hustle culture; proper order is essential for sustainable success.
• The winning creator in the coming years will be both strategic and consistent—dedicating focused time to deliberate content creation and authentic growth.

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Connect with Skylar Lewis:

• Instagram: @skylarlewis
• Rise Up Kings: riseupkings.com

Host: Sean Cannell (Think Media) — Your guide to building a profitable YouTube channel with purpose and authenticity.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

I figure out what doesn't work much faster because I put so much stuff out there.

[A]

Skylar Lewis, he's the founder of Rise Up Kings and he's launched one of the fastest growing Christian men's movements in the US he's built multiple multimillion dollar companies.

[B]

If you want to grow quickly, execute quick and do a lot of that specific thing, how do we create a video that leaves them feeling different or really deeply affected? If you don't fully share, then you'll never fully feel loved because the people love the mask, not the real you.

[A]

So this is very powerful. Maybe before you just press record and put it out there, that might just be a good first step. If you're a business owner or a content creator, it's really easy to get stuck in the grind, editing all your own videos, running daily operations, all the to do lists, and it's hard to elevate to another level. You're working in your business, not on your business. And so we're going to get right into some tactics that you can implement immediately to have more of a CEO mindset for your YouTube channel, your online business and what you're building. But we're also going to unpack some higher level leadership ideas and some specific lessons he's learned for brand building, marketing. And so it's going to be a power packed conversation. Definitely stick around for the whole thing. Skylar, welcome to the show.

[B]

Yeah, excited to be here.

[A]

So I want to go 0 to 100 real quick because you wrote the book the Two Day CEO. You know, we have a framework where we talk about from someone just starting as a creator, punching fear in the face and eventually becoming a creator CEO that you got to level up eventually higher or think bigger. You got to have systems. So what are like four immediate moves for someone? Like taking on a higher level CEO mindset. I wrote them down. I'll give them to you. Massive action was the first one. What do you mean by that?

[B]

Yeah, I'm a big, massive action taker, so. Meaning there are. There are people that. That end up executing slowly, and then there's people that move quickly through execution. So I'm a massive action guy. Meaning I get an idea, and then I'll go. I'll go implement it right away. So I think what. What I've seen. I've seen that some of the best creators is they move quick.

[A]

You got.

[B]

You got the slow walkers, and you got the fast walkers, right? So if you want to grow quickly, move quick, execute quick, and do a lot of that specific thing, I've seen more creators talking about putting out a lot more social content versus just maybe one video a week. And I know you probably have your philosophy around that, and massive action inside of creation, I think, just allows you to iterate quicker. And that's how I've been able to scale my businesses a lot faster, is through iteration. I figure out what doesn't work much faster because I put so much stuff out there.

[A]

So do you see two different mindsets in that? Like, maybe the one mindset is somebody that's like, okay, I'm gonna do that maybe. Maybe in eight days or, you know, maybe next month that could fit on my calendar. Does massive action, like, how fast is fast?

[B]

Are you familiar with the law, the Parkinson's law? Parkinson's law states that work expands to the time available for its completion. So what ends up happening is, yeah, if you give yourself a month to do something, you'll end up doing it in the last couple days anyway. So I tend to give myself very short timeframes. As an example, I'm launching a new YouTube channel. And so I gave myself, like, two weeks to fully build out and launch the entire thing versus a month. And so my goal is I want to have shorter deadlines because I end up producing a lot more results, which is how I'm able to run multiple businesses and do those things. Because I'm creating short deadlines, and so it looks like I'm producing. I end up producing a lot more in a lot of areas because of those shorter deadlines.

[A]

That's genius. Okay, so number one, massive action. Number two, leverage. What does that mean?

[B]

Yeah, so I always. When I'm starting something new and I've had a lot of startups. One of my first things I do is I get clear on who my first employee is going to be, who my first hire is going to be. So leverage, meaning if I'm doing all the work, it's I'm not getting multiplication type effort, so I'm able. So many, I'd say creators or even, even solopreneurs, they're stuck doing 20, 30, $40 an hour work. And so when I'm coaching people, I want them to get past that mark as soon. And so if their vision is to be making $100 an hour, we have to cut out that $20 an hour work, whether it be doing your bookkeeping or whatever it may be, and hire somebody, whether it's an outsourced assistant VA or a team member to support you on all those administrative tasks that are taking up your time. So I tend to do that a lot faster. I'll stretch myself thin financially to get that first hire so I can go work on all the high leverage things. So I'll leverage a team member so I can go work on high leverage tasks, high value tasks like what I'm the best at. And for creators, what you're the best at is probably creating content.

[A]

What is the limiting belief for the individual that says I can't afford to.

[B]

Hire yet for that person it might may be an inexperience around business because the way you truly grow businesses is through, is through building a team. Like that's, that's the key. That really is the key. So, so there's a lack of experience there, I would say. And maybe I think might be a fear, it's more of maybe not a limiting belief. It could be, but I would say the fear, the fear that if I hire somebody I'm not going to be able to afford, afford them long term. So it's the, it's not having faith, fear versus faith. It's not having faith that they'll be able to go produce the result to be able to pay this, this person. However, what I found is when people's backs are against the wall, they usually find a way like that's where we turn on, is where when we feel that pressure, we turn on and we're going to find a way to get that person paid and to make sure we can afford them. And so we end up. I remember my first, one of my first houses, I had got a house that was a little bit too expensive and so it forced me to have to make more money. So like I have My nephew Jacob, great guy. And he, if you're watching this Jacob, I love you, but like he's not moving out of the house, his mom's house. And so what I found though is if he gets his own spot and more expenses, he'll end up making more money. That's usually what happens. But if he purposely keeps all of expenses artificially low, there's not a need to make more money or to build anything big. And so I think it's okay to start to have some expenses. Just be thoughtful about it.

[A]

So number three is simplify to scale. What does that mean?

[B]

Yeah, simplify to scale. So we teach, so we teach a lot of entrepreneurs how to scale businesses, whether it's a couple hundred thousand dollars business or a $50 million business. And so one of those key processes is simplifying the process to be able to scale. So what happens is there are so many processes that are operating within a business, but most of them are fairly complex. And so they're not easy to duplicate. So how do you, what is scaling? Scaling is simplifying something. It's replication, it's duplication. So that's what scaling is, is duplication. So how do I duplicate more things in my business so that I don't have to be doing all of them? Well, we have to simplify it so a VA or a $20 an hour employee can actually be able to do those things. And so what we've done is we've, we always teach, hey, we gotta find that complex process and find a way, whether it's a phone script, like how do we script your conversation that you have with your, your clients, Script it and then start to see how you could simplify it so someone else could duplicate it. And that really is scaling. Like McDonald's, they got masterful at finding a way to simplify the process for making a hamburger, making fries. All of their processes are simplified. How they shut down the restaurant. It's a checklist. The lights, turn off the lights, do this, turn off the oven here. Everything's simplified so that a, so that a 22 year old kid could run an entire multimillion dollar restaurant. So I always ask people, can a 22 year old, can a 22 year old run your business? If not, then we got some opportunities to simplify things.

[A]

Genius. And then the fourth one, before we dive into a little bit of your story and principles you wrote down for building brands, marketing, scaling, social, all that stuff. Excited to talk about that. But this kind of tees it up. The fourth one for A creator to move from just creating. But CEO mindset is really mastering marketing. Expound on that.

[B]

Yeah. So when I started one of my first businesses, I realized that finding a way to get my product out to more people was the number one thing that I needed to learn how to do or else I wasn't going to be able to get it out there. And so what I did ever since I like marketing for me as a kid was handing out business cars to go do lawn mowing. Started there. And so that, that was marketing. Door to door, door to door marketing. And so I eventually got to a place where we launched a carpet cleaning company. I realized door to door flyers worked. I did that there when I was real young. But I realized that Internet marketing was a way to scale and so I wanted to scale marketing. And so I got, I went and spent a couple months, hours each day learning how to do SEO and marketing and got so good at SEO that we Google SEO, organic SEO that we eventually blew up a carpet cleaning company. And we're the largest in the entire town. When I was like 23 years old just but that one skill of learning marketing, I just dedicated time. I would wake up at 5am every single day and spend two hours like studying it and practicing it. So I believe that if anybody really desires to grow a business, what's great now is I can go into almost any business and scale it like because I understand the core concepts of marketing. And so I think it's one of the best skills a human being can learn is how to market something that's powerful.

[A]

I think actually it's one of the missing skills for a lot of content creators. Now they would, you would assume that in a way social media is marketing, but they really are two different things. In a sense there's overlap on social. If you're good at content, you're good at storytelling, you're good at hooking. But marketing principles, whether that's persuasion, whether it's classic books like the 21 immutable laws of Marketing, the book positioning, the concept of how marketing and branding work together, it is kind of a different thing that every single person listening to this business owner or content creator should lean in and really invest some time into.

[B]

I think it's good because as you're building content, you'll be much more thoughtful with how you, how you just, just the copy that you're writing inside of it. Like you'll, you'll have a marketer's mindset when you're building it. And so that's why? Like, Alex Hermosi, I believe, has blown up. So he's put out a ton of content, but, man, he's a marketer at his core, so everything's angled towards marketing. And so he just. It just allows him to scale much faster. And not only to scale by having a bunch of people follow him and watch him, but also converting those people to clients.

[A]

Yeah, 100%. Well, what. Inspired. Because I want to hear, like, how you built this, but so listeners know. Rise Up Kings.

[B]

What.

[A]

What is it? When did it start? And what's the story behind that?

[B]

Yeah, so Rise Up Kings is basically just a men's personal development organization for. For Christians. And so there's a lot of organizations that are in personal development, a lot of people that do personal development. We're just geared towards Christians. And so were the number one Christian personal development company organization in the country. And we got there, like five. It's been five and a half years since we started scaling and growing that. And it all started. It really started from my own struggle. Like, growing up, I had a. I saw my mom, who loved God, and then I saw how. How much challenge she had with life, whether she had alcohol addiction and broken relationships. And so I kind of modeled that as I grew up. I loved God and live Jesus, but I was. Man, I was just living kind of a crazy lifestyle of partying. And eventually I had a lot of insecurity. I just struggled in relationships, struggled with even lust. And so I was. I was just a little lost. And so I. I went on a journey of personal growth, and it was very impactful for me. I uncovered, healed a lot of trauma, worked through a lot of things, shifted core mindsets, went through some of the top personal development organizations in the country, uh, ended up running one of them, and just fell in love with. I ran one of the largest ones, actually, and fell in love with this. However, it was just missing a key aspect, which I believe is faith. They kind of stripped it out. Call it, you know, other things, but.

[A]

But.

[B]

But it transformed my life. And so I had a lot of growth from that. And so I. I just always felt called to be in that space. And so right before COVID hit, yeah, I had the. I had the. The calling and said, you know what? I want to go transform people's lives. I want to go impact people, because I had built a really successful carpet cleaning and restoration company. We had scaled it to the point where I was working two days a week in the business. I was living in California, and so I built a leadership Team, I mean, really systemized the entire thing. And then, and then, and then basically I. Where there's a verse where there is no vision, the people perish. And we talked about that before. And so basically I'm like, hey, I don't have a vision. I've lost the vision. I've lost excitement for where I want to go. And then boom, that, that came on to me and said, you know what? It's time to go impact people and actually like make a big difference. Like I, I desire. I. I love transfer personal transformation. And so decided to launch Rise Up Kings. I gave myself two months to launch it. Got the idea in November of 2019 and then launched it January of 2020. You know what happened right after that?

[A]

It's crazy.

[B]

Yeah. So bad timing and I guess maybe good timing. So launched it. And Covid hit two months after. I'm like, here we go. I'm going big. Put on the first event. Took a huge risk. Didn't have like, I had nothing in place. And that's part of the massive action. I'm like, hey, I got the idea. So I gave myself two months to launch an entire three day event. I had no, I limited. I had never spoken for more than two hours yet. I'm putting on a three day event. I didn't have the coaches, didn't have the location. I had nothing for it. And just like, hey, I'm going to go find a way to do this in two months, put it on, had an epic event. Epic, epic, epic event. And then I'm like, hey, I'm going all in on this. And then Covid hit and so we paused.

[A]

So if you say, when you think about, you launched it, what was the minimum viable product you made? Like, essentially, I've heard it said that your income is directly correlated to the amount of buy buttons you have on your website. And a lot of people sometimes go, I don't have any buy buttons. I don't even have a website. You know, like, they might like, they're. There's putting an offer together. Putting something together. Was that just one event? Was the idea that I'm going to do one event and I'm going to sell tickets to it? And that's how it started.

[B]

No, it wasn't one event. But I was curious if it would actually work. I wasn't 100 sure.

[A]

Was it gonna be a coaching program? Like, what was your initial? Because then now you have Rise Up Queens.

[B]

Yeah. You have all that, you know, transformed.

[A]

It is transformed. You have podcasts and all this stuff, but, like, minimum viable product. What was. What were you doing for two months to get off the ground?

[B]

Really, it was just an event. It was put on. It was to put on. And that's one of my. I wrote down kind of the seven things that were transformational that led to us being one of the. Being the largest. The number one thing was creating an exceptional experience for our customers. So my goal was that I wanted to wow them. I wanted to do an event that was so transformational and so impactful that, like, their life would forever be different. And then that would. The referrals that would come from that would. Would be the deal break, would be the. Would be the thing that would propel it. And so, yeah, my goal was, how do I. How do I wow? And I feel like people miss this a lot. They're not wowing their customers. If they have a product or a service, they might do a good job. But exceptional experience has been, like, the underlying theme of my companies. And so my goal. What does that mean? It means providing an experience that is like, above and beyond what other people are doing, where they actually are like, wow, that was so good. And to do that, you have to go above and beyond meaning. So being on time isn't above and beyond. Delivering on time isn't above and beyond. Like, our customers expect so much now. Like, you have to do something that's out of the ordinary. And so for us, like, we loaded them up in vans, we drove to the cemetery, we blindfold, and we're doing all this crazy stuff that they did not expect at all. We're driving them all around Southern California.

[A]

What did you do at the cemetery?

[B]

We bare. No, no, no. We have a really cool experience we.

[A]

Do at the cemetery.

[B]

We still do it actually, even. Even though we're almost 100. 100 events in just on the men's side. So we. We. So what I would have people question is, hey, what could I do that would wow my customer? Is. It's. Is it sent? Like, we sent them all boxes before. We send boxes before the event. We send packages before they come. We send. During. During the event. We have, like, the best swag we could possibly find. We give everybody energy drinks and bars. We. I'm thinking, like, at every single touch point, how do we wow them during this experience? And literally, people are like, hey, this is the most incredible experience I've ever done in my life and the most impactful besides having a kid. And so I would just say, I don't know what that looks like for people listening to this, but how do you create an exceptional experience for people that where you will be on their mind after Afterwards?

[A]

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[B]

But here's the thing.

[A]

Supplies are limited on this free book promotion. So if you want to grab this offer, go to yt secrets.com right now and just place your order covering shipping and I'll get this book in the mail to you right away. So for the digital creator, every interaction with you online though is still a touch point. And if you eventually build a text message list that's a touch point. When they get a text from you, images that they might see, their emails is a touchpoint. Every video they watch community tab posts. The experience they have with your content that might lead to in person eventually if they jump online with you. There's a way to apply this in every area. And that's very inspiring. I'm excited to hear all seven of these because again, you've built the number one Christian personal development brand in the US in five years. And so this is. We gotta get all of these. Number one is experience. What's the next one?

[B]

The next one that I wrote down as I was processing through this is create transformation, not just transfer knowledge.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So what we did at our. When we were first developing this, we were getting creative on how we could leave them different. Leave them different. So whether that. So what we did is we created it like our events are designed off of experiences, not someone teaching from the stage. Nothing wrong with teaching from the stage, but I want to leave them transformed. And so this can be done online. Like, how do we create a video that leaves them feeling different or really deeply affected from that video? And again, you don't have to. And if you can leave a customer feeling transformed or like you've bettered their life, they're going to remember you. And so we did that really well and have done that really well. Is basic. My, my. I'm always trying to create transformation, not transfer knowledge. So that's like just a core part of when we build something. Yeah, I don't want. I don't want to just transfer knowledge. I want to find a way to create an experience. And so, like, I know you run events and you had a pretty epic event. And so it's like, what would be a way to, like, create a. Right. Create a transformation in the room, like, to just shift people. And so that's what I'm. That's where my mind's always going.

[A]

Yeah. I think about people. If we just sit in chairs and we stare at a speaker.

[B]

I.

[A]

Like, in some workshop environments, you break people into teams. You've got maybe little paper whiteboards everywhere, some colored pens. You know, you start brainstorming, you start dreaming. If I get on your social media, there's a circle of guys, and there's almost like a coach in the middle yelling at them.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What are some of the things you do?

[B]

Yeah. So, okay, one of those things that we do, we go to the cemetery and they write their eulogy. So they write what? Like, they write their eulogy on and they share it with the entire group. And so it's a very powerful experience that emotionally touches them and gives them a new vision for their future. And so that's a powerful experience that we do. Another one is we have a. We have physical. We have a mud pit. And so the guys get in there in the mud pit. Everything that we do represents something. So the mud pit is representing the struggle that they're going through in their life as they're crawling through it and, like, how they're going to push through that when they get back. And so there's these different metaphors, and we have over 12 different, like, really powerful experiences through the entire event that all have metaphors. And my goal is each one slowly or dramatically at a soul level, either heals them, shifts them into a new level of hope, builds their character, builds their strength in some form or fashion. It's transforming. Then we have another event where they're looking into each other's eyes and they're. After the event, there's a level of affirmation that happens. And so I've. What I found is most men, they don't. They haven't had another man look at them in the eyes and affirm them. And so these guys have seen each other go through a really difficult three days. And so there's a level of really powerful affirmation that happens. And it's, it's, it's almost a spiritual level, like, eye to eye. When you're seeing another human being, there's just something special about. And so that leaves a mark on them. So a lot. We have a ton. I don't usually give. Give them all away, but that was, that was a couple of the ones that we do to just make an impact and, and a simple one for anybody that ever desires to run events. There may be people on this, listening to this. They're like, hey, I'd love to. I want, I want to build this up so I can maybe go put on an event someday. Simple ways are gathering people into small groups and then having discussions or having them, like, creating some discussion. It brings the energy up in the room and is really, it's. It's very impactful when you get other people sharing. But I would guide the discussions with guided questions. Not just, hey, what are your takeaways? But actually have some guided specific questions that they all answer in a group setting. So, yeah, turn it into a little bit more of a workshop feel, if possible.

[A]

That's powerful. And I do think this, you know, you got to get creative, but this stuff needs to happen in the creator economy. That's why we do challenges and we have people taking action at home and the power of a challenge is people could be in a group and doing action at home and maybe sharing it on social media. It's an activation at a higher level than just taking notes. And so number one's experience. Number two is transformation. What's number three?

[B]

Number three is double down on marketing. We talked about marketing earlier, but what I teach is once you find a vein that actually works marketing wise, like go double down on it. A lot of people diversify too early. That's why I think it's important. Like even, even just picking a specific platform and going all out on that platform. And so what we've done, like what I did with Superior Restoration, our carpet cleaning restoration company is. Once I figured out that Google worked well, I, I dumped, I tripled down, quadrupled down on it. Meaning I continued. I started out with a small budget of marketing, but I, and if I found out that it could generate leads at the right cost per acquisition, then I would, I just started, I added more and more. I like maxed it out to where we weren't able to spend any more money on it. So I think people diversify too soon. Like if a channel is working, go all out on it totally and then start diversifying. So, so marketing is just a. So I think for anybody that's looking to build a brand, getting clear on what that, what the channel is going to be.

[A]

Yeah, I think people split their focus way too soon when it comes to thinking that marketing is being on every platform. I need to have my Facebook page, I need to have my Instagram. Any platform is a full time job and most people don't even have full time hours to invest in one platform, let alone spread themselves across. A lot of them. I mean any, the highest level content creators right now have dedicated individuals for each platform. So just reveals how deep you could go like to maximize YouTube or maximize Instagram. It could even be multiple staff. You know, ultimately there's opportunity for the person that's just starting. It is fascinating you're saying that. I was curious. So when you said Google did you eventually get. You're doing paid ads on Google and then tripling down on that for the carpet cleaning business?

[B]

Yep. Yeah, we were spending about, yeah, significant. We were generating about almost $4 million a year in revenue from our. Just the Google Ads.

[A]

That's, that's incredible. And then how has what marketing channels worked for growing the Rise Up Kings brand?

[B]

Yeah, so we started out with that first event and it was super impactful. So we started to get by the way, my first it was funny. Sometimes when you're launching something new, you don't know exactly how it's going to work out. So the buddy that I had that I was like, dude, this guy's a no brainer. He's a shoe in. He's going to be like, totally in for this event. Call him up. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll do it, I'll do it. So time comes around like, hey, it's gonna be 500 bucks. He's like, oh, man.

[A]

Yeah, I don't.

[B]

I'll get back to you on that. I'm like, dude, I thought you said you were in. I'm like, come on, man. And so I struggled. Like, I literally got all. We had 11 people that first event. I got them all in within the last, like two and a half weeks of the, of the deal. So sometimes, like, getting something off the ground is a grind and is like, I had to put in a ton of work to get this first event going. But once I did, I was looking for what avenue I would grow it. So what I ended up doing, which was interesting was, and this is one of my other points, which is be real. I ended up just sharing real on social media. So I went on Facebook and Instagram and I shared my story with my challenge with pornography, my challenge with that I. That I had growing up. And I got super real in a post and it ended up like having a huge. A ton of people ended up sharing it, following me. And it was, it didn't go viral, but it was significant. Yeah. So I realized that that resonated with people. There's. There's a lot of fakeness and facades on social media. So I started to just put out a lot of real content on Facebook and I was just, yeah, just incredibly real. Talked about real topics, didn't avoid the hard conversations. And that ended up like bringing the right people to me. And so being real, if you have an. That could look like that's different for everybody. But that's what worked for us, was if we, yeah, if we were struggling with something, we would just share it and people appreciated the realness.

[A]

I want to go back because you said something that was pretty profound. When I'm originally hearing the story, you launched your first event right before COVID so the beginning of 2020. And in my mind I was like, and you just showed up and you just crushed it and 10,000 people were there. But what you just said is, you.

[B]

Said you had 11.

[A]

You had 11 people at the first event. Yes, that's an important part of the story.

[B]

It is an important part.

[A]

Yeah. Do not despise small beginnings. I think a lot of people, you know, they think, oh man, if I was to launch my own event and I've been to others, I could never do that because how am I going to get 500 people in a room? You had 11 people at your first event.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There's somebody listening to this. Like, wait a minute, like I can step out and try that. Like for sure. What are your thoughts about that as far as how many people come to the events now?

[B]

We have, we have usually almost about a thousand people a year. So they're, they're smaller, more intimate events. They're about 30 to. We have an event running right now actually at our headquarters in Dallas. We have 62 people to that at that event. So a little bit more intimate events. More high ticket, high, high ticket, high priced, high priced events. But that first one, I was, I would have been happy with five. And so I, when I launched something new, this is, this is my style is I start small. Like when I launched a carpet cleaning company, I went door to door and passed out flyers. Like I like to start small and build up from that. That's why I love even, even social being, being an influencer for those that desire. Like it's going to be the hockey stick growth that you're looking for. But it could be a small amount of. Right. You might have 100 subscribers, you know, over a period of time. But it's that it's just still putting in the work and building a subscriber by subscriber until eventually you build the momentum. So that's how I've built all my companies. So I'm not the startup guy that gets millions of dollars invested. It's always bootstrapped and scaled and I've done, I mean we can, we've built multiple $10 million companies in like four years. Just always bootstrapping it. So for those people that don't think they have the resources. Yeah. You can totally scale companies all day long if you. But it does require massive action. Meaning I was passing out door to door flyers eight hours a day. Yeah. To get it going. So it's like I will massive action at a small level to get this thing moving.

[A]

That's great. So we're on number four. Number three was double down on marketing is be real number four.

[B]

Be real was number four. Yep.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And that was clear authenticity in the communication. Don't act like somebody that you're not. There was A. There used to be this. There was this other influencer, and I thought I had to be like him to. And match his style to be able to produce results. So I tried it at different times and it was ineffective. And so what I realized, I just gotta, like, be true to myself. So if I have a certain style, I'm gonna double down on my style. Yeah, Yeah.

[A]

I think there's an interesting invitation to listeners to also think, what would a Bereal post be like for you? You got very vulnerable with something that was from childhood, something that, you know, a lot of us would have fear of putting ourselves out there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I think you're listening to this, though. What was waiting for you on the other side of if you were real and not just pretending you had it all together? I think there's also something about. What do you think about this? I've heard the quote. It is important, though, that you should share your scars, maybe not your open wounds, because sometimes being real isn't necessarily just like venting in an unhealed.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Toxic place, destroying everything about, like the present absolute crazy situation you're in. But if there's a level of. And of course, we're all on a journey, it's not about perfection. But a lot of us, I think there's another level of growth or breakthrough or especially connection or depth with people. If we would look inward and think about, man, what's really going on that we could share.

[B]

That's good. Yeah. I think what we talk about is responsible sharing. Being thoughtful with how you're sharing and why you're sharing it is what we call responsible sharing. So not sharing it to someone that's gonna go abuse that conversation that you're about to have with them. So being thoughtful with who you're shar. Sharing it with.

[A]

But you shared it with the whole Internet.

[B]

I did, I did. Because I. I believed it would impact people. Yeah. And I think the aim underneath these things also matter if you're sharing to get likes primarily. But if you. If you genuinely want to impact people, then sharing vulnerably from that aim is much more effective. Got it. If you have something you could share that you think would benefit somebody else. Right. That could be going through a struggle. And so that. That was really important. I had to check in with my aim, my underlying aim and my intention. So I think sharing responsibly, but also, like you mentioned, if you're not comfortable sharing in a public setting like that, which it may or may not be the right place, practice being. Taking off the mask with people that you care about, there may be a conversation that you're hiding right now. People are listening to this that are like, hey, I'm dealing with something, but I'm not gonna tell anybody about it. Like, take off the mask, practice being authentic, and just have a hard conversation with. With somebody. If you're dealing with something, like, share with a buddy, share with your mom, your dad, whatever it may be, because doing life alone is very lonely, and it's. It's not the way life was designed. We have a question on our intake. When people come to our event, and the question is, do you feel like anybody truly knows you? And 75% of the people say no.

[A]

Doesn't surprise me.

[B]

It's because they don't ever fully open up to anybody. So it's like, yeah, how could they know me? I'm not telling people about these suicidal thoughts or this fear or this anger or this addiction that I have. Like, I'm not telling. So you'll never fully be known. And the challenge with that is if you're. If you don't fully share, then you'll never fully feel loved, because the people love the mask, not the real you. So that's the challenge with not taking the mask off is you'll never be able to actually feel loved. And you'll feel lonely even though you're surrounded by people. And so it's. When you can be authentic with people, you'll get a chance to actually feel what true love feels like. Because it's like, hey, yeah, you say you love me, but you don't know the real me. Like, I haven't told you the real me. So.

[A]

Too deep. Incredibly profound. I didn't know where he could get that deep. Right in the middle of the podcast. But this is very powerful. And I think that's an interesting framework too, where maybe before you just press record and put it out there, that might just be a good first step of. Because then you, as communicators, sometimes it's not to process your ideas.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so even if you maybe felt comfortable, you process it with a person, you get feedback they give you. You've practiced kind of telling the story and whatnot. Then it turns into a social media post, and maybe they give you some red flags, like, bro, you probably shouldn't post that yet. You're still kind of. Or maybe like, you've articulated it. That's a great first step. Practice vulnerable sharing in person. And then your next vulnerable post or YouTube video on social media might be a breakthrough. Moment for not just vanity metrics, for the fact that it can impact people and change lives. So that's number four is be real. What's number five?

[B]

Number five is build a personal brand. So that was something, I'm sure you talk, I'm sure you talked about that. I probably had many conversations. But for me that was, that was new. I didn't like self promotion or what I thought was self promotion or promoting myself. But what I realized that was that a personal brand was going to be very effective for my growth. Because what I've realized more and more is a personal brand has the ability to, has the longest lasting effects. So if I'm going to build any kind of company, and so what I've realized is as I build an organization, I can build the organization's brand. Yes. But if I build my personal brand and then there's organizations that I build, that my personal brand will give that organization credibility. I think of like Andy Frisella, right. And the brands he's built. And so, so it's what comes first, the chicken or the egg? Is it the per. Is it the, the business brand that boosts your personal brand or is it the personal brand that you build and then those eventually pull up the business brands. Right. And, and I'm curious your take on that. But I think either way, whether you're building a business brand or a personal brand, you should always be also building your personal brand. Because down the road, as social media continues to grow, like when I go research somebody, I look up their Instagram or their YouTube. So if I see, I know one of the most profound Christian business mentors in the country, but he's got like 5,000 followers and it looks like he has no influence.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I look at it, I'm like, I would never talk to this guy, but then he's the most epic, influential, like guy in the country. He's a little older.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So it's so yeah, I really believe personal brand. So I'm all out on the personal brand right now, especially now. So I'm going all out to make sure that I build this brand because there's just something about that social credibility and social proof that is hard to beat. It's really hard to beat.

[A]

Hey, we're about to get back into the podcast in just a second, but I have a question for you. Do you want to grow your personal brand this year? Do you need more leads and sales in your business? If the answer is yes, then right now is the best time to go all in on YouTube. Today's podcast is brought to you by ThinkMasterclass.com, where you can get on demand access to a one hour deep dive training revealing how to start and grow a profitable YouTube channel. This year, for a limited time you can get access to this on demand class entirely for free. Where you will learn the three biggest mistakes that people make when starting a YouTube channel. The new rules and changes that have been happening on YouTube and how you can use them to create an unfair advantage. And the exact strategy we use at Think Media to generate over 350,000 organic views every single day. The data is clear. 70% of viewers claim that YouTube makes them more aware of new brands. So don't wait any longer to start growing your brand and business with YouTube. Just go to thinkmasterclass.com to get access to this. No fluff, highly tactical, free on demand training. That's think masterclass.com who has more followers? Rise Up Kings or you? But Rise Up Kings has on Instagram has grown to 107,000 followers at this moment. Yeah, you're at 47,000 at in 2020.

[B]

Which started first it was my personal brand.

[A]

You started even before launching the Rise of Kings.

[B]

Even before that one's been a grind. It's been a grind. Well, we've posted a lot of content. We didn't have the best strategies. Most of our what happened was how we ended up growing Rise Up Kings. We did a lot of personal organic reach, but it was paid ads. I do paid ads really well. So we did it with superior restoration. I've done it with other companies and so when I launched Rise Up Kings I knew the path. The path, the fastest path for me to growth was going to be paid ads. Totally because I could turn it on like that and roll with it. So that first year right. We had. We were able to be positive on our. We were in the black for revenue wise.

[A]

And were you running paid ads on meta Meta for Facebook and Instagram for Rise of Kings accounts. So then some followers were also earned.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

As like people are seeing the ads and they're following the account. Plus you're filling your events.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

And you aren't running paid ads on your personal.

[B]

We started doing that now. We just started that. So again we were masterful with paid ads and we weren't clear on. No we rocked it with Rise of Kings. I just have in the last two years became very clear. The personal brand is so it's kind.

[A]

Of like a more you were always doing it. But the epiphany as you're saying, it's both. So chicken or the egg? You've been doing both. But an epiphany for you, really, or clarity for you is. But no personal brand.

[B]

It's everything. I will spend a lot of money to get my personal brand going. Like, I have to get that personal brand as fast as humanly possible. Because what's happening, I'll go spend over a million dollars a year in ads. But then if they look up Skylar Lewis and I only have 50,000 followers, it works, that's fine. But when they look me up and I have a million followers, it's a whole different social proof. So like that one thing is multiplication across the board. So it's really important for me to get my personal brand rocking.

[A]

Okay, number six, we got seven of these and then we got a few other high hot button things to talk about. But what's number six?

[B]

We talked about it earlier. We don't have to spend a ton of time on it. It's hire a team. Okay. Yeah. I've always, I've always, I have this, this, this process that I, I teach. And it is, when you get started building a company, you want to always have a number two. So you want to have always have a number two. So what does that look like in the beginning when you're just launching a company, your number two is an assistant, right? It's an assistant. They're handling. They're the catch all. Yeah. So ideally a number two that's operationally focused because you're usually the visionary, right? Almost everybody that's going to be listening to us, they're, they're a visionary. They have a vision for where they want to take things. So the number two's gotta be this operationally focused assistant that can help handle the calendar, the details, maybe a little bit of accounting some. I mean, they're helping with the details, but then as the business grows, that person you might need like an office manager or an operations manager or a general manager. And then eventually as the business gets, you know, past a certain million dollar threshold, 5, 5, 6, 7, $8 million, it's a COO or VP of operations. So it's this, it's this integrator operational role that's like this number two to you, the, that as you're making content, as you're building the business, this catch all person is like high capacity and handling a ton of different things for you. So I mean, we work with some very high level business owners and whether they're small or big, I always Go in. If I'm coaching them, I say, hey, who's your number two? Like, tell me about your number two. What's their capacity? Are they a player? How's their cultural fit? Like, I want to know who this number two is. Because the number two is such a key person that can take on things and help. Help scale. So it's a really important. You can call it. You can call it your replacement. Like, as you scale different positions that roles, you're replacing that role each time. But a number two is a big deal. So, yeah, it's great.

[A]

And then what's number seven?

[B]

Build an ecosystem. So what we've done really well at Rise of Kings is we built a pretty epic, epic ecosystem. One of the best out there.

[A]

Defined ecosystem.

[B]

Yeah, meaning a. Okay. So we built our, like an internal ecosystem. So what happens? They come through an event. Okay. And then we launch them into a mastermind. And inside of that mastermind we have an app. And inside of that app we have. We have a whole chat community built in this custom app that we built. So they're all communicating within this chat system. So it's our own proprietary process versus them being, like, in a Facebook group. We have all of our videos inside this app. We have all of. We have a map that shows where everyone's at. We have a process where they're tracking their faith, family, fitness, and finances every single day. So do they read the Bible each day? Are they investing in their marriage every day? Are they working out every day? Are they learning something new every day? Not just finance, but like, finance can mean anything related to professional development. So they're tracking and they have the points. There's a whole leaderboard to see how many. Who's got the most points inside of the app. They're competing with each other. So we built this really powerful ecosystem where it's almost like a closed loop system where they can get a lot of what they need inside this system. And then we have the software backing it up and kind of creating that. Yeah, creating that ecosystem. So meaning we have different coaching programs that are offered in the ecosystem. We have a lot of services where people can come, they can join, and they can stay. They can stay in that ecosystem and thrive in that system. And so for people listening to this, yeah, it's really important. Like, as you start to have your. Your followers and people that are buying into what you're doing, how do you. How do you build an ecosystem that will keep what will be sticky and keep them coming back versus just a, you know, a notification on YouTube that another video came in.

[A]

Yeah, that's the LTV question too. Because a lot of times we have just a dead end for the customer journey.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And so lifetime value. Also, I am curious cause your app is incredible. You were like demoing it to me. You're showing me everything. How much does your app cost?

[B]

That one multiple six figures. But the first version I built was a web app that cost about. You can get them built for 15, 20 grand for a legit web app. And so web apps are great because you get to test the functionality. So we tested it for a year and kept tweaking because to edit a web app is so much easier than editing a native app. It takes us a month to edit our native app. But I could go call the designer, say, hey, change the text on here and it's done in a day. Change it, edit this, switch this out. And so I. We were able to iterate for like almost. It was about two years and got our perfect version and then we went and built our native app.

[A]

That's killer. And so experience transformation. Double down on marketing. Be real. Build a personal brand, Hire a team ecosystem. Seven power principles. Some maybe a little bit harder for the solo creator to translate to YouTube, but all of them on the vision we could have to take things to another level. I do want to actually hear a little bit on leadership because, you know, people come to this channel for YouTube, but at the core of anything, how you lead yourself, how you lead others, how you rise up. You speak a lot about weak men versus strong men. You also now have rise up queens. So your brand is helping everybody. But how do you think leadership applies in the creator space? Like, what does that mean to you? What do we need as far as leadership or people rising up and being leaders, especially as content creators?

[B]

The definition of power. I'll talk about power for a moment. The actual definition of power is the ability to influence the people and the circumstances around you. So the ability to influence the people and the circumstances around you. So power kind of gets a bad rep, but power is 100% necessary to produce results. Like, you have to have power to produce. As a Christian, I believe my power comes from God. But whatever you believe, power is necessary. And so what does that look like? The more you increase in your power, the more you have the ability to influence people and the more you have the ability to influence entire circumstances. What does that mean? It means like, who's the most powerful person in the world right now?

[A]

Donald Trump.

[B]

Yep. So it's Trump So he's like the most powerful. Whether people agree with him or not, he's got a ton of power. He could say something and shift world circumstances. True. You know, so it's like that's the ultimate power or besides God. And so what happens is we want to, we want to continuously have a level of self leadership that helps us step into a place of power where we produce results. And I would say the number one power killer is a victim mindset. So a victim mindset is the belief that life is happening to you versus for you. So if people listen to this, could, if they could, a lot of people logically or intellectually believe this, but we got to ingrain this really deep because so this is the saying that we want to adapt is life happens for me, not to me. And so if we believe that to be true, life's always happening for me. We won't be a victim to life. And so I've seen the people that struggle or the, the, the people that have the largest businesses are people that believe that they, that they are happening to life. Life's not happening to them. They're like, no, I'm happening to life. I bring the results. I'm, I bring responsibility. Like, I'm responsible for my results. And it's not the economy, it's not the platforms changing their algorithms. It's not all this stuff out there. Like, no, no, no, I'm the powerful person. I'm producing the results. And so I think that level of self leadership, of not being a victim to life and by. So victimhood zaps, it totally zaps people's power. And so what's the antidote to victimhood is responsibility. It's when you realize you have responsibility for your results and you actually have the power to change those results. So a couple things around leadership and again, leading well, I say the number one thing you can do to lead well is lead yourself. Well, what does that mean? Follow your word. So if you commit to something like follow through with it, I'd say the, the, the greatest thing that could hurt somebody's self esteem. So what is self esteem? It's how you esteem yourself. So it's how you esteem yourself. So do you look up to yourself or do you have, do you internally, you know that you break your word to yourself? And so the more you can keep your word, it builds self confidence which will show up in the way that you lead people. So those, those two things. And the third thing I would probably say is your aim and why you would want to be A great leader? Are you a inward focus leader or an outward focus leader? Can people tell that you are about, about yourself or can they tell that you have a genuine care for other people? And that's how I've been able to build some like world class teams, like my team at Ruck. I mean we have ex NFL players, green berets, special forces guys. Like we have some of the most world class people. I don't know, still don't know how we, we got them the most world class coaches and people. Epic team. And I wonder like how did I do that and how did God do that? It's, it's I, they know that I care about them, they know that like I'm in it for them. And they're. When people can sniff that you're more in it for the money or in it for the results or the fame, then they're going to, they're going to push back and they're not going to have a level of loyalty towards you. And that's the way I ran my first business. By the way. Our turnover was ridiculously high. And the restoration company, it's probably like 50% turnover now. It's like nobody ever quits Rise Up Kings. And so yeah, I'd say those three things could support someone on their leadership. They got to be able to lead themselves. Well, if you can't wake up on time, snooze button by the way, is the devil. For those people that still use a snooze button, there's a way to turn it off on the iPhone. You can actually shut it off, override it. Yeah, yeah. If you click the little alarm, you can choose whether or not you snooze. You can turn the snooze option off. So have the snooze option off strong. So you don't press snooze because it's a. You're breaking your word. If you're like, hey, I'm wake up at 6. But then you snooze till 6:15, you just broke your word. So it's like, yeah. So anyway, so the. Yeah. Our word to ourselves is a game. So especially for solopreneurs or creators, we have to have confidence in our own ability to stick with our word and do what we say we're going to do. So like if you commit to creating content that, that week.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then you don't create it. That hurt that, that negatively affects you, it affects your self esteem. So like we have to start to stick to what we say. We're going to do. And the people that do that, you probably see it, the people that do that, they will produce more results if they know they can put a block of time to create content on their calendar and they actually do it. Yeah, like they're just going to, they're going to be more successful.

[A]

So, yeah, this is the real stuff. And a lot of times we want tactics or hacks or tricks, but your life really starts to shift when you step up to a whole nother level of leadership. Well, Sean, I don't lead anybody. You gotta lead yourself. And that'd be the first. You do lead somebody. Everyone here is a leader. You're leading yourself. How well are you doing that? We gotta turn the snooze button off. I'm curious. You know, you're a very mission driven organization and social media is an interesting place and a lot of people, rightly so, might view social media as a dangerous place. They see social media influencers and there's a lot of bad influences out there. I'm curious, you're a leader of a massive men's movement, and there's a pretty famous male influencer named Andrew Tate, and he promotes things like getting rich, getting women, misogyny, hedonism, multiple girlfriends, multiple wives. And Romanian courts has actually charged him with sex trafficking and multiple victims, yet he's getting millions and millions of views. At one point, he was the most googled man on the Internet.

[B]

I remember that.

[A]

What is your take on maybe how that, how do you, how do you feel about that as a leader of Rise Up Kings and of those that want to build platforms? But he's got, I'd say, a lot of power and he's clearly a leader. What's your take?

[B]

Yeah, he, he's definitely leading people the wrong way. And so the definition of masculinity, what is masculinity? Masculinity was created by God. And so masculinity is a good thing. And so when we get the definition of masculinity wrong, his definition is, is power. Masculinity is how much power you have over other people. And that is absolutely very dangerous. And so you started with power though too.

[A]

So are we talking about two different forms of power?

[B]

No, power in essence, I believe it has the same vein, is in the same vein. Okay, so power in essence is the same. But how that power is used, the aim for that power is different. So when we believe, like I believe my power comes from God, I'm connected to God, like biblically, that's what it says. So that power is to be used to positively influence and help people. So he believes that power, your, your power is in direct. So his aim is to gain as much power as he possibly can. I don't think our aim should be that. I think our aim should, our aim should be focused on developing power, but not, not. Let me, let me reframe this. This is really good, actually. So I haven't compared power to Andrew Tate. So this is where power gets a bad rap. This is so good. This is good. Let's, let's sit here for just a quick minute. Yeah, so let me process this. So power, when used properly, is a good thing. Mother Teresa had power. Very, very, very powerful woman. Like huge impact.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Andrew Tate has power.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Right. So the aim of the power is. Makes all, makes all the difference. The aim, the underlying aim. So if you get somebody that has a self focused aim. Right. You talked about hedonism. If they get a self focused aim, that power will produce chaos in this world. And so the sad part is a lot of men started following him. A lot of young, A lot of guys, a ton of young guys. And they thought that their value was directly related to how physically fit they were, how many girls they could have and get and have sex with and how much money they have. That's how they, that's where they believe they got their value. And so it's a miss. It's a major miss. Because that's not where I believe we get our value from. Are those three things. It's not from those. So. Yeah.

[A]

So how do you reconcile that? Because it's a nice tension.

[B]

Because.

[A]

You, you teach fitness.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And finance, finances too.

[B]

Yep, yep.

[A]

And family, a little bit is different on that one. And then faith is gonna be a little bit different, but like, there's a lot of overlap.

[B]

So I would say the ordering. So the ordering makes all the difference. So we teach something called faith, family, fitness, finance, the fourth four pillars.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So when those are misordered and out of order. Yeah, that's when chaos happens. It's good. So like God's a God of order. And so he, he's got those flipped around where finance or money or power. Right. Is at the top. Yeah, that is, that is at the top. And God is down at the bottom. Family is down below there, like the family unit.

[A]

Y.

[B]

And so, so he's got those flipped. So I believe where we, we can build a healthy culture and is where those four things are properly ordered, where people, they, they live by godly values for people listening to this. Whatever, you know, whatever that may be for them, but they live by godly values. They live by values that are higher than themselves. Yeah. Right. They're, they're, they're, they're not, they're beholden to a higher value system. But then we're family and people and relationships are number two.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Where that's the most important thing. And then our fitness and our health is number three. And finances and wealth and power like that, Those are always below that. And so what happens is when men start to put their financial gain above their wife, that's when we see serious problems. When they put their financial gain. I look at it as this way. You have a, you have a rubber ball and a glass ball. So the rubber ball is business. And what happens when you drop a rubber ball? It bounces. So that, what does that mean? That business? You can always go back and pick up that ball and get back to work. You neglect your family or your kids for too long because you're working. And you just, you, you, you, you, you take your focus off them for too long, that ball drops, that thing can shatter. And there could be irreparable damage to the relationship you have with your kids. So it's important that family is never sacrificed in the pursuit of wealth. Now you can grind it out and there's going to be seasons where you're out of balance. Yep. Right. There's going to be seasons where it's like, no, it's grind time right now. I gotta build the momentum up. But then we got to always make sure we have a lot of intentionality.

[A]

Yeah. Proper order is really clear. Going a little bit deeper on that. One of the most kind of critiqued extremes that people have is this idea of hustle culture. Gary Vaynerchuk went through a massive media storm early on. He's talking about working 12 to 18 hours a day. And lots of articles eventually started being written about it. And he, some, he's kind of balanced his view since then. And so for the entrepreneur, high performance driven individual, you do think about, okay, there's this hustle car, hustle culture thing. But then it seems like there's a pendulum swing in culture where then you might go to the other side where it could be like laziness or apathy. And you do got to hustle. Like, you absolutely have to hustle. If you get to build a business, even if you get to build a family, you got a house, you got to be a parent, you got to hustle.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so how do you reconcile you know, maybe hustle culture versus ambition or godly ambition and the tension of these things.

[B]

I think ambition is a beautiful thing when it's aimed, aimed properly. So you talked about godly ambition. There's some influencers that came out with that are talking about that a lot right now. So if your ambition is aimed properly, I think it could be healthy, but it could still get out of balance. So what I've done is, and this is my philosophy or this is the lie that I broke through, the lie that I used to tell myself was that if I worked really hard, then that would just mean for a period of time I'd have to sacrifice the relationship with my family for a period of time. Like they wouldn't get the best of me because I'm just, I gotta grind it out right now. Yeah, that was a lie. I didn't realize that you could grind and also be incredibly intentional with your family. So what? I switched that belief. And so my true belief is now the harder I work, the more intentional I am with my family. And so it's ingrained. So now as I increase in hours, man, I wake up earlier, I write love notes, I'm getting flowers. Like, I act, my intentionality goes through the roof.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like every moment I'm with my kids, I'm like way more present now. So they're getting a much better version of me. Yeah. When I'm, when I'm, when I'm grinding hard. And so like that's my, that's my belief. So I do. So that's really important. Don't people give themselves an out when they, when they think like, oh no, I'm just grinding right now. Cool. Invest better with your family. Like do a better job now. Like be way more present. And I do believe. Like I would be nice to say, like, oh yeah, business is easy to create success around with just average work. No, sometimes you gotta, you gotta like wake up early at 5:00 and go study and go learn and go master a skill set and like grind it out. So I do believe in the grind phase, but I also believe in the recharge phase. So how you recharge is really important or you'll burn out. Yeah, so how I recharge is my morning routine is like everything super important. I wake up about five o', clock, I read the Bible, 15 to 30 minutes, I go work out for 45 minutes, I review my goals, I look at my day, my calendar, I learn something new. I have this basically two hour period where it's all Me five to seven. Yep.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I get, I get fully filled up and man, I'm, I'm like, I'll. I can go work as much as I need if I get that two hours. Yeah. I'm like, that re. Literally refills my entire cup. But if I miss that morning routine, if I wake up late.

[A]

You do it seven days a week.

[B]

I do that seven days a week. I love it. It's my. Dude, I absolutely love it. It's my favorite time. Honestly, I wish. Yeah. I just love, like even the gym, I do work out sometimes with people, but for the gym I just, that's my time with God. I work out. I put some, some music on. I just love. I just fully recharge in the morning that way. It's, it's. It's great. So we got, we got to have a refuel process if we are going to grind.

[A]

Yep. As we kind of do a rapid fire closer. What would you say is the biggest leadership lesson you've learned?

[B]

People can sniff out inauthenticity, so I've had to learn. I used to try to pretend that I cared about my employees and they could tell. And so it took me a lot of refining to the. Where I got to the place where I didn't see them as tools. So some owners see their team members as tools. And what is a tool? A tool is something that you use to. To get what you need done. That's a tool. Yeah. Nothing wrong with a tool.

[A]

Right.

[B]

A tool is just something you use to get something done. But if you see your employees as tools, they can tell and they'll get that vibe. And it's just a, it's a, it's a poor way to build a great culture. And so my primary aim in business has been building a world class like culture where people really love working.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

There. And so for that to happen, I had to shift my view from seeing them as tools. I didn't even realize I was, but I did. I saw them as like a resource to get something done.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so I had to shift to seeing them as human beings that need to be cared for and loved and have feelings and that I really got to spend time with. So you seem like a very loving, authentic, genuine guy. But in the beginning, man, I was a little bit more. What do you call it? Not resourceful. But I was just focused on getting results. I was really results focused. And so sometimes people. But I would pretend like I really cared about them. I would do cool stuff, I'd buy Snacks. I do all kinds of cool stuff for them, but underneath the surface, I still just kind of saw them as a resource. And so I had to do a.

[A]

Lot of deep work around that and finish this. The creator who wins in 2026 will. Specifically for people that want to create content, the creator who wins in 2026 will.

[B]

Strategically put out consistent content. That's my main aim right now, is dedicating time blocks during my week where I am thinking through the content I want to create and just sitting down and recording it and being consistent with it. Now, will I execute at that, at the level I want? I don't know. We'll see. I hope I will. But I believe if I do that, if I have consistent strategic content that's being put out and I follow my, my, my time block on my calendar, I believe over a period of time that that will produce results. And so that, that is my belief and I could be off. You're the expert at, you're the expert at content creation, man.

[A]

So no, and you're exactly right. And I think people could underestimate the word strategic. Like that conversation could be a five day workshop. Like, there's what it really means to actually be strategic and not random, to be strategic and intentional with your content.

[B]

Because I experience you as a very intentional guy. Like, from my experience, you're very intentional, very thoughtful. So I think where people miss it with content is they're not intentional. They kind of just throw stuff out there. But if they just sat and thought and use their brain for like an.

[A]

Hour, even an hour, even 30 minutes.

[B]

Even 30 minutes, if they just thought about it and brainstorm and wrote out ideas and hooks and just really just thought about it, yeah, it, their content would be so much better. So.

[A]

I want to ask you one final question in a second. But if people want to check your stuff out, we'll link it in the show notes. People want to follow you. What do you want to promote? Let people know about if they want to go deeper with you.

[B]

Yeah, great. Yeah, they could. You could follow me at just Skylers K Y L A R Lewis L E W I S on Instagram primarily. And so if they want to, if they want to check out Rise up Kings, it's Riseup Kings.com is where.

[A]

Is where.

[B]

Where you can roll or you can find us on, on Instagram also. So that's. Yeah, it basically is for anybody that's looking to level up as a leader and want a deep transformation to happen, a spiritual or soul level transformation, our events are world class three day, three day events.

[A]

So this is incredible. And final question for you. What is your definition of success?

[B]

I have two. One is me utilizing my potential for the expansion of God's kingdom, bringing heaven on earth, like basically bettering people's lives. So to me that's success like a great utilization of my efforts to bring goodness on this planet to bring more good than there is evil. That's what, that's the top. That's the overarching like my life purpose. And then underneath that is to just enjoy to love people well and those people around me. So a good father, good husband, good boss and a good man in the community to me like loving people well, if I leave the earth and I did that, whatever amount of money that I had and I just loved people well and they experienced me as a guy that took care of them and loved him, that to me I would feel very good, very, very good about that.

[A]

Beautiful Skyler, grateful for you. Thanks for adding so much value today and Think Media podcast deep episode. So definitely subscribe like comment wherever you watch or listen and maybe share this one with somebody in your world. We talked about a lot of topics. Maybe there's somebody, you know, business owner, content creator that would get value from this. Until next time, my name is Sean Cannell, your guide to building a profitable YouTube channel and I can't wait to connect with you in a future episode.