Wade Houston, welcome to Money Talks. How are you, brother? Amazing. Thanks for having me, brother. Now, I'm highly inspired because most people that are in the space of personal development or coaching, they don't come from a background that has proven track record of personal development. They don't actually come from the trenches. They might have a clean background. They might come from a space of uh wa whitewashed kind of ecosystems, suburbs, and and pretty uh ecosystems. But you have a different story. The success that people see today, the put togetherness that people see today, the uh
love for biohacking and health that people see today isn't what it used to be. So before we get started talking about not only how you achieved a high status position in one of the leading biohacking uh kind of ecosystems in the world, how you've been able to scale into a six figure a month coaching business, but how you're able to get out of the trenches, which is one of the big reasons uh I want to sit with you today. So take me back to the beginning before we talk about the success. Take me back to
where it all started. How is it that Wade Houston is where he is today? Yes. So, I grew up in Vermont. Uh I had such an unbelievable upbringing. You know, sports were life. I have such a lovely family. Uh great morals. My dad was really big on manners, morals, uh speaking articulately. And so, I had a great foundation. I got recruited to play college hockey. Uh and then when I went to prep school, I started getting into trouble with drugs and alcohol. I got I went to Philips Extor Academy in New Hampshire and got kicked
out. I came back home. I got kicked off my junior hockey team. I ended up playing football at Bentley College and I got kicked out. I got multiple DUIs, multiple assault charges, and I was just constantly in the system. You know, I just couldn't get it I just couldn't get it together. So, I finally got somewhat clean and then I got addicted to Oxycottton. And this really was a pretty crazy time in my life because I was managing everything really well. I was getting a 40 in school. Uh I was working at an accounting firm
and I was doing like five oxycottton 80s a day. This is an absurd absurd habit. Eventually, I got to a point where, you know, I was doing really shady things just to be able to get the drugs. And I go to rehab and uh and just narrowly escape being followed by the feds and and overdose. I actually had overdosed and was brought back to life. And so I just got very very lucky that I was really given a second lease on life. Uh so I got out of rehab and uh I kind of stayed sober.
I mean, I still smoked weed and ate Xanax every day. And this, you know, put me in a position where I was able to hold a sales job. uh you know I started selling cars and very quickly in my first year I made 150k and at 23 I thought like oh this was this is cool this is an easy job uh and then I since I had a finance background I said I'm going to move to financial advising so I started doing financial advising and I would come down to Miami I was managing you know
some of my friends money down here in Miami and I was parting I was living this crazy lifestyle down here live and story and I was renting Aston Martins and Ferraris and staying at the penthouse at the one and just doing lots of Molly and ketamine and and my entire entire life. I I think I'm somewhat blessed genetically, physically, that I was able to get away with being probably the most unhealthy person you could ever imagine. I'm talking like my morning breakfast was two caramel bars, an Arizona iced tea, a pack of cigarettes, and then
I would start my day eating with uh McDonald's sausage, egg, and cheese McGriddles. Grease. That's how I was running for a long period of time. And I was never strength training. I wasn't taking care of my body. And uh I went to get some whole life insurance just as an investment vehicle because I was a financial adviser. And they told me I was declined and they told me I had autoimmune hepatitis. And I'm like, how is that possible? Like, you know, they said, "Well, your liver is four times elevated. You're going to be on these
drugs for the rest of your life. Uh, an amunosuppressant and a steroid, uh, aopene and prennazone." And I'm like, "Man, is there any other solution?" They said, "No, there's not there's nothing else." I'm like, "What about diet?" I'm like, "Is there any anything else that I can do?" They're like, "No." I'm like, "God, I don't know if I believe you guys. Like, I don't know much about medicine, but there's got to be something else." So, I see out multiple different doctors. I saw five different doctors around the country, all gastro and and HEPA doctors, and
they all told me the same thing. These are your two options. Hopefully, it goes into remission, and at some point, you're able to mitigate how much it take. I'm like, man, I just don't believe this. So, I started doing my own research, and this is my initial path into functional medicine was I just started researching the liver and and autoimmune disorders and everything I possibly could about nutrition and health and our systems. And what I found was I should probably start taking care of the way that I eat. So, I changed my nutrition. I started
eating some, you know, organic whole foods. I stopped eating all the the fried foods, the processed foods. I cut out mostly all the sugar, especially all the artificial sweeteners. Uh I started doing glutathione injections, just basic basic stuff, a couple basic supplements. And within 6 months, I went back to the doctors for my blood work, and they said, "Oh my god, you're almost back to normal. Like the the medication is working faster in you than it works in most people." And I was like, "Yeah, I've been off that medication since the day that you gave
it to me." And I was like, "Let me educate you guys a little bit about what I've done and why I think that you guys should, you know, become a little bit more educated." And they were like, "Man, this pompous kid, you should like," they didn't want to hear it. And at that time, I was like, "What do you mean you don't want to hear it? I don't understand. Like, help me understand why you don't want to hear what I did to cure myself." And this was at the moment that I realized that they had
no choice. That the medical system is set up in a way in which big pharma lobbies the insurance agencies and they can only write prescriptions for what's covered under their umbrella. And that's the only way that they can make money. And it's not even their fault, but like the way the system is set up is just to keep people perpetually sick rather than actually heal them and treat the root cause and the condition so that they don't get back into the system. And it was at that time where I was like, man, there's a different
form of medicine like people should know about this. But at the time, I didn't do anything about it. I still I'm such an addict and an alcoholic. I still continue to party. I still was doing all the drugs and going down to Miami and living this crazy fun life. And eventually I got to a position where I was like, "Hey, I need to get out of Vermont. It's a very small-minded place. I'm not progressing here. I don't even like managing money. I don't even like my job. I'm going to move to Miami." So, I moved
to Miami. And uh in 2019, January 2019. And within 3 months here, I'm partying so much, going out every single night that I end up getting drugged and robbed. And I hit my absolute rock bottom. I was spending so much money every night. It was $100,000 in credit card debt. I took a job just to just to have a job down here. I was selling cars at a Land Rover dealership, making like 55K a year. And I had and I had previously been making like 500K financial advising. I'm making 55K, 100K in credit card debt.
Get drugged. My family's given up on me. My friends don't want to talk to me. And just spiritually and mentally, I felt this massive void of like, wow, I'm bankrupt. And like, how did my life get to this? How did I get recruited, you know, to play D1 hockey? How did I have such an amazing upbringing? How did I get four in school and go to the top prestigious press school in the country to find myself getting robbed and and drugged? You know, like what am I doing? And so I called my dad and I
was like, "Hey dad, I think I'm going to come back to Vermont. I've been having some trouble down here." And he said, "You've been drinking again, haven't you?" I said, "Yeah, man. I went out, I partied, and this is what happened." He said, "Look, the way that I see it, you have two options. Either you can bounce in and out of AA for the remainder of your life and be a loser or you can go to AA, actually do the 12 steps, get a sponsor, and maybe you'll have a shot at living a real life.
And it just clicked and I just the very next day I just humbled myself. I went into AA, I got a sponsor, and I just started doing the 12 steps voraciously. This was AA is commonly misiscon What does that stand for? uh Alcoholics Anonymous. Uh it's a 12step program that helps people have an experience to remove their need and addiction of drugs and alcohol. It's really a program of personal development. This was my foundation into personal development was like, hey, I have a problem with drugs and alcohol. Do I actually no I have a problem
with my mind. My solution is the drugs and the alcohol. In order to quiet my mind to be able to handle life, I need drugs and alcohol. and left without drugs and alcohol. I'm an animal in every sense of the word. Yeah, I will absolutely light people up. I will annihilate people with my words. I am just a heathen. And so I I had this work to do and I did it. So I went through the 12 steps with my sponsor and I started to figure out my character defects, my inadequacies. I started to observe
my mind. I learned to really meditate. I developed my spiritual connection with God through AA, not through specific religion. And through this process, I started to understand, you know, who I was and have a spiritual experience and then start to create real habits of, you know, waking up consistently and working out and doing breath work and meditation and and I just got so so blessed that I met my mentor in Alcoholics Anonymous like four months after getting sober. And this was really the catalyst that changed my entire life. You know, working with a guy that
had been, you know, he had multiple eight figure exits. He was on the board of four Fortune 500 companies. He had also overcome, you know, painkiller addiction. His his parents had been killed when he was young in New York City. He basically raised his family. Brother got killed in gang violence. Like he had a crazy backstory just like me. So I really trusted him and he had a a beautiful family, an amazing relationship. And he was super successful and humble and well spoken. And so he just luckily saw some promise in me and said, "Hey
man, I'll work with you, but you're going to have to meet me at my house every Saturday morning at 7 a.m." And most people would have been like, "Saturday morning at 7 a.m.? What are we talking And I was like, "Bro, I'll be there at 650 every day." And so I did this and and what happened out of meeting with him and and really learning one-on-one with him was I started a financial technologies company with a woman. It failed at the beginning of CO because when COVID happened, the government extended forbearance and no one had
to pay back their loan interest and I had created a solution that would help a consumer rearrange their bad debt without having to go to a collection agency. I thought we were going to sell it to Mastercard. I had a buddy at Mastercard and I said, you know, let's let's talk about, you know, a deal. He calls me like three weeks into co and says the government just extended forbearance. Nobody's got to pay back their loan interest. We can't we got to pause. Like let's pause on all talks. So that company crumbles and I find
myself lost again. A good foundation, personally developed, sober, working with a mentor, but like what am I doing with my life? So I spent some serious introspection, journaling, meditation, prayer, and time with my mentor to figure out what should I do rather than just take job after job that's predicated on my skill sets and ability to make a lot of money. Let's actually figure out what's my purpose, what's my passion based on my skills, experience, and interest. And so I did this exercise with him. And at the end of the exercise, he said, "Look man,
you should either get into that functional medicine that you were interested in or you should design a clothing company." And he said, "Which which one do you think is a viable idea?" And I was like, "Well, obviously the functional medicine. and the clothing company's going to take forever. So he said, "Okay, great. I'll help you in any way that I can, but I want you to do this." And he started having me research and funnel hack and do all this stuff and just starting to embody and attract and manifest this into my life as if
I already had this job. I didn't even know what it looked like. Long story short, I had a couple job offers that I ended up declining because they weren't the right fit. And I meet a guy who has a functional medicine clinic. And I go up there in Aventura. I meet with him. He asked me about my skills, expertise, so on and so forth. I say, "Look, I know a lot about sales, marketing, finance. I know I know a lot about operating companies, even though I've never operated one before." And he says, "What do you
know about medicine?" I said, "Nothing. Just my own personal journey into functional medicine, but like I don't know all this hormone replacement stuff and what you do." And he says, "Uh, okay. Well, do you think you can learn quickly?" And I said, "Bro, I'll be the quickest learner that you'll ever meet in your entire life." I said, "I'm just I'm an addict and I've channeled this into this direction." So, he said, "Okay, I'll give you a chance. You could be the sales manager and we'll see what happens." That was June 1st, 2020. Three months after
COVID happened. I went into that company. I proved myself very very quickly. And after becoming sales manager, I started changing the culture. I started changing the sales meetings. I taught every salesperson how to meditate. I gave them a book called growth mindset. I asked them to write all the problems down that they were facing. And then I asked them to put next to this, is this in your control or out of your control? And if it's in your control, you need to work on your skill sets. And if it's out of your control, I will
help you make changes to the system, to the marketing, to the operations to help you grow this company. By doing that and really putting a ton of structure into the business, changing everybody's incentives, and integrating every facet of the business, sales, marketing, and operations, so they're aligned, creating really a flywheel to the business instead of like your typical funnel. We went from 4 million to 12 million in a year and a half. And I became I was director of growth, but my comp was more than the owners. And so I got to this position where
I was like, "What am I going to do next? I think I should buy this company." And so I went through this analysis. I did the due diligence. I actually told the owner like, "Hey, I want to buy the company. Let's, you know, put me in the data room and I'm serious about this. I have, you know, a bunch of people that will invest in me." Uh, and so I do this and I get to the end and my mentor and I are sitting there talking and he says, "Wait, you told me that your goal
in 10 years is $200 million liquid. Are you going to be able to grow this company with investors to almost a billion dollars and have a $200 exit to you?" And I said, 'N no, there's there's no way in this in this company that I can do that. And he said, 'I think you should pass and I think you should wait for your next opportunity. And at the time, I was like, damn it. I I had $7 million from my friends and from him that they were just willing to invest in Wade Houston, really with
not even any like seeing any terms or any deal, just like they were so bought in on who I had become in that year and a half. Two weeks later, I got a call from Natalie Dawson, Brandon Dawson's wife of 10X, and says, "Hey, we have an employee here who speaks incredibly highly about you. He used to work for you, and he told us what you did, how you changed this entire company, and how you scaled the company nationwide 3x in in a year and a half. We want to talk to you." I said, "Okay,
great." And so, I researched every single person. I researched all their backstories. I researched the company. I f I funnel hacked them like three or four times. I made, you know, the fake email addresses and I I shopped their sales team and then I took there was two weeks between the time they called me in my interview. I told one of my employees, "Hey, I want you to apply for a job at 10X right away as a salesperson and see if you can get an interview right away." She does and I I tell her all
the questions that I want her to ask the hiring manager. So, she goes into the sales process, she goes through the interview and asks the hiring manager all these questions and then gives me all the feedback. So, now I funnel hack them. I know everything about 10X and she's giving me all the information about the management, the team, what they know, what they don't know, what their outlook is. And so I go into this conversation with 10X and after 30 minutes, I asked Brandon and Gary and a couple other people 20 questions that they could
not answer based off of all the research that I had done, not telling them what I had just done. And they were like, "Whatever you what position do you want?" I said, "President." They said, "What do you want your comp to be?" I said, "Let me think about it." They said, "How much equity do you want?" I said, "Let me think about it." And I went back and I told them exactly what I wanted. They're like, "That's an absurd amount of equity." like, "No way. We'll settle at half." And I was like, "Yeah, okay." I
negotiated a little bit more and ended up with a comp that I thought was absurd, you know, a seven figure total package and and a shitload of equity in a company that at that point in time, I was utilizing my leverage and some of my skill sets, but a year and a half before that, I had a failed company and I really wasn't doing anything with my life. So, it was a pretty crazy rise during that time to get to that position. And what's uh what's the numbers that 10x health? Yeah, when I started at
10x health, we were doing 9 mill. We're annualizing at at 9 million a year. And when I left, we're annualizing at 50 mil a year. So 5x 5x crazy, bro. And hypers scale in a market in which it's not developed yet is insane because super new. Super new. So So we're outpacing our vendors. I just became a shark, an an M&A shark. Every single one of our vendors, I would have to get the owner on the call and start to undress him. What's your timeline? How old are you? what what are all your systems like?
How much are you doing in revenue? Would you consider selling? And then selling him really quickly on the bigger vision of 10X and how we might give him some stock and equity and acquire the company with minimal out of pocket. When I joined 10X, I told them, I'll come and be president, but we need to acquire Health Gains, the company that I just built. And they said, absolutely, no problem. That'll void us of all non-compete anyway. Like, is that thing set up to implement into 10X so that we can scale? And I said, of course.
Not to mention that's that that's an army of 50 people that I have that will live and breathe for me because I helped show them all how to make more money and change their lives. So we bought health gains three months after I left. Like the deal was signed and integrated three months within me becoming president of 10x health and I walked back into the office of that owner that gave me a random shot and end up taking his office and being the president of 10x that company. And then we started acquiring clinics in Beverly
Hills. We acquired manufacturers in Texas and it was just pure learning scale and M&A hypers scale. You know, you got to hold on for dear life at hypers scale for sure. Yeah. And it's funny because what people don't seem to kind of comprehend is when I when I talk about people's come-up story is they think that you have to come from a background with zero opportunity uh zero connections straight from you know the dirt trenches in order to experience like some sort of downfall in order to experience uh bad situations which is not the case
because what I've often realized is especially with men is they want to kind of have this journey of accolades, per se, uh that starts like when they're really young and they're like, "Oh, well, I had no opportunity and all these things, but when you're young and you do have opportunities and these things like you mentioned like prep school, you don't appreciate these things. You don't understand. You don't comprehend them." So, they they're pretty much as good as none, right? It's like it's dud because it's a mental framework. And that's why I tell people it's like
it doesn't matter whether you start with rich parents or poor parents. It really has to do with who you are. And if you're broken fundamentally, all the opportunities around you, they're not going to be able to be capitalized upon, which would make sense because you focused on fixing the broken nature of yourself and then the opportunities just started falling into piece, which then leads to the coaching that you're doing now, which is the process of rehelping people back the their life in a situation whereby they can manifest things into who they are, whether it's better
health, better relationships, more money. explain to me what you mean by or how you would define manifestation when it comes to being able to achieve what you want. Well, and what are the misconceptions that people have towards this idea of manifesting things? I I think people think that manifestation is like, you know, you you have this illusion, this dream, this this, oh yeah, I'm going to do this and this is what my life is going to look like and it's this wishing and wanting and hoping. To me, manifestation is envisioning what it is that you
want very specifically and then acting as if you already have that thing. So, if I want to drive a Rolls-Royce and operate a seven figure a month company, I need to act accordingly, right? I need to manage my time accordingly. I can't be washing the dishes and cutting the grass. That's not going to be conducive to me achieving this massive goal. So, I need to do every single thing in my power of action on a daily basis of somebody who's already in that position. And is that somebody who's sleeping in and disorganized and not optimizing
their time and watching Netflix and doing all these things? No. So manifestation is a framework of how to act on a daily basis to be that person that already has all those things. Yes. Right. And that's to me what manifestation is is a course of how to act. Now the question is how do you act? And this is where mentors come in, coaches come in, uh communities come in. um really unlocking highle information because let's say okay how does a seven figure person act you know and who's going to give you these answers talk to
me about some of some of the habits that you've been able to instill to guarantee a six figure a month payout uh from your endeavors what are some to-dos that you're like hey if you follow these recipes if you follow these this this process it can increase your odds of achieving a better business or financial outcome. You and I talk about this all the time, self-regulation, right? And so, what are you doing when nobody's looking? Your ability to regulate yourself on a day-to-day basis is going to help you with how to make decisions. Having the
right energy, mental clarity, and critical thinking is predicated on your self-regulation. Yes. And so, for me, that's never missing, right? I have this morning routine. I wake up at 5 a.m. No matter what, if I have to take a nap later in the day or go to bed earlier the next night, fine. But that first win that I have each morning is what helps start to predicate my confidence. So, I wake up at 5 every day. I wake up dehydrated just like everyone else. And I found that either having a Celtic sea salt or a
hydration packet is imperative. Also, not going to coffee right away. So, I wake up at 5 every day. I do the hydration salts and I sit right down and I read one positive page in a book that I like to help prepare my mind and prime myself for the day. I then get into breath work, meditation. I go for a walk and I hit the gym every single day. I do not miss. And for anybody watching this that's like, "Hey, that's way too much. There's no way I can do, you know, I can go from
where I am today to there tomorrow." That's exactly what I teach in my coaching program. You shouldn't go from where you are today to there tomorrow. You should create a sustainable set of habits that you can build on slowly so that you can sustain this for a lifetime. And so if today you're really, you know, unregulated and disorganized, just wake up at a consistent time, do some form of observation of your mind, hydrate, and do some exercise. Right? If you can just do those each and every single morning, it'll prepare your mind for the day
and put you in a positive direction. Just don't get right on Instagram or Tik Tok and start doomcrolling because you're feeding your mind with terrible inputs and you're and you're feeding your mind with things that you can't control. Totally. So, you can't control the initial programming of how you're positioning your day. So, what you're teaching is basically it's all about direction, right? It's all about positioning because you can't there's variables. You talk about there's things that you can control and things that you can't control. And I want to talk a little bit about that about
what you can control input versus the things that are variables outside of your control. But these inputs do affect the way that you perceive your your day, your world view, your mood, your habits, your opportunity. But before I ask you that, tell me about so many people talk about discipline, right? In the space of like personal development, you need to be disciplined. For the people listening, what is the difference between discipline and self-regulation? What is the fundamental difference between both? Well, I think discipline has like a negative connotation of like you're being disciplined or you're
doing this thing that you really don't want to do. And just the frame alone of the word discipline versus self-regulation is something that one should look forward to. Empowered, right? It builds you up. It creates confidence. You own it, right? When you're able to self-regulate, you build confidence. People will say like, "How are these morning habits going to change my entire life and help everything?" Right? Well, let me tell you. Each day when you get five or six wins in the morning and your mind tells you, "Don't get up, but you do it anyway. Don't
hydrate, but you do it anyway. Don't meditate. Don't read. Don't go to the gym, but you do it anyway." Now, you're starting to have impulse control. And now you're starting to understand that your mind doesn't determine what actions you take. No matter how you feel, no matter what your first thought is, no matter how sick or tired you are, you are not paralyzed, you can still take an action. And that action is what changes your mind. And when you get through the feeling of I don't want to do something, but I did it anyway. You
build confidence. You strengthen your mind, your resilience. You have more clarity, more energy. And then when you have the thought of like, hey, I want to do something that I shouldn't be doing. You've already had these six wins that have fortified your mind and put you in a position where you could say no to anything. People start dropping their vices. They start getting in shape. They start having better relationships. Their confidence increases. Everything gets better when people follow these simple set of daily non-negotiables and they regulate themselves. I love that because it's positive versus negative
affirmations. If it's like it's like oftent times how you discipline a child, right? If you want to teach them something, you could go through the process of educating them or you could make it a negative experience. And it's proven that people don't learn off of negative experiences. You have to create positive feedback loops that then create dopamine effects that it's like, oh, like this is a reward. Like going to the gym, like the accolade of actually doing it is a reward. It's not, oh, I'm doing this because it's I have to. If you have to,
that's not the purpose of life. The purpose of life is for you to develop into the fullest potential of yourself, which requires self-regulation because it's about b if you if you were in a situation, for example, where thousand years ago you had to go get your own food, go get your own water. The environment naturally self-regulated you. You had to go hunt for your food. You had to go out and hustle, you had to go and like suffer, you had to go days without eating. Today, everything's so readily available and everybody's trying to capture your
time, energy, and attention that you have to self-regulate. So, today it's more so staying away from things and protecting your energy from uh certain environments. What do you think is for aspiring entrepreneurs, people that are trying to make their first $10,000 a month that they they see the potential, but they they they they feel they have this internal like strife between what they want and what they do. Where's the disconnect? Well, there's always this period of time in which someone starts to build themselves and become somebody who's valuable enough to make this money and them
actually making the money. There's this gap. And so, you have to develop yourself as a person through the skill sets and the mindsets that allow you to make the $10,000 per month. You have to have enough awareness and emotional intelligence to be able to navigate business challenges and problems to move the business in a direction to actually garner that revenue. Right? Same thing with your skill sets. You need to learn a l a little bit enough about persuasion, communication, sales in order to be able to manage employees, have a business, get clients, understand some funnels.
And so, there's always going to be a period of time where people are taking some action, but they're not yet successful. And what happens is people don't see and feel the results quick enough and they give up. Right? How often do we see this? They're like, they're so close because they're not getting any feedback. there's no reflexive characteristic to their efforts and they're just like, "Nah, I'm not going to do this anymore." Because no one's guiding them and helping them along the way. But if you're consistently strengthening yourself as a person, you will have a
windfall. It's just going to take some time until you catch up to your actions producing the results that you're looking to have. Yes, it's the sewing and reaping concept and it's allowing the the the seed to mature into a tree that bears fruit. And it's like that process you can't accelerate. It doesn't matter. The farmer doesn't matter how time how many times he looks at the ground. It doesn't matter if he tries to overwater it or if he cusses at the at the soil because it's not growing fast enough. There's a natural process to this
growth and self-development. And what I realize, and this is where I want your input as well, is people think that once you hit a certain scale or a certain level that the game becomes like you're chilling and that like you don't have to grow anymore or that you don't have to self-develop. But when I was making $10,000 a month, I I had to become a different person when I was making 50 or 100. And when I my business was doing 5 million, I had to become a certain type of person. And now the business is
doing 10 million. So it's like I need to consistently evolve with the thing. And I think people go into business or they go into self-development thinking that there's this peak that you achieve and then you sit on the peak and then you don't do anything. And it's like that's not the game. So, where's the fallacy and the broken mindset between saying, "Hey, where's where's my physique going to be in six months and what is my what are my am I going to have abs by summer versus I'm establishing behavioral patterns that are healthy long term?"
What's the mindset there? Is it okay to have these short-term reward kind of mindsets and objectives or should people be kind of looking at more of a long-term perspective? Uh, this is unbelievable question and it's it's very deep. I had the mindset that if I just got to a specific revenue amount, if I just got the specific girl, and if I just got a Ferrari, that I would be happy and I would be chilling and I would no longer have to continue to develop myself. And not only is this a a terrible way of thinking,
because it's it's incredibly unfulfilling, okay, a couple reasons. That is what had adaptation is. If I just get a car or a girl or an income level, I'm going to be happy. Well, guess what? When I started financial advising and I hit the 500k and I was at the penthouse and I had the hottest girls in the world, I was completely unfulfilled. And what I realized was that it was about who I was as a person and that in order to be content with myself, I needed to desire the things that I already had. But
then the thought process goes, well, if I desire the things that I already have, then I can't have a desire to improve and consistently grow and make more money and do all these things. That's not true. There's a major difference between being content internally with what I have and who I am as a person, but also being able to strive for more and create a bigger impact and make more money. And once I understood those two things, I said, "Hey, these can coexist. I need to just focus on creating a person that looks at problems
as opportunities and know that the journey is what I need to fall in love with. Growing my skill set and my mindset day by day, I will be able to make more money and be on the path of forever growth." That is what puts somebody in a position to consistently be able to level up. There is no peak. There is no end goal. The end goal is fall in love with what you do every single day as a person. You can have some short-term goals, but what I teach and for every oneonone client that I
work with, we outline their one, three, fiveyear personal, professional, financial goals. I say, "Okay, let's look at all these. We're going to create an action plan. And then we're going to take the action plan. We're going to calendar habits around your goals." Now, forget about your goals. Forget about your action plan. wake up each day and do what's in your calendar and don't think about it. Don't think about anything else. If you just focus on that and fall in love with the journey and every time you wake up, you go, I'm [ __ ] winning.
And every time you go to the gym, you say, I'm doing what nobody else is doing. And every time you meditate, you're saying, I'm becoming an unstoppable human being. And you reinforce these behaviors. You self-regulate and you follow the habits. I I've achieved my goals 10 times faster than I could have ever imagined once I stopped thinking about the end result. I started focusing on develop myself as a person and following my habits and that's the key. You've uh benefited a lot recently from social media and uh you weren't big on social media. You didn't
have a presence at all when I met you and then you started business around having a personal brand. talk to me about the importance of social media in both on the perspective of as a creator or as somebody that wants to have a personal brand but then also on the side of a business because you look at 10x health the business itself the brand there's a brand right so talk to me about the importance of having a brand online uh is it something everybody needs to be tapping into is it worth the time is it
worth the effort what are your thoughts 100% everybody should get online and start creating their personal brand. The craziest thing ever has happened to me since I started my personal brand. First and foremost, I only have one regret in my entire life. After that entire story that you heard, my only regret is not getting online and developing my personal brand earlier. When you get online and you start talking about problems that you've overcome and mindsets that you have and experience and things that you know now, but you didn't know before, you have this effect on
people that you couldn't otherwise have on the world. you are actually able to give the world and deliver them information that makes the world a better place. It is the most unbelievable feeling in the world to get online, not just to say, "I'm going to money grab and find the bag," but I'm actually going to help people. It's an unbelievable way to to create your personal brand. Getting online has made me a substantially better person. I've been able to much more quickly identify the problems that I'm having in real time and solve them for myself
and talk about how I'm solving my problems in real time, thus giving people in the- moment information and motivation on how to change their lives. Now, in terms of business and what this has done for for my career and my opportunity, I literally if I want something, I can just post it on my story right now and I can have a potential salesperson, a manager, an assistant, like anything I need from having a personal brand, it becomes easier. Now, I also think that the old way of doing business of cold outreach and your typical marketing
funnel and you know the the old SEO, I mean SEO is still useful, but the old marketing traditional way of thinking. It's not the easiest way to acquire a customer. And if somebody gets on your page and they see your personal brand, they can very quickly tell who you are as a person. They can start to watch your content and get value. And they'll want to do business with people that they know, like, and trust. and nowadays even more so that are well-rounded and stand for other things that they believe in. So without that business
is just so much harder. It's it's really the the it's really the easiest thing that one can do if they get through the fear, right? And in terms of like creating a brand with 10x and having this, you know, having this consistent value ad, it's exactly what you and I have talked about. People saw and heard Gary Brea talking about things in a way that they could understand that they had never heard before. And that's the reason that the brand really grew. It's not that we had some crazy marketing strategy. It was that Gary's personal
brand and his ability to make things understandable for people led way to that company exploding. Yes. Interesting. Now wrapping up and transitioning to where you see kind of the opportunity moving forward. Do you see the opportunity in the digital space with physical products, e-commerce? I know you guys are launching a supplement line. Uh where do you see the opportunity there in that space? Cuz a lot of people listening, they're getting into ecom. Uh they they a lot of guys a lot of guys are in the health and wellness space whether they're selling physical products or
they're selling uh services. People have carnivore diets programs and things of this nature inside of Capital Club as well. Where do you see the future? Where do you see the potential? Is it is it online? If so, do you see it in digital products? Do you see it in physical products? Where are you seeing the bag? Where are you seeing the money opportunity? What's the lowhanging fruit in your opinion? I think look, when you create a personal brand, it becomes much easier to sell a physical product as well. Sure. Right. And I think that's the
beauty of creating the personal brand is now people know what I stand for. And if you create a real authentic personal brand of like, hey, you and I, we stand for longevity, health, positive mindset, business, helping people grow, spirituality. Like, we've defined what our pillars are and we don't vary outside of that. You're not going to see me promoting like partying at the club and doing things that are not part of my personal brand. So people know what Wade Houston's about. They know what Luke Belmar is about. And if I'm to drop a product that
is perfectly aligned with everything I've spoken about, people already know, like, and trust me. So it becomes very easy. So I really think like building personal brand is the most important thing you can do. And then saying, "Hey, based off of this, what is actually authentic to me?" And then I'll create a product around that. whether it's an info product, whether it's a coaching program, whether it's a physical product. I mean, the opportunity, we'll see what happens with Tik Tok. I mean, I I I don't see any reason that it wouldn't continue to go, but
like if you look at Tik Tok shop and you look at, you know, what's available on Amazon and creating any sort of products online, ecom's just going to continue to boom. We know that. uh and info products I think info products will go through an interesting phase where there's going to be a different vetting process because it's it is becoming you know uh I won't say a saturated market but there there's a lot of people that are entering the space so I think it'll change in the way that that it looks but look info and
ecom that those for me those are two two of the absolute best spaces and and then the last would be like how to invest your money from there right so like if you can show somebody like how to become a better person how to make more money and then how to invest their money for me that's like the trifecta of the I love that. Now, wrapping up, what are some data sets that you've been unlocking recently, scaling to six figures a month? What are some epiphanies that you've unlocked that before really hadn't crossed your mind?
If you could boil it down to like one principle, one foundational piece of wisdom, what what is it that you've been learning? Well, the biggest thing for me was understanding social media and how to create a message in a way that got more reach. Uh, how do you do that? So, so for me, like the most pivotal thing was really just understanding hooks on my reels. So, understanding hooks and then, you know, doing collaborations with other people that had similar mindset to me. Uh, that really helped me grow. But the thing that a lot of
people miss is they get on social media and they create content, but they're not social in real life. Okay? So, you have to be social in real life. You have to actually be doing things that people want to do around other people that are like-minded that have similar brands and similar stories. And when you're social in real life, and you really live this the way that I do every waking moment, you're going to grow on social media if you can understand what's going to hook people in. You have to naturally embody it for it not
to feel like you're acting the part. Because when you act the part, especially on content creation as a creator, and this is I think one of the big strives is people play a part and eventually acting becomes extremely tiresome because it's not who you are. Okay. So, it all boils down to become who you want to be and then naturally you'll receive what that individual actually deserves to have. Exactly. I I just I feel like I've grown because I've I'm just really authentic with my content. And I went through a six-month period of time where
I'm like, man, I'm not very good at this. I wonder if my coaching program is ever going to take off. How could I be the president of 10X Health and not be able to get online and make some reals go viral? It was a very humbling experience. And there was a long period of time where I didn't have a lot of feedback on how I was really doing, but I just said, you know what? I'm just going to suit up and show up every single day. I'm going to get better and I'm going to consistently
learn. I'm going to tweak and I'm going to practice on my wall. I'm going to get rid of the fear of what's my wall going to look like? How many views am I going to get? And I said, I'm going to practice. And each time I have a reel that gets a little bit more views, I'm going to start to iterate my content and move it into a direction where eventually I started to go viral a couple times. And now I just make when I have a thought, I just rip it. Yes. You know, and
it's real and authentic to me. I don't I don't even plan my content. Yes. Last question. Back to a little bit on like the the the business side. You mentioned you changed culture when you went into a company. You changed culture. People here have teams. Uh but they don't really understand how to either just build teams but maintaining teams which is its own thing. And when you're building culture, it's not just building culture towards your customers, but you also have to build culture towards your employees. What's uh a principle? What's a foundational truth on how
to build and scale a winning team? Okay. So, anytime I have a team, I want to understand how each person is motivated and how they communicate. I want to kind of understand their personality type and then I'm going to look at do they have a roadmap on what success looks like? Do they even know what success looks like? So let's define what's their roles and responsibilities and then do they have an incentive package? If they're not a salesperson, they should still have an incentive package that incentivizes them to do something that moves their business forward
and compensates them 10 to 15% per month. You don't have to give away equity to incentivize people to actually drive the company forward. You just have to have the right compensation structure and let them know what success looks like. Then you have to ask them what are your goals. Their manager should sit down with them and say what are your 135 year personal professional financial goals. And when they outline those goals, let's make them actually tangible. Let's put them into smart goal format. And then the manager's responsibility is to show that employee how they can
actually achieve all of those goals while working at this company and give them a road map to attain the positions that they want, helping them financially and personally with exactly what they want to do. And if you can do all that and then actually provide a real road map in order to go to sales to sales manager to a director. Here's the competencies that you're going to need in order to do this. I'll actually help you with the training and the course material once you reach these benchmarks. And you give them an actual road map
and also help them with personal development, meditation, mindfulness, the right kind of books, morning meetings so everybody's on the same page, transparency and alignment. Of course they're going to want to show up to work. Of course they're going to want to drive and move the business forward. You care about them. Nobody cares about their employees. 99.9% of the people do not care about their employees actually. And if you do that and give them a roadmap and create an incentive structure and tell them, hey, this is a relaxed environment. Nobody's going to micromanage you. You know,
you're either going to move yourself in the right direction or you're going to move yourself out. And you know what success looks like. So, it's your choice. I had zero turnover. In 10 months, I don't know if you knew this, nobody left. 10 months, zero. We we went from like 50 employees to like 140 and nobody left because we just had this system and people loved coming in to work each day. People love coming into work each day. That's amazing. That's success in of itself for sure. That was the biggest success for me. Yes. Incredible.
Wade, thank you so much for coming on Money Talks. Thanks for the data sets. Thanks for the value and look forward to seeing you when the coaching is doing seven figures a month on the next Money Talks. Can't wait.
