Author and Social Media Influencer Preston Smiles Shares Success is Sequential, Not Simultaneous

Audio Transcription

On today’s show, we are interviewing Preston smiles. A man who is an author, a social media superstar and a spreader of love everywhere he goes, Preston will share with us on today’s show, his childhood story, how he struggled with dyslexia despite becoming a bestselling author. He also explains his thoughts on how to deal with haters on the Internet and social media. Why not everyone you lose is a loss. And we also break down his book love louder 33 ways to amplify your life. Ladies and gentlemen, without any further ado, my interview with Preston smiles.

What? Yes, yes, yes and yes. Thrive nation on today’s show. I know you’re going to be

blessed by today’s guest, Mr. Preston smiles. We’ll come on to the thrive time show. How are you sir?

I am amazing. I am excited to be here and grateful to be alive.

How old are you?

How young am I? Um, first of all, I would love, I would love it if the audience could see me, uh, because I’m, I, I’m a self-proclaimed sexy chocolate drop. Oh well. However, uh, I am 38 years young.

Well here’s the deal. You and your incredible wife, you guys have a youthful spirit about you. You seem to be very future-focused, very solution minded, very intentional people. And I ask that because if someone looks you up today, Preston smiles, they’re going to see a guy who looks like, how old do people think you are the, do they think you’re 25 years old?

Yeah. Yeah. Everybody, even 20-year-olds think doesn’t 20 without this beard. I especially look really young. Um, I go and speak at high schools and colleges sometimes and they literally are like young men and like, uh,

I right,

it’d be the principal here,

right? No, you are a bestselling author who is assigned to Simon and Schuster, but I understand that your once placed in a special ed class him, am I right? W W what happened there?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. From a very early age. Um, you know, a, and we’re talking about the 80s here, uh, where they didn’t have as much information as we do now. Yeah. Uh, they sort of figured out that I didn’t learn like everybody else. My mom actually was one of the people, and she apologizes for this actually recently where she said, I wish I would have, um, celebrating your genius instead of thinking about and listening to the school about all the places where you weren’t measuring up. But, um, I, I tested Einstein levels for certain things and like, like a toddler for other things. And so instead of like cultivating that, they put me in special education with kids that were drooling and playing with blocks and I was like seven, eight, nine and I made up a story that I was dumb and less than, and not as smart as everybody else. And that actually really deeply affected me and still does to the day actually. It, you know, the interesting thing that the Dharma and the stuff that we bring into our lives and, and they healing that, the life long healing that comes with it. Um, it’s been a gift, but I’m dyslexic. I’m currently experiencing dyslexia. It’s not a life long sentence, but that’s a part of that.

I’m 38 years, 38 I have five kids. We go, I was, I grew up stuttering as a kid. I couldn’t talk very well and people just were merciless about it and they correlated stuttering with being like you’re mildly retarded and other areas. And so I dealt with very similar things. However, I understand that you growing up, you actually grew up around violence where you actually saw several of your friends get shot. If I, if I’m getting this right. And then you actually asked her parents if you could that they could send you away and in then you found yourself living in Pittsburgh. Can you share the story? What, what, what happened there?

Uh, especially we’re talking eighties and nineties, the film and Television was, was basically portraying a certain story of the young black male and I was susceptible to that and join the gang and wanting to be a tough guy and stealing from liquor stores and all this stuff with my friends. And my dad caught me smoking weed when I was 11 years old and he sat me down instead of hitting me or anything like that. He said, I’m gonna give you 24 hours to think about this and I want you to think about everybody who does that. And came back the next day and we talk. And I said, I don’t think I want their lives, so I think I’m not going to do it. And he said, fantastic. If that’s your decision, I stand by it. He said, I also want you to know that you’re a leader and you’re such a leader and if everybody else is going left, but something in you says you need to go right now I’m sharing this story because this is very important.

Now that was 11 years old. Fast forward to 15 my friend calls me and says, uh, you know, we’re coming to get you. We’re going to still from liquor stores and drink and be dumb. 1516 and 17-year-olds. Yeah. And something internally said, go the first time I ever understood intuition and you know, 15 and something says, don’t go. So I say, no, I’m going to chill. I’m not going to go. And he calls me a couple of names and said, you know, whatever, and we’ll see you tomorrow. Bye. Cool. Hang up the phone. Uh, with, uh, our, my friend Scott and everybody else who was in that van that I was in every other night, which shot, and he was shot in the head and died instantly. And so he was 17. Um, and so that scared me. My, I asked my dad, could I leave? He sent me to Pittsburgh. I got off a plane. This was before cell phones or anything like that.

That’s great.

Yes. So there’s a sign with my name on it. I, I’m moving with this woman, Shirley Russell. She’s my mother to this day. I just was texting with her yesterday and she happened to live in North Allegheny county, which is this really rich, essentially my life was like the fresh prince of Bel Air, but backward. He came from West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And, uh, the first day of school, I’ll never forget the first day of school, I’m walking through the hallway, we pull up and there are BMWs and turf football fields and Mercedes and all this stuff. And I come from a school where there are no books. The lockers and the carpets are set on fire. It’s like a whole different world, right? So I’m like blown away. First Day of school, I’m walking through the hallway and classes, they have those windows that you can look out of. And as I’m walking past each class, all the kids are getting up and running to the window and like talking and like pointing at me. So I get in the class and in the office and she’s telling me what classes I’m going to be and all that stuff. And she said, do you have any questions? I just have one so sure. And said, is there anybody else at this school that looks like me? And she said, black. Oh, of course not. You’re the only black kid.

Cool.

Became the most popular kid in school. Within two weeks I joined a new gang called Wexford Mafia. And, uh, I, and this is the end of the story because this is what opened me up and really helped me awakened. It was a catalyst moment. Um, I was heading to a party, uh, in my buddy Brad’s BMW. These, this is when kids used to like a lean the seat all the way back into the lap of the person in the backseat.

Oh

yes. So we’re all in there. They’re all drinking and smoking. I’m drinking. It’s just so stupid. And think about it now in hindsight and we’re listening to outkast was a steel and it’s me and three other super rich white kids. And I have this realization that the kids are my school, we’re doing the exact same thing but kidding. Getting two different results based on the environment and the expectation. And so at 15 and a half, I’ve stumbled upon environmental psychology and, and had this realization that underneath all of the stories that we have about each other, whether it be gay, straight, white, black, Christian, Muslim, Republican, Democrat, any of that stuff underneath all of it is love. And, and it sort of opened up my eyes to how, um, bamboozled we were all, we were all being subjected to the same media and believing it. It’s just the kids at this new school, we’re going to Yale and the kids at my former school, we’re going to jail. And of course that angered me and had me, you know, all that stuff. But it also opened my eyes because I was blaming people and it wasn’t their fault. We all were seeing the same stuff.

Preston smiles experience. You almost need like a 47 interviews. But we’re going to, we’re going to try to cover a lot of ground here today and then now here you are a best selling author. Help us fast forward. How did you gain the traction when you finally start to gain some traction with a, I would call it Preston smiles 2.0 or when, when did you, when did you decide to go with the name Preston smiles?

Yeah. Those are two different stories, but they go together. So I eventually got into college. I cheated my way through college. When I graduated, I had all these old stories that I was still stupid. I felt like an imposter and there’s a lot of people going to, I felt like that was stupid. I got into Grad school and I made a decision that I was going to do it and not cheat, not one single time. And I got a MFA in theater and also studied psychology on the side and there was three of us that graduated with a 4.0 and I was one of them. And I never cheated. Not One single time. This sort of opened my whole world. And when that was happening, um, there was these kids that would throw their sort of cigarette butt down on the ground in front of this particular janitor named Ms. Evans in the building that I was in all the time.

And I would yell at them. I said, guys, why are you doing it? Then we treat her like she was less than a human and I got tired of yelling at them. And so what I decided to do was to befriend her. And so every, I think it was Tuesday, Thursday and Friday I would have class at 8:00 AM, but I would show up at 7:00 AM that would bring, this is in Louisiana. I went to Lsu, we’ll begin state university. And so I would bring a water bottle for myself, cold water for myself, one for her to granola bars and she would take her, break those mornings and sit with me and we would talk about her kids about life, et Cetera, et cetera. And uh, I didn’t think anything of it, nobody knew what was happening. It was just between her and I. And a month later she saw me running down the hallway and she, uh, she said, boy, you always run him around and he is smiling. I’m a call you Preston smiles, which you’ll have itself. It was, it was one of those moments where I was like, Huh,

what did your Dad Clark, my name is Clayton at Thomas Clark. My Dad was Thomas Clayton Clark. His Dad was Clayton Thomas Clark. There’s a lot of us. What when you sit dad, Dad, Dad, dad, I have had this name for a while, but here’s the deal. I’m flipping up my style. I got this lady, I met this lady, she said this is this thing about smiling and, and how did he handle it?

Whole family. Especially my dad because he’s the third.

I’m so sorry to cut you off of what your dad said to you. If it’s okay, I know it wasn’t appropriate years ago. And here we go. I just want to, I confess I’m gonna play the audio. This is what I think your dad said to you. It could be the wrong audio clip. Here we go. Did Your Dad, what did he say? What did he say?

He was definitely not pumped about it. Standpoint of changing it. I was considered legally changing it when you said, please don’t do that. Come on. You can do whatever you want in the public, but they, and remain a Davis and out of respect for him and what that name means to my family, I have not changed it. Um, however I do understand, and I hate to go super deep here,

no

know Shakespeare said it, you know what’s in a name. You know, I, I realized that my great, great, great grandmother was raped and abused and uh, I don’t associate with that name because the reality is, and I’ve been in the Bush in Africa, I’ve it multiple times deep in and I’ve seen those kings and Queens. I’ve also been all over the world in India and different places. And I know where I come from a done the blood test and I know that my name would definitely not be Davis if that hadn’t happened. And so for me it’s about breaking generational cycles and lineages and creating what it means to like truly me, the most authentic version of me that I could possibly muster up such that my son and his son and his son and his daughter have a different experience of this life because when we carry these names, you know, and, and w without really looking at what it’s attached to, like who am I really outside of the social conditioning and programming, the religions and all, everything was given to us. Did we still choose it? If the question is sit in and, and for me, I’m facing, I do not choose that name. It’s something that I keep out of respect for a father that I deeply respect and love.

You have more knowledge bombs per capita than I think it should be legal because we have this, would you do like a podcast or a youtube or some video? I’ll watch it and I’ll hit play and then I have to go, what did he mean? And then my head will explode and I’ll go and then I’ll go back and I’ll watch it again. Watch it again. And one of the things that I was amazed to learn was at age 25, you started having heart palpitations at the age of 25, but again, you’re 38 and you look, I mean I’m not, I’m not hitting on you, I’m married, but you might be my fallback position if you’re a marriage goes to crap and mine goes to crap. You’re my fallback. You’re a beautiful man. You look, you look like you’re 25. Now. Talk to me about heart palpitations and why meeting with that doctor forever changed your life. What did he say to you?

You have done your research. I would give it to you in this and thank you. I appreciate that. I received that because a lot of my life I felt ugly.

No, no, no, no. You are a beautiful man. You can tell you.

Yeah, I wouldn’t know.

Get the board.

It’s twofold, right? So you get humbler cause your body starts to break down and stuff like that a little bit. And then you also, so, um, I graduated from Louisiana State University, moved to La to be an actor, Abercrombie. And all that stuff. And I started to feel my heart, sort of do weird things. And eventually I was afraid of doctors. I didn’t trust doctors, but eventually I went and she said, you need to see a cardiologist immediately left today. And so I went and he ran some tests and sent me home. I came back and he said, uh, he asked me two questions that changed my life. The first one was, what are your stress levels? Like? Then at 25, I didn’t even understood and understand what that meant, but I started to explain to him what I had been being with and some of the traumas that I had experienced over my lifetime and the container that I was holding as the person who needed to be the savior for my family.

You know, there are a lot of people out there who believe that yesterday could just make this amount of money or do this thing. They could save that person in their family who’s addicted to drugs or alcohol or who’s struggling or whatever the case may be. And I was one of those people. And so, uh, one. And he said, young man, you’re highly stressed out and stress. We’ll break the body down to, he said, what do you eat? And I said, I eat food. And he said, tell me about food. And I said, well, uh, I ate McDonald’s pretty much every other day. Uh, Burger King, sloppy joes a lot too.

Twizzlers,

I love Twizzlers and skittles and reeses pieces

download. He had to get the new release. You say, I would like to reserve, I want to reserve a scout’s honor, I will be here to pick it up. Terminator two. And they said, oh, it’s a new release. You can do that. So you come back to blockbuster with your mom and your dad. You go in there and there’s like a big tub of, of Fat, Aka Popcorn and there’s Twizzlers and there’s the super sized races in this, the whole game. And you’d come back with a two liter of mountain dew and you’d have Twizzlers and then you would just eat due to have just nothing but sugar. We knew nothing about, uh, you know, we knew nothing about blood sugar levels. And how a sugar causes fat. We did not know about these things and so we didn’t know about organic and we just did you did you do that a lot?

Throughout my entire life and my whole family, like my grandmother’s, everybody ate the same and this is what happened with this doctor. I got upset with them and like, what are you talking about? It’s on the commercials. Really? Commercials. Everybody I know. How can you tell me this? He said, it’s not a doctor. I’m supposed to give you these pills and you’re supposed to take him for the rest of your life. But as a dad and a concerned citizen, I suggest that you look into this and of course all the diseases that people are experiencing, it comes back to we think it’s genetics, genetics. We’re thinking the same, stressing the same as our parents. Therefore we’re getting the same. But the body is a organism that is alive, awake and aware. And if we understand these principles and of course you get sick. The last thing you want to do. My Dad’s heart, my great grandmother died of heart disease, and I think at least three or four other people, all the same thing.

I believe epigenetics being above the genetic code and I’m doing it, I’m living proof of it, extremely healthy. Now of course I could get hit by a bus at any point, but the point being if not about like that, it’s about the vitality deputy bringing on a day to day basis. I have more energy now than I did at 25. Then I did at 24. I’m going, I’m almost 40 and I’m stronger. It’s more intelligent. Like my brain works faster, everything is better the older I get. And it’s because I’m actually aware of what’s going into my mouth. And that changed everything. I haven’t taken a pill since I was 25 and I’ve, uh, you know, I have life insurance and all of those things. I’m in the highest category. They had to send me money back for life insurance because I’m so healthy that I qualified out of the regular people’s uh, thing in state for it, which is nuts. You know,

in front of a computer

I am,

if you get a chance to a Google search and then Vanessa Clark, so just kind of one big search. Clay Clark, Vanessa Clark, you can kind of see my wife, my wife has done like, you know, pageants and she was in commercials and her mom was in the love boat, you know, with Tom Hanks back in the day and she was in top gun. And you, you married up? I married up, you know, as I sometimes worry my partner’s an optometrist and I worry at some point he’s going to correct the prescription social actually see me cause as long as she doesn’t see me, I got a good scheme going on here. But I think you, you married up. Would you agree that you married up?

She is gorgeous.

Yeah, I know that you’re a beautiful man. I’m a man. Bear pig. I just want to know for you, you know, you did marry up though, tells a story about how you met your wife, who she is because she’s a best selling author. You’re a best selling author. I mean she’s not, it’s not like she’s a slacker and you’re doing all the books or vice verse. I mean you’re a team. You guys are, that’s a really cool deal. You guys are working together. That is just awesome. Talk to me about your wife, how you met her and that whole, that whole connection.

Uh, about six years ago in order to do that, I decided to do six months here in London, but he missed his flight and so I’m going to hang with her. I’ve been hanging with her all day and she reminds so much of you, I think you guys are gonna work together. Her name is Lexi. She has a nonprofit in Africa. She does video work. She’s really accomplished. You guys are very similar, right? So He’s, he thinks he’s setting us up as like two business partner kind of people. And so I messaged her, she messaged back, I messaged again, she says nothing. So I leave it alone. She’s in London by the way. So I’m like, okay. Clearly my wife or whoever this person would be would, would live in La Cause I’m definitely not doing long distance. And so fast forward to a few weeks later, uh, I have a blind date set up. Um, and the morning of the blind date, I woke up that morning. I have this tattooed on my arm right now. I woke up that morning and had a premonition that I was going to be meeting my wife very soon. And we just have one of those moments. You’re like, something’s about to happen.

I don’t know what it is, but this guy’s gonna bring the fire.

I appreciate that. So she uh, yeah. Yeah. So I go on their social media on Instagram and you can find this. If you scroll far enough back and Facebook and I posted a picture of two wolves kissing an essay. I can feel her coming.dot dot Hashtag wifey Hashtag the queen is on her way. I have no clue who this person is or when they’re going to appear, but intuitively I can feel it coming. The blind date shows up at my house and we were supposed to go see a show that I had bought tickets for it seven 30 so she just, she shows up at my house. I opened the door, instantly know it is not hurt and I’m one of those people that’s very cut throat but I’m very direct. But something in me said, take some time, go upstairs and pray, ask God, listen.

And so I invite her upstairs. I was going to end the date. I was going to say, you know what? This isn’t like the thing, so let’s just not do that. And I go upstairs and I sit on it and call it dog, call it intuition, call it sort of intelligent college, Jesus, whatever you want to call it. Something says go now. And so we get in the car, we drive over to this spot in every single red light, every single red light I caught. You ever have one of those moments where you’re like, what is happening? Right.

Dj Company, when I first my first year of deejaying and I didn’t do very good job of planning enough time to get to weddings and I felt like it was a spiritual habit force to caused every red light to make me late, and then I just realized I was a jackass, but I hit every red light there for a while. I still felt like, so back to you, my friend,

I’m hitting every red light and I had just made it a video the day before talking about the people who missed their flight for nine 11 and the people who left the trade center two hours before, an hour before their exact floor. It dawned on me that I had just made this video and then I just surrendered. I said, you know, whatever is happening, I surrender to it. I’m just going to say yes and the calm down and enjoy this moment. And so we pulled up, we get out of the car, we rushed to the thing and they said, you know what? We oversold the show by 10 seats, you’re going to have to sit on the wall or we can give you your money back. And so we looked at each other and say, what do you want to do? She said, let’s go in to perfect, let’s go.

So we go in, the guy walks in, the places us on the wall, it takes a few steps, stops as if something in the universe, God, whatever stops him, stands there for a moment with his back turned and turns back to us and says, you know what? Come here. I’m going to take two more seats and put it on the front row. Now it’s taking months. There’s a lot of other people standing on the wall. Why did he choose us in that moment? So we put the two seats down, which is like a hazard. It’s like out in the aisle and I sit down, my date sits down and look at this stage. I look at my date and next to her is my wife. And I instantly like instantly went, oh my goodness, I thought about the wolves, I thought about the whole thing.

I said, that’s her. So look and I say Alexia and she’s like Preston Smiles, right? What are you doing here? And she said, I live here. Like, what do you mean? I thought you lived in London? He said, no, I live here. I was just visiting this guy in London. It’s like, what am I internally I’m losing my mind because at this point I know this is my wife. I literally for the first time ever in my life and placing, putting my eyes on the person I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. So I’m blown to pieces and my dates in the middle, sort of looking back and forth,

written about what to do when you’re on a date date’s in between you and your future wife. I can continue. This is, this is a weird story.

Yeah. So we kind of chatting and they hope they start to show and the rest of the show I couldn’t even pay attention. I literally was only thinking about her because that’s a, that’s an interesting moment. Like, think about that, like meeting someone who all of these things aligned for you to be sitting next to them.

Yeah.

Like what? So the whole show, I’m like looking at her calf muscles in her boots and like trying to sneak looks at past my date at her and the show ends. We stand up and I’m super awkward. Like I’m Mr Cool in most of my life. But like at this point I’m like sweating and like we’re saying by, and we’d go to hug each other and neither one of us wants to let go. And so we sort of both pull back at this moment and I said, well if you’re ever free sometime for a coffee, I would love to meet up and be like super awkward.

Oh incredible. Dream Day. And I think I might’ve pulled my muscle. Could you go get me some of the concession stand or something or kind of sent her out. You know that that was, these are all hindsight, Monday morning quarterback moves, but that was a good, that was a good move. So there was a goes a long embrace. Maybe a little too long a hands up here, but you, you, you so did your date know what was up? Did she know it was going on?

She tried to kiss me later that night and I told her she gets it and the rest is history. We’ve been traveling the world million dollar businesses. This was literally bigger than us.

Let’s take it. Let’s talk about these things that are bigger, love, louder, 33 ways to amplify your life. What first inspired you to write this book? What does this book all about?

Yeah, I mean for me the truth is is that when we amplify our love, we automatically is the one truth that every breath that we take a moment to moment basis and I decided to put that in a book and of course Simon Schuster baptist and then my wife also got to deal to write her book. It is a game changer. It has really effected everything because as somebody who is dyslexic and has a really hard time reading it meant more to me then. Then I think it would be to somebody who can just speed read and things like that. It took a lot for me to have that book come out. Um, and yet, you know, I get messages every day. I think 125,000 people who follow me on Instagram alone and I get messages every day from people all over the world that say this book has, has really shed light on something and giving them hope. And I just feel blessed that I was able to channel it and get out of the way and allow myself to be used in that way.

33 ways to amplify your life. Uh, you talking about stop trying to make everyone happy where most people are getting that wrong by default.

Yeah. I think very, very, very early out of sheer necessity. Look for Mommy and daddy too, for our love, for our food, for everything. And uh, we a people pleaser is born out of that. If the parents aren’t very careful to help the child understand that mommy and daddy were the vehicles, the vessel, but that, that the child doesn’t belong to them. I think a lot of us, a lot of people, I coach people in their 50s and, and, and you know, some 18 year olds and an across the board, a lot of people are living a life, not that’s not theirs. There’s, they’re still trying to prove to mommy and daddy that they’re good enough, that they’re smart enough that, that they accomplished something. And so that just trickles out. You know? Uh, I was talking to someone yesterday about how we’re not just in relationship with our partners, we’re in relationship with our partners and their parents and their parents and their social conditioning and their programming and the TV they saw and the trauma that they went through. And it is our duty as, as conscious beings to pull apart and shine a light on. All of that isn’t us like the real us because a lot of times it’s, it’s that it’s this people pleasing, nice guy, nice girl, the good girl we can do day or do x, y and Z. And so that’s, that’s the beginning conversation around it. I could go much deeper, but I think that’s, I’ll stop there

on your website where you’re just dropping knowledge bombs and then it’s like, it’s an unbelievable website. And on that website you say, uh, one of the videos you say not everyone you lose is a loss. Break that down. What do you mean by that? That, that that is hot.

Yeah. A lot of times our ego gets involved and it gets really attached to ideas about how things should be and no should get an x in our way. These expectations about life and how things should be. And so sometimes what’s happening a lot of times would happen. What’s happening is, uh, the universe or call it God, call it whatever you want, call it. Your higher self is moving ahead if you, it knows what you truly want. And so sometimes what seems like a loss is actually a setup is actually a blessing. If it’s a rerouting, it’s a setup for something greater than you can even understand. Right? From your, your sort of myopic view

truth, you, you and your wife to write this book now or never. And your epic life in five steps to my understanding is you guys were basically you went down to Bali, you know, and you guys are just making out there on this Indonesian island that’s located somewhere between like China and Australia on the math basically. Hey, you guys are just, just getting it on, having a great time. Just really enjoying life there. How did you, did you, did you really write a book at the restaurant, uh, where you were, you were, you did, did you talk to me about how you and your wife together wrote a book? A lot of couples can’t do anything together, let alone write a book. How did you to write a book together of there? How did you do?

We definitely, definitely not perfect actually. That’s what makes us perfect is we’re both so head strong and creative and um, yes, we uh, went to this place called the outpost in Bali every single day

and uh, just took it piece by piece, know one section by section and, and bounced off of each other and just got really uh, committed. You know, uh, success is sequential, not simultaneous, so it’s doing the right things at the right time and a lot of people just throw everything at the wall and assume that it’s all equally important and it’s actually not. Um, and so we’ve both understood that and so we just got really, really focused on what is going to move the needle. We do that in our relationship. We do that in our business. We do that with our son. We do that across the board. What’s the one thing out of everything that I could do today that would move the needle, that would change the game, that would create space and room for everything else that you asked that question and, and literally sit in, what would that be? It makes everything else easier.

Dad, his dad is powerful. Success is sequential really is equally important to, is that kind of what you were saying, your success is cyclical. Just making sure I’m getting this stuff. That is good. Success is sequential. Okay.

Not Simultaneous.

Oh, I’m putting on the show notes. Not, I’m gonna put it on a shirt. I’m gonna Pride tattooed on my head here. I’ll probably get a Mike Tyson Tattoo on my face here then with that one. That’s a good one. Okay. Now, uh, Andrew would put that on the show notes. That is, that is hot. Okay. Now I have three final questions for, I want to respect your time. I have three final questions from me and one is for one of our show sponsors here. So this is my question for you. You are a successful guy. Um, you have a great wife, you have a great family, you’re starting building. Um, how do you now with hundreds of thousands of people following you on social media and these kinds of things, how do you organize the first four hours of your typical day? What does your routine look like?

Routine. So it’s one of those things where it’s very loose. It’s dependent on quite a few things. But I’ll tell you this, uh, anywhere between four 30 and five every single morning, especially my son decides that that’s the time he wants to be up. And I asked am a morning person, um,

dictator, is he sort of like waking up at four 30?

Yeah, yeah. He’s, he’s, he’s clear that that’s the time we’re going to be a time. That’s the time for us to really drop in and bond. And I, we have a playroom. Anything goes in there and said, we’re just throwing stuff everywhere and crawling and throwing balls at each other and I’m tickling him and chasing him. And so I start my morning with so much joy and there was a point where I allow him to play by his self. And at that point I either read something or listen to an audio book or just sit and listen this, see what’s there for me. Um, and then, uh, about 7:00 AM the nanny comes and I’ll go to the gym, swim, uh, do some type of workout or go surfing. And then by let’s say 9:38 AM I am in my office doing the one thing that moves in my business, whatever that is for that day.

So I asked that question every single day because I understand success is sequential, not simultaneous. So what’s the, if there’s steps to success and I’m calling this day, you know, let’s say, well, how can I be most successful in this day? And I need to ask myself out of the 12 things I need to do, which one is the most important thing? And whenever that is, I have done that by 12 noon before one o’clock hits, I’ve already won in my day. Everything else is extra. I have a success list and another to do list. And so, uh, everything else becomes the cherry on top.

Grooming lounges, he’s 54, I’m 38. I’ve got five kids. He has three. I built, I built a multimillion dollar brick and mortar companies. And so that’s how I make my money. And then this is what I do for fun cause I feel like I’m, it was called to help, uh, interview guys like you and to share, uh, words of wisdom with people that otherwise wouldn’t have access. How do you make money?

The source would be the workshops that my wife and I lead, the group trainings that I lead myself. So I have a group called stretch 22

stretched.

Yeah, we think 22 people for six months. It’s a total freedom bootcamp. Let me go anywhere and everywhere. And we support people. I support people in the coaches that I employ, support people in really looking at all the places where they’re still hiding and leveling up. Um, so that’s one. And then another is a group that I have called man case, which is clearly strictly for men. And that is a three month rites of passage where we use the archetypes, King, Warrior, Lover Mystic, and full energy as a backdrop for stepping into our manhood and our power and having the rights of passage that we never got from our dads or their dads or their dad. And so we do it together. It’s virtual. There’s 33 men. We start when it every two months.

Very cool. So you get involved in your coaching program. That’s something they can do. Now, one of our, one of our show sponsors, this guy is a Lamborghini driving mortgage guy. Steve, I’ll let me, let me turn Steve’s mic on here. That’s a passive aggressive move to Mike, your guests here. So Steve, and when did you and I first started working together? Uh, December of 15. And he said, he said, ah, I just lost my job and I want to start a mortgage company and I want to drive a Lamborghini. Correct. And now it’s 2018 he has a Lamborghini. And so a kind of a wish granted is to be, he’ll be able to ask you a couple of questions here. So Steve, what question do you ever, Mr. Preston Preston meet Steve. Steve, me, Preston. Hey, how’s it going man? Yeah, so specifically I’m a social media, uh, try to be a social media guru myself.

So probably about a, I don’t know, about eight months ago. It’s really started jumping into Instagram, which is where you have a lot of your following. So you know, I do mortgages and that’s cool. But you know, my big thing right now is I’m promoting my youtube channel and my Instagram. So I wanted to ask you specifically on Instagram your followers because you’re at 125,000, um, did you grow that organically? Did you, did you’d run some ads to get people in there? Did that happen, you know, where you got thousands of them at once and that kind of snowballed it. Tell me how you, how that happened and then, um, in your daily posting, do you focus more on sharing to your story and doing live on your Instagram or do you do posts and what do you see more engagement from?

Got, I think it was 60,000. That was just organic. That was just people tagging people. And then from that point I did a sort of campaign where reached out to a bunch of people plus, Hey, can I give you $150 to repost this video idea? And most of them were like 18 year old kid to have these pages where people resonate with my stuff. And so it just sort of snowballed from there. And it has continued. Right now I’m not running ads. If I were to be running ads, I would do it in the stories because it’s under priced and you can get in people’s space. So I would highly suggest that. Um, number two, um, I do live, I do instastories I think that for anybody in Instagram and anybody who wants to blow their social, I want to remind you that you don’t need no, you just need the right people. I have a friend who has 7,000 followers and he probably makes $10 million a year. Now it’s the 7,000 that are, there are all the right 7,000 and some of us, you know, like I have 125,000 people. I’d say at least 15,000 of those are 13 year olds. Like, they’re like, yeah. And we just fantastic because, yeah,

yeah, yeah, exactly. I love that, that young people are seeing me in that way. Really young people. Yeah, yeah. So I would suggest, I would suggest that you take it less off of like vanity metrics and numbers and really like really think about it. I grew organically just by showing up and being my truest, most authentic self and taking myself off a pedestal. People are already going to see you that way if you have a Lamborghini. Um, let’s see. And in so many ways, right? Most people in their lifetimes will never even make more than a hundred thousand dollars, let alone be up in the million dollar range. Right? So if it’s about money and the same thing, like my people don’t follow me because of money. They didn’t even know I make, how much I do. They follow me because I show up and I give my heart. They follow me because I make them think they follow me because I’m authentic, raw and real. You have to ask yourself, what guy do you want to be on the Internet?

There are guys I know personally who do this sort of safe Internet guy thing and they have way more followers than me, but they’re followers don’t go to bat for them. The people who are in my camp or not followers, they’re family and they know it. So people come up to me every single day, anywhere I am in the world. I was in Morocco and women came up with just their eyes because they had the thing over saying, oh, Preston smiles. Alexi felt like crying. This happens everywhere, right? So my hundred and 20,000 is bigger than the next man. 2 million because people get my heart. It just, you have to ask yourself, how do you want to play? You understand what I’m saying? Yeah. Yeah.

Respect for your time. So here we go. Let me give a killer. Ready. Okay, here we go. This is a question where I ask the question to ask somebody a yes or no question, but this is the deal. Uh, the guys at one of the radio networks that’s on the verge of syndicating our show, he says, you need to get more women on the show. And I said, I know I do. This is true. I tried to interview women and many people that have, I’ve talked about it on some previous shows up to as soon I’m going to be interviewing you, people have emailed and if wanted to know if I can book your wife on the show with you or solo or whatever that looks. And I said, who am I? Who am I to deny the request of the thrive nation? So I will ask the cowbell question, can we have your wife on the podcast with you or solo or whatever works best?

Yes. Do it.

Well, here’s the deal. My wife and I were a husband, wife team, and we do everything together with our business. I’d love to have like us to interviewing youtube. Does that, does that feel good?

Awesome. Let’s do it.

Okay. So what I’ll do is I’ll reach out to you after we wrap up here today. And then, uh, Steve, you’re always in southern California. He’s officed in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Colorado and Texas. But you’re always up there in, in the, in the California area. And you’re in Venice beach right there. Preston.

Yes.

Playa Vista will at some, at some point you gotta give you gotta let press my drag. The Lamborghini Lamborghini lives out there. It’s in Newport. It’s right at John Wayne airport actually. So I’ll be there this Saturday. What actually, that’s where all the fun car stuff is. So, and it’s warming thing or Preston. So it’ll make me smile more.

Awesome. It was awesome. People like you guys.

Well, Preston, thank you so much for being on the show, man. It means a ton to the thrivers out there. And, uh, if you’re out there and you’ve hurt you enjoyed today’s show, go check him out. Preston smiles, a great American, a hardworking guy, guy who’s on a mission to mentor billions of people. We’re big fans. Thank you so much, sir.

Thrive nation. If you are out there today and you feel stuck with your life, with your career, I would encourage you that you absolutely have the capacity and the tenacity needed to move beyond stuck. So I would encourage you to book your tickets for our next in person, thrive time show workshop so that we can teach you the specific steps that you need to take to unlock your potential and to take your career to the next level. Just like Preston smiles has done and we’d like to end each and every show with a boom can sit down with any further. I do three, two, one, boom.