From Setbacks to Success: The Brian Livingston Certified Professional Expert Story

Speaker A 00:05 Welcome to a thoughtful discussion of important ideas among people who are committed to succeeding in life. This is a gathering of leaders from a variety of industries, and our role here is to help you reach the top 1% of your field of choice. I'm Jim Cathcart. So come with me and let's discover how much more successful you could be. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Professional Experts podcast. Now, if you're not an expert, listen in. You might want to become one because that's a pretty desirable path to choose. I've been a professional expert as a speaker and author all of my career. And before that I tried, like 40 different jobs trying to figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up and finally found this path. And I'm loving it. And one of my very dear colleagues and new friends in the past few years is Brian Livingston, and he's joining us today. Brian, welcome. Great to see you. Jim Cathcart 01:17 Nice to see you too, Jim. And thank you for allowing me to be on the podcast. It's a great privilege. Speaker A 01:23 Well, hey, you are a Certified Professional expert, and you have one of these medallions and the certificate and the credentials to go with it. And you're based in Canada, but right now you're in Florida enjoying milder weather for. For a brief period yet. So they wouldn't go. Snowbird. Jim Cathcart 01:45 Yes, it's my first year snowboard snowbirding, and so far it's wonderful. Speaker A 01:52 Well, good for you. Good for you. Well, you're professional. Certified Professional Expert, CPE number 23. So there aren't that many of them in existence. And you're one of the first early adopters who earned that credential. And for those that are new to this, let me explain briefly what it is. A Certified Professional Expert is a person who has built a business primarily around what they are specifically skilled, educated, experienced, or wise enough to do. And the designation as a Certified Professional Expert comes from Cathcart Institute. And it has six criteria. Five years or more of leadership level involvement in your field, advanced education for your specialty, commitment to ongoing education. So you're constantly renewing and refreshing it. Service mindedness and a commitment to customer satisfaction, ethical business practices, and a solid reputation and client testimonials to prove as evidence of your professionalism. Well, you are that and more, Brian, and I admire you and I'm glad we're friends as well. Tell us a little bit about your path because you started out with different expectations and then had to do a course correction along the way. Jim Cathcart 03:19 Well, yeah, definitely there was a major course correction. There's been a few. But, you know, my career, really, my work career started as a police officer. And you know, as I tell people, I kind of hit that, that PTSD wall and I couldn't, I couldn't go back to work. I couldn't get back into a police cruiser. I just, I. I couldn't do it. Speaker A 03:48 An emotional block to be. Oh, yeah, what now, had you been a beat cop or, you know, a patrolman in a car or what? What was your role in the police department? Jim Cathcart 04:00 Started off in patrol and then I moved over into traffic, which kind of led to, you know, what we're going to talk about in a few minutes. Speaker A 04:07 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 04:08 But, yeah, I was just general duties, responding to complaints and due to the size of our department, because I was a police officer in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Speaker A 04:21 No kidding. Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. I would at the top of my business card if I were you. That's a pretty cool credential, you know, like being a cowboy in Texas. Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Jim Cathcart 04:34 Wow. Speaker A 04:35 Yeah. What a great name. Jim Cathcart 04:37 Anyway, you don't nail Canada better than that. Speaker A 04:40 No, you certainly don't. Okay, what was the department you were in? Jim Cathcart 04:45 It was the city of Moose Jaw. They, you know, they controlled the city limits and then the RCMP controlled, outside of that. Speaker A 04:54 Cmp. Royal Canadian Mounted Police, right? Jim Cathcart 04:57 That is correct. Speaker A 04:59 They were on horseback primarily, you know. Jim Cathcart 05:02 Yeah. And I've actually got a couple friends who are on the mounted patrol that toured around the world actually doing that. So because of the size of our department, you took every complaint like there wasn't really a place to pass it off to. So like one of my first shifts, I was dealing with the child sexual assault. I just come out of place college and those are really specialty investigations. And I came out and I said, okay, who do I pass this off to? And they're like, you're the man. So it's all you did, you know. And just the combination of having to deal with those types of complaints just got to me. For some people can do their whole do 25, 35 years. Speaker A 06:00 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 06:00 And I just, you know, at 4, I couldn't get back in the cruiser anymore and I had to tap out. And the problem with that was, was I still obviously needed to provide an income. I had, you know, I was married. I had two young daughters at the time, three and three, and not even a year. And I had to, you know, as I state, I got involuntarily thrust into entrepreneurship because what was going to happen was any business that I might be able to get some type of salaried position out of anything like that. Well, they're going to contact my prior employer, of course. Right. And, and especially this was back in 2001. And really the admittance that there may be a mental health issue just meant you were weak and crazy. Speaker A 07:03 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 07:04 Right. Speaker A 07:04 Today it's, it's kind of widely accepted that some people, that many, many people are powerfully, emotionally impacted by those kinds of experiences, which is the same as a battle experience in many ways, without the explosions. Jim Cathcart 07:21 Yes. Speaker A 07:21 It's the same kind of gut wrenching and heart, heart breaking experience when you encounter that level of depravity or human suffering or, or whatever. I had a mild. Like if you had a terminal illness, I had a cold. By comparison. Here was mine. For three years I was a bill collector repossessing log trucks in the Ozark Mountains and going into the ghettos and getting people to pay for the cars they had bought or their appliances or whatever else. And I finally went to my boss one day, kind of like you got to your moment. I went to my boss and I said, I want to go somewhere where people are glad to see me. Yep. So I'm out of here. He said, hey, man, you know, stay. You've got credits accumulating and you could make a career out of this. No, thank you. So I understand. I empathize a little bit. Couldn't understand the depth of it, of course. Jim Cathcart 08:24 Yeah. Speaker A 08:25 So, yes, this entrepreneurship, I understand, you know, that you wouldn't want necessarily to go into a corporate structure or be. Be subjected to all that mess. But how did it come together that you said, okay, I'm out of here? Jim Cathcart 08:42 Well, I just, I finally decided one day that my, my marriage and my children were more important than my life was even more important. I'm very upfront with people when I tell them that I, if I would have continued on in my police career, my wife would have ended up a widow, my daughters would have ended up without a father. And I just, I didn't know what I was going to do, but I knew I had to leave. Speaker A 09:09 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 09:10 And that just really was the big deciding factor. And I just, I left and. But then I had to figure out what I was going to do. Speaker A 09:21 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 09:22 You know, and I still, I still got to provide an income. And I was fortunate in the fact that my family, my mom and dad and my grandfather were, Were wealthy enough that I at least had a lifeline. Not that I wanted to have to use that lifeline, but I was fortunate enough to know that I could try something. Speaker A 09:53 So you had a safety net. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jim Cathcart 09:56 You know, that safety net came with a lot of begging and, you know, pride shattering, you know, getting kicked when you're down. But it would be available to me if I really needed it, you know, so I then, you know, a couple different things that I thought were going to work out didn't work out. You know, like I was going to be working for a company and I flew into New York. I flew into New York on September 9, 2001. Whoa. And so I was in New York for September 11, and what happened on September 11 completely destroyed the business opportunity that I had. And so I'm just saying things didn't really necessarily work out the way I was planning. Speaker A 10:49 And how long were you in New York during that? Jim Cathcart 10:52 Well, the original plan was I was going to be there for two weeks, but I couldn't get out of New York for four. Like, I, I just, I, I, I couldn't, though, the way the airports were, the way everything was. I just, I had to hunker down with the, like, I'd flown out to work with this company. And basically, you know, we do know. So you and I have a mutual acquaintance, a good friend of yours, actually, who's very deeply involved in think and grow rich. And one of those things where, you know, go in there and show them what you're going to be able to do. Right. You know, come in and volunteer and be like, I will volunteer. I will come in and show you I can do this. Speaker A 11:34 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 11:35 And so I, I worked with them for four weeks out of their New York office. You know, at the end of it, I got offered employment. It wasn't what the offer was supposed to be because everything in New York got. Speaker A 11:50 Everything changed. Yeah, that's for sure. Jim Cathcart 11:53 As a result of that. And so I had to actually tell them, sorry, I can't, I can't accept that. That's not. Speaker A 12:00 Well, once again, you were in the middle of the flames, and I was on the outer, outer edge. My first Speaking engagement after 9 11, I flew to Georgia. My second one, I flew to Long Island. And so I flew into Kennedy and went out and everybody was still reeling from, from the impact of 9 11. And when we flew out of there, we could see in the distance, you know, see what, where it had happened. So I was, yeah, enough said on that. So you came back home from that and what. Jim Cathcart 12:40 And so I, there was a company that that company was supposed to be working with up in Canada. And so I contacted that company directly and said, hey, I'm free. Right. Like. And so then they hired me, ironically enough, under some false pretenses. So I moved across the country, took a role with them, sales role, really, a teaching sales role, and came in and taught their people what to do. And they got a massive revenue bump, 94% in three months. And at the end of all of it, they still weren't covering their bills. So I was like, this was my first question for you guys was when I was, before I came out, was, how financially stable are you guys? And you guys promised me that everything was hunky dory. And so despite that 94% profit increase, I ended up getting laid off. Speaker A 13:44 What was the nature of that business? Jim Cathcart 13:46 It was actually trading the stock market, but it was micro intraday trading. Like they were literally trading for tenths of a penny, believe it or not, just doing it hundreds of times a day. And I figured out a way that you could almost, just like you had an extremely high percentage chance if you did this, that you could lock in like a tenth of a penny. But when you're doing it with 30, 40, 50,000 shares over and over and over again. Right, those. Yeah, yeah. And so they had a bunch of proprietary traders, and I came in and taught him how to do all this. And then at the end of all of it, it turns out that the guy that hired me sold off his share and left right after he hired me. So we literally were done like we were. That was it at that point. Speaker A 14:51 So here you are with a brand new choice to make new business opportunities, shall we say? Jim Cathcart 14:58 Yeah. And that new business opportunity, I kid you not, was to sort of come back home, come back to my wife's father's house in shame. And, you know, and the thing was, because they let my wife know that I would never be adequate enough for her and I would never provide. And I proved them right, you know, and we came back and we had to sleep on the. In their basement, unfinished basement. We had a king size mattress for myself, my wife, my two daughters and our dogs. And that was. We were given about 100 square feet in the corner of their basement, their unfinished basement. And so I ended up just. We went for a drive. That was our. We didn't even have a car anymore at this point. We had no car. Car had been repossessed. We had to pay my father's new wife. We had to pay her $50 if we wanted to borrow her van for the day to just get the kids out of the house and go for a drive. Speaker A 16:10 Wow. Jim Cathcart 16:12 So anyways, I Ended up driving by a sign, and it was, fight your traffic ticket. And I was like, ticket? Yep. And it was, you know, and it was, here's your, you know, the phone number. Call if you want to fight the traffic tickets. So it's one of those, you know, like those portable. Speaker A 16:31 Oh, oh, yeah. Jim Cathcart 16:31 Well, you know what I mean? Just like the, you know, we'll say, like four foot by three foot type things in neon. And so I was like. I was like, I wonder how qualified these guys are. They must be super qualified, right, if they're going to be representing people in court. And back when I was a cop, I was. All my qualifications were traffic related. So I called up one business and they said, oh, sorry, the owner is away on holidays right now. And so I called up a second one, and they were like, the next day I was buying into the franchise. So I discovered fairly quickly once I actually got into it, that I was more qualified than anybody else in the industry. Speaker A 17:31 In the industry. Jim Cathcart 17:32 Yeah, for the. Speaker A 17:34 Yeah, in the firm. In the entire industry in Canada. Okay, now that's some credentials. Yeah. Jim Cathcart 17:43 And. And so. So all of a sudden I felt I was like, okay, I belong here. Speaker A 17:49 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 17:49 Right. And so I ended up with, you know, because, of course, my luck held true. I ended up getting into business with the total scumbag, you know, just because that's the way I do things. And, you know, and. And so, you know, I took. He gave me a goal. He said, In 18 months, I want to see a 100% revenue increase in 18 months or I'm going to rethink whether or not I want to have the. Didn't take on this franchise. It was a license agreement, not a franchise. So anyways, I gave him 107% increase in month one. Yeah. And he wanted it in 18 months and thought he was setting the bar high. Yeah. Right. And. And it continued on from there. And all of a sudden, like, he wanted to sell this to me day one. And I'm like, I don't have the money, right? I just. I don't have it. I. And he's like, well, you know, we'll see. And. And so I ended up doing this thing, and so I. I called my dad up and I said, dad, this is. This is crazy, you know, like. And he's like, well, what type of money are we talking? And I told him, and he's like, well, that's what you've got that business doing. He goes all invest, right? He's like, I will buy the franchise on your behalf. So I called up, called up the owner and I said, hey, you're trying to dump this thing, I'll bite off your hands. And he's like, hell no. He's like, you know, I just doubled his revenue, right. And so he's like, no, I want the lion's share. So it took me four years to buy it out. He made hundreds of thousands of dollars off of what I was doing, not including when I had to pay to, to buy it out. Speaker A 19:53 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 19:53 And then, you know, through a series of things and lawyers and contracts and everything, like that one clause in the contract, that single clause ended up being used against me because the owner wanted to sell out completely. Like not just mine, but the other one. He just wanted out. He was, he was, had an offer on the table to sell everything. So he came and he took the franchise back from me. So I, I tapped out. I was just like, I'm sick of working for scumbags. Like, I just, I've done all this, I'd done all this investment. I built this business up, you know, my. Speaker A 20:45 And then some. Yeah. Jim Cathcart 20:46 And in my family, our lifestyle changed. We were living in a gorgeous house. We were, you know, like, life was awesome. And you know, to go from sleeping in my 100 square foot in my father in law's basement to we had a house, 4,600 square feet finished. You know, was big lifestyle change. Speaker A 21:09 You bet. Jim Cathcart 21:10 And we lost it all again. Gosh. Speaker A 21:13 So you were starting with a new, almost a new skill set, a new understanding, a new base of where to begin. Yep. Yeah. Jim Cathcart 21:25 And they had a friend who had a phenomenal product for the stock market. And I'd gotten out of the stock market because I was sick and tired of working for scumbags. Then I got the traffic ticket industry and realized, well, scumbags are, and you know, they're not specific to an industry. So I started working for this guy because he had an amazing product but couldn't sell it. I didn't sell it yet. Two salesmen who weren't doing anything. Like I literally was meeting with him going, why do you have these guys? Like, they're not doing anything for you? You know, so anyways, before I, so I, I agreed to come on with him. And right before I agreed to come on, one guy quit, one of the salesmen quit. And after I came in the first day, the other salesman quit because the other salesman realized that I was going to hold him to account for what his job was. Right. And so he quit. You know, my, my buddy was all stressed out he's like, what are we going to do? And I'm like, dude, that was the best thing that could ever have happened to you. You just dumped a salary. Yeah. I'm like, because he was not generate revenue. Yeah, yeah. So, so, you know, I ended up, I came in, I took over, I created his entire sales program, did everything. And he went from me and him and an off site programmer to now they're managing several billion dollars for. They have multiple ETFs and mutual funds and advise hundreds of brokers around North America. And we did all of that and then once we got all that set up, he went, well, I'm too important. And just pulled away and was just living the high life. And I said, well if you want, if you're going to live the high life, I want to live the high life too. Because you know, I made a lot of sacrifices and you have promised me the world. And he went, oh yeah, I'm not gonna live up to everything I said that I was gonna do. And I said okay, well I have shares in your company. Buy me up. Right. And I took a year off. I was really frustrated and upset by it. And then I came back and I was like, what am I gonna do? And, and you'll love this. I, instead of my father in law's floor, I moved into my brother in law's floor. But he, he gave us a finished bedroom. So I was literally. And so we moved up. Speaker A 24:22 Broken that pattern. Yeah, let's not go back there anymore. Jim Cathcart 24:26 Yes. Speaker A 24:27 And so when that's where you decided to go into the, the traffic ticket business? Jim Cathcart 24:34 Yeah, I decided to jump back into that. Speaker A 24:36 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 24:36 I've been out of it long enough that. Not that a non compete really holds up, but I didn't want to have, I didn't have the money to the clown. And so we moved up into my, my brother in law lived in northern Alberta in a place called Grand Prairie. 70,000 people. Speaker A 24:58 And I looked, by the way, I've been right across Canada from. Jim Cathcart 25:02 Yep. Speaker A 25:03 From you know, Halifax to Victoria. Jim Cathcart 25:07 Yeah. And, and so we went up there, there was nobody, there was no traffic ticket agency up there. There were lawyers that were fighting traffic tickets. And I said, let's do it. My brother in law's giving me the opportunity for a hard reset because I don't have to worry about rent. Then I just restarted from scratch. Speaker A 25:32 And now you get a thriving business. Jim Cathcart 25:34 We're doing well. We are doing very well. Speaker A 25:39 How many locations and how many people in your business now? Jim Cathcart 25:43 Well, we have two locations and that's going to be expanding quickly. Now we have five people. I have somebody who's taken over the Grand Prairie location. He's amazing. I'm very fortunate to be able to have him. His name is Jeremy Bayes. You know, for once, I hired. Well, that was, you know, great. It was funny because by. By the point I'd gotten to, the lawyers had tapped out. Like, they, they just. They now prefer to us. They go, no, no, call. Call Brian. Speaker A 26:21 Right. Jim Cathcart 26:22 And one of the lawyers pulled me aside when he saw who I'd hired, and he's like, I don't know how the hell you did that. He's like, but great hire, you know, and. And so that when you're getting that feedback, you're like, okay, I did this. Speaker A 26:40 Yeah. What. Let's define for the listener, what is the nature of your business? Okay. Jim Cathcart 26:47 So we go into court on behalf of people and we represent them on their traffic ticket. Speaker A 26:55 Okay. And your business is called traffic ticket guru. Jim Cathcart 27:00 Yep. The traffic ticket guru. Speaker A 27:02 The trafficticket guru. Dot com. Jim Cathcart 27:06 Nope, nope. The trafficticket guru. Speaker A 27:10 Oh, dot guru. Okay. The traffic ticket dot guru. Jim Cathcart 27:14 Yep. Speaker A 27:15 Right. Wow. It fascinates me. You know, you wouldn't think there'd be a business there, although there's a need. You'd think that would just be handled by lawyers like you thought originally. But as it turns out, if you know the court system and you know what the moving parts are in every traffic ticket scenario, then you're able to defend what otherwise would have just been a cave in and pay it and take the ding against your insurance and suffer the consequences for the person. Jim Cathcart 27:51 Yeah. And that is the mindset of too many people, too many drivers who get traffic tickets. Right. They go, well, obviously I'm in the wrong if I was given a ticket. You end up with some people who think they're never wrong. Right. But a lot of people go, well, the cop wouldn't have given me a ticket unless they had the evidence to prove the case. Speaker A 28:23 Well, forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. Jim Cathcart 28:25 Right. And the thing is, is that in a lot of cases, they don't have the evidence. Like. And I tell people, I say, first of all, there's a difference between being guilty and being guilty is charged. Speaker A 28:40 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 28:40 When you're watching those TV dramas, you know, the crime shows, everything like that. Speaker A 28:47 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 28:48 You see the lawyers, the defense lawyers negotiating with the prosecutors for some type of pleiadium. Right. You know, instead of murder, we'll plead it down to man one or whatever it's going to be. Well, it's the exact same thing in traffic court. Right. There's a huge difference between, you know, a careless driving charge and a fail to stay in center marked lane charge. I know it sounds like whatever, but. But by me taking your careless driving charge and get a change to fail to remain in center of mark lane, I just saved you about $15,000 in insurance premiums over the next three years. Speaker A 29:34 Wow. Jim Cathcart 29:34 Just just by doing that? Speaker A 29:37 Yeah. Then that's still admitting guilt and accepting a fine or a judgment as opposed to trying to get somebody to wave a ticket for you. You know, like, I've got a friend. Now, your friend might be able to wield some power or influence, but you'd be a whole lot better taking an honest approach and having Brian represent you in, in that court case and turn this into something that's going to sting a lot less and last a lot shorter lifespan. Jim Cathcart 30:11 And what people don't realize, first of all, there's two things they don't realize. One, when cops come out of police college, okay, they have no clue about traffic law, okay? They really don't. And then a lot of times the person that's training them about traffic law once they get into the cruiser, also don't know the ins and outs about traffic law. So you have ignorance training. Ignorance, yeah. Right. Speaker A 30:45 So wonder they make mistakes. Yeah. I got pulled over one time in California, it's legal for two vehicles to be in the same lane. In motorcycling they call it lane splitting. You know, you drive between the lanes in slow moving traffic, not in fast moving traffic, but if it's creeping along, you can creep along at a mile or two an hour more than them and get to the front and get out of the flow and speed up traffic overall. What's wrong with that is people abuse it and they get on their motorcycles with no mufflers, making a loud noise and coming down the center lane like a, like a daredevil. And scares the daylights out of everybody and makes them hate motorcycles. But I don't drive that way. And my motorcycles quiet, relatively quiet. So I was on a mountain road and there was a construction stop up ahead and they had a policeman there directing traffic. And so I, when everybody stopped, I stayed in the lane markers and went up to the front because a motorcycle will take off much more rapidly than a car and the traffic will move more, more smoothly. So I went up to the front and the cop comes over to me, he says, you over here. And so I pulled over and parked the bike and he said, shut Your engine off, you know, And I opened the helmet up and. And said, what's wrong? He said, you're going to get a ticket. I said, for what? And I explained. He said, no, you can't do that. I said, yeah, it's legal. And he says, stay there. And he goes away. And they're going towards her. Got away. Oh, it is. Oh, will you stay there? So he just, you know, just so that he didn't lose face too much. I had to sit there until all the traffic passed and then I could get back in line and go. But sure, it was his ignorance of the law that contributed to all that. Yeah, yeah. Jim Cathcart 32:50 And so, you know, a lot of times when we get a hold of the evidence and we review it, we find major catastrophic flaws, which if people knew better, they'd realize that the prosecution couldn't proceed with the case, but because they just paid the ticket, they. They don't know. And then all of a sudden. And they also don't understand what the repercussions are until they go to renew their insurance. Speaker A 33:21 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 33:21 And their insurance company goes, well, you were paying $2,000 a year. Now you're going to pay 5,000. Speaker A 33:27 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 33:28 Right. For the next three plus years. And you're like, well, why? And you're like, well, because you paid that ticket. Speaker A 33:36 Wow. And they, like, built a business. Let's. Let's helicopter up from this a little bit. You built a business around taking that obvious oversight and filling that with expert guidance so that you're the. You're the guy who knows more than the people that are prosecuting it know in most cases. Jim Cathcart 33:58 Yes. Speaker A 33:58 That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. So I want the folks that are thinking about this not to focus on your model and think, how can I get into the traffic ticket representation business? But to think about their own field and think, where is there a gap like that? What part of this does everybody experience difficulty with? And there's not really a smooth, cool, perfect answer to it yet. You know, there's opportunity in that. There's great opportunity in that. And anytime there's chaos, there's opportunity. Jim Cathcart 34:39 Yes. Speaker A 34:40 That's the thing that I'd like everybody to think about in their own expertise. What is it, you know, what is it you understand or can do that's worth paying to have you do it on someone else's behalf? You can build a career around that. See, my field, I had tried 40 different jobs, by the way. I'd been in the field of investment sales, so I was selling for mutual Funds and life insurance for. For IDS Investor Diversified Services back in 1970. And I did that. Jim Cathcart 35:16 Was that what W. Clement Stone was that? Speaker A 35:19 No, but I. Stone was Combined Insurance Company of North America. And I later got to know Clement Stone, who wrote the book Success through a Positive Mental Attitude and co authored that book with Napoleon Hill. Because Clement Stone was the personal manager and business partner of Napoleon Hill, the author of Think and Grow Rich, which is huge. And he was headquartered in Chicago. And he had built a company that was so huge in the insurance field that he was the Bill Gates of his day. He was the richest man in North America. And one of the people that worked for him a few years later was OG Mandino. Augustine Mandino. Og Mandino wrote the book the Greatest Salesman in the World which sold tens of millions of copies, one of which belongs to me. And I was one of his followers. And I had the opportunity through the US Junior Chamber of Commerce, the JCS to be our liaison. Because later I was working for the jcs. I was our liaison to Clement Stone and Success magazine on a special project for the jcs. And my contact person was OG Mandino. And OG and I became friends and later he and I served together on the board of directors of the National Speakers Association. And I've been in his home and you know, just wow, wow, wow. Clement Stone and I served on a committee together in one organization. And I was his sort of his am. His known. I was going to say ambassador, more like his wrangler at a convention one time. I was the guy in charge of seeing to it he got what he needed. But I was also on the program so lots of cool stories back stories with all this and when I reflect on, on your path and, and the, you know, hitting a wall and then ending up in your parents house with your family. Me too. I did that. I sold mutual funds and life insurance poorly for two years and wasn't meeting all the, all the income needs. And so I had to quit that job and tuck my tail between my legs and go to mom and dad's house and bring my wife and new son. And we got the front bedroom, thank heavens. And you know, had a little base of operations with no rent for a few months. And then I got a new job and we were able to move out of there, but not before we borrowed some money from my wife's parents to get back on our feet. I've done the walk of shame. I've sat there being reassured that everything was fine by all the other Parties and. But still feeling like a loser and. And feeling guilty about the whole thing, then rebuilding. So I. So much in line with your path when it comes to understanding those. Those moments. Well, here you are today. You. I look at the screen behind you, and it says, my mentoring guru. It says, certified professional expert. And that's, of course, my connection with you. And then it says, 10x certified. The grant Cardone organization. Tell me about that. Jim Cathcart 38:53 Okay, so, well, obviously, Grant Cardone, for those that are familiar with him and his whole 10x philosophy, you know, Grant's a billionaire out of Miami. And when I was. My business was coming out of COVID We actually did okay through Covid, obviously far lesser, because the cops were told, unless you see something egregious, you don't pull them over, because we don't want to risk with other people. So I was fortunate enough that the people that were doing the egregious things were still reaching out to me, you know, often enough that we scraped. But when I came out of COVID I expected there was going to be this massive jump because everyone was back to normal. The cops are ready. It's back to normal again. And I didn't see it. And. And I went, well, something's changed, like, and I'm not seeing it. I don't know how to do it. And so I ended up hearing about this. This guy who'd gone undercover. The undercover billionaire, right? And I'd heard of this guy, actually, before I knew it was undercover billionaire, I heard there was this guy that. That flew into a city that he didn't know, started from scratch, and created $1 million business in 90 days. So I started researching, who is this guy? Yeah, Right. And then it turned out the guy's name was Lewis Curtis. And I was like, okay, well, who is this Lewis Curtis dude, and how did he do it? Well, it turned out Lewis Curtis was the undercover name Grant had been given wow to for this whole undercover billionaire show. And it turned out grant, in 90 days, created a business valued at $5.5 million in 90 days. The goal was a million. Wow. And he had 5.5. And it turned out, as I then got involved with the whole 10x thing, Grant was pissed because Grant went in with the 10x mentality. Right, exactly Right. And so, yeah, he was happy. He made the goal. Right. The goal is a million. But his real goal was, I'm going to 10x this sucker. And, you know, so he only 5.5x the. The million dollar goal, and nobody else had been able to do it yet. Speaker A 41:41 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 41:42 In. In the show. Like they were, you know, and so Grant really came in and proved this can work. Yeah. And so I was like, okay, I'm going to dip my feet in. And my business started going up and I was like, wow, this stuff actually works. Speaker A 42:04 So you were. He had courses or consulting. How did you get involved? Jim Cathcart 42:09 He had a course, and I forget the name of it now because I've done a lot of them. So I apologize. I can't remember, like, Tony Robbins course, Speaker A 42:18 something that you could buy and listen to and work the exercises or watch the videos or whatever it was. Jim Cathcart 42:24 Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then the next step after that is he has a thing called Cardone University, which has literally two decades worth of recorded content. Like, he is forever in his head said, this is what I'm going to become. And so he's filmed all of it going, I'm eventually going to be this person. Speaker A 42:49 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 42:49 So I'm going to create all this content so that by the time I'm here, I'm going to have all this content that people are going to be able to learn from. Speaker A 42:59 Yep. Jim Cathcart 43:00 Right. So he's gone over two decades. There are thousands of videos to. To watch in Cardone University. So I started digging into Cardone University. The business started going well, and then they reached out to me and said, do you want to become a business coach? I loved. I was a basketball player in university. I loved coaching. I had, you know, kind of voluntarily helped a lot of people with their businesses. Just like, you know, okay, well, you're doing this wrong. You're doing this wrong. You're doing this wrong. You know, at the same time that I'm partnering with douchebags, I'm, you know, I'm still knowing, like, I'm helping those douchebags grow their businesses tremendously. Speaker A 43:47 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 43:48 You know, and so now you've got Speaker A 43:50 a model, you've got a system, the one from your own experience combined with the structure that the Grants content followed. And so you're certified by them to be a business coach and to teach people that are. Walk people through the 10x model. Jim Cathcart 44:10 Exactly. And then very recently, I was offered the opportunity, which I, you know, was very grateful to accept that I'm one of 39 people that grant has throughout the world who actually coach his own clients. So Grant actually pays me. Speaker A 44:33 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 44:34 To coach his people. Come and pay him. Speaker A 44:38 Put the pause button on for just a second about that. You went from struggling to figure out what in the world you're going to do to having a Pretty good success. And then hitting a brick wall and having to start all over again because you trusted the wrong people. And then getting it going again, getting a big house. Life is good. God is great. Beer is delicious. Right. All's right with the world. Boom, another brick wall. And then you go through that and you see this opportunity and you end up creating your own business, doing what the other people were doing poorly. And wow, that. That's pretty awesome. And then once your business is up and thriving, you take the Greg Cardone model and not only master it, but you get to the point where he's sending his clients to you and paying you to take care of them, following his models and his philosophy. I think that's immensely impressive. I mean, no wonder you're a certified professional expert. Even if we hadn't met, you would be one. Jim Cathcart 45:48 Right? Thank you. But that was. It's funny because, you know, I'm listening to the points that you're bringing out, Jim. Speaker A 45:56 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 45:56 And you drop names so casually, and I really don't think people pick up on it. Okay, like, you know, you worked for Earl Nightingale. Right. And you created at the time his most successful ever program. Right. Speaker A 46:19 The Sweatley's program as his first non Earl Nightingale program by Nightingale Kona Corporation. And then the next one to come along was Relationship Strategies by Jim Cathcart and Tony Alessandra. And we sold. They sold millions of dollars of that worldwide. And then Brian Tracy and a bunch of other people came along and they did well, as you know, also. But, yeah, yeah. Jim Cathcart 46:47 So there you go. You just did it to get. Right. So, you know. Or you got Earl Nightingale. Okay. You've got Og Mandino. Right. You've got Clement Stone. You just dropped Brian Tracy, who I know is a very close personal friend of yours. Speaker A 47:05 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 47:06 Okay. You know Dr. Tony Alessandro, who's just a phenomenal guy, right. Who used to be Grant's next door neighbor. Speaker A 47:13 Yes, he did. And finally, by the way, when. Jim Cathcart 47:16 When people understand the types of names that you're dropping so casually. Okay. Speaker A 47:23 In this round. Yeah. And Norman Vincent Beale and Zig Ziglar. And, you know, I mean, these. All these people were people I knew or are people I know, they have worked with. And for that matter, I'm the first paid outside speaker Brian Tracy ever brought into Brian Tracy International to speak at one of their conventions. Jim Cathcart 47:47 That's incredible. I did not know that one. Speaker A 47:49 That was my mind. And here I was when I was struggling like you, I started selling Earl Nightingale's motivational recordings door to door, back in the 1970s in Little Rock, Arkansas. And 10 years later, he was selling mine worldwide. When he passed away, I was the only outside speaker at his memorial service with his widow and his son in the audience. Jim Cathcart 48:13 Wow. I didn't. Not either. Speaker A 48:16 You know, I look at your path and my path, and just the other night, my wife Paula and I were talking about this, and I started a little journal page. Just. It's titled One degree of Separation Now. I started out son of a telephone repairman in Little Rock, Arkansas. My mom was a homemaker. My grandfather was an invalid in our front bedroom from a stroke. Never spoke or moved for his last seven years. And my grandmother lived with us and helped take care of him. And so we never had money. Nobody in my family had a college degree. We didn't know anybody that was anybody. And I had never expected to have money. And now then you fast forward and I've got all those things, and I was just listing some of the other names and. Jim Cathcart 49:06 Yeah, keep going, Jim. Sorry. Speaker A 49:09 It is just mind boggling to me how many people whose names are big names in the world that I'm that far from likewise with you. Isn't that amazing? Jim Cathcart 49:24 Well, it's incredible. And once again, what I want people to understand is I meet you actually through my podcast. Right. I ended up having to have a new come on. And you're dropping these names so casually. And what people don't understand is I. I refer to you like, you know, Frank sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. Speaker A 49:50 Right. Jim Cathcart 49:50 Dean Martin, right there with the Rock pack. Yeah, right. Well, the guys that you ran with, so to speak, were the original Rat pack of motivational speaking. Speaker A 50:05 That's true. Jim Cathcart 50:06 You guys created the ability for people like Tony Robbins and Grant Cardone to exist. Speaker A 50:16 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 50:17 Okay. They listen to your guys's tapes. Speaker A 50:21 Yeah, yeah. Jim Rohn and I were inducted in the speaker hall of Fame same night together in. In 1985. The two of us, plus Tony, Alessandra and a couple of other folks. Jim Cathcart 50:33 Jim Rohn. There's another name drop. Speaker A 50:35 Yeah, right. Mentor. Jim Cathcart 50:38 Yep, yep, exactly. And so you look at this and you go, okay, one of the gods, literally gods and originators of motivational speaking and how to be able to accelerate your business to insanely profitable lessons. Has a certification called the Certified Professional Expert. Speaker A 51:07 Oh, man, you're. You're promoting me. Awfully high. Jim Cathcart 51:10 No, no, like. And then you look. Speaker A 51:13 Call me an og. Jim Cathcart 51:15 Exactly. Speaker A 51:16 Digital gangster, you know? Jim Cathcart 51:17 Yes. Speaker A 51:18 Yeah, I'm one of the. One of the early crew, part two, after the. After the. The greats, you know, the Norman Vincent Beals and. And Dale Carnegie's and people like that. But the cool thing is I know people who worked face to face with Dale Carnegie. Jim Cathcart 51:35 Yeah. Speaker A 51:36 You know, he passed away before I had a chance to work with him, but those kind of things. Jim Cathcart 51:42 Yeah. Speaker A 51:42 And so same things True. With Buckminster Fuller. Jim Cathcart 51:46 So I have the opportunity to be able to be mentored by one of the true original greats in this entire industry. Okay. And I look at it and I go, gosh, am I even close enough to be able to be one of these professional experts? Because when we, you know, you casually drop names. But Brian Tracy and Les Brown are two of the people who. They felt it was important enough for them. Speaker A 52:29 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 52:30 To get this achievement right. That this. So I. I look at people and I go, you know, it's a high bar. But I can tell you being able to get over that bar is the greatest achievement I've. I've ever had in my life, Jim. Speaker A 52:49 And. Jim Cathcart 52:49 And I am. I am truly grateful, like, to be mentioned as one of those 25 with the names of those people are amazing. But to be able to get it certified by an OG like you and learn from you is just. You can't put a price tag on it. And anybody who's not. Not willing to try to get this, it's stupid. Because first of all, it. Well, it is because. Because the steps itself, to be able to get. To get those qualifications, to be able to be recognized as one, are going to accelerate your business. Speaker A 53:42 Absolutely. See that? Yesterday, I enjoyed writing paper for Selling Power magazine. Gerhard Schwantner is the publisher. Jim Cathcart 53:51 Good friend. Speaker A 53:53 That's another one of those names. But Gerard said, jim, I want to promote this, and I'd like to, you know, publish a piece about it. And I'd like to also interview you on video to push it out to our subscribers. So write me a paper on the pillars of mentorship, and how does this work and how can one become a mentor? You know, put it in writing for me. So I got up the next morning, excited to write that, and I. I asked AI, I said, hey, tell me what this is, you know, and it came up with this article. I thought, well, that's, you know, that's a little bit lame, but not bad. So I use that as my structure and then just rewrote it, added a few things, and deleted a lot of things. But I felt very comfortable in that. The reason I bring that up is that one of the key elements I specified in mentorship is a mentor's goal should always be to become less necessary for each of your clients to get them like you are to the point where you don't need me, but you might still want me around. Right. So when I look at people who are building a clientele as an annuity for themselves, building dependents who never quite graduate, always need them, you know. You know, let's go to the platinum level and see what we can do. I mean, it's fine to have extra things available, but if you can't get out of that loop and be okay on your own, then you haven't been benefiting from that loop. You've been dependent within it. And my goal is for people not to need me, but to really, really want me still in their world. Jim Cathcart 55:44 I love that. Speaker A 55:45 Yeah, yeah. Same thing with my son, by the way. Jim Cathcart 55:49 Yes. Speaker A 55:50 My goal was for him to become not only self sufficient, but a source of strength for others. And sure enough, I mean, here he is in his 50s, he is a senior executive with Four Seasons Hotels and they fly him around the country. After 26 years of experience at the executive level with Four Seasons Worldwide, he is now flying around to. I think today he's on his way to New Orleans. A couple of weeks ago he was in San Francisco. In between, he was in. In Los Angeles doing H R consulting for all of these various top of the food chain properties. Living life at the top of of existence. His kids grew. His kids are now adults, but they grew up thinking it was normal when you checked into a hotel to have a tray of chocolates spelling out your name waiting for you in the suite that you were staying in with robes, child size as well as adult size in the bathroom. Jim Cathcart 56:58 That just happened. That just happened. Speaker A 57:00 No, I remember when I thought a little sliver of soap about the size of a business card in the hotel room was a luxury. Oh yeah, bring your own. Jim Cathcart 57:11 Yeah, exactly. And. And I'm gonna drop something. Is your son going to be in Santa Barbara end of March? Yes, he is beautiful. Speaker A 57:22 So will my grandson. We're holding the. I've got to wrap this together because we've reached reach the top of the hour. But you've been a wonderful, wonderful guest today. And I think those who listen to this and re. Listen to this will start seeing those patterns and how they relate to their own life and their own business and learn a great deal from our experience. And they'll also see that we, like most all high achievers, have not only been down off the pedestal of success but. But laying in the gutter trying to find a clean way to get back into success, you know, for sure. While during the cycles. So In March of 2025, March 23, 4, 5 and 6, I'm holding the semiannual Professional Expert Summit. And this one is going to be in Santa Barbara, California at the Cheshire Cat Inn and Cottages, which is a charming, wonderful place. And those who enroll early are getting free hotel and meals. Deal. And all that included, no extra cost, which is super cool. Those that wait until after the first of the year will be paying regular price, but it's still a bargain. And my son's going to be there. I don't know how long he'll be there, whether it's a full thing or briefly, but he'll be there. My grandson who is a professional musician, a poet. Professional poet, a close up magician that gets paid for doing cardistry at fundraiser events and company events and that sort of thing. And a teacher for math nasium part time and also a teacher doing some other public school work. He's going to be there. And he said, grandpa, I want to be there. The last time I had him there was in La Jolla in May and I had him doing close up magic and blowing people's minds. And he said, he said, hey, I want to stay for the serious part. You know, I'm learning things here. I want to be there. So he'll be a wonderful addition. Les Brown said he wants to participate. So we'll be talking with Les Brown at that event and got some other folks up my sleeve that I haven't made formal contact with yet that are likely to drop in. And just this morning I was speaking with a book publisher and story coach about coming to the event and being there to help us all craft our message, whether it's for a training program or a book or an article or whatever to be more strategic. So lots of good things coming. Jim Cathcart 60:17 Well, I will, I will comment from being able to participate in the last one, the value was immeasurable, like absolutely immeasurable. To, to be able to be surrounded by the levels of expertise that are there. You can't find it anywhere else. Like you can't. It's that simple. Speaker A 60:40 And gathering of eagles, you know, did someone said egos and I said, well, maybe, but I meant E A G L E S the bird. Yeah, but that is the nice thing is that people like yourself, that's who comes to this. And so when we're in that room, everyone in the room is capable of stepping to the front and taking over and providing huge value, even if the rest of us only sat there to listen. But as it is, we end up collaborating with each other and it becomes a bunch of power players helping each other get better at their respective craft. How do people contact you if they want more of Brian Livingston? Jim Cathcart 61:25 Well, they can reach out directly. I've got two different websites, obviously. I've got the one, the my mentoring Don guru. The other one is thetrafficticket guru. They can also find me on LinkedIn and just reach out and, you know, depending upon what their need is, I may be able to service that. But if I can't service that, I'm definitely going to find you somebody who can. Speaker A 61:52 There you go. There you go. That's the thing. When they connect with you or me, they also connect indirectly with our circle. Jim Cathcart 61:59 Yeah. Speaker A 62:00 And we've both got some pretty substantial folks in our circle. So it's. It's the old six degrees of separation shrunk down to one. Jim Cathcart 62:08 Yes. Speaker A 62:09 And we can help solve problems we're not necessarily skilled at. Well, thank you, Brian, for being here today and thank you again for bringing Chandra and upgrading the experience of everybody else at our last expert summit, because she was a wonderful addition to the dialogue and the experience itself. And I hope you have a great holiday season and enjoy your warm time in Florida before returning to the land of God's frozen people. Jim Cathcart 62:40 Yes, they'll be by that point. Hopefully they'll be the land of the thawed people. Speaker A 62:45 There you go. Good thought. Jim Cathcart 62:48 You. Speaker A 62:49 There you go. Take care, my friend. Jim Cathcart 62:52 All right, Jim, thank you very much. Thanks again for having me. Speaker A 62:55 You bet. Bye Bye. Thank you for joining us today. If you are committed to making more success happen in your own life, go right now to my website, free.cathcart.com and download my free ebook and then watch the video. If you decide that you'd like my assistance in helping grow your success, then come with me and let's discover how much more successful you can be.