 a computer and three, two, one. From firefighter to entrepreneur, today we're going to be talking to a friend of mine by the name of Cole Hatter, who was in a couple of accidents early on in his life, where he lost the temporary ability to walk. And then he went on to start several multimillion-dollar businesses. And then he also lost a lot of money in the recession. And then he rebounded and came back again. I've got a little bit of a man crush on him, to be honest, because he's got a beautiful wife. He's got two lovely daughters. He's very successful. I've listened to him speak on stage, and I've learned a lot of sales techniques and persuasive techniques from Cole. And today we're going to be learning a little bit more about his story, how he did it, but also how you, the listener, know, can create a business of your own, not just that makes millions of dollars, because that is the goal. Obviously we want to make millions of dollars. But how do you create a business that actually gives back to the community that serves a purpose? As you know, as you've heard my podcast here before, I made a million dollars pretty quickly with my Swanee's glasses in 11 months. And it feels amazing. But what really feels amazing is all the people who message me all the time saying, wow, my sleep's improved. I've reduced my eye strain. Thank you so much. Like that feels really good. And that's giving back a business. You don't want to be selling sugary treats or Coca-Cola or cereal or whatever. That's not really giving back. But if you can create a business that gives back and gives you a sense of purpose, that's the goal we're trying to get to. So without further ado, it's a big welcome to Mr. Cole Hatter. How are you Cole? Good, man. I love, you know, in the intro, it's very cordial to say, oh, this is my friend Cole Hatter. And, you know, sometimes people I've never even spoken to before will introduce me that way. But you really are my homie. So it's, it's good to see your face. It's been, when's the last time we saw each other? Like seven or Thrive, I think was the last time I saw him. Yeah, Cole, you, Cole runs this amazing event called Thrive, which I should have said at the beginning. And actually it's the best business conference seminar that I have ever been to because of many factors, one of which is Cole talking and how he runs the whole show, but two, because of the quality of the guests there. I mean, we had Fan Marrow, we had, we've had Gary Vaynerchuk, Keith Farazi, who's a good friend of mine, Ty Lopez, Grant Cardone. How do you get all these people in the one spot, Cole? Yeah, yeah, but that's the last time I saw you. We could talk about that too. So it is good to see you. And as you were running through, you know, our friendship and how we got to hang out in Dallas that one day, or that one weekend and work on sales stuff. So anyway, it is good to see you. And yeah, man, I'm excited to hang out with you and to talk about this. I think like you mentioned, you know, everyone's goal is to be profitable as quickly as possible. And I never heard that. So congrats that you made a million bucks in 11 months. It does not surprise me at all. Obviously, I knew you pre-swamis. So I knew that that's just one thing that you're going to do. And the next one will be equally or even greater success. But, you know, we all want to hit big numbers. And that has to happen, right? You can't, you can't be in business if you're not profitable or you can't stay in business. I should say if you're not profitable. But then there's this place that many entrepreneurs get to where, you know, they're doing well. And that vision board, that thing that was once a dream is now their daily life and all the cars they wish they had and the money they wish they were making, all that stuff's happening. And then at the end of the day, they almost lack purpose because it's like, jeesh, like getting to this point was like the definition, the pinnacle of everything. And now I'm here and now life still has to go on. This reminds me of a story Tony Robbins taught. I went to Tony's live event last November and he says that there's a crazy amount of depression that happens with astronauts when they come back from space. Their entire life was dedicated around one mission that only lasted days or even a week. And then they come home and every single decision they made and every single thought and every single action was around getting to the moon, so to speak, or getting into space. And now that they're home and in their thirties and still have the majority of their life left to live, they almost get misplaced. And I'm still a lot of entrepreneurs, you know, we may be at a desk job and we have a goal to quit. And then once we're in business, we have a goal to hit certain revenues, live in certain houses, take certain vacations, drive certain cars. And then all of a sudden for many of us that happens and we get into a similar place where it's like, sheesh, everything I've been working for, everything that got me out of bed in the morning I now have or have accomplished. And there's this kind of place of like, so what's next? And that's a conversation that I would love really having under the UN. I've had that chat. That's a lot of what we talk about at Thrive is, is building a business that doesn't just make money. It has significance, not just as, you know, us as individuals doing with our profits, what we will, but the business itself. And so, so yeah, just with what you were talking about in the beginning there, it resonates with me that, that, you know, we all want to make millions of dollars sure. And maybe some people just thousands, maybe some people tens of thousands, maybe some people tens of millions, whatever that number is. But then, but then what is the big question? But then what? And that's the conversation I love to have. And why is that so important to you? Is it something to do with, you know, the start to your adult life? I guess you had because you were a firefighter at one point. And then you had a couple of crippling injuries and a couple of devastating things happen in your personal life. If you'd be willing to just share a little bit of that, maybe that would create context for why, you know, businesses with purposes so important to you. Yeah. And that's actually a big reason why I feel like I'm on borrowed time twice. And so like you mentioned, you know, I had two accidents and 66 days apart, I was in a car accident and I was in a dirt biking accident. And a dirt biking accident, my best friend and I fell into a mineshaft. And in the car accident, my best friends and I were in a rollover car accident. Again, they happened 66 days apart and I obviously survived both accidents. Others did not. And so as a result of the car accident, I was in a wheelchair for a while, as you mentioned earlier. And previous to that was a firefighter and you cannot be a firefighter from a wheelchair. So I had the grief of losing friends in both accidents. I had the guilt of surviving. And then I had the reality of being crippled to the point where I had to move back into my parents' house. I was 21. I'd been a firefighter living on my own, you know, starting my life, building my career. And I thought I'd be in the fire service my whole life. And then those two accidents ended up again, physically, I couldn't care for myself, right? I was hurt so bad immediately following the accident. I had to move back to my parents' house and like literally be carried to the toilet. I mean, you know, I was bad. And so in that season of life and then recovering, I decided that, you know, I'm on borrowed time twice. And that for whatever reason in both accidents, I survived where others didn't. And I went through a lot of crap of processing that. You know, I felt so guilty. Why am I alive? And why aren't they? And, you know, why did I get spared? And they didn't. I finally realized I can't control that. I can't bring them back. I can't control the fact that I survived and they didn't. And feeling guilty about that doesn't honor them. The only thing I can control is number one, what I allow that to mean to me and about me and then number two, what I do going forward. And so I decided to stop being upset and feeling sorry for myself that I was like some victim of life circumstances and decided instead to honor their lives by pushing myself farther than I ever dreamed I would. And so that was kind of the beginning of this mission, this war path of making my time count and the thought of just making money a little bit more each year to live a little bit more comfortable life each year, to eventually just tip toe to my grave and arrive safely without anyone even noticing I was here or mattering to anyone. That felt like I was stealing from those that I'd lost. Steve and Matt, Steve passed in one accident, Matt in the mine shaft in the other. And for me to just live a pretty normal life under the radar, just paying bills, starting a family someday, trying to put my kids through college, then trying to save for retirement, then hopefully retiring and then just like what the world tells you is what life is all about seemed to me like I was robbing them. And for whatever reason, I got to live and they didn't. And just working my ass off to put kids through college, then once they'd graduated, working the rest of my days to my ass off to someday retire. And then if I make it, sit around a retirement totally my thumbs until I die. It's like, man, that's literally stealing from Steve and Matt, I got to make my life matter now. And so I think that was the genesis of what has over about 12 years now evolved into what Thrive is and what Thrive teaches and what Thrive, you know, my mission of what I want to do with entrepreneurs was really that I made a commitment to Steve and Matt one day, it was December 18, 2004, I looked up and was talking to them and said, you know what, I will not let you be forgotten and I will not let my life not matter. I'm going to do things big enough for the three of us in your honor. And I think that was really the beginning point of where this all came. And then a whole lot of ups and downs, like you said, I got my butt kicked in the recession. And so, you know, from from that life experience of losing Steve and Matt and surviving twice, and then the business experience of having made a ton of money lost at all, and then made millions since has all been a life lesson, right? They say you're only a failure or you're only you've only lost if you don't get a life lesson, right? Like, like, I forget who it is. I don't think it's Warren Buffett, but someone says there's no the only such thing as failure is to not learn and try again. And so as I've failed through life and learned each time what not to do and what I should have done differently, I ended up coming out the other side successful. So anyway, that was a tool that was been a 12 year journey. I just condensed there into one minute for you. When you first started to make money as an entrepreneur was the temptation there to just make a bunch of money in whatever industry you could. And that was the that was the goal. And that way you were honoring your friends by just making as much money as possible and having the freedom to do whatever you want. And maybe the purpose or maybe the the you know, the helping others was less important. I don't think it was less important. So yeah, my goal was to make money in the industry. But I always had the clear vision that I wanted to start my own nonprofit. And well, actually, that's what I did first. So before becoming an entrepreneur, I started a nonprofit. And then I realized that nonprofits are very non profitable. And that I needed to make a decision. I could either a start a nonprofit a traditional one and spend forever raising money from wealthy people like yourself that believe in me and the vision that would donate to me. And as I realized how I was going to go about fundraising, I realized it's kind of like starting a business. You start a nonprofit. And the effort of getting people to donate to you is like starting a glasses company and trying to get people to buy them from you. But at least in your business, people are getting glasses versus in a nonprofit, they're just donating because they want to. And I felt like it'd be easier to create a product or service that I could sell for money than just asking people for money. And so what I decided to do is start a business to fund my dream, my nonprofit for Steven Matt. And then what that business was, I didn't care. So it was kind of both of what you asked. I don't care how I made the money. I just knew that I needed to make a difference and that the way I wanted to make a difference required money. And as opposed to just asking for donations, I wanted to make a ton of money so I could live my dream life and have enough leftover that I could give back to. So it's originally in real estate. So I started 2005 investing in real estate. The accidents were in 2004 in the fall of 2004. And then in the spring of 2005, I was out of my wheelchair and rehab to the point where I started a real estate investment business. And just because I was in the right place at the right time, I made a ton of money very quickly. 2005 through 2007, it was like impossible to lose money real estate, you know. And so I thought I was something special. And then 2007 turned into 2008, I realized I was just lucky. And so lost everything slowly, I slowly hemorrhaged everything 2008, 2009. And then finally in February of 2010, quit and said, enough's enough, I can't do this anymore, I'm out. And actually moved to Mexico, where I did philanthropy full time. And then that's where I got the idea to make money matter, which eventually became the theme of thrive, came back to America, started up some of the old businesses I'd closed, started a few new businesses, went off to make millions of dollars and then to make my money matter. So that was it was exclusively real estate. And then when America had our recession and real estate collapsed, I realized two lessons. Number one, I should not be fully invested into one thing and only have one income stream. I should diversify and have multiple income streams. Number one. And then number two, I realized that I was nothing special as an entrepreneur. It was only about timing. And so I invested in some coaching and some mentors to help me learn how to make money no matter what real estate or the economy is doing. It's interesting you're telling that story. I see a lot of similarities on what happened to me around that time. And I started this PR company around 2008. And I had this six floor corner office on Sunset Boulevard, 64, 64 Sunset Boulevard. I was driving around in a silver Jaguar. And I thought that I was the king, right? I mean, Hollywood, I got this great office, clients are coming up for the seeing the view right down Sunset Boulevard with the holiday with the Hollywood Hills and the palm trees. And I'm like, yeah, I'm the man. And then all of a sudden financial disaster hit the world just went into Armageddon. And I lost all these clients overnight. People who were paying us stopped paying us. We couldn't get new business. And within four months, I had to close the business down. That's how much had just changed right away. And I realized I was just I was a crap entrepreneur. What I did was I actually got on a plane and I flew to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I ate steak, drank beer, and learned Spanish and danced tango for about six months. And when I was when I was there, I read a book called Never Eat Alone by Keith Farazi, who has been a speaker at one of your Thrive events, I think 2015. And that completely changed my life. I went from up until that point, I was going into new relationships thinking, how can this person help me? And after I read Keith Farazi's book, it was all, how can I help this person? How can I be valued to this person, which is the essence of business. Anyway, you want to make millions of dollars. And then when I came back to Los Angeles, I quit drinking, not that I was drinking a lot, but I just quit drinking. And I started helping people and everything turned on its head. I got this amazing job hosting Sports Center on ESPN for two years. That led me down an entrepreneurial path. I got mentored by Tai Lopez, who's also spoken on on your on your stage at Thrive in the 2016 event. And everything just flipped around for me. So we kind of got similar stories in the sense that we kind of like, well, for me, initially, I was greedy. I was like, I want money. I want to be a king, but sure entrepreneur. And then I had a very rude awakening that I wasn't. And then I kind of went away and found myself, and then came back and changed everything. And now I have, you know, my two main businesses help people like help people sleep better. And the other business 30 day no alcohol challenge helps social drinkers quit alcohol for 30 days. So um, yeah, kind of a kind of a similar similar story. They call yeah, and I like that we both use mentors to, you know, there's, I think a degree of humility, not to pat us on the back, but there's a lot of people out there that think they know everything. And one very common denominator of the most successful, most wealthy people in the world is they give a lot of their credit to their mentors. They talk a lot about reading books. And they are people that are consistently seeking things out like your podcast to consume content to make them better versions of themselves. And then there are all these people that make a bunch of noise that have, you know, okay businesses at best that are the, I know everything. I don't need to read. I don't need to write. Yeah, I could, I could just do my own thing. And I'm just God's gift to the earth and I make money. And I find that the most successful people are the ones that are most receptive. And it's funny how, you know, we talked about having some similar mentors there, but I think that's one good takeaway for your listeners too is we, I'll bet you this, you're still learning from someone being mentored. You talk about fan Merrill. I was on the phone with him this morning for 90 minutes. So, so in that time of the wilderness, I guess you would between where I'd made money, lost it all. And then before I start making again, I started investing in coaching. I'm making more money right now than I ever have in my life. And I still invest in coaching literally from 10am to 1130am. This day I was on the phone with fan Merrill, who's my mentor. So I would highly recommend for anyone in here. Now that's sometimes people ask me a question. I call you say to get a mentor. What if I'm so beginner? I don't even have the money. I consider a lot of men and women who aren't even alive anymore. My mentors like Henry Ford, I learned a lot from Henry Ford. Guy died way before I was born, but there's so many books and document documents or people have documented his journey for success. You know, Napoleon Hill, Think of Go Rich is like the most famous old book ever. So I almost hesitate referring it because everyone talks about that book. But that's just to show that things that were written long ago can still be valuable today. So I highly recommend for any of the listeners to get a mentor in person. If you can afford it, if not, start consuming massive amounts of the content you can for free and let those people mentor you through their literature, through their work, and then apply it and then you'll soon be in the financial position to actually pay to hire mentors. Yeah, I'm always trying to learn. This book is called Simple Numbers, Big Profits by Greg Crabtree. I interviewed a guy called Evan Tarty on my podcast a few weeks ago. Evan is the Chief Operations Officer for a company called Dr. Axe out of Nashville. I'm 41, he's like 32. I'm nine years older than him. You'd think that I've got all those years of experience, but I'm listening intently to every single thing that he says. And on that interview he says, oh, I read this book called Simple Numbers, Big Profits. And so I bought it. It cost me like, I think it was $14 on Amazon. And it's a game changer for my business because it's got me thinking about the business of my business. When I was at Cole's event, Thrive, the Thrive event 2016, which was in San Diego, I listened intently to Fan Merrill, who's Cole's mentor here. And Fan talked about the importance of having KPIs for your staff and for system, system, systems. And I'm listening. I'm taking down notes. Before I got on this interview with Cole, I actually pulled out my notes from that event and I was just rereading them and going over them again. I don't know at all. Thrive's three years younger than me. I'm three years older than him. I'm learning from him. Like, age has got nothing to do with it. And then next week, I'm flying to Lithuania to speak in an event from a guy called Matt Postius, who's 21. And I'm learning so much stuff from him. It's out of control. I'm twice his age and he's so much more advanced in certain areas of business than I am. So you make a great point, Cole. It's so important to just be humble in your learning all the time. Totally. And I actually know Greg Crabtree who wrote that book. I was just hanging out with him at an event a month ago. And that's a great book for anyone who's listening to this to pick up. And there's a couple of other books. I'm trying to think of the names right now that I would recommend to go with that. I'm trying to look if they're right here. I can't think of the names right now. Gosh, the harshish. I'll figure it out. You can put in your show notes. But if someone's going to grab Greg Crabtree's book, these would be two editions. I know they're like literally within three feet. I just can't find them right now. You'll grab them before we get off the call. We're talking to Cole Hatter who is the creator of an amazing conference called Thrive. It takes place in San Diego. The 2017 version of it is coming up September 29 through October 1. We'll get Cole to tell you a little bit about that in a second just a few minutes. So Cole, now that you've... How are you making your money now? Like how are you generating it? It's a bit of real estate. It's a bit of conferences. How are you ensuring then that you're doing it in a way that makes you feel amazing, that's giving back and that you have a purpose? What are you doing differently in this go-around than what you were doing the first go-around? So the majority of my income comes from the real estate industry. I buy and flip residential properties. I buy and hold residential properties. We are focusing now almost all of our effort on buying and holding commercial. We want to get about five million dollars worth of commercial real estate, whether that's one building or five that are a million dollars in the next 12 months. So a lot of the income comes from that. And then speaking, I do get paid to speak about real estate primarily or entrepreneurship. And then also, speaking of Tai Lopez, we have our program there as well where we are educating people on how to invest in real estate. And so how I'm making my money for the majority of, if you look at my spreadsheet of where it's all coming from would be those areas. I have some side hustles as well that are absolutely nothing to do with real estate. And then I also invest in some. I was an early investor in a couple of startups where I get paid quarterly dividends. And then what else? I invested in some funds as well, where we invested in a fund and then that fund now lends to people. And I get monthly distributions from the different funds like we're talking 75 million to 100 million dollar funds that are out there where I put in money, you put in money, it's all SEC regulated. And once the fund is closed and there's in one fund 75 million and another 100 million that money is then used to fund either real estate and or startups, kind of like a venture capital fund where I'm just the guy that put the money in. And then the firm itself allocates those monies and monitors the companies for my returns. So it's a combination of those things is what keeps the bills paid. The bigger question that I like more is, you know, how, what am I doing with the money and how am I impacting people, etc. And so, you know, there's this evolution like I shared earlier that many businesses are going through. I'm not the creator of this. I think I'm just making the most noise around it. But of instead of just having a business that makes money, it's a business that makes money and impact simultaneously. Tom's shoes is probably the most famous example where when they started Tom's for every pair of shoes they sold, they give a pair away. And, you know, there's listen, which is LST and it's a headphone company for every set of headphones they sell, they give hearing aid to a child who's currently deaf and help that child here. And so you're seeing all these companies now more every single day, start their businesses around instead of just someday James, you and I are so successful have so much money that now we give back with the first dollar you make, you're somehow impacting people and it's built into the business model. And so my, my businesses have that for purpose business model. I call it a for purpose because it's not a nonprofit. It's not a for profit. It's something in between. It's a for purpose because again, traditionally have your nonprofit organizations like the Red Cross and then you have your for profit organizations like Nike and Nike donates to the Red Cross. The Red Cross goes and changes the world. Now you're seeing Tom's shoes that is a shoe company that's changing the world itself. And more and more and more people are jumping on this. And so, you know, my companies fund 12 different initiatives around the world. We are on five different continents. So from things like clean water projects and farming and microeconomics in Africa, we work with women and children who are victims of human trafficking in Southeast Asia. We have worked with the homeless in Europe and parts of Russia. I have my own orphanage in Ensenada, Mexico. So literally all over the globe where we align ourselves with different nonprofits to fight one of 12 different initiatives that are all around what I believe are human rights. I'm not talking about civil rights like voting human rights. Like you and I should have the right to be free and not be slaves. And so a lot of people think that slavery ended with Abraham Lincoln. There are actually more human slaves in the world today than there have ever been in history. It's a $34 billion a year industry. And I believe it's your human right to have freedom and not to be a slave. So part of what my nonprofit does is we are freeing women and children who have been sold into slavery. So there are these different things that I believe that we should just have as human beings and my businesses fund the initiatives to fight for those causes. And so the more money I make directly impacts more people in the world. And one thing I'd like to share about this because the only real pushback I get from people on this is cold. Don't you feel cheesy telling everyone what you're doing? And I want to clarify that like, like, oh, look at me. I'm such a good person. I'm such a good Samaritan just looking for attention like it's some type of gimmick. So let me clarify that. What my wife and I do with our personal money is ours. It's private. It's our business. And so our business is just as a business model give back. And so I'll use Tom's shoes for an example, because I already brought them up. Blake McCauskey is the founder of Tom's. The guys estimate to be worth $350 million. Tom's shoes as a company for every pair of shoes they sell, they give a pair away. That's what they do as a company. What Blake, the founder of Tom's does with his $350 million. None of us know. He's not posting up Facebook. Ooh, I bought a homeless man breakfast today. I'm such a saint. So I always want to distinguish that this is what your businesses do. What you choose to do with your money should remain private. Don't be one of those arrogant, you know, donkeys that's just giving just to look good. So if there's any type of internal conflict, because you know, I was raised in the church and we were taught, hey, be generous, but don't flaunt it. Otherwise, there's no point. What you do with your own money and your own resources, you should keep private. This is just my business model that it publicly, when you do X, YZ, when you buy one pair of shoes of Tom's, they then give a pair away. When you buy one headphone from listen, they then help a child here, you know, and so that's just the business model period. So for anybody who would want to make your business make some type of greater impact because you don't want to just make money and you have that internal conflict. Remember, it's not about you. It's about what your business does. So that's one thing I wanted to say. But for the listeners that are maybe already in business or want to get in business, but you know how you're wired and you know that although you're money driven and money motivated, that you know that you, at the end of your life, don't want everyone to say that all you do is make money. You know that there's a greater calling. I'm recording this podcast from my house that is my dream house that in the community I've always wanted to live in. Every dream car I've ever wished of owning is right outside my door here or in my garage. So this isn't about working to give it all away. It's living your dream life guilt free because your businesses aren't just making money. They're making an impact. And you know, we can talk about how to implement that model if you're interested. But more importantly, is just share the concept of why it matters. Yeah, that was going to be my next question. Like the listener is got this guy. Yep, that sounds okay. I understand that. How do we implement it? Like how do we execute on that? So the three easiest ways to create a for purpose business, or if you already have a company to, I guess, adapt a for purpose business model, the easiest way would be or the easiest three ways. Number one would be the Tom shoes model where you're actually giving products away, right? So for every single pair of shoes Tom sold, they gave a pair away. That's the one for one model. You might not have the margins to do that. And you could say, Cole, you're crazy. Well, then maybe it's for every 10 pair of whatever it is that you sell, you give a pair away, right? Or every 100 pairs. So you figure out what makes sense within your business model. But definitely there's the give aspect where you're actually donating or giving your actual product or service. I do want to talk about that for a second, because the first thought that goes through, you know, prudent capitalists, which is what we are. And capitalism is beautiful is we'll call that's cutting into my margins. It's actually not you bake the cost into your margin. So let's just say, for every 10 units you sell, you give one away, then you would increase your costs 10%. You might say, that's not possible. I bet you it is. And you can find that money, right? Like without going too deep down that rabbit hole, take a second to evaluate what it is you're selling. I'll use this is like a promo for Tom's apparently, but I'll use them for an example. If you've ever seen those shoes, I guarantee you they're made for less than 10 bucks. They have to be there. They are not complicated shoes. So I'll and they sell for anywhere between 70 to 80 bucks. And so for people out there who are concerned with how they can give a product or service or whatever it is the way, you would just bake the cost into your product itself. James, are you still there because you're frozen right now? No, I'm still here. I can hear you just fine. Can you hear me? Yep. I can. Okay, cool. All right, perfect. Just making sure. And so so that's that's option number one. Option number two is to actually give a monetary contribution. And so I'll use seven Lee was founded by deal partridge seven Lee as an online retailer. And for every product they sell, they give $7 to charity. So it's real simple. They give like bracelets, necklaces, and you know, it's an online retailer. And if they're going to sell a necklace for 20 bucks, instead, they just sell it for $27. So they're still making exactly how much they need to to stay in business. Yet they give $7 away. So there's the giving away of product or services. There's giving away of actual money. Another example would be Stella Artois, which is a very famous brewing company. I know that you teach people not to drink, but just to give Stella a shout out. They have their chalice initiative going right now where if you buy their glass chalice, which is basically a fancy word for like cup from Stella Artois, they will donate clean water to a recipient for five years. So that is a monetary donation they make through water.org. So Stella says, hey, we've created these cups. And if you buy them, we are going to give enough money out of the purchase of this cup to donate to a recipient somewhere five years worth of clean water. So they're just writing a check, water.org then receives that check and makes it happen. So that's option number two is to just financially give money away. And then number three is who you're employing. I'll give you an example of someone I actually met at the event where I was just hanging out with Greg Crabtree, speaking of which, here's a gentleman who went to prison. He didn't pay his taxes. He's not some violent criminal. He just evaded taxes and went to jail. And while he was in jail, this is a man I just met, he was sharing a story with me. While he was in jail, the food in prison sucks. So he started like going to the commissary store and making his own granola bars and then selling them within or trading them, I guess, within the jail, these granola bars, right? And now he's out of prison and he's taken that and he's actually created a company called prison bars where it's like meal replacement nutrition bars. I love it. And their slogan is, these are criminally delicious, right? So, so it's called, it's red, right? And so, you know, you know, some people are like, Oh, he's a felon. Well, he just didn't pay his taxes in my, I'm rooting for him in my corner. But so, so while in prison, he does this, he's now out of prison. He's been out for years and he's got this coming called prison bars. They are criminally delicious. And he employs ex cons who have a hard time getting employment. So through his business, the way that he's changing the world is for men and women who made a mistake, who have served their time, they've paid their debt to society and are now out yet struggled to find work or create income. He will hire them and give them a chance regardless of their criminal record. And so his business is a for-purpose business in the sense that the men and women who he's employing, he's impacting their lives. And so those are the three ways to get started right now. If you have a business, or if you want to create one, consider a model where you're donating product or service, consider a model where you add cost on whatever it is you're selling and give that money away, just like Stella or 12 does with their cups or their chalices. And then the third model is employ a demographic of people that might otherwise struggle for employment. One other, one other example I'll use is there's a scarf company. My wife wears these scarves where women in Africa hand knit those scarves and then they get shipped in here. And so these are women who live in very rural areas. I'm not sure which country who otherwise couldn't find employment who are now knitting these scarves that are then shipped to America and then women like my wife buy them. And so they're helping these women who otherwise have no employment. So that's another example of a for-purpose business. So let's use my glasses as an example because I've been trying to figure out how to do this on an ongoing basis. Now I've donated to Operation Smile before I've donated product with the glasses and then I've also donated cash like money. It's not really synonymous with sleep, Operation Smile. Operation Smile helps children with disfigured faces and cliffs fund operations to give back their smile essentially. Wonderful charity I got involved with it a year ago. It's not, there's no real correlation though with the Swannies blue like blocking glasses. So if I wanted to come up with something specifically around the benefits of the glasses that being it helps people sleep better, what's a way that I could do that? Like is it enough to just donate to like the National Sleep Foundation or do I really need to find people in need? Could I give like for every every pair of Swannies that people buy, I would donate a pair of Swannies to children who can't sleep well or like I don't I don't know. Well so I know that your glasses are designed around sleep. They cut out the blue light, melatonin. You know I know the science and obviously I have a pair and benefit from them. So thank you. There's a real testimonial. But since they are glasses and you know they're not designed around vision maybe maybe you maybe you add one or two dollars to whatever you're selling them for right now because you've got a lot of volume you're doing very very well and only one or two dollars isn't going to get someone to not want to buy your glasses but if you sell a thousand pairs well now you're freaking you know creating some serious income and maybe you partner with someone who helps do corrective surgery or helps blind children sleep. There are a lot of nonprofits out there and although those aren't seeing eye glasses the fact that they go on your eyes obviously they help promote sleep but so so whether it's helping people sleep which seems like a harder message because the one thing you want to remember is this needs to be something that's easy for your consumers to understand correct and so so hey when you buy a pair of Swannies you know we help people sleep okay but how versus we help people see that seems easier and so again they're not seeing eye glasses and this might be more off-brand but I just think because they actually go in your eyes that could be something where you donate two dollars for every pair sold and you raise your prices by two dollars so it doesn't impact you but then because people love what you're doing you actually get more market share so it actually makes you more money but you know you're out there helping children see and you know for for every 10 pairs of Swannies sold or whatever it is some child somewhere gets to see or if you do want to stay within the sleep because that's what your glasses are actually doing right they're not helping people see better although it sounds like you said that you're hearing feedback from people that it is helping yeah it doesn't help them see but yeah it reduces eye fatigue and strain eye strain and reduces headaches and all those kind of things so I mean then maybe that is maybe that's right on brand but since the idea maybe that's an extra benefit but since the idea is around sleep promotion then maybe you would have to figure out with some type of a charity or nonprofit that's out there that helps people with sleep apnea or whatever it would be you know hey what does it cost for one session to come in because I'm a friend that actually works at a sleep place where people pay they come in they sleep there for the night or monitor to help them sleep better I assume that that overnight stay costs something and you know you would figure out okay at two dollars or maybe you raise your prices five dollars it's a hundred dollar session cool that's 20 so for every pair every 20 pairs of Swannies sold XYZ is being benefited you know so so it's just to for you specifically or for anyone listening you want to find what's on brand like you said I I think that's huge bro that that you're helping kids with like cleft palates and things like that get to get their smiles back I don't think that that's on brand for swamis so maybe that's something you continue to do privately with with your income yeah obviously you're making great money and because that's something that personally matters to you out of your profits you keep writing those checks you keep helping those children and that's not specifically what becomes a part of your business while that's what you keep to yourself you're not arrogant about that no one really knows that you're doing and you just are impacting the children the way you want as far as what the public business model of swamis becomes is is is helping those children see or or people sleep or whatever it would be whatever whatever is on brand I definitely think it's on brand you know Tom sells shoes for the give the shoes away listen sells headphones so they help children hear you know Stella Artois is a beer it's a beverage but then they give away clean water so it's all you know like Stella Artois doesn't give away shoes that would be off brand they don't give away beer that'd be a little inappropriate and probably counterproductive but they do give away water and it's you know it's it's within at least the same vertical so yeah so find something that's on brand for what it is you're doing yeah we're talking to Cole Hatter who is the creator of the Thrive conference which is coming up September 29th through October 1st let's just go over his suggestions there for creating a for-purpose business the three ways that Cole suggested number one is you can give away product to use the example of the Tom shoes model where for every product that you sell you give away one of those products or for every 10 products that you sell you give away a product number two you can give a monetary contribution just for every product that you sell or for any program that you sell you give a certain amount of money to charity as a donation or thirdly who you're employing you could also always hire people who need work hire specific people that are in a synergy with your brand or in synergy with what you're trying to put out in the world with your business those three things combined will give you a for-purpose business Cole I wanted to just ask you just before I ask you about the Thrive conference how do you live a really balanced life with your family which is your lovely wife Sonia your two beautiful daughters and giving to charity while also trying to make money and all that kind of stuff like some people might be thinking like how the hell do you do all this kind of stuff so how do you manage that to have a great family life to give to charity and to run a thriving business well of course it's we know it's perfect and there are there are times where I fall out of alignment need to come back in so here's how Sonia and I did it we created 11 truths my wife and I were extremely blessed for our honeymoon we traveled the world for three months and while walking through the streets of Rome she and I started designing what our lives would look like right we were in Europe we've been married for only a few weeks when we came back from Europe and back to the real world we wanted to know what what our lives would look like so we designed dream lives and then went out there and built businesses that supported that lifestyle most people start a business and then have to figure out how to live around their business they don't own a business their business owns them what we decided to do instead is design a dream life and then go start a business that supports the life and in order to know what that life looks like my wife and I started 11 absolute truths no matter how much money somebody offers me if 10 out of 11 are good I won't do it all 11 must hit directly and so I call them absolute truths you can call them anything you want core values or whatever I'll give you two examples just just for context one is autonomy James if you said Cole I want you to be the CEO of swamis and I'm going to pay you a 10 million dollar your salary but you need to move to Kansas where our manufacturing plant is and live in Kansas and be in an office five days a week 8 a.m to 5 p.m I would say nope not interested you couldn't give me 100 million dollars to do that because it would require me to be in one place at a certain time so autonomy no matter how juicy the opportunity is I have to be able to do it from anywhere even like like I professionally speak and thrive I have to be there but I can live anywhere and fly in does that make sense another one is my daughters I have two beautiful daughters like you said and a wife and whatever I say yes to has to make my little girls proud I had the opportunity to invest in an app that was very early on that was designed for just hooking up with people it's not a dating app it is literally about no strings attached casual connections and unfortunately with the way our society is that probably would have gone off to be a very profitable and lucrative for me that uses gps location to find other members so you can meet them and whatever happens happens but that would be an app I would hope as a father my daughter's never in a million years found and let's just say it turned out to be the next uber and I made a hundred million dollars off of that I don't want my daughters to know where daddy's money came from was helping people have affairs on their spouses etc so although that could have been lucrative I wouldn't even entertain it because it's not something that would make my daughters proud so there are those are two I've got nine others of these absolute truths that I live by and I will not say yes to any business opportunity unless all 11 are in alignment and by running all my opportunities through that filter what comes out the other side is that my lifestyle is congruent I'm live like you said how the heck do you do this cool you got this family this life you're doing a charity and making millions of dollars because I won't say yes to anything that pulls me out of that ecosystem that I've created if it if it doesn't support my vision of what I want my life to look like and pulls me out in any way I just don't say yes to it and then the other thing that's important is doing regular audits my wife and I do this a couple of times a month or or sometimes maybe only once a month but very regularly we evaluate where we are and figure out if we are congruent still with what we said we would do and because Thrive is getting close we actually just had a chat where we're like whoa whoa whoa like this isn't working we've gotten way off track we're working too much we got a we got to reel it back in so I think number one setting very clear standards of what your life will look like and then number two having regular check-ins or audits of yourself of figuring out if you're still living that lifestyle that you designed or if your business or life circumstances has pulled you out of that uh is how I do it and again I'm not perfect but we there's no ambiguity there's no vagueness we work crystal clear on the lives we want to live set these 11 core values these 11 absolute truths and literally we'll not say yes to anything unless it's perfectly congruent and I think that that's what's really done it for us uh and I've lost out on a lot of money because of that but I have way more happiness than a lot of people who have more money than I do because I'm living my dream yeah well said Cole well done to you and Sonja for doing that it's terrific thanks um Cole just before we wrap it up here tell us a little bit about the uh the upcoming thrive event which uh just to reiterate I went to the 2016 event and it was just terrific I mean I learned so much stuff um from being there it was it was super inspirational incredible knowledge really positive atmosphere everything about it was just terrific in fact just to to to compliment you even more on it Cole when I walked out of there I actually phoned a friend of mine Eli will hide I think you know Eli and I said yeah so Eli I just went to Cole had his thrive man that was the best seminar I've ever been to and I know you and Eli does Tony Robbins seminars you know yeah people and stuff I said man it was it was so damn good and we spent 15 minutes just dissecting your conference about how how good it was and in fact the um the schedule that you had for the three days I took home with me because you'd handed it out and I put it on my fridge where it sat for about four months and I just looked at it as an example of just a beautifully produced event and just attention to detail and like someone really operating at an outstanding level Tony Robbins talked about being good very good excellent and outstanding and and when I plastered that on my fridge with the with the little magnets on there every single day open the fridge I looked at it just to remind myself of what outstanding looks like well thank you that is a huge compliment that is awesome and yeah Eli is a buddy of mine um so that's really great feedback um but yeah I think the question was talk about thrive I think that you've just done a pretty darn good job it's a three-day business conference we bring in the best speakers in the world um you know some examples of this year is we have Les Brown who's been a hero of mine I think anyone who's in the entrepreneurial space is listening to some audio of Les Brown so uh he'll be there Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank uh Jay Abraham a couple of people who will be announced in the next two weeks they haven't yet signed a contract so I don't want to say anything too soon and hex it but some unbelievable names are being added to that as well uh we have Apollo Ono who is the most decorated winter Olympian in US history um who's now a multiple seven-figure business owner as well um Lori Harder I mean it's it's it's gonna be freaking rad and so what we do is we bring these amazing men and women who you never see in one place at one time there isn't a conference out there that brings these many A players together teach everything we know for three days on how to make money how to grow your business and then of course a much more in-depth explanation of how to then make your money matter which is that for purpose business model and what attendees get like you just mentioned who leave are actionable there's no fluff at thrive it's actionable hardcore heavy content do this do this you know it's not like hey math is fun it's two plus two equals four it's it's action items they leave with that and then obviously the clear blueprint of how to create a for purpose business uh we focus heavily on how to make money because you can't make it matter if you don't have any uh and then obviously the again the for-purpose aspect and so it's it's very unique there isn't another conference like it and I appreciate what you just said about it and it's really cool to see articles and ink forbs huffington post entrepreneur.com uh saying that it's the number one must attend business conference in the world because we've only done it twice and it's already getting those types of people I don't even know it's not like you know everyone knows someone who writes for entrepreneur hey will you write this article these are strangers I've never met before who came to thrive and that was them writing about their experience that it's the best they've ever been to in the world so you know we work hard and I give that credit to my team and to the speakers and to the attendees who've come I'm just the guy that's the glue that's holding it all together but that's what thrive is and like you said it's in October no sorry September 29th through October 1st this year we're moving back to Vegas so last year with San Diego this year it's yep this year it's happening in Las Vegas at the Hard Rock Hotel very nice okay Hard Rock Hotel Las Vegas where can our listeners go to check out more about it online col they can go to attend thrive.com they can learn all about thrive at attend thrive.com and also if they're interested in a little bit more detail on how to start a for-purpose business we just literally created a free three-part video series so I'll throw this out there too it's what is that one on colhatter.com forward slash money M-O-N-E-Y like I want money so if you know we briefly touched on how to create a for-purpose but if someone wants more detail again it's completely free it's a three-part video series colhatter.com slash money they can learn more about that and that just again that's that's just a train series but about thrive the event is attend thrive.com there you go so check out attend thrive.com I will be there September 29th October 1st of Las Vegas make sure if you go when you go you go up to col and tell him that you heard his interview on the James Wanick show podcast and if you want to do that for get that free three-part video series go to colhatter.com forward slash money col thank you so much for your time I really appreciate you giving so much value to my audience brother that's uh I really appreciate it thanks for having me on the show man it's good hanging out with you again yeah absolutely and to you the listener and the viewer thank you so much for listening thank you so much for watching and I will catch you on the next one