Oh The Opinions Of Others with Donnie Boivin

Josh Wilson
 Welcome to Uncensored. I just got censored, by the way, on YouTube advice for men. This shows for men. All right? Just those two things are going to get me in trouble one day. But, guys, I love you. This show is for you. Donny, welcome to the show. 

 Donnie Boivin
 Thanks, brother. Hey, I had a channel with 30,000 freaking followers deleted off of YouTube. We don't f****** know why, but I get it. Other people control the rains, and some of this s*** crazy, right? Blows me away. At the end of the day, it's a business, right? They're allowed to do business how they want to do business. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah, they're allowed to do that. And I agree, right? When I signed the terms and conditions, which I never read, and they get longer and longer every month, and you. 

 Donnie Boivin
 Still don't read, right? 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah, I'm not going to read them. With that, man, who the heck are you? 

 Donnie Boivin
 The quick rundown to show how I got here, four years in the Marine Corps, 20 years straight. Commission sales turned 40 before I knew I could even start a business, be a thing called an entrepreneur, launched my company, was put under an international non computer. My career was also underground sales. Supposedly, I was, once upon a time, one of the top sales trainers in the country. When I launched my own company, the International Noncompete, I can't talk about sales training or the likes anywhere in the world. I launched my business under this huge heavyweight that my entire identity was tied to sales. Now, I didn't know what the f*** to do. Six months of throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to build a business and get everything to work, stood on the back porch of my farm, looked at my wife and said, babe, we're about to lose every f****** thing we own. 

 Donnie Boivin
 Mortgage was three months behind. Jeep got repossessed. She literally had to go cash in her f****** four hundred and one K to save the farm. I can tell you, dude, as a man standing on that back porch realizing your wife is bailing your a** out, that is one of the absolute toughest moments in my f****** life. Luckily, found podcasting in May of 2018, turned the companies around. The show later became number 22 in the world. Sitting next to Gary Vee, tim Ferriss is all these f****** guys. In September of 2018, my non compete comes up. Now I had all this podcast momentum. Now I could talk sales again. Unleash the beast. Now I run three companies, have one of the top podcasts, five best selling books in a partridge and a. 

 Josh Wilson
 F****** pear tree on your farm. 

 Donnie Boivin
 That your wife's on my farm, right? With ghost chickens. Ducks. 

 Josh Wilson
 Geese. 

 Donnie Boivin
 The whole night in partridges. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah, dude, I totally get it. All right, so I built a few businesses, lost it. I've been bankrupt in venture capital, all of the in between. One of my lowest moments. I cashed out my government pension to build my Fit tech company, and I lost it, right? I couldn't get this business running no matter what. My wife just had a baby, and we didn't know how to buy formula, and she had to go back to work, like, two days, three days after bro, I felt worthless. I stood on a bridge, swan diving off. 

 Donnie Boivin
 I never got to the point where I wanted to freaking end at all. I know the night that I walked upstairs and I couldn't look at myself in the f****** mirror, right? Because here I was knowing that here's the thing. When we built our farm, this was our dream farm. I wanted land. She wanted a f****** Victorian house. And we happened to find both combinations. Freaking terrain creeks, I mean, everything we want. We built a second house on the property for my in laws because they were getting older. We knew her dad's health was going downhill, and my father in law only lived with us for six months. After we bought the farm, we built their house. He passed away after that, and one of the last things he ever said to me was to take care of the family, right? Now, as I'm f****** everything up and about to lose it, here I am on the f****** back porch. 

 Donnie Boivin
 My wife the biggest thing I usually tell people that she said to me in that moment was, get off your a** and go sell something. What she said prior to that statement that I don't say that often is you told dad that you would take care of us. I was, like, destroyed, right? Dude? Just f****** melted. Because now I got the weight of okay, it's not just me that I'm f****** over. It's my wife. But it's not just her. It's her mother, right? I'm not keeping up my promise. I love that I got an amazing woman that had the courage to just go cash in her 401K, or we would have literally lost everything. 

 Josh Wilson
 I totally get it. Ma'am. When that was happening to me, I was trying. I was working 20 hours a day, right? Working my a** off to try to make it work, and nothing could work. It was just like the whole universe was stacked up against me. I had family members actually say, you are worthless. Go get a freaking job. And I'm like, I'm trying so hard. 

 Donnie Boivin
 I get it, dude. For me, I never saw the CEOs of the companies I worked for, so I had no idea what a CEO or a business owner did. My biggest problem was I was doing all this s*** behind the scenes using the f****** excuse that I can't talk about sales. So I don't have a voice. I'm nobody, because I don't have this thing add into this identity crisis of when you work for somebody else excuses are f****** easy. Because you're like, the economy sucks, the leads sucks. There's too much competition in your head. You're like, These are just great explanations of why things are but when you run your own business, there's no f****** excuses. Because I was spending so much time behind the scenes, not out actually trying to sell s***, I was creating a really s***** job for myself, not building a f****** company. 

 Donnie Boivin
 It was fascinating, is as I started selling more, I sat with a buddy of mine because I was trying to figure this all out. How do you actually run a business? How do you build a business? I was trying to ask for a device, because in my family, I have no entrepreneurs, no business owners. Oh, by the way, you said your family is telling you to get a job right in the middle of this. One of my old clients, when I was doing sales training, reached out and said, hey, I'll make you vice President of Sales right now. $350,000 based salary. Here I have just had my wife cash in her four hundred and one K, and now I've got a conundrum. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. 

 Donnie Boivin
 Do I suck it up and go back to corporate America and make a good f****** solid paycheck? Or do I keep chasing this? You want to talk about f****** a mind f***? Because now I'm not being a man. Here's an opportunity. They're throwing a good chunk of change. Not as much as I was making, but a good chunk of change to go do and work saved. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. That's so freaking hard, man. Like, what is your dream worth? Right? What's your dream worth? When you're making money, you could keep going when you're hurting and a carrot gets waved in front of that temptation, dude. So obviously you chose. 

 Donnie Boivin
 Yeah, we stayed the package. When I launched the company, what happened was I picked a partner in the sales training franchise, and I really thought I was going to stay a sales trainer for the rest of my life. I thought that was going to be a thing. Me and my then business owner, went out into dinner, and during a fateful night, he looked at me and said, donnie, thank God you're my retirement plan. And he set it out of love. And I took it out of love. I realized in that moment, that phrase just didn't sit well with me. I remember going sitting in my truck as I'm meeting ID my truck, I look myself in a rear mirror, and I'm like, dude, what the f*** are you doing? You were literally somebody else's retirement plan. I look over my entire life, and I've always been somebody else's retirement plan. 

 Donnie Boivin
 I look at the millions upon millions of dollars that I've sold over the years and what they kept versus what I kept. I'm like, I can't keep doing this. The conversation I had in my truck that will bring us back to full circle was I got two choices. I either stay here and live this life we bought a dream home. Her parents were taken care of. We were great financially. We were living a good life. I said, I have to either get comfortable living this life right now and turn off the dreaming, because that dream was making me f****** miserable, that there was more things out there that I could do, things I'm like. I got to turn off that location and live this life. There's nothing wrong if you're sitting or listening to this. There's nothing wrong with living that life. You just got to get okay living that life. 

 Donnie Boivin
 I said, I either get okay living there, or I get in the f****** game. I couldn't turn off the dream, right? I couldn't turn off there's something greater. And that's when I got into game. So flash forward now. This company offered me $350,000 to come be their vice president of sales and revamp their sales thing, by the way, with a f****** Rockefeller company. There's a huge, massive f****** corporate upside to this d*** thing here. I was once again having the same conversation with myself. I can go do that, but I got to turn off that dream. You can turn off the dream, but you've got to fall in love with yourself, man. You got to live this life. You can't do both, because that dream will f****** eat your soul, dude. 

 Josh Wilson
 I have tried to turn off the dream. It's annoying thing in my head. I've tried to even drown it, right? Like, throw some booze at it or smoke some weed at it, right? Like, try to make that thing disappear by show up to date. 

 Donnie Boivin
 Or I'll work it. 

 Josh Wilson
 Or I'll work it. Just, Josh, you could have your dream 20 years from now. Put in the time, put in the pension. 20 years from now, you could have your dream, and I couldn't do it. I don't know. What is it about. It like, for us kind of guys or whatever. I just could not do it. 

 Donnie Boivin
 And I'll speak for myself. You know you're destined for something more, and you know that you are built to leave a bigger impact. I think most of us steve Jobs said, the people that can actually change the world of the m************ who are crazy enough to believe they can. I think that plays a lot into it, because a lot of people aren't doing this kind of things, going after chasing their dreams to just impact themselves, man. They've got a f****** purpose and a mission. They're trying to figure out, what's my purpose in life? How is that going to impact the lives of others and those who come behind me? Once you start thinking in that direction, you get out of the selfish mode like everybody's like, what's my why? What's my f*** your why? I don't care. Why is selfish. That only leads to you. 

 Donnie Boivin
 When you have a purpose impacts other people. When you feel like, man, there's something more to me, there's something more I've got to be doing, man, that's not a flame you can f****** extinguish, and you got to start going down that path and actually chasing it. And here's the thing. There's a lot of things people don't tell people about building your own business. The most surprising to me is along the journey of building your business, you're going to f****** meet yourself. Because when you get to that place where there's no excuses left, because, look, if your business sucks, it's because you're not doing something. I tell people, success is your fault, failure is your fault. Once you get to that moment where you understand that there's nobody left to f****** blame but you start having to figure out who the m*********** in the mirror actually is. 

 Josh Wilson
 What's your favorite word? Especially when I get jazzed up, I'm going to pay someone. Hey, anybody listening in? The first person who counts how many times he says that during this interview and lets me know, I'll give you a dollar. 

 Donnie Boivin
 I'll double it. 

 Josh Wilson
 We'll give $2, $2 to the highest bidder. Who could count the f**** in this Internet? All right. So, Donnie, man, this is so cool. All right, you got your handcuffs unleashed. 2018. Noncompete goes up and your wife goes, was it around the same time you're about to lose a farm and your. 

 Donnie Boivin
 Wife it's about six months prior to that. She told me to get off my a** and start selling, I still was struggling with what I was doing, half a** coaching and whatnot, trying to fly into the radar as much as possible. But I was selling anything. I f****** I tell everybody, dear. In that time, I was a business w****. Yeah, I just said yes to anything to bring in money, but podcasting really kind of gave me some legs. The noncompete came up, I was in another weird spot, because now I was traveling all over the US speaking on podcast because of the volume of the show. My wife and I even went to Ireland to speak on podcasting from people flew us out for that. Now is in this weird place that, okay, I can talk about sales, but I have all this podcast success, and people are paying me to teach and talk about podcasting. 

 Donnie Boivin
 Do I go down podcasting. Do I go sales? Honestly, for the next year and a half was this kind of series of false starts, because now I didn't know what my business was, but I was completely untethered. At one point, we had six different businesses running, and it's because were just trying everything to figure something out, and some of them were working really well. Some of them were working poorly. What really allowed us to start finding success was the f****** pandemic. We built a business during the pandemic that impacted so many lives that other people were like, f*** yes, I want to be a part of that journey and help us build it. We turned it into a global brand. That came about because were trying to figure out how to serve others. It was a fascinating moment because prior to launching my companies, when I sold commercial printing and then I later sold sales training, I did a lot of networking locally in the area and a lot of traditional selling. 

 Donnie Boivin
 Like for the fort chamber of commerce. I ran eleven networking groups for them. I had six of my own personal ones going. I was in this space when I launched the company. I said, I'll never do networking again because I don't want my business to be networking. Because any m*********** who teaches networking is just some broke passcode that doesn't know how to sell. I'm like, I'm not going to be put into that arena, right? Networking is networking. You'll meet, you talk to people, you have good conversation, something usually comes up, right? That's networking in a nutshell. I didn't want to be in that realm. I wanted to change and impact people's lives on their business. So let's teach them how to sell. Let's teach them how to level up personally. Even though I wanted to teach people how to level up personally, at that point, I hadn't leveled up personally, but I thought I was going to teach others, right? 

 Donnie Boivin
 Everybody wants to f****** impact others. They still haven't looked themselves in the mirror and figured out they're trying to f****** impact themselves. The pandemic happened, I had rented out a convention center here in Fort Worth, Texas, and were doing the inaugural badass business summit. I had 23 speakers flying in from around the world. We sold out the event, and then two weeks before it's supposed to go off, the city calls and says, if anybody shows up to our event, they're going to arrest everybody on site, man. F****** covet, right? I'm like, yeah, d*** it. So we had built our businesses online. At that point, we had enough revenue coming in. I knew the team was going to be okay. I knew were going to be okay. It took us two and a half years to get comfortable in this online thing. I mean, people always hear these f****** overnight successes. 

 Donnie Boivin
 Yeah, it just took them f****** ten years to get there, 20 years to do that. We knew were going to be okay. I looked at the team and I said, guys, we've got to find a way to help as many businesses because they're all going to be moving online. They don't have two and a half years to figure this s*** out. They got 30 days. I'm like, put your thinking hats on. Let's come up with something that we can help him get back and like you do when you're running a business. Man. 330 that morning. Bolt the f*** out of bed. Scare the p*** out of my wife. She's like, what's the matter? I'm like, I got a business idea. She's like, well, write that s*** down or roll the f*** over, would you? And of course, I can't. I fire off a message to my COO, Kevin Snow. 

 Donnie Boivin
 And I'm like, hey. Kevin, once upon a time, ran one of the largest B, and I freaking networking group organizations up in Minnesota. I'm like, hey, I think we're going to launch networking groups. And he's like, okay. Neither one of us were jazzed about really doing this because I didn't want to go back to the networking. The next morning, I'm sitting with my wife over a cup of coffee, and I'm telling you, I'm walking her through. I'm like, I'm going to launch networking groups. I'm kind of f****** ewe in this moment with her because I just don't want my business to be networking. And she's like, why? I'm like, because I don't want to be roped into that crowd of people that teach networking, because they're just broke people that found networking out of desperation versus they found it as a tool for their f****** belts. 

 Donnie Boivin
 She goes, you realize you're a f****** idiot, right? I'm like, how am I an idiot? She goes, why don't you become the guy that changes how the world networks and fix everything that people hate about networking? And I went, s***, you're right, babe. This is the real thing. I'm writing a book called The S*** My Wife Said that Changed My life because there's too many pivotal moments where she says she's like my little Jimmy Cricket over here. It was seven days later we launched Success Champions Networking. Because of how we built it and the things in the infrastructure, it took off. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yes. 

 Donnie Boivin
 Dude. 

 Josh Wilson
 This is so good, man. Let me ask you a few questions. One, how do you like your coffee? So you have coffee with YC. How do you typically make your coffee straight? 

 Donnie Boivin
 Black. 

 Josh Wilson
 Me too. All right. Real man. Right there. 

 Donnie Boivin
 That comes from the Marine Corps, though, man. I mean, we didn't have creamer most times. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah, so I know the Marines kind of are kind of a step brother sister to the Navy, right? 

 Donnie Boivin
 We're the department of the Navy, the men's department. All the Navy guys just went, f****** s***. All the guys, Marines, our listeners just lost their f****** mind. Wow. Right? 

 Josh Wilson
 I'm freaking out. You cussed like a sailor, though. That's probably, like, from the same family, for sure. I love that about you. And that's super cool. When you started your podcast, why did you start your podcast, give a shout out to your podcast so people can listen in and they can take some of my audience for sure. 

 Donnie Boivin
 So go. Listen to Growth Mode. Growth Mode is the name of the podcast, and it's all about how to actually grow your business so you can set yourself up to scale. The original podcast of when it took off and found a little success was called Success Champion. People can still go listen to it. It's still out there. The reason I launched it so when I was f****** up business and early on, a few buddies that kept reaching out and kind of checking on me and business is great. It's amazing. I'm sucking a**, but I'm telling everybody business is great because you don't want anybody to know how bad things are. One of my buddies, I think he kind of sensed that it wasn't going so well. He goes, hey, I got this event coming up. There's going to be 400 people in the room. Would you come talk about sales? 

 Donnie Boivin
 And, like, dude, I can't. I'm under this non computer. He goes, well, just come tell your story. He goes, I've seen you on stage. You're fine. Just come tell your story. So I'm like, all right. I'll go tell my story. I go on this stage, and I'm not a Tony Robbins freaking run across the stage type of guy, but I was having fun, a lot of high energy and having fun on the crowd. Afterwards, I walk offstage, and this guy walks up to me and he goes, hey, man, I love your energy. I love your story. Would you come tell your story on my podcast? And I'm like, what's a podcast? Now, this is April of 2018, and I have no idea what a podcast is. And he explains that. He goes, it's like news talk radio. I'm like, oh, I could do that. I drive out to Dallas, go sit on a show. 

 Donnie Boivin
 We have a great conversation. Two days later, this thing airs, and the show's not even out there anymore. He quit producing, but it airs. One of his listeners reaches out and goes, hey, I got a 40 person sales team. Would you come train my salespeople? And I'm like, absolutely. I can't do any of that, but I will. Ian Hill, right, I was doing motivational training. If anybody who is with that non compete was around, it was a motivational training. I never talked about sales for that company. I was under a noncompete, and I honored that, right? I realized that I could go guest on podcast, and there was a chance that listeners would lean in, like, oh, I want to know more, guy. Yeah. At that point, I went to sales mode. I'm like, dude, there's a lot of podcasts out there. I was cold calling, cold email, and freaking everything I could do to get on all these shirts and just grinding it out. 

 Donnie Boivin
 And somebody counted up during that phase. I did, like, 60 some on podcasts in, like, 30 days, just cramming them in. I went one, and I can't say the name of the show because the show is still produced, and nobody's ever sent me questions prior to being interviewed. So he sends me these 20 questions. I'm like, well, that's kind of cool. Little different approach. I show up to his f****** show, and he goes, okay, you ready to start? And I'm like, yeah. He goes, Question one. And I answer question one. And he goes, question two. And I answered question two. He goes, Question three. Then maybe. I'm like, Dude, tell me about your world. Tell me why you started. I'm trying to get him in. And he goes, question four. 

 Josh Wilson
 How many questions did you make it. 

 Donnie Boivin
 Through before you I stayed with him for the whole ride because I felt like I signed up to do this. I was going to honor that moment. I should have left that question for but I was honoring the freaking moment. After that interview was done, I'm like, if this m*********** can find any success in doing podcasting, I'm in. Yeah. I went to YouTube University and I'm like, how do you launch a podcast? My first show, which was Success Champions, was done with a laptop, a gaming headset that I bought for $20 from Walmart in Zoom, and I started interviewing people all around the world. It took off so fast, and I think it took off because I was more asking people the s*** that I needed to hear and learn to grow. I wasn't trying to say, hey, look at me. I was really trying to get them to coach me for free because I was so broke. 

 Donnie Boivin
 That's how I was interviewing. All of a sudden, Neil Patel's team reaching out on my show. Shailen Johnson's team is reaching out. Mike Mccallow, Will It's, John Gordon, all these big names start reaching out to be on the show, and it's just going more and more. Now, I should say, before a lot of those big names started coming to the show, I was starting to get picked up to do more speaking engagements. I figured, if I'm going to be out doing speaking engagements, I might as well try and get some more promotion on my podcast. Anywhere somebody would bring me in to speak, I would plot out five or six hotels right around it. Because I knew from being a traveling sales guy that there's always people that dude sitting at the bar by themselves, away from their family, just hoping somebody might say hi because they're sitting at the bar for a s***. 

 Donnie Boivin
 I would plot out all the bars, and then I would walk in and I'd sit. Right next to the one or two guys sitting by themselves. And I strike up a conversation. In that conversation I would say, hey, you guys by chance listen to podcasts? And they're like, yeah. And I'm like, which ones? Every time joe Rogan, he's like the number one show, everybody. I'm like, what are you listening to? Apple podcast, spotify, whatever. They tell me and I'm like, we'll break out your phone. And they're like, okay. They break out the phone and I'm like, type in success Champion, right? They type it in and they go, wait, that's you? I'm like, yeah, do me a favor. Go listen to a show or two. Here's my personal email address place. Send me a couple of takeaways from the show. Now I'm starting to get all this emails from people and I would just go to the next hotel and I would do this over and over again and really kind of gorilla meeting style started bringing more people to the show. 

 Donnie Boivin
 I did this in Ireland too, which was a blast, where my wife and I, we got flown out to Ireland to speak on podcasting. And there's this guy. If I'm over talking too much and somebody shut up and ask questions, I don't mind. This guy, we're sitting there and he's this pompous American dude, right? You could tell he's like wearing the fake looking Rolex and he's trying to be somebody bigger than he actually is. He's like, all the Americans, he's pointing like, what do you do for a living? What do you do for a living? And my wife is sitting behind me. She's like, don't do it. Just don't do it. 

 Josh Wilson
 I'm like, but then there's this voice on the left shoulder that saying, do it for sure. 

 Donnie Boivin
 He's going around, he's pointing all the people, and he's got this blonde trophy wife sitting on his hip. He's just that typical dude. He gets to me and goes, what do you do? There's non Americans in there too, but you can definitely tell who else Americans were. I said, what, let's do it this way. I said, pull out your phone. Of course he pulls out his iPhone. I'm like, pull up Apple podcast. I said, okay. At the time, podcast was sitting right around number 22. I'm like, pull up the top 50 podcast in the world. He pulled it up in like number 27. At that point or whatever, he goes, oh s***. All of a sudden he deflates . They ordered one more drink and him and his wife left. It was a great win for me to deflate that m*********** because he was just so pompous with all the people around. 

 Donnie Boivin
 My wife's like, do you have to do that everywhere you go? I'm like, yeah, I'm going to deflate the m***********. 

 Josh Wilson
 I fight bullies. 

 Donnie Boivin
 For me, the whole journey is about? How am I learning along the way? I mean, I, July, believe life is not about the things you do. It's about the stories you can tell and teach later. If you're not teaching your journey and your stories, what the f*** are you even doing? 

 Josh Wilson
 Let's get some tactical advice here because I'm pulling some gold nuggets. I take a lot of notes when I interview someone, and some of the things she said I was a business w****, right? Like, doing anything to make ends meet. I know, I get it, man. I work four jobs to put diapers on my baby's butts, right? I get it. When you get in this mode and then when someone asks what you do, I hated that question because I was like, I'm working on the back of a moving truck, and I'm working three other jobs, and I'm running a podcast. This back in the day when you get made fun of for having a podcast right now, they're like, oh, cool. Right? But I was so embarrassed by that. How did you respond when the world's falling apart? I know. You were like, hey, everything's great. 

 Josh Wilson
 Your one buddy is like, yeah, that's kind of bullshit. What was going on in your head? 

 Donnie Boivin
 I wanted to think people thought I was successful. I thought that if I projected conference link, I projected this machismo or whatever it was, that people would just say yes to whatever I offered. What I found later on is nobody had a freaking clue what my business actually was. H***, I didn't know what my business was, and I did nothing but confused the marketplace, because, surefire, way to make yourself unreferable is make sure nobody knows what the heck you actually do for a living. So, for me, I knew I had to get revenue coming in, so I literally just tried to look at everything that I'd done with the business and figure out what could I possibly sell? At one point, I was doing video editing as a service. At one point, I was creating freaking social content as a thing I could sell. It was literally, could I do this and make a dollar or two with it? 

 Donnie Boivin
 It was all over the map, and I felt like an a** because I really wasn't good at any of that stuff. I was good enough to sell it, but I wasn't a good businessman. I us so many excuses of the things that I couldn't do that I use those excuses as why I couldn't find success doing this. That beat the h*** out of me. It's so tough. 

 Josh Wilson
 And you mentioned identity, right? The guy in the mirror. You're looking across from the guy in the mirror, right? You and I could somewhere in this fact, I could jump on a stage. I could be bleeding out, going bankrupt, being sued, people hunting for my life. I could jump up on stage and put on a good show and then go off stage and cry myself to sleep, right? When I look in the mirror, I know all the s*** that's going on in my brain, and that's going on internally that nobody else knows, right? I'm learning to, like, just let the world see open, Kimono style. When you looked in the mirror, let's say, before you started getting some traction and success, what did you see? 

 Donnie Boivin
 The most crazy thing that happened is it was literally the night that I told my wife were going to lose everything. I went upstairs and I looked in the mirror, and I instantly saw everything that I hated about myself. It was all magnified in the moment. Because here's the thing. You can't bullshit yourself. You can't lie to yourself, because you've been with you the entire d*** time. What I realized is, I didn't like the dude looking back at me, right? There was a portion of me that loved the guy looking back at me, but I didn't like him. It's like having that family member that you love them because they're family. You don't want to f****** be around them because you don't like them. And that's where I was. What I realized is I was seeing all my faults, all the things I was doing wrong, all magnified. 

 Donnie Boivin
 What I learned also in that moment was that's the s*** I needed to work on, that's the things I needed to start fixing. I tell everybody, if you really want to level up in this life, you've got to detach your identity from what everybody says to you. Most people attach their identity to the feedback of what other people say. You say, I suck. I suck, right? You say, we're meeting ID a boy. Oh, I'm doing the right things. We're raising a world where that feedback tells you're worth. As soon as you put the feedback of others to define your worth, you're going to lose. By looking in the mirror and seeing the things that I didn't like about myself, because it's so magnified, and I mean, I promise you, any dude, listen to this. If you walk up to the world in your mirror right now, I just want you to utter the words eye to eye with yourself, and I want you to say, I'm proud of you. 

 Donnie Boivin
 As soon as you say that phrase, man, that f****** voice is going to pop right up. 

 Josh Wilson
 It is so weird. I did that in the shower, right? I'm taking a shower, and I've got a shaving mirror, and I looked at myself because I coach dudes, and I love guys. I looked in the mirror and I said, I've never said this to you. I was like, Josh, I love you, man. I'm proud of you. Like, you are working your a** off trying to help people out there, and I started crying like I'm a semi grown dude, right? Like, five eight. Yeah, but I'm sitting there crying in the shower because I've never heard that. Right? It's crazy. You did that for the first time, you saw all your faults. You're like, man, that guy, I love him, but he sucks. You said one day you walked up and you're like, hey, I got a crazy a** idea. Tell the guy you're proud of. 

 Josh Wilson
 Team Chat happened. 

 Donnie Boivin
 I instantly realized that I hadn't heard that since I was a kid. Yeah, right, because once you get to an adult man, at some point, people stop saying that s***. You hang out with a bunch of dudes, you're not going to look at another dude go, hey, f*****, I'm proud of you. That's just not something you do. Here I am trying to tell myself I'm proud of me, and I'm not, because I'm not living up to my own standards when I'm not living up to my own standards. I started working on me, and I said, okay, what am I actually not proud of? What's the thing that I'm not proud of? First thing that Kipak made is like, okay, I'm not proud of showing up for my wife and holding up my end of the bargain. I said, okay, let's get more finite. Why are you not proud of that? 

 Donnie Boivin
 What I realized is I just wasn't doing the things to allow me to be proud of it. I wasn't showing up to do the things that would grow my business. I wasn't putting in the work. What I realized is in me trying to tell everybody else how awesome I wasn't lying to them. I was lying to me. I hate the whole fake Ian Hill you make it movement. I want to punch those people in the f****** face every time they say it, because there's no fake it till you make it. You've got to go through it and become it. If you don't put in the work, you're not going to become it. And I wasn't doing the work. It's the same idea of a dude looking at you and saying, I've got 35 years to sales. Probably not if you're still a sales guy. If you got 35 years of sales, that just means you got year one repeated 35 times. 

 Donnie Boivin
 You actually never evolved and grew up because you've never actually look yourself in the mirror and figured, okay, how do I love myself up? You've never actually got in the game working for other people. I can tell you. I would have told you I outworked, m************. I would have told you I was more disciplined than other people. I would have told you I had done a lot more things. When I ran my own company, I realized me working for others was a lazy dude, and this was all continuing to get magnified. I had to get to work on me, and the thing I had to fix, I'm like, Dude, you got to go sell, right? You're beating yourself up because you're not selling. You've got to go sell. It means you've got to turn off the I give a f*** what people think about me muscle. 

 Donnie Boivin
 You've got to go get into these conversations, because if you don't talk to people, you're not going to be able to make a sales transaction. Yeah, that's hard. 

 Josh Wilson
 Not the what? Muscle. 

 Donnie Boivin
 I give a f*** muscle. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah, I was just missing that word. It's been a while since I've heard it. Don't go on there, because that's so valuable. Dude, I know. Many times in my own life, and some of the guys I talked to, they're so afraid to go sell, and they're like, hey, I got this idea. I'm like, who have you talked to about it? You? Okay, go sell it to ten people and then come back and bring me back the report, and we could build something on that. Well, the fear of selling, the fear of what will people think about me? Is super strong with dudes. I thought that I was a strong guy, right? I thought it was tough. I care way too much what people think. Way too much, and other guys do too. How do we kill that muscle and learn another muscle? 

 Donnie Boivin
 That's gmail to be able to say I'm proud of you in the mirror and not let it freaking break you down because you're actually proud of you. We attach our identity to feedback of others control who we are. If you look at it this way, we have roles, and then we have our identity. Roles are all the things we do in life. I'm a husband. I'm a farmer. I'm a former Marine. I'm a sales guy. I'm a business owner. Those are all roles. Those are all things I do. Those things do not define who I am. It's everything on the inside that is your identity. It's how you see yourself. This is why I chase everything back to the mirror, because if you can't look in the mirror and like to do looking back, then the opinions of others matter, and that feedback from others matter. 

 Donnie Boivin
 You literally have to be so in love with the guy looking back at you like the dude looking back at you that when you sit across from other people, you're not thinking about what they're thinking about you. Here's the funny thing. They're not actually thinking about you. They're worried about what the f*** you think about them. It's like the two gremlins in your f****** head are just having this duke out match. When you are in such a cool space where you actually like yourself, you july truly like yourself, then you'll sit rross some people and have such amazing, genuine conversations because you're not trying to impress them. You're not needing the attavo. You're not needing for them to validate your existence. When you need that validation from others, it means that you're living a life that you are not proud of. You're not doing the things you're not proud of, and it doesn't make you a bad person. 

 Donnie Boivin
 You just haven't explored yourself enough to go, okay, how do I show up in this world? 

 Josh Wilson
 So awesome. How do I show up in this world? If I'm expecting other people to validate my existence? It's going to be based on their feedback, and it's going to throw me for a loop because, to be honest, nobody's really thinking about Josh. Right? 

 Donnie Boivin
 Right. 

 Josh Wilson
 One of my coaches says I'm not much, but I'm all I think about. Right. If we could get validation of our existence from somewhere else internally or something that's what I want to ask you, that question. Something changes dynamic. Yeah. Where do we get that validation from? How do we validate our existence? 

 Donnie Boivin
 Some people get validations tied to the universe, religion, spirituality, those type of things. For me, it came from owning everything, meaning it's all on me. Once I tied my validation to my own approval and being able to look at a moment in time and going, I like what I'm doing. I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing and giving myself my own validation, things started moving forward because if you tie it to anything other, anything that's a tangible thing, that thing can be taken away from you. 

 Josh Wilson
 Totally. 

 Donnie Boivin
 Right. You got to be very careful what you tie it to, because if it can be taken away, somebody else can own it. If you're going to tie it to a god, universe, spirituality, I'm okay with that. People can't take those away from you. I had to tie it to my own personal approval, and by having it tied to my own personal approval, I had to actually approve of the things and actions I was doing. 

 Josh Wilson
 That's good, dude. Let's play a game. I got a bunch of cards with questions on it. Sometimes it just throws a loop in there that I would have not thought. Tell me when to stop and I'll read you the question. 

 Donnie Boivin
 Go. 

 Josh Wilson
 All right, here we go. The question is, when was the last time you laughed uncontrollably? 

 Donnie Boivin
 So my brother joined the company. That's funny, right? My brother and I are some of the biggest smartasses on the planet. Right. You better have thick skin sitting around us because we're just going to unleash. This is how we always were. We use ball busting as a way to break the ice. When my brother joined the first meeting, I was nervous as h*** because now I got clients around. He's had a lot of success in his life, and now he's in my world and part of my company helping do this thing. So I am nervous. We're in the middle of a meeting. Things are quite kind of intense. How sometimes something's going to happen, right? 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. 

 Donnie Boivin
 Tingling. I'm like, oh, f***. All of a sudden, he comes out if it's a quiet room, and he just throws a zinger at me. I don't remember what the f*** you said for sure, but throws a zinger at me, dude, and the whole room loses it. For, like, the next ten minutes, we're just laughing, unfriendly, controlling. What I realized is it was a cool point because at that moment, the meeting was already too intense. We were into some deep things that needed to be broken up, and he just recognized it faster than I did, and he freaking destroyed the room. We got back, and we took the heat out of the conversation. We took the heat out of the element. It was such a cool thing, and it was a good reminder for me that if it's always business, it's going to get miserable really f****** quick. 

 Donnie Boivin
 You got to have fun with it. What's been fun by having him a part of the business is I'm a pretty brash dude. Sometimes because I'm so intense about trying to figure out how to find the right words to freaking get it to snap in somebody's d*** head, I can be very direct and blunt. I have to turn myself way down to not verbally punch the s*** out of them. He has this knack of just loving on people, and he's always been just a really good guy. I'll say it one way he'll give that person later on, like, hey, Donny. Yeah, I get the interpreter. Yes, very much so. Which is funny. I've always had the interpreter, like, my entire journey, because I'm so intense in trying to say it that other people usually will come in and go, okay, let me tell you, which has always been cool for me. 

 Josh Wilson
 Behind you. Some people might be listening into just this podcast, and some people might be watching it on our YouTube. We just released, like, 200 videos on YouTube or something. 

 Donnie Boivin
 Ridiculous, right? 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. And it's a new show. There's like, nobody on it, but we just got flagged, by the way. Behind you, I see a bunch of swords. Why is that important to you? 

 Donnie Boivin
 GaryVee, right? Yeah. You watch Gary, if you look behind him, dude, he's got all this stuff, his wrestlers, it all told a story. I decided to build my studio here on the farm, I'm like, dude, I've never been in a position or place, whether I work for other people or the likes, where I can set it up, as this is mine in a fantasy geek. Like I got Harry Potter tattoos on my freaking forearm. Definitely holiday, right? Totally. I love this s***. My wife and all of our friends we go out to these renaissance fairs where the craziest people that will drink, dress up. People watch. My other brother, dad and I, we make these mugs. 

 Josh Wilson
 Oh, sweet. 

 Donnie Boivin
 I'm an amateur f****** blacksmith, and my brother's been a woodworker for most of the journey. 

 Josh Wilson
 Dad, those things are awesome. 

 Donnie Boivin
 Go over to Facebook and what's the name of my brother tops wooden creation on Facebook. 

 Josh Wilson
 Okay. 

 Donnie Boivin
 And you can order these custom mugs. From all the rentfairs and all the fantasy things went to, were seeing all these artisans making stuff. I'm like, oh, we should do something like that. One day I looked at my dad and brother. I'm like, what makes mug? Let's just see if we can do it. I'm out there banging out a handle to answer your question better first. And I'll come right back to that. This tells my entire life story. Everything back here is my life journey. I can point out the different things. I tell my dad and brother, let's make mugs till we make a mug. People are like, dude, that's so cool. It's such a cool freaking thing. We're making a whole bunch of mugs, and we're trying to figure out how to sell these things. I see there's this thing called First Monday Trade Days coming up, which is just a big craft fair that's out in the open. 

 Donnie Boivin
 I'm like, let's try let's set up a booth there and let's see what happens. Now we go from kind of this hobby to oh, s***, we got to have s*** to sell. So we're cranking out mugs. About a week out, I'm getting nervous. I'm like, what do we know about selling freaking mugs? I don't know s*** about selling mugs. How are we going to sell these things? I'm over drinking with my dad and brother. I'm like, how crazy are you guys? My brother goes, well, how crazy do I need to be? Now my brother did 24 years in the core. Life are in there. He's like, well, what do you got? I said, here's what we're going to do for this craft beer to sell these f****** mugs. We're going to dress up like part like pirates. We're going to play sea shanties. We're going to turn our entire tent into these freaking pirate things and see what happens. 

 Donnie Boivin
 We go out to this d*** craft fair. 100 degrees out. We're in full pirate garb, like the big hats, the boots, the vests, everything. My brother's working a booth. I'm out in the middle of the crowd shouting, come this way. You'll get mugged. No, to come this way. It'll be fine. Don't worry. Trust me. I'm a pirate. I'm sending all the people back to our freaking booth playing these seashantes. All the vendors around us are freaking loving it because I'm sending a s*** on people. Dude, we sold $4,000 worth of mugs on 100 and $200 freaking mugs. Yeah, because we turned off the I don't give a f*** muscle, dressed like freaking pirates, acted like a d*** fool and had fun. The number of kids coming up getting pictures with us, or the brother and I both happily married, but the hot chicks would come up. 

 Donnie Boivin
 I'm like, who's the better looking papirate? Them getting pictures and the little kids asking questions like, where's your ship? I mean, it was such a blast. Now went back the second day, did it two days in a row. We probably won't do that again anytime soon because it was so exhausting and so d*** hot. It was such a fun time to act a d*** fool and just go, one, we brought some cool joy to people. We sold $4,000 worth of freaking mugs just because we turned off the end, we'll give a f***. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah, so cool, man. Many other directions we could go with this. Let me ask you, what questions should I ask you during this interview that besides, like where people find you will end with that. Like, what questions should I ask you that I screwed up and didn't ask you? 

 Donnie Boivin
 Well, there's never a screw up in something like this. This is always a fun conversation. Most people when I'm in conversations like this, they're like, what advice? What things would you give people that it's going to impact and show up on their journey? For me, I just want most people to know that as they're going along. I'll tell it in a story for me, because I think that's more fun. When I was in Ireland, my wife and I were doing a couple of city tour, speaking about podcasting. While I'm there, we find this little shop up in the mountains. I can't remember the name of the d*** town we're in. Literally, you drive in your middle of sheep farms and everything. There's this little bitty store. As I'm in the store, they sell everything. It comes from all the local farms and everything. Blankets and chotskys and all kinds of stuff, right? 

 Donnie Boivin
 We're the only people in the store. Of course, the guy who owns it is in there. He's asking what we do for a living. I'm like, I do have this podcast. And he's like, oh, what's your podcast? And so he immediately gets on there. Well, I didn't know it, but as we're walking through the store, he's listening to one of my episodes. I didn't know that he was listening to one of my episodes. We go through and we spend a couple of place buying gifts for family and everything. As we're checking out, he looks at me and he goes, hey, I just want you to know something. If you ever get it to a point where you no longer want to show up for people. You no longer want to do a podcast. You no longer want to help people on their journey. I want you to know that there's a guy and his dog walking the hillside of Ireland listening to your message. 

 Donnie Boivin
 I'm like, f***, here I am in Ireland, and this dude tell me this. The biggest thing I want people to know is you're not alone on whatever journey you're on. There's always people like us watching. There's always people like us listening. You should always go through life for yourself. Dude, everything we do is going to impact people's lives. Everything we do is going to make people do something more. If you can't always live for yourself, live for them. 

 Josh Wilson
 You almost teared up when you said that. Why? What's going through your head? 

 Donnie Boivin
 I think the biggest struggle for most people in life is, do I have a purpose? And, it goes back to so many people are focused on their why, and why is so self serving that they don't think about the purpose. The biggest impact that I want people to say about me is he changed my life by living as big and loud as he lived. That is the most bizarre validation for me is I want to slide into f****** the grave knowing that my life mattered because I showed up big and loud enough for others. You hear that moment, it's a cool reminder that you're living your life's purpose. I just want more people to find that for themselves. 

 Josh Wilson
 Awesome. Donny, where can people go to connect with you? Buy your books, listen to your stuff. What's a good place to start that journey. 

 Donnie Boivin
 Donnieboivin.com so just head to the website if you guys want some free gifts. If you'll text the word success, the 817-3186 three, we'll send you a couple of free gifts from free books and all kinds of things. Donnybobanecom it's Donnie Bobin on all the social platforms. Come hang out. And you know what, guys? Do me a massive favor. You heard Josh said this is fairly new. They're putting out a whole bunch of things and doing the likes. Do him the honor. If you get any value out of this episode or any other episode you've listened to for this man, share this out with one other person that needs to hear this message. If I can tell you I have my own shows, the toughest thing in the world is growing your audience. If you got anything out of this man, share this out with one other person, one of the dude that needs to hear this message, hear this story, because you don't know what words are going to impact and change their lives. 

 Donnie Boivin
 It may be this story, it may be one of his other guests. Share this s*** out. It'll mean the world to him. 

 Josh Wilson
 Awesome. Yeah. 

 Donnie Boivin
 Thank. 

 Josh Wilson
 You for that. That's super cool that you would do that. I built ten podcast shows, did one podcast internet, had some shows, hit itunes top of charts, and had some fun adventures there. This show were a couple of hundred in and through that. I say this for this reason. I think you might be one or two people who have ever done that. Nice work. 

 Donnie Boivin
 Thank you. Most things I do in life is because I wish somebody would have done it for me. 

 Josh Wilson
 That's it, man. That's it. And then one more chance. Where can people find your podcast? 

 Donnie Boivin
 Give a shout out for that. Anywhere you guys listen to podcasts, just look up Growth Mode. You'll see me on the front cover holding the glass. Rum. I like rum. For sure. Anywhere you listen to podcasts, check out Group mode. 

 Josh Wilson
 Sounds good, guys. You heard it all. His contact information will be in the show notes below. Text whatever he said. Say that one more time. 

 Donnie Boivin
 Yeah. Text the word success. T081-73-1863. Cool. 

 Josh Wilson
 Then, guys, if you need help with something, if you're struggling, right as always, reach out to our guests and say, hey, I heard you on the show. I need some help. If you got some advice, maybe on the flip side of it and you want to share it here on the show, uncensored advice for men.com. Fill out a quick form, maybe get you on the show next. Love you guys. Talk to you all on the next episode.