Dave: / Welcome, welcome, welcome everybody. This is Dave Woodward with Funnel Hacker Radio. I am super excited today because today is Episode 50. Yes, that's right, we finally crashed through the 50 mark and I am super excited today because we have the opportunity of having a great, great friend of mine, Calvin Wayman on. Calvin welcome, welcome.
Calvin: / Brother, Dave, I am so pumped to be here, super excited that you asked me on and I'm excited to see what we talk about today.
Dave: / Dude, that is crazy cool because, for me, I met you at our Funnel Hacking Live event down in San Diego a couple of months ago when we were doing this whole publicity thing and Andrew Bryant basically put together a bunch of writers and everything else and, all of a sudden, this guy pops out of nowhere who's a writer for Entrepreneur Magazine. Before we even get there I got to say, again, you guys who don't know Calvin, Calvin's a guy who basically, literally, just 18 months ago left his job to pursue this online life and it's been a great ride to watch him. He basically just crushed through and just by Influence.com, I believe it's just basically nominated as one of the Top 30 Under 30 and is a speaker, guru, author, just crushing it in all sorts of different areas. Calvin, I'm, again, super excited. Tell me real quick about what made you decide to quite your job and pursue this crazy lifestyle?
Calvin: / Man, to be honest, I always wanted to, you know. Especially anybody listening to this, if you're in the online space, there's that entrepreneurial bone and I had it my whole life. Really the question isn't what made you quit, it's what kept you there so long? Really, the straight answer to that is fear. It was unknown, I didn't really have a ton of entrepreneurial people that I hung out with. I found out later that Russell was actually my neighbor growing up in Utah, we lived close, but we ran in different circles. I was making fun of him the other day actually, we were chatting a little bit on Snapchat and he said he graduated in '98 or something and that's the big problem. That shows you how old he is, he graduated in the 90's. I didn't really have the influence of entrepreneurship but I had the natural drive. I got into books, I started studying entrepreneurs from afar, and it just got to the point where finally, one day I just said, "I'm going to quit."
(2:58) Some people have said, "Well, what was the why, or what was the positive thing that pushed you?" Something that I think is important for entrepreneurs to know and what's certainly true with my story is, sometimes it's not something positive that pushes you to take action, it's negative. I had fear holding me down and the interesting thing that actually got me to move was actually me using fear against itself with a bigger fear. I just asked myself one day, I projected myself 10 years into the future and had a dialogue with my 10 year older self, and said, "What if I don't do this? What if I wake up 10 years later and I'm still an employee with a job, unfulfilled, then what?" The fear of that happening and the fear of the fire inside me dying and me not even caring that I was in the same spot anymore, the fear of that being a reality is actually what made me say, "You know what? These littler fears are small enough to get swallowed," and I just quit, and I quit before I knew what I was going to do next. That's what got me to quit my job.
Dave: / (4:08) Oh, that's awesome. Tell me, real fast then, I mean, the crazy thing for me is what you've done in eighteen months. There's a lot of people who quit their job or get fired, or go through a traumatic thing and now they're sitting there, but the amount of speed in which you've accomplished all the crazy things you have, that's what so impressive to me, is what you've done in eighteen months. How did you use that fear to do all that you've done? Tell people some of the stuff you actually have accomplished and, more importantly, what you've got on the horizon, as well.
Calvin: / Well, the thing that got me moving, I think, because as soon as I quit it felt exciting and awesome, then a day passed. It's crazy to look back on it now, because you're right, it's been a lot of stuff, but in the day-to-day it doesn't feel that way. In the day-to-day it's just getting up, feeling afraid, feeling the fear or the anxiety, or even the depression sometimes as a new entrepreneur, feeling lonely, and doing something anyway. Doing that consistently cool stuff happens. One of the things that ... I used to be known as, "The Idea Guy," and this is significant because right now because of the space I'm in people call me like, I'm such an action taker, and stuff like that. That's so weird to even hear that because I was never considered that in my previous life, as an employee and stuff. What changed that, what did it for me is right when I quit my job I didn't know what the heck I was going to do and I ended up moving to Southern California from Utah to do door-to-door.
I did that because, number one, I wanted to challenge myself and I had mentor tell me that, "If you could do door-to-door, four months of door-to-door was like a four year business degree and if you could do that you could do pretty much anything." I took that and I was like, "I'm going to do that." I'll tell you this, Dave, it was the worst experience of my life.
Dave: / I can imagine.
Calvin: / (6:09) Because of that, because it was the worst experience, it became the best experience, because it taught me to ... Sometimes you work your face off and you don't get a result, it's not an hourly wage, it's only based on the results that are produced and sometimes it's not fair. Sometimes you work your face off and you don't get anything from it. That's life in business. I think that doing the door-to-door thing right away was like ripping the band-aid and is what has pushed me to feel great about doing the other stuff I'm doing in business, because now when I'm working on my business or cold calling it's fun and easy compared to the door slammed in the face, or the dogs chasing you, and stuff like that. That's what I would say has really got me into gear and to just keep pushing.
Dave: / I love that. Actually, I just did a Facebook Live the other day about true comfort lies outside of your comfort zone.
Calvin: / Yeah, I saw that. That was awesome.
Dave: / Well, thanks. I thought it's neat for me as I've seen all that you've been doing. Again, when I first met you I just thought you were a writer, and then all of a sudden I started following you and I'm like, "This guy's out there absolutely crushing it. He's doing social media, he's helping build other people's brands, he's writing a book." You've done a ton, and I think it's pretty cool for me, as I've gotten to know you better, Calvin, sitting there watching you progress and how, as you've mentioned, even on some of your episodes and things where you were like, "Listen, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just going to do it."
Calvin: / Yes.
Dave: / And you're a guy who does, just puts himself out there to learn it and as you've learned it you've become the guy that everyone else goes back to, to say, "Hey, so how do you do this?"
Calvin: / It's been crazy. Dude, you're so right. I've fallen into that. The way I've fallen in is just realizing that done is better than perfect. Seriously, that's pushed me. You asked me what are some of the things I've done. The first few months was just grind, grind, grind and it's crazy to think that now, a contributed writer and featured for Entrepreneur Magazine, featured in Huffington Post, Social Media Examiner, just got named one of the Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under the Age of 30. My book, "Fish Out of Water," came out July 1st, started my business, CobbesMedia, and now just getting into speaking and growing my business at the same time. It's been a wild ride, a very wild ride.
Dave: / (8:38) Well, the crazy thing is just one of those is a wild ride, but when you start putting all of them together, I mean, writing a book, that's a wild ride, becoming a published author and a recognized contributor to Entrepreneur Magazine, that's a wild ride. Tell me real quick, how did you become a writer?
Calvin: / Dude, I don't even consider myself one, which is weird because I have a book, right?
Dave: / I know you don't, that's why I want to find out how did you do it?
Calvin: / This is literally what started, as I was doing the door-to-door thing, I was now like, "Okay, what am I going to do next that's more my own thing?" The thing I loved about door-to-door is, I had no boss, it was my own thing, I worked when I wanted to, but I had to learn to just push myself and go out every day, even though I didn't want to. Along the same side, while I was doing the door-to-door thing, I was like, "What's the next thing for me?" And it was Periscope. Periscope, for those of you that ... I mean, you probably know, it's a live streaming application. In fact, Russell does them quite often, at least he used to. When I got into Periscope I started teaching other people how to use it and I ended up connecting with one of my good friends at an event in Las Vegas. The event was called Thrive, it's were I met Gary Vaynerchuk for the first time, there were people like Robert Herjavec, from Shark Tank, a lot of big hitters.
(10:04) It was a ton of fun, but at that event, I had a friend, Jeff Woods, ask me, do I know how to write? He just asked me, we were having breakfast and he was like, "So, what's your next thing, what's the next step for you in your business?" I was like, "Well, now I know about Periscope, now I just need to get out there and get known." He was like, "Can you write?" I was like, "I guess so," I mean, I've been journaling every day since I was seventeen. I've been a little practice that way, I didn't really write articles, or whatever. I said, "I think so." He said, "If you give me an article pitch on Periscope then I'll show it to my editor over at Entrepreneur. That was what got me in the door. I was like, "Heck yeah, that sounds awesome." Now, in good old entrepreneurial fashion, just as a lot of entrepreneurship stories go, as I have found, when I gave the article pitch it was rejected. They didn't say yes right away.
I went back to the drawing board, the door was still open and instead of sending another article pitch to them, I sent three at a time, so then the editor got to pick out of the three and that's what got me in, and the rest is history. It's just followed from there to Huffington, to Social Media Examiner, and a few other blogs that I've been in since.
Dave: / That's awesome. Real quick on this topic before we go on to the next one, that is if a person wanted to write or to get published in a magazine like that, can you give a couple tips to them?
Calvin: / Yes, absolutely. It's so funny, I just barely had somebody call me and I just told them these tips, so I'll tell them to you, as well. The first one is, realize that editors are people. You have to imagine if they have hundreds of submissions they don't have time to read all of them. The first thing is never send in your whole article, ever. They don't have time to read a whole article. That was my big mistake, when I first sent one in, I sent most of the article. He just glanced over it and it was too labor intensive, so he rejected it. The first thing that I tell people is, give them the bare bones, and I mean literally bare bones. Headline, mine was the headline, two things, headline and the bullet points of the three topics, or the three main points of the article, that's it, headline, bullet points, less than a sentence on those bullet points. That made it so easy, so that within five seconds the editor can get an idea of what that article is all about, right?
(12:52) The second thing is what I told you I did, I got not just one article pitch like that, I did three at a time. Now an editor's looking at three different ideas, three different headlines, just three different ideas, and now they have a choice. People like choices, they like their job made easier instead of hemming and hawing if this is a good article or not, they're like, "Okay, out of these three which one do I like the best?" And then they pick one. That's what I say to people. I've had other people test that out on different magazine outlets and it's worked, and it's what I've done to get in other doors, as well. Bare bones, strip it down, and instead of one pitch, send three.
Dave: / Oh, that's awesome. Now you've gone from being a writer in Entrepreneur Magazine, all of a sudden, you decide to write a book, Fish Out of Water.
Calvin: / Yes.
Dave: / Explain that one.
Calvin: / I've always wanted to write a book, and the reason is, is when I first got into entrepreneurship, in general, it was actually like six years ago, I would say, when I was twenty-two. Last year in college I never read a book, ever, I'd maybe read one or two books a year. I had a mentor tell me, who was also a business professor, I asked him once, "What should I do to become a better influencer and a better communicator?" He said, "Read a lot of books." I was like, "Awesome, how much is a lot, like three or four books a year, ten books a year?" He said, "Read a book a week." I was like, "What?" Then, after I complained, he was like, "A book a day would be better, but a book a week would do." I was like, "Okay, you know what, I'll do that." I could not read, I would just fall asleep, and so I discovered audio books. That's what I started doing.
(14:50) When I first started listening to audio books, just again, total open transparency here, I didn't do it for the sake of getting the information, I did it just because I wanted to say I freaking read a book. One of the first books I read was, Rich Dad Poor Dad. If an audio book was seven hours, I knew if I just listened to it an hour a day, it'd be done in a week, didn't even matter if I consumed the content, but doing this and getting into books, I opened up a whole world to my brain I did not even know existed. Rich Dad Poor Dad, is what even got me into the sales business. I started reading other books about entrepreneurship and it made such a big impact on my life throughout the years that I was like, "You know what? I want to give back someday in book form because books have given me so much over the last six years that I just want to do it." I've always wanted to, Dave, but what made me pull the trigger is a guy that you know, Caleb Maddix, right?