Ray Higdon Time Money Freedom

Welcome to another of my thought-leader interview series where I interview today's top thought leaders in business and personal growth so that you can have more time, more energy better relationships and more money for you, your business, your family and everything that you want to be doing.

Noah: I am super excited to welcome my dear friend Ray Higdon 

It's great to have you here and I am so excited about Ray's new book so I asked him if he would do a special interview for us here today to talk about his new book and a lot of other things that are going and for those three people on this planet who don’t know Ray Higdon…Ray specializes in helping network marketers increase their duplication faster with less frustration.  He’s a best-selling author, in demand speaker, top social media power influencer, philanthropist and founder and CEO of the Higdon group which has been featured on the Inc 5000 he’s one of America's fastest growing companies and he shared the stage with world-renowned thought leaders including Tony Robbins, Robert Kiyosaki, Gary Vaynerchuk, Grant Cardone and me. 

He’s the former number one income earner with his network marketing company and he resides in Florida with his four beautiful children and his wonderful wife Jessica, We’ve been very privileged to have Ray and Jessica over to our home and for me to speak on Ray’s stage and Ray has spoken on my stage.  Ray is a dear friend for over a decade so again welcome Ray Higdon 

Ray: Yes thanks for having me man. 

Noah:  So let's talk about this new book.  I’m so excited I’ve been hearing about it for months now and you and I spoke about it even long before.  So tell us about the book what is it and why is it so important right now.

Ray: This is you know we're trying to grow up to be like you and this is our first book with a major publisher Hay House which I know you know you've been with and as all the major publishers I believe.  It's “Time Money Freedom” and it's ten simple rules to redefine what's possible and radically reshape your life. This unlike some of the things we've done in the past is not network marketing specific.  It is really for anybody that just wants more time, money or freedom and we break down some of the things that we did to get out of the corporate world.  

What what was involved with strategy but also what was involved with mindset.  We talked about how my wife and I have a great working relationship together and we get a lot of things in there we broke it down into 10 rules that I think will really help a lot of people.

Noah: Absolutely, one of the things that I've always said about Ray for everyone watching you know and hearing about Ray for the first time or maybe watching me for the first time you know one of the things that I have said about Ray Higdon for as long as I’ve known this man which is over a decade, he has not only giving you great training but he comes from a place of integrity and truth that frankly let's face it is very rare here in the in the guru space.  It just is and so that's one of the things whenever I hear Ray speak,  whenever I go to one of his trainings I've bought many of his courses and they never disappoint so there's no question this book is going to just knock it out of the park for anyone who gets it. 

I'm going to give you the link actually right now to go get it because it comes with my highest recommendation it's noahstjohn.com/ray easy to remember so that'll take you right to the page to buy this book and I know you won't be disappointed.

So Ray let's go back a little bit what was the tipping point for you because a lot of the people watching this program right now are saying okay I'm working really hard I'm grinding away like they all say you know hustle and grind right we hear that every day and and you know you are a great example of focus and dedication and doing the right things every day the daily method of operation you talk about but what was the tipping point for you?  

Ray: It really depends what you mean it kind of depends because there's been there are different hockey sticks right there's income hockey sticks, there’s emotional hockey sticks there's energy hockey sticks.  I think the most important I think the one that really kicked off so many others was really emotional.  

So I had been in real estate for four or five years and when the market crashed I’m here in Florida doing real estate, making it happen, rock and roll and flipping houses and doing all kinds of stuff and when the market changed I had not invested in myself enough and I didn’t have enough coaches, enough mentors, enough people to kind of guide me and help me and I got completely wiped out and so for about a year I was just a mess I was depressed I was you know hoping for all these things outside of me to help me and just doing a lot of things that weren’t constructive. 

I was drinking heavily because I was just so depressed over feeling like I lost something, I lost a part of me and I got invited to go to this seminar and I go to this seminar with the thoughts of hey maybe I'll learn how to make some money because I mean I need money man because at the time I had exhausted every dime I'd ever made I was selling my furniture I was going into foreclosure I was being chased by bill collectors like it was a tough time and I go to this seminar with the thought of maybe this will help me make money and by day two I realized that repair relationship with dad was on a to-do list with no priority and I hadn't talked to my dad in 13 years.

I grew up in an abusive home and it wasn't my dad it was actually my stepmom and so I had every reason you know to not have any kind of relationship with him but you know I have at that point my boys were I think 10 and 11 years old and he had never met them and and I didn't feel good about that so whether you know he was perfect or not he certainly wasn’t but I didn't feel good about that and so early July 2009 I reached out to him and went up to Indiana which is where he lives and created a relationship, he met the boys for the first time created a relationship and what does that have to do with business or making money or anything like that well I didn't think anything but I came home and it was like there was a baggage release for me,  it was like head trash it was like there was something gone that was no longer blocking me and so it's like I had these filters in front of me that was my past that were invisible but blocking me from from change and blocking me from a new future and when I came home it was within one week I joined a network marketing company that I went on to become the number one income earner. 

You can say, “well what is it did your dad help you with that” no he didn’t but I really believe that if I didn't release some of that past I would have been presented with that opportunity and I would have rejected it and and sometimes in your hunt for strategy and what was the app that helped you or the script or whatever sometimes it's forgiveness, sometimes It's getting rid of some resentment and release in some of your past and that's what really kicked everything off for me is that change right there.  Led us into having success with that company then building a successful coaching and training company and going on from there.

Noah: That's awesome well that is very powerful Ray and I know a lot of people need to hear that right now.  So that's a great message now let's talk about your transition from being the number one earner in your network marketing company to now being the number one network marketing trainer.

Let's talk about your transition from being the number one earner in your network marketing company to now being the number one network marketing trainer.

I know that several years ago you decided that you were not going to represent any particular network marketing company and you were going to basically be an advocate for the entire industry and coach people no matter what company they're in so can you talk about that decision for you was that a hard decision,  easy decision? How did you arrive at that it? 

Ray: Was definitely hard um you know the truth is we never intended on building a coaching training business I mean I started creating videos and content to attract people to me so I could talk to them about my network marketing business and I wasn't selling courses I wasn’t selling coaching I had people ask me to coach them for years and I just didn't do it for and you know like offer personal coaching that someone could pay for for years I mean I think the first time i did it was 2013 I think but as what happened is you know my wife and I are building and we're using social media mainly which nowadays is like yeah that's what everyone does but back then that wasn’t the case you know 11 years ago a lot of people didn't know what they were doing on social media and especially in our space they're like how do you duplicate like that's confusing technology doesn’t duplicate that used to be what a lot of people would say to us and then they're like well can you teach us and so I mean here we were number one incomers of the company and we had several other network marketing companies hire us to go speak on their stage that's rare. 

You know usually there's a scarcity mindset of well we don't want them to steal our people but I guess just the respect level was there and the desire to learn what we were doing was there and so we get to you know 2013 the company where the number one earners of merges into another company our coaching and training is just taking off like crazy and we're like all of a sudden we’re looking at you know two you know seven-figure businesses and we're like we're kind of split between both we're not doing either of them amazingly and it's like you know what we really need to choose and we just felt energetically like we could make a bigger difference at the profession level so in 2016 we you know so retired from actively building a team and focused just on coaching and training but I'll tell you a year into that I was feeling sad because I missed the team stuff. 

I missed the rooting people at ranks and you know I was doing what every other trainer was doing which is you know a book course event book course event book course event and there was just something like I missed the camaraderie I missed the pool parties, the barbecues, the spending quality time with you know people that you're on a dedicated mission together and so that's when we launched our group called “Rank Makers” which I go live in every single day I give an action step into training and in the last we started tracking two years ago in the last two years we've helped network marketers bringing over 200,000 new customers 52,000 new reps and achieved 9,500 rank advances and so it really is like my team right it's not exactly how I would work with my team but we kind of see it as our team and we monitor progress we monitor production. 

We make we you know do our best to get more people doing stuff and and so that kind of replaced a lot of the the team stuff but it was difficult it was it was a tough decision because you know you're going to get criticized no matter what right so there are people who say oh couldn't hack it so now he trains and says okay whatever uh so no matter what you do you're gonna get criticised. 

Noah: Correct only if you do it at a high level like you're doing. If you are so small nobody cares.  So very smart rank makers for all of you watching a wonderful program definitely check that out at rankmakers.com and definitely highest level. Speaking of that Ray I do want to address this in the book but I do want to bring this up for people because you know you just said it that you go live everyday and I know you're famous for doing a video everyday for the last 11-12 years or something at least and number one is how do you come up with new things to talk about after all these years?   I mean how do you do that and and what is your process for for doing that so that you don't get stale or bored or whatever it might be the case?

Ray: There's like rule number seven is create successful habits and in the book I’ve done at least one video a day everyday since July 15 of 2009 and I'll give you a few different things with the “how do you come up with stuff”

Well one it would definitely be false to say every single one is unique and uh I have never talked on that topic right there’s only so many topics but you can give different perspective, you can give different stories, you can give different analogies, you can hear news stories and you share it but here's the real deal there's a million miles of difference between commitment and creativity.  

When I say I’m going to do a video it's not I'm going to do video if I come up with something or if I see something good or if I think they should hear this no it's I’m going to do one and when you just say when you just act like that you do it your brain like frantically hunts for a good topic right so when you're committed you locate topics.

“There's a million miles of difference between commitment and creativity”

If you rely on creativity you may or may not do it.  There are many days where I didn't feel creative where I didn't know what I was gonna talk about that day and and people plan their stuff differently I don't I rarely plan what I’m gonna talk about the next day because I've built that muscle.

I’ve built that muscle so much of let me just observe my world let me look at my I'll look at social media comments I'll look at what emails did I get and see you know what seems like people are struggling with this let me talk about that and so I just I just pay attention to my world, what are they struggling with and that's where a lot of topics come from. 

That’s number one commitment way more powerful and creativity number two people need repetition and most people cannot hear a concept one time and be like got it.  How many people have read “Think and Grow Rich” are not rich right? You don't read it once but got it downloaded you know we're not androids. 

I remember I was talking maybe a week or so ago with Grant Cardone and I asked him uh I've been asking him I'm like “hey we’re starting to notice that a lot of our stuff would benefit other professions like how do we expand and still help our peeps and network marketing but also help business professionals and realtors and insurance people and stuff like that and he said well at some point you gotta change your language.

You just gotta say it and I’m pretty sure he had given me that same kind of suggestion a year ago but I just wasn't ready for it and so you know repetition because if you're someone dedicated to self-development your brain is constantly changing and I remember hearing a story about um I think it was “what the bleep do we know” about that book right and they like sent it out and you know they got feedback and everything and then they sent out the latest edition and people ranted and raved they were oh my God this is so much better and man I love what you did and they had made a mistake they had sent the same one but there were so many people that said that it begs to differ okay was the brain expanded to where it now accepted it differently and and so you know people are at different levels people are in different moods.  You could really dive deep on a topic and talk about it almost all the time and people still get benefit from it. 

Because like David Ogilvy says he says you're not speaking to a standing army you're speaking to a marching parade so that means all the people connected to you aren't just there like go ahead Ray go ahead and speak because we're paying attention oh they're chasing kids and doing laundry they're you know putting out fires, they're fixing, their bicycle tire you know they've got stuff going on, they don't catch all the things that you talk about and so it’s okay to repeat stuff from time to time. 

Noah:  Wow that's great really great advice for everyone let me again remind everyone to make sure you go to noahstjohn.com/ray and pick up his new book “Time Money Freedom” who wants those I'm thinking everybody.  Great idea.  With everything that's going on in the world today Ray like me, you and pretty much everybody we know Grant and every event hosts that we know are have switched from live events to virtual, What has been like the the biggest change that you've seen has it been a positive change overall negative I mean what are you seeing with people and you know what are people like what are some of the common things that people are just like saying “Ray can you help me with this…”

What are some of the big questions you're getting right now in terms of what's going on out there.  

Ray:  As far as the impact on business local businesses unfortunately depending on what state you're in tough. I think you know here in Florida it’s not nearly as locked down as some other states but you know it's tough if you’re willing to adapt because we freaked out I mean Hey when the market changed in real estate I got wiped out so when this first happened I’m like freaking out I'm like oh my God is this gonna happen again am I gonna get because I don't know i mean I think that I’m ready. 

I mean I've been doing online stuff for many years but I was definitely nervous and didn't know what was gonna happen we are having our best year ever and I think some of that is because of we were more prepared than most and we also adapted too and so in regards to virtual events you know the bad obviously you don't get to physically see hang with people and chat with them at the bar and and high-five them and all that stuff but what's the good?

Well the good is it's forced all of us to get better at entertaining those at home and because you know here's the reality and I think I can speak for most people is prior to this if you got a live stream ticket you were just like nothing special was done for you.  You’re just like hey you get to view and shut your mouth right like you know you get to view but that's about it, well we had to get creative and so by using  special software we had breakout rooms,we had mastermind questions we sent them boxes that they had little emoji sticks like yay we had swag that if they wore it we would pick prizes right and so like it forced us to up level how to make it a great experience for those at home and if you're an introvert think about this most people are right there's way more introverts than extroverts. 

So if you're an introvert you go to an event you sit there right and then you go back to your hotel room right and you watch tv or you order in because you don't want to see anybody well you may not meet a lot of people at an event which sounds kind of funny you met people at our event because we put you in a breakout room and gave equal mic time and and so like you know you'll be in a group of five or six people and you get to answer a question and so you know that's that's you know that’s pretty cool it had us really up level you know that experience for the for the person at home and really think about that obviously costs you know like our event we we just did I mean it was it was double the revenue at a quarter of the cost you know it really makes you look at these hotels have been you know if you run big events. 

I mean they have had a stranglehold on us for room blocks and you know just charging you know surprise charges and so it really makes you question that model of man do I really want to go back to being you know the slave to the hotel because you know sometimes it's tough.  Now I  feel for them because I know they're hurting and and I hate seeing people lose jobs but you know maybe I don't know maybe service improves there I haven't noticed that yet but maybe service improves I don't know but I think you know you see a lot of people that are like wait a minute maybe I don’t need the certain things I thought I did like the office downtown or expensive real estate or you know maybe I can do more of this stuff at a lower cost which allows people to grow more and in different ways.

Noah: That’s awesome yeah I think you're right on the money there and for everyone watching you know if you ever get the chance to go to a Ray Higdon event whether it is virtual or live he's going to take great care of you.  I've had the very large and huge privilege of speaking at several of Ray’s events and he always goes above and beyond he gives beautiful gift baskets for us speakers and he gives lots of swag for all of the attendees so make sure you check that out you can go to his main website which is Higdongroup.com and make sure you get on his email list because every day he's providing wonderful value and you get to see his handsome face once a day at least on video and in rank makers as well. 

So Ray who is this book for and and what are they going to get from it and and again I just want to make sure people really get a sense of why this is so important right now. 

Ray: We created this book like who we were thinking about is we were thinking about the person that truly desires transformation in their finances and their relationships and really their life time right so it really is you know time money freedom you know I look back at you know when I was working in corporate world where i would leave before the kids were awake I'd come home after they were asleep I was making good money but you know there was no light at the end of that tunnel there was no way for me to make a lot more money and and also have time freedom i was swapping that and so looking at the person that may not know how to create more freedom in their life and you know like one of the things first rule number two is pluck the weeds and so that's where we walk you through and help you identify what in your life do you just not like like what is it that either needs to be addressed through a tough conversation or needs to be eliminated and and I’ll tell you one example of that is our daughter we were living in Fort Myers and dream home.

We loved it, we built it was incredible amazing and we loved it but our daughter the best fit for our daughter our five-year-old daughter was a school in naples and every day we're making that trek you know 40 minutes one way if there's an accident an hour and one way and um doing that every day and we're like doing this for years just doesn’t work for us we have a freedom let's pluck the suite so we sold that house you know very fortunate had a nice profit there came down to Naples and now we live in Naples and we love it it's amazing we're close I ride my bike to the grocery store I ride it downtown like we love it and it's just a total transformation what do most people do most people would have dealt with that for years and just complained about it and so what are you complaining about that maybe there's a different solution to and so we help you with that and one thing we're really proud of with this book is this book could very easily be airy fairy mindset kind of stuff but it every single chapter has an actual real action step of go do this it'll answer these questions and and it really helps with strategy of making this a reality.

One last you know thing I'll share is we talk about make an impact and the reason and a lot of people say that you gotta make an impact right and what does that really mean? For me it's how do I do something that my great-grandchildren will talk about how do I do something that at the end of my days I'll say  what it was worth it because we got that done and whether that is impacting foster care or impacting human trafficking or impacting women who've been through trauma or abuse or or whatever your significant thing it's not out of guilt or shame or you know you need to go do this, this is what makes me feel good and this is what gives me significance which some people are afraid to admit that they seek but you know it's not that bad it's not a terrible thing to seek significance especially if you're doing it for a great cause that makes you feel good and does help others.  

So it's not out of guilt or anything like that but how do you go from I'm barely you know making my bills here and I’m stressed out and frustrated by the time you hit rule number 10 because that's the last rule make an impact you now have a game plan of how to alter your time and how to alter your decisions to actually get there. 

Noah: That’s powerful well that's one thing that I always admire about you Ray is that you always do give practical action steps there are a lot of people in this industry who do just say a lot of airy fairy stuff and it's like great you didn't say anything man so it's like I love that you always you know put those boots on the ground and here’s what to do and here's the steps and and you're like yeah I can do it you know. 

For everyone watching make sure you go to noahstjohn.com/ray that will be your link to get this wonderful new book Time Money Freedom by Ray Higdon and also check out Higdongroup.com and rankmakers.com anything that this man does you want to be involved with so Ray Higdon any final thoughts for our our viewers today 

Ray: I would just say you know regardless of your past regardless of where you are you can create a life that you’re proud of I remember you know we do a reality show called play to win and one of the contestants in the first season lady named Renee Adams she had never shared with anyone but she had been through sexual abuse she'd even been through trafficking and so she had not had the easiest life physical abuse, sexual abuse she never shared that story and when she shared it you know obviously you know we loved honor and everything and I said listen you're a survivor you need to go out there and share that story to inspire people that have been through that kind of thing and I say that all the time some people do something with it some people don’t well she did within a week she was speaking at abuse centers and just maybe three or four weeks ago she spoke at the 17th annual University of Toledo international event on trafficking and shared her stories in front of 19 countries that were tuning in to that amazing event and so you know here's someone that has an absolute brand new lease on life and you know I don't know her exact age but you know in her probably late 40s early 50s and so know that whatever your past is and wherever you are currently you can go on to create something really significant and really awesome. 

Noah: Absolutely great words of wisdom from a very wise man so for make sure for everyone watching noahstjohn.com/ray Higdonggroup.com and rankmakers.com