On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. We want to reach our goals. And when we reach them, it's probably the worst thing that can happen to you because they need a new goal. Otherwise, you feel empty, and that's exactly what happened to me 3 years ago when I hit the millionaire status again. And I was like, well, what now? What should I do?
And then, you know, it starts creeping in, and you need to find something else if you're listening to this and you fear of doing anything in life, right, now launching a new business, talking to a girl, going for that hobby, skydiving, but I don't recommend that because it's a extreme sports, and it should be licensed. Just go for it. You know? Like, maybe You know, there's something I think god put everything behind fear for a reason.
And if we can switch that off or just go through it and feel that fear and pay the dues then reward. Are you gonna come your way? What's up, everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe, gathering the Kings podcast. I'm back to you here today with another king on the stage. My brother, Alex Michole. How are we doing, Alex? Yeah. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Good morning to me. 8 AM here, but you're in Dubai, my man. And it is not 8 AM your time.
You're chilling in the afternoon, and I'm so excited that you're here. I'm glad you carved out some Dubai time to be with us. Chorus. Of course. I like the podcast. So, yeah, let's do it. I appreciate that, man. Thank you. Well, tell us what kind of business that you have. I sell products for 3rd party companies and I get commissions based off Chaz. And that's called affiliate marketing.
So it's very popular to people heard about affiliate marketing, but I think a lot of people don't truly and what it what exactly the how and how it works. So, yeah, I'm happy to explain everything about it today as Wolfe, and I'll also share my story, how I got into that because it was pretty I was I'm still young. You can tell. Like, I'm in my I don't see any grays over there. Not yet. Even though I had some stressful phases in my life, I still keep my black Italian here.
I appreciate the the kind of, like, the practical naming there. I mean, of course, affiliate marketing, everybody knows that, but just the way that you explained how you get to, sell products. Yes. We definitely wanna dive into that. There's a lot of tickled ears around what affiliate marketing maybe really is. And so I definitely wanna give them the opportunity to learn. Before we do that though, yeah, I do wanna know a little bit more about your story.
You'd obviously get started pretty young, but at this point, like you said, you're you're still young, but You've been successful, like, really early in life and quite successful. And so what what is left for you, Alex. Like, what's what's burning on the inside? What's your why? What's the thing that's gonna keep you going for the next 100 years, maybe? Well, I think the wise is shared by everyone. We we want to reach our goals.
And when we reach them, It's probably the worst thing that can happen to you because then you need a new goal. Otherwise, you feel empty, and that's exactly what happened to me 3 years ago when I hit the millionaire status again. And I was like, well, what now? What should I do? And then, you know, it starts creeping in, and you've need find something else, and I wanna keep growing.
And I'm still young, and there's so so much out there to do, and it's actually, you know, I think thing on a spectrum. Some people don't know what to do and conch and don't know where to start and what to do. And on the other extreme is there's other people that see so many different opportunities that they can't pick 1. So, you know, I'm somewhere more leaning towards the other screen, and there are so many different things I wanna be doing, and I'm just twenty 6. So I'm just hungry.
And, you know, nothing fills the void, the the money, or the successes that I had, I think, is just a starting point. And as Gary Vee says, I'm just getting started, and that's exactly how I feel. For my biological age, that point of view, and also my career because I just keep 6 the the possibilities just keep expanding. So Yeah. Yeah. I'm always gonna be hungry. How do you I mean, I love the I love the word hunger. Like, it is a it is a deep seated word. There's a lot of meaning behind it.
But for you, specifically, what do you think drives the hunger? I mean, okay. Maybe early it was the money, but became a millionaire at 23. Okay. Great. Wow. And then you're like, well, what now? It's like all these other possibilities, but that's that's kind of like a you know, just a rounded answer, which I appreciate. I I love rounded answers. I mean, I love ambition. That's really what it is. Yeah. Sure. But the but the personal listening right now is like, yeah.
But, dude, what are you really gonna go after at 26, you know, that that you don't already have? No. You and I both know that a $1,000,000 is, like, just scratching the surface, but tell us a little bit more. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think it I think there's always a chase, you know, happening. Like, we're especially men.
Like, I don't wanna Yeah. We can generalize at some point, but there's always, like, you know, differences also in genders, but I think, like, we are we're meant to chase, and that's just how it is. You know, it sounds cheesy, but that's at the end of the day exactly what we need to do. Otherwise, I don't I don't care. I can be happy for a bit. I can do fun activities. Like, I see people Jets in front of me. Yeah. That can make me happy for a bit, but it's not gonna fulfill me.
So I will always have the deeper sense the deeper need of fulfillment, and that's only gonna come if I do high work and I get results, whether it's at the gym, whether it's building something, but it's certainly not coming from, like, short term pleasures that I can get here and there. Like, I can get high real quick but that's not gonna make me happy the day after. It's not gonna fulfill me. So there's that. Then there's also the competition side of things.
So I'm always competing with others, but especially with me. So for example, I came I I did something a month ago, which was interesting. I wrote a list of what the better version of myself has or does or is. And Chaz is better than me right now. So I'm comparing myself to a better version of myself, and I think like, okay. What is this guy doing Chaz I'm not? He's talking to every beautiful girl on the street. He drives a supercar. He has a 6 pack. He has a successful YouTube channel.
He and I go personal, and it's it's not like just 6 or 7 points. I'm talking 30 to 40 different points that I make. And until I don't beat that version, I'm always gonna be working on it. So if my villain, if my hero, whatever it is, has a 6 pack and goes to the gym every day no matter what, then I can't be lazy tomorrow and not wake up and go to the gym.
In fact, I'm going to the gym pretty much every day ever since I made that list because I'm like, oh, but if I'm not training, he is, so I should be training. And and I think that's that's that's something that I always did, maybe less conscious consciously.
Maybe, usually, we think that our villain is someone else, like someone we see on the street or, like, someone on YouTube or our friend, but I think the true battle is with ourselves and And I also noticed that just challenging this focus on myself and my own version of myself is just much more fruitful and I don't know, healthier for me to grow. So there is that there is always always something to chase.
Also, Matthew McConnery said once and when he received this Oscar, I think, a few years ago. I remember printing out this quote, putting it on my wall so when I would lay in bed, I would look on the on the the roof and read the quote that says my hero is me in 10 years, and he has a speech. You can go check it on YouTube, and it's interesting. Like, just the concept that he's always chasing a version that is 10 years ahead.
And when he arrives there, no. He didn't reach his goal because he's at idle. The best version of himself is 10 years ahead. So there's always something more. Yeah. I I saw it. 1st off, thank you for diving in because that was the I was trying to peel you back, and, man, you just gave it to full force. And so we're in it now. No turning back. Appreciate that.
Okay. So if if we're going after this thing, right, like, I love everything that you just said as far as the next version of ourself and and even just the exercise that you did Chaz far as writing down who that guy is. And what's the difference between me and that guy? I think that's just an incredible exercise. We're in there because even going to, you know, Matthew McConaughey's example there, if if that guy is always 10 years ahead to someone listening, that might sound depressing.
You know, like, oh, dang. I'm never I'm never going to catch him. But the game isn't to actually catch him. It's just to continually become him over and over and over. And there's actually like a settling in our spirit around, like, that I'm never going to catch him. That's not the game. The game is just to continually press towards him. And as he grows, I grow. And so what would you say about that? Or maybe that person that was listening right now that's like, man, that sounds tough.
What are you talking about? Well, it sounds tough because it is tough. Like, life can be tough, but at the same time, you know, we we we do hard things to have an easy life. If we do easy things, we're gonna have a hard life, no typical quote. And that's exactly the point. So why should it be easy? Why should it not be tough? It is tough for a reason because that's how we get stronger. We don't get stronger by lifting things that are lights. You know? We wanna make weights light.
That's how we get stronger. And that's the same thing in life. Like, I wanna be doing hard things every single day so that I can become stronger and then you know, everything gets easier. That's that's it. So I self inflict hard things in my life so it can become easier. So so everything can become easier. So when something really how do you say that something really challenging comes in my way?
I'm prepared because I've been training the whole time, and then your life is starts being much easier. That that moment in time of challenge, I wanna I wanna just talk about for a second because you're a 100% right. This is we have a same thought process. I do things where I inflict on myself, as you said, the I love that language. I inflict on myself. These these hard things. So that way when real challenges come, I'm not just blown away by the wind.
And for the person listening right now, it might be like, okay. Well, how often do really big challenges actually come and why am I preparing every single day for maybe only a couple times out of life? And now I've got my answer, but I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on. Why would you train every single day in such a hard way to just be able to overcome a couple of challenges? Well, a couple. Depends.
You know, it comes away, but at the same time, what else do you wanna do with your time? That's also one thing. And, yeah, I mean, what else would you be doing with your time with not improving? And, also, again, things fall apart if you don't work on them. That's something I realized. And Yeah. So can't sleep. You you you fall asleep, and when you wake up on a loss, and that something that is very true. And because of the competition, I don't know.
It's just something instilled in my essence that I can't get rid of. And maybe it sounds basic, but that's exactly how it is. And, again, I have goals. Like, I think everyone should have goals and really try to understand what we wanna do. And if we're even if you're not sure about what we wanna do, just pick something and go for it and then find find out during, you know, during the way. For example, I found notes. I got an affiliate marketing, but I didn't know if that was gonna be successful.
Right? Like, no guarantees in life. Sure. And recently because I was just moving, from one place to another, I found notes that I wrote down when I was eighteen. And I re and I and I have them. And I wrote down that I wasn't sure if affiliate marketing was actually gonna give me any success, I wasn't sure if going to Las Vegas in 2016 when I was eighteen was gonna be beneficial for me.
And I wrote down all my years, and I remember all and I also wrote down, like, analysis, like, pros and cons of doing that. Wow. And then it turns out Chaz, I mean, 8 years later, I'm like, Hell, yeah. That was a good choice. So Yeah. It always comes with uncertainty. So I think we should always just go for it even if it's, like, scary, like, we should be courageous. We should just go after it and trust that things are gonna work out because they always work out if we put in the work.
And no matter what, And finding these nodes was just a testament for me because I was like, wow. This is actually I got goosebumps. I was like, wow. I wrote this 8 years ago. Boy, was I wrong? Like, if I knew the things I know now Chaz things would work out eventually, why would I worry? And now every time something happens, I'm like, okay. Things are gonna I'm gonna are gonna be okay. So Yeah. There's always. And and that's exactly it.
If you train and practice you're just gonna nurture this game and it's just gonna happen again and again and again that you're gonna just gonna be good at. For example, last week, Wolfe traveling to Dubai, they stole my AP watch. I had my mom hospitalized, and then I had a series of other other little things that I wanna don't wanna get into, but just poking me all every single day. And I was like, alright. It's gonna be okay.
But I know for fact that if I didn't, you know, train, I would probably be more stressed like other people. And that's exactly where I should be ready because my mom needs me. And who cares about the watch that's gonna come back. And by the way, it did come back because the police found it, so that's a good story. That's very rare. Yeah. But We should be strong for ourselves, our friends, and family. And, yeah, that's about it. Dude, I love I love your mindset.
I love how you tied that back to my original question as well as far as, you know, why do you why do you train hard on the daily? The the, I guess, the thing I wanna pull out for the listener that I heard, which is in alignment with my thinking in as well, is there will be moments And we think of a couple of big challenges that come in our life. Typically, there's gonna be several challenges along the way, even every month.
But we just become not necessarily immune, but those situations where the watch or your mom or whatever. It's like we just rise to the occasion that much easier. We become the king in that moment that we're designed to be just that much easier because we've been training it. So I just wanna encourage listener that it's not just for the sake of, you know, money or all the things. It's like, no. Actually, this is this Alex is saying, this is who he is. Money aside, watch aside.
He is that's why it was so simple to him and and why he was saying it. He was like, no. It's just so simple. Like, what else would I do with my time? It's because This is the way that he's designed. This is the way that you're designed. If you're listening to this right now, you're you're a king on the inside. You just have to do the things on a daily basis, which then bring forth the things that Alex has already experienced, some of the things that I've experienced in life.
I wanna move on a little bit to your story of how you kinda got involved with affiliate marketing. You kinda tipped us off here on 18. You went to Vegas. Give us a little bit of that story. Give us how it unfolded a little bit. Sure. Okay. I'm gonna make it real quick. I was twelve years old, and I was building 10 pages on Facebook just for fun. I was competitive back then already, and my goal was to have the biggest fan page about Cristiano Ronaldo. So my favorite football player.
Yeah. They asked me why I just wanted to have as many followers as I could until I managed to get on one single page. I had, like, 4,000,000 followers. Wolfe. And I yeah. To get there, I my account's got hacked. I my store my pages got stolen two, three times, but always restart it until I reach that status that I had the biggest fan page out there. And then the side effect of that was that I was reaching millions of people a week without spending a dime.
And Chaz companies reach out and paying and asking me to, you know, pay me to promote their products or football jurists, whatever it was, or just buy the page. And I was like, they're I don't know. They're just trying to, you know, get the page of me or, like, you know, do something weird. But then after some mind Chaz was 14 15, so I didn't I didn't really know what I was doing. If then then it kind of made sense, right, because you're like, wait.
It if if I watch TV and they're ad, they're spending 1,000,000 of dollars. That's what I heard from my parents and and these and and so So it makes sense that they would pay me a couple $100, if not a couple $1000 a month to promote their products if I reach, you know, similar audiences in terms of sizes. Yeah. So then it happened. I started making more money than my teachers, and I had to declare it. And I had to go to, you know, tax consultant, and they asked me what I was doing.
And I explained it to him, and he said, you're doing marketing. I was like, I'm doing what? Marketing. Oh, okay. Interesting. I heard about that word once. Google and marketing. Interesting. I'm just posting things on my Facebook page that I Wolfe do regardless. I'm getting paid for Chaz. Yes. Exactly.
So, yeah, mine, like, imagine, like, me making more money than my teachers was funny because then it gave me that confidence inside of me that even if I didn't do my homework and they would and they would tell me that I was a complete failure failure. I didn't feel like a failure because I'd I never told Chaz he should set up. Yeah. I mean, I mean, that's what I thought, but I I wouldn't I was didn't tell them anything. I didn't wanna be arrogant, but then that something clicked.
I was like, okay. They pay me money is because they make more money. Right? They must pay me $100 because they might must be making at least a $110. So what's behind the websites I'm promoting? And what I found on these websites were ads, you know, other ads. I was like, okay. What's the next lex logical step? Chaz I make more pages? Yes. I could. Is there more money to be made if I did other things?
And then I stumbled on affiliate marketing because I saw all these ads on these websites promoting products. And then I just found out through all their friends that Chaz type of one of those business model was affiliated marketing, and then and then I just went for it. So I remember, like, the last year in in high school, I think I did 50 k. 50 k. Like, 50 grand, something like that.
And then after Chaz, of organic traffic, and after that, I switched to paid because I understood that organic traffic, so posting on my accounts is limited by my audience, but if I invest money on Facebook ads, it's unlimited because I can reach him. All the 330,000,000 people living in the for example. So I was like, okay. That sounds cool, but it's scary as hell if to invest your own money because I never did that, but at the same time, I was like, Yo, new challenge. Let's just go.
I was scared the first time I started, you know, doing this Facebook thing. Let me just do it again and be scared again because usually after If there is fear in between or if you fear to do something, it's probably the right thing to do. Yep. And that's why I have this mindset to just you know, literally dive in and speaking of fear and diving in, what I do do in my free time it's diving off a plane, so I skydive Oh, man. To push my boundary of fear.
So I got comfortable now after doing it so many times. Jumping off a plane, so I I gave up that sense of control. I know it's gonna be fine, and I just jump off it, and I'm relaxed and I do fun things and that became very, very rewarding. If you're listening to this and your fear of doing anything in life, right now, launching a new business, talk into a girl going for that hobby skydiving, but I don't recommend that because it's a extreme sports, and it should be licensed. Just go for it.
You know? Like, maybe Yeah. You know, there's something. I think god put everything behind fear for a reason. And if we can switch that off, or just go through it and feel Chaz fear and pay the dues then reward are gonna come your way? Yeah. I I agree with you that fear fear is is only it only lives where we allow it to live, I guess, is probably a a good way to say that as far as summation of what you just said. I love I love that the skydiving. I personally haven't done that.
And at the time, by the time I got the courage to actually go and try it, I had multiple children and my wife's like, 0 chance Oh. Like, yeah, that's probably not smart. So let me let me let me make sure my life insurance policy isn't needed quite. Anyway, all that to say, I the the perspective here is, okay, so you got started really young and you kinda fumbled across some things. But what I heard, dude, is that, okay.
Maybe you were 12 when you got started, but you just said you became a millionaire at 23. Chaz was 11 years later. And almost every entrepreneur, this is something I have not talked about at all. But almost every entrepreneur that I have interviewed and or just known over the course of time where I've gotten to this part of their story, where I've kinda known a little bit more about their net worth.
It took them about 10 years of doing something focused and, like, hard after it to hit the millionaire status. And it's like, dude, here we are with Alex right in front of us telling us that, like, if you didn't have you hadn't told us, what you just shared with us about getting started at 12 and, you know, fumbling across a couple of things that were, you know, making more money than your, you know, your teachers.
If you hadn't told us that part and we only went with the beginning of became a millionaire, 23, you you naturally would have just thought that you just you just got the 1,000,000 right away. You started at 22. You got it at 23. You understand what I'm saying? So talk about this for a second. I mean, this was 10 years of, like okay. Maybe you weren't the actual age that typically people are building a business, but you were, like, really going after this for a good solid decade.
Tell us about it. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't I didn't know I was going for that until I was, like, sixteen. I was like, oh, money. I wanna do more of that because I can buy my own things. I don't have to ask my parents because my parents are divorced, and I didn't wanna weigh on my mom and all of that. So I was like, this is powerful, and I can make a living out of this.
And, you know, you get to a point where, like, 16 and people start talking about universities or colleges in the in Chaz as we call them universities in Europe. And, like, you know, the life path we wanna go for, and I was like, why would I sit in a classroom, studying businesses, if I can practice it right away and just, you know, instead of reading a book about the taste of an apple, just grab the damn apple and just give it a bite. I just went for the other option.
And and, yeah, that's just my preferred way to do things. Just go straight at it without wasting time and scary, risky, say what you want, but that's the only way that I found success. And I think that's A lot of successful people share the same idea, and that's just how we wire it. You know, at first, we're not wired at all. We need to explore it, but when you start doing the same, like, taking risk and you and you go on kind of a repetition mode, you stop feeling the fear.
Like, you still feel it. You know, it's there, but you don't give it so much weight. And then That's right. At the end of the day is, who cares how you feel? Just do what you gotta do. One last thing here before we move on because you're a 100% right when it comes to the fear and repetition. You said it actually about your skydiving. Is that you've done it so much now to where you fully let go of control. You you know you're gonna jump. Everything's gonna be fine.
How does that correlate to business? Because you're right. We have to take risks, and we have to continue to take bigger and bigger. Not necessarily more risky, like, a higher volatility risk, but we we just keep taking risk. That's what business is. Even though it might look a little different. Yeah. Calculated risk. So but how are those the same? Because you you've jumped and maybe it's a different plane. Maybe it's a different, you know, height. It's a different business.
It's a different year. Yeah. Exactly. So, like but you gotta keep doing it. Yeah. Wolfe, okay. Let's start from skydiving, and it's easy to picture. First jump. You go on the plane. You know you're gonna have to open the parachute by yourself, although you have 2 instructors. You're sitting there. You're 15,000 feet and the door opens up, and you have never been so scared like you're legs are shaking.
You go out the door, you look down, and you need to just jump in your mind and every cell in your body is telling you not to jump. And I went through that it's so like, oh, it was always easy to skydive. I I pissed in my pants. Literally. Okay. Not literally, but read super scary. Like, I first jump was incredibly scary.
I landed that was devastated like a had such an adrenaline rush and fear I was super tired, but they forced me to go again and again, like, at the 3 jumps day 1, and I just went to bed at 8 PM because I was devastated stated. Like, I I went through so many emotions and sure amount of time. I was just terrified.
It took me 100 jumps before I could hang at the door and just let myself drop without thinking Chaz, oh, something bad at would would happen because I would be at the door and always fear that's I don't know. I Wolfe always have that fear inside of me. Now I did more than 300 jumps, and it feels like any other day, like, if you told me, like, oh, we're gonna jump after the podcast. It'll be like, oh, let me gear up and and come, and I wouldn't fear. But, again, that only comes with repetition.
I'm still con I would say I'm still cautious about things. It's not like I don't check my gear. I don't think that something could go wrong. I I we're taking calculated risks. Same thing with business. I remember doing my first payment to a stranger to buy a fan page. And that was scary. Like, I had to go to Western Union and give and give it some more. Let's be honest. Yeah. It was like yeah.
Besides that, you know, like, going in a weird location at the train station to pay to give someone $300. It's felt very dodgy. And I was like, hopefully, that money is gonna, you know, buy something that they actually want, and and I'm not gonna get scammed. Super scary. But Wolfe buying that the page was the best thing ever, it's Yeah. Made me a lot of money. So I'm grateful for that. And then the second time, you're not gonna fear so much.
And and sometimes during the This was a lucky shot, maybe, but I did many things the first time when it went wrong. Like, I got scammed, but then we shouldn't, like, you know, close our hearts, like, even with personal relationships. Like, you have a girlfriend and and the girlfriend breaks up with you. Okay. It's not it's not you. It's just the relationship with her. You're gonna find someone else. So It's always scary. No. All these things are scary. Launching your first business, all of that.
But if you do them enough times and you don't get discouraged by, you know, the the the challenges in between and maybe the failures, you're just gonna get good at it, and you're just gonna Every every every shot you don't take is missed anyway, so you have nothing to lose. And I think it it comes over with perspective. Like, I started young, so And people say like, yeah. That's your advantage. Yes and no because I it's still the same challenges.
Like, I remember people at school, like, oh, but isn't that scary? Like, you're eighteen, you're gonna try to launch a business. What if you fail? Well, what if I fail? I'm eighteen, I can go back to school like you did. You know, like, you were doing anyways. Oh, okay. I would start at 20. Oh my god. My life is over. No. So I think it's always, like, putting things in perspective. And truly understanding what the risk is.
So if you have kids already and you're sitting at home, even then, I don't think way. Like, probably you don't respect my opinion because I'm a still a kid, but I think the way I'm wired, even if I had kids or if, and Chaz would be 50, I would still take calculated risk every time and just trying to push myself forward just because I know myself by now by continuously doing new things. I'm launching a real estate business now in Indonesia.
I don't know how it's gonna go, but I'm calculating everything, and Hope it's gonna say. Yeah. Yeah. That's the only way. Hey, Kings and Queens. Jazz Wolf. I wanna talk to you about something that's super important to me. We put a lot of time and effort. We, meaning myself and my team, into this podcast, into the content that goes out every single day. And if you have been getting any sort of value or insight from this, we want it to be able to reach other business owners too.
So we would love if you would like, comment, share, leave a review, post, share again, all of the things on social media, on all the different platforms, or even on the podcast, mediums of Apple and Spotify. We would love to be able to get our content into more hands, more entrepreneurs so they can grow their business as quick as possible. Together, we are building a community of like minded entrepreneurs who are committed to growing their businesses to new heights. So let's do this.
Let's help each other. Let's help each other grow. You're right. It doesn't matter the age, young, young, or old. I mean, in fact, actually, most successful entrepreneurs don't start their business until their forties. And so if somebody's listening right now, forties, even fifties, there's so much time. It's and and it doesn't have to be risk filled where, you know, everything's on the line, although that's okay too. I'm not opposed to that.
I've I've put I've put you know, all the chips in the circle, couple of times. And, sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't, but you live to see another day, and I think that's the message here is just go for it. Yeah. The repetition piece is huge, man. I think that, you know, you get into 300 jumps now and not feeling any fear. But the reality was is that up to a 100, you said. You felt feet longer. It's like, dude, that's a lot more jumps than I bet.
People were thinking that you would say that you would have fear until, which is just like business. It's just like life. It's just like relationships. Like, It's gonna take a lot more than you probably think to actually hit that level of success that you have in your mind. Yep. Yep. Yeah. These are the things that we're after. Right? Yeah. This is why we gotta keep training, get better, and better.
So you kinda mentioned a couple things here that I wanna dive into, but I wanna do it in form of a a good bad decision. So tell us something that along the way here Chaz, one of these risks that you've taken or whatever have just done have done really well. It's been a good decision. Practical that that the listeners can learn from. I mentioned going to Las Vegas when I was eighteen. In Europe, you're legally an adult at 18, and you ask that's different. You need to be 21. Right?
So the conference was in the Paris Hotel, which is a casino, so I had to be 21. I never been to the States, but I knew that that conference was gonna change everything because all the big players in the industry were going there, but I was eighteen. So I traveled I used a fake booking account to checking at the hotel so they would let me sleep there. And how did I get at the conference? Chaz another friend going, so I made a copy of one of the badges and just used that to get in.
The fear of doing that was unmatched, but I was so driven that I had to be there no matter what, that they just had to go for it. In fact, when I remember going to FedEx asking to do a copy of this badge, the guy called the cops on me. And I remember just running away, you know, like, in a movie scene, jumping in a tux, like, oh, go. Go. Go. I mean, wow. Yeah. I was I was in fear, but And and I also spent quite a bit of money to travel to to the states, and and I was a lo alone there, but Wolfe.
At the conference, I made the right connections, and I think Chaz, mom, I made over $50,000 in profits, and that was, like, January January 2016, something like that, that month was highly profitable because of that conference. And and I was so afraid to fly there. I had some weird reason that I Wolfe, I don't know, potentially die in a plane crash. I don't know why. Like, not not logical, just emotional, that I feel it wasn't for me blah blah blah blah blah. All the fears.
In fact, that's what I wrote down on the piece of paper that I found a few weeks ago. And turned out to be a tremendous success. And, yeah, and that just kept happening a few other times where we'll just go for things, and then they just turned to be Beautiful. And Yeah. Successful. So yeah. The story there or that the lesson for the listener is Is it go for it? Is it get around to other high players? Like you said, several things that were really important there. Was it just overcome fear?
I think it's a combination of things. So you always I think you need to be really good at networking and meeting the right people to have the right conversations. So it's all about in which room you enter and who is sitting in that room. You know? I think that's has everything to do with your success. Any level For example, you know, there's the Bilderberg group, like, the most powerful billionaires meeting up and in, I don't know, in Europe and talking about things. That moves ways.
It's you bringing in the right friends in your group and instead of drinking beers and, I don't know, playing beer pong. You talk about how to grow. And then, you know, with business to start and having those type of karma, it's always about that. So you should go for things and always, you know, just execute and ignore the fear. Like, feel the fear, but just push through. Should always try to find better people that are already at the level where you wanna be.
And not try to bag informations, but just to put in the work and have a normal conversation with them. Don't no one's gonna give you a hand out. No one's gonna give you anything for free. You need to put in the work, but if you're planning on starting in any industry, then Find the right events. Go meet the people that are already in there. If it's music, go to a music conference. There are many, like, we would be super surprised. Like, their conference for everything, literally everything.
And if you go there and if if you are, you know, you're doing your research on Google and whatnot, you Wolfe find the right conference to attend, and there are multiples. You don't even have to go to another continent. You can find them in your states, you know, like, there is a lot out there, and I think meeting the right people is also super, super important. And Yeah. That's a skill that you should master after some time overcoming that social anxiety and just talk to people.
That's actually something I felt as well at the beginning. I remember going to the conference 18 suited up. Like, hello. My name is Alex. This is my business card, and I thought that was the way. And then I saw my friend team on, shout out to team on. Just going after everyone's okay. Hey, bro. What's up and talking? Hey, yo. This is my friend, Alex. He's just starting out, and then he just vibe. And I think networking is such an important skill.
And if you master it, you can talk to anyone, and that means you can learn from anyone. Yeah. If you can talk to anybody, you can learn from anybody. Love that. Yeah. This is bad. The the freak oh, no. You said it. I just repeated what you said. Oh, okay. I thought it was a because I'm Italian, so sometimes I speak English as an Italian. And Oh, no. I'm good. I was just repeating what you said. The realness of what you're saying, though.
I I wanna just pause for the listener because you've given so much juice in the last 2 minutes. I mean, really, the whole podcast so far, but you can you can get over fear. You said feel the fear. You said didn't get don't get rid of the fear. You said fee feel the fear. In fact, you even wrote it down, which I love that. But then you push through, a lot of that having to do with getting around people that are, maybe, have specialized knowledge.
They can grow rich talks about in order to have riches or success, you have to have power and power comes from specialized knowledge. And so that's why you were getting around these people or this if a conference specialized knowledge. Okay. Great. But then he took it another layer. It's like, dude, you gotta know how to not just network, but know how to really vibe You used the word vibe. I used the word frequency.
When you stepped into that room and, like, stiff in your suit and hand it out your card, that was a totally different frequency or vibe, then then you're then you're a buddy that was talking about just being casual, being loose, being authentic, which is, you know, it's the same prep work that we talked about a few minutes ago before hit the record button. I'm like, look, man. This is gonna be a great conversation. We're gonna be casual. We're gonna do this with the listener.
And and it's just a frequency. And you can get on the same page with other people that have a high frequency. Chaz in itself will help you be successful. Would you agree with that? Oh, absolutely. You you attract depending on your frequency level. So depend depending how you vibe or however you wanna call it, name it. That's what you're gonna track. So You should tune yourself in Chaz, let's say, and be in a receiving mode and not in a scarcity mindset where you just push everything away.
And that That makes all the difference. Heck, I don't know if we have time to talk about visualization or manifestation, but that's something that really changed. My life at the core. And to the day, it still does. And Well, let's talk about it because it's it's a huge part of success and Chaz a huge part of of people that are doing things in the world. So why don't we talk about it? What do you what do you mean by visualization?
Visualizing yourself, having or being the person you're gonna be having the things you wanna have, feeling the abundance of the universe, realizing there's so much out there that just you shouldn't even worry about not having something you wish for.
And I think just practicing with eyes closed, imagining that you're already holding I don't know, the key to your dream car or the key to the house you wanna buy to for your parents or for your family, imagine the dream girl and just acting like if you already have, like, trick tricking your body in thinking and believing that you already have what you wish for, that changes everything at the biological level, at the chemistral level.
Like, we change the chemistry with our thoughts like it or not. That's why when we feel stressed, we, I don't know, we cause, health diseases and whatnot Chaz if we feel that we live in a blissful life all the time. We actually experience a complete opposites, and there's doctor Joe Dispanzer, so speaking, a lot about these things and how, you know, our faults change our chemistry and whatnot and how our environment changes our body.
And that's why it's so important to be in the right environment as well. In creative and right environment. So practicing visual visualization helps a lot, like, a ton. And I wanna give you a few examples also what what what it did for me. Yep. It was 2020, early 2020, and my previous business wasn't really going very well, which was ecommerce. Plus, like, the the cough, cough virus. Sorry. It can beeped at all.
And, So everyone got slept in a phase as a business order, but then it turned out to be a fantastic opportunity for my other businesses that I was just playing with. And Chaz boomed, like, but before it boomed, I remember for weeks, I would just, every morning religiously, Go outside, lay down, do the standard visual visualization of YouTube and visualize it. I would just travel business class. I would I don't know.
Invite my friends on a trip Move to Dubai, do this, start skydiving skydive with my favorite influencer, this, this, and Chaz, Believe it or not, everything I just said happened. Everything I just said happened, plus recently, another thing happened. I mean, it keeps happening. Like, I moved to Dubai. I skydive. I met my favorite influencer, which is a Jay Alvarez, and we started traveling the world skydiving.
I I I hired my mom so I could help my mom finally financially so she works with me now. Girlfriend was there, business class, you name it. And then recently, I found out because I I was never into cars. I never cared about owning a car because also of my nomadic lifestyle, but now because I I'm gonna spend more time in Dubai, I wanted to buy a car.
And I realized that I had a dream car deep in my brain installed from the movie limitless, and there's one scene where he drives a Maserati and I don't have the car key here. But, anyways, I just got a black Ferrari Portofino, which looks damn close to that car. And it just feels amazing driving it. I'm like, wow, actually, I did manifest this too. So I believe it's so much that I even got it tattooed on my Oh, yeah. Does it visualize? Because, yeah, just powerful.
So you trick your Now I wanna give the other perspective. I also lived in my life in a in a state of absence. Like, oh, I'm working so much, but this this is not working out. When will this work? Oh, I need a girlfriend, and I feel like needy. And I and I I don't know. I I I have this energy in me and around me that of absence of scarcity in feeling of scarcity just pushes everything away because you keep feeling bad about the things you wanna have instead of feeling good about them.
And if you're not in the right frequency, then you're just pushing them away instead of attracting them. That last little piece there because it someone might be thinking scarcity. Okay. That's a that that's not a new word. But scarcity, they might be thinking is like, well, I I can't there's not enough. Right? And, like, oh, I I'm limited.
But even just a low perspective that you gave to us there was really, really powerful that you were Not necessarily limited in the supply, but just in the way that you were interacting with your visualization even. And not, like, basically fully surrendering to it, which sounds a little bit vulnerable, but it's it's actually belief. If you actually believe it, then then you then you let go of scarcity or what you consider currently real and you accept the visualization as reality.
And so you're saying that you trick your mind, and it's actually there's there's two pieces here. There's a conscious and a subconscious. And so you're using your conscious thoughts your ability to lay down and put power towards thinking about these things. And all you're doing by everyday doing it is that tricking or training your subconscious mind to believe that these things are actually true. If your subconscious mind believes that they are actually true, guess what?
Mhmm. Things start happening. Now you start doing things. It's not just magic. Okay? You start doing the things that are necessary to put yourself in the right position or be in the right room or make the right calculated risk or be drawn to a certain conversation that happens on a pod or you're listening to a pod or whatever, Those things happen because you brought them right to it. That make sense? Yes, sir.
You being 26, this is pretty impressive that you're already, like, you know, pressing so hard into this, there's, you know, a lot of much older folks that that still have a hard time grasping the reality of what it looks like to sit down to write out, to say, to visualize in your mind these things. Why do you think it's been, like, something that you've been able to grasp? Like, what why do you think it's just been you know, it just seems so logical to you.
You've used the word logical a couple times. Simple. Why do you think it's been so simple for you just to start doing these things? I had the right interest or I was lucky enough to have the right interests early on, and I never accepted the things as they are. Like, for example, the school system even there, I was always questioning everything, and I would not read the books that the school would give me. I would just research on my own and I don't know.
I was reading Napoleon Hill or all the classic Robert Kyzaki when I was 15 16. And if he feed if you feed your brain Chaz type of information early on, you can't unsee the things that are around you and not see what's out there. And that's exactly what happened. And then At the same time, I was blessed with being competitive and building fan pages that it allowed me to make money.
So, you know, this early early experience in my life allowed me to understand that, you know, I can actually do things by myself. I don't have to follow the the same route as everyone else, and it's actually possible because maybe we hear people doing that that I was actually the one doing it in my circle.
Yep. And that was extremely powerful because then there's no coming back when you understand you can make money by yourself and with, I don't know, just a few hours of work per day and knowing that you can scale it up, I don't you you can't go back to a normal job and accept that you're gonna get a I don't know, an hourly rate no matter how good that hourly rate can be because you don't wanna trade your time for money at the end of the day.
I mean, to some extent, we all do, but that's exactly the point. I I never wanted to be rich. I wanted to be wealthy, and that's a big difference because rich means you're rich in money. Wealthy means you're rich in both in money and time. And that's something that I didn't come up with my Wolfe. Like, it's something that they're read in the book when I was sixteen, and that was Robert Kiyosaki.
And, you know, when it starts clicking in your brain, can't go back and that's maybe it's a curse or maybe it's a blessing. I think it's a blessing, and but I'm cursed Chaz the day I will always try to build make more businesses and scale my life even more in terms of quality and in terms of my bank accounts. I'm not gonna say here, I don't wanna make more money. Because I'm a capitalist and I love it. Yes. I agree. I agree. Real quick here.
I wanna know because I haven't gotten to the bad decision. We're almost at time here. What what was something that, you know, just practically that you did that was inside of one of your businesses that didn't work out that maybe we can stay away one one main thing. I mean, many, actually, many, many, but for sure, I didn't invest too much money in stocks that just flopped and that was not good. The theory of putting you should not put all eggs in one basket. You guys have put one egg to many.
But other than that, it's like I'm very loyal, but at the same time in a stupid way, some because I stick to people that might not be good for me. It's good. And and that can be problematic if you stick too long with people that they're not gonna bring you forward that that's not gonna improve your life. And at some point, you're just gonna have to let go, and that is true for business partner as it is for friends and for, you know, partners in private life.
So that's probably the heaviest thing or the thing I need to learn more or that I had to learn the hard way to let go. And when you make when you create the space by letting go people, it makes space to let new people in. And sometimes I'm a bit slow on that even to the day. And I think that Chaz room for improvements too. You know? Yeah. That's incredibly self aware for you to recognize that. Although loyalty, I feel like is one of the most honorable characteristics that you can have.
So for the listener, I don't think Alex is gonna beat himself up too hard on this one, although it's incredibly self aware, especially for a twenty six year old to recognize that that the downfall of loyalty, which is really that you believe in other people more than they believe in themselves. And and what that can lead to is, you know, them making bad choices with choices that you wouldn't make yourself and it just takes a minute to go, you know what?
We're not on the same frequency or we're not in alignment. Eventually, you recognize that you've already said that you you Chaz you can you recognize and you leave space for other people, but I'm just incredibly impressed with you and with your answers. Go ahead. You were gonna say something else? Yes. I think you should still be loyal to yourself, you know, so I think if you keep if you're loyal to yourself, then you will realize who the right people are and not.
So I think I just prioritize other people over me Yep. Which sometimes can be done, but on a long term, it's just unhealthy, and it doesn't even help the others. As much as you wanna keep them in your life, it's just not good for anyone. So be loyal to yourself. Yeah. There's a principle here that you can't actually serve or truly serve others with an empty cup.
And that's what happens over the course of time is that if if you're not loyal to yourself first, which sounds selfish, it sounds, you know, arrogant. It sounds, you know, all these kinda negative things. And it's like, Wolfe, but if you have an empty cup, then inevitably, you're gonna be vulnerable to the people that are around you, and you're not even gonna serve them to what you think that you're serving them at the capacity.
And so take a little bit to to focus on you, which I think it sounds like you're doing. So proud of you for that. Alex, I got one last question here for you. This is gonna be the most interesting person. You are the most interesting person that I've asked this question to because you're only 26. But the question is always the same, and I'm gonna keep it the same because I think that you'll give us a good answer.
Is If you had a chance to whisper in the younger Alex's ear, what would you tell him? Dream bigger. Don't worry. It's gonna be fine. It's gonna happen. It's not. If it's when, and I actually tell that to myself now thinking that my future version of myself is gonna come back and do the same. So I'm trying as much as I can, even if it's scary to do that already now, thinking my thirty five year old version is whispering to me right now. So, yeah, that's awesome, man.
Well, take it from the thirty six year old Chaz across the mic. There you go. Go on. Yeah, dude. I see you. Whisper Whisper. Whisper. Whisper. You are an incredible human, Alex. You've been successful in business. You've obviously been, successful in your mind. And in in relationships outside of that. And so I just am thankful for your time here today and and giving back to the audience. How can the listeners find you? Number 1, if they're an they're an entrepreneur They wanna connect with you.
Maybe they wanna go skydiving with you. I don't know. Or, 2, if they're interested in this affiliate marketing stuff where where you know, you can help them grow a business. How can they find you that way? Oh, I have a YouTube channel filled with free content. And it's my name. It's Alex Mico. Just simple as that on YouTube. You can find my YouTube channel. I speak pretty much only about affiliate marketing, and you can find everything there. Perfect.
We'll put that in the show notes as well, and that way they can kinda dive into the world of affiliate marketing. You you obviously know what you're doing, my man, and age has has no limit on you or me. I've never been a subscriber to, age being a limit, and you have come along the same lines and busted all those those those fears and preconceived notions from age out of the water. So thank you for your success. Thanks for all that you're doing in the marketplace. Thanks for buying a Ferrari.
Thanks for doing the Dubai thing. And listening to your story was just so inspiring because it doesn't matter if it's a Ferrari or in my case, I wanna buy real estate. Bigger, bigger, bigger pieces of real estate. It's the same stuff. It's like just dream bigger. It's because it's possible. And so thank you for giving that to us here today. Thanks for being here, Alex. Thank you very much. Cheers. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Gathering the Kings today.
I hope that you were able to pull out a few nuggets to go apply into your business right away. More importantly, though, I hope that you're realizing that it takes more doing it all on your own, carrying the weight all by yourself. What I have realized, not only in my own journey from multiple businesses and multiple industries and now interviewing over 2 or 300 other very successful 7, 8, and 9 figure business owners is that It's tough to do it alone.
And so gathering the Kings exists to bring together successful entrepreneurs. In fact, we are putting together 1 1000 kings, specifically who are grateful, but not done. We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, and communities. And here's what we believe Chaz in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy.
So if that relates and and resonates with you, and you know that you need people around you sharp qualified other very successful business owners. I want you to go to gathering the king's dot com. I want you to take a look at what we're doing and see if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit to 1000 kings. Talk soon.