00:00
You know, it hit me deep inside and I come from a pretty much entrepreneurial family. My grandparents came here as immigrants, started a trucking company. I was loading tractor trailers when I was eight, nine, 10. I like the fact of getting paid, you know, I like that I could get that cash and do something with it. And I realized that at a very young age that that financial freedom is really important. I'll do any tasks, no tasks is below me. And this is really where

00:29
My success really, you know, it helped me in my world because I talk to everybody in every store and every walks of life because that's, for me, that gives me life. To be able to communicate with everybody, no matter what level you are. The only difference is I spent, you know, when everyone puts so much pressure on themselves to be successful or to find success or to find happiness and I think the most important thing is

00:58
to find what you're passionate about. You know, what is your passion? What do you love to do? And really focusing on that. Everyone's trying to do a million things and to find and seek happiness. And as I go deeper into my experiences, I came up with the Howie Method. The hardest part of ending is starting again. You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford.

01:28
Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. We're talking billions today, my friends, not millions, billions, billions, billions, billions upon billions with Howie P. Howard Payne's serial entrepreneur and billion dollar brand maker. What's up, brother? What's up, what's up? Hey, man. Thanks for having me. I think your show's amazing, and, Ryan, I appreciate you having me on. Hey, I appreciate that. You know, uh...

01:57
Flattery gets you everywhere as they say in this world. So, uh, we appreciate it. Uh, we love telling good stories. We love having good people and, uh, your people contacted my people and I'm like, I didn't know how he P but now I feel like I know you a little bit. I felt like I was getting in shape, you know, going through all your stuff, your brands, you know, I don't know where to get to all that. But, uh, no, I think, uh, real recognizes real and, uh, appreciate you coming on the show and

02:27
excited to tell everybody about your journey. Yeah, I'm super pumped. I mean, I love inspiring, motivating, and I'm glad my people reached out to your people. But now there's no in-between, it's just me and you. It's me and you, baby. Me and you, mixing it up. Yeah, no, I'd rather, let's figure out a way to make some money together. We don't have to mix it up. How's life? Where's home these days? So home is Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

02:57
And I also just got a place in California. Everyone's moving out and I, I bought a place in Palm desert, but a little castle. Ah, so a little getaway there in the desert. I like hiking and I like the vibe out there. So ocean here, desert there. It's a good combo. Nice. Get the best of both worlds. Neither one a bad place to be. Uh, especially the Fort Lauderdale area. It's very nice down there and get that.

03:25
All those tax breaks in Florida and all the great weather. Little sticky sometimes, but hard to beat, hard to beat. But Howard, Howie P, now you've got that in my head, brother. I'm gonna like, it's gonna be hard for me to lose it. Let's talk your journey, man. I know you got a great story, and I'm really excited for kind of the audience to hear kind of your entrepreneurial journey, the ups, the downs, the highs, the lows.

03:55
Let's start it brother. All right. So, you know, growing up, I came from a middle class family. My mom was an entrepreneur. She was into clothing and fashion. So she had jewelry stores. So she was always taking me to work. And I always saw how, you know, she controlled her own destiny and how her being an entrepreneur and very motivational, she had the freedom to buy what she wanted and do what she wants.

04:24
And for me, that really, you know, it hit me deep inside. And I come from a pretty much entrepreneurial family. My grandparents came here as immigrants, started a trucking company. I was loading tractor trailers when I was eight, nine, 10. I liked the fact of getting paid, you know? I liked that I could get that cash and do something with it. And I realized that at a very young age that financial freedom is really important.

04:53
And as my father and my mother, you know, growing up, we took nice trips and we had a real great relationship, you know, all pretty tight relationship. I got brother and sister. And for me, at a young age, I really took to people like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I was thinking, I always wanted to be in the fitness. So like Schwarzenegger, Bruce Lee, and Tony Robbins. That was like.

05:22
three people I really filled myself really at a young age. And that really just, you know, built me up. I was, you know, I programmed myself at a young age that I really wanted to be successful. I wanted to be tough, you know, the martial arts, and I wanted to be built. And I wasn't the tallest guy, so I had to have all the other components. And so my journey as a young kid, I was shoveling driveways.

05:52
snow blowing business, cleaning windows, anything I can do to make an extra buck. I love to do. Where was this? Cause I hear the accent. Yeah. So, uh, I was born in New York, raised in New Jersey. Okay. So I'm a Jersey guy. There we go. Uh, went to, went to like a private Hebrew Hebrew day school. When I was younger, I had a pretty religious.

06:17
You know, Jewish family growing up, my grandparents were big benefactors of Israel. And so actually my grandfather who became very successful becoming a, he was a fruit cart vendor and built a trucking route by delivering mail on his fruit cart to people and built a route up, then built actually a huge company in the eighties. They had a thousand tractor trailers, East coast, West coast. So one time I thought,

06:47
Maybe I'll never have to work. Grandpa, leave me some money. I never tell this story. You're gonna love this. This is the first. I say, grandpa, you're gonna leave me something? You know, when you go, when you pass to the other place, leave something for your best grandson? And he says, yeah, of course I'm gonna take care of you. I said, well, what are you gonna give me? He goes, I'm gonna, you're gonna have a nice note waiting for you. I go, well, what's it gonna say? He says, he says, say hello, Howie.

07:15
My grants is not even funny. You know what that's what it was. It was nothing zero. He spent it all but anyway, he he was a he was a he was a giving guy he was I got a lot take out after him a lot of way in his generosity and the way he was with people and Respectable of everybody and treated everyone graciously and respect No matter who what their place was in life he just

07:43
He was that kind of guy and I learned from him, you know, that it was very important for me in my life to just treat everyone like gold. Whether I've got a restaurant, I'll do any, I'll do any task. No tasks is below me. And this is really where my success really, you know, it helped me in my in my world because I talked to everybody in every store and every walks of life because that's for me. That gives me life to be able to communicate with everybody. No matter what level you are.

08:13
And so he built this Hebrew school that actually started out in a trailer and at a church, believe it or not. We were in a church parking lot in a trailer with a Jewish school. Imagine that. And then, and then finally, like when I was in fifth grade, we had a, he built a school and then ninth grade, I went to real high school public school. I was like, what the heck? This shit exists. I played tennis. I was a tennis player, BMX, rode motocross.

08:43
So I was into fast activity, always into fitness, took martial arts for six, seven years, went to college, went to Syracuse University, with Derek Coleman, Sherman Douglas, Ronnie Seichley, some of those.

09:00
Dude, you may have heard of all guys. I remember those guys. And, um, I was a business major, basically, uh, fitness, minor exercise and nutrition, fitness, exercise, physiology, got out of college. I got an offer for staples. Do you want to be an aisle manager? I'm like, mom, what's the college four years to become an aisle manager? Staples? No way. I said, I got to do something. I don't know what I'm going to do. I can.

09:28
And by the way, I had jobs growing up, but a lot of jobs, I like, they let me go. Like I tried to do the landscaping, was on the machine. First day, that big machine flew off and this blew up on me. So basically I had some bad experience working for other people. And I just, I always saw things like my way. So I, you know, I had to do it the Howie way and graduated college and got an offer 24,000 a year. I say, you know what? This shit's not for me.

09:58
I'm gonna become a trainer. So I got all the certifications. My mother had a trainer. I worked for another guy, six months, taught me the business. Then went on my own, opened my first gym. Started doing in-home training first. After I left this guy, built my own clientele, opened the gym back in 1990 when I got out of school. Six months after I graduated, I opened the gym. Nothing like growing up.

10:28
I was always in the gym carrying my own food with me on the plane. I did some bodybuilding shows. I was just big into fitness. I loved it. It was like that was my that was my way to really challenge myself for basically goal setting for you know one more pull up one more push up heavy weights getting in six days a week.

10:57
For me, that was like, you know, the world where I felt like I was just, I was immersed in it. And I felt like that was really building up just my mental, my mental power, my energy, feeling confident with myself, feeling like I could just take on the world. And this has been like sort of like, you know, the Bible, my, my, my place where I think all my successes come from. And I could talk a little bit about it after.

11:26
And I opened my gym, I'm jumping around, because it's at ADD, ADD, you know. Opened my first gym, 1990, 10 to 93, I opened up another gym, closed the other one, opened a bigger one. But for me, I mean, the gym was great, I loved motivating people and inspiring them, and you know, learning from a lot of my clients who were business people. But I noticed that when I was their coach,

11:56
You know, it was more of a lifestyle enhancement specialist. I improved their life all around. They got more fit. They got healthier. They stopped going on medications. They felt more confident. They were making more money in their work. I said to him, I only charge like a hundred bucks an hour. You're paying like 400 for your lawyer and only does his paperwork. I do everything. I'm like, I'm better. I'm better than a lawyer, your doctor, your psychologist. All these people can buy. Then I, you know,

12:25
For me, I kept clients, Ryan, for 20 years. 20 plus years I had clients. And it was the dedication, the focus on them, the basically really caring about them, right? It was really caring about them as a professional coach that made my success and made them keep coming back, right? I had expectation of them and it was great. It was the best.

12:54
best career in my life. And during all that time, as you heard in my story, I know you dig two inches deep, but maybe you had to go three inches to find these. I had 29, it's probably more. I said to say 29, cause I want to go over 30. I call them failed startups or learning experiences, tattooed t-shirts, energy shots for gamers, health and fitness search engine, CBD companies.

13:22
real estate tech. The list goes on. Diet pills. I was watching old YouTube videos and I sounded just like I am today 15 years ago. The same Howie. Haven't changed. The only difference is I spent, you know, when everyone puts so much pressure on themselves to be successful or to find success or to find happiness and I think

13:52
The most important thing is to find what you're passionate about. You know, what is your passion? What do you love to do? And really focusing on that. Everyone's trying to do a million things and to find and seek happiness. And as I dove deeper into my experiences, I came up with the Howie Method.

14:14
Howie P's method. The Howie method. And so what is the Howie method? And I said, what does my name stand for? Why did my parents call me Howie? You know, why did I have Howie all of my wallpaper in my house? And I had Howie and my brother had David. I'm like, what the heck? I look back and... So for me, the H, five easy things, everybody. This is five easy tips you could do to change your life forever. The H.

14:43
I leave my life in the cornerstone of health. Health is wealth. If you have health, you have everything. It helps your energy levels. It helps you think better. It helps you just feel better and, you know, you're feeling energized and you can perform better. Do everything in your life better by having health in your life as number one. I say health number one because you can take care of, you know, four kids, your family.

15:09
If you have more energy and you're well rested and you feel good and your health is good, your quality of life is gonna be up here. And you know, it's not just now, but it's when you get to my age, right? You know what I mean? And a little bit older. So health is a cornerstone. Oh, what is oh? Oh is originality. I say, be you, be real, be proud. Be that one person, you look in a mirror and...

15:37
Learn how to be happy with that guy because that's who that's who you are. You know, how can you make that the best person the best version that you are because this is going to be your most success. I was never the smartest kid. I was never the biggest kid. I was never the best looking kid. Although I look okay. I I you know never great athlete. I was I'm never great. I was never great at anything. You know when I say to myself this and I tell everybody this out there is

16:07
I could beat guys all day long that are smarter than me, stronger than me, tougher than me. I could beat them all day long in a howie, in my way, in the way I'm confident about myself. And I think this is the best thing that I can offer anybody is you're so special and you're so individual, unless you have a twin brother, then you're screwed. But you're so special and individual that you have such talents. You just have to tap into them.

16:34
So originality is so important. Be you, be real, be proud. The W is work. You've got to put the work in. Look, you told me you did 300 plus podcasts. I don't even, I never met you before, but I'm super impressed. I know how hard it is. I know the dedication. And plus with a whole family, you know, you got to sacrifice and do a lot to get that done. And so I commend you, you know, that's awesome. So hard work, you can't hack hard work.

17:04
You can do things smarter, but listen, for me, I don't know. Time is something I put in long and hard into the projects that I've gone into. Most not successful, one that took me to the stratosphere. Hard work is everything. The I, innovation. It's easy to be a copycat in life.

17:32
But can you innovate? Can you do something different? Can you serve the world differently, solve problems in a different way that weren't being solved before? And for me, this jacks me. I know I'm supposed to be getting eight hours of sleep, and lately with a lot of new launches and things I'm doing, four hours, five hours is good. The 20 years I had my gym, I was putting 80 to 100 hours a week. I'll say it again, because I didn't stutter. 80 to 100 hours a week? And for me,

18:00
People say I'm putting 60, 70. I'm like, that's pretty good. You're gonna get there some days. For me, that's a light week. And, you know, that's just the way I'm wired. So I, innovation, gotta innovate. And the E, E is, when we're talking about your little drink, energy, gotta energize yourself daily. You know, what energize do? I have certain songs I listen to energize me. I have certain.

18:29
YouTube videos, some motivational ones. I picked a few that really get me amped up. And you see a lot of professional athletes, world-class Olympians, that they listen to certain things before they perform because it heightens your level of alertness and your energy level to a new level. So energy is a big part. So I love going out there, my best foot forward every day, energized and enthusiastic.

18:55
I like it. So I'm going to read them back to you. I, you see, I have no notes, no anything. And I didn't know this coming in health originality, put in the work. Innovation and energy. How to do. Hey, five for five. Focus. That's focused. That's focused and execution right there. Yes. So the big, so, you know, I hear people talk about, you know, building seven, eight figure, nine figure companies.

19:25
I could never build a million dollar company, just so you know, in 22 years, I couldn't build my fitness business to a million dollars. They said you weren't a good business guy, Howie, you're a gym rat, you know, you should have franchised your gym business. I also developed another fitness product in 2000, spent 500,000 of my savings pushing out this energy ball product. I did six videos. I mean, I've done everything. I've pushed.

19:54
I don't even know how many hours. And this is the best. I'm 600,000 in debt 10 years ago. I'm broker than everyone on your show watching right now. I'm broker than you, trust me. I was broker than you. I was more down than you. I was poor. I had nothing. Everyone was against me. So if you ever feel like this, you're not alone. I was there 10 years ago, broker than broke. And.

20:22
I was at my last draw going through divorce. I have three kids, 25, 25, 19. I love them to death. And my whole life, I just wanted to be a success. I wanted to create a product that could give me millions of dollars so I don't have to work so hard. And I dreamed about it, and this energy drink I thought was gonna be it, and this weight loss thing was gonna be it, and my fitness product. Everything was gonna be the savior of my life that I wouldn't have.

20:51
because I was spending too much. I was living way above my means, way above, and it just came crushing down, you know? Lost my house in a short sale. I was down to nothing. Then the divorce was there 10 years ago, and I said to myself, what am I gonna do? What is this? This is our last straw, Howie. You gotta really, you gotta really, what are you gonna do? And...

21:22
Basically, 10 years ago, I was buddies of mine were in the they were they were they managed professional athletes. And they were in they were in boxing and mixed martial arts. And they said, I said to him, I was good at setting up meetings, I could get I could land meetings and reach out to people. So I told him, listen, I'll set up this meeting with tap out, which was that mixed martial arts company. I don't know if you heard tap out. I don't know if they're still around. But they were in California.

21:52
You know, he told me they're looking to bring MMA to China and get the Shaolin Temple fighters in American style fighting. And he says, how if you can set the media, I'll give you a little chunk of the deal. He was my client, Richie. I go, all right, Richie. I set up the meeting. We went out to California and we were in Beverly Hills at a meeting. And basically I'm sitting at a table, guys blown big smoke screen next to me. What, one of the guys in the meeting, Brian, I was like, what, what is this? I hate smoke. So smoking is my biggest pet peeve.

22:23
I don't like smoking and I'm not a drinker, but smoking is the worst. It just, it kills you so bad. You know, inside people don't even realize how bad with your teeth and your gums. It just, it basically just kills you everywhere. This guy was smoking, blowing big smoke in my face. I'm like, dude, can you stop smoking? He's like, he's like, there's not smoke. This vapor, my vapor, what do you mean vapor? So he takes it and like goes to burn my hand. And I'm like, what is that?

22:51
So me being an inventor and a creative guy, I was like, what is that? He goes, this is the future. It's cancer-free smoking. When I tell you something hit me like a bomb, like a bomb went off, like everything else evaporated and this was just in my mind, I'm like, this is it. This is it. This is my calling. How can I get millions of people off cigarettes? This thing's gonna do it.

23:20
It's called electronic cigarette. Never heard about it before. I was just started talking about distribution. He's like, you could buy $10,000 worth, you know, I'll print up 5,000 or whatever, 4,000 of them. I net 10 grand. So he walked away, I got three samples from him. Richie and his buddies are next to me, across from me, and they're like, huh, what are you guys talking about? I'm like, dude, e-cigarettes.

23:48
electronic cigarette. Did you hear what this guy just said? This is the future. They're like, howie, this is why you're broke. You're broke. You have tension deficit and you know, it's total put down. I'm like, man, you guys, you guys are my friends or what? They said no. And by the way, these are the guys that are like, dude, I'll be like missed out on the opportunity of our lifetime. Like my friend, Richie's like, dude, he tells my story. He tells a story to everybody. You know, he still tells everybody. So.

24:18
They say no, I'm thinking to myself, all right, I got to do this e-cigarette thing. Go back to New Jersey, and I'm at my gym, and I'm emailing factories from China, and I'm getting samples. And after three months of trying to smoke, you know, smoking, I'm thinking about what I'm going to do, how I'm going to market these things. I tell myself, you know what the problem is, Ryan? I'm not a smoker. I don't even know what these things are supposed to taste like. This is the best. So in any business...

24:48
right if you're not the expert you've got to find somebody who can help you right Eli next door he's like the Russian Israeli military cyber force guy I remember telling me how he when I when I you know in Israel when you're in the military they give you a pack of Marlboro in your uniform that's your uniform it comes in a pack of Marlboro

25:13
Every day I was driving to work, I see Eli smoking cigarettes outside the salon. And his wife, I was friendly with his wife. I trained her a bunch of times and, you know, we cross promote. So I said, I got, I got to get Eli. I got a picture of this. So he's walking by down the hallway. We had a common corridor in this. We had a strip mall in New Jersey. He was right next to me. He walked. I remember this vividly. He's walking by. I go, Eli, I got to show you something. He goes, why, why, why? So I take it and I.

25:43
put it between my fingers. He's like electronic cigarette. I was blown away. I was like, I don't know this guy know about e-cigarettes. He goes, Howie, 2008, my wife bought me a kit, $250. It had chargers, refills, wires. He goes, it was so complex. It was, you know, you need a college education and I never graduated eighth grade in Israel. So I took it out of the drawer. I looked at it. I looked at the instructions and I put it back in and never opened it again.

26:14
I go Eli, I gave him the pitch, I go Eli. I go, this is, he go, I go, Eli, Suzy goes to 7-Eleven down the road every day, buys a cup of coffee in our brand. I go cancer-free smoking, he goes, let me see. Can I use any language on your show here or not? Yeah, it's right there. Okay, good.

26:38
Oh, it's radical, radical. OK, so I can so I could I could be fluent in French. Yes. So he take it. He takes it like this. I'm I'm dying. I'm like, I'm thinking I'm praying that the guy likes it. I'm praying. Right. He goes, this is fucking gold. Let's cash it in. I was like, I was like, oh, my God, this is the day. This is the day. Yeah, we started. So the story is a long story, but I can. We started.

27:08
ordering from China, you know, we, we, I borrowed 10 grand from my dad, which I already owed him so much money from loans. He's like, you know, payback is going to be a bitch one day. I'm like pops pops. Come on. This is the one I tell you, I give him credit because you know what? He never, he never put me down. And he was like, you know what? My mother was always encouraging, which is a great thing because a lot of parents aren't encouraging. Yeah. And so they're like, they're like, ah, man.

27:38
We just lost on like five other things. When you tell this, this, this crazy, what kind of things they call them. I go 10, I just need 10 on this one. And, uh, you know, I borrowed 10 from my pops. He put 10 in and, uh, we went to work and basically, uh, where was, so he said, it's already been around. And so, and you were in California and someone already had something.

28:06
We're, talk to me about where we are. Cause I think everybody listening now that we've kind of given the punchline a little bit away with these cigarettes, like where was, what was the industry at that stage? Cause obviously it must've still been pretty early because you obviously struck gold here. I know that's coming pretty soon down the path here, but what, where, what was the state of the industry when you were doing this?

28:33
So the state of the industry was, you know, the FDA was trying to regulate it as a medical device. Right. And so there were, you know, they were, there were a lot of court battles at the time. So this is like 2012 or 2011. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 2010, 2010, 2011. And, but 2008 is when blue came out. Blue was like one of the first. Yeah. I remember that. You know, and the market was the

29:00
basically the market was saturated with, it was 250 brands, Ryan, 250 brands out there trying to pitch their product as the best. And people said to me, how this is so such a dumb idea. He cigarettes, first of all, they're going to not only you broke, but you're going to be in jail because you're this, this stuff kills people. Yep. You know? And I was like, you know what? I'm just going to go forward with what I feel here. I feel like I can help millions of people get off deadly cigarettes.

29:29
That's gonna be our mission. And that's what we, so basically the state of the industry was, it was all rechargeable. There were a lot of defective products in the market. There wasn't any leading brands. There were a few brands, but basically it was just, it was the wild west. It was figuring out what you can put. You couldn't make claims that it was healthier or better for you, but you know what we did?

29:59
we did some key things. Basically, when we name, so him and I, we came up with a naming convention. It was called Logic, Electronic Cigarettes. And we came up with Logic, because we said, you know what? If you use your logic, you'll make a better decision. You know, logical decisions are better ones. So this is logic, it's better for you. So that was one of the things, that was one of the things that we did, that people like, you know, I thought subconsciously, it would talk to them like, eh, it's logic. Right.

30:29
Now, the second thing I'm going to tell you is...

30:34
super, you know, it was like a super secretive move that we did. I sort of, I think I got the idea from the five hour energy guy. I think that's where it came from. We're basically a lot of people sued him because they said, it doesn't give me five hours of energy. Well, he said, that's not my trademark. I mean, that's my trademark. That's not what I'm promising. I'm promising, feel it in minutes, last for hours. That's what it said. So basically,

31:04
His trademark is five hour energy. So I said to myself, how could I use that sort of that spin to make a claim that my e-cigarette was better than everybody else's? So you know what I did? I registered the trademark, the most trusted brand and I got it. Just the most, literally that basic, the most trusted brand. Yeah. Not even the most trusted, the most trusted e-cigarette brand or just the most trusted brand period.

31:34
The most trusted brand period. Oh my God. How the hell did you get that? How good? That's exactly. So my buddies who are lawyers go, how we got freaking genius. I'm like, listen, I know how genius it was and it would work, but it worked. And so, you know, basically all the, I'll go into New York city radio and all the taxi cabs, but basically that was like, you know, where's your study groups? Where's your test groups?

32:03
They wanted these marketing firms, $100,000, $200,000. We only had 20 grand. And you know what? I'll tell you guys, this is really important. You don't need experts for everything. And you just gotta try. Try on error. You gotta have balls. You gotta go out there and try it and do it. Okay, experts are not gonna save you. And most experts, as I was telling a buddy of mine today, they just wrote books. They never really built companies. And they're really good at selling you and building subscriptions.

32:33
How many of them really built companies that actually they exited on a monster cash deal that started with 20 grand. That's my story. So we already know the name of this episode. You gotta have balls. I'm summing it up right now. You gotta have balls because no balls, no results. You know, you can't just spend your way to success because most people are just going to spend your money and.

33:02
They're not gonna really care about your company. And we just did it ourselves, step by step, everything. From the marketing to the website design, all that. I did it all myself. To setting up the warehouse, loading the trucks, doing the fulfillment. I was doing the work of 10 people. And the reality is, so the most trusted brand worked great for us. And at the time, what was really different, Ryan, what we did differently is,

33:31
we really focused on the disposable electronic cigarette technology. So we had some innovations, key innovations, and I'll talk about them right now. Basically, how to differentiate us from 250 other competitors besides having a good naming convention and the trademark didn't come right away.

33:53
Basically, we figured out that this is the simplest concept. And if you think about it, regular cigarettes always work, right? They burn and they work. But we found from going into the stores was that rechargeable electronic cigarettes had a very high defective rate because they had too many components. So I went all in on the disposable. The disposable was a big...

34:21
Eli really liked the fact that it was disposable because, you know, the, the, his previous experience was all those parts and all these opportunities for it to go defective. Every logic how to work. That was one of the key factors of our massive success. And it offered 40% gross profit. We went in and we go, listen, Mr. such and such.

34:47
Nothing in your store gives you a $4 profit every time Susie comes in, buys a cup of coffee and a logic. So we offer 40% GP.

34:58
And we had to make sure we had the richest flavor and thickest vapor. So those were like our ingredients, right? We had like the triple threat. We started out selling them in his salon. He was pushing them in his salon. He goes, man, people really like these. I'm like, and then we just went to work. We were going to every 7-Eleven. I would do the signs. I was like the marketing guy. He was collecting the money. And we had...

35:27
Listen to this, this is great. We had no accounts receivable. There was no consignment. I like the word commitment. So when I went in there, I said, listen, we're giving you gold, you cash it in. We don't do consignment, we do commitment. You commit, we know if you're committing, you're gonna sell our product, that we'll be good business partners. And we knew every store that we set up with our system, that that would be like a little...

35:57
franchise, you know, little logic. I'll tell you a crazy story. I figured out that one of the big factors of going in the store and they offered 20 different e-cigarettes was the guy behind the counter didn't know which one to recommend. I made it easy. You want to hear my technique? Yeah. We had what we had white boxes, these shitty boxes from China, 24 units in each.

36:26
I said, you know what I'm gonna do? When someone buys a Marlboro red, like which brand do you offer them? And he says, I don't know which one. I go, okay, you're gonna offer them Logic. You know, I wrote on the box, so we had a platinum. That was our strongest. I go, Marlboro red on the box, dude. I put it on the counter. I put Newport for our menthol. Was it illegal? Probably, but you know what? It worked like a charm.

36:56
And then by the time we had real boxes with branding, they knew what brand to get and which one with flavor and strength. So there were so many things. And then I was flying back and forth to China. We broke a hundred million in sales in 18 months. I was broker than broke 10 years ago. I skipped the million dollar company and went to the billions. I got on a rocket ship and flew to the moon. It's unbelievable. And that's why, you know,

37:26
I have this, uh, created this think billion sort of think billions mission where I was thinking I wanted to become a millionaire so bad and I skipped the whole level. Damn. So I'm telling you, you sold, you sold the company, right? Yeah. So, so check this out. So I was living in China, you know, I got to talk about the hard work too. The funny thing is we talked about a lot of hard work right there. I think we.

37:54
We flew to China in the back of the plane the first six months. And after the seventh, eighth month we were catching traction. I mean, it was unbelievable. We really, we made some great moves and the company really, really was taken off. So we went from sitting in the back six, seven months flying to China every three, four weeks to flying on Cathay Pacific where my partner was stealing my caviar because I don't eat caviar. Yeah, so 2000.

38:22
A little under five years, we built 100,000 points of distribution. 2015, we were the number one brand sales per point of distribution. So that means for every store we were in, we were selling more than anybody else. 2015, Nielsen ratings. You know, it was a dream. I mean, it was a dream come true. It was unbelievable. We moved from New Jersey to Florida.

38:50
He tried to get me to go to Puerto Rico because there was no tax there. And he said, Howie, just sleep and you'll make 25,000 extra every day. Every day you sleep, just sleeping. I'm like, I know, but I didn't want to do Puerto Rico. So we did Florida, we moved to Papano, we opened up a massive, refrigerated warehouse. I bought the most sophisticated, these crown lift electric forklifts. And it was just a machine. We ship, we manufactured everything. And by the way,

39:20
One of the things we did differently was we air shipped everything by DHL as we got smarter because we knew it was like fresh milk when we could deliver a product that was fresh and it said 250 pops 300 and they got the 300 we were winning the game. Yeah. So a hundred thousand points of distribution. We had a bunch of companies that Goldman was talking to to sell our company. And we closed a deal with Japan tobacco.

39:48
2015 in New York City, I had my room with the wall door, I had my suit, which I never wear, you know? Unbelievable. And so that feeling is just, you know, that feeling has brought me just, you know, of course it gives you a lot of, you know, enjoy, but it also gives you a lot of freedom to do good and expand and so after selling the company. Is that number public, what you sold for?

40:19
No. All right. No, no. Well, it was a nice bag. It was a good number, I'm sure. It was a nice bag. Yeah. So so basically, after after I sold that, I, you know, like I said, I had so many failed companies before that. And then after I had a bunch of companies I invested that went sideways. But what I did do is in 2017. I wanted to get back in fitness.

40:48
and health and I want to see you know what I can get. I helped billions people get off deadly cigarettes. Can I get millions tens of millions of people fit and in shape in just three minutes a day? Can I help them build a habit through fitness and gamification that can get millions of people in great shape and we launched on a Kickstarter stealth fitness. We actually did better than Peloton back when Peloton did their Kickstarter. We did about three almost 400,000 on Kickstarter.

41:19
And we launched Stealth Fitness, which was the world's first gamified exercise, which was planking. We chose the plank. I chose the plank because if you could choose one exercise to do, planking is pretty much hits everything. And we built gamification into it. And we, we, uh, we said, you know what, do you think if we build games, people actually pay for games in a subscription? And during COVID we started building up the gaming and the platform and

41:50
You know, we sold over a million units and we have quite a few on our subscription platform and we're building that out and now we're coming out with a squat trainer that we're following with a stealth cycle. So this has been unbelievable how it's motivated people that never even thought about working out or you know that were ultra, you know, very heavy that weren't competent to go to a gym and work out, this just gives them an easy way to.

42:20
Get into the world of fitness and help and also, you know, gamifying the experience takes away the pain one and two, it makes it fun. And so this has been super exciting. I can't wait to your kids try stealth. I can't wait to you guys try it. I know I'm wait, I'm excited about it. You know, I didn't expect it. I got, am I getting this in the mail soon? How we P let me tell you something after this call, you'll have it by Monday or Tuesday. There we go.

42:46
I'm going to film me and my kids doing it. I'm going to get them off the Xbox on the stealth plank. So this has been going five years. The company is doing tremendous. I don't want to brag, but it's doing great. I have a great team. My partner, by the way, one of my partners invented the app roller. Him and his buddy, they used to own the apps company. So he sold over a billion dollars of app rollers. This guy, Don Brown, brilliant. The funny story is this guy was one of my.

43:15
idols like I'm like, man, this guy's has this Avro thing that's selling, you know, sold over $100 million worth. And, you know, I pitched him so many products, and he was like, Yeah, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. And I actually offered him the E-cig. And then after he saw what I did, when I called him, he's like, dude, whatever you're doing, I want in. So he became my business partner, him and his partner, and they're the great some great partners.

43:43
that you know, one of the some of the greatest partners I ever had. And then. New company we're launching is called Mighty Yum. And it's basically the world's first plant based. It's not the company launchable is a brand, but it's a plant based launchable. It looks just like it, but it's plant based and it's for kids and adults. And we're launching it September 8th and 9th at Jacob Javits. So I'm excited about that. Uh, and then, uh,

44:14
We're doing this huge event at my house, the big palace I bought in California called Think Billions. And it's all about the initiative to think bigger and think at higher level and how can you do bigger deals and meet people that have done, you know, monstrous billion dollar deals. And a lot of my advisors and people I've curated over the past 10 years that really helped me in my life, I'm bringing them in there and I'm gonna introduce them to everyone who's coming to my event so they can really level up.

44:43
And perform at the highest levels. So I'm just like, I feel like I feel amazing, man. I'm glad that you brought me on your show. I really appreciate it. No, man. I'm, you know, I wanted to, normally I'm like, try to dive in a few questions, but you're a good storyteller and I felt like you were kind of had us on a good trajectory there for the pass, but like what we heard the secret, the howie, the acronym.

45:12
the success, I was trying to distill as you were talking, like, you know, for our listeners, like distilling it down, you know, to how to, cause really it's kind of like thinking bigger, you know, like, and that's to think billions, it's thinking bigger, not millions, billions, but. Yes. And obviously it's ingrained in you, like in a lot of ways, you know, you, you're driven, you had a million.

45:37
A million failures, but a million things, you know, you've been trying to do this, this, this, this, this. I had a million things go wrong. Yeah. But what is this? What's the putting in the acronym to the side and like the steps, but like, what do you think it is that allows you to think bigger? Like what, how can people, if you really distilled it down for people listening out there, like how did they get out of their own way to start to think in that mentality?

46:07
What do you think it is? You know, you know what I think? I I've always been obsessed with people who have made a lot of money. Yeah. I had this obsession and I, I read every company, every company with every story with every founder. And maybe this has been ingrained in me that if they can do it, I can do it too. Yeah. And, um, you know, whatever, whether it's a product, whether it's a service, um,

46:35
I'll just go through net worth and I've been doing this for probably, you know, the last 20, 20, 30 years, been obsessed with, you know, what, what people have done to build their companies, the DNA of success, you know, yeah, yeah, the DNA and Tim Ferriss and all these, but I mean, listen, don't get me wrong guys. I do a lot of reading and I do a lot of studying. It didn't just doesn't come from just, you know, hope and wishing and working hard. So it's.

47:06
You know, I think a lot of this training has come from, you know, being a.

47:13
being interested in curious, right? Very curious. I'm a very curious individual and I read everything and I wanna know how they did it, why they did it, what was their mindset, what were their failures? So yes, this has been baked in me for a long time. And you know what, I'm very curious still. Listen, you gotta be an everyday learner. You know, like Buffett, you guys reading 10, 12 hours a day.

47:42
My business partner, Dave, is brilliant. My son, like one of the top at MIT, he's a big reader. You know, he's Twitter, he's Twitter. Yeah. He's Twitter feed, he's reading, he's sending me. You know, I surround myself with even, you know, bigger guys that are much more curious than me and they feed me a lot of information because they know I'm the idea guy and they feed it into me. You know, I have great, great friends and.

48:11
great business partners that are super successful and we all work together. What.

48:19
It's funny, I hear you talk, I was like you, and I'm naturally curious as to why I do this show. I learn a lot, and people ask me, I've been building, talking to a lot of successful people, national curiosity is one of my, it comes up every single time. Whether they say it or they don't say it, I find it in those people. The most successful people are the most curious people. It just is. It truly is. Because you don't have a different,

48:49
Too many people just defer and just don't, it's not that, I don't wanna say they don't care, but like they don't care. You know, and like to be curious is to care, right? On some level, because you have an interest in what made something tick, what made something happen to learn from it. And it's just this common denominator with successful people.

49:15
Yeah, I want to know why the Lamborghini service, why they tell me I need a new battery when they tell me the battery lasts four years, and it's only three. Yeah. Why am I Why am I losing 36%? You know what's going on? Yeah, I dive into everything. Listen, I look at every bill. I look at every contract. I look over everything. I want to know. I want to know and I want to know and I want to know why it was wrong. And I want to know why they forgot. And I want to know how we can make it better. Right. It's, it's, it's

49:44
It's everything at every piece, at every level, because you know what, I know that you can't leave a lot in other people's hands if you really wanna control your outcome of success. And I hear this too many times everybody, they think they can hire everybody to help them be successful when in fact, it's you gonna be curious and learn what other people did before and where their failures were and how that can help you.

50:13
and

50:39
It's clear to me you validate that. And I think you validate also that the journey is everything because there doesn't, you're, you want to get right back on the horse. Like you, you did the cigarette thing. You want another journey. You're always looking for the next journey because I mean, I'm sure you're enjoying the fruits of your, your labors and all those things, but at the same time, I don't think it would matter how many cars you had and you drive around and you'd get bored of that. You need another journey, right?

51:07
I don't even drive listen, I don't even drive the cars. I am so into seeing what I could do next to challenge myself. That's really what my life is about. I really just putting myself through my own mental challenges where I feel like you know what I just raised the bar I just raised and money is not raising the bar like money's great and you could all you know when you

51:36
make you feel any different. Now I know a lot of rich guys are very insecure, they have no confidence, and a lot of them you know, you see them on TV, whether they're actors, these musicians that go on stage and perform, you know, money's not going to build your confidence. Build your confidence is really how you talk to yourself, right, and who you surround yourself with, and the things you do for yourself on a daily basis.

52:06
It's just like going in the gym, building yourself up, building your fitness. You know, you have to do it yourself. You can't pay someone to do it for you. Same thing with, you know, building your self, you know, um, your self worth and your confidence. It's you got to work on it. And for me, uh, I feel amazing. I don't want more things. I like nice things, but yeah, more cars doesn't make me happy and more houses. I couldn't buy anything more to make me more happy, but

52:36
I'll tell you what, buying a place, I call it the castle in California, is a Moroccan palace. The lady I bought it from, flew guys in from Morocco for five years to hand lay all the stone. It's 16,000 square foot with an atrium glass roof. And by the way, you've got to come. All right. I'm in. But now to throw the event there, it just made it all worthwhile. It wasn't the place itself, but it's what just

53:05
what I can create in there is the magic, Ryan. This is the magic, you know? And the people that come there, it's like, wow, I got this place and my girlfriend, she's like, we were sort of pushing to do something there. She's like, God, I was like, this is it, isn't it? And she's like, yeah. And so, you know, it's, for me, creating and helping others and bringing other people together and just creating magic is, you know, that's...

53:34
That's the energy in my life. I love it. Where can everybody keep up with Howie P?

53:43
Oh, where? So, uh, my Instagram, you know, you can see my Instagram, Howard P N E S pretty much that's, that's where most of my stuff happens, I guess on my Instagram. You pretty active there. Yep. Oh, Howard pains on Instagram folks. Got billion dollar brand builder thinking billions daily. Yes. Billion dollar brand builder, Howie P and plant based lunchables.

54:12
that aren't like, we won't still Oscar Meyer isn't going to sue anybody. Just like Marlboro has Marlboro and, uh, and, uh, Newport, these stories. Oh, I love it, man. It's brilliant though. It's smart. I mean, you know, I, uh, I commend the, uh, I don't know the passion to drive.

54:39
and everything and I look forward to staying in touch and I'd love to come out to the castle. Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? I'm in South Carolina. I'm on the east coast with you. Yeah. Okay. Okay. We'll have to get up on one way or another. 100%. I'm looking forward to it. Hey guys. We really appreciate Howie P coming on today. Search for the castle. You'll find all the

55:09
Lots of ingenuity, lots of great stories. You know where to find me, I'm at Ryan Alford on all the platforms. Hit me up on TikTok, I'm blowing up over there. We're at theradcast.com. We'll see you next time.