April 10, 2025 • 38 mins
If you're feeling stuck in fulfillment mode, overwhelmed by client demands, and unsure how to scale your agency without burning out—this episode is a must-listen.
In this episode of the Catalytic Leadership Podcast, I sit down with Anthony Mink, co-founder of the $50M+ brand Live Bearded and host of the Entitled to Nothing podcast. We dive into the mindset and leadership shifts necessary to break free from the chaos and step into scalable business growth. Anthony shares powerful lessons on radical responsibility, leadership development, team building, and what it takes to go from burnout to building a high-performance culture.
If you're a digital agency owner using tools like GoHighLevel, managing a small team, and trying to reduce churn while scaling to seven figures, this conversation will resonate. Discover what it really takes to scale your business without sacrificing your sanity—and why scaling starts with radical self-leadership.
Connect with Anthony Mink
To connect with Anthony Mink, visit AnthonyMink.com or follow him on Instagram at @AnthonyMink. If his story resonated with you and you're ready to build a business that reflects your values and vision, reach out directly—he's passionate about helping entrepreneurs scale through self-leadership and community.
Books Mentioned
- As a Man Thinketh by James Allen
🌟 Check out our podcast sponsor, Competitive Edge Business Consulting, and book your free discovery call with them today at www.CompEdgeConsulting.com 🌟
Join Dr. William Attaway on the Catalytic Leadership podcast as he shares transformative insights to help high-performance entrepreneurs and agency owners achieve Clear-Minded Focus, Calm Control, and Confidence.
- Free 30-Minute Discovery Call:
Ready to elevate your business? Book a free 30-minute discovery call with Dr. William Attaway and start your journey to success.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. William Attaway (00:00):
I'm excited today to have Anthony Mink on
the podcast.
Anthony's an entrepreneur, abusiness strategist and a host
of the Entitled to Nothingpodcast.
As the co-founder and CEO ofLive Bearded, he's built an
eight-figure e-commerce brandfrom the ground up, generating
over 50 million dollars in sales, With a proven track record of
(00:22):
starting and selling multiplebusinesses across diverse
industries, Anthony has a wealthof business experience and a
genuine love for the game ofbusiness, Having experienced
both the highs of multi-milliondollar successes and the lows of
personal bankruptcy.
Anthony's core belief is mylife is my fault and I am
(00:45):
entitled to nothing.
This mindset of radicalresponsibility and personal
accountability has empowered himto overcome intense adversity,
to build a thriving business andto live life on his terms.
Anthony, I'm so glad you'rehere.
Anthony Mink (01:02):
Thanks for being on the show man, it's so funny
when you hear your quote biobeing read.
You know it kind of like makesme cringe a little bit.
But it's exciting to be hereand it's an honor.
Man, I really appreciate youhaving me.
Dr. William Attaway (01:15):
Well, I've been looking forward to this.
I think this is going to be afantastic conversation.
Intro/Outro (01:20):
Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the
podcast designed to help leadersintentionally grow and thrive.
Here is your host author andleadership and executive coach,
dr William Attaway.
Dr. William Attaway (01:37):
I would love to start with you sharing a
bit of your story with ourlisteners, particularly around
your journey and yourdevelopment as a leader.
How did you get started?
Anthony Mink (01:49):
You know it's interesting.
I think that I first learnedthe whole idea of leadership on
the basketball court.
You know, I grew up in a smalltown in Oregon.
It's called Sweet Home.
Believe it or not.
I don't think there's a SweetHome Alabama, but there is a
Sweet Home Oregon and itprobably looks and feels about
the way that you would expect.
There was about 6,000 peoplethere, a couple of stoplights.
(02:10):
But now I grew up out in thecountry and basketball was
really my first love and that'swhere I had a really incredible
coach through junior high andhigh school.
That really showed meleadership starts by leading
from the front.
It's by taking action, leadingyourself first, and some of
(02:31):
those lessons that I learnedback then on the basketball
court it's amazing how theyapply to life today.
I remember my sophomore year.
I made varsity and I was likeevery day I'm like coach, how am
I doing?
How am I doing?
Where am I at?
Like?
At first it was.
It was just I wanted to makethe team and then me being the
ambitious little guy I was, Iwas like I'm going to be a
(02:52):
starter, you know.
And so every day, hey, coach,how am I doing?
What do I need to prove what'sgoing on.
And one day he's like, do youcontrol how much I play you?
I'm like, well, no, coach.
He's like, do you have anycontrol over what I decided to
do?
I'm like, no.
He's like, what do you havecontrol over?
I'm like how hard I play, coach.
(03:15):
And he's like then just go dothat.
And man, I remember it was likeholy shit.
There's only one thing I havecontrol over and it's how I show
up, and I think that's probablyone of the most fundamental and
one of the first leadershiplessons I truly learned is like
you only control yourself.
That's where that entitled tonothing, radical responsibility
(03:37):
comes from, and so I think to methat's what being a leader
means.
I think being a leader startsby leading yourself first.
That's what being a leadermeans.
I think being a leader startsby leading yourself first, and
if you do that for long enough,you earn the privilege and the
opportunity to then start tolead others, and that grows to
the extent that your capacity tolead yourself grows.
(03:58):
So that's kind of how I view it.
But I grew up, like I said,humble beginnings.
My dad cut trees down for aliving, my mom was a
stay-at-home mom and I didn'treally have any idea that I was
going to become a businessleader or an entrepreneur.
I just knew that I wanted to getout of sweet home and I wanted
to see what the world had instore.
And through a lot of failureand a lot of fate, I found
(04:21):
myself getting involved in thebusiness community and I've had,
I feel like, like multipledifferent careers, multiple
different ups and downs and kindof twists and turns, but
ultimately, from a leadershipperspective, every single time I
failed, every single time I hada success or a setback.
I, for whatever reason, had theability to separate a little
(04:42):
bit from it and analyze andreflect.
And every time the failure wasmy fault and the success was not
maybe a hundred percent myfault, but all but by the action
that I took, by theresponsibility, by the decisions
that I made, and I justdeveloped this some might say
ruthless perspective of like,bro, your life is your fucking
(05:03):
fault and um, and to me that'slike true leadership.
True leadership is takingownership, taking accountability
and then taking action.
Dr. William Attaway (05:14):
You know, a mentor of mine says that you
have to learn to autopsy successthe same way you autopsy
failure, because if you don'tknow why it's working when it's
working, you won't know how tofix it when it breaks.
And I've always remembered that.
It sounds like that's how youoperate You're evaluating all
the time what's working, what'snot, and why.
In both cases Would that be?
Anthony Mink (05:33):
accurate?
I think it is.
You know, and this is, we allhave different gifts that we
experience or create throughdifferent times or given, you
know, maybe from a spiritualsense.
And I'll tell you a story whenI was four or five years old.
So my dad was a really abusivealcoholic and I have this very
vivid memory I don't knowexactly how old I was, I was
(05:55):
probably four or five but I wentinto the kitchen to get some
food.
My dad came in, my mom came in.
They were screaming, cussing,yelling and I got scared and I
remember I closed the fridge andI kind of curled up in the
corner and I was like scared andmy mom saw me as a mother.
Her awareness went to me.
She came over, she picked me upand she took me into my bedroom
(06:19):
and I just remember we were inthe bed, she was kind of holding
me and I was crying and she wascrying and she said Anthony,
promise me two things Promise meyou'll never treat women the
way your dad treats me, andpromise me you'll never act the
way that he acts.
So little baby.
Anthony is like okay, mom, Ipromise.
(06:39):
And in that moment my mom gaveme one of the greatest gifts,
because I started asking thequestion why?
Why does my dad act this way,why does he say this, why does
he do that and what must I notdo?
Because I promised not to belike him.
And it created a situationalawareness and an ability to
(07:00):
reflect on my life that hasserved me very, very well and so
my whole life.
I was like why does this persondo that and why did they say
this and why does that happen?
And then ultimately that turnedinto why do we do what we do?
And that's where the foundationof all of my marketing success
came from.
My leadership capacity, mybusiness success came from this
(07:21):
idea of asking the question why?
And then really seeking tounderstand it.
So you're spot on by saying Ithink it is in our moments of
reflection, both of the successand the failure, that the
greatest lessons are given to us.
And I think we would both agreethat we typically learn a lot
more from failure than we dofrom success.
(07:41):
That's just because there'spain and failure and that drives
us in a different way than thepleasure or the excitement of
success.
But by reflecting both of them,I think it's critical because
when I think, actually the worstthing that can happen is you
could be really successful andthen not understand exactly what
you did.
That's almost as that.
(08:01):
To me, that's worse thanfailing, because now you don't
have something that's repeatable.
That's right.
So you know, I think, thatSocrates said a life unexamined
is not worth living, and I thinkthat's right.
All of the lessons that I'velet me say this, like you said,
personal bankruptcy I've beenhundreds of thousands of dollars
in debt, multiple times fromfailed businesses and paying a
(08:23):
lot of dumb tax, let's say,times from failed businesses and
paying a lot of dumb tax, let'ssay.
And the only way I've been ableto turn all of those failures
into successes is because Ianalyzed and I reflected and I
took responsibility for my part,my mistakes, my bad decisions
in there, and then I was able toturn failures into lessons.
So probably the biggestleadership lesson I've learned
(08:45):
by paying a lot of dumb tax andmaking a lot of mistakes is the
ability to reflect on both goodand bad results and extract
lessons.
That's ultimately what makes usstronger and smarter for the
next, you know, the next swingat the plate, if you will.
Dr. William Attaway (09:02):
You know.
I'm glad you shared that and Iappreciate the transparency
because I think a lot of peoplewho look at you and look at your
you know your presence online.
They're looking at yourhighlight reel and so often we
can look at somebody else'shighlight reel and we can
extrapolate ideas like oh well,yeah, but Anthony's never had to
deal with what I deal with,he's never struggled like I
(09:24):
struggle, his journey's justbeen up and to the right.
If somebody's sitting acrossfrom you and they say something
like that, what's your response?
Anthony Mink (09:33):
yeah, I think I mean it's a great question.
What is the response?
I think you, for me, you know Iwould just be vulnerable and
share some of the mistakes thatI made.
You know, like this is maybesimilar Once.
One time I had someone from fromsome my my main company is
called Live Bearded and you knowwe sell beard care products and
men's care products to a bunchof guys and I had one of our
(09:55):
customers reach out to mepersonally and he's like hey
Anthony, my wife and I weretalking about you and your
company and we had a question.
We have this belief thatsomeone like you that creates
this company and has the youknow quote success comes from a
very specific background whereyour parents taught you, or they
(10:15):
helped you get started or allof these things.
And he was like, both of ourparents were addicts and and we
grew up in a lot of abuse.
And I just I wanted to ask you,what was your childhood like?
Like what did you have a lot ofabuse?
And I just I wanted to ask you,what was your childhood like?
Like what did you have a lot ofsupport?
And I was like man, like I'mreally excited to tell you like
your belief is bullshit, and I'ma living example of that.
(10:36):
And so for me, I think that thevulnerability of our failures
is one of the most powerfulthings we can share as leaders,
because if you lead yourself andothers well enough, you will
develop some success and createsome accolades, and then that
makes people think that there isa gap between where you are and
(10:59):
where they can be.
They can be, and the gap can beclosed metaphorically and in
the belief, in our individualbelief, by simply understanding
the journey of someone.
And there's been many times inmy life where mentors that I
looked up to I never heard themtalk about the failures or the
hard times or the struggle, andit made me feel like there was
(11:23):
something wrong with me, like,fuck man, why is this so hard
for me?
Why am I struggling with thisso much?
And then I came across a coupleof entrepreneurs that I really
admire, and one of the reasons Ireally admire them is because
they were so vulnerable abouttheir insecurities and their
failures, even though they runhundreds of millions and billion
dollar companies as founders.
(11:45):
They're like man, I feel like Ihaven't even gotten started yet
.
I feel like I've not createdanything valuable.
And I'm like, okay, if you'rethinking that and I'm thinking
that, then maybe this is justthe mindset of an achiever.
Maybe the mindset of theachiever is it doesn't matter,
(12:05):
and I actually kind of languagedit for myself as the achiever's
curse.
And what I think the achiever'scurse is is we don't know how
far we can go until we've gonefarther than we originally
thought we might be able to.
And the farther you go, thefarther you realize you can't go
, and so you're always expandingyour belief of what's possible
(12:25):
and what ends can't go, and soyou're always expanding your
belief of what's possible.
And what ends up happening isyou feel like you're farther
away than where you want to be,and so there's this gap, and we
tend to identify with that gapmore than we identify with how
far we've already come.
And so for me, it wasn't untilI heard the vulnerability of
other entrepreneurs that were somuch farther along than me that
(12:48):
I started to feel like therewasn't anything wrong and that
this was just part of theprocess.
And so if I was talking tosomeone, if someone asked me
that question, I would say youknow, the greater the failure,
the greater the triumph.
I would explain some of myexperiences, my bankruptcies, my
losses, my failures, and then Iwould say that all of those are
(13:08):
happening for us, so that wecan develop the strength to go
farther.
Dr. William Attaway (13:13):
That is so well said.
You know, in building yourbusiness, I would imagine that
there have been people aroundyou who were cheering you on,
and I would imagine there werepeople around you who were not,
who maybe said you're shootingtoo high, you can't, you can't
get there.
First, has that been yourexperience?
(13:35):
And second, how do youdetermine who is going to be in
your circle?
How do you determine who isgoing to be the voices that you
listen to in your life?
Anthony Mink (13:46):
Man.
That question is so powerfuland, I think, arguably one of
the most important questions inan entrepreneur or a leader, a
man, woman.
If we want to create somethingof our lives, the company that
we keep, I think, is one of thebiggest factors in that.
And so, sitting down and beingvery intentional about it, you
(14:07):
know it's very interesting.
You asked the question becausethere hasn't been a lot of
people that have told me that Ican't do what I want to do, and
the reason why that is is verysimple Growing up, my dad told
me how I was terrible ateverything and I would never be
good enough to do anything thatI wanted to do.
(14:27):
And I remember when I wentbankrupt for the first time, my
dad called me a miserable,fucking failure and told me how
terrible I was.
And oh, you think you're thisbig shot entrepreneur.
You don't know what the fuckyou're doing.
Da, da, da, da, da da.
And so because the one personthat's supposed to be my
confidant, my support system, myfather, told me that I would
(14:48):
never be able to do the thingsthat I wanted to do.
I never told anybody what Iwanted.
I never had the courage toproclaim this is what I'm gonna
create.
I just worked very, very hardin in, in the quiet, in the
background.
So Growing up early on, I had alot of people telling me that I
couldn't do what I wanted to do.
You're not gonna be good enoughto do that, you're not gonna be
(15:09):
good enough to do this.
The loudest voice was my dad,and that actually you know what,
brother.
It's crazy because I've neveractually thought about this but
I stopped telling people what mygoals and dreams were, simply
because I didn't want anybody tohave the power to tell me it
wasn't possible, like my dad did, and so they stopped calling my
(15:31):
shot.
You know the famous Babe Ruthlike call your fuck, call it,
(15:55):
yeah, that I would have.
They would be shared with avery close group of people.
And to answer the secondquestion, which is like who do
you decide who you want to bewith, I think it changes over
time.
In the beginning, you just hangout with people that have a
shared value or shared hobbiesand interests, and that's kind
of where it started.
And then I developed a coregroup of guys and friends and as
(16:17):
I became more involved inbusiness and I started to have
more and more success, and thenyour habits and your behaviors
and how you spend your timestarts to change.
A lot of those previous or pastrelationships.
They no longer become congruent, and so I would say the first
thing is today I have to have avalue and a vision alignment
(16:38):
with someone.
We don't have to value theexact same things in all areas
of our life, but we need to havesome core tenants that we
really strive to live our lifeby.
I'm a very principled person,so I'm only going to spend and
invest time in someone that hasthe same principled stance.
We're going to do the rightthing.
We're going to operate withhonor and integrity.
(16:59):
We're going to work our fuckingasses off.
One big one for me is I willonly really develop deep
relationships with someone thatnaturally wants to celebrate my
wins more than I do.
You know, if you've, if you'veever had a friend like that you
go out with to dinner or or ashow, or you go to the gym, you
(17:20):
get a workout, whatever, andthey're just like you know
you're giving them an update andthey're like wait, what you did
?
What, dude?
That's amazing.
I love that for you, like highfive in, like, um, you know
there's there's certain uh, uh,really good friendships that I
have where you know we'll.
We'll do a product launch andhave a big day, like for for our
black Friday sale.
We did $530,000 in sales on theday and that was, you know,
(17:43):
half a million dollars.
In a day Like that blew my mind.
My parents made $12,000 myentire senior year, you know.
So, like the contrast and Itook a screenshot, sent to a
couple of my my best guy friendsdude, this is crazy, check this
out.
They're celebrating, they'rerooting me on, they're telling
me how incredible I am.
So I think part of it is sharedvision.
This is the way that I want tolive my life and this is the
(18:07):
type of way that I'm going toconduct myself.
That overlaps with sharedvalues.
So those are kind of the closeconfidants that I have.
And then, in terms of advisors,I only seek advice from people
that have the type of results intheir life that I want.
So I'm going to takerelationship advice from someone
(18:28):
who's got a 35-year marriageand they're more passionate and
intimate today than they've everbeen.
I'm not going to take it frommy buddy who's single.
I'm going to take businessadvice.
Good plan, I'm going to takebusiness advice from my mentor,
who I'm going to take businessadvice from my mentor who's
built and scaled and sold a ninefigure company in a similar
industry, so he knows the roadahead.
So I would say it's kind ofthose two things Like if we're
(18:50):
just going to be best friends oror confidants, if we're going
to really celebrate and livelife together, then values and
vision and be in alignment there, if you're going to be a mentor
or an advisor, if I'm going toseek your counsel, you have to
be somewhere in an area of yourlife that I admire and that I
want to be.
Dr. William Attaway (19:12):
Yeah, I think there's a lot of wisdom
there.
Truly, you know, in my work asan executive coach, I tell my
clients you know, no one's goingto cheer harder for you than I
am and no one's going to be morein your corner than I am.
And what troubles me so oftenis when I talk to somebody who
tells me that I'm really theperson in their corner one of
(19:34):
the only ones because they don'thave anybody else in their
world who understands whatthey're dealing with.
Because they don't have anybodyelse in their world who
understands what they're dealingwith, they haven't yet
discovered the power ofcommunity and the power of other
people who are encouraging you.
You know, truett Cathy, whostarted Chick-fil-A, was famous
for saying you want to know howto know if somebody needs
encouragement, if they'rebreathing.
(19:56):
That's how you know and I lovethat.
I mean, I think that's so, sotrue.
And you know what encouragementcosts us.
It costs us nothing and yetit's astounding to me how seldom
people receive it, particularlyentrepreneurs.
And I wish I could say yourstory was unique or rare.
(20:19):
I'm not sure it is.
You know, and I love that, youhave now begun to craft a life,
a business and a podcast.
Through your podcast, you'reable to convey a lot of what
you've learned.
Share that and be a conduit ofthose lessons and, dare I say it
(20:39):
, that encouragement to otherpeople on their journey.
I just love that man.
Anthony Mink (20:45):
Yeah, I really appreciate that and it is so
interesting because it's veryhard for anybody who's not an
entrepreneur to understand theexperience of what it is 100%
there's.
You know, it's like there'sthis quote from Elon that I
really love and he's like.
You know, entrepreneurship iskind of like chewing on glass
while you stare into the abyssand he's like if, if you are the
(21:10):
founder, ceo, you know,co-founder, whatever you get
people hand that hand, deliverthe shittiest problems to you
that no one else can solve, andit's your responsibility to do
that.
And then you carry the weight ofthe organization of the.
All the problems, the, thefinancial, the, blah, blah, blah
, blah.
You know on down the list andthe people that now like, and
(21:34):
also it's like the.
The longer that you play thegame, the more that you
experience the waves of the gameyes, that you play the game,
the more that you experience thewaves of the game, and the
harder it is to really connectat a very deep level with
someone who isn't also in thatgame to some degree.
I have a really good friendnamed Jill Polish from Genius
Network.
He's been a big mentor of mineand he's the first person that I
(21:54):
ever heard say this.
But he said entrepreneurship isone of the loneliest roads that
you can walk and that's whyit's so critical to get around
other entrepreneurs who you canhave some of that shared
experience with and really feelseen, heard and understood.
Dr. William Attaway (22:11):
So true.
So tell me about Live BeardedLike.
Where did the idea for thiscome from?
Anthony Mink (22:17):
Yeah, it's a great question.
So I 2009, I was coming, I wasgoing through bankruptcy and
trying to figure out what Iwanted to do with my life, and I
sat down.
I was broke, I had no money.
I was like just destitute inthe sense of like I'm a 23, 24
year old kid and I got no ideawhat I want to do in the world.
And so I sat down and I'm likeI'm going to write, I'm going to
(22:39):
figure this out.
What do I want to do?
I have no fucking clue.
I got.
I got no experience.
I go.
I got no, no contrast for whatI want to do.
And then I asked myself maybethe best question at the time
that I could have ever askedmyself what don't I want?
Oh, that's excellent.
(23:01):
Oh, I have some answers to this.
And so I started writing.
I don't want to do this, Idon't want to answer to anybody,
I don't want someone to tell mewhat I have to do when I have
to do it.
And basically I wrote themanifesto for every fucking
entrepreneur that was like fuckthe man, I'm going to do my own
thing, and but the key, but thekey for me was I want to have
time and locational freedom.
I'm like, how do I create that?
(23:21):
And at the time, social mediawas just kind of becoming a
thing.
Facebook was really comingonline and I was like, if I
could learn to make money onthis crazy thing called the
internet, ideally, orpotentially, I could work when I
want, where I want.
And I was like man, if I couldunlock that, I don't even care
about making a bunch of money oranything else.
(23:41):
And I had this dream of likeI'm going to move to a foreign
country and just live on a beachsomewhere.
And it's funny now digitalnomads and this whole thing is
super popular In 2009, there wasno such thing, and so I proudly
proclaim now that I was one ofthe very first digital nomads.
But I got into affiliatemarketing and it took me about
(24:04):
18 months to learn how to makeenough money online to quit my
job.
And then I spent about fiveyears just doing affiliate
marketing and what I was doingwas learning the skills the
craft of writing paid ads,running paid ads, getting good
at social media, email marketing.
I was developing my skillset,and so I did that for five years
(24:27):
and got to the point where Iwas a million dollar affiliate.
I was making a bunch of moneyand then I took all of that and
I invested it into a supplementnutrition company.
I had sold a couple ofbusinesses.
I had about half a milliondollars in cash and I was like
this is my business, I'm goingall in, I'm going to build my
own thing.
And nine months later I hadabout 50 grand left, totally
(24:47):
lost it all and found myselfbeing like how the fuck did I
fuck up this bad and it'sprobably the lowest point in my
entrepreneurial career, becauseI had a personal bankruptcy.
Then I made a bunch of moneyand then I made it and I had the
freedom and the success andthen the personal feelings of
significance.
(25:08):
And then I risked it all onthis one great idea and
basically mismanaged and hadrealized that I wasn't as smart
as I thought I was and I didn'treally know what I was doing,
and I lost it all and so I hadto start over.
And at that exact moment intime, one of my best friends, my
co-founder with Live Bearded.
Now imagine this I'm at mylowest point.
(25:28):
I have no idea how I'm going toturn it around.
I feel completely like I'm aloser and a failure, and my
buddy Spencer's like I'd reallylove to learn how to make money
online.
Can you teach me?
I'm like Spencer's like hey,bro, I'd really love to learn
how to make money online.
Can you teach me?
I'm like me, you want me toteach you.
And he didn't know necessarilythe depths of what I was going
(25:49):
through at the time, but westarted engaging in this
conversation of what it was liketo make money online.
It was no shave November 2015.
And he was growing out a beardfor the first time and all these
dudes kept commenting on it.
He had this good handlebarmustache and he's like man.
Everywhere I go, guys are likecoming up to me saying great
beard, brother.
Like your beard looks sick, man, your handlebar is amazing.
And he's like I've never in mylife got compliments like this
(26:12):
from other dudes.
And he's like I think thisbeard thing is becoming really
popular.
Have you ever thought aboutmaybe doing marketing or selling
some beard stuff?
And I was like I had stubble.
I'm like what's a beard oil?
I don't have any idea, but Ihad the marketing acumen.
So I put together a quick salesfunnel, put some things
together.
I ordered 500 wooden combs onAlibaba.
(26:35):
I paid a designer $500 tocreate a logo.
They stamped the logo on thecombs and they ended up in my
kitchen and around the first ofthe year, january 2016,.
I was like, all right, let mesee if I can sell any of these
things.
Put together some Facebook adsand I sold all 500 combs in
about a day and a half.
(26:55):
Wow, and the engagement rate onthe ads was higher than
anything I had seen in any of myprevious affiliate marketing.
And I looked at Spence and Isaid shit bro, I guess we got to
figure out how to send out 500combs.
Still to this day, we jokeabout licking and sticking
(27:18):
because there's pictures of usin the freaking living room
licking and sticking envelopessending out these first 500
combs and me, being the marketerand ambitious guy, I'm like,
well shit, if we sold 500, let'sorder 5,000 and see what
happens.
And so we went through thistesting process.
To make a long story short, weordered 5,000.
(27:39):
We sold them over the course ofa few months, did some market
research.
The thing that I would say thatwas the smartest thing we did is
we created a private Facebookgroup, again early 2016.
Anybody who bought from us.
As part of the post-purchaseemail sequence, we invited them
to join.
Spencer had no marketingexperience so I was like you
(27:59):
have one job.
I said read this article fromKevin Kelly, called a thousand
true fans and understand how wecan turn these people into
raving fans.
And so he was the spokespersonand the product expert and the
community ambassador and forprobably six months he connected
individually with every singlecustomer that came into that
(28:21):
group.
We asked them why did you growyour beard?
What do you like about theproducts?
What do you not like?
What products do you want?
What products would you use?
Would you try this?
Would you try that Real-timecustomer feedback in a private
Facebook group with a couplethousand men?
That led to us developing allof our own products, launching
the website in the end of 2016,building out our product line,
(28:42):
and the rest, I guess they say,is history.
You know we've done over 50million in sales.
You know have a reallyincredible company and it
started from this idea of of areally good friend coming to me
and saying, hey man, how couldwe work together and do
something online?
And what became the whole ethosof Live Bearded kind of grew
(29:06):
out of that idea of well, spenceand I have been friends for 10
years.
At this point, what if everycustomer that we did business
with we treated as if we wouldtreat my friend of 10 years?
How do we make everything aboutbrotherhood?
And that's why we had thatone-to-one connection.
That's why we wanted to gettheir feedback.
It was.
(29:26):
It was never about how do Isell as much beard shit and make
as much money as possible.
Obviously, we had a profitmotive, but we both intuitively
understood that profit came onthe other side of relationship.
So good, if we could focus onthe relationship first, the rest
of it would take care of itself.
Dr. William Attaway (29:47):
I really hope everybody listening is
taking notes, because you justdropped so much wisdom there.
Anthony, Thank you so muchvalue.
Let me ask you this, so youknow you have to lead at a
higher level today than you didfive years ago.
Your team, your clients,everybody is looking to you and
your co-founder to lead at ahigher level.
(30:08):
That same thing is going to betrue five years from now.
You're going to have to lead atan even higher level and
they're going to ask and demandeven more of you.
How do you stay on top of yourgame?
How do you stay on top of yourgame?
How do you level up with thenew leadership skills that your
business and your team and yourclients are going to need you to
have?
Anthony Mink (30:41):
Yeah, it's a great question and one of the things
I think one of the mostinteresting lessons to learn in
business is what you're talkingabout.
Early on I thought, man, oncewe get this new product live, or
once this new website is done,or once we have this new
marketing's a greater needrequired by the leader, there's
a greater capacity that isdemanded, and so I think the
(31:03):
short answer is you just have tocommit to constant and
never-ending improvement.
You know, we have this kind ofbetter everyday ethos built into
the way that we approach things, both at Live Bearded and then
in my personal life.
You know, I think I've just mymodel of the world is education
first, that then createsopportunity for skill and then
(31:24):
you can turn that skill intosuccess and experience.
So I think the short answermaybe it's a little bit cliche,
but it's like I just I'mruthless about education.
I'm always investing intomentorship programs, into
advisors.
I've spent easily north of halfa million dollars of my own
money on coaching courses,conferences.
(31:44):
I hired Tony Robbins and workedwith him for a year in his
highest level coaching program.
I did a private coaching withPatrick, but David with you know
I've got an advisor that I'mpaying a substantial amount of
money on a monthly basis to helpguide us to the next level.
So the truth is, I what I'velearned is I never have a how
(32:06):
problem.
I always have a who problem,and so the way that I continue
to elevate my capacity is byinvesting into myself and
putting myself in proximity andin relationship with people that
are farther ahead than me.
That can help me elevate to thenext level.
Dr. William Attaway (32:27):
So much wisdom, so much wisdom there.
Anthony Mink (32:30):
Yeah.
Dr. William Attaway (32:31):
As you have continued in your path as a
constant learner, which isobvious anybody who spends more
than two minutes with you.
You're constantly learning.
Is there a book that has made atremendous difference in your
journey that you would recommendto the leaders who are
listening?
Anthony Mink (32:46):
I mean a couple of them for sure.
On the, I think most of myreading it falls into two
categories.
It's more around like thepersonal development side and
then the business side.
And I mean so much of businessis like the application, or the
personal development and action,if you will.
I think one of the best booksI've ever read is as a man
Thinketh.
Yes, you know, super old schoolbook, written in the early 90s,
(33:10):
but it's where I kind ofdeveloped that fundamental
philosophy of my life is myfault, you know.
One of my favorite quotes fromthere is like what is it?
Man is made or unmade byhimself, you know.
So there's these reallybeautiful thoughts, but as a man
thinketh, everyone has to readit.
The four agreements, I thinkeveryone should read it.
(33:31):
Thinketh, everyone has to readit.
The Four Agreements, I thinkeveryone should read it.
The Power of Awareness, allabout how the way that we create
the future that we want is byassuming the feeling of that in
desire, already being created.
We have to live out as if it'salready a present fact.
So some of these verypsychological mindset driven
things, those have been very,very critical to me.
(33:52):
One of my favorite businessbooks of all time is the Road
Less Stupid by Keith Cunningham.
If you don't know who KeithCunningham is, he's actually the
guy that Rich Dad, poor Dad iskind of based on, and this idea
of.
He's the quote rich dad, buthe's an incredible entrepreneur.
That one is super helpful.
That one's really helped me.
The book UnreasonableHospitality so good Will Gadara
(34:17):
yeah, yeah, from a culturestandpoint has been incredible.
I really love Alex Hermosi.
I've read both of his booksfrom a tactical marketing
perspective but I mean there's,there's so many good ones.
Those are a couple that havereally helped me on my journey.
Dr. William Attaway (34:31):
That's phenomenal, Anthony.
I could talk to you for anotherhour.
There's just so much insightand wisdom and I'm so grateful
to you for sharing it so freelytoday with me and with our
listeners.
I know people are going to wantto stay connected to you and
continue to learn from you.
What is the?
Anthony Mink (34:49):
best way for them to do that.
Yeah, man, first off, I justreally appreciate the
opportunity to come on and share, and it's amazing to see what
you've accomplished with yourpodcast and your capacity as an
executive coach and mentor.
I think is really incredibleand that's one of the reasons
why I was so excited to talk toyou today.
You know so, anthony Mink atAnthony Mink on Instagram
anthonyminkcom I youcom.
(35:11):
I just got into this crazy worldof putting out content in the
last year, year and a half or so, and I'm having a lot of fun
with it, but really I'm doing itjust because I want to share
parts of my experience and hopethat they can serve and inspire
others on theirs.
So if any part of thisresonated, feel free to reach
out to me on Instagram or reachout to me directly through my
website.
(35:32):
Livebeardedcom is the businessas well.
You can reach out to us there.
I'm super accessible and wouldlove to help anyone on the
journey.
If anything that I have sharedhas touched a nerve or inspired
you, please feel free to reachout.
I'd love to help any way I can.
Dr. William Attaway (35:46):
I love that .
We'll have all those links inthe show notes, anthony, thank
you.
Anthony Mink (35:51):
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Dr. William Attaway (35:52):
It's been amazing.
Thanks for joining me for thisepisode today.
As we wrap up, I'd love for youto do two things.
First, subscribe to thispodcast so you don't miss an
episode, and if you find valuehere, I'd love it if you would
rate it and review it.
That really does make adifference in helping other
people to discover this podcast.
View it.
(36:12):
That really does make adifference in helping other
people to discover this podcast.
Second, if you don't have a copyof my newest book, catalytic
Leadership, I'd love to put acopy in your hands.
If you go tocatalyticleadershipbookcom, you
can get a copy for free.
Just pay the shipping so I canget it to you and we'll get one
right out.
My goal is to put this into thehands of as many leaders as
possible.
(36:33):
This book captures principlesthat I've learned in 20 plus
years of coaching leaders in theentrepreneurial space, in
business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church
.
You can also connect with me onLinkedIn to keep up with what
I'm currently learning andthinking about.
And if you're ready to take anext step with a coach to help
(36:54):
you intentionally grow andthrive as a leader, I'd be
honored to help you.
Just go tocatalyticleadershipnet to book a
call with me.
Stay tuned for our next episodenext week.
Until then, as always, leaderschoose to be catalytic.
I'm excited today to have Anthony Mink on
the podcast.
Anthony's an entrepreneur, abusiness strategist and a host
of the Entitled to Nothingpodcast.
As the co-founder and CEO ofLive Bearded, he's built an
eight-figure e-commerce brandfrom the ground up, generating
over 50 million dollars in sales, With a proven track record of
(00:22):
starting and selling multiplebusinesses across diverse
industries, Anthony has a wealthof business experience and a
genuine love for the game ofbusiness, Having experienced
both the highs of multi-milliondollar successes and the lows of
personal bankruptcy.
Anthony's core belief is mylife is my fault and I am
(00:45):
entitled to nothing.
This mindset of radicalresponsibility and personal
accountability has empowered himto overcome intense adversity,
to build a thriving business andto live life on his terms.
Anthony, I'm so glad you'rehere.
Anthony Mink (01:02):
Thanks for being on the show man, it's so funny
when you hear your quote biobeing read.
You know it kind of like makesme cringe a little bit.
But it's exciting to be hereand it's an honor.
Man, I really appreciate youhaving me.
Dr. William Attaway (01:15):
Well, I've been looking forward to this.
I think this is going to be afantastic conversation.
Intro/Outro (01:20):
Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the
podcast designed to help leadersintentionally grow and thrive.
Here is your host author andleadership and executive coach,
dr William Attaway.
Dr. William Attaway (01:37):
I would love to start with you sharing a
bit of your story with ourlisteners, particularly around
your journey and yourdevelopment as a leader.
How did you get started?
Anthony Mink (01:49):
You know it's interesting.
I think that I first learnedthe whole idea of leadership on
the basketball court.
You know, I grew up in a smalltown in Oregon.
It's called Sweet Home.
Believe it or not.
I don't think there's a SweetHome Alabama, but there is a
Sweet Home Oregon and itprobably looks and feels about
the way that you would expect.
There was about 6,000 peoplethere, a couple of stoplights.
(02:10):
But now I grew up out in thecountry and basketball was
really my first love and that'swhere I had a really incredible
coach through junior high andhigh school.
That really showed meleadership starts by leading
from the front.
It's by taking action, leadingyourself first, and some of
(02:31):
those lessons that I learnedback then on the basketball
court it's amazing how theyapply to life today.
I remember my sophomore year.
I made varsity and I was likeevery day I'm like coach, how am
I doing?
How am I doing?
Where am I at?
Like?
At first it was.
It was just I wanted to makethe team and then me being the
ambitious little guy I was, Iwas like I'm going to be a
(02:52):
starter, you know.
And so every day, hey, coach,how am I doing?
What do I need to prove what'sgoing on.
And one day he's like, do youcontrol how much I play you?
I'm like, well, no, coach.
He's like, do you have anycontrol over what I decided to
do?
I'm like, no.
He's like, what do you havecontrol over?
I'm like how hard I play, coach.
(03:15):
And he's like then just go dothat.
And man, I remember it was likeholy shit.
There's only one thing I havecontrol over and it's how I show
up, and I think that's probablyone of the most fundamental and
one of the first leadershiplessons I truly learned is like
you only control yourself.
That's where that entitled tonothing, radical responsibility
(03:37):
comes from, and so I think to methat's what being a leader
means.
I think being a leader startsby leading yourself first.
That's what being a leadermeans.
I think being a leader startsby leading yourself first, and
if you do that for long enough,you earn the privilege and the
opportunity to then start tolead others, and that grows to
the extent that your capacity tolead yourself grows.
(03:58):
So that's kind of how I view it.
But I grew up, like I said,humble beginnings.
My dad cut trees down for aliving, my mom was a
stay-at-home mom and I didn'treally have any idea that I was
going to become a businessleader or an entrepreneur.
I just knew that I wanted to getout of sweet home and I wanted
to see what the world had instore.
And through a lot of failureand a lot of fate, I found
(04:21):
myself getting involved in thebusiness community and I've had,
I feel like, like multipledifferent careers, multiple
different ups and downs and kindof twists and turns, but
ultimately, from a leadershipperspective, every single time I
failed, every single time I hada success or a setback.
I, for whatever reason, had theability to separate a little
(04:42):
bit from it and analyze andreflect.
And every time the failure wasmy fault and the success was not
maybe a hundred percent myfault, but all but by the action
that I took, by theresponsibility, by the decisions
that I made, and I justdeveloped this some might say
ruthless perspective of like,bro, your life is your fucking
(05:03):
fault and um, and to me that'slike true leadership.
True leadership is takingownership, taking accountability
and then taking action.
Dr. William Attaway (05:14):
You know, a mentor of mine says that you
have to learn to autopsy successthe same way you autopsy
failure, because if you don'tknow why it's working when it's
working, you won't know how tofix it when it breaks.
And I've always remembered that.
It sounds like that's how youoperate You're evaluating all
the time what's working, what'snot, and why.
In both cases Would that be?
Anthony Mink (05:33):
accurate?
I think it is.
You know, and this is, we allhave different gifts that we
experience or create throughdifferent times or given, you
know, maybe from a spiritualsense.
And I'll tell you a story whenI was four or five years old.
So my dad was a really abusivealcoholic and I have this very
vivid memory I don't knowexactly how old I was, I was
(05:55):
probably four or five but I wentinto the kitchen to get some
food.
My dad came in, my mom came in.
They were screaming, cussing,yelling and I got scared and I
remember I closed the fridge andI kind of curled up in the
corner and I was like scared andmy mom saw me as a mother.
Her awareness went to me.
She came over, she picked me upand she took me into my bedroom
(06:19):
and I just remember we were inthe bed, she was kind of holding
me and I was crying and she wascrying and she said Anthony,
promise me two things Promise meyou'll never treat women the
way your dad treats me, andpromise me you'll never act the
way that he acts.
So little baby.
Anthony is like okay, mom, Ipromise.
(06:39):
And in that moment my mom gaveme one of the greatest gifts,
because I started asking thequestion why?
Why does my dad act this way,why does he say this, why does
he do that and what must I notdo?
Because I promised not to belike him.
And it created a situationalawareness and an ability to
(07:00):
reflect on my life that hasserved me very, very well and so
my whole life.
I was like why does this persondo that and why did they say
this and why does that happen?
And then ultimately that turnedinto why do we do what we do?
And that's where the foundationof all of my marketing success
came from.
My leadership capacity, mybusiness success came from this
(07:21):
idea of asking the question why?
And then really seeking tounderstand it.
So you're spot on by saying Ithink it is in our moments of
reflection, both of the successand the failure, that the
greatest lessons are given to us.
And I think we would both agreethat we typically learn a lot
more from failure than we dofrom success.
(07:41):
That's just because there'spain and failure and that drives
us in a different way than thepleasure or the excitement of
success.
But by reflecting both of them,I think it's critical because
when I think, actually the worstthing that can happen is you
could be really successful andthen not understand exactly what
you did.
That's almost as that.
(08:01):
To me, that's worse thanfailing, because now you don't
have something that's repeatable.
That's right.
So you know, I think, thatSocrates said a life unexamined
is not worth living, and I thinkthat's right.
All of the lessons that I'velet me say this, like you said,
personal bankruptcy I've beenhundreds of thousands of dollars
in debt, multiple times fromfailed businesses and paying a
(08:23):
lot of dumb tax, let's say,times from failed businesses and
paying a lot of dumb tax, let'ssay.
And the only way I've been ableto turn all of those failures
into successes is because Ianalyzed and I reflected and I
took responsibility for my part,my mistakes, my bad decisions
in there, and then I was able toturn failures into lessons.
So probably the biggestleadership lesson I've learned
(08:45):
by paying a lot of dumb tax andmaking a lot of mistakes is the
ability to reflect on both goodand bad results and extract
lessons.
That's ultimately what makes usstronger and smarter for the
next, you know, the next swingat the plate, if you will.
Dr. William Attaway (09:02):
You know.
I'm glad you shared that and Iappreciate the transparency
because I think a lot of peoplewho look at you and look at your
you know your presence online.
They're looking at yourhighlight reel and so often we
can look at somebody else'shighlight reel and we can
extrapolate ideas like oh well,yeah, but Anthony's never had to
deal with what I deal with,he's never struggled like I
(09:24):
struggle, his journey's justbeen up and to the right.
If somebody's sitting acrossfrom you and they say something
like that, what's your response?
Anthony Mink (09:33):
yeah, I think I mean it's a great question.
What is the response?
I think you, for me, you know Iwould just be vulnerable and
share some of the mistakes thatI made.
You know, like this is maybesimilar Once.
One time I had someone from fromsome my my main company is
called Live Bearded and you knowwe sell beard care products and
men's care products to a bunchof guys and I had one of our
(09:55):
customers reach out to mepersonally and he's like hey
Anthony, my wife and I weretalking about you and your
company and we had a question.
We have this belief thatsomeone like you that creates
this company and has the youknow quote success comes from a
very specific background whereyour parents taught you, or they
(10:15):
helped you get started or allof these things.
And he was like, both of ourparents were addicts and and we
grew up in a lot of abuse.
And I just I wanted to ask you,what was your childhood like?
Like what did you have a lot ofabuse?
And I just I wanted to ask you,what was your childhood like?
Like what did you have a lot ofsupport?
And I was like man, like I'mreally excited to tell you like
your belief is bullshit, and I'ma living example of that.
(10:36):
And so for me, I think that thevulnerability of our failures
is one of the most powerfulthings we can share as leaders,
because if you lead yourself andothers well enough, you will
develop some success and createsome accolades, and then that
makes people think that there isa gap between where you are and
(10:59):
where they can be.
They can be, and the gap can beclosed metaphorically and in
the belief, in our individualbelief, by simply understanding
the journey of someone.
And there's been many times inmy life where mentors that I
looked up to I never heard themtalk about the failures or the
hard times or the struggle, andit made me feel like there was
(11:23):
something wrong with me, like,fuck man, why is this so hard
for me?
Why am I struggling with thisso much?
And then I came across a coupleof entrepreneurs that I really
admire, and one of the reasons Ireally admire them is because
they were so vulnerable abouttheir insecurities and their
failures, even though they runhundreds of millions and billion
dollar companies as founders.
(11:45):
They're like man, I feel like Ihaven't even gotten started yet
.
I feel like I've not createdanything valuable.
And I'm like, okay, if you'rethinking that and I'm thinking
that, then maybe this is justthe mindset of an achiever.
Maybe the mindset of theachiever is it doesn't matter,
(12:05):
and I actually kind of languagedit for myself as the achiever's
curse.
And what I think the achiever'scurse is is we don't know how
far we can go until we've gonefarther than we originally
thought we might be able to.
And the farther you go, thefarther you realize you can't go
, and so you're always expandingyour belief of what's possible
(12:25):
and what ends can't go, and soyou're always expanding your
belief of what's possible.
And what ends up happening isyou feel like you're farther
away than where you want to be,and so there's this gap, and we
tend to identify with that gapmore than we identify with how
far we've already come.
And so for me, it wasn't untilI heard the vulnerability of
other entrepreneurs that were somuch farther along than me that
(12:48):
I started to feel like therewasn't anything wrong and that
this was just part of theprocess.
And so if I was talking tosomeone, if someone asked me
that question, I would say youknow, the greater the failure,
the greater the triumph.
I would explain some of myexperiences, my bankruptcies, my
losses, my failures, and then Iwould say that all of those are
(13:08):
happening for us, so that wecan develop the strength to go
farther.
Dr. William Attaway (13:13):
That is so well said.
You know, in building yourbusiness, I would imagine that
there have been people aroundyou who were cheering you on,
and I would imagine there werepeople around you who were not,
who maybe said you're shootingtoo high, you can't, you can't
get there.
First, has that been yourexperience?
(13:35):
And second, how do youdetermine who is going to be in
your circle?
How do you determine who isgoing to be the voices that you
listen to in your life?
Anthony Mink (13:46):
Man.
That question is so powerfuland, I think, arguably one of
the most important questions inan entrepreneur or a leader, a
man, woman.
If we want to create somethingof our lives, the company that
we keep, I think, is one of thebiggest factors in that.
And so, sitting down and beingvery intentional about it, you
(14:07):
know it's very interesting.
You asked the question becausethere hasn't been a lot of
people that have told me that Ican't do what I want to do, and
the reason why that is is verysimple Growing up, my dad told
me how I was terrible ateverything and I would never be
good enough to do anything thatI wanted to do.
(14:27):
And I remember when I wentbankrupt for the first time, my
dad called me a miserable,fucking failure and told me how
terrible I was.
And oh, you think you're thisbig shot entrepreneur.
You don't know what the fuckyou're doing.
Da, da, da, da, da da.
And so because the one personthat's supposed to be my
confidant, my support system, myfather, told me that I would
(14:48):
never be able to do the thingsthat I wanted to do.
I never told anybody what Iwanted.
I never had the courage toproclaim this is what I'm gonna
create.
I just worked very, very hardin in, in the quiet, in the
background.
So Growing up early on, I had alot of people telling me that I
couldn't do what I wanted to do.
You're not gonna be good enoughto do that, you're not gonna be
(15:09):
good enough to do this.
The loudest voice was my dad,and that actually you know what,
brother.
It's crazy because I've neveractually thought about this but
I stopped telling people what mygoals and dreams were, simply
because I didn't want anybody tohave the power to tell me it
wasn't possible, like my dad did, and so they stopped calling my
(15:31):
shot.
You know the famous Babe Ruthlike call your fuck, call it,
(15:55):
yeah, that I would have.
They would be shared with avery close group of people.
And to answer the secondquestion, which is like who do
you decide who you want to bewith, I think it changes over
time.
In the beginning, you just hangout with people that have a
shared value or shared hobbiesand interests, and that's kind
of where it started.
And then I developed a coregroup of guys and friends and as
(16:17):
I became more involved inbusiness and I started to have
more and more success, and thenyour habits and your behaviors
and how you spend your timestarts to change.
A lot of those previous or pastrelationships.
They no longer become congruent, and so I would say the first
thing is today I have to have avalue and a vision alignment
(16:38):
with someone.
We don't have to value theexact same things in all areas
of our life, but we need to havesome core tenants that we
really strive to live our lifeby.
I'm a very principled person,so I'm only going to spend and
invest time in someone that hasthe same principled stance.
We're going to do the rightthing.
We're going to operate withhonor and integrity.
(16:59):
We're going to work our fuckingasses off.
One big one for me is I willonly really develop deep
relationships with someone thatnaturally wants to celebrate my
wins more than I do.
You know, if you've, if you'veever had a friend like that you
go out with to dinner or or ashow, or you go to the gym, you
(17:20):
get a workout, whatever, andthey're just like you know
you're giving them an update andthey're like wait, what you did
?
What, dude?
That's amazing.
I love that for you, like highfive in, like, um, you know
there's there's certain uh, uh,really good friendships that I
have where you know we'll.
We'll do a product launch andhave a big day, like for for our
black Friday sale.
We did $530,000 in sales on theday and that was, you know,
(17:43):
half a million dollars.
In a day Like that blew my mind.
My parents made $12,000 myentire senior year, you know.
So, like the contrast and Itook a screenshot, sent to a
couple of my my best guy friendsdude, this is crazy, check this
out.
They're celebrating, they'rerooting me on, they're telling
me how incredible I am.
So I think part of it is sharedvision.
This is the way that I want tolive my life and this is the
(18:07):
type of way that I'm going toconduct myself.
That overlaps with sharedvalues.
So those are kind of the closeconfidants that I have.
And then, in terms of advisors,I only seek advice from people
that have the type of results intheir life that I want.
So I'm going to takerelationship advice from someone
(18:28):
who's got a 35-year marriageand they're more passionate and
intimate today than they've everbeen.
I'm not going to take it frommy buddy who's single.
I'm going to take businessadvice.
Good plan, I'm going to takebusiness advice from my mentor,
who I'm going to take businessadvice from my mentor who's
built and scaled and sold a ninefigure company in a similar
industry, so he knows the roadahead.
So I would say it's kind ofthose two things Like if we're
(18:50):
just going to be best friends oror confidants, if we're going
to really celebrate and livelife together, then values and
vision and be in alignment there, if you're going to be a mentor
or an advisor, if I'm going toseek your counsel, you have to
be somewhere in an area of yourlife that I admire and that I
want to be.
Dr. William Attaway (19:12):
Yeah, I think there's a lot of wisdom
there.
Truly, you know, in my work asan executive coach, I tell my
clients you know, no one's goingto cheer harder for you than I
am and no one's going to be morein your corner than I am.
And what troubles me so oftenis when I talk to somebody who
tells me that I'm really theperson in their corner one of
(19:34):
the only ones because they don'thave anybody else in their
world who understands whatthey're dealing with.
Because they don't have anybodyelse in their world who
understands what they're dealingwith, they haven't yet
discovered the power ofcommunity and the power of other
people who are encouraging you.
You know, truett Cathy, whostarted Chick-fil-A, was famous
for saying you want to know howto know if somebody needs
encouragement, if they'rebreathing.
(19:56):
That's how you know and I lovethat.
I mean, I think that's so, sotrue.
And you know what encouragementcosts us.
It costs us nothing and yetit's astounding to me how seldom
people receive it, particularlyentrepreneurs.
And I wish I could say yourstory was unique or rare.
(20:19):
I'm not sure it is.
You know, and I love that, youhave now begun to craft a life,
a business and a podcast.
Through your podcast, you'reable to convey a lot of what
you've learned.
Share that and be a conduit ofthose lessons and, dare I say it
(20:39):
, that encouragement to otherpeople on their journey.
I just love that man.
Anthony Mink (20:45):
Yeah, I really appreciate that and it is so
interesting because it's veryhard for anybody who's not an
entrepreneur to understand theexperience of what it is 100%
there's.
You know, it's like there'sthis quote from Elon that I
really love and he's like.
You know, entrepreneurship iskind of like chewing on glass
while you stare into the abyssand he's like if, if you are the
(21:10):
founder, ceo, you know,co-founder, whatever you get
people hand that hand, deliverthe shittiest problems to you
that no one else can solve, andit's your responsibility to do
that.
And then you carry the weight ofthe organization of the.
All the problems, the, thefinancial, the, blah, blah, blah
, blah.
You know on down the list andthe people that now like, and
(21:34):
also it's like the.
The longer that you play thegame, the more that you
experience the waves of the gameyes, that you play the game,
the more that you experience thewaves of the game, and the
harder it is to really connectat a very deep level with
someone who isn't also in thatgame to some degree.
I have a really good friendnamed Jill Polish from Genius
Network.
He's been a big mentor of mineand he's the first person that I
(21:54):
ever heard say this.
But he said entrepreneurship isone of the loneliest roads that
you can walk and that's whyit's so critical to get around
other entrepreneurs who you canhave some of that shared
experience with and really feelseen, heard and understood.
Dr. William Attaway (22:11):
So true.
So tell me about Live BeardedLike.
Where did the idea for thiscome from?
Anthony Mink (22:17):
Yeah, it's a great question.
So I 2009, I was coming, I wasgoing through bankruptcy and
trying to figure out what Iwanted to do with my life, and I
sat down.
I was broke, I had no money.
I was like just destitute inthe sense of like I'm a 23, 24
year old kid and I got no ideawhat I want to do in the world.
And so I sat down and I'm likeI'm going to write, I'm going to
(22:39):
figure this out.
What do I want to do?
I have no fucking clue.
I got.
I got no experience.
I go.
I got no, no contrast for whatI want to do.
And then I asked myself maybethe best question at the time
that I could have ever askedmyself what don't I want?
Oh, that's excellent.
(23:01):
Oh, I have some answers to this.
And so I started writing.
I don't want to do this, Idon't want to answer to anybody,
I don't want someone to tell mewhat I have to do when I have
to do it.
And basically I wrote themanifesto for every fucking
entrepreneur that was like fuckthe man, I'm going to do my own
thing, and but the key, but thekey for me was I want to have
time and locational freedom.
I'm like, how do I create that?
(23:21):
And at the time, social mediawas just kind of becoming a
thing.
Facebook was really comingonline and I was like, if I
could learn to make money onthis crazy thing called the
internet, ideally, orpotentially, I could work when I
want, where I want.
And I was like man, if I couldunlock that, I don't even care
about making a bunch of money oranything else.
(23:41):
And I had this dream of likeI'm going to move to a foreign
country and just live on a beachsomewhere.
And it's funny now digitalnomads and this whole thing is
super popular In 2009, there wasno such thing, and so I proudly
proclaim now that I was one ofthe very first digital nomads.
But I got into affiliatemarketing and it took me about
(24:04):
18 months to learn how to makeenough money online to quit my
job.
And then I spent about fiveyears just doing affiliate
marketing and what I was doingwas learning the skills the
craft of writing paid ads,running paid ads, getting good
at social media, email marketing.
I was developing my skillset,and so I did that for five years
(24:27):
and got to the point where Iwas a million dollar affiliate.
I was making a bunch of moneyand then I took all of that and
I invested it into a supplementnutrition company.
I had sold a couple ofbusinesses.
I had about half a milliondollars in cash and I was like
this is my business, I'm goingall in, I'm going to build my
own thing.
And nine months later I hadabout 50 grand left, totally
(24:47):
lost it all and found myselfbeing like how the fuck did I
fuck up this bad and it'sprobably the lowest point in my
entrepreneurial career, becauseI had a personal bankruptcy.
Then I made a bunch of moneyand then I made it and I had the
freedom and the success andthen the personal feelings of
significance.
(25:08):
And then I risked it all onthis one great idea and
basically mismanaged and hadrealized that I wasn't as smart
as I thought I was and I didn'treally know what I was doing,
and I lost it all and so I hadto start over.
And at that exact moment intime, one of my best friends, my
co-founder with Live Bearded.
Now imagine this I'm at mylowest point.
(25:28):
I have no idea how I'm going toturn it around.
I feel completely like I'm aloser and a failure, and my
buddy Spencer's like I'd reallylove to learn how to make money
online.
Can you teach me?
I'm like Spencer's like hey,bro, I'd really love to learn
how to make money online.
Can you teach me?
I'm like me, you want me toteach you.
And he didn't know necessarilythe depths of what I was going
(25:49):
through at the time, but westarted engaging in this
conversation of what it was liketo make money online.
It was no shave November 2015.
And he was growing out a beardfor the first time and all these
dudes kept commenting on it.
He had this good handlebarmustache and he's like man.
Everywhere I go, guys are likecoming up to me saying great
beard, brother.
Like your beard looks sick, man, your handlebar is amazing.
And he's like I've never in mylife got compliments like this
(26:12):
from other dudes.
And he's like I think thisbeard thing is becoming really
popular.
Have you ever thought aboutmaybe doing marketing or selling
some beard stuff?
And I was like I had stubble.
I'm like what's a beard oil?
I don't have any idea, but Ihad the marketing acumen.
So I put together a quick salesfunnel, put some things
together.
I ordered 500 wooden combs onAlibaba.
(26:35):
I paid a designer $500 tocreate a logo.
They stamped the logo on thecombs and they ended up in my
kitchen and around the first ofthe year, january 2016,.
I was like, all right, let mesee if I can sell any of these
things.
Put together some Facebook adsand I sold all 500 combs in
about a day and a half.
(26:55):
Wow, and the engagement rate onthe ads was higher than
anything I had seen in any of myprevious affiliate marketing.
And I looked at Spence and Isaid shit bro, I guess we got to
figure out how to send out 500combs.
Still to this day, we jokeabout licking and sticking
(27:18):
because there's pictures of usin the freaking living room
licking and sticking envelopessending out these first 500
combs and me, being the marketerand ambitious guy, I'm like,
well shit, if we sold 500, let'sorder 5,000 and see what
happens.
And so we went through thistesting process.
To make a long story short, weordered 5,000.
(27:39):
We sold them over the course ofa few months, did some market
research.
The thing that I would say thatwas the smartest thing we did is
we created a private Facebookgroup, again early 2016.
Anybody who bought from us.
As part of the post-purchaseemail sequence, we invited them
to join.
Spencer had no marketingexperience so I was like you
(27:59):
have one job.
I said read this article fromKevin Kelly, called a thousand
true fans and understand how wecan turn these people into
raving fans.
And so he was the spokespersonand the product expert and the
community ambassador and forprobably six months he connected
individually with every singlecustomer that came into that
(28:21):
group.
We asked them why did you growyour beard?
What do you like about theproducts?
What do you not like?
What products do you want?
What products would you use?
Would you try this?
Would you try that Real-timecustomer feedback in a private
Facebook group with a couplethousand men?
That led to us developing allof our own products, launching
the website in the end of 2016,building out our product line,
(28:42):
and the rest, I guess they say,is history.
You know we've done over 50million in sales.
You know have a reallyincredible company and it
started from this idea of of areally good friend coming to me
and saying, hey man, how couldwe work together and do
something online?
And what became the whole ethosof Live Bearded kind of grew
(29:06):
out of that idea of well, spenceand I have been friends for 10
years.
At this point, what if everycustomer that we did business
with we treated as if we wouldtreat my friend of 10 years?
How do we make everything aboutbrotherhood?
And that's why we had thatone-to-one connection.
That's why we wanted to gettheir feedback.
It was.
(29:26):
It was never about how do Isell as much beard shit and make
as much money as possible.
Obviously, we had a profitmotive, but we both intuitively
understood that profit came onthe other side of relationship.
So good, if we could focus onthe relationship first, the rest
of it would take care of itself.
Dr. William Attaway (29:47):
I really hope everybody listening is
taking notes, because you justdropped so much wisdom there.
Anthony, Thank you so muchvalue.
Let me ask you this, so youknow you have to lead at a
higher level today than you didfive years ago.
Your team, your clients,everybody is looking to you and
your co-founder to lead at ahigher level.
(30:08):
That same thing is going to betrue five years from now.
You're going to have to lead atan even higher level and
they're going to ask and demandeven more of you.
How do you stay on top of yourgame?
How do you stay on top of yourgame?
How do you level up with thenew leadership skills that your
business and your team and yourclients are going to need you to
have?
Anthony Mink (30:41):
Yeah, it's a great question and one of the things
I think one of the mostinteresting lessons to learn in
business is what you're talkingabout.
Early on I thought, man, oncewe get this new product live, or
once this new website is done,or once we have this new
marketing's a greater needrequired by the leader, there's
a greater capacity that isdemanded, and so I think the
(31:03):
short answer is you just have tocommit to constant and
never-ending improvement.
You know, we have this kind ofbetter everyday ethos built into
the way that we approach things, both at Live Bearded and then
in my personal life.
You know, I think I've just mymodel of the world is education
first, that then createsopportunity for skill and then
(31:24):
you can turn that skill intosuccess and experience.
So I think the short answermaybe it's a little bit cliche,
but it's like I just I'mruthless about education.
I'm always investing intomentorship programs, into
advisors.
I've spent easily north of halfa million dollars of my own
money on coaching courses,conferences.
(31:44):
I hired Tony Robbins and workedwith him for a year in his
highest level coaching program.
I did a private coaching withPatrick, but David with you know
I've got an advisor that I'mpaying a substantial amount of
money on a monthly basis to helpguide us to the next level.
So the truth is, I what I'velearned is I never have a how
(32:06):
problem.
I always have a who problem,and so the way that I continue
to elevate my capacity is byinvesting into myself and
putting myself in proximity andin relationship with people that
are farther ahead than me.
That can help me elevate to thenext level.
Dr. William Attaway (32:27):
So much wisdom, so much wisdom there.
Anthony Mink (32:30):
Yeah.
Dr. William Attaway (32:31):
As you have continued in your path as a
constant learner, which isobvious anybody who spends more
than two minutes with you.
You're constantly learning.
Is there a book that has made atremendous difference in your
journey that you would recommendto the leaders who are
listening?
Anthony Mink (32:46):
I mean a couple of them for sure.
On the, I think most of myreading it falls into two
categories.
It's more around like thepersonal development side and
then the business side.
And I mean so much of businessis like the application, or the
personal development and action,if you will.
I think one of the best booksI've ever read is as a man
Thinketh.
Yes, you know, super old schoolbook, written in the early 90s,
(33:10):
but it's where I kind ofdeveloped that fundamental
philosophy of my life is myfault, you know.
One of my favorite quotes fromthere is like what is it?
Man is made or unmade byhimself, you know.
So there's these reallybeautiful thoughts, but as a man
thinketh, everyone has to readit.
The four agreements, I thinkeveryone should read it.
(33:31):
Thinketh, everyone has to readit.
The Four Agreements, I thinkeveryone should read it.
The Power of Awareness, allabout how the way that we create
the future that we want is byassuming the feeling of that in
desire, already being created.
We have to live out as if it'salready a present fact.
So some of these verypsychological mindset driven
things, those have been very,very critical to me.
(33:52):
One of my favorite businessbooks of all time is the Road
Less Stupid by Keith Cunningham.
If you don't know who KeithCunningham is, he's actually the
guy that Rich Dad, poor Dad iskind of based on, and this idea
of.
He's the quote rich dad, buthe's an incredible entrepreneur.
That one is super helpful.
That one's really helped me.
The book UnreasonableHospitality so good Will Gadara
(34:17):
yeah, yeah, from a culturestandpoint has been incredible.
I really love Alex Hermosi.
I've read both of his booksfrom a tactical marketing
perspective but I mean there's,there's so many good ones.
Those are a couple that havereally helped me on my journey.
Dr. William Attaway (34:31):
That's phenomenal, Anthony.
I could talk to you for anotherhour.
There's just so much insightand wisdom and I'm so grateful
to you for sharing it so freelytoday with me and with our
listeners.
I know people are going to wantto stay connected to you and
continue to learn from you.
What is the?
Anthony Mink (34:49):
best way for them to do that.
Yeah, man, first off, I justreally appreciate the
opportunity to come on and share, and it's amazing to see what
you've accomplished with yourpodcast and your capacity as an
executive coach and mentor.
I think is really incredibleand that's one of the reasons
why I was so excited to talk toyou today.
You know so, anthony Mink atAnthony Mink on Instagram
anthonyminkcom I youcom.
(35:11):
I just got into this crazy worldof putting out content in the
last year, year and a half or so, and I'm having a lot of fun
with it, but really I'm doing itjust because I want to share
parts of my experience and hopethat they can serve and inspire
others on theirs.
So if any part of thisresonated, feel free to reach
out to me on Instagram or reachout to me directly through my
website.
(35:32):
Livebeardedcom is the businessas well.
You can reach out to us there.
I'm super accessible and wouldlove to help anyone on the
journey.
If anything that I have sharedhas touched a nerve or inspired
you, please feel free to reachout.
I'd love to help any way I can.
Dr. William Attaway (35:46):
I love that .
We'll have all those links inthe show notes, anthony, thank
you.
Anthony Mink (35:51):
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Dr. William Attaway (35:52):
It's been amazing.
Thanks for joining me for thisepisode today.
As we wrap up, I'd love for youto do two things.
First, subscribe to thispodcast so you don't miss an
episode, and if you find valuehere, I'd love it if you would
rate it and review it.
That really does make adifference in helping other
people to discover this podcast.
View it.
(36:12):
That really does make adifference in helping other
people to discover this podcast.
Second, if you don't have a copyof my newest book, catalytic
Leadership, I'd love to put acopy in your hands.
If you go tocatalyticleadershipbookcom, you
can get a copy for free.
Just pay the shipping so I canget it to you and we'll get one
right out.
My goal is to put this into thehands of as many leaders as
possible.
(36:33):
This book captures principlesthat I've learned in 20 plus
years of coaching leaders in theentrepreneurial space, in
business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church
.
You can also connect with me onLinkedIn to keep up with what
I'm currently learning andthinking about.
And if you're ready to take anext step with a coach to help
(36:54):
you intentionally grow andthrive as a leader, I'd be
honored to help you.
Just go tocatalyticleadershipnet to book a
call with me.
Stay tuned for our next episodenext week.
Until then, as always, leaderschoose to be catalytic.
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