James Malinchak / #1 Keynote Speaker & Author

Join us for an enlightening conversation with James Malinchak, one of the most in-demand business and motivational keynote speakers in the world. 

Featured on ABC's Secret Millionaire and author of 27 books, James has delivered over 3,000 presentations across the globe. 

In this episode, James shares his remarkable journey from a small steel mill town to the stages of major corporations, associations, and universities. 

Learn his strategies for finding the right audience, crafting impactful messages, and building a lasting legacy. 

Whether you're an aspiring speaker or a seasoned professional, this episode is packed with valuable insights and inspiration.

Paul Povolni, the founder of Voppa Creative, has been a creative leader for over 30 years, with clients around the world. He’s led teams in creating award-winning branding and design as well as equipping his clients to lead with Clarity, Creativity and Culture.

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Transcript

Paul Povolni (01:48.846)
Hey, welcome to the Head Smacked podcast. My name is Paul Pavolny and I am excited to have a misfit that I've been connected to for a while and been following along with his journey and adventure. I have James Malincheck with me. James, welcome.

James Malinchak (02:01.606)
Hey Paul, thanks for having me brother, I appreciate it.

Paul Povolni (02:04.206)
Hey, looking forward to the conversation today. James is recognized as one of the most requested in demand business and motivational keynote speakers and marketing consultants in the world. He was featured on the hit ABC TV show, secret millionaire, and was twice named national college speaker of the year. James has also delivered 3000 presentations for corporations, associations, business groups, colleges, universities, youth organizations. And James speaks to groups ranging from 20 ,000 to 30 ,000 people.

And if that is not keeping him busy enough, he is also the author of 27 books. James, you're staying busy, man.

James Malinchak (02:41.848)
You know what, you're helping a lot of people, you just gotta keep putting good stuff out. You don't take it with you when you die, so you might as well put it out there to help others.

Paul Povolni (02:50.35)
Yeah, that's amazing, man. So I want to hear a little bit for those that don't know you. If they don't know you, I'm surprised. But if they don't know you, I'd like to hear a little bit about your origin story, you know, how you how you started and how you became who you are now and doing all the great things that you're doing.

James Malinchak (03:07.238)
I was born in a van down by the river. Isn't that what every speaker says? Yeah, exactly. Now I grew up in a very tiny steel mill town outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a town called Menessin, about 6 ,000 awesome folks. We didn't have much grown up. Dad was a railroad conductor working in the steel mill and mom was a lunch mother serving lunches to us kids at school.

Paul Povolni (03:09.998)
On a friend's couch, yes.

James Malinchak (03:33.19)
And I wasn't like a real great student or I wasn't even a good student. I was what you would call a C student, which was C your way through school. That was me. And honestly, it's because I love the sport of basketball. And I thought my first big dream growing up was to play division one college basketball. And I thought my way out of the small town was to get a basketball scholarship. So I started to.

Paul Povolni (03:40.43)
I see you there. I see you're attending, yeah.

James Malinchak (04:00.806)
home my skills and go to tons of basketball camps and you know, lo and behold, I had something like 50 Division I schools that got interested in me and I signed a basketball scholarship to go to the University of Cincinnati right out of high school and I played there. My coach got fired. Yeah, I mean, a lot of people say, you know, relieved of their duties. No, he got fired. He was...

Paul Povolni (04:19.626)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (04:24.526)
Yeah.

James Malinchak (04:26.438)
And I ended up transferring and playing over at the University of Hawaii, of which in an exhibition game I blew my knee out. So yeah, rubber basketball courts and a rubber sneaker on a rubber court sticks. On a wooden court you get a little spin, but on a rubberized court it sticks. And when you twist, your toe doesn't go, so your knee or ankle or hip goes, and my knee went. So.

Paul Povolni (04:33.302)
wow.

Paul Povolni (04:39.788)
Paul Povolni (04:44.524)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (04:48.846)
Wow. Wow. So now time for plan B.

James Malinchak (04:51.686)
Plan B. Unfortunately, and I was just talking about this earlier with someone, that I had a Plan B. And I think even today in business and life, people will have Plan Bs. So I had this Plan B of getting a business degree and becoming a stockbroker. That was what I always, yeah, yeah, I always wanted to do that. I had a relative that was one of the most successful commodity traders on the floor of the gold, silver, and mercantile pits on the Commodity Exchange and the old World Trade Centers.

Paul Povolni (04:59.598)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (05:06.19)
wow.

James Malinchak (05:21.35)
before they went down. And he came from the same small steel mill town that I came from and made hundreds of millions of dollars and was been my mentor my whole life. So I worked for him one summer on the exchange and quickly realized this ain't for me, man. This is too chaotic with all the screaming and yelling and I'm more of an office guy. Plan B part two. I'm going to be in an office, not down in the pits trading. And so long story short.

Paul Povolni (05:36.142)
So plan C.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

James Malinchak (05:51.558)
I ended up becoming a stockbroker with a major Wall Street investment firm in Los Angeles and did well there, got recruited, moved to the Payne Weber Beverly Hills office. And then, and I was managing the entertainers, the accounts of entertainers and pro athletes. My office was on Rodeo Drive, the corner of Wilshire and Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. And I did a training one time and a guy saw me and.

Said now we want you to come and talk to our our sales reps on my I don't talk I was just doing a training for the other brokers here and he said well We only want you to talk for 45 minutes. I said I don't I don't talk and And he said and we'll pay you 5 ,000 bucks. I said I talk I talk I talk

Paul Povolni (06:27.694)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (06:39.502)
Hahaha

James Malinchak (06:46.534)
And Paul, that's how I got into speaking. And one led to two, two led to three, three led to five, and here we are, 3 ,000 -some talks later. I still pinch myself like, I can't believe I've done all these talks.

Paul Povolni (06:58.35)
Wow. So, so plan B plus came became plan to Ching and I am now a speaker.

James Malinchak (07:04.806)
God works in this one. I don't say Mr. Isaiah wonderful ways on that because you go down a path that you don't see.

Paul Povolni (07:09.55)
Yeah. Then did you ever have a fear of speaking? Like, did you, did you, because they say that's a number one fear and you were like, yeah, I'll do it. So like, what was that, that experience like?

James Malinchak (07:14.214)
my gosh.

James Malinchak (07:21.766)
If you think about that, right, it is the number one fear, right? And it's even ahead of dying, the fear of dying, right? And so if you think about it, what does that say? That means that people would rather be lying in the casket than standing up and giving the eulogy. That's what it said, it's the number one fear. Paul, gosh, I was so awful when I started.

Paul Povolni (07:28.494)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (07:37.454)
Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

James Malinchak (07:48.934)
Like I forgot everything. I used to read it typed out word for word. Yeah, I couldn't remember where I was at and what I was supposed to say and what came next. And I would make stuff up that made no sense. I was horrible man. Because I would freeze up and get nervous. And then I'd be like, my gosh, the more you try to think of what you're supposed to say, the worse it is. And yeah, I was like, I wish I had some of those videos from back in the day. But I shall go see you.

Paul Povolni (08:01.302)
Hahaha.

Paul Povolni (08:09.038)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (08:13.966)
So what was the topic?

James Malinchak (08:17.158)
everybody would know, I was trying to be Mr. Success Guy. You know, here I am working in a broke, no money, can't remember my talk and I'm teaching success.

Paul Povolni (08:20.78)
Hahaha!

Paul Povolni (08:27.726)
Now, have you used any of the stuff from that first talk later on and refined it, or did you like totally trash it? I am never saying any of that ever again.

James Malinchak (08:37.542)
You know, I got rid of it all, man, because I was like, I don't even know what I'm, first of all, I didn't know what I was saying. Right? See, now I speak from a depth of experience. I only talk about stuff that I've actually gone through in my life, whether it's business, financial or personal. And, you know, you learn in any goal, dream or business you learn and you evolve. And, and I quickly learned, like to really be with integrity and have authenticity, you should only speak about stuff you know.

Paul Povolni (08:43.916)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Paul Povolni (08:52.238)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (09:06.99)
Right, right, right. Not fake it until you make it. Wait, fake it till you make it is not a good plan. So when it comes to... Go ahead.

James Malinchak (09:08.13)
You know, so that wasn't me in the beginning. No, I hate that. I hate that. You know, because I was just going to say it programs you to be fake.

Paul Povolni (09:21.326)
Yeah. Yeah. So when it comes to, you know, being a speaker, I mean, that's, you do that amazingly. I've watched your stuff and truly you are gifted at that. So when people want to get into speaking, they say, well, I have a message. Is that the right place to start?

James Malinchak (09:37.158)
I'm so glad you asked that. I am actually, so a little story. So I'm writing a book. My company is called Big Money Speaker. The logo is a coin for a reason, because I always say there's two sides to the coin. On the one side, we have our message. We have our story or how -to information. We have impacting people wanting to change lives. And most people get taught that that's all you need.

And I taught my first big money speaker bootcamp in 1998. That's a lot. And I've done a thousand of them. I retired it in 2017. But the reason I got into teaching others is people would ask me, how did you do this? You're not famous. You know, you didn't fall out of an airplane and live. You didn't win a Superbowl and have a ring. You don't have a gold medal.

Paul Povolni (10:05.036)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (10:31.244)
Yeah.

James Malinchak (10:33.158)
But you're booking 100 and 100 to 150 talks a year and I've never even heard of you at really good fees. And who the heck are you? And so I started teaching this bootcamp. And the reason I started teaching it was to teach the flip, what I call the flip side of the coin, all the business stuff, right? How do you find people who have budgets? How do you position yourself to get them to pick you? If you're doing a speak and offer, speak and sell situation.

Paul Povolni (10:48.718)
Yeah.

James Malinchak (11:00.388)
You know, how do you deliver amazing value and to have a bunch of people enroll with you? So to answer your question, long about answer, I retired in 2017. And, but I had this two things. One, I had this like little bumblebee flying around in my belly. Like, man, I just feel like I'm not leaving a big enough legacy to help people. And, but I had this misconception. I need to go back on the road and do talks in order to do that. And I was like, I don't want to do that. I've done 3000 of them. I've been through every airport you can imagine, you know.

Paul Povolni (11:08.972)
Mm.

Paul Povolni (11:19.53)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (11:29.326)
Right, right.

James Malinchak (11:30.246)
And I always used to say the Super 8 hotel looks no different than the St. Regis or the Ritz -Carlton to me. It's all the same. And you're traveling a lot, right? And so I just believe God spoke to me and said, man, that's how you can leave a legacy. Why don't you teach people how they can profit with their careers? And you don't have to fly all over and speak. Just teach people all the knowledge you know. And so that's when I decided to come back.

Paul Povolni (11:35.95)
Yeah, yeah, right.

James Malinchak (11:59.494)
And here's why. So that's the first reason. The second reason is I got so sick and tired of all the nonsense that I saw being taught online where people said, who are teaching others, start with your message. That is the dumbest business advice you could have. The number one mistake in all business across the board is creating a product or service first, in our case, a message, and then try to go find people who want to buy it.

Paul Povolni (12:29.678)
Yeah, yeah.

James Malinchak (12:30.086)
No, you find out. So they answer your question. No, I tell people and I teach my students you start with the market first, because if you want to speak for real estate entrepreneurs, that message is going to be different than if you speak to kids versus if you speak to an association that's made up of credit managers who work in nine to five job. Those messages are going to be different. Right. So if you start with the message, you're basically trying to put a square peg in a round hole.

Paul Povolni (12:53.934)
Right, right.

James Malinchak (12:59.75)
and swim upstream. Whereas if you start with what are they already booking and then craft your message to fit what they're used to already paying checks for and booking, then you win. So I'm glad you asked that because I'm writing my book right now called Big Money Speaker Secrets in order to get all of my information out that I used to share in my four -day boot camp to leave a legacy and to help as many people as possible.

Paul Povolni (13:12.022)
Right.

Paul Povolni (13:26.094)
Wow. That's amazing. So, you know, you said there that find out what they are booking. How do you find that out?

James Malinchak (13:32.276)
my gosh, it's, it's, so you gotta understand, let me share this. So these are two different sides of speaking. Okay, you gotta draw a imaginary line down the middle of the room, so to speak. On one side, you have fee paid speaking, meaning you get paid a check, a fee. And on the other side, you have what's called public events, where you most likely will not get paid and you have to do what's called speak, I coined the phrase speak and offer. Most people call it speak and sell.

I don't like that. I think you should be there to impact the audience and then make an offer. So you speak and make an offer. And if you do the presentation in the right way, people come to the inevitable conclusion, hey, I want to take the next step. You don't have to sell them, right? Sell them is kind of icky to people. Okay. So first of all, you divide it. Now, if you're looking over here on the fee paid, there are three primary fee paid markets. Okay. One is corporations and associations.

Paul Povolni (14:12.462)
Right, right, right.

Right.

James Malinchak (14:29.35)
Two are colleges and universities, and three is the educational market, which is K through 12. Now I know what someone watching might say, well, what about the entrepreneur? No, entrepreneurs are over here in a public side of speaking, which means in a public event, anybody can attend. You can buy a ticket and show up. That's how most entrepreneur events are. Over here, unless you're what I call a Shamu, like Shamu the well, you're not gonna get paid.

Paul Povolni (14:49.514)
Ryan.

Paul Povolni (14:56.334)
Yeah, yeah.

James Malinchak (14:59.59)
And I don't know if you know what a shampoo is, Paul, but in this, yeah.

Paul Povolni (15:02.446)
I don't know what a sham - I know what the whale is, but I have no idea in this context what it is.

James Malinchak (15:07.718)
Well, Shamu is who drew everybody out to SeaWorld. But SeaWorld didn't make money on Shamu. I mean, the upkeep for a killer whale, the training, the food, the security. So Shamu was an expense, but nobody ever went to SeaWorld to see James the dolphin, right? Everybody went to see the star Shamu. So if you think about these public events,

Paul Povolni (15:12.878)
Okay.

Paul Povolni (15:30.158)
Yeah. Yeah.

James Malinchak (15:36.966)
They got tons of shamoos. They got celebrities, well -known people to draw us to the park, right? So if you're not that type of person, like recognition, name, celebrity, then you're never gonna get booked and paid to speak in public events. So you have to do what's called a speak -in offer. So when I was on the Secret Millionaire TV show, which is a blessing, I mean, we're now viewed by over 50 million people worldwide, which is crazy.

Paul Povolni (15:38.968)
Yeah, wow.

Paul Povolni (15:43.31)
right?

Paul Povolni (15:56.526)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (16:03.554)
Wow, wow, wow, that's amazing. That's amazing.

James Malinchak (16:07.11)
It's unbelievable. I'm just a steel mill town kid, man, from Pennsylvania. This is crazy, right? But when I was on that show, my gosh, I was a big Shamu over here. Everybody invited me to come to their entrepreneur events and they all paid me fees. Once that notoriety died off, I'm back in the speaking offer over here for these public events. But over here in the beat paid world,

Paul Povolni (16:16.96)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (16:22.958)
Right.

Paul Povolni (16:29.838)
Wow.

James Malinchak (16:33.446)
anybody, you don't have to be famous to get paid to speak, but those are the three primary. There's also some smaller ones like the faith based market. I actually did a seminar tour for Life Surge, which is a big Christian based company. It was myself, Tim Tebow, Nick Vojtchek, guy with no arms and no legs, and Willie from Duck Dynasty and a bunch of other great speakers. But I was actually,

Paul Povolni (16:43.79)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (16:56.334)
Yeah, yeah.

Hahaha.

James Malinchak (17:02.886)
paid over here, okay? I'm sorry, paid over here, but that's like a smaller sector of who looks for speeches, for speakers. The top three are corporations and associations, colleges, universities, and education, which is K through 10.

Paul Povolni (17:20.366)
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Love that. Love the Shamu illustration. Yeah. Yeah. I spoke. Well, I spoke to Dennis Yu and he'd also talked about being the logo speaker, you know, that, that sometimes, you know, if you, having a logo or a brand associated with you, you get invited to speak places cause you're the logo speaker as well. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now you mentioned.

James Malinchak (17:22.98)
You love the shampoo.

James Malinchak (17:36.326)
great. Yeah, that adds to that celebrity. Like he used to work for Facebook, I think, right?

Paul Povolni (17:43.83)
who used to work for Yahoo. Yeah.

James Malinchak (17:45.656)
Yahoo! Well, I mean, that Yahoo is a Shamu. So he might not be the Shamu, but Yahoo can be positioned to the Shamu. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (17:49.102)
Right, right.

Right, right. Absolutely. Now you mentioned a secret millionaire. That was pretty amazing. And, you know, I've watched that I've enjoyed it. I'm sure it was a life -changing experience for you. What lessons did you learn there that have stuck with you even post that? I mean, now it's been a couple of years since, what lessons have stuck with you since then.

James Malinchak (18:13.414)
Yeah, it was one of the true great blessings of my life. The biggest blessing I've ever received from God was when my sister Vicki was diagnosed with a brain tumor and then eventually three and a half months later passed away. The greatest gift I ever received was for that time period before she passed away, I got to spend time with her. That was sister and brother time.

Paul Povolni (18:36.878)
Yeah.

James Malinchak (18:39.75)
And I said, man, never in my lifetime am I ever going to get anything that comes close to that. Being on Secret Millionaire wasn't as high as that, but it was the second greatest blessing I've received because I learned what true sacrifice, true giving, and true serving is all about. So for anybody that doesn't know,

Basically, I lived undercover. So imagine, Paul, that a big crane comes and picks you up out of your house and takes you and just drops you somewhere. Yeah, and you have no credit cards. They don't let you take credit cards. They don't let you take a cell phone. I didn't even have a watch. There's no connection with the outside world. And so basically, what I did was I lived undercover.

Paul Povolni (19:13.646)
Wow. Yeah. Yeah. It's quite a shock. Yeah.

James Malinchak (19:32.582)
Hence, secret millionaire. Nobody knew who I was. I lived on ABC. Television gave me $44 .66 for the week to live on because that is what a male with no dependence in that place that I was, which was Gary, Indiana, would receive in assistance for a week. Crazy, huh?

Paul Povolni (19:43.598)
man, wow.

Paul Povolni (19:58.126)
Wow. my goodness. Wow.

James Malinchak (20:00.134)
So they wanted me living like that. And like, I remember sitting in the, when I first got to Gary, which by the way, when they picked me up at my house, they, they filled me. They said, we're taking you to Gary, Indiana. How you feel about that? I was like, great. I like, all I knew was Larry Bird, the great Boston Celtics basketball player was from Indiana and I'm going to a farm and I'm going to be milking cows or something. That's what I thought. I didn't know anything about Indiana.

Paul Povolni (20:20.238)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

James Malinchak (20:29.318)
And I didn't know that Gary was the number two murder capital in the US at that point. I had no idea. So I get to this place and I'm in this apartment and they hand me an envelope for my food money for the week. And I opened up it's $44 and 66 cents. I'm like, huh? So they'd start, yeah.

Paul Povolni (20:49.614)
Is this for lunch?

James Malinchak (20:52.23)
I remember like, I wasn't thinking and I just like blurted something out. I said, I spent 4 ,000 in the night in Vegas because I have a house in Vegas. I spent 4 ,000 taking friends out to Vegas to like UFC fights. And I'm like 40 and it was, and I didn't know that they were going to start shocking me with things like that throughout the show. So, but you know, what, my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. And so,

Paul Povolni (20:59.948)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (21:04.718)
hahahaha

Paul Povolni (21:11.278)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Keep you on your toes. Yeah.

James Malinchak (21:20.838)
But I met these people, right? What I had to do was I had to go volunteer for certain organizations. And I mean, I cleaned toilets. I cleaned up garages that had trash in it for 20 years. It's whatever they needed me to do, I did. And what I learned, and they didn't know who we were. They thought we were just doing a documentary on organizations who.

Paul Povolni (21:27.918)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (21:37.324)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (21:45.102)
Yeah.

James Malinchak (21:49.028)
served the community. They didn't know we were ABC and this was going to be worldwide.

Paul Povolni (21:53.151)
Wow, wow. So what was your alias for those who haven't seen it? What did they say you were?

James Malinchak (21:58.918)
So I was a volunteer who was going through a change of life and trying to figure my way. And I just wanted to volunteer in your charities as I'm coming through the town or your organizations. As a matter of fact, they wanted to give me a fake name and I wouldn't do it because I said, that's not authentic. That's lying. So we went with James and then Robert, not Robert, it's James Robert, because that's my middle name. And I said, I'll do that because that's true.

Paul Povolni (22:18.478)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (22:25.23)
huh. Yeah.

James Malinchak (22:27.942)
They couldn't give my last name because they were scared that somebody would Google it, find out, and then the show's destroyed. So, by the way, I had a contract where I was sued for, I think it was $2 million if I told anybody and let the word out, because we filmed it six or eight months before it came out. But I learned true, so I met these amazing, beautiful angels, I call them, because some of them would work.

Paul Povolni (22:32.782)
Right. Right, right.

Paul Povolni (22:44.398)
Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (22:53.73)
Yeah, wow.

James Malinchak (22:58.406)
10 hours a day and make 20 bucks. And they just did it to serve. I remember I was cleaning up an alley with three guys that had just recently gotten out of prison. I mean, these are tough guys. Like, you know, you're people like stay there tough and no, there's these guys were in prison. One guy murdered a guy was out after 20 years and these are real street guys. Like good guys. I love them. I like, I mean, we got along great, but.

Paul Povolni (23:01.518)
Wow. Wow.

Paul Povolni (23:13.358)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (23:24.206)
Yeah.

James Malinchak (23:28.07)
You knew they were real tough guys. And this guy, I was cleaning an alley with him and I said, I gotta ask you, because one of the things I had to do on the show was to get to know these folks to try to figure out, I was gonna give away $100 ,000 to various shareholders. So I was like, learn about like, and find out their purpose and reason for why they're doing stuff. So I asked this guy, man, he had just gotten out of prison for, he was in for 20 years. Awesome guy.

Paul Povolni (23:30.382)
Right.

Paul Povolni (23:45.774)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (23:49.678)
Right, right.

James Malinchak (23:57.222)
And I said, and I remember him telling me, he said, look, I'm not a bad dude. I made a stupid mistake when I was a kid and I paid for it for 20 years. And now I'm just trying to live a good life and live with, you know, help people. And so I asked him, I said, he would work 10 hours a day and make like 20 or $30 working for this organization. And I was like, why do you do this? It's so admirable, but I don't understand. And he pointed.

Paul Povolni (24:22.254)
Yeah. Yeah.

James Malinchak (24:24.358)
to an elderly man and an elderly lady sitting on a swing in their yard, like a little porch swing, who had to stare at the alley with trash, and Paul, when I say trash, 30 feet high, just looked like trucks just dumped it there and it was there for years. And he said, I'd do it for them. And I said, what do you mean? He said, because one day that elderly man and that elderly woman's gonna sit, man, I get goosebumps every time I go down this path.

Paul Povolni (24:37.292)
My goodness.

Wow. Wow.

James Malinchak (24:53.286)
They're going to sit on that swing one day and they're not going to see this trash anymore. They're going to enjoy their view. I was like, dang man, that's true giving and true sacrifice and true serving. And so I, yeah. See, I thought I was going on this show to live undercover, write some checks and then I go home. Right. I got way more out of the show and what I learned from them than they got out of the Hunter Grant I gave away. Cause.

Paul Povolni (24:58.702)
Wow. Wow. Wow. Yeah.

And that's stuck with you all this time. Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (25:14.894)
Right.

Paul Povolni (25:21.39)
Yeah, yeah.

James Malinchak (25:22.63)
They taught me, here's the last thing I'll leave you with, they taught me, rich is more than money. Because I know, you know people, I know people that are super rich, monetary wise, but they're failing in all other areas of life, right? And so I created an acronym out of the word rich. I actually wrote a book after I came off the show and dedicated it to all of them. It was called Rich is More Than Money, the Lessons I Learned Being a Secret Millionaire That Will Change Your Life.

Paul Povolni (25:28.942)
Wow, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

Right.

Paul Povolni (25:47.982)
Yeah.

James Malinchak (25:51.376)
And so there's four principles. R stands for relationships or everything. I stands for inspire others with your actions. C stands for contribute and serve others. And H is have a happy mindset. Cause that those are the four things I learned from these people.

Paul Povolni (25:56.142)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (26:07.114)
Love that. Love that. Absolutely love that. So with, you know, that, that was a pretty powerful lesson. Did that impact your speaking moving forward? Like, did that change anything or was that a momentary emotional moment that didn't do a thing for you?

James Malinchak (26:22.726)
my gosh, no, to this day. And I'll tell you how it impacted me immediately. So speaking wise, I was a very successful road warrior fee paid speaker. Right? I could be in the state of Washington on Monday, Toronto on Tuesday, Tallahassee, Florida on Wednesday, Washington, DC on Thursday, you know, another play, you know, New York city on Friday and Saturday in Los Angeles. Right? I was all over.

Paul Povolni (26:24.908)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (26:35.062)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (26:46.798)
Right, right, right.

James Malinchak (26:51.078)
And at my peak, I was doing over 100 to 150 of those a year, right? And so after a while, it just became going through the motions. All right, I gotta go do this talk, pick up this check, get on to the next one, right? I had the message down, it was the same talk all the time. So that was not, I didn't even have to practice, I've done it so many times, it was like, flip it on, flip it off an hour later, right? But.

Paul Povolni (26:56.332)
Wow. Wow.

Paul Povolni (27:03.118)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (27:07.406)
Yeah, right, right.

Paul Povolni (27:11.886)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (27:17.614)
Right, right.

James Malinchak (27:20.358)
When I came off the show, I started to have a new appreciation and be grateful for having the opportunity to serve those individuals in the audience and help them. The same way that guy was serving the elderly man and lady on the swing when he's making 20 or $30 a day. You know, so.

Paul Povolni (27:28.256)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (27:32.238)
Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (27:39.084)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So does that, that does that tie back into what you shared previously about not starting with the message, but starting with understanding a problem that needs to be solved? Is that where that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you said you had the same message that you were sharing every single place and then, but suddenly you changed from just having the same message to now having something more to it.

James Malinchak (27:53.158)
Yeah, in a market, in a market, yeah, thousand percent.

James Malinchak (28:06.598)
Yeah, and it was more of a spirit that I brought to it. I brought a different spirit. And to this day, I have a different spirit to it. You know, like, I always think there's one person in that audience who was put there that day to hear this guy, they'd never heard of before. And how dare I disrespect that human being by just going through the motions. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (28:09.932)
Yeah.

Wow.

Paul Povolni (28:29.358)
Wow. Wow. That'll change you as a speaker. And people will feel that. People will feel that, that you're just kind of dialing in. People feel it when actors just kind of dial it in and they feel it when speakers kind of just dial it in. But then having that new perspective that came about from seeing people with nothing still serving and having dreams to serve others, you know, it wasn't, Hey, one day I want to see myself in a, you know, great car in a great house, but like his.

James Malinchak (28:35.686)
Yeah.

James Malinchak (28:43.782)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (28:57.772)
dream his desire was to help this older couple to one day be able to look out into this alleyway and not see the trash. I mean, that that'll change you when you start seeing those perspectives. And it's amazing how that kind of changed you moving forward in even just your speaking. It just re resets you, right? It was, it kind of a reset of the mind and the spirit. you know, and so I know a lot of what you do and we're friends on social media and I see your big smile and the people come into your house and doing cool stuff.

James Malinchak (29:24.23)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (29:27.854)
what are some of the, when, when people come to your house, they hang around your core pool, you know, they hang, you know, they, they, they learn a lot of great things. What are some of the first things, you know, just like you had a mindset reset, what are some of the first things that you start dealing with when you're either coaching or when you're coaching these teams? What are some of those mindset resets that you try and tackle early on?

James Malinchak (29:50.694)
Yeah, and let me kind of before that set it up so people watching or listening understand. So in speaking, right, we got the over here, we got the three fee paid, right, main verticals. Then over here, we got speak and offer. So one of my hidden secrets that I created years ago on how I have so many people enroll with me, literally every time I speak, no matter where I'm at, I'm one of the top, if not the top at people enrolling with.

Paul Povolni (30:03.086)
Right.

James Malinchak (30:20.07)
And that's not because I'm such a great speaker. It's because I give such a unbelievable offer that they can't say no. Right? And I believe if you just dump a lot of stuff into your offer that is stuff they want, it can't just be random stuff, right? And that they could see the value that they're going to get from it. Then you don't have to sell people. They just come to the inevitable conclusion and go, I'd have to be a fool to not take this. Look at all the stuff we get that can help me. Right?

Paul Povolni (30:28.494)
Yeah. Wow. Okay.

Paul Povolni (30:35.694)
Right, right, right.

Paul Povolni (30:46.958)
Right. Right. I want more of that. Yeah.

James Malinchak (30:51.206)
Yeah, so my offer has always been the same thing. You know, you get access to three of my online speaker, if I'm speaking on the topic of speaking, three of my courses online that we sell for 3000 bucks. You get two tickets to come to one of my live four day trainings for free, you and a friend. And you and a friend get to come to my house for free for two days of me coaching you in a small group setting for two days.

And all you gotta do is get to Las Vegas, we pick you up, we have lunch for you and all that. And they're like, wait, wait, wait. And then I'll sell that for 2000 bucks, 1997. I'll have people come up to me and say, wait a minute, I you made a mistake. You mean 20 ,000. Like I said, no, for 2000, $2 ,000, I get to come to your house for two days on top of all this stuff? I'm like, sure, yeah. I'm like, well, I'd have to be a fool not to take this. See, that's exactly, absolutely. So that's why.

Paul Povolni (31:30.51)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (31:37.408)
Wow. Wow.

Paul Povolni (31:42.126)
Yeah, that's an irresistible offer. Yeah.

James Malinchak (31:46.566)
You always see I have so many folks in my house. So now to answer your question, I think the number one, if I had to pick a mountain peak, okay, there's a lot of things going up the mountain, but if I had to pick the number one thing with mindset that I really got to shift somebody with, and I'm dealing with people with businesses. So I'm usually helping them. It could be get started speaking, it could be selling a business, it could be franchising, growing.

Paul Povolni (31:58.03)
Yeah.

James Malinchak (32:14.47)
is to actually get them to believe it's possible. Because they got all this junk going on in their head. We all do. I came from this small town, so I can't do it. The media says the economy is really the worst it's ever been, so I can't do it. They come up with all the, what I call the yeah -buts.

Paul Povolni (32:17.934)
Yeah, yeah. Right, right, right. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (32:34.702)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (32:40.04)
Right. Right.

James Malinchak (32:41.094)
I'd like to grow my business, yeah, but I can't do it. So I have to teach them to get their butts out of the way. Basically. And to believe that they can do it. And one of the ways I do that is two ways. One, I tell them a lot of stories of people just like them. Right? And number two, I give them real tangible nuggets that they can use right now. Here's how you do this. Do this, this, this. And I just cut through the chase.

Paul Povolni (32:49.166)
I like that, yes.

Paul Povolni (33:01.484)
Right, right.

James Malinchak (33:10.47)
trim off all the fat, just get right to the main dish and tell them, here's how you do this. And so here's what's amazing, Paul. You ready for this?

Paul Povolni (33:17.934)
totally ready.

James Malinchak (33:20.486)
I'm actually flying to Boise on Sunday because Monday Russell Brunson with ClickFunnels is having me on his podcast and then I'm on a live webcast Tuesday for Dan Kennedy and his magnetic marketing new book, Russell Bought Dan's Company. And I will actually be talking on the podcast about this. When folks are at my house at the end of the two days, I asked them, I said, how many?

have you got some value here?" And everyone, they're like, dude, I took 32 pages of notes. I just can't believe how much you've for free have been helping us. And I said, well, do you think if you spend a whole year with my mind thinking for you, creating for you, working for you and figuring things out that you would accelerate your business? And they all go, yeah. I said, well, if it's okay with y 'all, I'll share with you how I could work with you one -on -one in my coaching program for the next 12 months. yeah. And by the way,

Paul Povolni (33:59.054)
Yeah.

James Malinchak (34:19.654)
After the first day, they're already asking Cindy, my assistant, does he do one -on -one coaching? I can't believe how much for free he's helped me. So here's what I want to tell you, Paul. I run, and this is one of the reasons Russell, I think, is going to interview, wants to interview me. I have a 71 .6 upsell rate, if you will, stepping up into our high -price coaching programs after I teach them for free for two days.

Paul Povolni (34:24.942)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (34:44.332)
Wow.

James Malinchak (34:47.174)
70, you show me anybody out there that comes close to that number. Yeah, nobody comes close, not even 25 percentage points. And that is my funnel for our business. I speak, I could be on a webinar, a challenge, I make an incredible offer that they can't say no to, that they see a lot of value. They come to my house, I just train them and teach them for two days and genuinely help them. And I don't care if they ever enroll with us.

Paul Povolni (34:47.244)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (34:52.974)
Wow. And that's through your three -step funnel, right?

Paul Povolni (35:03.51)
Yeah.

James Malinchak (35:15.686)
I want them walking out saying, dang, I paid three grand for another event. That was the best thing I came to and it was free. Right? That's how I want them walking out. And so then step two, they come to the house. I train them and teach them. And then step three, I make them an offer. That's been my funnel for the last 15 years. So I don't need an online funnel when I got 71 .6 % investment rate into a $30 ,000 and $100 ,000 coaching.

Paul Povolni (35:22.99)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (35:35.406)
Wow, wow. So how does...

Paul Povolni (35:45.998)
Wow. So how does that translate to the people that you coach? Can they use that funnel? How would that translate to what they do?

James Malinchak (35:53.03)
You know, it's funny, my most successful coaching clients, I've had clients for 15, 16 years. Okay. You know, it's funny is the ones who are the most successful coaches use it and the ones who don't have a successful coaching business. And maybe that's not their practice. You know, I got people to run brick and mortar businesses, et cetera, but the ones who use it, it works tremendously. Cause here's what it's about. The key is they come to my house. I'm not sticking them in a hotel.

Paul Povolni (36:05.838)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (36:23.406)
Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

James Malinchak (36:24.134)
I'm treating them like human beings, right? We pick them up in a nice Mercedes van. We have lunch catered in for them. We drive them back in a nice Mercedes van to the hotel. Like we're taking care of, and they're at my house. They're hanging out at my pool, playing basketball on my court, playing putt -putt golf on the break. So we're like, we're building relationships and friendships. Yeah. Yeah. So I just believe if you go the extra mile, you know, there's the old line, right?

Paul Povolni (36:43.726)
It's immersive, yeah.

James Malinchak (36:53.926)
Go to the extra mile because it's never crowded.

Paul Povolni (36:56.718)
Right, right. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Now I know you also with with the coaching and with the speaking, you're also a super big fan of the value of books. And I know that played a big part in even your career from going from where you were to where you are now. And, you know, I know we're coming up against time here, but can you quickly share the impact of books and writing books? Because it's got me thinking I need to write a book now.

James Malinchak (37:24.198)
brother, you have to. So I've taught a thousand, I guess of my own live event speaker trainings over the years, right? I've had, when I was pumping it hard, I'd have seven, 800, 900 people there four times a year for a speaker training, which is crazy. Cause that's such a narrow niche. We have folks from a hundred countries attending. Okay. Which just such a blessing. But here's what I realized. And I never wrote a book.

Paul Povolni (37:32.14)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (37:42.797)
Right.

Paul Povolni (37:47.138)
Wow. Wow.

James Malinchak (37:53.862)
on speaking. I've written other books with peak performance success, but I never did it for my core thing because I was like, well, I have folks who pay $2 $3 ,000 to sit in a seminar. Why would I put it all in a $25 book? Just strategically from a business perspective, it's not a smart business move in terms of revenue. So I never did it. My role was you have to come to my event if you want to learn all this.

Paul Povolni (37:55.468)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (38:10.286)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (38:17.262)
Right. Right.

James Malinchak (38:22.886)
And I was blessed, I taught a lot of people. But Russell Brunson actually said something to me not too long ago that I'd never thought of. He said, you know, one of the things that helped us grow ClickFunnels through the roof was when I wrote Expert Secrets, when I wrote the book. And I was like, really? He's like, yeah, because so many more people heard my message that would never have become ClickFunnels members had they not...

Paul Povolni (38:41.408)
Wow.

James Malinchak (38:51.494)
rather than a $20 or $15 buck.

Paul Povolni (38:54.254)
Right, wow.

James Malinchak (38:55.718)
And then that got me thinking, because I'm a guy that looks at patterns. I go back and look at past patterns, right, past behaviors. And I said, well, if you think about it, Russell just bought the rights to certain aspects of Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich. Well, it's a book. Why, all these years, Think and Grow Rich is still talked about in the book. Why don't they talk about the VHS course?

Paul Povolni (39:02.83)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (39:12.142)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

James Malinchak (39:24.55)
that he originally had. Or the cassettes. No one talks about those. Everybody says the book. If you think about Dr. Gary Chapman, The Five Love Languages, 30 million books sold. Now, I went to Maui for a five -day seminar with him. No one ever talks about Dr. Gary Chapman, The Five Day Seminar or the online course. Everybody says The Five Love Languages book, right? Dr. Stephen Covey.

Paul Povolni (39:25.166)
Yeah, yeah. Wow.

Paul Povolni (39:35.042)
Right.

Paul Povolni (39:50.35)
Wow, yeah.

James Malinchak (39:53.19)
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. My friend used to run all of his retail sales of courses and seminars. No one ever talks about that, they talk about his book.

Paul Povolni (39:55.534)
Right.

Paul Povolni (40:04.43)
Yeah, that life -changing book.

James Malinchak (40:06.886)
Now, I don't want to get spiritual on everybody, but the Bible is a book. It's not a home study course that people talk about. Right? So I put all that together with what Russell mentioned to me. And I was like, you know, why haven't I done my Big Money Speaker book? I will help many more people who would never have the opportunity to come to my seminars if I were still doing them.

Paul Povolni (40:14.894)
Absolutely, right, right, right.

James Malinchak (40:33.734)
and who would never get an online training because they don't like to sit there and go through self -study, but they'll read a book. And so that's the impact. And I'm grateful I've done 27 books and all these different areas of my speaking, but I never did one for what I teach people is how to become speakers. So I'm doing it right now, buddy. You need to do it. Paul, if you don't do it, I'm going to come and yell at you.

Paul Povolni (40:38.446)
Yeah. Wow.

Paul Povolni (40:55.534)
Right, and so most...

Please do. Please do. I need to be held accountable. Even with launching this podcast, like I got the idea in two weeks later I launched because I wanted to launch on my 55th birthday and I'm like, okay, I've got to do this. So I think I've got a head smack book coming along at some point. But you know, I think it's absolutely.

James Malinchak (41:09.558)
wow.

James Malinchak (41:18.246)
Can I give you a tip on how to do it? How many episodes have you done?

Paul Povolni (41:23.502)
I am, well, I've recorded 26 episodes. I've released, I'm releasing my 10th one tomorrow.

James Malinchak (41:31.59)
You can transcribe all those and you have a book.

Paul Povolni (41:34.542)
Boom. I've interviewed some amazing people too. So, you know, it's yeah, definitely.

James Malinchak (41:37.894)
Yeah, yeah, you transcribe them all and you've got a book or what I learned from speaking to some of them. I mean, you can even title it, you know, the head smacks, head smack success. What I learned from talking to some of the most successful, amazing people in the world.

Paul Povolni (41:52.494)
Yeah, love it. Love it. All right, man. It's it's I'm putting that in my notebook. But I think it's true what you said.

James Malinchak (41:55.142)
And I'll give you a testimonial. I'll give you a testimonial for it so we can help promote it.

Paul Povolni (42:05.038)
love it, man. Love it. And I think, I think you're absolutely right in that some people fear putting their best ideas in the book if that's what they also speak about. Cause it's like, well, why would somebody come here and speak? But you look at every great author, Seth Godin, I mean, constantly interviewed and still writing about the very things that he's wrote about and, and others, you know, Donald Miller and all these, you know, Owen McManus, they all speak about the topic. They are ready, like put everything in the book. And so I think.

James Malinchak (42:32.454)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (42:33.262)
getting away from that fear of putting it all in a book because I fear that then I'm going to just give away all my good stuff.

James Malinchak (42:39.622)
You know, I came from that same place, right? Back with, no, rather than pay two or three grand to come to the seminar, right? Rather than give it all away in a book. But I realized something with myself about three or four years ago, that that's what Zig Ziglar used to call stinking thinking. You know? And that is not a prosperity mindset that I had, that was a poverty mindset.

Paul Povolni (42:42.636)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (42:48.558)
Right.

Paul Povolni (42:57.838)
Love it. Love it. Love it.

Paul Povolni (43:05.198)
Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

James Malinchak (43:09.062)
that I had and I could be impacting more people. And I just, I said, I'm doing it. And I'm taking all my great stuff. Literally I took, I transcribed my four days of the event and I'm going through and I had eight sections I taught at the training. There's eight chapters in the book. It's exactly what I used to do. It's my best stuff. And that's how I'm going to leave a legacy and change.

Paul Povolni (43:14.062)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (43:26.798)
Nice. Yeah.

Now you also books also played a part in launching your speaking career, didn't they? Weren't they a big part of it?

James Malinchak (43:37.414)
You know what I learned? Yes, the answer is yes. And what I learned was nobody wanted to book me as a speaker, but they loved the booking, the guy who wrote the book to come speak.

Paul Povolni (43:51.83)
Wow. That's a head smack for somebody right there. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

James Malinchak (43:52.72)
Isn't that amazing? Yeah. Yeah. And I say it's the most, it's the most bizarre, nutty, crazy thing in the world. Cause you already have the knowledge, the inspiration, the stories, but buddy, until you put it into this square little thing that society and the world says is a book, now all of a sudden you're a somebody and you're important. It's crazy. And your stuff is better.

Paul Povolni (44:13.612)
Yeah.

Wow. Wow.

James Malinchak (44:19.75)
when it's packaged in this square thing. It's amazing.

Paul Povolni (44:20.302)
Heheheheh

Yeah, well, this is amazing. And, you know, we didn't, you mentioned it and I wish we had more time to even talk about, you know, from your, your millionaire secrets about the rich, like what makes people rich. I mean, it's even within those four things. And I want to repeat them again, relationships are everything. Inspire others with your actions, contribute and serve others and have a happy mindset. guys get that book, Millionaire Secrets, to get more of that. And I wish we had time to even, even go through all of that.

But, you as we wrap this up, you know, you've spoken, you know, 3000 times, 27 books. I know you got three more in the works. Like when it all comes down to it, you talked about legacy. What is, what is like the one thing you want people to say about James Melanchat?

James Malinchak (45:12.39)
great. I think I would love them to say, the guy was real. He didn't bullshit me. He gave me real stuff. And because of knowing him, my life is better. I think that would be a really good blessing.

Paul Povolni (45:25.518)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (45:28.878)
Yeah, man, that's amazing. Well, James, thank you so much for being on today. This has been awesome. I'd love to do it again, because I don't think we even covered a smidgen of what we could have talked about. And I just love your attitude, love your smile, love all the inspiration that you post and the impact you're making on people's lives, man. And is there any final thing you want to share before we wrap this up?

James Malinchak (45:35.556)
Yeah, let's do it again.

James Malinchak (45:49.894)
Yeah, you mentioned my book. If they want to get it, they can have it for free. It's millionarefreebook .com. They just cover, I think, eight bucks for shipping. It's a hardcover book, $25, and it'll be shipped out for free and they can get it there, just cover the shipping. But the last thing I would like to say is, well, first of all, thank you, brother, for having me on. You're helping me leave a legacy by sharing some information. I hope it helps your viewers and listeners. But I just want to tell everybody who's...

Paul Povolni (46:09.846)
That has been awesome.

Paul Povolni (46:14.312)
this is awesome.

James Malinchak (46:19.814)
tuning in this that you already want in life because you were born. I mean, think about it. We swam, we out swam hundreds of millions of sperm to make it to earth, right? To make it as a human being. So we all come into this world as winners. And then somewhere along the line, we listen to noise and we allow society and things to mold us into.

Paul Povolni (46:30.766)
Yeah, yeah.

James Malinchak (46:45.038)
believing we're not winners and that we can't do beautiful things and great things. And so what I'd like to just leave everybody with is to remind you that you already won because you're here. You're blessed because you flipped your eyelids open this morning because there are people all over the world that didn't have that honor and privilege to wake up today. And that you are a winner and you have greatness within you and you are special and you have specialness with inside of you. So focus on that.

when you're trying to do what you want to do in your life with your goals and your dreams and the impact you want to have, don't listen to all the garbage and the noise out there trying to derail you from that specialist.

Paul Povolni (47:25.774)
That's awesome, man. I appreciate that folks. If you have got anything out of today's podcast, just one head smack. I encourage you to put that into action. The worst thing you could do is listen to something, be blown away, write it down in a notebook and then not act on it. And that's what head smack is all about is take those aha moments, those slaps in the forehead where you go, that was brilliant. And then act on that and take action, whether you want to be a speaker or an author or whatever it is.

take action on that today. James, thank you so much for your time and appreciate you being on brother and have an amazing day.

James Malinchak (47:59.846)
Brother, you're the best. Thanks for having me. I appreciate you and what you're doing to impact people.