Hey, Pursuit with Purpose peeps! I am so excited to have you here for another episode. Now today, I’m joined by a very dear friend of mine, Sterling Griffin. We’re not related despite having the same last name, but we might as well be because this guy honestly feels like family to me. A year ago, Sterling was literally homeless; sleeping on couches and floors of friends for months at a time, as he tried to build his first business. Now he’s running a million dollar coaching business that’s growing at a rapid pace, but as you can probably guess, Sterling has gone up against a lot of obstacles to get to this level. In this interview, we’re talking about all of them, from being heavily bullied as a kid, to selling his most personal possession to pay his business coach. We also talk about some of the things Sterling has done to grow his business so quickly, none of which include paid ads, or having a big email list. Actually, last I checked, Sterling’s e-mail list was less than a thousand people. Sterling is a master of communication and storytelling, and his content creation framework that he shares in this interview will blow your freaking mind. Are you ready to meet one of my dearest friends and serious inspirations? Let’s do this!

Melyssa Griffin: Thank you, Sterling, for being here. I am so excited to interview you. You’ve become one of my closest friends over the past few months, and you’re just one of the most insightful, charismatic and awesome people that I know. So you’re going to have some amazing things to share. I know you have an amazing story. So let’s dive in!

Sterling Griffin: Let’s do this!

Melyssa Griffin: Alright, so I want to go back to your childhood and just growing up, because I know you have a really interesting story in that respect. Like I said, you are one of the most insightful people I know. You’re in your mid-twenties too. It’s not like you’ve had this long life of experiences, but it feels like it because you have this, just wisdom about you. On the surface, meeting you, it might seem like you’ve got it all together and that you’ve just been like this your whole life, but I know that these skills are things that you’ve developed over time. So I’m curious, could you share what those earlier years were like before the Sterling Griffin that we know now.

Sterling Griffin: Well thank you for all the praise man. I feel like I should be paying you to be saying these things on your podcast. I’ll say about my younger years, like I was the chronic under achiever. I was ever the person that people said he’s got potential, which potential within that context made me think like I’m not actually doing anything that is taking advantage of my skills, taking advantage of my natural gifts you might say. And so, because of that, I was the person that got on the football team but was always benched; didn’t make it on the field. I was the person that made it into the play when I tried theater, but wasn’t really on the stage all that much. I was the person that was in the gifted classes because my mom signed me up for those. She’s like you’re intelligent, you can do it. And then, I was getting average grades at best within those. I always had this mindset that I want to look good in front of other people, so I would like – I had this thing, I wore the nicest clothes to the football game. I had the nicest under armor. I had my name on my cleats. But there was no substance; I was style over substance in my life at that time.

Melyssa Griffin: Why do you think that was?

Sterling Griffin:  I think it was because I came from a background where my parents were divorced when I was two years old.

 

Melyssa Griffin: Same.

Sterling Griffin: You too?

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah.

Sterling Griffin: Wow. So I never quite felt like I had a home, I was fully accepted in my own environment. I was constantly trying to posture to gain acceptance, to gain love. By posturing, I mean like look good in front of other people, rather than actually connect wholeheartedly to them. I was always the guy – I remember thinking in middle school, I was always paying attention to how I was walking. So I wanted to walk really coo. I thought that that was how you gain love and acceptance, and you become friends with people as you look really cool. As much as I tried, that didn’t seem to work for me. I think that was a lot of why I didn’t have friends, I didn’t get good grades. I mean I just – I tell people we probably have a lot of friends, where they’re entrepreneurs, they’re doing super well now, they’re similar ages or a little bit older. They were the entrepreneurs as kids too. When they were seven, eight, nine years old, they were starting their lemonade stand or their business or whatever.

Melyssa Griffin: I was hustling Pokémon cards.

Sterling Griffin: Was that what you were doing?

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah. I would skip my lunch break and just do double recess so I could just hustle Pokémon cards all day.

Sterling Griffin: Damn. See I collected those, but I didn’t sell them. I wasn’t the entrepreneur that you were. I think that’s what I want to highlight, is for those people that are becoming entrepreneurs later in life – by later in life, I mean post-college and beyond. It’s like you don’t have to always be that way. I don’t think people are born entrepreneurs, or at least not all of them. I certainly wasn’t. This was something that I figured out that I wanted to do when I decided I want to help people on a bigger scale as an adult.

Melyssa Griffin: I’m always so intrigued by your story, because I feel like so many pieces of it near my own story, and maybe that’s why we’ve been able to connect so well. Yeah, the divorce early on, and then I’ve also had those experiences of just not fitting in as a kid and always trying to, which probably ostracized me even more. I’m curious, like how did those experiences of being bullied and having your parents divorce at such a young age and just never really feeling – I know you said you didn’t feel loveable for a long time. How did those experiences that were probably really hard growing up, how did they positively shape your life now? Is there something that came out of them that you’re appreciative of now?

Sterling Griffin: Yes. What I now learn at this stage of my life, is that out of my greatest challenges come my greatest triumphs, my greatest opportunities. And so, when I think about all the ways in which I had such deep pain in connecting, like I couldn’t connect and I felt like I was alone in the world. I felt like I was a loser all the time. It’s now from that place that I want to be the person that brings people together, that lifts people up. My greatest desire in life today is to help everyone experience the fulfillment, the joy of growth. Because I feel like when you’re growing, when you’re advancing toward something, and not just growing for the sake of growing, but growing so you have something to give, that that’s where fulfillment happens, that’s where happiness happens. And so, because I was the person that was ostracized and left alone, I feel like I can speak to the person that feels that way as an adult, feels that way later in life, middle aged, or whatever, and say “I know what it’s like”.

I think that one of the most important things when it comes to coaching powerfully – I come from a coaching background and I know that you do some coaching, and you have a lot of the ways that you communicate like a coach within your work. So you’ll understand this. Part of what makes coaching powerful, which is where you help someone create the life that they want, rather than the life that they inherit, or the life that they currently have, you help them advance. Part of what makes that happen quickly is you, as the coach, being able to relate to the client’s experiences. If you don’t relate to their experiences and you can’t speak to their experiences, to where they feel like you’re inside their head in a sense, then they can’t quite trust that your advice or that your advice moving forward can help them too. Whenever I hear someone that’s so much farther ahead than me or someone that’s doing great in business, or has a great relationship – it doesn’t have to be just business related, my immediate thought is oh it must be so great for you, until they can share an experience that says hey I was in a place where I was lonely once too, I was broke, I was in debt. It’s at that point that I think to myself, oh it’s possible for me too. I think that all the ways in which I have been a chronic underachiever helps me today in my work, because no matter where someone starts from, I feel like I can relate, I can connect to feeling like whatever I tried it didn’t work and now being able to make different areas of my life work, I can hopefully inspire someone else to have that same growth towards their dream too.

Melyssa Griffin: Right. Do you feel that those experiences guided you into what you’re doing now? Those experiences growing up, just building all of that empathy and being able to connect with people led you to becoming a coach like what you do now?

Sterling Griffin: Yeah, I totally think so. It’s a great question because people that are born successful, always successful, stay successful and continue to grow, those people typically aren’t the best coaches. Those people may be great at strategy, knowing what works, but it’s a different level of being able to help other people transform like from a low place to a high place, where you kind of have to come from that place of knowing what they’re going through, relating to their pain.

Melyssa Griffin: I agree.

Sterling Griffin: For me now, as someone whose passion is to empower other people into greatness, and particularly right now, I focus in business in that area for other coaches online, it’s the gift of my past that it wasn’t always easy.

Melyssa Griffin: Right. Yeah absolutely. I so agree with that. Now I’m curious – so if anybody has watched Sterling’s videos before, they are incredible. He’s the kind of guy that can take a cell phone, create a selfie video just walking through the mall, not caring that people are looking and just create these really charismatic, funny, insightful videos out of nowhere. So when you meet you, you feel like gosh, this guy is so confident, so charismatic, so loving. How did you go from being this more unconfident person – I didn’t know you then, but I know that you’ve talked about this, but more unconfident, not charismatic kind of person to the person that you are now. What created that shift or how did you do that?

Sterling Griffin: Great question. So this is the question of where does confidence come from. How does someone that doesn’t feel confident become confident? What I always say is some people think that confidence is some kind of mind game that you put on yourself and then you say these certain words or affirmations, and then you’re confident. To me, that’s not really how confidence works. Now that can get you to take certain actions, but confidence – and for those of you listening, those of you watching, write this down: confidence is a result not a requirement. So what does that mean? That means that you gain confidence through taking different actions, through getting a different result in your life. For example, I’m confident in my health right now, because I went through a process where I was not in good shape, like my body did not reflect that I cared for it, that I was attentive to it. And then I went through a transformation where I created the body that I’d always wanted, and so now, I’m confident in my body because I created a difference. If I was still this skinny, fat, like kind of amorphous blob type box that I used to have, then I wouldn’t be confident. I may think that yes, I can follow a plan, I can figure it out, but I didn’t really have any results to back that up until after I transformed.

I think that, for me, the first and most important step to gaining confidence was changing some area of my life that I felt that I had some level control over. After college – I’ll give you a specific story of my life. After college, I mean things got worse for me after college, because my parents helped pay for my college. So they paid for my expenses and stuff, but afterwards I didn’t know how to manage money. I didn’t know how to keep a full time job or anything like that. And so, all the money that I’d had, I basically turned it into squat over three or four months. I’ve never explained this story, actually this way publicly. This is kind of hard for me to share it this way, like be vulnerable in this way, but I’m just going to do it anyway. I took that money and it just poofed into thin air. I did some traveling. I did some hanging out. Basically, I just didn’t work and I didn’t feel like working. I moved back in with my parents after five months out of school. I just had this phase where I couldn’t figure out what my purpose was, I couldn’t figure out how to change my life. And so, I felt like all I wanted to do was lie on the floor every day and read books, and watch TV, and do nothing. For several months I did this, towards the end of 2013. I remember one day I was lying on my back, reading this book and just eating potato chips, like wondering what it’s going to take for me to change. I remember looking down – I was shirtless, I remember looking down, seeing my body and thinking, and then it hit me.

I stood up. I walked into my bathroom, looked in the mirror and I pointed at myself in the mirror, I said, “The state of your body is the state of your life.” I was talking to myself. If you want to transform your life, you must transform the thing over which you have ultimate control, which is your body. If you think about it, our businesses, our relationships, or whatever our commitments are in our life, all our reflection, typically of not just our own personal control, but other people’s interaction you control too. Our body is the only area of our life over which it’s just us, it’s just our own influence. And so, I remember thinking to myself, if I can get control here, over this and create the result that I’ve always wanted, then that’s going to give me confidence that I can use to transform everything else. I can then get the great job, maybe build a business – I had no idea that I would be an entrepreneur at that time, maybe just create some money and said I had some money in the bank account, like anything, or create a great relationship. It started with just that. It was I’m going to do this first. And so, over the next thirty days after that, or I spent about a month just kind like figuring out what I was going to do. I found a coach that I was going to hire. And then, over the next thirty days after I did that, I gained fifteen pounds of muscle while losing body fat. It was a radical transformation. Over the next seven months, I continued to lose body fat until I created the body that I had really always wanted. So it was an eight month transformation. It’s on my Facebook and I posted a couple different places. People can see it.

It was really from that experience, transforming my body, like finally committing to one thing and deciding that no matter what, I was going to transform. That’s what gave me confidence. I’ve used that same confidence, that same experience coming into business. I mean even though, like my first year, year and a half in business, I was basically broke the entire time, I still had confidence that it would work out. That’s why I didn’t quit. It’s because I’ve done that same thing with my body. I thought I can do this with my business, I just need more time, I just need more mentors, and eventually it did work out. For the person that’s out there and they’re asking how can I get more confidence, how can I get more of that, like do whatever it takes mentality, you’ve got to find an area of your life over which you’ve not held a high standard for yourself. With that being said, I’m going to get that no matter what it takes. I find that oftentimes, the body and your health is the easiest thing to switch to because you’re the only person influencing that, you’re the only person. If you can get control there, then that shows that if you can get control here, then you can bring that same level of mastery to other areas too.

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah, it’s like this domino; you knock over one and it starts this chain reaction with everything.

Sterling Griffin: Exactly, which is why I love working with fitness coaches. So primarily, my business helps online fitness coaches, personal trainers grow their businesses to six figures within the next ninety days. The reason why I love working with fitness coaches – not to say nothing of people in other industries, but for whatever reason, those people just have that discipline, they have that stick-to-it-ness attitude. Just because they have that same attitude with their body, and then they can just bring that to business. That’s why I can see them grow to six figure earning in nine days. As long as they have the right system and the right community supporting them, it’s basically inevitable. It’s because they have that action taking mentality.

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah. I love your – just that idea that confidence is a result. I’ve always told people who’ve asked me, I know a lot of people listening, confidence is one of the biggest issues that they have, just in terms of growing their business or their life in different areas. I always tell them you gain confidence by taking action. It’s the only way. You can’t gain confidence if you just sit there and hope that it falls upon you. I love that reframe that it’s a result, a result of taking some sort of action. Now for anyone listening who is thinking like that sounds like a great strategy, I’d love to work on my body more, I’d love to have more control over this area of my life and see that domino effect. I just feel tired or lazy, or I don’t want to do it. How do you get that momentum going or that inertia that pushes everything else? How do you get started?

Sterling Griffin: I feel like one of the greatest ways in which you can get started towards any new transformative goal is to – write this down, everyone listening, write this down: is to create public accountability. When I decided that I was going to transfer my body, guess what? I had decided some version of that before. That was not the first time that I decided oh I’m going to transform my body. I had made many attempts while in college. I was like oh I’m going to go to the gym, but it never lasted more than four to six weeks. The reason why is because it was always an inner commitment that I was making, not an outer one. A lot of people say that the most important person to have this conversation with is yourself, and I agree only to an extent. It’s not enough. Public accountability is where if you fail, if you back off, you actually have something to lose. Your reputation stands to lose something. As long as it’s just something where oh, I’m going to get started and I’m going to go to the gym, and then we are the people – we let ourselves off way too easy. If we make it public, then we’ve got someone who’s going to be like, “Hey, did you do it?”

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah, and every time you see somebody, they’re going to be like hey, how’s it going with your fitness or anything like that.

Sterling Griffin: Exactly. So I did this on two fronts and I recommend that other people do this on two fronts too. Make it public; I did it through Facebook. As soon as I decided I was going to do it, I wrote a post like “Hey, I’ve made a decision. I’m going to do this. Hold me accountable anyone that wants to. Just so you know, this is going to happen, watch it happen.” It was like people were woken up, they were inspired. They were like great I’m on board for that. But then also, I hired a coach, because the coach is the person who’s not just going to provide the strategy for me which is important so that I know what to do when, but also the person that’s going to be calling me personally on a consistent basis that I’m paying for that purpose. Did you do it? I’m sure that you have experienced this too Melyssa at some level, or probably at a great level. That if I want a different result in an area of my life and I want it quickly, got to get a coach. I’ve got to get someone, a teacher, a mentor, somebody that is accountable to me, that’s going to push me forward.

Melyssa Griffin: Absolutely, yeah. I think that’s why I’m part of three masterminds right now because I need that accountability too. Without it, it’s just like you said, it’s that inner commitment. The sad thing is that we probably keep commitments to ourselves less than we keep them to other people, and maybe that will change in the future, who knows. I 100% agree, just having that accountability to someone else. I love that public declaration that you made, just telling everybody that you were doing this thing. I think with those two things, it’s impossible to fail.

Sterling Griffin: It is because if you think about what drives human behavior, there are essentially only two forces that drive human behavior. I’m sure you know this. They are pleasure and pain. Typically, the greater motivator of the two, particularly in the short term is the fear of loss, or the fear of pain. People move away from what causes them pain. And so, by making yourself a public declaration, what you’re doing is you are so driven to stay on the course towards making the transformation happen, because the fear of loss of relationship, loss of face, is what drives you to stay on track. No, I got to go to the gym today because I said that I was going to make this transformation, I was going to lose this weight, I was going to whatever, and I don’t want to let those people down. I don’t want to seem like I’m actually not committed when I said that I am. So that’s what you’re doing. You’re actually providing yourself a positive frame around fear of loss, rather than like getting yourself an out. When you haven’t told anyone, then there’s really no pain that you can experience by not going to the gym that day. In fact, it’s going to be more painful to go to the gym than it is to not go to the gym in that particular moment. If you have the public accountability, if you have the coach on your side, then that’s what reframes and allows you to continue on course.

Melyssa Griffin: That is so true. That’s such a great point. One thing we didn’t talk about yet was that not that long ago, you were actually homeless for few months. I kind of want to shift gears a little bit here and talk about that experience, because meeting you now, again people probably would never guess that you had that experience. So I’m curious, how did you become homeless in the first place? How did that story start?

Sterling Griffin: Well the truth is – the simplest answer is that I was just not that good at making money and I was still pretty good with spending it.

Melyssa Griffin: Which should hopefully feel good to people listening because you’re now a seven figure business owner. So anybody who’s like my business is not growing, maybe I’m not cut out for this, listen to this guy.

Sterling Griffin: Yeah. A year and a half ago, I was homeless, just so you know how fast it can happen, how fast it can transform. I was a door to door salesman two years ago. I was selling solar panels door to door. Now the thing about door to door sales is that if you’re not emotionally like really strong, then it will just beat you up. It’s not because people are mean or people are rude or whatever, it’s just because most people just – like they have a fear of sales and they’re just not interested in your service. It’s not that they don’t like you, but oftentimes, that’s the way the door to door salespeople interpret it. And so, it can be very battering emotionally. So for me, I was particularly emotionally sensitive, probably from a lot of this time as a kid, where I wasn’t accepted by people, that was affecting me. And so, many days of being a door to door salesman, I had no other job, I just wouldn’t go outside. I just wouldn’t go out, and even when I did, I was always trying things that didn’t work. It got so bad to where I was so unwilling to take a job. I was so focused on making a business work that I finished my lease at an old apartment complex, where my lease payment was $300 a month. I couldn’t even stay inside of that place, like I just didn’t have the money to afford it. I couldn’t stay on. And so, I moved out. I was just going from couch to couch, and sometimes sleeping in my car. Thankfully I had some friends that would let me sleep on their floor. At one point, I was sleeping on the floor of my mom’s friend’s house for about a month and a half because there was just nowhere else to stay, nothing else to do you.

That time of being homeless, in some ways, it was a good thing for me because it demonstrated my own commitment to making entrepreneurship in some way work. It wasn’t like the way in which I wanted it to happen, but there was always – I could have become an Uber or Lyft driver at that time. I had a car at that time but I just was unwilling to do that. I was so focused on my dream. One of the things that made the difference is just a couple months into being homeless, I realized that fitness coaching was a real thing that people did. I had a friend who was an online fitness coach. I had never trained people online. I had never had a certification. However, I had had a lot of people ask me, “Well how did you transform your body so fast? How did you do that? Could you teach me? Could you show me?” I showed a few people. I showed them plans and ideas and stuff, but I found a lot of people weren’t committing when they weren’t paying. It’s just something about that. They just were like cool, thanks so much, and then they go back and do whatever the f**k they were doing before. What I realized is that my friend was doing it, where he was making four, six grand a month, working remotely. I was like, “Do you have a certificate?” He was like no. I’m like how did you do this. “I made posts on Facebook and then people get on the phone with me, and then they buy.” I was like I could do that. I could figure that out.

When I was still homeless, I remember I actually had just recently had an ACL surgery. ACL is like your right knew for people that don’t know – it could be right or left knee, it was my right knee. I had the surgery and I couldn’t go out and knock doors anymore during that time, and I was super broke. I didn’t have enough money to eat, probably three days from then, I wouldn’t have had enough money to eat. I was like sleeping on the watching my knee go up and down all day in this little machine. Thankfully, I had insurance that paid for the surgery. And so, I was thinking myself, I got to make some money. How the heck am I going to do that? Well you know what, I might as well launch my fitness coaching program. I wrote this post and I said, “Hey, I’m taking four new applicants in my body transformation program. If you’d like to apply for my program, you can comment below. I’ll see if you’re a good fit.” I posted a picture of my transformation picture, which I mentioned earlier. A few people applied and the next day, I closed a package for a $1000. Someone sent me a $1000. I had no website. I had no plans created. I had no business, let alone business cards. I had nothing, except an idea, but someone sent me the money. It was in that moment that I realized that holy crap, there’s so much more possible online. Any of us have the ability to make money from nothing, from just what is in our head in this moment, as long as we know how to offer and sell and influence someone.

So over the next three months, I was still struggling with this, trying to figure out how to do this, how to grow this business. I was making like a $1000 a month, because I wasn’t getting that many clients, I didn’t know how to do it. It was at the time – I’m sharing this part of the story because this is where the turning point happened. There’s a couple turning points I want to mention. For those of you out there right now that – I know there’s a lot of people building their business online, you’re asking at what point am I going to turn the corner, at what point can I make the shift upwards. For me, while I was still homeless I made this shift. I found out a friend of mine was a business coach for online fitness coaches, which I was an online fitness coach. I thought whatever it takes, I got to hire this guy, because here I am as a fitness coach and I’m asking people to hire me, but at that time wasn’t being a coach myself. I was completely out of integrity because if I’m asking someone else to hire me and I’m not hiring someone else, I’m not being the example that I’m asking them to follow. Does that make sense?

Melyssa Griffin: Oh absolutely.

Sterling Griffin: And so, I decided I’m going to do whatever it takes to hire this guy. Luckily, my last payment from my solar sales business was coming in, because the way it works is you get paid upfront and then you get paid most of it once the solar panels are actually installed on a home. So I took that commission and I invested it all in a coach. I borrowed money from my dad which he helped me pay for. I invested into the first payment as coach. When I went from, in February of 2015, to making probably $1500 that month total to the next month making $4000. Just taking those strategies, taking those systems, implementing it, finally knowing what the freak to do to actually makes money online and help people at a bigger scale.

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah. That was in, you said March 2015?

Sterling Griffin: That was in March 2015 that I made $4000. This was without an email list. This was without a website still. This is with 2000 friends on my Facebook following and I had a few thousand on Instagram as well. That’s where I was pulling these clients from, each of them paying me between $1000, $1500. So at the end of that month, and I’m getting at something very important, now at the end of that month, I’d paid off some debts, but I had another payment upcoming to my business coach. And so, I remember I had this choice, I had this clear choice; I can either – I had no more room on credit cards, nothing. I had not enough money in the bank to pay for it. The only asset I had left was my car. That was it. It was the only thing I could leverage. I had asked everyone else I could for money, nothing, but I had my car. I remember asking myself what does a car represent. Melyssa, what does a car represent?

Melyssa Griffin: Gosh, like this idea of independence, home.

Sterling Griffin: Independence, totally, freedom. Being able to get around, a car does. Now a home is like something, it represents like security more to me. Anyway, a home represented freedom. I remember thinking to myself, I can either keep what is the illusion of freedom which is a car or I can invest it and I can get what is true freedom, which is the ability to create income on demand. That is true freedom. Can you guess what I did?

Melyssa Griffin: I think I know. Spoiler alert.

Sterling Griffin: Spoiler alert. I sold the car and I took the money and I gave it to my coach.

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah. What was that experience like? Was there a lot of fear around selling your car? What kind of car did you have? I feel like was a kind of…

Sterling Griffin: It was a Honda Accord, 2010 Honda Accord.

Melyssa Griffin: Okay. So you sold your car? Did you have fear around that decision?

Sterling Griffin: It’s such a great question. The truth is I didn’t. It was the most obvious choice in the world. It was like well no duh, I should sell my car to have a coach, because a lot of people think I could never sell my car, I need it for work. Here’s the thing, in that particular example, as long as you have the car, you always have an out. You always have like your – the security blanket of your job in this particular example, which can keep you stuck. Oftentimes, the things that keep us safe, keep us stuck. And in that moment, I was like I’m letting go of that because I want to give myself no other solution than to make this business work at the highest possible level.

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah, I love that. I feel like you and your story are such a testament to the fact that you always have the choice to progress. There’s always a decision to either progress or to stay stagnant. And so many people don’t want to make those sacrifices to sell their car to get money to pay for a coach, or to wake up at 5 AM before work to work on their business because they might be tired, or to do any of these different things that can help them get to where they want to be, but are painful. Like you said, they’re painful experiences or they’re difficult or fear based in some way. I love your story because of just how resourceful you are and the fact that nothing would stop you, and no amount of sacrifice was going to stand in your way. Now look at what you’ve been able to create. So March 2015, you sell your car. The next month, you work with this coach again. You pay for him with your car money. How do the next couple months go from there?

Sterling Griffin: So the next month in April, I made $12,000. So I tripled my income. It was because I just had this like intense fire. No doubt, I continued to get great strategy from that coach, but I think that people’s income is more a reflection of how helpful they are being than what strategies they have available. How focused and intent are they on being of service continually? For me, I was so intent on being of service, like I had no other thing that I could possibly be doing, because before, the car I still had to do some like solar or door to door kind of stuff. It was like a clean break, no more of that because I can’t – I mean I’m not going to pay for Ubers that’s way too freaking expensive. So I made $12,000, and my income stayed in that 12-15 K range for the next four months. People were asking me like, “You are four months into being an online fitness coach and you’re making multiple six figures. How the heck are you doing this?” Multiple six figure earning which is roughly around 16.6 thousand dollars per month. I was in that range. People started asking me well how the heck did you do it. I realized that at first I didn’t want to share any of it. I didn’t want to share any of the stuff that I was doing. So I was like no it’s working for me, like I want to just…

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah, it’s almost that lack mentality.

Sterling Griffin: Scarcity mentality, yeah. If I share this, then there won’t be enough to go around for me. Instead I started the shift and I realized well actually, the way that I can create more impact in the world is by empowering other fitness coaches. I can empower other people with the same business strategies that I’ve been using to become successful. If I can make more fitness coaches successful, then I’m enabling more transformation in the world. And so at that point, it became an obvious choice. I want to switch and I’m going to become the best freaking business coach for online fitness coaches to launch and scale their business to six figures, but without the traditional means which we know of, which is those e-mail marketing, paid advertising, the website stuff, all of that.

 

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah, which is incredible. I feel like that’s how a lot of business coaches started, because I started as a web designer. I was doing that for a couple years, turned it into a six figure business as well. As I was doing that, I was getting all these questions from people, not about web design, but about how did you grow this freelance business so quickly. I come from a teaching background, it just felt so natural to be like here’s everything I know, because when you see other people trying to grow their business and you feel like you’ve got the thing that can help them, it’s feels so good to be able to give that to other people. We kind of ventured into this realm for a similar reason. You kind of touched on this just now, but you’ve built a multi-six figure, now seven figure business without using a lot of things that people say are really important for business, like paid advertising or a big email list. You don’t really even have a platform where you create content, aside from your Facebook profile and your Instagram account. It doesn’t have a lot of these things that other people might say you have to have. So how do you do it? How do you create such a big profitable, thriving business without paid ads or a big email list?

Sterling Griffin: That’s a great question. The easiest answer is that I offer products which are more expensive than other people sell. So that’s what…

Melyssa Griffin: Can you give us like a price range?

Sterling Griffin: Yeah. So when I started, I was offering products – as a fitness coach, my product offerings were from $1000-$5000. As I was doing fitness coaching, what a lot of people either offer for free or hard bucks, 50 bucks, whatever, and I was packaging some version of that, making it better, but some version of like here is how to get a transformation for up to $5000.

Melyssa Griffin: I have a quick question about that. I know a lot of people listening are probably underpricing themselves and just thinking like I could never price something for $5000, I’m not worth it or nobody’s going to buy it. How did you, from this person who is homeless at the time and didn’t have a certification or whatever, how did you just jump into charging $1000, $5000 for these packages.

Sterling Griffin: Yeah, so it’s a great question. The thing about price is that most people associate price with being primarily and exclusively, a marker of how valuable their service is. More specifically, how much credibility they personally feel they have. So they feel that if I’m to charge more, then I have to feel more credible within myself, I have to have this unspecified line of awards and results that makes a person super expensive. That’s what I need before I can charge more. Here’s the thing, what I’ve learned is that price, it is a marker of how valuable your service is, but much more, it’s a marker that it’s what creates commitment from your clients. So if you’re offering a lower priced product, typically, you’re going to experience a lower commitment from your clients. If I offered a thing that was a million dollars, it’s going to have a very few number of people that can afford a million dollar offering, whatever it may be, service coaching or house –very few people. The people that are able to afford that, they’re going to be super committed to following through, getting the most out of that offering. Whereas, if I offer a ten dollar offering, I’m going to have a much larger market, much larger number of people that are able to purchase it, but I’m going to have much lower percentage of commitment from the people that are involved.

Now prices, the commitment that price creates is relative. I’m not going to get too fancy with this. For some people, paying $100 creates a huge commitment from them. Other people paying $10,000 doesn’t create that much commitment from them. For me, I was asking myself who are the people that I most want to work with, people that just excite me, knew that I could have so much fun coaching and helping, and serving powerfully. Those were high achieving entrepreneurs. I wanted to work with high achieving male entrepreneurs, people that had built successful tech companies as an example, in their early thirties, but in the process of building their wealth and forgotten their health. I wanted to work with those people, but I knew that if I was going to create commitment from those types of people towards my services, I couldn’t offer them the $100 or $50 e-book because they literally wouldn’t even show up for the call. Instead I needed to create some level of pain through what they paid up front that has them saying to themselves in the back of their mind, “Oh crap, I spent all this money on this coach. I need to actually show up and do something.”

Now to be able to offer a product that’s that much more expensive, you have to become a little bit – you have to master influence to a much greater level, because any schmo can sell a $10 product. To truly offer a high ticket offering, you have to know psychology and have a powerful selling process. And so, that’s what I devoted the most of my time to learning, is how do I influence people powerfully and not take advantage of them, just the opposite, to be of the greatest possible service to them. When you work with high paying clients and you’re really a master, like how to know what their fears, their pains, their goals are, then you can offer them a much more expensive offering. When you’re offering a much more expensive offering, you don’t have to sell that many people to be making multiple six figures or six figures. It’s just a few clients you need on a consistent basis. So that’s why I had 3000 people that knew about me and I was making multiple six figures because I’ve seen a couple new clients a month.

Melyssa Griffin: Right, yeah. I love that, just kind of example you gave about it being about value. You want to attract people that want something of value, that are going to be committed. I think people assume if I price it lower, then more people will buy it. It’s kind of like this example of if you’re trying to buy a car and you go to a used car shop. You have this idea of the car that you want and there’s two cars, and they’re the exact same car on the outside. The guy tells you they’re exactly the same, same years, running the same. One car is 20K and the other car is 5K. In your head, you’re probably like well this one’s a lot cheaper, but what the heck is wrong with it, because it’s so cheap. People are thinking that about your services if you’re underpricing yourself. So you can raise your prices and attract a higher quality of persons, and you’re not creating that mistrust in the beginning, where people are like what’s wrong with this person’s services, like there must be something up with them for it to be so cheap.

Sterling Griffin: This is so brilliant. I love that you brought this up. You see, price is not just a marker of value. When prices lower, there’s more distrust associated with the offering. And so, I keep my prices higher because first of all, I want to send away the uncommitted. I don’t even want to work with the people who are committed at a lower price range, at a lower commitment. I don’t want to work with them. There are plenty of people that offer cheaper serves than me. Please go buy it from them. Hopefully that gets you some measure of results. My products are more expensive. It’s because I want to work with people that are at a higher commitment level. At the same time, what I’ve found is that buying the cheap thing often costs more through time. Think about this, buying the cheap thing costs more through time. Here’s why. If you buy the 5K car, there probably is something wrong with it. There’s probably some mechanical issues that are happening that are not being spoken of, that are going to cause you not only the time and work of the mechanics to replace thousands of dollars in the short term, but also think about what is your frustration worth, what is your time that you’re investing and all of this that you’re going to lose from being able to just focus on your work or focus on other things, folks in your family. What is that worth to you?

You see a lot of people buy the cheap thing, realize that it’s not going to get them the result that they want, and then they buy the expensive thing anyway, because it actually will get them the result they want. I mean think about it, like for me for example, I bought so many courses. I know that you sell courses and they’re fantastic quality, of much different quality than a lot of courses that I’ve personally purchased. I’ve bought so many courses and they have collected pixel dust on my digital shelf, because I just haven’t been committed in purchasing that book and how many books too. My gosh, so many books I bought that I wasn’t committed because it was too low of a price, but I buy a $5000 or $10,000 or $25,000 coaching program, holy crap, I’m going to get my money’s worth on that and I’m going to get tremendous value from that exchange, which I just wouldn’t get at the lower price offering.

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah, absolutely. I 100% agree. Now I feel like one of the reasons that you’ve become so successful – obviously we can see that you’re confident, you have this belief in yourself and in your business which is huge, but you’ve used organic story based marketing to share your message and your insights with your audience. You’re just incredible at creating written posts and videos that impact people in a certain way. So I’m curious, do you have any tips or advice for business owners who want to incorporate more story based, authentic marketing in their message?

Sterling Griffin: Yes, great question. Here’s the thing, I think that the best marketers are storytellers and great marketing is great storytelling. That’s what it is. And so, for those of you that are like I really want to make more money, then get better at storytelling, particularly in a marketing driven fashion. Not just telling stories for the sake of telling stories and keeping people entertained, but for a specific business purpose. Now what does this mean? When you create a story, when you really think about how do I market my services, how do I offer my thing to where, whether it’s on Facebook written post, certain Instagram post, that’s going to attract your ideal clients. Well the way that you do that is you first identify who is the ideal client, who is it, telling about where they live, how much money they make, how old are they, what’s their family situation, what are they doing for work. Specifically, here is where it gets gold. Are you ready for the gold, Melyssa?

Melyssa Griffin: I’m so ready.

Sterling Griffin: Okay. So to know your ideal client at the highest level, you must know three things. Those three things are the fears, the pains, and the goals of that client. What are those? Very specifically, very simply, the fears are the anticipated negative reality of your client if they do not change. What’s going to happen in their future for this client if they never change? For example, if the client doesn’t lose weight, what does that mean for their future? Well maybe their spouse leaves, maybe they are embarrassed when they go on that work vacation and they’re at the beach, and they take their shirt off. What’s the anticipated negative reality if they don’t change? What are their pains? So the pain is what’s the current negative reality that they’re experiencing in their life right now. What is it like to have low energy if they’re overweight? What’s it like to not feel like they can fit into the clothes that they want to fit into today? How embarrassing is that? And so on. What is it like to not be the example to their kids that they want to be? Another thing is their goals. What’s the anticipated future reality if they do change? What is it they really want? They want to lose that weight. They want to feel super confident in their body again. They want to have that energy come back to them. They want to be the example to their children they’ve always wanted to be. So that’s the fears, pains, and the goals.

When you identify these three things for the person that you most want to sell to, then you can create a story that encapsulates all three. Particularly, you can create a personal story that encapsulates all three. One of the things that I teach my clients as online fitness coaches to create first if they’re going to launch their services at high ticket level, is they need to be able to clearly communicate their transformation story. Now this is a story of how they personally transform their body when they were overweight, underweight, when they were unconfident and their unfocused, undisciplined, to now, where they experience the joy of being in their ideal body. The passion, the happiness to fulfillment that comes from living in the body they’ve always wanted. And then, sharing the journey, the struggles and the lessons they’ve learned along the way to that point. They want to share, like at the low point of the story which is the climax – there’s five parts to any powerful story. Let me backup, take a deep breath. Everyone listening, you’re like holy crap, so much.

Melyssa Griffin: This is awesome. I love this framework…

Sterling Griffin: Is this helpful?

Melyssa Griffin: It’s really helpful. Yeah, I’m like taking mental notes right now so that I can do this myself too.

Sterling Griffin: Okay, awesome. Yeah, storytelling is like, anytime you’ve read a story like “The Lord of The Rings” or any of these Marvel movies, they all follow roughly the same framework, which is there is a setting, there is a plot or the conflict that initiates, there’s the climax, there’s the falling action or the lessons that the hero learns, and then there’s a resolution where everything is right again. If you can follow this framework within the telling of your own transformation story, you’ll find so many people saying “wow, me too”, because at the climax of the story, which is your low point, which is where like within the story of – let’s talk about the context of a fitness transformation story. It’s the part where you are your lowest point. You felt like super major loser. You were the heaviest you’d ever been, or most disconnected from your body you had ever been, or whatever. It’s in that moment that you want to share the pains that you no longer experience, but that your ideal client currently experiences. When you can share from a past angle, like I used to experience this and it’s what your ideal client is experiencing now, in that moment they feel super connected, they relate to you. They feel like you’re the same. If your story telling is just like, “yo, I decided to get fit and then I did; that was so freaking awesome”, then they may be impressed by you, but they’re not going to connect to you.

Melyssa Griffin: I love that distinction. I think that is so important. I know when I started my business, just a slight tangent here, I always felt like I needed to impress people just to connect with them. I would go to a conference and talk about my business growth and all the things that I thought people wanted to hear, and then I’d leave the conference realizing that I didn’t leave with any deep connections to anything. I might have gotten a pocketful of business cards, but I didn’t even remember who they were and I didn’t feel that connection, because I was too focused on impressing people than actually connecting with them. Now it’s like I go to a conference and I don’t even want to talk my business, not because I’m ashamed or anything like that, it’s that I’m more focused on deep connection with people than trying to impress anyone. From there, it’s just spawned so many friendships and opportunities more than trying to impress anyone has.

Sterling Griffin: Yes, and you are so good at that. I mean I remember thinking to myself like what does she even do. We’re talking about your business and I’m like oh wow, she’s like a beast, seven figure business owner, crushing it, because you’re just so authentic and so good at relating to whatever I was sharing. You were like oh I’m so with that, like here’s some experience that connects me. This is so important in marketing. Most people are – they think that good marketing is just like showing all your certifications and accomplishments, but that isn’t true. Great marketing is hey I get where you’re at, I know what it’s like and I know what it’s like to be on the other side. So the climax is that point of your lowest point, they super connect, your ideal clients’ current reality is your past. Particularly, if you don’t have the exact same physical conditions that your ideal client is currently experiencing, then you just focus on the emotions. The emotions are what are common to all people; I was frustrated, I was confused, I was overwhelmed, I was insecure – saying those things, it’s like instant connection to people because they’re like I totally get it.

Melyssa Griffin: I love the phrase that you used a second ago, where you said “me too”. I feel like the bottom line of creating community is how can you create more “me too” moments for your audience.

Sterling Griffin: That is so good.

Melyssa Griffin: You said it my friend.

Sterling Griffin: Yes, more “me too”, I know what it’s like – those words are so powerful in marketing. And then, showing the journey of like now at the resolution, like as a picture within storytelling, the resolution is what you currently experience. It’s the life that you now enjoy at the highest level, but it’s also, if you phrase it right, it’s also exactly your ideal client’s dream. It’s their goal; now I feel fulfilled, now I feel confident in my body again, now I feel secure, I feel under control in it for the first time, and I feel like that’s a foundation for the rest of my life. Those are the emotions particularly, like most often that people that are currently overweight, they want to experience and they don’t experience it right now. So if you can point and share those emotions as what you now have that your ideal client wants, that is going to set you up to be the authority that they want to learn from. Great storytelling accomplishes two things. It connects you and it positions you. It connects you, they know that you get what it’s like and then it shows that you’re a master of the universe in this area. They will do whatever it takes to learn from you.

Melyssa Griffin: Wow, yeah I love that. That is such a great framework. We’re definitely going to put that in the notes for this episode too, because it’s so helpful in terms of marketing yourself in an authentic way. It’s just about storytelling and attracting people who have those “me too” moments with you. I kind of want to wrap things up with talking a little bit about purpose, because you have just this great mindset about how to find your purpose and vision in life. This podcast is called “Pursuit with Purpose”. This is something that I’m very interested in talking about with people too. So for anyone listening who feels like they just don’t know what their purpose in life is or they don’t have a clear vision for the future, what advice would you give them?

Sterling Griffin: Awesome. So thanks for the question. I’m so glad that we’re talking about this because I feel like so few – like purpose is this big cloudy topic, and people don’t really know what do I focus on to know my purposes. It kind of like hit me like a truck, like how does this happen. Well purpose, first of all, it’s ever evolving. So everyone needs to know about purpose, there’s no one moment that you’re just going to have this epiphany, it’s going to be written in the clouds, and for the rest of your life you know it perfectly, it doesn’t change. Now purpose for me is actually evolving in the sense that it was one thing and now it’s expanded. It was one thing and now it’s shifted to give a little bit of tangential moment in my life and focus on this now. Purpose is ever evolving. The way in which any given moment that I want to ask myself what’s my purpose today – I think that my purpose for a lifetime is kind of like a little bit more hard to grasp, but I can know what my purpose is today, this month, maybe this year.

Here’s what I think about when I think about purpose. I create a framework for everything so it’s simple. There’s three things if you want to know your purpose that you can focus on and bring attention to, and you’ll have a much more clearer picture of what to do. I think of first of all, what do I love to do, because with purpose, most people think about what’s going to make the most meaning. That is important, but I’ve learned this, that if it’s not fun, it’s not sustainable. I must be doing that which I love, that which excites me and fulfills me on a continual basis, because if I can’t do something that’s fun, then I’m not going to stick with it. I’m going to find something else to do. In our minds, we’re motivated, again, by pleasure and pain. If an action that we’re continually taking is not pleasurable, we cannot sustain it. It cannot become habitual. We must find pleasure for an activity. Anything that is your purpose, I have good news for you, fun is number one. Think about what do I love to do. For example, for me, I love communicating. I love teaching people. I love sharing from my own experience, from my own problems, pains, issues, what I’ve learned to create solutions. I love helping empower other people to create solutions. Some other people may love building things. They love literally building things with their hands. I don’t understand that. I’m literally inept when it comes to work with my hands. If anything, it takes me like three times as long as anybody else to get things done…

Melyssa Griffin: …like Ikea furniture is just out of the question at this point.

Sterling Griffin: Yeah. No, they can’t have it. Some people love that. You got to think about what is fun in my daily life that I could find myself doing on a continual basis. The second part of purpose which I found is super important is what am I really good at that adds value to others. So it’s kind of like the talent. You think about what are you naturally gifted at. The thing about gifts is that we didn’t create them from ourselves. Everyone has gifts. Everyone has something that they’re great at, something that is naturally – it feels effortless, easy to them that other people look at them and say. “How the heck do you do that? How do you make that look so easy? Everybody has a natural talent or gift that they can use in service to others. So what is your gift? The person that’s looking for their purpose, what is your natural gift? What do other – and here’s a quick way to figure that out, is what do people look at you and they say, “Wow how do you do that? How do you make that look so easy?”, or you find multiple people from different walks of life will acknowledge you for it. Those are typically things that are aligned with your gift. Now the thing that they acknowledge you for, may not be the gift itself, but it will be pointing to the gift. It will represent the gift in some way. Particularly, if you find multiple people that knowledge you in different things, eventually you can find what’s behind all that, what’s the true talent or gift that can add value to other people’s lives. So what’s fun, what’s your talent. And then finally, think about this. When it comes to purpose, what is the change that you want to see in the world?

Melyssa Griffin: I love that question.

Sterling Griffin: What is the change that if you could wave a magic and the world would be different, it would be better in some way? In what way would you have it be better? In what way would you want it to look if it was in its ideal state? That’s what I call the question of impact. What is the impact that you would love to see in the world if you could have anything at all? Then you take those three things, you take those three pieces and if you can bring them all into one circle, then at the center of that circle, the center of that circle is your purpose; what’s fun for you to do, what are you really good at that adds value, and then number three, what’s the change that you want to see in the world. If you can use your gifts and you can use them in a fun way for you and it helps other people, it makes a real difference in somebody else’s life, then that is your purpose. I’m not saying that it can never change because oftentimes, we’re discovering new gifts as we go along in life and we’re discovering new passions, things that are fun for us. In this moment, that’s often what I find is the easiest way to know and move towards your purpose.

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah. I love that distinction you made too, where it’s like you don’t have to know what you want to do for the rest of your life, because I think we get caught in this headspace, where we’re like I don’t know what I want to do forever. We’re expected to pick a major in college by the age of 18 and a career by the age of 22 if we go on that path. It’s very freeing to know that you don’t have to have all the answers right now and you can, and probably will change over time as well. I love that.

Sterling Griffin: I mean just think about you, Melyssa, like you a couple years ago, you were just doing business empowerment for people; business coaching, teaching, leading. Your purpose, you’ve now seen expand into wanting to help people on a bigger scale and personal development, helping people breakthrough their living beliefs and so many other areas. Your purpose has expanded. You might not have been able to see this, but you might not have seen the whole picture like you do today, three years ago. It’s evolving.

Melyssa Griffin: Right. It’s interesting too, looking back at the organizations I led in college, or the initial focus of my first blog which is about personal development. There’s hints throughout your life, where you feel like you look back and you’re like yeah it makes so much sense why I’m doing this now. We have to go through these little waves of not necessarily knowing what that purpose is, even if we are living it in the moment, and then maybe we’ll kind of come back to it at some point in our life. I love that idea. It’s just kind of this ebb and flow. You will find things and it might change, and that’s okay. That’s just how it works, how you learn. So I have one last question for you that I like to ask everyone that I interview. What do you feel like entrepreneurs or humans in general can do to live more meaningful and fulfilled lives?

Sterling Griffin: That’s a great question. Live a more meaningful and fulfilled life. I think the simplest answer that I found is true for me, I can’t tell everyone what else they need to do to have the most fulfilled life, but I’ve certainly found for me, what makes me most fulfilled is growth and reflection. Growth and gratitude you might say. I have to always feel that I’m moving toward something which expands me, which empowers me, and which in the end will become a gift to others. If I don’t feel that I’m expanding, if I don’t feel that I’m either making more money which I can use for a purpose or I don’t feel that my health is getting better which I can use my energy for a purpose, if I don’t feel that I’m expanding in love which I can use to give for more people and help more people, then I feel stagnant and I feel stuck. So for me, growth is always what enables me to feel fulfilled because I feel like I’m ever expanding in what I can give. The thing is, is I find often that if I’m just growing and I’m not reflecting, I’m not noticing how far I’ve grown, then fulfillment is always just one step away. It’s always just beyond me, that moment of gratitude. I find that a lot of entrepreneurs, people that are some of the world’s greatest creators that are helping the world so much, entrepreneurs are what move the world forward I believe, at least they’re the visionaries behind it. Everyone at some level that works with entrepreneurs are moving the world forward too. We’re the kind of people that we just love to achieve, achieve, achieve… but some of the times, one of the most difficult and simple things that we can do to experience that greater level of fulfillment is just take a second, notice what’s good, notice what you’ve created, appreciate it like feel good about it, actually allow yourself a moment to feel so freaking joy my man. So it’s growth and then it’s gratitude. I feel like those two things have been the keys for me experiencing fulfillment. For anyone else that wants to give it a try, give it a try. Let me know.

Melyssa Griffin: I think that’s a beautiful answer. I think there can be gratitude in any moment or in any place that you’re at, whether you just hit six or seven figures in your business, or you just decided for the first time to wake up at 5 AM before work and start this new habit of working for an hour before you head off to your day job, because you think that’s important. So there’s gratitude in those small decisions too. The more we can notice that, the more fulfillment we can have with everything we do.

Sterling Griffin: Yeah, so good.

Melyssa Griffin: Thank you so much Sterling. We have the same last name if anyone didn’t notice that, so we’re basically cousins from another mother. Does that work?

Sterling Griffin: Cousins from another “mosin”.

Melyssa Griffin: There we go. Where can people find you? I know people are going to want to know and learn so much more about you after this.

Sterling Griffin: Well the simplest way would just be to come hang out on my website sterlinggriffin.com, just my name and we connect there. I’ve got all kinds of stuff for you. If you’re in the coaching world, if you’re someone that wants to grow a high ticket coaching business, then I’d be happy to share with you my blueprint that I use to actually – like what’s the framework for a high ticket coaching business, how do people first find out about you, all the way to closing a high ticket deal on the phone, and then delivering powerfully to them. I’ve created a whole blueprint for that. If you want it, cool. If you don’t want it, no big deal, but if you do want it, go ahead and go to sterlinggriffin.com/blueprint. I’ll just give it to you directly, my gift.

Melyssa Griffin: That’s awesome, sterlinggriffin.com/blueprint. I know that is really valuable. So thank you again sterling. This is awesome. You, again, are just so insightful and I love chatting with you.

Sterling Griffin: Thank you so much Melyssa. You’re amazing!