Fame and Fortune on a plate?
How meeting a billionaire helped me revisit my idea of success.
‘Are you guys earning 15 million yet? Well write this shit down!’*
This was the no-mess motivation from JT Foxx — no.1 wealth coach famous for turning people into overnight success stories as speakers, coaches and entrepreneurs. Time and time again I see free events pop up on Facebook and discard them instantly, but something intrigued me about this one. What could I learn about becoming a speaker? Who was this guy? And could I keep an open mind for the day?
The warm-up speaker was great and gave us lots of nuggets of information about personal branding and business growth. I was pleased that he mentioned a ‘to-be’ list and asked us to consider whether our actions and online posts are congruent with how we want to be perceived. That’s branding at the end of the day — what people say about you when you’re not in the room. However, when he said: ‘’successful people don’t sleep in’’, I felt my efforts towards a more-balanced lifestyle somewhat triggered…
And then for JT Foxx. ‘He’s difficult, but he has a heart of gold’, the warm-up act explained: ‘just go with it.’ He was everything you’d imagine from an American sales coach billionaire: alpha male, very direct, definitely not shy in sharing his successes and totally totally captivating.
And he backed up why he was good: testimonial after testimonial of people saying ‘6 months ago I was sat where you are, now I’m turning over 2 billion’. It certainly seemed impressive. But something was missing.
There were a couple of things that didn’t sit right with me: firstly, ‘success’ for JT Foxx was purely fame and fortune. Not once did he mention having a family, seeing friends, enjoying hobbies, his health… and don’t even start on happiness. Every decision he made in his life was based on whether it would bring in more business, to the point that he turned down second row tickets for the Merriweather fight to go and drive 6 hours to see a potential money making project. The project came through and has now made a lot of money, but I couldn’t help wondering — when do you live? Has getting more and more money become an addiction, that you’re missing out on the things you actually want to do? At one point he explained ‘it’s always the people with the least money who get up on stage to dance at conferences — you just watch.’ The creative spirit in me felt triggered, but I kept an open mind…
He was clearly EXHAUSTED from doing all these free tours, and at each point he put on a video I saw him glued to his phone, frantically replying to emails and messages, not missing a beat. And that’s how it felt — a very tight, rehearsed to the second, sales pitch. It was impressive. It was convincing. It made hundreds of Londoners run to the back of a room to pay £457 for a CD of speaking advice and some added extras.
But it was only worth that money IF THAT’S THE SORT OF SUCCESS YOU WANTED. I was really pleased I could make that distinction. In the past, when I’ve felt sold to but didn’t want to buy it, I had this strong feeling that I ‘didn’t get it’ or ‘wasn’t’ committed enough’. Now I know there are hell yeahs and nos, there are things that chime with your values and things that don’t. So if I’m not running to buy it, yeah it could mean I have a money block, or it could simply mean I don’t want it!
The second thing was the way these people had become successful: he pays to bring an A-list celebrity to a speaking gig he’s doing, the wannabe speaker pays for the experience of asking John Travolta a question, that video/photo can then be used on all wannabe speaker’s marketing, and then everyone wants to work with them. Easy right? But if I were to do that, even if I ended up earning loads of money and appearing on the front cover of every magazine, I wouldn’t feel proud, because it wouldn’t be because I was necessarily good at my job, but because of my connections.
But then I challenged my judgement here, because do I not do a version of that on my level? Have I not leveraged contacts in corporate organisations to get gigs sometimes? Have I not publicised my comedy night by name dropping the celebrities who’ve been there? Nepotism is frowned upon, but actually I think we’re all naturally inclined to network or create connections and build tribes — so where do you draw the line? And then I thought the difference is I didn’t pay for those contacts. But what about the things I DO pay for? Like going to a good university? Getting a good coach? Is paying for a photo with a celebrity any different to paying for an amazing logo on your website? Or a coaching session that helps you break through? Maybe at the end of the day, it’s just a feeling. Does it feel honest? Does it feel congruent? Do I feel full and topped up and joyful when I imagine becoming successful because of a photo with a celebrity?
A woman enquired how anyone could possibly get on the ladder to afford a coaching package if they actually had no money. ‘You got a credit card?’ Was his response.
There were no excuses.
Despite feeling from the outset that it wasn’t the sort of coach that I wanted to work with, or indeed the type of success I wanted to work towards, I nevertheless obediently took 24 pages of notes! He had this way of making you feel like he was watching you, looking out for his NEXT BIG THING and I felt transported back to my am-dram days, desperate to be picked, even if I didn’t really want the role. With the nerve-wracking power-struggle of X-Factor, it was no surprise that he’s been dubbed the Simon Cowell of coaching.
No-one was making anyone buy anything. It was not enforced. But it was selling people a dream. It reminded me of the episode of Black Mirror where they all are trying to get onto the game show and they have to drink compliance before they go on stage. And for a second I let myself consider whether I should ‘step up’ and pay £20k on the spot for one of his coaching packages, and then suddenly snapped out of the hypnosis, thinking, this is not the only way to ‘step up’, Sarah…
I had such a tension headache when I left and I realised that apart from an hour at lunch we had had no breaks all day. Just hours and hours of stream of consciousness (although quite rightly he said: ‘you don’t have to be here! You can leave if you want’.) But is that part of it? Break you down and tire you out so you feel you need the help. Or maybe he’s just in total flow state on stage. And as someone who promotes people living a life of joy, I really hope that’s the case.
*He later followed up on these two and said how he’d noticed that they’d begun to take notes, which means they are coachable.
