Then the day comes where I'm at practice and we're hurtling. It's second nature. Like how you just walk. That's hurdling was that easy for me. It's I could just I could in my sleep, I'm like, I just I can hurdle. Get to one day, I go over hurdle. I'm like, whoa! Shoot. I'm like, something's wrong. God. I just pick up my stuff and I just walk off the track. My coach is like, where are you going? I'm like, something's wrong with my knee. I knew it. I know knees. Okay, I know knees. If you got a problem, I can tell you what's wrong with it. I know knees. I go to my doctor and he says, you know, we did an x-ray and something, it's something going on, kiddo. Uh the only way to really kind of find out, we got to do knee surgery. I was like, okay, just give me a second. Because you have to understand, I was just starting to take heads at practice. It was the dream was starting to feel like real reality. At that moment, they were at practice getting better by leaps and bounds, and I was about to take a thousand steps back. I don't have a step. What do you mean, a thousand? I was like, uh, Doc, could you just give me a second? Um, I need to just give me a second. So he stepped out the room. I literally looked at my watch, I pushed it, I gave myself one minute. I'm so mad at God. I'm like, are you serious? Everything you probably I'm from me, St. Louis. You gave me this gift. Are you trying to take it from me? You know everything I've come through. My daddy told me, come on, Jesus. Are you serious? So mad. I'm so mad, God. You gave me this gift, and you got the take it from me. Are you gonna come on? Come here, what's up? What's the gameplay? What we gotta do? I'm gonna have time for this. What's up? I'm gonna have time, Donna. Tell me the gameplay. Literally, you gotta be crazy for your dream. And I feel like it had honestly gonna give me this game. I didn't understand all the challenges that I was why it's cold. I'm gonna move forward one step in front of the other. That's all I can do. Yeah, but if you gonna, if it's not gonna be, you're gonna have to come down yourself and take it from me. I ain't giving this one up. This is how you gotta think. You gotta be crazy for your dream. I need you to understand it's not gonna be pretty, it's gonna hurt. If you want it for real, it's gonna hurt. It sucks sometimes. It just absolutely sucks. I don't have time. What's the game plan? What's up? Doc's like, all right, we gotta go on this expedite. We gotta push, push, push. I'm like, bet money. Push, push, push. This is me with my knee surgery. For real. Sitting down and they're at practice. Whatever, don't have time for this. You might as well play the Rocky music. I'm talking about, I'm on the grind. I'm talking to the doc every day. I'm like, all right, I did this. What's next? What's next? What's next? What's next? Imagine the day after knee surgery, they put me on the table and they're like, if we're doing this, we're doing this. I'm like, let's do it. They just start bending my knee. They're like, I'm sorry, kidding. And I'm just screaming and crying. Like, we gotta get you back. We don't have time for two, three months of on crutches, and then we're gonna be like, you ready? I'm like, go. It's like, ah, like it is what it is. Because I, if it's not gonna be, God gonna have to come down himself and take it from me. I'm willing to do all the things. Rocky music. So I'm sneaking on a UCLA's track late at night to work out. Now it was like this. I was like, I'm gonna kill it when I get back though. They don't know. No one knew I was on the track by myself late at night. Cause I don't need you to understand. I need my support system. That's it. Support system? The real ones? Because think about it. How many people jump ship when I said I had to have knee surgery? How many people gonna jump ship with you when you tell them, oh, I ran into this again? They're gonna be like, I don't know why they keep doing this. This is just stupid. Now it's just getting stupid. I don't need you to understand. My mama, my coach, my doc said you could do it. I said, bear money, let's go.

And I just start walking the building. And whenever a door would open, I would run up to the door, say, Hey man, I'm Inky Johnson. I drove up from Atlanta. I want to give open my book. And said, man, get out of here, man. We don't do that, man. I'm like, man, I thought y'all give away cars and houses. I just got a book. He's like, yeah, man, we don't do that, man. We don't know what to tell you. And I sat there and I watched every person walk into that building. And I'll never forget, I walk down the sidewalk a little bit and I was like, man, my wife is gonna chew me out. And I sit down on a curb. And a gentleman comes running across the street. And he looked to be homeless. He's running. And he comes and he sits right next to me. And I'll never forget what he said to me. He said, hey man. He said, How are you? I was like, man, I've seen better days. I said, How are you? He said, I'm great. We small talk, maybe eight to ten minutes. He gets up, he says, Have a great day. He taps you on my shoulder. Takes off running. When he gets out of view, I sit there a few more minutes. I look up. Coming down the sidewalk, it's Oprah and her security guard. The guy was huge. I stand up, I fix my suit. I said, surely he's probably gonna move me out of the way, but I drove too far, man. I gotta take my shot. I gotta step care of this situation. Drove too far, man. I start walking and keep walking. I keep walking and keep walking. I keep walking. I stopped directly in front of me. I said, hey, um, I'm Inky Johnson. I drove up from Atlanta. I wanted to give you my book. She said, thank you. She grabs it. She said, it's nice of you. She flips through it real quick. She hands it to a security guard. She grabs my suit. Starts shaking the jacket. She said, That's a nice suit. I think she was trying to see if I had a gun or a knife at some moment, right? Smooth move, by the way. I respect it. I respect it. She said, I gotta get in and I gotta do my show. I said, Thank you. I said, Would you mind if I take a picture with you? She said, sure, no problem. We take the picture. She says, Have a great day. I said, have a great one. I go to walk off. Her security guard is holding the door. When she walks in, he says, Hey, little man. He said, Come here. I jog over to him. He said, I'm not saying anything is gonna come of this moment. I'm not saying book club. I'm not saying show. I'm not saying any of that. He said, I just want you to know what just happened never happens. He said, usually she'll send me up, tell me to clear them out, tell them to send it here, she'll never get it. So I'm not saying anything is gonna transpire from this moment. I just want you to know what just happened never happens. I said, Thank you, man. I greatly appreciate that. I went to walk off, I sent the picture out to family and friends, I put it on social media. Everybody's response was, ain't you gonna be on the show? Like, ain't you gonna be on the book club? I was like, I don't know, man. I don't care. He said, What you mean you don't know, you don't care? I said, That moment wasn't about that for me. I said, What you mean that moment wasn't about that for you? Why would you take the trip if it wasn't about that? I said, for the first time in my life, I felt as if I didn't have any connection. I felt as if my prayers weren't getting answered. I felt as if my life was going in the opposite direction. For the first time in my life, I couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. I was always the guy that could take a situation and always see the positive side of it. And for the first time in my life, it felt as if my life was going in the opposite direction. And like Wi Fi, I had no connection. Always say to people, man, make sure your software is updated. And they always think I'm referring to an iPhone. And I'm like, bro, Apple is so cold-blooded, update your phone while you sleep. I said, but the knowledge base, the information for the people that we're striving to become and the things that we're trying to accomplish, make sure that it's updated. One of the greatest things that I ever got told as a teenager was always be willing to challenge and reevaluate what you think you know to be true. Because you can come into a situation and have a certain amount of information, and it could be true 10 years ago. But life is constantly changing, life is constantly shifting. And so I say to people, we have to be willing to have a certain level of mental agility. The quote says it. It's not the strongest of species that survives, it's not even the most intelligent or talented, but the one that's most willing to adapt to change. Can we handle adversity, opposition, change, and uncertainty with the correct perspective? Like, I don't travel around and try to tell people how to do what they do. I wouldn't disrespect you in that way, man.

Remember who you are. You got there because you're in a position to have that conversation. The more you can stay in control, the more you will control the outcome of that negotiation. Let the other guy lose his mind. Let them be pissed off. If you show that you're shook, it will show in your results. And that leads me to the third, what I consider a very key point in pulling together a successful negotiation, and that is rejection. It's an extension of emotion, but I think it gets its own place. If you are in any kind of business, if you sell something, if you represent something, if you're trying to raise money for something, you are literally in the business of rejection. I am in the business of rejection. If I could put it on my business card, Sherry Wank, agent, business of rejection. You're putting something out there for people to use, to absorb, to consume, to pay you money for. And you well know that. How do you handle negoti? How do you handle rejection? Do you does it wreck your day? Does it fire you up? Does it make you mad at the guy who rejected what you're talking about? Get rid of it. It's gonna happen. It's gonna happen more than not. We all go into this saying, well, you know, it only takes one. Okay, that's true. It only takes one to make that sale, right? Whatever businesses you're in, you're trying to sell an item, a thing, a close a deal. You just need one. You might have to go through a hundred to get it. That's a very poor success rate. But you just need the one success. So except if you're going to fail, maybe 99% of the time, you're in the business of rejection. Why is that so difficult for so many people to accept? It's just part of your day. Just as you know, Tim, and if you don't know Tim Grover, he's the elite iconic trainer of all time, performance coach to the greats like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant. We wrote two books together, which is why I'm quoting him right now because this is not me. This is his quote. The greatest competitors have the shortest memories. You have to get rid of it. You heard it, it happened, I'm out. I gotta move to the next thing because you're polluting the next deal, the next opportunity, and the next situation. How many people hate to talk about money? It feels awkward, you know, like to yeah, a lot of people, because a lot of people are raised like, you don't talk about money. Like, you know, that feels weird. You're afraid to ask for your value, you're afraid to put a number out there. What if it's not the right number? Here's my advice to you about this: if money makes you uncomfortable, if you're not sure what your price is, if you're not sure what your value is, the other person is probably less comfortable than you. Most people are not comfortable talking about money. They don't want to put their number out first. What if I'm too high? What if I'm too low? I don't know. I get asked that all the time. Well, how do I know what my fee is? How many people here are speakers or want to be speakers or they do something public that has a fee? How many people do a job that has a fee? Let's ask it that way. A good number. If I asked you what's your fee, a lot of people will be like, well, it depends. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what I should charge for this. I'm the best at what I do, but I don't know what my fee is because what if it's going to be too high for that client? Well, your doctor probably has a fee, your lawyer has a fee, your landscaping guy has a fee, the dog walker has a fee. Why do you not know what you charge to do what you do? And I'm not saying it has to be a rigid, unwavering, locked-in number with no flexibility. That would be foolish. But if you don't know your fee, you have no chance of getting it.

Uh, as I said, we go to Chicago, Illinois. Can't lose to this guy, but there was something on the way to the arena that night. I'm in the van with my team, and I'm heading to the arena, and I just get this feeling that something bad is about to happen. Something bad is gonna happen. I don't know if it's an injury, I don't know if it's a loss, I don't know if it's a catastrophe, I don't know if it's what it is. I just get this feeling that something bad is gonna happen. And I get to the arena, I walk back to the locker room, we start unpacking stuff, and I say, hey guys, I'm gonna go call my wife real quick. So I call my wife. But before that, I was having this vision. I was having the vision of my wife at our hotel room in Chicago, Illinois, and all I could see was her sitting on the edge of the bed, wringing her hands out, and all I could feel was loneliness. All I could feel was fear and pain and loneliness. So much so that my body was doing things I had never felt before. I'm getting goosebumps, my heart, my heart is racing through my chest. So I'm like, I gotta call my wife. And I call her, she picks up, and I say, Hey sweetie, you aren't at the hotel room, are you? You're not at the hotel. She said, No, no, no, I'm not at the hotel. I'm on the way to the arena with Chris. I said, Okay, thank God. I just want to let you know that no matter what happens tonight, God's got us, the future is bright, and everything's gonna be okay. And if you can think about her in her monologue when her husband's about to go fight inside of a cage in front of millions of people, it's not exactly the kind of confidence that you want to hear from your husband. So we say, I love you, we hang up, go out there, and now you guys know exactly how that fight went. One punch behind the ear, I go down, lose my belt, lose to a featherweight, lose to a guy that I absolutely cannot lose to. But see what I didn't know at the time, and what I could not have known at the time, because the chapter I was in in my life until I got over to the next chapter of my life, had I not lost that fight, had I not lost that belt, I wouldn't have been able to get out of my Bellator contract in order to go negotiate in free agency with the UFC to get to the UFC to fulfill the promise that God had on my life. I had to go through that pain and that shame and that embarrassment and that loss and that defeat in order to get to the UFC. Because the way that our contracts are structured, when you have the belt, when you're the champion of a weight class, it's that much harder to get out of your belly of your contract in whatever promotion you're at. But in that moment, it felt like the world was crumbling down. At that moment, it felt like the end. But what I didn't know was where I was trying to put a period. God had already put a comma. So we don't know how our story is being written. We don't know how our story and the every brush stroke on this masterpiece called life. We don't know what every brushstroke is going to result in. And my life has been a blueprint for that, going from setback to setback, from failure to failure, while keep moving forward with complete disregard to said failures, to the current circumstances, and to future opposition. Failure is an event, not a person. Failure was October 14th or May 15th or whatever date that was. That man right there is not a failure. You are not a failure. Your failures is not your identity. I do believe that our best days and our blessed days are out ahead of us if we can continue to trod forward, moving forward, keeping the faith, and also showing ourselves the grace in the moment to let ourselves fail so that we can be galvanized in the furnaces and in the fires of life. If you can put the shirt back on after everything, every single setback, I'll see you at the top.

Owning your message. So basically crafting a clear narrative that tells the world who you are, what you do, who you serve, and why it matters, right? Your message matters. It's like who's your audience, right? Who's the audience that you're serving? You have to be really clear on that. What are you bringing? What are you the best in the world at that you're bringing to these people and you're going to share your knowledge and expertise? And why does it matter? Why are you doing it at the end of the day? Right? Because people do care. Because again, people relate to people. When they relate to you about something, they're going to engage. Um, authority positioning. You want to be the go-to authority, not an authority in your space, but the go-to authority. When somebody thinks of mental performance, who do they think of? Like, oh, Ben Newman's the guy on mental toughness. When people say mental toughness, I've seen the term used over and over online, but my first, my brain always goes Ben Newman when it comes to mental toughness. Trust building, creating connection. Jesse talked about it earlier about relationships and creating connections with people. Facts tell, story sell. People, people would rather hear your story. They want to know your story. They they would again when they can relate to you about something, they will engage. And then visibility with purpose, showing up at the right places, the stages. This is the stuff everyone's, you want to be on stages, be on podcasts, be in the media, whatever, whatever it may be, visibility with purpose. And then last but not least, monetizable influence. How do you maximize the monetization and the attention that you're getting? If you're doing podcasts, if you're doing books, if you're speaking on stages, how is that equating to monetization for the growth of your business in the back end? That's more what branding is. Now, how many of you? I'm just curious because I'm not very good at the social media game. I struggle. I don't want to be on video. I don't want to make videos. I don't want to do all the things I know I'm supposed to, but I'm just curious how many of you are doing that every day, all day, but still feel invisible? Right? It's a big, big ocean out there, right? And sometimes it's like we're doing all the things, and it's like, man, I got two likes. And then we we basically judge ourselves or our success on nobody engaging with something. Somebody told me the other day, he sent me a DM and he was selling me something, and he said, he said, you have zero engagement. And I was like, Yep, I'm not very good at the social media game. You're right. But I have a lot of really amazing relationships, and I do value those relationships, and we have a lot of repeat business business and a lot of referrals. So, and we've been in business for a long, long time, so we must be doing something right.