219 – He’s the magic man: Tom interviews Steve Hart

Episode 219 – Steve Hart
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey, everybody, it's Tom here with episode 219 of screw the Commute podcast. I'm here with an old old friend of mine, Steve Hart. We've we've known each other for a long time and we've created products together and a really cool method we did a long time ago and can't wait to introduce him to you in a minute. I hope you didn't miss Episode 218. We had great veteran Kurt Ballash was here. I had met him at the Military Influencers Conference when I spoke up there. He's got this woodworking service and he helps transitioning veterans figure out what they're going to do when they get out. So check that episode 218. Now we give away a free e-book for just being on the show here and listen. And it's a $27 e-book, but you get it free. It's called How to Automate Your Business. And just one of the tips has saved me seven and a half million keystrokes over many years. So make sure you grab a copy of that at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. And while you're there, you might as well grab a copy of our podcast app for your cell phone or tablet so you can take us with you on the road. We have all kinds of cool things that we'll do and we have screencap shoes to show you exactly how to use all the functions at screwthecommute.com/app. Take us with you on the road now. Now our sponsor's the Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia Distance Learning School, which teaches legitimate techniques to make a great living, either working for someone else or starting your own online business or both. You can check that out at IMTCVA.org and you can learn to live a lifestyle business like I've been doing since oh my god 26 years now. So so it's been the best business I've ever been in in my 43 years of business. So check that out. And everything we talk about today will be in the show notes. And when you want to go to a specific episode, this is 219. You'll go to screwthecommute.com slash and then the episode number 219.

[00:02:42] All right. Let me bring on the main event. Steve Hart is a professional magician, a speaker, a life coach. He's a mystic and a wizard of self-discovery. For over 30 years, he has entertained audiences with his magic and speaking programs all across America. And as a self-discovery expert, Steve helps people discover the wealth hidden within themselves. He has been certified as a life coach through the Life Coach Institute. He's a speaker and trainer for corporations, associations, educational institutions and spiritual groups. Steve. Are you ready to screw? The commute? How you doing man?

[00:03:27] I'm doing great.

[00:03:28] Yeah. Yeah. So good to catch up with you. It's been been awhile.

[00:03:33] Yes. I think I met you probably about the mid 2005 somewhat or not neighborhood time. So it's been a while.

[00:03:43] Yeah, it's it's it's been awhile. And we created that magic for speakers product together long time ago and that was a lot of fun then. That brings up a good business point right there. We've created a product together, but I didn't have to give him any royalties and he didn't have to give me any royalties.

[00:04:03] So it was a win win.

[00:04:04] It was a clean deal. Yeah. So tell everybody what you're doing now. You've got magic and you've got corporate stuff. I mean, is the magic corporate stuff, too, or do you do parties or what? What do you do with the magic.

[00:04:16] That's that's been my that's been mine. And probably some we very viewers greatest burden is our potential. We have so much available to us with because of the talents and gifts and strengths that we have. We don't know where to throw our energy. And so, yes, magic has been my mainstay and always will be. And still is today, I still enjoy entertaining and making people laugh and having a good time. But there's been several other things in my life that have been shown up and have been gifts that I've been able to give other people. And one of the areas is in the area of life coaching and speaking, which works for me to speak to people. But what I found is that people really don't know what they want or who they are. And so there's a struggle that goes on with this potential within us to say, well, what, what, what, what, what can I do? You know, because you offer you is your program, you offer so much freedom. And we're going now we have this freedom. But what am I going to do? What product and the market to promote and the mistakes that people make is they don't do an inventory of themselves. They get a great idea. They see something out there and they go, well, maybe I could do that. Maybe I could do this. I could I could do this. I could promote that. And they think it's a good idea. I did this. I was guilty of it. I jumped on the bandwagon for numerous things and thought I could make a lot. Well, I did make a lot of money because I used your principles. But it didn't stay, you know, it didn't stay the way I wanted it to because my heart was not in it. And so I'm going back to my point. And that is the fact that you have to do an inventory within yourself and figure out what are your strengths. What are your passions? What is it you really want out of life?

[00:06:09] Now, when you say do an inventory, you say and sit down and write these down or just contemplate them and is something you can do in an hour or do you have to really think about a period, a couple of weeks or months or years or what.

[00:06:24] It's it's self-discovery itself is an ongoing event. And yes, you can begin by sitting down just writing things out, but usually most people usually need help now because because there are tools out there that will help you discover your strengths and gifts. And that's what I use when I help people with my coaching. And I and anybody I talk to, I tell them. You know, it's available. All the stuff is available online. Now, there is no there's some garbage out there, but there's also some really good programs are available. And I can't help everybody. And I don't try to. I've I really have backed off and trying to capitalize this at a level where I could, only because I want more freedom. I don't really want to. I really don't want to spend all the time doing doing that with with other people, even though I do enjoy it. And I still do. I have some clients I've had now for me three years and and I'm still on an ongoing basis and helping them, you know, progress with their business and their understanding themselves and their frustrations. And, you know, why? Why is this happening? Here's the here's the thing. If I can just share this with your listeners. Half the world sees the world as being friendly. The other half sees it as being unfriendly. And we have to decide which position we're going to take. Now, if you see the world as being friendly, then you use this gift of influence to try to influence the world. But if you see the world as being unfriendly, then you begin to try to dominate and use some force energy and tell people what they don't know. And, you know, as an it it doesn't work as well as being an influencer. So what would I encourage people to do is when you know your strengths and your gifts, you become a natural influencer in life is so much easier and so much more enjoyable. And that's the life I'm living. I'm not making well at one time. And as a result, as a result of working with you, I made over two thousand dollars a year at one point, and then all of a sudden it collapsed. And that was fine because it was a great learning experience for me to actually decide what level of lifestyle do I want to live and still have my happiness, you know. And so but the tools that you offer are unbelievable. I mean, it's it's. Well, one thing I learned you when I met you, I think I was spending a lot of money on Internet marketing and trying to figure out what that was about.

[00:09:13] And and then we were a national speaker association learning how to do that craft. And it's it was it was very interesting time in my life. And I learned an awful lot, spend a lot of money, but I found out over a period time it was very difficult for me to keep up with everything that was going on. The whole Internet marketing thing was changing so fast. And then that's why I kept listening to you. To keep plugged into what you were offering, because you kept bringing me some balance in what I was experiencing, one of the other things that I experienced in my own self-discovery is what I call synchronicity. And the synchronicity is very important and everybody has had those moments when you go. Wow. How. How did that show up or how did that happen? I couldn't have planned that to happen. It's just boom. There it was and and sometimes that comes out of nowhere. And sometimes it appears as though the synchronistic moments are like supernatural. And I have a story about you where that this happened and this is back in 2005, you were advertising your book Click. And I it was you know, you had a fair price on that thing at the time. Yeah. It was not cheap.

[00:10:35] No. Ninety seven bucks. There was a like a thousand pages.

[00:10:39] And I and I had never spent that kind of money on a book before.And and I'm trying to decide if I really wanted to do that or not. Are you still selling a book?

[00:10:57] No. We was got to be thousand and forty two pages so we started breaking it down in the mini books.

[00:11:04] Yeah. Now you're offered. Yeah. In some cases because it was a lot. Yes. I mean it really. And you on your problem you've updated it too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well what happened was I was trying to decide if I wanted to buy this book from you and this lady calls me and wanted me to do a program, a speaking program. And I said, well, I have a conflict. And I said, I think you might want to look at the program. I think you have on your roster a guy named Tom Brighton, and she goes, no, his name is Tom Antion. And I said, but I didn't even mention your name. And I don't know. The guy's name is Tom Brighton. He's the speaker from Texas. And and I said, you might want to talk to him. She goes, No, I think we're supposed to contact Tom Antion. I'm going. Where are you getting this? And it's funny. I looked at that as a sign that I was definitely supposed to buy your book when I did. When I did. Boom. You and I took off together. And that's that's the beginning of and that's a true story.

[00:12:06] I never heard that before. Yeah. That though it got to be that book got to be so, so big that you know, people wouldn't consume it. You know just so much right now I started breaking it down into smaller books.

[00:12:21] Somewhat like me back in those days. I just jumped on and devoured the thing and then I merely signed up for your buttcamps, you know, and started doing all that, you know

[00:12:29] For those of you that don't know. Buttcamp is one of the longest it's probably the longest continuously running Internet seminar because there is about three of us back in ninety seven years, ninety six or so doing Internet seminars and and people wanted me to do a bootcamp and I said I can't do a boot camp. I come from a comic background I'll call it butt camp because I'm sitting on my rear and making all the this money.

[00:12:56] Great thing about as you allowed us to come back. Yeah too much to consume all at once.

[00:13:02] Yeah, it's so. So it's the only seminar where you come back if you pay once you come back forever for free. And it's been continuously updated for since 1997. So we're doing a couple times a year. So. So tell us more about the corporate work that you're doing this.

[00:13:21] That's not kind of backed off on the corporate work, trying to promote myself. I still do it. The corporations in the past fifteen years have gone through some major changes, as you well know. Yeah. And and there there are a lot more stringent about, you know, what they want. And it will it will go back. A lot of them don't know what they want. That's why that's why they're suffering. And when they hire or want to have you come and speak, sometimes they want to tell you what they want you to talk about this. That was been my experience. And I found that there were times I didn't want to talk about what they wanted me to talk about. And I just said, no, thank you. Go find somebody else, because I have a positive spin on everything that I present. And I believe in the wealth within the individuals. And not in corporations. And the corporations don't know that and they don't or they don't identify that. Now the smart ones do. There are some smart ones out there who know that they're their true investments or within their people and they can't really own them. All they can do is, you know, participate with them. They were in a workforce as a team, you know, but that that mentality is is tough. So anyway, I basically kind of backed off on the corporate. I'm I still do it, especially if they want something light and funny and, you know, fun. So that's what I I'll still do that. But it's not a it's not the market. I'm really gonna believe or not. I'm having a lot of fun. I'm now 66 years old and have a lot of fun doing family park shows and senior shows. I live here in Florida and there's a lot of senior retirements. And so I don't make the big bucks like I used to, but I don't have to. And because I'm having so much joy of giving these people what they want most, most of my time and energy right now is more on a smaller scale than what it used to be. And that's OK. You know, I mean, I. Let me just talk a little bit. I used to have a TV show. I worked on Broadway over in Hollywood, the Magic Castle. I've worked from major corporations doing these programs. So I've done these things. It's not like I don't want to do anymore.

[00:15:41] Well, yes, that's true. I don't want to do something anymore. I Used to work trade shows. And you paid very well. But stand on your feet for, you know, four to eight hours a day. It's just too much for me anymore. And I should keep raising my price and they kept trying to hire me back. No, no, no. I'm not going to do any. So you know it. So really, what it comes down to and for not just me, what I've done, but for your listeners, and that is what I call positioning. You first have to decide. Like I said, who you are, what it is you have to give and then position yourself to get that and and position yourself in that where you don't do the things, you don't end up doing the things you don't want to do. Because I did enough of that and I don't want to do that anymore. And so now I'm positioning myself for exactly where I want to be. And, you know, I remember you talking about the Internet, how you just position yourself out on the Internet. You didn't that highway or traffic and you get you know, you get the business.

[00:16:42] You stand in front of the traffic.

[00:16:51] It did happen. Yeah. I out now. I'm on a different road now.

[00:16:56] Well, I haven't done a corporate work for over 20 years and I don't miss it at all. And one of the things I've preached all these years is, you know, I only deal with people I like. You know, I don't want to be stuck in a situation in the corporate world where, you know, you got to have a two week committee meeting to take a leak.

[00:17:16] Some of your listeners are not going to relate to that. They're going to say, no, I want to. I want to go. Go get it. If you use what you teach, you can position yourself to get that type of work. And don't be wrong. I mean, I've done it, you know. Yeah.

[00:17:32] I mean, there's now if that's your thing, that's great. It's just that the tools that that I teach give you flexibility. You can do what you want to do. If you want to go that route, great. If you want to go this other route. Great. If you want to do both. You can have some of both you. And so. So it's very flexible and a good lifestyle now. Were you a were you in the magic and entrepreneurial when you were a kid?

[00:17:54] Oh, yeah. I started off when I was 10 years old. And I as I became so. Intense about my study of magic, and by the time I was 14, I want an international award among young magicians and I come home and my parents go, what? You know. I grew up in the cornfields of Indiana and in Indiana there were very few magicians or magic shops. So I told him, I want to be a professional magician that go, well, you got to get a real job. So by the time I got to high school, I was very frustrated. I wanted to pursue magic full time, but I was going through the life changes and I ended up going to college. You didn't get a degree and nothing had nothing to do with magic, right? And in in in after graduating, I ended up in sales. Well, when you're in sales, you learn that people buy from you because they like you. Not because of the product. So I when I realized that, I went, wait a second, I'm going to go back doing the magic. And when I did, my career just took off. And I ended up within 10 years making more money than both my parents together income. And they couldn't believe it, you know? No, that's crazy.

[00:19:08] Well, no. You mean you added magic to your sales stuff where you just left?

[00:19:12] Yeah. I said, oh, that's what happened was one of my sales managers found out that I had done magic and says you should do a little bit of that in your presentation. So that's what I did. I started incorporating magic into my self-presentation. So when I end up losing that job, I because a company got sold. I end up going to magic full time. It was really easy. It was very.

[00:19:35] Where was this?

[00:19:37] I was back in Indiana and in Evansville, Indiana at the time and then moved back to Indianapolis.

[00:19:42] And you were how old?

[00:19:45] And probably in my mid-thirties, I mean, mid 20s, mid 20s.

[00:19:48] Yeah. And you've been doing that ever since. Wow.

[00:19:52] It's been it's been very good for me. I like I said, I've made it a lot. Now, the money. That six figure thing was not all from magic. So it was investing in real estate. And then also I created some Internet products. You know, that I sell on the Internet and still am today. I had this crazy item that I saw when I was a kid and somebody found a new distributor for it. And it's a wind-up butterfly that you wind up. It's a piece of paper and a wire with a bumper band on it. And he put in a greeting card and, you know, open it up and flies out. It's really pretty. And I've sold. Thousands and thousands of thousands of dollars all over the world.And I set that Web site up using the principles that you taught me.

[00:20:37] I just you know, my mind always goes different places like somebody. You know, it opens a car that scares them. They fall over and impale yourself.

[00:20:49] Yeah. Yeah.I've heard people say, well, I'm not go buy one because of that very reason. Too many other people get a lot of fun out of it.

[00:20:57] Oh, yeah. Yeah. So. So tell everybody. So what is the main type of business you look for nowadays?

[00:21:06] As I said, I I'm I'm really having fun, just entertaining family shows and senior shows with my magic.

[00:21:14] What's your service area? How far will you go for these.

[00:21:17] I'm basically well, funny you ask that question. I'm basically I'm over here on the what they call the space coast of Florida, near the space on Earth. So I'm I'm due east of Orlando now. So a lot of my work is in Orlando. And then I go down, up and down Highway 95 to basically West Palm Beach to Daytona. But I recently came into a new relationship with a young lady who's a professional clown and she lives in Philadelphia. So now I'm flying back and forth between Philadelphia and here doing shows with her and she's coming down here. And so this is a new relationship. So we're still in the process of developing that.

[00:22:02] I want you to start a dating Web site. Now, you know, clown magic dating. There actually is a clowndating.com. There's a farmerdating.com. There's a gluten free singles.

[00:22:21] Oh, my god. Yeah. No, it's awesome. That's awesome. I. It was a synchronistic moment. Once again, as I talk about synchronicity, It was through it was through Facebook, through a mutual friend. But once once we got together, it was amazing how we clicked. And I've never found another woman like her. So what I'm very, very happy about now. So now I'm working a little bit in Philadelphia. We're working with her. She's she's already had an established clowning business up there. She's a retired teacher and she's very good at what she does. And so it's it's fun. I'm having fun.

[00:23:05] Say, see, again, my mind is going crazy. Like she's there at the door waiting for you when you come to visit her there. Oh, Steve. Squeak my nose.

[00:23:18] I can tell stories but I won't.

[00:23:20] We don't have to make this an explicit episode. So tell us what Web sites, how did people find you and in all that?

[00:23:33] Well, you can find me under magicianSteveHart.com. It's a family name. That's my that's my magic.

[00:23:51] But can I get the butterfly there?

[00:23:54] It's flyingbutterfly.com. Well, I was going to offer this and I'm a little reluctant to, but that's because I here again in my coaching, I use self-discovery tool called the Enneagram. Most people never heard of this. Enneagram it means nine points is what it means to nine, basically nine personalities. There are numerous different personality assessments out there, but this is the oldest one and probably the most strongest has the strongest impact in my opinion.

[00:24:39] Now as Myers Briggs what when you say there's other personality things with that. Would that be an example of one?

[00:24:45] Yes. I use this Myers-Briggs. Yes. Disk program. So that's all part of it. I used to teach all of that, but when I found Enneagram, I kind of pushed those to the side because Enneagram is is more basement level stuff. Those are the ones you describe. An individual can change their type. The enneagram doesn't change once you understand who you are. It's basically a foundation to build off. And so the Enneagram has become my number one tool. And so I do have a website for that. And I will give you the Web site for that. And the reason I'm reluctant to give it is because I don't want everybody going there, but I don't know how many listeners do you have.

[00:25:34] We get lots of listeners, but I'm not sure how many want to know about themselves is probably scared.

[00:25:41] That's our lone spinner with all their money. No, that's not really what it does is it will help you understand who you are and where you want to focus and why you're compelled to move different directions. Enneagramsecrets.com.

[00:25:59] And we'll put that in the show notes so they won't have to worry about it. All right. We'll have all those the shown its folks for. This is episode 2 19. So you go to screwthecommute.com/219. Steve, thanks so much for taking the time to. To catch up with me, man. It's always going to live in a great lifestyle doing what you want dating clowns. I mean, I've dated a lot of clowns, but they didn't claim it as a profession.

[00:26:43] They didn't think you were funny. I think you're funny.

[00:26:45] No, no, I'm saying they're clowns. So. So thanks a lot, man. And we really, really thrilled about you living a lifestyle. So you used part of what I did use part of what you do. I don't care as long as people are living a lifestyle business. All right. We'll catch everybody on the next episode. See you later.

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