David:

[0:00] Well, hello, everyone. I'm super excited to have with me today Erik Allen from The Erik Allen Show. He's ranked the top 1.5% of all podcasts globally. He had a rough start in life, complicated childhood, and a broken family, but he gave his life to Jesus at 24 and did a 180 in his life and is now encouraging others and helping them find hope in life. Welcome to the Redeeming Business Today podcast, Erik. Glad to have you.

Erik:

[0:24] David, it's an honor to be on your show, man. I truly appreciate it.

David:

[0:27] Yeah. I appreciate you too. So, one thing I like to ask people is what is one way you believe we can honor God in our business that others may not know about?

Erik:

[0:37] I think you honor God by drawing close to him outside of the business, right? Like if you're not drawing close to him, just you and him take the business part out of it, then you're not honoring your business. I think there's a lot of people that say, well, yeah, I want to, I want to, you know, we tithe and things like that. And you should definitely do that. but your business is not going to run smoothly and honoring God if you're not personally connected to him. And so you have to have that quiet time in the morning and start your day off that way and being grateful about that. And that's what really helps, I think, blow up the business in honoring God the right way.

David:

[1:12] Very good. Thanks for that confirmation. I love that. Yeah. And a lot of people, there's a lot of things you can do in business, but so much of it, it's not a step-by-step playbook as much as what's your relationship with God? Are you following God? are you listening to him? And that's huge, huge in life. Absolutely.

David:

[1:29] So why don't you take a few minutes, if you would, tell us about your journey, a little bit about your childhood, growing up, how Jesus came into your life, changed, and where you are today.

Erik:

[1:38] Yeah. I grew up going to church. We went to Sunday school and my dad would take us to play little league when I was a kid. And then my dad would take my best friend, Dave, and I literally throw some dumpsters on the weekends and say, go find treasure. That was just this fun thing that we did as a kid. And I'll look back going, I don't know if I would have done that, but it was, it was super fun. Like I, there's super core memories of that. And, uh, my parents ended up getting divorced when I was 11 years old. And then my mom got together with me and it was very physically abusive almost immediately. And I didn't understand why she stayed with that man. And it was like this rinse and repeat cycle. She would, you know, get beat up and the, I would call the police, they'd show up. She wouldn't press charges. And it was like, okay, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat over and over. And then they did the smart thing when I was in the middle of my eighth grade year, they got pregnant. And they decided to move us from Washington state out to Stevensville, Montana. It was a population of about 1,200 people. And we weren't even in the town. We were on the outskirt of town. So we were off the highway. So we had literally had five acres of property that they rented. It was a beautiful property right by the Bitterroot River. The problem was the house had three bedrooms. And it was one for them, one for my little brother, who's a few months old at that time. And then one for my younger sister, who's four years younger than me. And they said, Erik, would you get to live in the garage? And so I literally had this plastic tarp that separated the truck that pulled in to my bed on the left side of the truck or the garage there.

Erik:

[2:57] Luckily, my half had the fireplace in it, so it kept me semi-warm in the middle of the winters of Montana. But the abuse continued. And there was a moment when I was about 13, 14 years old, I was brushing my teeth and wasn't walking with the Lord at this time. But I remember brushing my teeth. They came up arguing. Wasn't anything different than any other night. But I felt God just going, man, you got to turn around. You got to see what's going on. And so as I stuck my head out the hallway and looked down the hall towards the kitchen, to the pantry, to the garage door my bedroom was at, I see this man on top of my mom, just boom, boom, punch her in the face over and over. And I had 20 seconds of courage and I walked up and I grabbed a cast iron pan from the cupboard and I swung as hard as I could and I split the back of his head open. And he turned around and he said, what then is he did that? I smacked him again in the forehead and split his forehead open.

Erik:

[3:46] And I had swung so hard the second time I actually fell over. And I remember being on the ground and he was standing up on me, he was bleeding me or he was bleeding. My mom jumps up like mama bear, punch him like six times in a row. There's blood splatting on the wall, this crazy movie scene. Police finally show up, take him to jail. My mom doesn't press charges. It wasn't much longer after that. I had about three months left in my freshman year of high school in Stevensville, Montana there. And I got kicked out. So I went and stayed with my buddy and finished out my freshman year and then moved back to Tri-Cities, Washington to live with my dad. And he rented a house for him and I, and he put Hunger Man meals in the house, cereal milk in the house, made sure I had food, put 20 bucks in a cup each week. And that was my lunch money for the week while I was a sophomore through senior in high school. But the problem was he would go stay with his girlfriend most nights. So I'd see him a few times a month in passing was all. And so it gave me a lot of freedom to do whatever the heck I wanted. And so I started to get into drugs early on. I was smoking pot. I was taking acid, mushrooms, whatever I could get my hands on. And by the time I was 18 years old, while still a senior high school, I got arrested for having a bong, which is really funny because now in Washington, it's legal to walk around with a bong in your hand. But when I was a senior, it was not.

Erik:

[4:55] And I had to go stay the night in Dayton, Washington. It was an old school jail. In fact, I just closed it down like a year ago, I found out. But black and white chain gang outfit on, I was 145 pounds, just a scrawny dude. And I got thrown into this open cell with 15 or 16 other grown men who were in there for much worse than having a bong. And I just remember the only thing I could bring in with me was a Bible. And I, so I brought my dad's Bible with me and I brought it in. I sat down to the table and I just started reading the Genesis.

Erik:

[5:24] And I thought if I, two things, I thought if I brought this Bible on, two things would happen. One, God would forgive me. And two, God would keep me safe. And I believe he did both of those things. I was in and out 24 hours, didn't have a cellmate. Right. And, but I didn't learn my lesson. I went right back to doing everything that I was doing before. And so I spent the next, you know, several years trying to figure out this thing called life. Two weeks after I graduated high school, I got kicked out of my dad's house. I woke up to a post-it note on the bathroom mirror that said, you can't comply with house rules. You have 48 hours to get out.

Erik:

[5:55] So between the ages of 18 and 21, I moved 21 times, living off of couches here, couches there. And one of those moves was to Seattle, Washington. I was living off of credit cards. And by the time I was 21, I was $28,000 in debt and ended up filing bankruptcy. And then I went and landed this job with Universal Records, which I actually had the lie to get. I had to tell him I was in college, which I really wasn't. I printed a receipt. I paid $300 for a receipt from the local college. Never went to a class, but took it to Universal. Look, I'm in college. They allowed me in as an intern, and then I ended up landing a full-time job there. I did that for about a year, but the problem was when you're addicted to drugs and alcohol, like I was, being a rockstar lifestyle doesn't help your addictions. So I was hanging out backstage with rockstars and living the rockstar lifestyle without being a rockstar. And then my one-year anniversary came around. I got laid off because of a thing called Napster, which just absolutely killed the music industry. And so I was down in this super depressed mode, and I was working at Starbucks as a night manager and I would get off work and go get a beer and go back to my, you know, ghetto apartment and rent in Washington and drink myself to sleep every night. And one night there was a girl that was at Starbucks that doesn't drink coffee and said, Hey, we've got a college age event down our church. Would you want to go? And I was depressed. I had no friends and she was good looking. Yep. What time doing? I'd be there.

Erik:

[7:13] And I remember going to that event and I ran into these guys that I knew from four or five years ago that were down in the tri cities area where I grew up at. And I was like, what the heck are you doing here? And I just felt like God was planting a seed in my heart, though I wasn't ready to kind of give up that lifestyle yet. But it was a month later, it was Easter 2004. I went out and I parted with my friends who I was managing their band. And I woke up Easter morning and I just felt God saying, dude, you're going down a path that's going to end your life real quick. And so in that moment, I decided to give my life to Jesus right there in my buddy's basement, quick cold turkey, drugs, drinking cigarettes, everything in that moment.

Erik:

[7:45] And I called that girl up and I got her voice moment. I said, hey, thanks for inviting me to church. Happy Easter. It was Easter morning. And, uh, not, we were 11 months later, we were actually married and we celebrated 19 years of being married this year. So we're, we're changing. Thank you. We're, you know, our goal is to break the chains of divorce, abuse, rejection, and addiction that we both kind of witnessed as a child.

David:

[8:06] Sure. Yeah. That's quite the story. And, um, yeah, God, God does change things. And sometimes it's a subtle way or sometimes it's banging over the head and it's like, look, let's get going.

Erik:

[8:18] Yeah. Yeah.

David:

[8:19] Yeah. So, and so now you are head of Erik Allen media. What do you, what do you do there?

Erik:

[8:27] Yeah. So I do a few things. One, I teach people how to start launch and run podcasts. I've been blessed to speak with some of the biggest podcast names I said in the world from Ed Milet to Tim Story to John Gordon, Brad Lee, to Jim, the rookie Morris. They've all been on my show. And I didn't know what I was doing when I started. In 2017, I started a podcast. I was just interviewing MMA fighters. And I was like, why the heck do you want to get in a cage and get punched in the face? That was my only question. And so I started doing that show and it kind of took off faster than I thought. I did 256 shows under the name of Top Rated MMA. That was my podcast. And in 2019, I came across a guy named Ed Milette online and I was like, man, I want to do that. And so I started the Erik Allen show and that's how I got it to where I'm at today. But so I'm a podcaster. I teach people how to podcast and I help men figure out how do we share our story confidently? Because I didn't share my story publicly until I was 39 years old. I struggled with that. But once I did share my story, it was like this massive relief off my shoulders. Like, how do we do that? And so I try to tailor my shows around talking with Christian men and their journey with Jesus. And how do we bring that all together? And we balance this work life and we balance this family life, right? So I do that part. And I also do what they call user-generated content for brands. So I've worked with about 60 different brands on doing videos for how-to videos,

Erik:

[9:44] explainer videos or product videos and things like that. And so I love doing it and it's super fun.

David:

[9:50] Very good. Neat, neat. And we talked a little bit about, there's all kinds of different topics we could talk about. And you mentioned about having the importance of a morning routine. And I never read the book, but I heard about the miracle morning, the miracle morning, I forget the guy's name. But yeah, talk to us a little bit about a morning routine. Why is that important for people?

Erik:

[10:13] I think it's so important to start your morning off on the right foot and the right mindset. And for me, I'm 44 years old. If I open my eyes, I immediately go, man, thank you, Jesus, for another day to see and hug and hold my family. Like before I get out of bed, that's my audible voice saying that out loud. Because one, I'm acknowledging Jesus gave me another day to see my family. And I'm stepping up, I'm going and getting out of bed, and then I make my bed. So in my head, I've got two goals that I've already accomplished. One, I woke up, and two, I made my bed. Right so i'm already checking boxes yep yep my brain's already firing up let's do this let's go we got more to do we got two wins we're just stacking them up and so for me once i get upstairs it really starts with prayer time so i turn on some worship i get down i read my bible and i right now i'm reading through i really started the bible over in may of this year and i just started reading through it and so i've read that and i read a proverb a day so i spent a good 15 20 minutes reading and spend some time in prayer while listening to worship and that's what really sets the tone for my day.

Erik:

[11:13] But the other key thing that I would say is I have post-its, thousands of these post-its all over, um, just stacked. Right. And so, but before I leave the office at night, I write down my to-do list of what I have to do in the first thing in the morning, because what happens is people get up when they go to the bathroom on their phone, just scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. They're getting, you know, jealous of everybody who bought their new car, bought a bunch of money or, you know, did this right. I don't even get on my phone until after I've had my quiet time. In fact, I made a covenant with God that said, I am not going to get on my phone. I'm not going to look at social media. I'm not going to do that until I've given, give my time to you, Lord. And I want you to do with whatever that is during that time. And so that's what I do. But, uh, my post, it's a really, it's my to-do list.

Erik:

[11:56] So once I'm done with my prayer, I know exactly what I have to do that part of the morning. Uh, Hey, I need to reach out to this person or I need to complete this, or I need to edit this show. Right. And so, um, that helps me really get in the right mindset throughout the day. Then we have to think like if we stub our toe or something happens, like, are we having a bad day or are we really just having a bad 15 minutes, right? Get over it, move forward and keep going. God's given you another opportunity to live your life, to go and love on people. And so life is really not that bad no matter what happens. If you're still breathing, man, you've got a purpose and a plan on your life.

David:

[12:28] You're right. You're right. So yeah. Routines are like habits too, aren't they? And, you know, trying to establish good habits, habits will carry you further than just the one or two, even to-do lists, you know? I forget who said it, who started it. Maybe you know who said it, that you don't decide your future, you decide your habits and your habits will decide your future. I forget who said that. yeah

Erik:

[12:54] I don't know maybe it's from think and grow rich or you know one of those uh you know um but yeah it's that's definitely an old quote that's been around for a long time for sure.

David:

[13:03] Yeah yep and i know one of the first habits about six seven years ago i broke is i stopped using my snooze i used my snooze for 30 years you know from ever since i started with an alarm clock it's like hey there's a snooze you just hit that and sleep a little bit longer right um but i realized i wanted to start cutting into my morning to establish morning as a work time and like how can i even plan anything if i don't know what time i'm going to get up yeah if i said it and so i it was difficult but after just a few days i'm like i'm there i just i don't even set it anymore and it's i i have the one alarm i get up and i get going and one of the aha moments where it's like Solid sleep is better than broken sleep. Totally. Totally. So it'd be better for me to sleep an extra half hour solid than to wake up every nine minutes for the next half hour. So that was a very interesting change in my life and just trying to establish that into my morning.

Erik:

[14:07] Super important to not hit that snooze button. I think over the years, so I started working at Starbucks, like I said, I was a night manager for a long time. I was an early morning guy for a long time. And still to this day, I don't even set an alarm, but I wake up between 3.45 and 4 a.m. every single day. And I wake up and I'm fired up and ready to rock and roll, man. I've set an alarm, but it's for 4.30, but I've never actually had it go off. On the weekends, I don't set an alarm, but during the week, I do set an early alarm. But again, my body just kind of tends to wake up early. And I think the more that you do that, the more that you're waking up early, your body's going to adjust to that. And, uh, man, it's, uh, it's important for me. Now you can be a night person or morning person. I'm more of a morning person. That means I'm usually asleep by nine, nine o'clock, right? So nine 30, but morning for me is when I'm most productive. So you have to decide, are you a night person or morning person? And then go all in on that spot. I think.

David:

[15:01] Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And, um, exercise. I know I also, from the miracle morning, he talked about exercise and it's like, you know what? You're right. I don't have time to go an hour and a half to the gym. Yeah. So I started just doing a 10 minute, I lift some weights for about 10 minutes, do some back exercise. Like I got 10 minutes. Yeah. I did it. It's not as much as going to the gym or running down the road, but it's something is better than nothing. Yeah. And someday we can, we will be able to do more. But, um, that's one of the things I took away from that book as well. Just, just even a little bit of physical exercise gets you going.

Erik:

[15:36] Yeah. Huge. Gets the blood flowing, you know, and I've done some crazy extreme exercises where I was getting up and working for an hour and a half every morning. And, uh, then I got injured and I was took some months off and that was like having a tough time getting up and working out because I was like, Oh, I'll try to go at 30, 45 minutes on the elliptical every morning. And, you know, that means I'm waking up at three o'clock trying to do that. And that's a little bit early for me. So I was getting up and I was trying that. the problem was I would just like drain like halfway through the day. I was like getting so tired. And a buddy of mine, his name is Brian Espinosa and he owns a company out here called True Blue. And it's a home repair handyman sort of job. And he's talking to me and he goes, dude, even if you got up for 10 or 15 minutes, go hit the elliptical for 15 minutes, man, that'll get you going. And I switched over to that because of his tip. And I was like, man, it's just a game changer. Even if it's 10, 15 minutes, just to get that blood flow going, really starts your day off on the right foot.

David:

[16:31] Sure. Very good. So what are some other good morning things to put in your routine that you would suggest to people if they're just starting out?

Erik:

[16:41] Yeah. I think one, spend time in prayer. If you are a Jesus follower, if you're not, maybe it's meditation, maybe it's just quiet time. But one thing that I also put into my day is reading every day. So I'm reading a book called the Maxwell Daily Reader right now. But I've read several of John Maxwell's books. I'm a John Maxwell certified coach. Uh, so I think you should spend, you know, read for 20 minutes, read 10 pages a day at minimum. Uh, so that'll help get your brain fired up on some of the things, but I read better in the morning. I take in more, uh, you know, of the information in the morning versus at night. There's a reason why you read books to kids at night, put them to sleep, right? I think that's kind of hung around to us as adults, in my opinion. So I cannot read at night. I'll start to fall asleep, but you know, so I think having that morning routine where you're having that meditation, your quiet time, um, you're being grateful, really just start your day off being grateful, um, get that blood flowing and then work the mind, read the book, you know, read a book, listen to a podcast, something that's going to get you fired up on the mindset. It's going to challenge you to maybe do something different. Uh, if you want to pursue a business or whatnot, for me, I just, I love reading. And so I get a lot of ideas, uh, from other people's books and I start to implement some of those things.

David:

[17:52] Very good. No, that's great. That's great.

Erik:

[17:53] Yeah.

David:

[17:55] So what's next for you? You got anything going new this next year?

Erik:

[17:59] Yeah, it's interesting. So I actually started a book about a year and a half ago. It's been a long time coming and wrote a complete book, probably, I don't know, 40,000 words or something like that. And sent it to editing, aka my wife, who's been editing it. But she also homeschools. She's an amazing homeschool teacher. And so she's busy. And after sending that to her about a year ago, I thought, you know, and we've been kind of doing it together and editing it, but I just had this kind of sense in my heart to change it up a bit. So I'm rewriting a book right now, and hopefully we'll have it out sometime next year, but going to write it on mindset, morning routines,

Erik:

[18:35] things like that, and implement some of my story into it as well. But really, my goal would be to put a book out in 2025.

David:

[18:41] Okay. That's great. That's great. And so how can my audience find out more about you?

Erik:

[18:47] Oh man, I appreciate that. Yeah. ErikAllenMedia.com. It's just E-R-I-K-A-L-L-E-N-Media.com. And you can check out my blog post. You can check out my show, my stories on there. And I have a resources page with all the podcast equipment and courses and free stuff and just all that stuff on there. If you're interested, you can go to there. But I also am very active on Instagram. So if you shoot me a DM or make a comment, I'm going to respond to it every single time. So if you have questions, you can feel free to reach out to me on that way.

David:

[19:15] All right sounds great sounds great um and one last thing uh after what what is one thing my listeners after listening to this whole podcast what is one thing they can take away for them today to help live their best life for the glory of god your

Erik:

[19:32] Past and other people's opinions of you does not define your future yeah once i realized that i could step into my purpose and I can start making an impact by sharing my story. No matter what your story, whether you think it's lame or I had a boring life or I had a crazy life, people are going to relate to it. They might not relate to the exact same step or the exact same thing that you went through, but your story is somehow going to impact somebody. You just never know who's listening.

Erik:

[20:01] And I think if you can get the confidence to share your story and step into your purpose and realize that your past, I know people's opinions, don't define your future, you can really start to make an impact on people.

David:

[20:13] Awesome. That's very good. Yes. Love it. Well, Erik, thank you very much for spending some of your precious time with us today. And that's all we have for today. And just remember, time has limits. You can't do everything. So choose wisely what you do.