How To Grow Your Failure Muscle To Build Success With James Swanwick

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life

James Swanwick has gone from being a celebrity interviewer to an anchor on SportsCenter for ESPN.

He is the author of ‘Insider Journalism Secrets’, and has sold millions online through various digital and physical products. James is helping people create amazing habits, sleep better and make money online.

He is also the founder of Swanwick Sleep which helps people sleep better through blue light blocking glasses. James is the founder of the 30 Day No Alcohol Challenge and also the 47 Day Habit Hacker Program.

In this episode, we’ll be discussing how James interviewed Hollywood superstars including Jack Nicholson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Matt Damon with absolutely no credentials and no experience.

James shares his story of landing a job as an ESPN anchor on SportsCenter after bombing his first audition. AND how he was able to land it without any anchoring experience.

He also discusses the resources and mentorship he found to get started in digital publishing and e-commerce. And many other strategies and hacks for navigating entrepreneurial challenges.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Find out how James began interviewing movie stars.
• How James used the phonebook to access Jack Nicholson.
• James’ first big business crash and running away to Argentina.
• Why James decided to quit alcohol and work on his relationships.
• How James became an ESPN Sports Center anchor with no experience.
• Why James quit his job at ESPN to become an entrepreneur.
• How Ty Lopez became James’ friend and paid business mentor.
• The biggest take away James received from his business coach.
• Why you shouldn‘t try to make things perfect initially.
• How he created of the 30 Day No Alcohol Challenge.
• James tells us about his e-commerce projects and successes.
• Reasons to embrace the chaos and just go!
• How James breaks his ‘comfort zone’ by meeting women at the gym.
• And much more!

Tweetables:

“I was either going to walk out with my tail between my legs or I was just going to keep pushing.” — @jamesswanwick

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[0:15:40].1]

“I quit the ESPN job, threw myself into becoming a full time online entrepreneur and I was crap at it.” — @jamesswanwick

Tweet This

[0:20:30].1]

“If you pay money for coaching then you really focus and invest 100%. You take it seriously.” — @jamesswanwick

Tweet This

[0:20:30].1]

“Failure is just another way of getting you closer to success.” — @jamesswanwick

Tweet This

[0:29:32].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

James Swanwick Website – http://jamesswanwick.com/

James Swanwick on Twitter – https://twitter.com/jamesswanwick

James Swanwick on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/jamesswanwick/

Swanswick Blue Blockers – https://www.swanwicksleep.com/collections/all-products/

James Swanswick Inner Circle – http://jamesswanwick.com/innercircle/

James Swanwick books on Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/James-Swanwick/e/B00L7N8RB8

Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi – https://www.amazon.com/Never-Eat-Alone-Expanded-Updated/dp/0385346654

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 034

“JS: 2008 I made a stupid decision – well it wasn’t stupid at the time but it was a decision to create a PR company in LA. Started in for six months, I got a swanky office on Sunset Boulevard with a view of palm trees in the Hollywood Hills, I was driving around in a Jaguar. I thought I’d made it. Then I don’t know if you remember 2008, it was like financial Armageddon all of sudden and so these clients that I got, all of a sudden stop paying us and people that ordinarily would have become a client were like, “No, we’re not going to do it” because they’re all cutting cost. Within six months of opening I had to shut the thing down, I lost a lot of money.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:43.8] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:01:09.0] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes leveraging failure is not only the fastest way to learn but is also the fastest way to grow your business and live a life of absolute freedom. In a world that only likes to share successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs.

This is a platform for their stories and today’s story is of James Swanwick. From being an anchor on Sports Center for ESPN, to being the author of Insider Journalism Secrets, to selling millions online through various digital and physical products.

James is helping people create amazing habits, sleep better and make money online. He has been a print and TV journalist for over 20 years, writing for newspapers and magazines in the US, UK and Australia.

James is also the founder of Swanwick Sleep, which helps people sleep better thorough blue light blocking glasses. He’s the founder of the 30 Day No Alcohol Challenge and also the 47 Day Habit Hacker Program.

We’ll be discussing how James interviewed Hollywood superstars including Jack Nicholson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Matt Damon with absolutely no credentials and no experience, it’s crazy how he was able to do this.

We’ll discuss how James was able to land as an ESPN Sports Center anchor after bombing his first audition and again, not having any anchor experience. He’s able to weasel his way into different places and it’s really interesting to see how he does it. Finally, we’ll be discussing the resources and mentorship James found to get started in digital publishing and Ecommerce.

But first, luckily, all I travel with now is a backpack for one reason only – it’s clothing from an innovative Toronto apparel company called Unbound Marino. They have clothes made out of marino wool that you can wear for months on end without ever needing to have it washed.

I don’t think they recommend that but technically, it wouldn’t smell, so they claim. This means, I can travel with less clothes since they are self-cleaning. Checkout the shownotes page for an exclusive Fail On discount that you won’t get anywhere else.

It is amazing stuff, amazing shirts, amazing apparel, check it out. If you like to stay up to date on all the Fail On Podcast interviews and key takeaways form each guest, simply go to failon.com and just signup for our newsletter, that will be at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:03:31.1] RN: There’s a lot I want to dig into because you have a lot going on. You’ve got the blue blockers product, podcast, 30 Day No Alcohol Challenge and you’ve done a slew of interesting other things including being an anchor on Sports Center for ESPN.

We’ll get into all that in a bit but first, just take us back to the first time that somebody actually gave you money in exchange for a product or service you created?

[0:03:52.7] JS: Yeah, well my background was always as a journalist. I was a newspaper reporter for many years and I always had a job and then when I went to London, I got a job as a sports journalist and again, I had a job.

Then when I moved over to the US in 2003, I’m from Australia, but when I moved over to the US in 2003, I was like, “How am I going to make money? What am I going to do?” I figured out that I could interview movie stars and sell the interviews to magazines and newspapers around the world.

I was living in a hostel, the Hermosa Beach Hostel paying $15 a night, living in a bunk bed with a bunch of other snoring backpackers. This is in the first few months that I had come to the states.

I persuaded a movie studio publicist to let me interview the Hollywood actor, Jack Nicholson. He was promoting a film called Anger Management with Adam Sandler back around that time.

[0:04:48.9] RN: Yup.

[0:04:50.4] JS: I ended up interviewing Jack Nicholson at the Amatage Hotel in Beverly Hills and then I sent that story to a magazine in the UK called Loaded Magazine. They published the interview and they gave me money.

[0:05:02.1] RN: How much?

[0:05:03.4] JS: I think it was 400 pounds at the time which was about $750. It was a pretty good exchange rate at the time. That was my first time selling a product.

[0:05:15.6] RN: Which was the interview.

[0:05:16.2] JS: Which was the interview. Yeah, it was the first time outside of a job you know, when you apply for a job, you get a job, they pay you a salary. That was the first time someone really paid me for that and then from there, I just repeated the process and then I interviewed Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was promoting Terminator Three and then Jennifer Aniston and Ben Stiller for the movie, Along Came Poly. Then I just kept doing that and money started to come in.

[0:05:42.5] RN: The first time, what actually gave you the idea that you could do this, that you could figure out how to get access to these people and actually do this interview? What sparked that idea?

[0:05:52.7] JS: Well, my experience was as a journalist and now I’m in this new country where I know no one and I’ve got to try and figure it out from scratch rather. Just go, “What am I going to do? I got to make money, I can’t live in a hostel.”

“I’m a 27-year-old man living in a hostel with backpackers.” It was kind of born out of necessity and then from there, I really asked myself, “Well what do I know how to do? I know how to be a journalist, so how can I create money from this?”

By the way, I couldn’t get a job in America because I didn’t have the right work visa. I couldn’t just rock up to LA Times and say, “Can you hire me?” Because it just wasn’t like that. I had to do anything I could. I was like, “Well, I’m just going to create a freelance journalism business out of nothing and I’m just going to…”

[0:06:36.8] RN: When you reached out to that publicist for the first one, Jack Nicholson, did you have some kind of corporate or business website or anything?

[0:06:44.9] JS: No, I had nothing. I mean, I literally phoned Sony Pictures, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, Universal, Paramount from the Hermosa Beach Hostel.

[0:06:56.0] RN: That’s awesome.

[0:06:57.0] JS: I got the phone numbers from – this is how ancient I’m sounding now. From a phonebook. Not like an online thing, on a phonebook. I just cold called and said, “I want to interview movie stars, how do I do it?” Someone said, “You need to talk to someone in the publicity department,” and so they put me through to the publicity department.

Only one publicist from one studio gave me the time of day, it was a woman called Anna Wilan from Sony Pictures. She invited me to go in, I met her at the Sony offices in person and I said, “I don’t know what I’m doing, tell me how can I interview movie stars and get paid for it.”

She kind of walked me through the process and you know, two weeks after that, that’s when she reached out and said, “You want to interview Jack Nicholson?” I’m like, “Sweet.”

[0:07:39.6] RN: That’s awesome, that’s cool. Going from there, you did a slew of those interviews, when did it actually in your head turn into like, “Okay, I can actually not only make a living off this but like this could spark a business.”

[0:07:53.0] JS: I think after I got to interview Arnold Schwarzenegger and then I photocopied those articles as published articles, I literally went to a King Co’s FedEx store on Pacific Coast Highway up there by Hermosa Beach. I went in and I photocopied it like 30 times and then I researched the addresses of Warner Brothers, Paramount, Universal and I researched the addresses of newspapers and magazines around the world.

Then I bought 30 stamps and you know, some of them were overseas, I bought 30 envelopes. I put the article into the envelopes and I sent them off and said “Hey, look, here’s my interview with Jack Nicholson.”

“Reach out to me if you want me to interview movie stars for your publications.” When the Schwarzenegger one was offered to me, I was like, “Damn, my first two interviews ever in LA were Jack Nicholson and Arnold Schwarzenegger” and I’m like, “I think I might…”

[0:08:46.8] RN: The bar is set high.

[0:08:47.3] JS: Yeah. “I think I’m on to something here now.” It just kind of like flowed from there, you know? All of a sudden instead of me trying to tell people, “Hey, look at me, I interview movie stars now.”

Magazines were reaching out to me going, you know, “We saw your Jack Nicholson article, could you interview George Clooney for the movie Siriana, can you interview Matt Damon for the movie Stuck On You?”

I remember being in New York City, at the movie studio, I think it was FOX. They flew me from LA to New York to stay at the Regency Hotel on the upper east side of Manhattan and I think it was on November 30th 2003, and the reason I remember that date, because it was the rugby world cup final. I interviewed Matt Damon for Stuck On You.

I think that was kind of like the moment where I realized, “I think I’m on to something here, this is like my third interview I’ve done. Jack Nicholson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and now Matt Damon.“

[0:09:41.9] RN: Not only that, but the studios are paying a lot of your expenses, right?

[0:09:46.0] JS: Yeah, they paid all of those expenses and they sent me over to New York and I was like, “This is pretty cool. This could be fun.” Matt Damon was cool and we were talking about the rugby cup final that night and that was on that night because he seemed to be a rugby enthusiast and yeah, it was cool. I’m trying to find a photo here of me and Matt Damon and I could show you but I can’t find it.

[0:10:09.6] RN: Well, if you do find it, we’ll post it on the show notes page.

[0:10:12.0] JS: Here it is. This is me, it was the 21st of November 2003.

[0:10:17.4] RN: You look so young there.

[0:10:18.1] JS: Don’t I?

[0:10:19.7] RN: Both of you, I mean, you guys both looked young.

[0:10:20.3] JS: Matt Damon looks like a kid.

[0:10:22.6] RN: He looks like – yeah, it’s crazy. That’s cool. Just in the hotel room?

[0:10:27.7] JS: It was in a hotel room in the Regency Hotel in upper east side, yeah.

[0:10:32.9] RN: That’s awesome. Okay, you’re interviewing all the celebrities, where did it go from here? How long did you continue to do that and then what did that transition to?

[0:10:41.2] JS: Yeah, I mean, I did