John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking engine revolutionising the talent booking industry. With hundreds of athletes, entrepreneurs, speakers and business leaders, Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent for your next event. For more information, please visit letsengage.com.

John: Welcome to another and very special edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian. I’m so honored and excited today to have fellow New Yorker, Anthony Lolli. Welcome to Impact, Anthony.

Anthony Lolli: I thank you for having me.

John: You know Anthony, I was so drawn to your incredible movie. That’s right now on Amazon Prime and all over the place getting talked about from basically how you went from being someone who was obese to how you radically transformed your body. But before we get talking about the movie and everything else that you’re doing right now. Can you share a little bit of your incredible entrepreneurial journey growing up in New York City as an immigrant wanting to become, have a piece of the American dream and where that led you?

Anthony: Oh man, absolutely. So, I started off, my dad was from Italy and a World War II veteran. My mom was from Ecuador. My mom immigrated to this country, lived in an abandoned building, worked in sweatshops and then eventually worked in beauty salons and became home care person taking care of the elderly and she met my dad who was a World War II vet, public school teacher who moonlighted as the evenings doing photo with the parrot. He would put a bird on his shoulder, go around Manhattan and take polaroid pictures of tourists. Put the bird on their shoulders, couples having dinner and charge them $5.00 for a polaroid picture with an exotic bird. That was my background and I didn’t know we didn’t have much money. My dad retired early. He had a small pension of $200 a month and we lived in a rent-controlled apartment.

John: Wow.

Anthony: There was a moment in time when I wanted my mom to buy me this gift because she would go on to Saks Fifth Avenue try on mink coats, expensive clothes, and never by anything. You put it back on the rack and walk right out. In one of those journeys, I saw a waterproof watch on display that I had saw commercials for in the Saturday morning cartoons. I begged my mom to buy me the watch. It was 12 bucks. She cried with tears in her eyes and said we can’t afford it and it was at that moment I said, “mom, one day we’re going to be so rich. I’m gonna buy a white mansion with the white limousine and a chauffeur and you can go and eat and shop and do whatever you want.” We never talked about that moment again, but that was embedded in me and the fire in my belly that made me want to transform my family’s financial situation.

So fast forward many years later, I was going to Kingsborough Community College. I was taking a Business Administration courses and a buddy of mine, dad got into real estate and started making money. I said, “man if he can do it, I can do it.” So, I got my real estate license. I was in the classroom where the instructor was raving about how much money you can make in real estate and then I said, “Excuse me, can you tell me how come you haven’t made a lot of money in real estate?” And he said, “Well, I’m going to talk to you after class.” So after class, he said, “You know what Anthony? That’s a very good question. I actually own this real estate school and if you do the math, you see, I make about a $1,200,000 a year.” I did the math and I said, “No problem, sir. I’m going to pay attention. I’m going to ace this class.” It was at that point in time that I created my goals and aspirations and my dreams. Those were to not only ace the Real Estate school exam, pass the state exam, get my real estate license, but I said, “I’m not only going to sell real estate, but I want to own real estate.” I said, “I’m not going to just rub elbows with these owners and landlords and multi-family building management companies and not learn anything. I’m going to learn the tricks of the trade because I want to be an owner. I want to be a developer. I want to do that.” I also want to start my own brokerage. I want to hire my friends and family to come work for me. And then I said to myself, “Guess what? I’d like to make $1.2 million a year by owning a real estate school, too.” Fast forward, many years after that maybe less than five years I became a multi-millionaire. At the age of 23, I started a brokerage. I called it Rapid Realty. I’ve recruited a lot of friends and family. This was after working for a lot of small mom-and-pops getting ripped off left and right by broker. Learning the tricks of the trade on my own, I started my own company and then simultaneously I started buying real estate and then I started a real estate school that became the second largest real estate school in New York City. We licensed over 40,000 people–

John: Wow.

Anthony: –to get into the real estate industry. We had television commercials. Then eventually I started a billboard company where I had 72 billboards around New York City and then I established that company and sold that company. Eventually, I sold my real estate school and I fully focused on becoming an investor and then I decided to franchise my real estate company and grew it from one small mom-and-pop location to over a hundred locations nationally.

John: Wow.

Anthony: And then, at the same time, I was building my portfolio and then I sold that company and wrote a book called it, The Heart Of The Deal. And that book became an international bestseller. But, beyond that, before that throughout my entire real estate career, I became a public figure. One of the top 10 most sought-after people. I was in the press and the media over 3,000 times. You couldn’t turn on the channel and not see me on Fox, CNN, ABC.

John: [Crosstalk] I see you many times.

Anthony: [Crosstalk] [inaudible] real estate topic.

John: Yeah.

Anthony: They would write articles about it or ask me my opinion about the trends and what was the latest thing. That was an awesome experience and I even had a story that went internationally viral. Over a 105 people that works for me out of the 2,000 tattooed the company logo on their bodies. That story alone went internationally viral. They wanted to know what kind of culture? Who was the CEO of this company where the people were so compelled and so passionate? That they tattoo the logo on their body.

John: That’s awesome.

Anthony: So that will slide apparently quite an experience. Like I said, I continued buying real estate, becoming an investor. Somebody bought my company and I basically retired and then started a brand new chapter of my life.

John: So, wait a second. Now, growing up in New York City myself, I understand that when someone like you becomes as massively successful as you became. You lived already more than most people live in five lifetimes in terms of your success of Rapid Realty and your billboard company in your public speaking you live five lifetimes as a very young man. So I saw my father and other successful people in New York City and all it is, is business lunches and business dinners, which led then to you being at that point massively successful, but overweight.

Anthony: For every million dollars I made I gained a pound to 5 pounds. That’s really how I look at it because–

John: [crosstalk] That’s interesting.

Anthony: –the reality is I ballooned up to 315 pounds.

John: Wow.

Anthony: It was insane. Media after meeting, dinner after dinner. And then I ended up buying a Rolls-Royce and then forget about walking. Asking for a Rolls-Royce you’re driving everywhere or you have a driver. It was just that. The most walking I did was walking on stage to give a speech or just walking to the car or walking to the restaurant. The more successful I became, the less I actually had to be at work because they built a phenomenal team and staff. I didn’t even have to be involved in the day-to-day activity. It was just the pounds were piling on and then I was unstoppable. Then I kept trying to lose weight. But I really didn’t have a need to lose weight because I had everything. I had met the love of my life. I have a beautiful wife, I have beautiful kids and everything was hunky-dory. Of course, I had some health scares. I had sleep apnea of anytime you start getting over 300 pounds. I don’t care what your genetics are. You going to start feeling the effects of it. So I had set a goal. I said, “I’m going to be fit at 40. I’m going to be fit at 40.” On my 40th birthday, I was the fattest I ever was in my life and I said, “Anthony you can achieve so many things. How come you cannot conquer this one aspect that means so much to you that’s so important? Why can’t you do it?” It wasn’t until I had this one moment because my wife and I, would I were at odds my children are eating healthy. She’s a healthy eater and my kids were wondering why I was eating what I was eating and they wanted to know if they could also eat it. They kept trying to [inaudible] the food. So I was no longer invited to eat at the table at the dinner table with the family because I was a bad influence. So, one day I got fed up and I said, “I want to eat at the table.” Eating at the table and my daughter goes to reach to eat some french fries that were the greasiest and the saltiest fries you could imagine and my wife said, “don’t eat that.” My daughter’s name is Love. She said, “don’t eat that Love you’re going to get fat. She says, “Mommy. what’s fat?” And so my wife had been arguing with me for years and she knew what was going to get under my skin. My daughter was everything to me and so my might she said, “I’ll show you what that is.” She showed her a video about obesity in the beat. The video was showing what obese people are, what it is, and how you become obese. And she said, “Daddy you’re fat I don’t want you to die.” It was that dawn the next day I decided to take action. I hired a personal trainer. I looked and I started working out. I started losing weight. Then I knew I was going to hit a wall. So then I looked into nutritionist. I found a nutritionist to customize a diet for me and I flew him over from Ireland and I had him live with me and teach me everything I need to know because I wanted to cure my problem of obesity. But, I felt that I had a higher calling. I knew that I had made a significant impact in thousands of lives. I changed thousands of lives financially throughout my real estate career. I knew that if I did this transformation, I could save millions of lives around the world. So what I did is I purposely documented it. Not only that I know I was going to make it documentary but I also wanted a hold myself accountable. I knew that if I had a business goal and an ultimate goal behind my transformation, I would see it to the very end. I needed to attach that as an entrepreneur. I needed it to be something more important than just for myself. Besides my family, I also needed to sprinkle in a business aspect of it. So I did all of that. I filmed every single day of my transformation and turned it into a documentary and then turned it into a huge online fitness business called Radical Body Transformations. Now we have a reality show that’s in its third season. That’s also on Amazon Prime where we feature the everyday Joe, housewives, people that have been divorced, alcoholics, people that suffer addiction and obesity coming onto our show and we’re helping them transform themselves every single day.

John: For listeners who just joined us, we’ve got Anthony Lolli. He’s the co-founder and executive producer of Radical Body Transformations. You could find him and his team at www.rbtshow.com, rbtshow.com. I’m on the site right now and it is chock-full of information. For our listeners out there that haven’t had the opportunity to see the documentary that Anthony was just referring to, I’ve watched it twice. I’m probably going to watch it the third time. It’s so inspirational. It’s From Fat Lolli to 6-Pack Lolli. It’s on Amazon Prime. It’s literally so well done. You wouldn’t know if it’s being done by Spike Lee or somebody else. It’s so well done and inspirational. I highly encourage all our listeners out there to watch this documentary. Anthony, your daughter said “Daddy you’re fat. I don’t want you to die.” I saw it in the in the documentary. Your wife who’s also comes from immigrant roots Armenian and your mother. It’s so fascinating how you’re surrounded by all these loving and supportive women. Are they part of your transformation process? Your family unit. Family is so important to you, even though you had massive success in business and now in changing lives your family is still first. It’s just fascinating that the three women in your lives have helped you so much and supported you so much.

Anthony: They were keys[?]. Without them I wouldn’t be where I’m at today. Very simple because the kind of support you need and it isn’t easy because I talked about it in the documentary even my wife said, there were moments because we had just had our second child. When you’re training as much as I have, I’m not saying anybody needs to lose 125 pounds in nine months and look ripped. I was looking to achieve world record that was looking to really do something and show excellence because in today’s world people show failure too much and people start normalizing failure.

John: Right.

Anthony: Fail. Fail. Fail. It’s okay to fail.

John: Right.

Anthony: I want to- it’s okay to succeed. It’s okay to win. It’s okay to achieve. There are people out there that can achieve. So you can, too. Because there’s so many people showing you that it’s okay to fail at a diet, to lose weight. It’s acceptable to be obese. I wanted to show the opposite end of the spectrum because when I was looking for motivation, I kept following people that were doing their weight loss journeys. But if they would all stop and they would all fail. I was saying there’s nobody out there showing A to Z.

John: So true.

Anthony: Why not? What is it? Why can’t I do that? Like it was everybody would just say, well I didn’t really want that. The example I give is, there was a nightclub in New York City before my era[?]. It was called Studio 54 and people would wait on line for four hours just to get into the nightclub and the bouncer would reject you. So some of these people they would say “it’s all right. I didn’t want to go into your stinky nightclub anyway.” Yes, you did. You waited for hours on line. So it’s the same thing. I would see the obese people trying to lose weight and they say “it’s okay I don’t want to be vain. I didn’t want that six-pack anyway. I didn’t want-” yes you did. You tried for four months your heart out. You’re sweating. You’re pouring. You’re collapsing on the floor. You did. Something happened. I was a good starter, but I wasn’t a good finisher at this one particular area my life. I applied the same principles I did in business, and in my family life, to my health and I’m one.

John: You know Anthony, I was in the audience. I’m much older than you. I’m 57, and I was in the audience once. I love all these transformation stories and winners like you who provide constant sources of inspiration for all of us out there that want to be our better selves. I was in the audience once when Arnold Schwarzenegger was talking about fitness and he said, “beating obesity is almost harder and probably scientifically harder and keeping it off then beating cancer.” And you did it.

Anthony: Yeah.

John: You did it. It’s just incredible.

Anthony: Why? It’s harder than a drug addiction because you can’t pull out a drug in front of your friends and family on Thanksgiving dinner and do it at the table.

John: Right.

Anthony: At Christmas doing it at the table. But here at 7-Eleven, there it is. They give you a crack, addict in 7-Eleven there’s crack. You go down the street. You go to the strip mall. You go in the mall. Crack, crack all around you. How can you stop smoking crack and same thing with food? If everywhere you go, does it matter if it’s this bars[?], Snickers, a Kit Kat, M&M. It’s everywhere. So how do you curb your addiction when somebody else is eating it and looking thin and fit?

John: Anthony, people find excuses as you just pointed out a little while ago to fail. During the documentary again, for our listeners out there that haven’t seen it yet, From Fat Lolli to 6-Pack Lolli, it will in trance you. I literally watched both in one sitting. I watched it twice in one sitting each time. It just was amazing and it draws you in and grips you and you learn. I learned both times by watching it. You lost along the way during your journey of losing the 125 pounds. You lost your trainer. Very young man, Francisco de Leon.

Anthony: Yes.

John: You didn’t use that. But was fascinating to me is instead of using that as an excuse to quit, to fail, you used it as fuel. Can you explain how that worked in your mind and how you came to terms with that?

Anthony: Well, I had a lot of friends that had went through similar circumstances where they lost close people. He became one of my best friends. He was a very instrumental to my transformation. There’s a lot of mindset. There’s a lot of emotional moments when you’re trying to do exercises as a 300-pound man. These were private just me and him and my partner Carlos. There’s a lot of tears and and moments of struggle. There’s also a lot of moments of triumph and then you bond. I was seeing him twice a day and we were talking all day on FaceTime on the phone. We became really close friends. So for him to die out of nowhere and we had so many dreams and aspirations because everything that I talked about I actually made happen in terms of the fitness business. He was going to be a big part of it. He was also obese. I could identify with him and he identified with me. There was a lot of bonding and brotherhood created. When he died, I could have used that as an excuse to kind of set aside some time and sulk and be sad.

John: Quit.

Anthony: I did.

John: You could have quit. [Crosstalk]

Anthony: But you couldn’t cry like use that. I could have quit. I could have quit. This is a very routine thing. Anything can break your spirit at any moment. I was going through heavy dieting. I was going through heavy exercises and a lot of mental fortitude was needed and so anything could have broke your spirit. But if anything, I just looked at it like a video game. The closer you get to winning the game, the more challenges that are going to come at you. So I said “this is just another challenge and now I have to win for his name, and for his spirit for his legacy.” So I turned the negative into a positive.

John: That’s awesome. For our listeners out there to find Anthony and his coaches in to use and to book an appointment with Anthony or any of his coaches and get the whole plan laid out for you in terms of exercise, diet, nutrition. It’s all there on www.rbtshow.com, www.rbtshow.com. Anthony with living in this very difficult, strange period Covid-19. Every city around the world is under massive pressure and people are dealing with more external anxiety and problems than ever before. There’s a sad story but there’s a message out of it. I’d like you to deliver it during this Covid process. I know you tragically lost your uncle Wilson whose nickname was Poncho and your Aunt Rosa. Can you share since we’re all going through this together? Can you share the important message that you pulled out of that tragedy? With regards of the loss of your dear uncle and aunt and why that’s so important to go through obesity. Go ahead.

Anthony: Obesity kills. Obesity killed the facts are fact. The people that had suffered Covid that were obese, had a 90% chance of dying because it amplifies. Obesity in itself amplifies any underlying ailments that you may not even know about. Covid as we know amplifies that. Combine those two amplifications and you get death or near death. Obesity already was one of the top killers of humankind. Factoring Covid, people are more health-conscious than ever. So when I lost my uncle and my aunt, I said to myself this is a more of a mission for me to save lives even more now because it’s more prevalent than ever. That health is so important, immunity, being fit, lowering your BMI. It’s so important because more importantly is association. In order for me to lose weight, I needed to make association changes. I had to find new friends, new confidante and new people to communicate with the average of the five people you talk to every day. If you go into a fitness journey with the same old Joe bros who’ve already failed many times at fitness, they’re going to fail, too. It’s no different than real estate if you start buying real estate with other people that have failed in real estate. Guess what? You’re going to fail too. The blind leading the blind. I do go to basic principles.

John: For one of our listeners out there in anywhere in the world because our show goes around the world obviously, because podcast that’s how it works now with iTunes and Spotify and everything else. They come to your website. What can they find there? What are the tools and what are you giving all our listeners who want to be the next Anthony Lolli? Explain the process.

Anthony: Okay. The process is very simple. There’s do-it-yourself kits that we have for people that want to do it themselves and they’re working within a budget. There’s people that want communication with coaches. We assign a coach with them and everything can be done virtually. We can give them a customized meal plan. So just like your suit won’t fit me. My suit won’t fit you. My meal plan won’t fit you. Your meal plan won’t fit me. There’s millions of people out there trying all of these diets. All of these Beachbody and Paleo and this and that. Those are temporary things. Those really do not cure. It’s like kind of like these people that have drug addictions and they go away to some of those safe homes, but then they come back out, and they’re back on drugs. They weren’t really cured. What we do is we actually get into the psychological aspect of it and we create a menu and a meal plan and we show you how you can control your eating habits. Weigh your food. What the purpose of the food is. We give you customized workouts. We have an app that you download. It teaches you how to do every single exercise and we do face calls. We do coaching calls. We do online training. We even have trainers that will come to you or you can go to a gym that’s open during these times, but we make it happen. We make it work according to whatever your budget is, according to whatever your goals are. Maybe people don’t want to pack on muscle. Maybe this want to lose muscle. Maybe you’re thin and you just want to put on muscle. We have all aspects in all walks of life. Pregnant women, post pregnancy, all sorts of different scenarios we have.

John: It’s just incredible. Your real mission in life now is just changing lives, inspiring people, leading by example, that’s what you’re all about at this point. You’ve made your pile of money. Now, you’re going to change lives the rest of your life.

Anthony: I know is the real wealth.

John: It’s true.

Anthony: When you put yourself in those circumstance, that money that cannot buy you out of it.

John: I know.

Anthony: And you realize how important that is. Then you start putting that at the forefront. I was very lucky to catch it this early on. I firmly believe that if I didn’t lose the weight as active and as out as I am, if I would have gotten Covid I probably wouldn’t have made it.

Anthony: You start-

John: Thank God.

Anthony: Thinking about all these things when you have children and you have a family. You had people close to your family died from Covid and family members then you know that you made the right decision. I feel like this was my destiny. Anybody could have done a transformation. You didn’t need to fly a nutritionist over I just happen to be in a situation where I could afford to do those things. I could also, wash my own car, but I can afford to take to the car wash. I do my own taxes and I do use TurboTax. But I take it to an accountant. We can say that about him almost everything.

John: Right.

Anthony: I just use the best use of my time. The best use of my time was to understand this cure myself so I can cure others.

John: Wow, you know and you’ve made this a family affair now if I’m not mistaken. Your beautiful wife is now competing with you. Your children are working out. Even mom has gotten into the picture and mom is working out now.

Anthony: Yes. Absolutely.

John: You know Anthony during this Covid period they release the documentary, The Last Dance about Michael Jordan and I’m sure you watched it. You’re always, you’re in the middle of everything. At the end of the eigth episode, he was sitting down and it was the end of the episode and I thought he said one of the most interesting things from the whole documentary. He said “winning has a price and leadership has a price.” He got very emotional when he said it. It’s the only time during the whole documentary he was that emotional. Can you share what that means to you as a winner and a leader perpetual? You’ve won in everything you’ve done. You’ve evolved as a leader and everything you’ve touched whether it’s real estate money and finance and now in health. Can you share your perspective on that?

Anthony: The price of success is how much life you’re willing to give up to achieve it? Everybody has the same 24 hours in the day. When I give speeches that I often get invited to speak in colleges and schools and so fort. I’ll usually pick like a hit series. Like what’s the name of that series that’s on Netflix. I can’t even think of it right now, but it’s like in the barbarian times. Everybody was watching it. It’s over.

John: Oh, Yeah. I’m forgetting it now myself. Oh my gosh. I got you though. I know what you mean though. I know what you mean.

Anthony: Right. So, I asked him how many people have seen the show and then almost 90% of the people raise their hand. I say, you see that? That’s the time you could have used to invest into yourself.

John: Wow.

Anthony: Whether it’s self-education and social. It’s what people do with their time. What people do when instead of watching a movie or watching this or watching that.

John: Wow.

Anthony: Or staying on social media, they could invest in self-education. Listening to podcast like yours that introduce new people into your circle. What are you feeding your brain? What kind of nutrients? What kind of information are you feeding your brain? Who are you following on social media?

John: Right.

Anthony: What are they doing for you? So-

John: You meant Game of Thrones. You meant Game of Thrones.

Anthony: Game of Thrones. That is correct.

John: Yes. Yes. I’m with you know.

Anthony: That’s a long series and there’s a lot of people that binge watch.

John: Right.

Anthony: The things that come out too. You mentioned one of them now. But I like to watch biographies and documentaries because I feel that those are almost as good as reading a book.

John: Right.

Anthony: They’re very educational. You pick up a lot of points and a lot of motivation. Anything that’s motivational or inspirational, I’m all for it.

John: Hey, Anthony before unfortunately, we have to go today. I’m going to give you the last word and then I’m going to give a shout out to all of your social media and everywhere else people can connect to you. You have the last word and then I’ll sign off for us both.

Anthony: The last word is real simple here. This is the youngest you’ll ever be in your life. If you’re wanting to make that change and you need an example of, is it possible? Yes, it is possible. I prove that it’s possible that you can completely transform your body. But more importantly you’re going to transform your entire life. When you get fit, no matter what level of fitness you are in right now. Everybody wants to get fit, more fit. If your wealth increases, your friendships all of a sudden you’re like a magnet people are attracted to you. They want to know. People are attracted to excellence. You mentioned Michael Jordan. Why?

John: Yeah.

Anthony: Why are we attracted to watch because they’re excellent in what they do. We see in them something that we wish we could see in ourselves. So why not be that person? You don’t have to wish anymore. Do that with yourself. People renovate their cars, their homes, their kitchens, their bathrooms, their jewelry, their clothes. Why can’t you renovate your body? I made that possible.

John: Hey Anthony, you are just incredible for all of our listeners out there to find Anthony and his great team at Radical Body Transformations. Please go to www.rbtshow.com, rbtshow.com. Change your life, Anthony Lolli. You could also find them on Facebook and on Instagram. Anthony, you’re the reason I do this show because you’re making the greatest impact. You’re inspiring people. You’re a true role model, and I’m so lucky that you’re here today. Thank you for making the world a better place, Anthony Lolli.