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He Made Millions Every Year, Then Went $800K Into Debt: Adam Hagaman on the Trap of Success | Ep. 410 Founder of Content Cash Flow

Founder's Story · 2026-06-22 · 34 min

0:00--:--

Key moments - from our scoring

Substance score

28 / 100

Five dimensions, 20 points each

Insight Density5 / 20
Originality4 / 20
Guest Caliber7 / 20
Specificity & Evidence8 / 20
Conversational Craft4 / 20

Adam Hagaman built a million-dollar-plus business every year from 2012 onward, but in 2024 found himself nearly $800,000 in debt - revealing what he calls the trap of success. This episode explores Hagaman's transformation from drug dealing, jail time, and alcohol addiction through age 25 to becoming a serial entrepreneur and licensed minister whose Content Cash Flow platform teaches reaction videos and YouTube monetization strategies. The critical insight: the difference between being a Christian with a business (including God in decisions) versus being a kingdom entrepreneur (giving God full ownership and CEO status). Hagaman shares the pain of his turnaround - spending Wednesday mornings in the mountains in prayer - and explains how continuous pursuit of more (the hamster wheel of growth) without defined stopping points destroys families and judgment. For operators building brands or content businesses, his lessons on putting the customer first in sales, the cost of ignoring spiritual alignment in business, and how to build with kingdom mission rather than greed offer hard-won wisdom about sustainable entrepreneurship.

Key takeaways

  • →Success without boundaries becomes a trap; entrepreneurs must define when they're 'enough' rather than constantly chasing more money and more growth.
  • →Core sales principle: prioritize the customer's needs over your commission; Adam went from 2 sales per week at high margin to 32 sales per day by selling at lower prices with customer-first mindset.
  • →An $800K debt crisis forced Adam to shift from including God in his business to making God the CEO; he learned he was running operations without actually surrendering control to God.
  • →Time with family must be intentionally blocked out; Adam's kids told him he was physically present but mentally absent in his home office, forcing a recalibration.
  • →The difference between a Christian-owned business and a kingdom entrepreneur is whether you're involving God in decisions versus completely surrendering ownership and letting God direct resource allocation.

In this episode

  1. 1From Drugs and Jail to Finding Faith at 25
  2. 2Meeting His Wife and the Turning Point with Addiction
  3. 3Learning Sales Door-to-Door and Early Career at Interstate Trailer
  4. 4Building a Million-Dollar Business and the Success Trap
  5. 5The $800K Debt Crisis and Distinction Between Christian Business Owner and Kingdom Entrepreneur
  6. 6Using Wealth to Fund the Kingdom Mission and Impact Thousands
  7. 7Going Public on Social Media with His Story and Overcoming Criticism

Mentioned

Adam HagamanContent Cash FlowYouTubeInterstate TrailerEthosWagner University

Guests

Adam Hagaman

Topics in this episode

Content Cash FlowReaction videosYouTube ShortsDoor-to-door salesInterstate TrailerOil change packagesKingdom entrepreneur vs Christian business ownerWagner UniversityTreasure ValleyMinisterial calling

Questions this episode answers

What caused Adam Hagaman to go from making millions yearly to $800,000 in debt in 2024?

Hagaman built the business without truly giving control to God; he included God in his decisions but retained ownership and decision-making authority. He kept pushing forward without seeking God's guidance on major financial and strategic choices, which led to poor decisions and mounting debt.

What is the difference between a Christian with a business and a kingdom entrepreneur according to Adam Hagaman?

A Christian with a business includes God in decisions and goes to church but maintains control; a kingdom entrepreneur treats God as CEO, seeks His direction through prayer before major moves, and views themselves as working for God rather than alongside Him.

What was Adam Hagaman's first lesson in sales that he still uses today?

Don't make it about the sale - make it about the person. By focusing on the customer's needs rather than his commission, he went from selling 2 oil change packages in a week to 32 - 34 sales per day by pricing at the customer's benefit ($50) instead of maximum commission ($80).

How did Adam Hagaman escape drug addiction and jail cycles that lasted from age 18 to 25?

Meeting his future wife (a pastor's daughter) and her father the pastor gave him spiritual guidance and community. When his wife threatened to leave and took their kids, he prayed for God to intervene and transform him completely - a turning point that shifted his entire trajectory.

What does Adam Hagaman teach through Content Cash Flow?

He teaches reaction videos and YouTube monetization strategies, focusing on how creators can capitalize on YouTube Shorts and the platform's investment (worth potentially over a trillion dollars by end of decade) to build sustainable content income.

What our scoring noted

Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.

Insight Density

5 / 20

The vast majority of the episode is a personal redemption and faith narrative, with only a handful of practical claims for operators. The oil change pricing story and the shorts-vs-longform split are the only substantive moments, and neither is developed with any depth.

Don't make it about the sale. Make it about the person, plain as day.
reaction videos are big. And you'll even see celebrities and people up there that are doing very well now. They're, they have realized, man, these reaction videos do very well.

Originality

4 / 20

The episode recycles the most common sales and content clichés ('make it about the person,' 'attention is the new currency,' 'just start') with no contrarian or first-principles reasoning. The Christian-entrepreneur-vs-kingdom-entrepreneur framing is the one genuinely distinct angle but it is not developed into anything operationally testable.

Attention is the new currency. Attention is the new currency.
don't let your past dictate your future

Guest Caliber

7 / 20

Adam Hagaman has real operator credibility - consistent seven-figure annual income since 2012, built a million-person audience in two years, and experienced a genuine $800K debt crisis - but his domain is faith-based personal content creation, not B2B, making his practitioner depth largely irrelevant to a B2B audience.

Since 2012, I've never had a year that I've made under a million dollars.
I went from zero to over a million followers in the last two. Yeah, two last two years. So from zero to over a million followers on four platforms

Specificity & Evidence

8 / 20

There are genuine concrete numbers scattered through the episode - follower counts by platform, the $5K mastermind cost, the $800K debt figure, and the granular oil-change commission math - but the creator economy projections are vague and unsourced, and most business claims lack timeline, margin, or verifiable context.

I paid, uh, I think $5,000 for to learn how to start doing shorts
About each of them are about 300,000 followers right now. I think YouTube's about to be 400,000.

Conversational Craft

4 / 20

The host consistently softballs, frequently inserts personal anecdotes that stall momentum, and never challenges a single claim - not the income figures, not the debt recovery, not the content growth numbers. The conversation functions as a feel-good testimonial rather than an interrogation of ideas.

I, uh, yeah, I mean I remember like a year and a half ago someone told me like, you got to do shorts on YouTube. And it was crazy how, how much that like the trajectory of our YouTube changed overnight
I need to do more short form. I literally need to do. I need to do better short form.

Conversation analysis

Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.

Share of words spoken

  • Adam Hagamanguest83%
  • Host15%
  • Narrator2%

Most-used words

started22life19shorts18saying18million16didn16back15sales13whole12wrong12start12learned12part11family11long11form11

Episode notes

Daniel and Adam Hagaman dive into the painful early chapters of Adam’s life, including growing up without a father, trying drugs in sixth grade, selling drugs, dropping out of school, and going to jail every year from 18 to 25. Adam explains how a party invitation led him to meet his future wife, the daughter of a pastor, and how that relationship introduced him to faith after years of darkness. The conversation moves from redemption to entrepreneurship, covering door-to-door sales, building businesses, making millions, losing nearly $1 million, and the shift from being a Christian with a business to becoming a Kingdom entrepreneur. Key Discussion Points Adam shares how growing up without his father shaped his identity and pushed him toward the wrong friends, drugs, alcohol, gangs, and selling drugs at a young age. He explains that from 18 to 25, he went to jail every year, but at the time he didn’t see it as a wake-up call; he only thought he had to “do better next time.” Adam tells the story of meeting his future wife at a party, even though he originally thought inviting her was a bad idea, and how her family and faith opened the door to a new life.

Full transcript

34 min

Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.

Host: You went from drugs, alcohol and jail to now reaching millions of people.

Adam Hagaman: I said, God, I need you to take this from me. Like, I don't want to stop. I keep going back to this. So I need you to intervene. So that was the moment that shifted everything. Since 2012, I've never had a year that I've made under a million dollars. I teach people in content, cash flow, about reaction videos because reaction videos are big. YouTube's putting so much money in shorts, like it's worth a couple hundred million, they're saying it's going to be over a trillion dollars by the end of 20. Don't make it about the cell, make it about.

Host: So, Adam, you went from drugs, alcohol and jail to now reaching millions of people. What happened that led you down that path when you were younger?

Adam Hagaman: Well, I grew up in a good home. I just had my mom. My dad left when I was. I don't even know. I don't even remember him. Only, um, met him a handful of times. So I was 25. And that actually is a part of the whole story too. But, um, I think around my teenage years, even before that, I think by the age of 11, 12, sixth grade, whatever you are in sixth grade, started seeing, uh, hanging out with the wrong friends.

Host: Try.

Adam Hagaman: I tried drugs the first time in sixth grade at school. Um, and I was just trying to find who I was. Um, like I said, I had a great mom. She was a hard worker, but she worked. Since it was just her, she worked hard. So I was trying to find just other things and so hung out with the wrong friends, um, started drinking, started smoking, uh, started doing all that. Like sixth grade was when it started. But then by eighth grade, it was just full blown. Um, and I don't know how old I was. Just trying to think of the age, maybe 12, 13, 14. But by the time, eighth grade. Right. Um, but as early as 11, um, just started trying and hanging out with the wrong people, doing the wrong things. And that ended up being. I actually dropped. So part of that is I dropped out of school too. So I dropped out of high school because hanging out with the wrong people. I started actually selling drugs as well. And so I had thousands of dollars in my pocket. And so I was like, why am I going to go to school? Like, I'll just do this as just a dumb kid not knowing better, not knowing any other way. Um, and by that time too, the music and the culture and the influence, like, hey, this is the cool thing to do. Rap music started coming out, talking about these things. And so people wanted to be those things. And, um, ended up getting involved with gangs. Um, and, yeah, like I said, just started selling drugs. Dropped out of high school because of it. Um, and afterwards, it wasn't until I never went to juvie. Um, so all the way to 18. But 18 to 25, I went to jail every single year. I, uh, had DUIs, I had possession charges. I had all kinds of stuff. And then in my mind, you think that would stop you, but in my mind, it's just like, oh, they got me this time. I'm gonna do better next time. Um, but it wasn't until I was actually 25, and I met, uh, a girl at a party, really, and turned out to be that girl at the party was a pastor's daughter. She grew up in church her whole life. I never grew up in church. And so we met, started talking, and that kind of was the start of just changing everything. I. I used to say this in the world, especially the drug world, because I seen, uh, witchcraft. I seen a lot of. I seen darkness. And so I used to say this, like, I. I know there's a devil, so there's got to be a God. Like, I see this darkness. I see this all around. There's got to be a other side, but I just don't know how to reach that other side. I don't know what to do. My family didn't go to church, anything like that. And so I met her, and her dad was the actual pastor. So, um, man, I had lots of questions, and long story short is asking those questions, and it, uh, literally just changed my life around. Just gave my life to Jesus. It wasn't an instant transformation. I wasn't, like, just done with everything. But slowly he started just changing my life completely. And that's when the journey of entrepreneurship and everything else started. Because I wasn't in sales before, legally, I wasn't in sales before. Um, but when I gave my life to Jesus, um, from 18 to 25. So I stopped selling drugs, um, maybe around 18, after going to jail a few times, but I was still just living how I shouldn't be. And, um, so 25 was basically the time that everything changed. And I was like, okay, I need to do something different. Like, I'm down this path, and I can share with you if you want, what actually finally changed everything down that path. But, um, that's basically a long story short.

Host: Before you share that, I'm curious. Did you always know that you were destined for something better? Did you tell yourself, like, I'm in this now, but at some point I know I can do better. Or did you give that up when you were, you know, up to the point of 18? You're like, this is my only path in life.

Adam Hagaman: Yeah. Even I think till 25, um, I think that's what I thought I wanted to. Even when I thought about making lots of money, it was to do things that just weren't that productive. It was to uh, own things that probably bars and different things like that and you know, things that, yeah, wasn't very productive. And that's what I thought my life was. That's what I thought it was going to be. It was literally a, a complete 180.

Host: So what's the moment then that, uh, religion came in where you said, I'm going to embrace this.

Adam Hagaman: So I like I said I met uh, she's now my wife, uh, the store. I love the story because my friend actually invited her to, to the party that we were at. And I remember telling. Why are you doing this? This is dumb. Like we're at a party to meet girls and we're not rude. So we can't be rude to her because we're inviting her. But why are you actually even doing this? Telling him how dumb he was the whole drive to. Because we met her to show her how the way back. But I like telling the story because I was sitting there saying how dumb he is for inviting her and now she's my wife. So I'm like, man, God, you had a plan this whole entire time. Um, but since I grew up without a dad, I used to say to myself all the time, I am never going to do this to my kids. I'm never going to not be there for my kids. I'm never going to going to be absent father. I don't care what me and my wife had. This is my thoughts before. I don't care what me and my wife's ah, issues are. If we have issues. I'm always going to be there for my kids. No matter even if she treats me like crap or whatever, I'm still going to be there for my kids. I don't want them to feel what I have felt growing up. Like I never even had a dad. Where was he? I seen other people happy with their dads and I didn't even know what that was even like. Um, so I used to say that. And so so as I'm learning, as I'm getting saved, I'm still not transferred, transformed completely. So I'm still, I've grown up this way my whole life. And so I was still.

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Adam Hagaman: not as bad anymore, but still going out and partying, still going on the week. So I thought, I work Monday through Friday. My weekend is my weekend to. I work hard. I'm going to go get drunk with my friends at the bars. And my. She was a girlfriend there soon, uh, to be wife. But she was telling me, she's like, stop, quit doing this. Like, you know, you're not. And in my head, you know, what I used to say is, like, one more weekend, I'm gonna do it one more weekend, and then I'll finally give it up. I'm gonna do one more weekend. But that one weekend just kept on being one more weekend, one more weekend. And it was, I, uh, think even on her birthday, that we were hanging out and my friends were going out and I left just to go with them. And I remember her telling me, if you don't stop, I'm leaving. Like, I'm taking the kids and I'm leaving. And I don't know if I didn't believe her or if I didn't, um, if I didn't believe her or just didn't think it was true or maybe just as me being selfish. But I went out anyways. But I remember coming back. I came back that night drunk, um, and went to the house and she was gone. And I just remember thinking, oh, my goodness, like, I was crying. I was thinking, I said, my whole life, I wasn't going to become this man. My whole life, I'm not going to be this person. And now look, I am. I'm doing the same things he was doing. I'm doing the exact same things. Choosing drugs, choosing Alcohol, choosing friends over my actual family. So that night I said, God, if you are real, I know you're real. But I need you to take this from me. Like, I don't want to stop. I keep going back to this. So I need you to intervene and just transform my life completely because I need to not do this anymore. I've said my whole life I'm not going to. And now I'm here in this spot and I'm exactly doing what he did. So that was the moment that shifted everything.

Narrator: Wow.

Host: I mean that's powerful. Yeah, it's tough, right? No matter what, when we don't want to do something our parents do, like we don't want to be like that. It's so hard to not be like that. And I find myself too in these moments of anger, frustration. It's just an automatic thing. I just go to seeing what my father would do in that moment, even though I never wanted to do that. So I can totally relate now. When you look at business and entrepreneurship and you also look at religion, what holes do those fill together that you are always seeking in your life?

Adam Hagaman: I mean I was just a go getter. So business. That's why I liked business, especially as an entrepreneur. My first sales job because uh, I was in 2006-2008 I was a manager at a place called Interstate Trailer. I ran the wire prep and paint department. And then 2008 happened. They shut down the whole night crew. Um, and since I dropped out of school, like I shared before, I didn't even have a diploma. So automatic. I never needed one before. But now in 2008 everybody wanted one. They're like, hey, where's your diploma? I couldn't even get a job. And so my first door to door or uh, first sales job was a door to door sales job. And that's how I learned. And ah, let me tell you this too. I'm the kid that when way back when I actually did go to school and would have to do like something where I speak in front of the class, I would either not do it or skip that class. Like I did not want to speak in front of any anyone. I did not want to be in front of the camera. I did not want to be any of that. And so I wouldn't do that. And so I think God just started showing me especially going door to door, going house to house. Like I'm the person that didn't want to do it. Now I'm going face to face with one house after another house. I Ended up, actually, I think, uh, we were doing oil change packages at the time. It was a great deal. I still remember it till today. It was like six packages. We could sell it for $80, all the way down to $50. At $50, it became like $8 and 33 cents of oil change. Like, especially thinking of now. That's insane. But back then, you still couldn't even buy the oil for that price. And it was 100. My hardest sell was making people believe that it was real. A lot of them would call the oil companies because they were mechanic shops. And what was in it for them was it was a mechanic shop. So people came in for oil changes. And now they had, on the right side, like, a bunch of stuff like free, uh, air conditioner, free air conditioner check, or free maintenance. Um, you know what I mean? So they would get new business off of it. So it was good for them. Um, and so, yeah, I think, um, just being drawn to that and being pushed to go forward in that. But I, I mean, I don't. The religion part of it is, I think that helped me get there, get my mind on straight to say, like, hey, I have a family. I need to, to, uh, provide for them. I need to do things right. I need to do it the right way. Instead of doing the way I used to do it, now there's a new way. So it started showing me a new way of doing things, doing things right, doing things with integrity, doing things, um, doing things to others as you would want it to be done to yourself instead of doing things wrong. So I think that's kind of how they mix together. Um, is there something else you wanted to say specifically about that, or.

Host: No, I, I, you know what? I've always said, if you can learn sales, you'll never not have a job. It's probably the most important thing that you can do. And I almost feel like it's kind of like in somebody. Like it's just in you. Either you can be a salesperson and you can learn to get better. And then there's people just, that will never be great.

Narrator: Salesperson.

Host: It's just not who they are. I remember going door to door myself. I lasted like 24 hours, and then I quit.

Adam Hagaman: Oh, wow.

Host: But what, what in sales that you learned early on that you still to this day use?

Adam Hagaman: Don't make it about the sale. Make it about the person, plain as day. No matter what you're selling, don't be so overly anxious to get the sale and forget about who you're selling. To, like, if the oil changes, that was such a good deal. It was convincing them that it was actually true. That was the hard part of it. So in sales, I learned that. Learn. Learn who you're dealing with. Learn. It's not just about your commission check. It's about helping them. So that's number one. Number two, I learned this in the. My first week in oil change, uh, sales. I was going out trying to. Because we got 40% commission, and I wanted to sell for $80 because I got $32 versus 50, where it's only 20. So my first week, I only got two sales the whole week, working my butt off, probably six, seven, eight hours every day, knocking on doors, only got two sales. And these other guys, they're getting five, six, seven cells each day. And I'm like, what is going on? And so they were actually from another state. And so when they came back, I went out with them again, and they said, adam, we sell it for 50, not 80. And I'm like, well, why would you do that? Because, you know, 32 versus 20. They're like, yeah, how much money did you make selling it for that higher price? I was like, Well, I had two cells. They're like, all week. Two cells. We got 50 cells all week. So 50 times 20 versus 2 times 32. And so what I learned from that is, like, more is not always better. Don't think you have to sell it for the highest price. Don't think that it has to be. You have to make the most on what you're doing. It's still. It would have been a better price for the customer at 50. So if I would have been thinking of them more than thinking my commission, that it would have been a lot more beneficial. When I took that mindset on, I actually ended up. The record was 34 in a day, and I had 32 sales in one day. So it just changed everything when I learned more about putting the person first versus my goals and ambitions. Um, and so, yeah, I think that's the number one. Number two is just making sure you're. It's not about you. It's about who you're selling to make sure it's a good deal for them, make sure you're listening to them versus just pushing on them what you want to make and what you want to do.

Host: Sometimes success can be a trap. And I know you've talked about, uh, being a Christian with a business versus a kingdom entrepreneur. And when I say success can be a trap, because maybe what you think is success in the moment is not really what the success that you need as a person. What is the difference between those two things? A Christian with a business and kingdom entrepreneur?

Adam Hagaman: Uh, I'll answer that. But let me tell you about the success real quick. Is the reason why success is a trap is because most people don't realize or set a goal of, when I get here, I'm going to do this. There's really, when I get here, now I want to make more, now I want to make more, now I want to do more. And, uh, when does it ever stop? It's like a hamster wheel. You're continue just working and working and work and uh, nothing wrong with that. But you have to have a place that you're like, okay, I'm content with this. Instead of the greediness of more, more, more. I need to make a million, I need 10, 20, 50, 100. There's nothing wrong with that. But you have a plan, especially if you have a family, you will be run to the ground. Reaching those numbers I've done since 2012. I've never had a year that I've made under a million dollars. So every year we've made a million. Uh, I think 2012 is the lowest of a million. So it's always been two to three or more, um, every single year. But you have to be content with knowing, hey, this success, when I reach this, I'm fine. Like, I, I would rather have time with my family, have time, uh, because earlier in my career I was just working and working and working and I had a home office. And so I would, I remember saying one time to my kids, like, I'm here. And they're like, you're here, but you're not here. You're in your office all the time. And There was no 9 to 5. It was even if I went out, I'm like, oh, I forgot to do that. Come back in. So you have to watch and know what the success is, um, and where you're comfortable with getting, stopping. And don't leave your family out. You have to include your family in it and block out time to spend time with them. So that's the success part. But the Christian with the business versus a Kingdom entrepreneur is something that I've learned in the last up to 2024. So if you would ask me from 2020 to 2024, I would have said, I'm doing great, I'm doing. Because we made millions, we had brands, we were doing good. And I ended up getting in debt in 2024, almost a million Dollars and I went through a valley that I was like, I've never been here before. I felt physically sick, like I'm $800,000 in debt and thinking, how am I going to get out of this? I've never been that much upside down. I've always done good. I've never been here. And I spent a, uh, three, four months going to the mountains every single Wednesday. And uh, from 9 o' clock in the morning to around 3 o', clock, just spending time with the Lord, spending time reading my Bible. And I learned, you know what, I learned more in my loss than I have in my wins. And what I learned during this time is, uh, it was like God was speaking to me, Adam, you were including me in the business, but you weren't giving it to me. So that's when I started thinking about this more and he started sharing with me. A Christian with the business is a Christian, uh, you own a business and you may love God. And I'm not saying you're doing anything wrong. I would have not thought I was doing anything wrong. I can only see it now that I'm out of it and can look back in. So a Christian with the business is somebody that includes God, goes to church ties, what, whatever, doing everything wrong. I'm not saying they're doing something right or not saying they're doing something wrong. Um, but it is exactly that. Just including God into the business. A kingdom entrepreneur says, you know what, God, you're the CEO. I don't even want to show me where to put the money. Show me. It's spending time in prayer. It's spending time before you just start running forward. Because that's what I do. I full fledged just move forward. I'm a builder. I go, go, go. And I built myself out of having God in the picture. So Christian with the business is just saying, God, you're included in here. A kingdom entrepreneur saying, God, I'm not going to do anything without you. You were the CEO, I work for you, you own this business. And I think it's important because I think there's so many people that are there and I can look back and see how I got into all the debt is because I kept marching forward and I was praying like, God, I know you can do this. I know who you are. I was cured from a disease that there's no cure for. I was healed from prayer. And so I know the supernatural of what God can do. So I was praying saying, I know you can get out of this and I'm getting Out of it now. It's, uh, getting chipped away very quickly. But it's now that I turned it completely over to him and said, this is yours. I can't do this without you. I got in trouble, in a mess without you. I thought that you were in it. I thought I was including you in it. But what I didn't realize is I wasn't giving it to you and I got myself in trouble because of that. And so that's the lesson. M. One of the lessons he showed me during this time is like, Adam, you were just including me into it. You weren't actually giving it to me. And so when you give something to some God who owns everything, right, he knows exactly what to do with it. Especially when your mission is to use it to fund the kingdom, use it. It's not just to go buy a big fancy house on the hill, buy the nicest cars. I'm not against that. I'm not saying don't do that. But when you have a mission of saying, God, what I do with this money, let me know, pray like, am I going on a mission trip? Am I going to give this to missionaries? Am I going to give this to a church? Do we do a lot of, uh, conferences around where I live And I'll rent out like the civic center, not charge anything to anybody, pay the whole price, bring the speakers down. Just letting the whole. Our, uh, uh, place is called the Treasure Valley. Letting the Treasure Valley just get blessed and not have to pay anything. But it's because of what I've done and saying, God, what do you want me to do with this? And so now thousands of people have benefited from it, been blessed from it, uh, because I put him first.

Host: So you then at some point saw that being on social media is a way to amplify this mission. Right? Like you can talk to 10 people, 20 people, but you can go online and talk to 10 million people, which is amazing. At the same time though, it can be very nerve wracking. When you're talking, I think about what you are saying. Just because you're going to have a lot of people that might believe you, you're also going to have a lot of haters. I think just how it is nowadays when you open yourself up online, you also open yourself up to criticism and hate. How was that experience for you? And how did you get over the ability to say, I'm just going to tell my story how it is because it's so important?

Adam Hagaman: Yeah. So I felt like I was supposed to go online I'm a licensed minister. I preach. I'm not a pastor, so I don't preach every Sunday or anything, but sometimes every couple months I would preach on a Sunday. But I felt like God was giving me more. I dropped out of high school. I ended up getting my diploma. I ended up actually going, um, I don't know if you can see it, but I got my bachelor's even at Wagner University in ministry. So I always knew, like, I'm not learning all this stuff just for myself. I don't want all this head knowledge. I'm learning it because I want to share it with others. And so I knew I was supposed to go online, but then the, the kid in me that was back in school that was afraid to go in front of the class, I had to deal with that too. Like, oh man, I did the door to door sales, dealt with it. But then when I looked at this camera, I'm like, oh man. Nobody else is in the room, but it's just the camera. And I'm like, this is very intimidating. Um, but what I tell people and what I teach people is like, just go for it. Like when you start. I, I started in December 20, 2023, finally. And the reason why it's December 20, 2023 is because I was going to wait till January, but I'm like, I gotta just start. I felt like God was telling me, just start, just go. And so that's why it's such an odd day. Um, but if you look at my videos way back then, till now, I haven't removed any of them because you can see the progress. I started with just my phone, not even a microphone, just my phone, just recording it and putting the messages on YouTube. I paid, uh, I think $5,000 for to learn how to start doing shorts to do it. Because you can learn things on your own or you can pay and get there faster. That's all. Joining courses, joining, uh, masterminds. That's what it is. Like you can spend years and learn it on your own or pay and get there in a couple months. And so that's what I did. I didn't want to spend years. I wanted to find out how to do it. Um, and so I went from zero to over a million followers in the last two. Yeah, two last two years. So from zero to over a million followers on four platforms with YouTube, Instagram, IG and Facebook. About each of them are about 300,000 followers right now. I think YouTube's about to be 400,000. Um, so just getting over that and going forward and saying, look, I'm m just going to do this.

Host: When you look back, ah, I mean, and that's huge results by the way. I mean going, you know, having up to a million and spreading different platforms. Uh, I think that's so at least for me. It's hard, right, when you, it's so easy to focus on one thing, one platform, but when you start adding in more and more, it complicates things, it makes more challenges. Uh, but when you look, when you think about your 18 year old self, the one that you described early on, if they have seen you now, would they even believe this is who you are?

Adam Hagaman: No, not even. Because by the, like I said, I didn't even give my life over till 25. So I would have never guessed that. I would have never thought that. Uh, not at all. Nope.

Host: So when you, when you think about your kids, when they, when they turn 18, for example, what do you hope that they know about you and what you've done in life?

Adam Hagaman: So I got four kids. I actually have one that's 23, one that's 22, one that's 18, but about to turn 19 and one that's 15. Um, so yeah, uh, the two older ones, they seen me try going through this, right? So they were younger. Um, we learn as we go and what I tell people all the time is like, don't let your past dictate your future. Maybe you weren't the best dad, maybe you weren't because I didn't have, I didn't have a dad, so I didn't see how it was. And so I was so focused on ministry, so focused on business, in my mind I was like, I got to provide for them, uh, go on vacations, do all these things instead of spending quality time. So my mind was about just making money, making money so then they can have a better life than I did. Like, I just had a mom, we weren't poor, but I didn't get the nice things. Like it was hard getting a new pair of shoes, it was hard getting some of these things. And so my, in my mind I'm like, man, I'm gonna just do good and my kids are gonna have nice shoes, nice clothes. I want to give them what I never had. Um, and so they seen that part of me and so I think they actually got the work ethic part of it. But then the part of me that learns how close family is and like I said earlier in this, spending time with family, that's what they see now that's what they see is important. That's you don't we all have 24 hours in a day and that you. Nobody gets more than that. And each day that goes by that you're not spending time with your family, you're losing opportunity, you're losing, um, a very par. Important part of your life. So, uh, about the part of growing from zero to a million, and I know you asked about, like, how that was with haters as well. Um, I really didn't have any. So I was actually surprised because people were for it. Actually, when I very first started, I'm like, what am I gonna do? From December 20th to the 25th, I just did a bunch of what's the real reason for Christmas? So many people are just presents hustling to get money for presents, instead of the real reason for Christmas is Jesus. And so I was pointing people back to that. But even from then to now, I have some. Now some people will say some stuff, but I even seen other people in the same type of category, uh, that I'm in, and they're always talking about how they're getting people hating and everything else. And I almost don't want to say I was jealous, but I was like, man, why don't I have those haters? So I'm blessed, I would say, because I don't want to have the haters. But, uh, every once in a while I'll have somebody say something that they don't like what I said. But I've been very fortunate to not have that and just have people like what we're doing, or if they don't just not say anything.

Host: What's one of the biggest changes that you made to content creation where you really saw a huge liftoff?

Adam Hagaman: The shorts. The shorts were a big one because shorts are huge. Um, there's some people who only do shorts. There's some people do the shorts and long form. Shorts are kind of like when you're driving down the freeway and you see those freeway signs, you can use your shorts to lead to your long form. Uh, if you do it right at the beginning, if you don't do it right and you only do shorts, it's very hard to start doing long form after that because you develop audience that are more short focused. And they only want those 60. I think shorts go up to three minutes now. So 60 seconds to three minutes. They don't want to stay and watch a long form. They want to just watch that short clip and maybe binge a bunch of your. Uh, that's what We've realized too is like sometimes they'll see one and they'll go through another one and another. They might spend five or ten minutes going through different shorts rather than just reading or not reading. Watching a long form video.

Host: I, uh, yeah, I mean I remember like a year and a half ago someone told me like, you got to do shorts on YouTube. And it was crazy how, how much that like the trajectory of our YouTube changed overnight because we just started doing tons of shorts and, and I've seen what you're saying where people are old, they do like one long form to have it. Let's say YouTube for example. But everything else is shorts, which makes sense. Our attention span. Uh, no one has long form attention span anymore. It's pretty bad. Let's say though there's someone out there who's stuck right now, they're lost. Similar situation as you. Uh, they don't have purpose today. How can they get started?

Adam Hagaman: Like I said, uh, when I was talking about the phone, just start like start recording yourself. Start capcut as a simple tool to use. Record yourself. I teach people in content cash flow about reaction videos because reaction videos are big. And you'll even see celebrities and people up there that are doing very well now. They're, they have realized, man, these reaction videos do very well. And now you'll see them either looking at their phone and reacting or having them there and having the other person above. So I teach people how to do reaction videos and it helps push forward your videos because you're actually reacting to a video that already went viral. Um, so then you're adding your two cents to that video and it helps yours actually go viral and get more. I think I reached a hundred thousand subscribers in the first. I don't remember now. I'd have to look but three to four months on YouTube after I, like I said I, I did, I took the shortcut. I joined the Mastermind, paid the 5,000 and learned how to make them versus taking a couple years. And that's how two years, we're almost to 400,000 on YouTube. And now, um, with those shorts, it's changing. YouTube's putting so much money in shorts, like long form's still there. Not saying don't do long form, but they're putting billions of dollars into shorts. They realize the attention spans as we spoke of is getting smaller. Uh, and I would say to somebody who wants to start is now is the time. I forgot the exact numbers, but let's just say a couple hundred million is the creator economy right now, not people, but dollars. It's worth a couple hundred M million. They're saying it's going to be over a trillion dollars by the end of 2027. That's a huge. From hundreds of millions to trillions is a huge jump. But the only way that can happen is more creators jumping on. And how that works is because if you jump on how these platforms make money is they get people to pay them. Ads based off people watching your video. So they need more people creating good content to put it out there. And they'll reward you and they'll pay you for making good content. And that's basically the content cash flow that we teach is how to do your content that you like, like I did mine. Just preaching about Jesus. I don't sell anything. I don't have a product on there, uh, that I'm trying to sell. I just do my own videos. And the platforms pay you for that?

Host: Yeah, I love that. I'm inspired. I need to do more short form. I literally need to do. I need to do better short form. M. But I mean, yeah, it seems like attention and awareness is the new gold. Like, yeah, the new oil and gold is attention and awareness. And that is, you know, the way you do that is online and through whatever platform. So I'll let.

Adam Hagaman: Attention is the new currency. Attention is the new currency.

Host: It's the. They're not there. Might not even be the dollar at some point, but it could be attention. But attention is the new currency. Content, cash flow. Adam, this has been great. I learned a lot today. I'm inspired and, you know, part of my mission when I started this show was to positively impact a billion people. And I can tell that you also live a similar mission. So I can relate to a lot of the story that you gave. In the beginning, I was lost myself. We, uh, eventually, hopefully, will find something good and positive that we can bring to this world. But I really appreciate you being here

Narrator: and sharing your story.

Adam Hagaman: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It was a, uh, blessing and it was an honor and hope. Somebody who's watching this just gets something from this and just knows that you can do it too. You're not too late, you're not too old. A lot of people think they're too old. You're not too late, you're not too old. You can do it too.

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