Show Transcript

0:00:20 Kevin Lowe Yes. All right, perfect. So we will go ahead and get started. Recording in three, two, one. Evans, welcome to the podcast.

0:00:34 Evans Putman Oh, thank you so much. I'm grateful for the opportunity and look forward to the amazing, amazing.

0:00:42 Kevin Lowe Well, Evans, I want to start out with a big question and try to not overthink it. I mean, take your time. All of know you have the time on your side. Some people try to get tripped up with it. And so I encourage you to not overthink it. Is simple question of when you look back on this journey that you've been on, what is that moment in your past that you can say heavily influenced getting you to where you are today?

0:01:15 Kevin Lowe Maybe for good reasons, the journey, it led you down or maybe the person it made you into. But what is that story? And let's start there.

0:01:27 Evans Putman Oh, my goodness. Talk about divine timing. So today I open up and I'm looking at the date. It's 725 as we speak today, July 25. And I look and there's this July 25 one to 2001. And it was one of my memories. And I remember specifically because it's a little bit of what happened before that, but the 25th just reminded me of this event. Well, around that time, probably the beginning of July ish June.

0:02:07 Evans Putman I was living in Charleston, South Carolina, where I live now, in another home. And I was at sort of a low point in my life. I was a personal trainer at the time, but I was really burnt out on it. I was burnout. For those of you listening, I'm sure there's many of you, when you give and give and give, sometimes it can affect you. Right? Well, I was burnout in many ways, Kevin. And I would find myself waking up in the middle of the night in my Lazy Boy with a half empty glass of gym Beam and water sitting next to me. I would pass out every night.

0:02:51 Evans Putman I was not in a good place. And I remember one day I go driving to visit my friend, and on the way back, I have this intuitive moment as I'm in my car getting ready to cross over the bridge from what is Sullivan's Island. So I'm crossing the causeway and if I don't turn around right then, I have to continue going. But something hit me and it's like, turn around, go to Dunleavy's and get a burger. Have you ever had the spirit talk to you that says, go to this Irish pub and get a burger? Right.

0:03:29 Evans Putman And so I'm sitting here in my mind, because this is the way my mind always processed at that time. I started thinking ahead. Right. All these thoughts like, well, why would I do that? I got food at home already cooked. Because I was a personal trainer. I kept a lot of the healthy foods, like cooked and ready to go. But I kept sort of fighting the urge. And then finally, right at the last minute, before there was no other way, I could just turn around without crossing the bridge. And then I had to go like another half mile or so. And at that point I was almost home so there was no way I was going back.

0:04:03 Evans Putman I turned around and I turned around. I go back to this Irish bar and this is where things gets a little bit crazy. I'm sitting at the bar, I order my food and there's person next to me. And I have a pretty good memory, Kevin. And I don't remember this person at all. I remember them being there. I don't remember if they were a male or a female. I just remember we had this long conversation and they kept talking to me about how they had been there for so long waiting on their order.

0:04:35 Evans Putman And for some reason they kept getting delayed. But I mean, I cannot remember this person and it baffles me to this day. But for some reason I just started talking about my life. How I hated getting out of bed in the morning. I didn't like what I was doing. I was drinking too much. I was trying to cover up medicate the bad feelings instead of dealing with them and just not in a good place in my life. And I'm sharing this with this stranger, which is really OD for me because at that time I used to didn't share anything, even with my close friends.

0:05:14 Evans Putman And they just look at me and they're like there's this book you need to read. It's called The Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman. Have you ever heard of it? And I'm like, no, I haven't. And I was like, okay. And they're like, well, you should read that. I was like, I will. I will read that. And so I get my food and I leave. And it was almost like I don't remember that person leaving. I don't remember anything about them still. And it still baffles me. It's like I don't even remember saying goodbye to them anything.

0:05:44 Evans Putman It was almost like I was sitting there. I hope I wasn't talking to like an empty chair next to me and people were looking at me like I was crazy. So I go home and this is 2001, so there is no Amazon Prime. At the time, we had a Barnes and Noble and you asked me this question. I'm giving you the long answer, but I hope this is a good journey that we're going on. So I go to the local Barnes and Noble and I think I could go online, but I didn't order from them because it was like, why would I order? Because it'll take forever, and it's right here in town. But I could see what their inventory was.

0:06:25 Evans Putman And according to the inventory, they had one copy of this book. And I go in and I'm looking where the book should be. I think it was like in personal development, spiritual, wherever that is. And it's not there. I can't find it anywhere. So I go ask the little person in the middle kiosk there at Barnes and Noble if they could help me. And they're like, oh, yeah, it shows. We have it. They go back there and look. It's not there.

0:06:51 Evans Putman They can't find it. So we're giving up. And as I'm walking out, I go walking past this other section, and there's this book, like, sticking out. Odly. And the person stops. It was, like, totally in a different category, in the wrong place. And they're like, that's odd. Here's that book right there. And so he pulled it out and hands it to me. So I go read this book, and the reason I share all this is because this book sort of led me on a journey of thinking differently.

0:07:21 Evans Putman And it sort of helped guide me to get me out of that place I was in by starting to see things in a different way. I don't know if you have you ever read the book, Kevin?

0:07:31 Kevin Lowe I don't. That's what I was going to ask you. I don't know this book at all.

0:07:35 Evans Putman Oh, my gosh. It's an amazing book. I recommend it to people all the time. I've read it many times. Dan Millman is the author, and he's got many other books, too. But that's the best one, in my opinion, to start with. It's one of those books that you do. You meet someone and you're like, you should read this book. So it sort of opened me up to possibilities. It got me to start living in the moment, to start seeing things that were as they were done for me and not to me, right? So it shifted my mindset so much.

0:08:10 Evans Putman And probably about three weeks after reading that book, I was feeling better, but I was still like, this just isn't what I'm supposed to be doing. I don't know what it is. But I was happier. I was focusing on the present moment, which is what mainly a lot of that book was about, right? Living in the present moment. So as I'm doing this one night, I go to sleep. I have this dream, and this is why it all goes back to 725, which I promise I'm going to hit you in a second what this means. But I have this dream, and in this dream, I'm on a basketball court, and I can't remember if I was playing or on the sideline, but one of my old camp counselors and a mentor, and I would consider him a friend. As I got a little bit older, his name is Dick DeVenzio. He was a basketball he played basketball at Duke University.

0:09:05 Evans Putman Was a Rhodes scholar. Really smart, great guy, totally different. I won't even get into the whole different approach that he had to life and the way he did things. It was not like going to a college basketball camp, I'll tell you that. It was like going to hang out with I don't know, it was like a different world. But in this dream, he's just doing his best to get a message across to me. And I mean, it's like he's not yelling at me, but he's adamant about something and I have no idea what it is. But I wake up the next morning. It was one of the most intense dreams I ever had.

0:09:47 Evans Putman And at this point, I hadn't spoken to him or been to any of his camps, probably in, I don't know, 1520 years. It was back when I was probably a senior in high school. The last time I saw him at one of his camps when I was actually a counselor. So I go online and I'm like, I'm going to look him up and I find the website for the basketball camp. And there's an email address. So I email and I'm like, hey, I was just thinking about you.

0:10:17 Evans Putman I had a dream last night. You were in it. Just wanted to check in, see how things were going. About two days later, I get an email back from his brother, who was also a counselor, but he was a couple years younger. And he emails me and he tells know I won't use his terminology because I don't want to get an explicit marking on the podcast. But he shares with me. He's like, Dick is in the hospital. And he's got basically like a week to was the he was just amazed that I had that. So we started this relationship.

0:10:58 Evans Putman Well, what came from it was that Dick ended up passing away and I ended up dropping everything leaving my home behind, leaving my job behind and going on the road that summer starting on July 25 to work with Dick, Dave's brother after he passed away to continue the camps that were already in place that summer to help. Because now, all of a sudden, instead of Dick running the camps Dave had taken it over and needed the help.

0:11:31 Evans Putman So it was really powerful. So that's what 725 means to me. But really what it means to me is that I followed my intuition probably for the first time in my life that I can actually remember. And I listened to it as a guide, and I left everything behind and I went on this journey. And I'm telling you, that summer. Kevin I was healed by those kids that were mostly, I guess, middle school think, you know, maybe middle school freshman in high school at the I did I did multiple stops. I just drove my car. I packed everything up I had into my car and I drove around the country going to these camps. And mind you, I was not getting paid. I just did this because I was felt called to do it. And it built a relationship with myself and Dave that we still have today.

0:12:28 Evans Putman I think he's in his seventy S now. But that giving of myself over that time, over that summer with those kids, changed my life. And I felt renewed and revived like a new person when I came out of that summer. And I actually went on to go from that. Instead of coming back to Charleston, I went back to Raleigh, North Carolina. Coached high school basketball, coached one of the number, depending on who you asked. He was either number one, two, or three player in the country in high school basketball. He later went on to play at Duke University in the NBA.

0:13:06 Evans Putman Got to travel the country and I got to go play and meet some of these coaches and play in these arenas. I got go to private practices at Duke University and Cameron Indoor Stadium. I got to coach against the University of North Carolina JV team in the Dean Dome. I got to do all these things. This is the crazy part. When I was a kid, I used to visualize when I shot basketball in my backyard that I was in those arenas playing basketball and doing these things. And now I'm actually living that dream. Not playing the game, but being in the arenas and actually going to these different things. I sat in Madison Square Garden next to Mr. Nick Bill Bradley to watch the McDonald's High School All American Game because my kid that I coached was playing in it against all these amazing players that were future NBA stars.

0:14:05 Evans Putman All from listening to my intuition, turning my jeep around, getting a book that some mysterious stranger mentioned to me, having a crazy dream, leaving everything behind because of what that dream felt like it was pulling me towards. And that all happened just and led to like, a total different life. Wow. Yeah. And it all happened today. 725 is the day that I left my home to take that trek across the country to do those camps.

0:14:40 Evans Putman Wow. Yeah. Imagine that happening today. And that question you just asked me. So it was a very powerful journey. I think it still lives with me now because I just got off of with my client and I just started a new movement called the Serve Preneur Movement. This thing came into my mind today that giving is living right. And I think it all started from that one moment in time, in that one decision, and just one other quick thing, and then I'll let you jump back in. Because I know I've been sort of taking everybody on a long journey here, but I want people to think about this.

0:15:29 Evans Putman When I went to do these camps. About the second stop, another former counselor, camp counselor showed up. He had played basketball at Duke University, too. He was a little bit older than me. He was a partner in this prestigious law firm in Chicago, had argued cases in front of the Supreme Court, was absolutely miserable with his life. The exact same night that I had that dream that Dick came to me, he had the same dream, and he left everything behind to start getting back into basketball. And now he runs basketball camps again, and I think in the Charlote, North Carolina area, and he's one of the happiest guys in the world. But when we had the conversation, it was like we both had the same experience, the same dream with the same and it was the same type of dream where Dick was like, trying to get a point across to us. And I don't know if it was to start living, to start following your dreams, to stop doing what didn't feel right. I don't know what it was, but it worked for us, too. It got us moving in the right direction. So it was his last gift to me before he passed away.

0:16:44 Kevin Lowe Wow. Evans, man. Dude, you have started this off in the most crazy, beautiful way possible. This conversation today, I mean, this is powerful, you know? How long after you read this book did this dream occur?

0:17:08 Evans Putman It was probably within like three weeks. Three weeks to four weeks, somewhere in that range. And believe me, when I read the book, Kevin, I didn't put it down. It was one of those things where it was like it just felt like and I still like, a lot of times when life throughout the years after that, when life would feel like it was getting a little out of control and I was sort of spiraling in the wrong direction or whatever that feels like. I'm sure many of your listeners have felt this before, and you can feel that constraint and that stress building up, and maybe it's going to take you to a dark place or whatever that looks like.

0:17:46 Evans Putman I still reach for that book and reread it, although it's not the original copy because I've actually handed it and passed it off. Although now that we have Amazon Prime, I can just send it to people. It makes it much easier. But yeah, it's very wow.

0:18:03 Kevin Lowe Wow. That's incredible. Now, if you wouldn't mind kind of back up for me because I'm kind of wondering, what was life like that brought you to that point? We're talking back, I think you had said 2001, and when you described the lifestyle you were living, what brought you there? I don't know exactly how old you were at that point, but I'm thinking, what was childhood like for you? What were all those years growing up to bring you to that point?

0:18:44 Evans Putman Yeah, I can't complain about my life because I'd never lacked for anything when it came to a nice place to live, clothes I wanted, I wasn't given stuff. I wasn't like a spoiled kid. I wasn't only child. So there was that part of it. But the one thing that I would say that as I look back on it that I didn't know growing up, because you don't know these things, right, is that my father, while he was there and he provided, he was very distant and very emotionally unattached.

0:19:19 Evans Putman And I never really had a bond of any type. And he had a lot of issues that I discovered as I got older, mental problems and things going on. So it wasn't like I was abused in any way. But I think I lived in my well, I know I did, being an only child, I lived in my own space, in my own world almost, of imagination and creation, which that was a gift because I still use that now. I tap into it so much with what I do in my business and how I help my clients.

0:19:54 Evans Putman But I think that led to a lot of things as I got older, that I dealt with a lot of probably anxiety and stress and things as I got older and instead of knowing how to deal with them, because in my family, back in those times, it was almost like you didn't talk about things. You sort of pushed them under the rug, put them in the carpet, whatever. I mean, I'm from the south. I think there's like, always that stereotype of the Southern families where you always got lots of bones hiding in the closet.

0:20:33 Evans Putman As I got older, I coped a lot of it with drinking, drinking a lot. And I'd say I didn't do like, crazy drugs and stuff. I just smoked a lot of pot when I was younger and as I got older. So I didn't know how to cope. I didn't know how to deal with things in a healthy way. And it's funny because I was reading today in my morning routine. Part of it is I read I actually read a few different things, but I think this was in a Buddhist, like, daily Buddhism type book with a little passage each day, and it was talking about how you can compound, right, when you compound the bad emotions and maybe the bad activities that you're doing, unhealthy activities. We won't call them bad, just unhealthy, but when you compound them, over time, they continue to build up and build up and build up. It's like you're filling the cup up with dirty water until it overflows. So I think that was my whole thing, was just never knowing how to deal with this stuff. And there was a lot of times that I got through it.

0:21:47 Evans Putman One reason I was doing personal training is because I had turned to exercise. And even though I was an athlete when I was younger, as I got older, I wasn't as much anymore. But I turned to working out and I started noticing the change in the self esteem getting better, the stress getting better, all these things happening. So that's why I went into personal training, because when I experienced all this stuff, I was like, this is really cool. I want to help others experience this as well. So I wasn't there to teach people here's how to lose 20 pounds or how to build, get a huge muscular body or whatever to look ready for the summer here at the beach.

0:22:28 Evans Putman But it was more of me wanting to give back a little bit of what I had received from the exercise, which was more in the esteem and the feeling better and having more energy and just feeling healthier. But there was still that underlying way of not knowing how to cope with stress and different things. So I always found myself sort of almost straddling two lines, right?

0:22:58 Kevin Lowe Yeah.

0:22:58 Evans Putman And sometimes the wrong one would win.

0:23:02 Kevin Lowe Yeah. Of course. Now, when you talk about your childhood and you mentioned that it was good that you didn't lack for anything, but I want to, though, I guess, kind of get to one part of your childhood is the fact that there was an incident. And I want you to tell the story between where things got really bad with your dad and you and your mom had to leave.

0:23:33 Evans Putman Okay? Yes. And here's the thing. It didn't actually happen in my childhood. This happened in 2001. Right. So we just talked about 725, 2001. I go on this journey, I go coach. So I don't remember the exact year, but it was in my mind, if I remember correctly, it was probably 23, 2003. So a couple of years later okay, so it's a couple of years later I decide I'm coming back to Charleston. I'm going to move back.

0:24:18 Evans Putman I'd been living in Raleigh. I'd started personal training again, doing some different things. Actually, at this time, I had started shifting into the online space, which I am now. So even that long ago, right? 2002, 2003. So I was like, you know, I want to move back to Charleston because, I mean, once you come to Charleston, it's hard to I've left a couple times. It's hard not to come back because it's such a beautiful area to live, the beach. You got history, you got restaurants.

0:24:51 Evans Putman It's just amazing. It's like a big city in a small town, but you just happen to live by the beach with all these beautiful islands all around. Great place to live. So I'm coming back and I'm deciding I'm going to make a stop at where my parents live now, which now is where my mother still lives. They had left our hometown in upstate South Carolina and decided to move down. Well, my mom was they already had a house there, actually learned to walk at the beach in North Carolina.

0:25:25 Evans Putman So she was there, and my father was living there at the time. So I'm going down, and I'm staying there. And it was definitely in 2003, because I can remember now, it was around the end of May. And I just remember I'm waiting, because what I was doing at the time, Kevin, I was waiting. I was buying a new house. So there was like a lag time between me being able to close on the house and move into it. So I'm like, hey, I'll just go stay at my parents, spend some time with them, enjoy the time together before I move on down, because it's only like 2 hours away south on the coast. So I'm like, okay, I'm there.

0:26:13 Evans Putman And I noticed my father's acting really strange in many different ways. I remember him talking to me about people being on top of the roof doing stuff, and it's like, well, yeah, it's the air conditioning people. But in his mind, it was like some sort of secretive, bad thing happening. They weren't the air conditioning people, right? But then he's, like, normal, and then he's, like, not normal, and then he's normal again.

0:26:45 Evans Putman But he was very distant. He was very secretive, very weird acting. And I think it was the day if I remember correctly, it was like the day before. Well, actually, what happened was I remember now because the closing got delayed a little bit because the people needed a couple of extra days before they could move. So we signed some papers, allowed them to do it. So I ended up staying at my parents house a couple of extra days.

0:27:11 Evans Putman Well, it was during that time, those extra days. What you're talking about? I remember going to bed one night, and 2003, I was what is this now, 2023? So I was, like, in my so 2003, I was born in 67. Help me out, Kevin.

0:27:34 Kevin Lowe We're not doing math on the podcast.

0:27:37 Evans Putman I wasn't young at the time. I was a little bit older, right? So I moved back. But I'm sleeping in one of the rooms upstairs, and it's the middle of the morning, and I hear this blood curdling scream, right? At first, it's this scream that I can still remember it now as you and I are talking. I can feel it almost like my hair is actually starting to stand up a little bit. But I hear this scream coming from I didn't know where it was at first. I thought it was a dream, right, because you're in that moment of sort of sleep and awake where you don't know either one.

0:28:11 Evans Putman Then I hear it again, and it's my name being yelled in this way that I've never heard it before. And I recognize it was my mom. So I jump up and I run down the steps, and she's standing there, like, shaking and white as I'm looking at my AirPod case right now. And she was as white as this AirPod case, like all the blood had flushed out of her and she's just looking at me and just saying stuff, and I can't figure out what she's saying and she's looking down at the ground. I look over and there's this claw hammer laying on the ground by the stairs and my dad's nowhere to be found.

0:28:54 Evans Putman Well, what happened was and basically my mother pretty much saved my life and her life, but she's sitting at the table having breakfast and I guess my father walked up behind her and was standing there and had that hammer in his hand. And she turned around and looked at him and she said, just matter of factly, with no emotion, no anything, he just looked at her and he said, I'm going to kill you with this hammer.

0:29:22 Evans Putman And he had it held up. He was like, I'm going to hit you and kill you with this hammer, and then I'm going up to kill our son, and then I'm going to kill the cat. Why the cat, I have no idea. But with my mom yelling, it was like, it almost the second time she yelled my name. She said it was like it sort of startled him and he threw down the hammer and ran down the steps and disappeared. So, yeah, it was a crazy experience that luckily, I think there was obviously something at play that kept me there for an extra day to be there with my mom, because she was like, if you wouldn't have been here, I don't know if I would have what would have happened? Because it was like when he realized you were coming down the stairs is when he left.

0:30:11 Evans Putman So there was some reason that I was there an extra day, and the thing that happened through that, and I won't go through everything that happened after that, but it ended up some bad stuff started happening. He got arrested, got put into the mental hospital for evaluation, and they let him out without even warning us that they were letting him back out. Didn't even warn the victim. My mom tell us anything? We were actually up there waiting because we were supposed to see a judge to speak to him, to talk about what was going on, and they're like, oh, sorry, they already released him to his brother.

0:30:52 Evans Putman And like a couple of days later, he evidently stole his brother's gun and was driving around that he got picked up by the police again down in the beach where my mom lived with driving around with that gun under his seat. Of course he said he wasn't there to do anything, but I mean, you put two and two together, it's like, what else? And then at that point, my mom, I mean, she's much older at this point, she's probably in her seventy s and she's getting divorced.

0:31:29 Evans Putman But it brought us two together in a way that we had never been together before. Actually. It flipped a switch in me that I became much more responsible. I became a much better person because I started thinking about her instead of always thinking about me much of the time. Right? So I started stepping up more and we bonded much more. We grew much closer together. I know we're not on video, so you can't see it but I have a portrait of my mother tattooed on my forearm from when she was 21 that the guy hand tattooed. It didn't even put whatever you call it, didn't trace it, didn't do that or anything. Just sort of did it by eye looking at the picture. And it's amazing.

0:32:19 Evans Putman But we grew close together. And then later my father passed away. And at that point, he had just gone down to the depths of just mental despair. And amazingly, Kevin, it's totally amazing because I think about it I drove back up to my hometown where he was staying at the time. His brothers were supposedly taking care of him but they had just stuck him in a hotel room to let him rot away and die. Then we ended up having a big family fight over the will because the will was magically changed at some point even when he was mentally incapable of doing this.

0:33:01 Evans Putman So I ended up having a lawsuit against my own family. That side of the family, it was just a crazy experience. But when I look back on it, one of the things that stands out is that I actually drove up to that hometown one time to meet with somebody who we were doing like a partnership, a business partnership. And I have no idea how this happened. I don't know if someone was following me or what. But three and a half hours away, where my dad's living at the time somehow I met with this other person at Barnes and Noble. I come working out of Barnes and Noble, and there's my father.

0:33:44 Evans Putman And we just sort of you know by the end of it, I can't remember what it was crazy. I can't remember the whole conversation. But I just looked at him and I was like I said, dad, you're my father. I love you. I said, but we can't be around each other because you won't admit what happened. And he never would admit it. He acted like it never happened. Like it was all just fabricated. Just one of those things back to let's just put it under the let's put it in the closet, as if it didn't happen. It's like, no, that's a pretty big thing that we're not pushing this one in the closet.

0:34:23 Evans Putman But I told him I was like and the funny thing is that's probably one of the one or two times I ever told him I loved him in the first place. And you imagine, after all that I'd gone through and everything I went through to say it then, but it was one of those things. And I can't even explain how it changed me, but it changed me immensely. So when I look back at it now, it's one of those things that I often tell people I'm like, I know it's cliche to say it, but it was done for me. Not to me, it really was, because I would not be the person I am today.

0:35:06 Evans Putman I would not be the father I am today, which is really important to me, top of the list of importances. And I wouldn't be anybody the person at all that I am today if it wasn't for that experience. And in a good way, in a really good way, it shifted my life. So it's one of those things where we're given gifts, even in the strangest wrappings sometimes.

0:35:36 Kevin Lowe Absolutely, I believe that wholeheartedly. And when you talk about meeting your father afterwards, and you said that you said that you told him I love you, would I assume that to get to that point, there had to be some massive level of forgiveness in your heart that happened?

0:36:02 Evans Putman Well, that didn't really come till much later. Really?

0:36:06 Kevin Lowe Okay.

0:36:07 Evans Putman That didn't come till later when I actually worked on it. But yeah, there was a point where I don't know what it was. It was almost like I can't explain, like, seeing him in the state that he was in when I saw him there and talking to him, and it was almost as if he was a total different person. And I think it was almost that. I just felt it was almost weird. It was like I felt like I just needed like he needed to be told that, because I knew the next step was he was not going to be with us much longer.

0:36:39 Evans Putman And so even though he went out on his deathbed by basically taking me out of the will, not even putting me in the obituary, his only son, as if I'd never existed, I shared with him that I loved him. So I was able to walk away from that with no regrets. But it really wasn't until later at one point, and we can jump ahead or I can wait to fill folks in on that, but, yeah, it was a time that I had to really sit down and realize, I need to go through this. I need to forgive him.

0:37:23 Kevin Lowe I did that's powerful. Now, I would really love to get to that part, but first what I have to just kind of draw focus to is 2001. Two years later, roughly 2003, you had some two massive things happen in your life. Massive, massive things that are truly life changing. How did life then go after that point? I mean, you've had 2001 was like this just glorious amazingness that happened. And then 2003 had this horrific event occur, and yet you still found blessings out of it.

0:38:21 Evans Putman Yeah, I'm kind of curious. Yeah, 2003, and it went like he didn't pass away until late November, I think. So it pretty much went through the rest of that year, but I don't know, it took me well, here's what happened over the next few years. At this point, I was starting to focus a little bit more on what I do now. I was actually moving into the online space. I had created two of my first businesses and ended up selling both of those businesses. They were online. Now, I'm not talking about, like, a major exit where I could go live on an island or anything, but when I look back on it, I like to celebrate because I'm like, look, I actually built something from scratch.

0:39:17 Evans Putman Had it making money, lived off of it for a while, and then somebody wanted it when I was done with it. So it was a win. But at the same time, I was still just probably not I was not taking care of myself. I wasn't dealing with what I'd just gone through in 2003. I didn't deal with it for a while. I just sort of survived it and then did a lot of probably over drinking and things like that, but enjoy, you know, I had a good I had a good run and some fun during those times. I enjoyed life.

0:39:59 Evans Putman And here's the thing, and I'll share this, too, because I don't want to come across as cold. Kevin, you know me. I'm not a cold hearted person at all. But I wasn't upset when he died. It was like it opened up a door for a new me. It brought me more relief than anything. It was like a new person emerged. And I can't even explain it, but it was almost like there was a bigger, dark cloud over my entire life that I never really knew existed until I started reflecting and I started talking to some people that knew him.

0:40:39 Evans Putman And I started learning a lot of things that I didn't know when I was younger. And I started realizing that no wonder I was having some of these beliefs and things that I was dealing with, because there was almost like a shadow side of him my entire life. But the next big shift, I would say now, this was probably so 15 years ago would have been what, 2018?

0:41:13 Kevin Lowe What's with you in the map?

0:41:14 Evans Putman 2008. Yeah, I know. So it's like 1516 years ago. 2008 ish 2007 ish was when I met my wife, who actually knew since high school. But when we got together, it was almost like as we were dating and her just coming into my life, it was almost like that was the thing that was meant to sort of take me the next step on the journey, which was leading me towards forgiveness right. And bringing me to a new world. Right.

0:41:53 Evans Putman Not only did we become a couple, but then she and I had our daughter. And that's when it gave me the opportunity to be the father that I always wish I had. So I look back at it and I'm like thankful that he was who he was and the experience I had, because if I never would have had that, I may not have the inclination to try to be the best father possible now. And so that's why I say, even though it's cliche that I like to look at as it was a gift, that it was done for me.

0:42:33 Evans Putman So that's where it sort of shifted me then. And it wasn't until I was a father and the beautiful thing about being a father and an online entrepreneur and also my wife was working at the time too. She was a general manager of a really nice restaurant. So I spent a lot of time with my daughter from the time she was born, changing diapers, staying home with her when my wife was working. So creating that bond, it was something that obviously when my father, when I was younger, that wasn't anywhere in his agenda, he was working all the time. But that's the way it was back then too.

0:43:12 Evans Putman But so it gave me that experience. But it wasn't until probably we talk about we'll shift towards the forgiveness, if that's okay, because it was when I made it through all that and having a daughter at home. At this point, I had another successful business, was doing really well, but I was always stressed out, I was working too much. This is when she was really young. And I wasn't happy with that kind of business, even though I was happy with what was happening with it. And so I ended up it was with the podcast that I'd started with my partner had started it and we built a real estate sales training business out of it, grew that thing to I was like the marketing and sales strategist. I built the business and grew the podcast. He was the voice, okay, he was the expert.

0:44:15 Evans Putman But we grew that to 150,000 monthly listeners. We turned it into a multi seven figure business and it just wasn't. And here's the thing again, we go back to the intuition part, right? Kevin and I'm at an event, this event called Funnel Hacking Live. And I'm there with my business partner and I have no idea what to expect. I'm thinking it's like all these entrepreneurs are going to get up there and talk about how much money they're making and here's the tactics you should do to get that kind of money, I have no idea.

0:44:51 Evans Putman And what I end up getting there and seeing on stage is all these people coming out about, talking about the movements that they're creating, the lives that they're changing, the impact they're making. And I heard it again. I heard that sort of whisper, that sort of tap on the shoulder that was like, that's what you're supposed to do. And so when we got back from that, I continued to work in the business because we actually joined a coaching program.

0:45:18 Evans Putman We grew the business we were doing. That was sort of the launch pad. But even when we were launching and getting through all this success, I had this sort of feeling, this like you're supposed to do something else. But what I didn't realize and I'm glad I didn't jump ship, because one thing is know, pat did have a he had a big purpose. His purpose came from. He used to be an overworked, overstressed real estate agent, barely making enough money to survive.

0:45:46 Evans Putman Had two daughters at home and a wife that he barely ever saw. So he made a decision one day that he was only going to work, like, three and a half days a week so he could spend time with his family. When he did that, he ended up growing his business to selling over a billion with a B dollars in real estate. And what we were building the business we were building was to help other real estate agents be able to live that kind of life, too.

0:46:17 Evans Putman Right? So they could have more freedom for their family and their loved ones. So there was a purpose behind it. And as we grew that and did that, I realized that I was learning how I could take this system that I developed. And then when I left the business after we had created this success, I could now take it and help other impact driven entrepreneurs grow their business in the same way. But I can now expand my impact. Because now, instead of just working with one person, I'm helping multiple people, right? So there was that other pivotal moment of intuition that led me to that. Well, when I made that decision, I was also feeling stressed. And I think it was the constraint of knowing I wasn't living up to my purpose. I was still playing smaller than I needed to play.

0:47:09 Evans Putman I was the guy behind the curtain that nobody even knew about, right? So I think a lot of that was causing the constraint and the stress. So when I left that business, which was all good, pat and I left it when I went to him, of course, I played all these scenarios in my head, like, oh, my gosh, it's horrible. The whole business is going to fall apart. He's going to hate me. Because at this point, I had built this up. I had a team and all this stuff that I was managing.

0:47:37 Evans Putman And when we had the discussion after I had the discussion in my head, probably for two weeks. Every day. Every night. When we finally had the discussion, it was in a Starbucks in downtown Charleston. It was right after Thanksgiving holiday. I just told know what I felt like I needed to do and that I had a bigger purpose. And I wanted to take what we had done and go share it with the world and help others. And he just looked at me and he's like, how can I help?

0:48:08 Evans Putman And I was like, that's not the conversation I had in my head. But it was the perfect. It shared with me again, one more time why I felt know. Because when I met Pat, that was like a crazy story in itself too. The reason we were even working together. It was one more of these crazy intuitions and I won't go into the story, but it was the same kind of process. So what I've discovered over time is when you have that little voice and that little tap on the shoulder, pay attention, right?

0:48:42 Evans Putman It's important. And we tend not to listen to it because we don't trust ourselves. But guess what? It's probably not you that's bringing you that. At least not in my mind. It's not coming directly to me. It's coming through me from somebody that's got a different design for my life than maybe I can see. So I took the next probably three to six months. I can't remember the exact timeline off where I didn't take I had many opportunities to jump into the next thing.

0:49:17 Evans Putman But I was like, you know what? I just want to take it easy for a little bit. I want to focus on me. I got to work on me. Because me is not living up to the best me at home. So that's when I started spending a lot of time every morning meditating, reading, watching, and listening to things that were very positive spiritual. We're talking spirituality, personal development, mindset, all of that. Getting back into exercising regularly because I stopped doing that.

0:49:53 Evans Putman And it was during that journey that I remember I went back again to another funnel hacking live. And there was a guy there, his name's I can't remember his last name, but he wrote a book called Chris Beats Cancer. And he was talking all about his journey of being able to beat cancer through not following the medical advice, but by following his own heart, his own gut, his own intuition, eating healthy meditating, doing all these things forgiving this is the word that popped out to me when I'm sitting there watching him on stage with 4000 other people and he starts talking about forgiveness. He's like, the number one thing that I did was I had to forgive all these people that I had animosity towards because I had to get it out of me because I couldn't hold that if I was going to heal myself.

0:50:46 Evans Putman And he healed himself 100% to where he's still cancer free and sharing this message with everybody. But out of everything he said, it was like forgiveness hit me. And I almost started breaking down sitting there. So I was like, I got to forgive my father. So I remember coming back and, you know, went through it and forgave him. But you know what I realized? Kevin too is that because then I heard this message from somebody else. I can't remember who it was, but as things still weren't progressing the way I wanted to, there was somebody else I needed to forgive.

0:51:22 Evans Putman And that was myself, right? So I forgave him, and that was easy. But then I had to forgive myself for what maybe I had thought I had lost a lot of years doing the wrong thing, living the wrong way, not living up to my potential. All these things that I thought I wasn't looking at them from the perspective of I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for those things. So I had to forgive myself too. And I still remember the biggest, most pivotal moment of any of this is when I remember walking through the front door one day and my daughter, who at this time she was probably five ish, and she just looks at me five or six, and they just say the funniest stuff anyway, but just out of the blue, like there's no conversation even happened. I'm just walking the door. I think I'd gone out for a walk, come walking in the front door.

0:52:21 Evans Putman She looks at me and just out of the blue, just all casual, she's like, you know what, dad or Daddy? I was like, what? And she's like, do you know why I like you? No. I was like, Would you tell me? And she's like, because you don't yell anymore. And I was like, all this stuff that I've been doing that I didn't know if it was working. I was like, It's working. And so that was like the pivotal moment. I knew that all that effort I'd put into focusing on myself was now starting to come to fruition. And I made the right decision to really do the tough work because it's hard work, it's hard working on yourself. It's easier. I can coach and help other people 24/7 effortlessly, but when it comes to coaching and building myself up and working on myself, that's the tough work.

0:53:19 Kevin Lowe Yeah, absolutely. No, one thing that I wanted to ask you was when you talked about the business that you had with your partner and you guys were doing very successful from financial standpoint, making impact. What though? Was it in you or what was the moment though, when you realized that you had to be doing something more?

0:53:49 Evans Putman I think it was that I kept reflecting on that moment, which was probably twelve months earlier, when I'd had that feeling at Funnel hacking live that I was meant for more. And I think I could just feel that I had hit the point where it was time for me to step out from behind the curtains. Right. I heard myron golden, who's one of my coaches, he's an amazing entrepreneur and he has a way of speaking and sharing messages that just shift your beliefs unbelievably.

0:54:25 Evans Putman And he was talking about this, right? He was talking about planting a seed, right? If a seed is going to grow into a tree or whatever it's going to grow into, it first has to go underground. Right? It has to go down before it can go up. But also, I don't know if you can hear that or not, but evidently siri's trying to talk to oh, no, we're good. So as the seeds in the ground, right, you have to go down first to be able to grow into what you're meant to be. But you also have to water and fertilize, have the right nutrients.

0:55:10 Evans Putman But what's the most important thing that most people miss is that in order for that seed to become what it's intended to be, the tree, the flower, whatever, the vegetable garden, it must cease being a seed. And so I think I had hit that point where my inner self, my higher self, whatever you want to call it, knew that I needed to cease being that person. That was just the helper behind the curtain, the guy that helped other people step to the front. I needed to start stepping to the front myself to create a bigger impact.

0:55:58 Evans Putman And so I think it was more feeling that constraint and stress of not fulfilling my authentic purpose that was causing problems than anything else. Because you're right, the financial success was there. Amazing person I was working with had great people in our team that we were working with, even though it wasn't like my favorite thing in the world to do to run a team, because I need an operator to run the team. I'm like the creative guy. We had two creative people that were very high DS on the disc scale. So we're both like, yes, no, give me. Let's just take action, all these things.

0:56:40 Evans Putman But the other thing too, Kevin, is if I wouldn't have experienced that business, and not necessarily just the business, but the experience with my friend Pat because of who he was and the way he was and the permission he gave me to do things and fail without any sort of repercussion. Right. Because it wasn't failure, it was just part of the success journey. Right. He gave me a new way of looking at the world, a new way of seeing things. He was a very giving person.

0:57:16 Evans Putman And it was a time that I needed to be in, that I would have never been able to do what I'm doing now if it wouldn't have been for that business. So even though it didn't end with me, like this exciting, joyful moment, it was more of like, I got to do this next thing, and it's painting me to go. But it's also painful. It's more painful to not go kind of thing. I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for that either.

0:57:45 Kevin Lowe Yeah.

0:57:47 Evans Putman And it was funny because he never even really knew that. And then I think it was like a year after it happened, after I'd gone through a lot of my personal development and journey, I actually reached out to him just one day. I was like, I just wanted to tell you thank you, and sort of went through this stuff and he's just like, I had no idea. But we're still friends. We hadn't seen each other in a while, but we live close by and it's nice to know. And then he was able to actually, the beautiful thing about it was that that business, because of the system that I put in place, that we were able to basically turn, he called it, he was like, it was like we turned the podcast into an ATM that it was like it ran on autopilot, right? It brought in an audience.

0:58:31 Evans Putman The audience went from listeners to leads. They went from leads to buying. And we had this whole process in place that ran smoothly. As a matter of fact, when I left thinking it was going to blow up, it worked just fine, even though my ego was like, thinking, oh man, I was so important. But it was like, I did a good job. I created something that was able to run without me. And as I left, he actually whittled the team down some and then I don't even know if it was like maybe six months later, he ended up selling the business, which was pretty amazing.

0:59:10 Evans Putman It started as a podcast that was failing, that had no business attached to it. I built this entire business around it, and he was later able to exit and sell it. And it's still out there now running the system and the podcast and everything I built together is still out there running it's, just under different ownership.

0:59:30 Kevin Lowe Yeah, that's absolutely powerful. Now talk to me about what business did you start? What are you doing today?

0:59:39 Evans Putman Yeah, thanks for asking. When I shifted from that, as you and I know, because this is how we met, I'm sure I started teaching other entrepreneurs that had podcasts how to do similar, right? How to basically turn their podcast into a sales machine, an engine that could run their business, because that's what we had done. We did no other marketing outside of that podcast. That was it. And some of that was through necessity. Because Pat was retired, he didn't need the money.

1:00:12 Evans Putman He wanted the easiest way. He just wanted to do the podcast part. But I went out and started sharing other people how they could. Whether they were a coach, a life coach, a business coach, a consultant. Maybe they sold digital courses they ran, masterminds whatever it was they were looking to do, how they could use that podcast in a way that was more efficient and attuned to their mission and their message and their business, and it would turn it into a machine for them. So that was my next phase and continued to do that for a few years. And I still do that. Consulting wise.

1:00:51 Evans Putman I'm actually getting ready to launch a new group. Just focused on that because I'm getting so many people that are reaching out to me that need it. But from there it was during that time that I spent in the mornings meditating where this next once again it was delivered to me, it was downloaded into me. And the only way I can explain this is that it was so crazy because I'm in the middle of meditation and these four words sort of came to me and I immediately felt the urge to jump up from outside on my porch, and I ran inside to the whiteboard, pulled the whiteboard over, rolled it over, started writing out this entire business method on the whiteboard and teaching it to the blinds because there was nobody else there. It was just the window of the blinds.

1:01:46 Evans Putman It was almost like my room had turned into a stage. I felt like I was in front of like 3000 people teaching this. It was so surreal and real at the same time. It was amazing. And that went on. That is actually known as what I teach now. It's called the infinite impact method. And it came to me through meditation, like I said, and it's a way that I teach now. I'm moving that into a new sort of container, which is what you and I, I think have discussed before. And you're actually in the group, you just joined it. I just opened up the group. The Servepreneur Movement, which is my new trademark, is the Servepreneur Blueprint, which is my sort of I'm creating a movement, a new way of doing entrepreneurship that is leading from a place of service.

1:02:41 Evans Putman And it's nothing new, but it's just a new slant. It's like pulling a lot of people that feel that the online marketing and coaching space is very disingenuous and doesn't feel authentic and doesn't feel aligned with them. To create a different way of doing this, where we focus more on collaboration versus competition, we focus on wealth versus rich, right? We focus because wealth is more wealth in time and freedom and family versus just making money, right? We focus on putting that money back into the community, into the world, creating abundance versus holding it and keeping scarcity.

1:03:24 Evans Putman So it's just a new way of being an entrepreneur, which I call the Servpreneur Blueprint. And within that, the Infinite impact method is sort of the path, the way to build your business, no matter if you're starting out or if you are just growing your business, but if you feel like you have a purpose and a calling, you have some of your life's greatest work that's waiting to come out. That's what I'm creating is the container and the way to help people do that, to step into their purpose, shine their light, create a bigger impact on the world.

1:03:59 Evans Putman So it's not necessarily focused directly on the tactical podcasting. Method. It's based more on a principle based business model that can be used by anyone who feels like they have a purpose or a passion or they want to go out and create a business that's a force for good.

1:04:19 Kevin Lowe That is some powerful stuff, man. Oh, my goodness, dude. Evans man, you have such the journey, such this story of just transformation and I am just absolutely honored to have had the opportunity to get to hear your story, to get to share it with my audience. It means the world to me and I just thank you, so oh, well.

1:04:48 Evans Putman Thank know I appreciate you so much for having me on, Kevin, because one, I don't get a lot of opportunities to share this full, you know, full transparency. You and I talked before this and I told you I couldn't wait to talk a little bit more about the personal things, the things that have affected who I am now and helped me grow into that. But I really think it's magical that it happened on 725 and once again, right?

1:05:21 Evans Putman Yeah, it happened today for a reason. And I literally looked at my phone this morning and was like, oh, wow, this is when I put everything behind and followed a dream and an intuition and just went for it. And I think that's sort of the message I'd like to leave with your listeners too. And it's what I'd like to share with people is that you may feel like you're doing something now that is not serving you. Maybe it is paying the bills, but you feel disconnected from life and unhappy. If you really listen and take the time to quiet your mind and listen, you yourself know what you're meant to do.

1:06:07 Evans Putman And sometimes you just have to take that leap and go for it because it opens up an adventure that you would never regret. I'm not saying it's going to be easy because you pointed it out yourself, right, how it looked like it was all going great and then boom, that incident in 2003 happened. A big major slap. So there's always going to be ups and downs, but I feel like if you're following your true calling, you're doing your life's greatest work. If you're doing something that's serving others and helping other people, which when I look back on my life, has always been a part even though I didn't realize it, to me that is well worth it. And you just have to sometimes take that leap of faith like I did on 725, 2001. And for all your listeners, you can do it too.

1:07:00 Evans Putman The support is there for you. It doesn't have to be me, but there's support out there. When you start to go full into your purpose, the universe lines up and starts putting the right people and the right things in your path if you pay attention. So, yeah, I just can't believe it happened today, which blows my mind once again, but I guess it shouldn't surprise me at this point. But I'm just so grateful for the opportunity, Kevin, and this has been a wonderful experience.

1:07:32 Kevin Lowe Yeah. Well, evans. Thank you. Tremendously. And I couldn't agree. So, for you listening today, my hope is that you've really listened. You've really paid attention to what Evans has told us about his story that can so easily relate to your own story. And just here's the bottom line. Sometimes you have to have the courage to turn the page. Because if you don't ever turn the page, you'll never get to experience what the next chapter holds for you.

1:08:08 Kevin Lowe And the next chapter may very well be the best chapter yet.