Jane Wells talks to Mike Lindell for her CNBC Strange Success Podcast series which is about people who have come up with crazy ideas and managed to go from failure and rejection to success. And who better to talk to than Mike Lindell, who has literally gone from the crack house to the White House, with the tremendous success of MyPillow in between.
Highlights
- Mike Lindell’s amazing story goes from owning a carpet cleaning business and hogs to the phenomenal success of MyPillow, all while overcoming addictions, failures, and adversity.
- The MyPillow business started as a dream, took years to develop, faced failures in sales and marketing, and finally found early success with fairs and events. During this time, Mike had to go through an epic battle for the control of MyPillow. He also faced his own adversity: addictions to alcohol, cocaine, and crack cocaine, which he amazingly kicked overnight through prayer on January 6, 2009. He has been sober ever since and vows to give his life to God in all his endeavors in return for being freed from his addictions..
- MyPillow’s exponential success came from the famous MyPillow infomercial, an idea which also came to Mike in a dream. Mike went against the grain by not using professional actors. Instead, Mike was featured in the infomercial and ad-libbed his way throughout it. Due to the infomercial, MyPillow went from 10 employees to 500 employees in just a few months. And now, MyPillow has over 1,500 employees and has sold over 30 million pillows.
- President Trump was so impressed Mike’s American-made products that he invited Mike to New York City to talk about his story and the benefits of American-made products. Mike was then invited to the White House’s Made in America Roundtable, where he sat right next to President Trump.
- Mike continues to grow and give back: MyPillow has given tens of thousands of pillows to charity, Mike has created the Lindell Foundation to help his employees and those in need, he is writing his autobiography, and Mike is creating a movie of his life through a partnership with Stephen Baldwin.
It has been an incredible life. Mike gives all of the credit for his success to God: “Looking back now, the only way that we were able to do all of this was through Divine intervention from God. It is a miracle, an absolute miracle.”
And – a message from Mike to all, “It can be done, people.”
You can read more in this referenced article, How this entrepreneur went from a crack addict to a self-made multimillionaire.