John Rustin | July 11, 2019 | SHARE: 
Mike Lindell, inventor of MyPillow and founder of the Lindell Recovery Network, speaks about the role his faith has played not only in his recovery from drug addiction, but also in his business and his philanthropic work. Lindell also discusses his upcoming business projects.
JOHN RUSTIN: Welcome to Family Policy Matters. Today we bring you Part 2 of a two-part series featuring Mike Lindell, inventor and CEO of MyPillow. He is also founder of the Lindell Recovery Network, which works to help those struggling with drug addiction, through hope, recovery, and mentorship.
MIKE LINDELL: Every addict that comes out of a center, even if they have Jesus as their foundation, they still have those triggers that happen. Let’s say my kids, […] they’re still upset with me and they won’t talk to me. Now, if that mentor didn’t have that happen to them, they’re going to punch into the app, they’re going to go: My kids won’t talk to me and I can’t deal with this. Now mentors out there that are on call 24/7, just like my call center, that had that exact same thing happened to them and they made it through, they’re going to get on the phone with them, or get on that app and it’s so easy for that person to talk the guy through it because they’ve made it through. They’ve been there. Let’s say their spouse didn’t wait for them. “I went to treatment and they didn’t wait,” or “I didn’t get that job.” —and by the way, this is going to be one of the biggest employers in the country. It’s going to employ tens of thousands of mentors. There’s no better mentor and people to be counselors than people that have been through it and been saved. And the President, I was there when he signed this opioid bill, and now it’s an amazing bill […] and he is so onboard with beating this opioid addiction that our country—one of the biggest things facing our country today is that. I really think with this platform, basically it’s bringing the hope, the help, and the healing and then the mentorship, and it’s going to be a full circle. I know I’ve been there and this—it works. Any addict that’s been through this, it works. Their success rate is off the charts. […] And then I’m going to have a TV show, I’m going to be on there every week. It’s like a “Hope” report, and we’re going to give great stories of hope that have been through all the good things going on instead of hearing about all the negative things. They are going to hear the positive. People need to see the hope.
JOHN RUSTIN: And speaking about hope, Mike, what role has faith had in your success, not only as an inventor and an entrepreneur and a businessman, but also in your successful recovery from drug addiction?
MIKE LINDELL: Oh, it’s 100 percent. Even when you see me wearing my cross on TV, God was still chasing me. I wanted to be that person. Different things I’ve done with my company, we’ll sit and pray about it, we’ll make our move and I don’t back off. When God has me do something—I had one time someone came out of my Board room, this is back when I met the President before he was president, I didn’t know anything about politics. I didn’t know a liberal from a conservative, and I had a private meeting with Mr. Trump. He had reached out to me about Made in America, and all this stuff. The first thing he said, he goes, “Mike, you’re always wear your cross. Are you a Christian.” I said, “Yes, Mr. Trump, and this is a divine appointment.” But after I met him, I felt God say to go all-in and one of my Board members said: Are you sure you know, you don’t want to do this? And I walked out of there; I was mad at him. One of my gals came out on the Board and said: “We didn’t get all this way by you not listening to God.” And I walked back in, I said, “We didn’t get all this by not listening to God.” And people ask me all the time, they say: What’s your best day, Mike, with MyPillow? It’s right now, as every single day God rewards, you know. Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not unto your own understanding, always acknowledge him and he will guide your path. I live by those words now. It’s more rewarding every day. It might look not good from the outside, like: Why are you doing that? I’m going: I just trust in the Lord. We had a time in 2014. We were within two days of going under with MyPillow, and I prayed and God showed me what to do. We actually had to kind of build Noah’s ark for all this business that we were going to get. And I didn’t know how we are going to get it. You know, I did a two-minute and a one-minute commercial myself, here’s a guy that could never speak before. I was always in fear of rejection, I was very shy. The first infomercial I ever did, a real producer came in the night before and we were doing our reads. He said: This guy’s the worst guy I’ve ever seen. He’ll never make it on TV. God has used my biggest weakness of fear of talking in front of crowds, and he turned it into this huge platform. It’s played the biggest role…. you know, to give back, not only when I’m giving back, but now that I can go out after I was saved on February 18, 2017, when I came out of there, I was able to go out to—I spoke to 50,000 Millennials at US Bank Stadium, told a little bit of my story and prayed with them for an hour. Three weeks later, we’re at an amusement park with my granddaughter, all these kids are coming up: Hey, I got saved. I heard your story, I heard your story! And that’s when my granddaughter finally had to say: He’s my grandpa and we need to go on rides.
But all these things, all the speaking now that I’ve done, I feel God gave us grace on November 8, 2016. And right now in our country to bring God back into our schools and God back into our country. I’m not ashamed to say that Jesus is our chairman of the Board for MyPillow, and I’m not ashamed to go out there and say I am an ex-crack addict. I just put it out there and I think that gives people hope and they go: You know what? I have problems too. We all have problems and now we’re at a time where—we’re at a turning point in our country’s history, and many people of salvation, and to save people with stories of transformation like mine.
JOHN RUSTIN: Mike, I know you, as you’ve said, have been politically active. I know you had a great cameo in the movie “Unplanned.” For our listeners who have seen that film and for those who have not, I couldn’t encourage you strongly enough to go see that. I think you were actually in a backhoe and knocked down the Planned Parenthood sign when the Planned Parenthood clinic closed, which was awesome. How would you encourage folks who may be entrepreneurs, who may be kind of starting up a business, just can’t seem to get the idea off the ground, but are people who have faith. How would you encourage them to keep their hand to the wheel, keep their nose to the grindstone and not lose hope?
MIKE LINDELL: You brought up that movie “Unplanned.” I didn’t think I would be involved in that, and I got involved. I even put money in toward it. I told God, I prayed about it and I was very proactive in my prayers. I went in that, it got a lot of pushback but yet it was amazing. I tell entrepreneurs out there, here’s three things I’ll say: You are living in the best time ever for an entrepreneur right now, people with the higher wages and everything that this President’s done, and the unemployment rate at an all-time low in history. What I’m seeing is entrepreneurs now with products and services, they can go out and take chances because they’ve got a safety net. You can always go back and get a job, a good paying job. You can take chances you haven’t taken before. And one of the things that—whether you’re in any business or service, you need to watch your deviation. First of all, learn from a mentor that you trust, that’s been in a like business. All the information you can gather, but when you get there, you need to learn and you get your baseline, you need to watch for deviations because I’ll tell you if something good happens, you better learn why it happened and duplicate it. Something bad happens, you better learn from it and not to do it again and correct yourself. The deviations are the biggest thing for me. And then follow what the Lord wants you to do and never backed down from that. I’ll quickly announce this, I’m actually coming out with a thing called mystore.com […] because I feel so bad for entrepreneurs with products that come into our country and they’re copied by overseas. They get up on platforms like Amazon, they get copied. They can’t get in the box stores. There are stories I could tell you that are terrible that these products get left or copied and they never get off the ground. Well, I’m going to have a platform for entrepreneurs. We’re betting on products, you can put a product up on MyStore.com, you can apply via this other company I have that I trust. And now you’re going to have a safe platform for these entrepreneurs to put your products up. And I’m going to be… it’s a trusted platform. I’m going to be all over the TV and radio directing people to this platform and it’s just going to be great for the entrepreneurs so that they’re able to get their great products out. Each one’s going to have a story behind them.
I have a new studio I got, this building I bought where I’m going to come in and I’m going to film the entrepreneur and go: Hey, I met this guy, he’s got a great product, here it is up here, and these products are going to help you. They have to help you like physically, mentally in your faith or help the entrepreneur. Some of these products are world-changing. I’m not announcing them now but it’s not going to be long. I’ll bet you within a month we’ll have the whole platform up, but if somebody has got a product out there and they don’t know what to do and because we’re well versed in how to fight these huge companies out of Silicon Valley that are hard to navigate. I’m being nice right now by the way.
The other day I was on a TV show and my lawyer, I was talking about something else when I started to bad-mouth Google and he’s holding up a sign, “Quit bad-mouthing Google.”
JOHN RUSTIN: Mike, obviously you are involved in lots of different things and we’re so grateful for that. Thank you so much for taking time out of your very busy schedule to share with our listeners your personal story and how that has manifested itself through your faith to just be an outspoken example and ambassador for Christ, and a very effective and successful business person. So where can our listeners go to learn more about your story and your work to not only support entrepreneurs, but also to help addicts turn their lives around in a positive way?
MIKE LINDELL: You go to michaeljlindell.com or just Google my name, you can get there, but these other two platforms that are launching the MyStore.com, the Lindellrecoverynetwork.com. These things are going to be launched, but you can get your catchall at the michaeljlindell.com or org, either one. And I want to encourage everyone out there, as a Christian, to be outspoken. We need to get out and it’s not just, you know, God has had us not just go to church on Sunday. We are called to be disciples. We need to get out there and just put the name of Jesus out there. I encourage everyone out there to do that. We’re in the biggest revival ever, right now. We are in the best of times, I don’t care what you see on TV, the times we’re living in, these are amazing. And like I say, it’s already turned, but you know what, we just can’t get complacent. Everyone’s got to get out there and get people and you know, this is about salvation and now for eternity. So I just encourage everybody to not live in fear and just get it out there.
JOHN RUSTIN: Awesome, well that’s a great word of encouragement, and with that we’re going to have to end here, but I want to give that website again. Again, that’s michaeljlindell.com. And listeners, go visit that site, and keep your eyes and ears open for these other exciting ventures that Mike has shared with us today. And with that, Mike Lindell, I want to thank you so much for being with us on Family Policy Matters.
MIKE LINDELL: Thanks so much for having me, God bless you.
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