Charlie Jabaley: From a 300 Pound Millionaire To Iron Man Athlete

[This video is published by Yes Theory, a motivational YouTube channel that has begun doing profiles on motivational people.]

Meet Charlie Jabaley.

As a kid, Charlie wanted to do one thing — play basketball. But, his weight prevented him from doing this, and as he grew up, it didn’t improve.

He decided that if he couldn’t do that and excel, he would excel at something else. He chooses business.

In 2007, Charlie drops out of college after meeting Soulja Boy, and goes on tour with him, working as a cameraman. This was a major changing point in his life — it exposed him to musical professionals and allowed him to build his network. He also dropped out of higher education and wouldn’t ever go back.

That would prove to be a minor setback because also in 2007, he got fired. However, Charlie had the drive that all extremely successful businessmen have. He wanted to be great at something (in this case, business) and chose the music industry to leave his mark.

He moved away from being a cameraman and became a manager of artists. His first group that got signed was the Vistoso Bosses. Then he got fired. Again. However, he kept on the grind and signed another artist called Travis Porter — who went on to become top 10 in the USA.

He founded Street Execs Management with several partners in 2008 and discovered a small artist called 2-Chainz. That artist took the company from zero to a hundred, real quick and in no time Charlie was running a multimillion-dollar management company.

Charlie himself describes it best in the video and an interview that he did with Forbes back in 2015. When he asked what his business story was, he responded:

I started out as a cameraman. I dropped out of college. I got a call from Interscope. Soulja Boy, when he blew up, was a big fan of the work I was doing in Atlanta. So he said, I need Charlie to be my cameraman.

I had just signed up for my second semester of college courses. I had lost my scholarship because my grades were so bad, and I was having to pay for school. I wrote the check for the tuition and the books and everything. But later on that day, Interscope called me. I went home and I told my mom, I want to drop out of school and I want to go on tour with a rapper. She was confused by the whole situation. She didn’t know what was going on. But she gave me her wishes and I went on tour with Soulja Boy and learned the game, was around Collipark [Michael “Mr. Collipark” Crooms, the producer who discovered Soulja Boy], soaked it all up.

And when I was ready to grow from that situation, I moved on to management. I started with Travis Porter, then 2 Chainz, then built the whole Street Execs brand. One of the things we really take pride in about what we’re doing is, we have six artists on our brand, and every single one of them is moving. I always tell people, I don’t believe in having artists signed who are sitting. Every single one of our artists has a song on the radio, is getting show money, is touring the nation. All these other labels and management companies, they might have one or two superstars, and everybody else is dormant. But we want our whole team moving at the same time — doing tours, doing projects, all simultaneously.

Charlie was doing extremely well on the business side, because of his drive and desire to be great, but on the health side, not so much. He says it himself in the video above — his weight problems followed him through his life, and he was addicted to binge eating.

The more successful he got in the business, the heavier he got with his weight.

It got to a point where he was eating 15,000 calories in one sitting, and would wake up bloated and bruised due to all of the stuff in his system.

So Charlie decided to make a change. He wanted to follow his childhood dream of becoming a world-class athlete. He met a personal trainer who believed in him and challenged him to run three marathons, which he did. He lost 100 pounds — but this was because he starved himself. Things were looking up, but then all of a sudden they were back to normal.

However, Charlie continued to gain weight because he was eating more than he was burning off. Then to make matters worse, at a routine doctor’s visit he found out that a brain tumor had could possibly to be corroding his spinal column.

On January 1st, 2017 Charlie made a contract to himself. In it, he stated that he will become the top 1% of athletes in the world. He cashed out of his Alabama-based management business and moved to California.

Through sheer willpower he forced himself to change his lifestyle. He became a plant-based vegan, stopping his binge eating and began to exercise daily by running and biking. He lost 125 pounds, healthily and naturally, and is training for an Ironman race later this year.

Charlie is a perfect example of how a drive and willpower enable you to do anything that you want in life, even when you think you have hit rock bottom.

From a young adult, he decided that he wanted to be great at business and after many failures and not giving up, he became great at business.

His drive, willpower, and inner motivation allowed him to push through his failing college grades and poor health and become the best business person he could be, forming a multimillion-dollar music company. Then he focused these powers on his own health and made a major lifestyle change leaving behind his million dollar company to lose his weight then regain his health.

In a recent interview with RollingOut, Charlie was asked this question: “If you could tell a budding entrepreneur who wants to give up anything, What would it be? “ He responded;

Abandon the thought process of what can go wrong. You have to let it all go. You have to get that out of your mind. When I start a new business endeavor, I don’t think of anything that can go wrong. People tell me all the time, Charlie you are crazy. I literally see the finish line, and that is all that I focus on. Even when problems occur, I still concentrate on the finish line. The finish line is never a failure. The finish line is always a success. If you are focused on the end and what success looks like you can never focus on what can go wrong. If you focus on what can go wrong, you are going to talk yourself out of doing it. You are going to do what you are thinking.

Drive, willpower, and inner motivation.

This is the takeaway that you need to get from Charlie Jabaley.

Just keep going, no matter how bad it gets, and if you put your all into it and believe you will achieve your goal.

View the Yes Theory YouTube channel here, they’re great for motivation.

Read Charlie’s website here: https://www.charliejabaley.com