The Rise To The Top: The #1 Non-Boring Business Show:

The Rise To The Top (“RISE” for short) is the #1 Non-Boring Business Show created & hosted by David Siteman Garland. This highly entertaining and informative show features fluff-free, uncensored, naked conversations with successful entrepreneurs discussing business, lifestyle and more. David’s guests have ranged from “The Millionaire Matchmaker” Patti Stanger to the CEO of Zappos Tony Hsieh to innovators, such as Tim Ferriss, New York Times best-selling author of The 4-Hour Workweek and The 4-Hour Body.

On The Rise To The Top you can expect:

• Interviews: Interesting, successful (usually Internet) entrepreneurs candidly spilling the beans on how they built their businesses & designed their lives, insights, successes, failures and much more. Past guests include Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, Ali Brown, Timothy Ferriss, Tony Hsieh and HUNDREDS of others.
• Blog: Occasional video blogs, etc. with insights from my own entrepreneurial journey and life ranging from business wins and losses to fitness and nutrition.
• Resources: Stuff to help you build your business. Cool tools, trusted products and more.

How To Keep Posted:

You can join the 100,000+ RISE enthusiasts and catch new episodes on TheRiseToTheTop.com as well as iTunes (video and audio) plus hundreds of past interviews in the archives. Now you can also watch The Rise To The Top on your television via Roku and Connected TV.

You can get RISE shows directly to your email by becoming a subscriber (you can also subscribe via RSS). You can also check out even more subscription options.

What Kinds Of Peeps Hang Out Here?

Good question! A wide variety, but I would say a big percentage of The Rise To The Top community are mediapreneurs/Internet marketers at all levels of the game (getting started, building momentum and at the top of their game). What is mediapreneurship and are you a mediapreneur?

Mediapreneurship and mediapreneur are terms I came up with in the shower a few years ago which refers to entrepreneurs that have created a business that involves creating online content.

Business models vary. For example your business model might be that you sell digital product or coach/consult/speak or sell advertising, it’s all good in the hood…however mediapreneurs all create online content of some kind which might include:

-Blog posts
-Articles
-Newsletters/e-zines
-Web shows
-Podcasts
-Cartoons and drawings
-Cool videos
-eBooks and books…

…and the list goes on. If you think you are a mediapreneur, you are probably are one. In my bias opinion, mediapreneurship is one of the most fulfilling ways to spend your (business) time and make a living. It is amazing to see so many people making a living directly or indirectly from their passions/expertise/favorite topics.

The Blog & Resources:

On a less regular schedule than the show, you can find new articles, videos, resources, cool stuff to the blog often covering similar topics to the show (and also random topics like fitness and nutrition). Some of the most popular include my crazy stories ranging from playing “professional fake hockey” and taking a “job for $0 to being thrown on the radio with no experience and expected to come up with a show to starting a TV show at 24 years old despite never really being in front of a camera.Also, you can check out RISE Recommends for products and services recommended by me.

From The Host’s Mouth – The Rise To The Top Story:

The Beginning (The Original Concept):

The idea for The Rise To The Top struck me at a coffee shop. I was sitting with a friend of mine and we were just talking about business, entrepreneurship, success and passion.

I had just come off from a really interesting (and crazy!) entrepreneurial experience of co-creating, running and playing in a professional inline hockey (yes, hockey on wheels). It was an incredibly challenging and awesome experience. I was pumped about the work I did with the league and I was making money doing something I really loved (playing hockey and hanging out around hockey…what could be better?). Not only was work fun, but life was fun as well. Because, honestly, entrepreneurship isn’t just about business…its a lifestyle.

I kept bringing up the fact that during my own entrepreneurial adventures, I wished there was a show that spoke to the forward-thinking unconventional entrepreneur and innovator. A show based on people sharing their experiences as opposed to all the fluffy theory out there. And I knew I was not alone. Because besides exciting and rewarding, entrepreneurship sometimes is tough and lonely…especially if you are pursuing your passion.  Finding the right people to listen to learn from can be extremely vital to crossing the line from failure to success.

I realized there are lessons everywhere. Big ones, small ones and every kind in between. As an entrepreneur, learning from all kinds of successful entrepreneurs (not just ones in your particular field/area of interest) has been one of the best things I’ve done. You never know when you will get that next great idea, spark, inspiration or strategy.

Not only that, but there are a special breed of entrepreneurs out there who are not waiting for retirement to enjoy life or working themselves to death. I found stories of people with successful businesses AND amazing lifestyles to be the most exciting.

The conversation randomly turned into a series of “what ifs” with no forced agenda. I kept saying things like:

• What if there was a TV show for creative entrepreneurs that was not uber-stuffy and boring that focused on learning from successful people?
• What if I could hunt down and bring on amazing (hard-to-reach) guests who could tell their stories (in depth!), and offer up inspiration, advice and insight for all of us?
• What if the interviews were unscripted, uncut and more like having a cup of coffee or cocktail with the guest (you know…a real conversation)?
• What if we served up the show in multiple formats/places so folks could watch, when, where and how they wanted whether it be on computers, TVs, iPods, whatever?
• What if after watching/listening to the interviews you felt more energized than having 19 cups of coffee?

And right then and there, I knew I had to do it and devote myself 100%. I took my savings (pretty much my Bar Mitzvah money) and started The Rise To The Top in the early fall of 2008.

The show was produced by a team of freelancers that I hired an aired on ABC in St. Louis, Missouri beginning in October 2008 and started building a bit of a following mostly locally.

The Accidental Evolution & Light Bulb Moment

In 2008 and 2009 I did most of the interviews in my home town of St. Louis, Missouri as well as lugging a camera crew on the road to travel to places such as Los Angeles to interview The Millionaire Matchmaker Patti Stanger and New York City to sit down with Gary Vaynerchuk.

An experiment towards the end of 2009 led to the current format of the show which is uncut video interviews shot via Skype. Exhausted from traveling and also the fact that I pretty much had interviewed everyone I wanted to in St. Louis, I wondering if it was possible to interview guests while they sat in their home towns while I sat in mine.

The first Skype interview took place with the founder of Help A Reporter Peter Shankman. It was a blast, except for one small problem being that we screwed up the recording and lost all of my video and audio (Peter was nice enough to come back on later on…thanks Peter). But something just clicked. As opposed to the original interviews on the show that were short and highly produced, the Skype interviews had more of an underground, casual feel. Sort of like having a cup of coffee or cocktail with an interesting person to share with you.

Viewership online skyrocketed as access to guests was no longer limited by geography and budget. The show took on a life of its own as a passionate RISE community began to develop of creative entrepreneurs looking to learn from the best.

I ended up ditching television for the Internet and haven’t looked back since. I’m super excited to now have over 250,000 RISE enthusiasts tuning in on computers, laptops, mobile phones and even traditional televisions. It makes me feel good that I can (hopefully) make a difference in your life in some small way.

Thanks for turning in!

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David Siteman Garland is a sought-after personality, host, emcee. If you are interested in hiring David you can find out more details right here.

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