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The Level Up Podcast w/ Paul Alex

How a Former Police Officer Cracked the CODE to Making MILLIONS – Shawn Greene’s Story

01 Nov 2025

Transcription

Chapter 1: What motivated Shawn Greene to leave law enforcement for entrepreneurship?

0.031 - 24.537 Unknown

Steve Kubine and Nan McNamara's podcast from Beneath the Hollywood Sign. Ape pulls out a box and gives McAllister a ring saying, here's something to remember me by. Daryl Zanuck hit the roof. Mary Astor has been keeping a diary. This torrid affair with George S. Kaufman is chronicled on a daily basis. Talking about the actors and actresses who won an Oscar on their very first film.

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24.977 - 29.262 Unknown

Get your fix of old Hollywood on the podcast from Beneath the Hollywood Sign.

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32.735 - 38.126 Shawn Greene

You know, I had a great salary. I was doing well for myself. What is well during that time, brother? I had a six-figure salary.

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38.186 - 40.451 Paul Alex

Okay. That I thought was good.

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40.631 - 41.533 Unknown

Oh, it's decent.

41.553 - 44.8 Paul Alex

You know a lot of people out there making six figures, man. They live in life.

45.14 - 52.234 Shawn Greene

Right. Yeah. I had a nice house. About two cars. Yeah. Once the bills were paid, I was like, dude, like... have much to live on.

52.314 - 58.201 Paul Alex

I still never owned a business. What was it that kept you stuck on analysis paralysis?

58.221 - 70.217 Shawn Greene

The fear. The fear of never owning a business and not knowing who had a business. Voice in my head was just saying, there's more to you, there's more to you. Called him up, like, hey, is that opportunity still available? He's like, yeah, I was waiting for you. And then from that point on, it was just uphill from there.

Chapter 2: How did Shawn Greene overcome analysis paralysis in his journey?

142.317 - 156.157 Paul Alex

And I'm super excited to hear about your background. So for my audience that's listening and watching right now, dude, who are you? Number one. Okay. And then number two, let's start off. in your background with law enforcement? Absolutely.

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156.879 - 183.65 Shawn Greene

I'm Sean Green. My background in law enforcement started when I was about 21 years old. I was all excited to become a police officer, excited to serve my community and take care of people. I did well. Flew through the police academy, won the physical fitness award in the police academy. Yep. I was just that guy who wanted to do everything the right way. So that went well.

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183.991 - 187.701 Shawn Greene

I was in law enforcement for about only about three to four years.

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187.681 - 211.039 Shawn Greene

um but i just always knew there was more i wanted there was more to me um yeah i was a cop but i was living paycheck to paycheck dude yeah literally um and i was like there's got to be another way you know i had a college degree and i was a law enforcement officer but again i just saw myself to do something more um my degree is in marketing but i went into law enforcement yeah

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211.019 - 231.962 Shawn Greene

Um, a lot of people ask me, how do you correlate marketing to law enforcement? But that's what I did. Um, then I went into, um, I didn't want to stay in law enforcement because I just didn't. I just felt like there was more to me. Yeah. I feel like I wanted to do more. I wanted to have more. And honestly, dude, I like money. Yeah.

232.243 - 251.104 Paul Alex

And that's okay. A lot of people like to paint money as this bad thing and this greed thing. But correct me if I'm wrong, Sean, it comes down to our environment, right? Correct. Who our parents are, we love our families and our parents and our loved ones and our friends, and they want to keep us all nice and cozy, right? Right.

251.124 - 257.61 Paul Alex

But at the end of the day, staying safe is not going to make you rich or it's not going to build that life by design, right?

257.83 - 258.091 Unknown

Correct.

258.231 - 271.823 Paul Alex

So obviously you saw more in yourself than what law enforcement was providing for you. And then what was the next move? So you were in law enforcement for four years. And then what year was this?

Chapter 3: What marketing strategies did Shawn use to succeed in the tax industry?

284.036 - 300.294 Paul Alex

It was bad. Oh, man. Brother, I remember when that happened, man. Yeah. Luckily, during that time, I was still in corporate America. It was right before I became a cop a few years before. Right. Yeah. So I remember. So you went ahead and you transitioned.

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300.355 - 324.005 Shawn Greene

What did you get into right after law enforcement? Great question. So right when I got out of law enforcement, I was still on that bridge. I became, um, I went to the head of security in the casino. Okay. Down in Atlantic city. Okay. Did that for about a year. Um, and it was good, but then again, I still wanted more. So I, um, I, uh, Took a job in sales. Okay.

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324.186 - 335.567 Shawn Greene

I worked at, I was selling door-to-door at Katewell. Yeah. Knocking on doors and selling Katewell. I became the number one sales rep in the company within three months. Wow. So I knew that I had some talent.

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335.767 - 335.927 Unknown

Yeah.

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336.408 - 358.67 Shawn Greene

So that entered my career into sales. Um, I did that for about three to four years and then I went right into pharmaceutical sales, um, where I was still, well, actually vision care where I started selling contact lenses to eye doctors. Wow. Um, I did that for a few years, about five years. Um, and then it was just still something just that bug in me saying, I just want something more.

358.95 - 368.633 Shawn Greene

You know, I had a great salary. We were doing, I was doing well for myself. Um, but what is, what is well during that time, brother? I had a six-figure salary that I thought was good.

368.814 - 369.795 Unknown

Oh, it's decent.

369.855 - 391.948 Shawn Greene

A lot of people out there are making six figures, man. They live in life. Right. Yeah. Right. But I noticed I had a nice house, about two cars. Yeah. Once the bills were paid, I was like, dude, I don't have much to live on. So that lit a fire in me where I wanted to do more. And I said, there's more into me. That voice in my head was just saying, there's more to you. There's more to you.

393.13 - 406.198 Shawn Greene

So I started going to the International Franchise Expo every year with a buddy of mine that I used to work with. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had saved up some capital on my 401k. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I say, I want to do something. How old were you during this time?

Chapter 4: How does Shawn's business model serve low-income communities?

2003.61 - 2011.18 Paul Alex

What does it take to level up yourself as a man, but also an entrepreneur? What would you say?

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2011.16 - 2042.253 Shawn Greene

you've you've hit some great questions um for one surround yourself with positive people positive people don't be around people who are always complaining because that energy is is contagious um also you know work on yourself um work on yourself do some self-help or um self-help books um and uh Ultimately, at the end of the day, you have to set yourself away from anything that's negative.

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2042.934 - 2071.141 Shawn Greene

Any of that negativity, you just got to let that go, the vices and all that, and believe in yourself. Work on your fitness. I think fitness is huge because I think that if you're working on yourself that way, everything comes to you. And surrounding yourself with people who are doing better than you is going to help you out a lot. And just work, I like to say, invest in yourself.

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2071.923 - 2090.776 Shawn Greene

Whatever that means, invest in yourself. If you guys are around five people who aren't doing well in life, guess what? You're going to be the sixth. If you're around five people who are drinking every day, you're going to be the sixth. Mm-hmm. If you're around five multimillionaires, guess what? Sooner or later, you're going to be the six. So that's my advice to anyone. Just keep grinding.

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2091.698 - 2105.305 Paul Alex

Yeah. I love that. Did you ever have to go ahead and basically force yourself to, to level up to a different environment because you realized that your environment was going to help you grow.

2105.325 - 2120.727 Shawn Greene

Thousand percent. Yeah? Yeah. I had friends that always wanted to go out drinking. That's all they want to do. Let's do this Friday night. Let's go party. Let's go with Sean because we know Sean's going to flip that bill. Um, and, uh, I got tired of it. I got around people who were just like, dude, this is what you do. Like you have so much potential, you know?

2121.408 - 2136.53 Shawn Greene

Um, and they, they actually, uh, made me feel bad. I'm like, these dudes are doing so well. And, you know, they saw I had potential. So I had to leave all the other, you know, all my other buddies that, I mean, we had some, some, some stories that we can talk about, but that wasn't making us money.

2137.091 - 2143.778 Paul Alex

Around, around what age did you start realizing this? 29, 29. Yeah. It's a good age.

2144.138 - 2146.282 Shawn Greene

Yeah. 29. I was like, yeah, dude, I can't do this every night.

Chapter 5: What steps did Shawn take to scale his tax business?

2153.134 - 2169.557 Shawn Greene

Um, and I looked up to him and trusted him. Um, and that's how things started to shift. I always had that self-discipline. I always had the self-discipline. I always worked out. I mean, that was something I was going to do. I always had that intact. Um, I just, um, didn't find the right people to be around with.

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2169.577 - 2189.981 Shawn Greene

I was never around people to do crazy things, but I just weren't around people who had shifted their mindset to the entrepreneur mindset. You know, when I got around the owner of the tax business that I'm currently in, things started to shift because I started to see things from a different perspective. I saw people online doing really well. I scrolled, saw you.

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2191.703 - 2209.47 Shawn Greene

Saw the positive things you were doing. You know, I looked up to that. And, you know, I wanted to be around people who were just Taking things to the next level, being positive, helping others, whether that's through mentoring or whether that's through just leading by example. That's when things started to shift.

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2210.392 - 2215.98 Paul Alex

Wow. So your perspective now that you've been in entrepreneurship for how many years now?

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2217.602 - 2222.109 Shawn Greene

I say full entrepreneur when I completely left corporate America, seven years.

2222.51 - 2235.955 Paul Alex

So seven years, full-time entrepreneur now. What would you tell someone once they get into full-time entrepreneurship, actually built a business, would that person ever go back to working for someone else?

2236.205 - 2252.248 Shawn Greene

Once you get to a level of success, I don't think you ever could. Why is that? Having your time back is more valuable. Once you get your time back and you see that you can be compensated substantially and have your time, you can't go back. You couldn't pay me enough.

2252.569 - 2265.688 Paul Alex

Yeah. And what do you say to the people that say, well, I see entrepreneurs working more than they would for someone else. I see them working 50 hours, 60 hours, 100 hours. What do you tell those people?

2267.93 - 2289.739 Shawn Greene

Oh, that's me sometimes. Yeah. I tell those people that in the beginning, yeah, you're going to be that guy working those hours. I mean, there's no way around it. Yeah. Well, let me ask you a question. Let me ask this question. Would you rather be working all those hours and making someone else rich or working all those hours and making yourself rich?

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