# Following the Money Inside Life Surge: Tim Tebow, Sage Steele & Cancel Culture | PTFO Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy. Kiera Butler says LifeSurge’s internal records cast its one-day events as lead generation for high-priced financial education programs. - Show: Pablo Torre Finds Out - Hosts: [Pablo Torre](https://realalpha.app/people/pablo-torre/) - Guest: [Kiera Butler](https://realalpha.app/people/kiera-butler/) is a journalist at Mother Jones. - Published: Oct 23, 2026 - Length: 49 min ## The best minutes - [20:42](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1242) [A payment vendor says LifeSurge workers solicited reviews](https://realalpha.app/s/a-payment-vendor-says-lifesurge-workers-solicited-reviews/) (7 min) - [27:46](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1666) [A payment vendor describes aggressive sales and unpaid bills](https://realalpha.app/s/a-payment-vendor-describes-aggressive-sales-and-unpaid-bills/) (5 min) - [34:04](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2044) [Internal documents show classes drove most LifeSurge revenue](https://realalpha.app/s/internal-documents-show-classes-drove-most-lifesurge-revenue/) (7 min) ## Also worth watching - [0:55](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=55) [PTFO sent Tebow's camp 18 questions before publication](https://realalpha.app/s/ptfo-sent-tebows-camp-18-questions-before-publication/) (6 min) Skip the sponsor reads, the post-report celebrity-speaker roll call and event speeches, and the closing credits. ## Summary Kiera Butler is a journalist at Mother Jones. She returns to investigate LifeSurge with Pablo Torre, drawing on attendee accounts, event recordings, financial documents and information from a payment-processing vendor. Butler and Torre examine whether LifeSurge’s low-cost events mainly lead attendees toward expensive financial education programs. Documents they reviewed list $47.4 million in 2023 revenue, with base education accounting for 81.5%; internal accounting labels the events as lead generation and the impact classes as cost of sales. Court Compass cofounder Brad Logan alleges that temporary workers were told to post positive reviews, attendees faced pressure to borrow, and LifeSurge owed his company about $90,000; LifeSurge denied wrongdoing and did not answer the reporters’ detailed questions by their deadline. Butler and Torre say their sources reported shrinking attendance after the coverage, while Logan speculates that LifeSurge could shut down and rebrand. ### Minute by minute - [1:00](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=60) **Tebow paused his LifeSurge relationship.** Butler says Tim Tebow paused his relationship with LifeSurge the day after the first report and said his team would investigate. Torre says his team had sent Tebow 18 questions a week before publication, including questions about complaints that attendees were pressured to borrow for classes. Butler adds that The Roys Report had sent Tebow’s team similar questions in 2025. - [6:13](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=373) **Several speakers left the lineup.** Minister and former attendee John Simmons told the reporters that LifeSurge’s sales pitch made debt seem acceptable if it served a Christian mission. LifeSurge said it strongly disagreed with the reporting and pointed to students’ positive experiences and its compliance safeguards. Tebow, Joe Mazzulla, Magic Johnson, Tony Dungy, David Ortiz and other public figures were removed from or withdrew from event promotions. - [9:48](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=588) **LifeSurge speakers emphasized defiance.** At a Charlotte event, president Sean Marcel addressed the media coverage and urged believers to keep faith central to practical decisions. Sage Steele and the Benham brothers spoke about cancellation and financial or spiritual independence. Butler and Torre report that roughly 1,400 people attended events in Charlotte and Hartford, and they describe attendees rushing to sign up for impact classes. - [17:50](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1070) **LifeSurge added a practical education pitch.** At a Hartford event, Marcel framed LifeSurge as both an inspirational gathering and an education platform covering stock trading, real estate and business development. Butler says sources told her the distinction was new after the reporting. The hosts then turn to the event reviews and introduce Brad Logan, whose company processed LifeSurge transactions. - [20:42](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1242) **Logan alleged review manipulation.** Logan says Court Compass provided the Clover card readers used at LifeSurge events and received 3% of transactions. He told the reporters that, during a 2024 event, he saw temporary workers being directed to post positive LifeSurge reviews. The reporters say they had not yet corroborated his account and sought LifeSurge’s response. - [25:10](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1510) **Logan says a larger deal was promised.** Logan says Court Compass bought 170 card terminals at about $400 each, expecting LifeSurge to reimburse the cost. He says LifeSurge instead offered a chance to process payments for impact classes, with promised monthly profits of $75,000 for trading and $60,000 for real estate. He says the proposed deal involved processing $8 million to $10 million in transactions per month. - [27:42](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1662) **Logan described pressure to borrow.** Logan says he saw staff press attendees to use credit cards, financing or home equity to pay for courses, comparing the pressure to used-car sales. Butler and Torre connect his account to earlier attendees who said they were encouraged to use multiple cards with temporary 0% interest or borrow against their homes. - [29:34](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1774) **Logan says processors flagged LifeSurge.** Logan says payment processors’ risk teams flagged the accounts and that LifeSurge pushed back when he requested financial information. He says a payment request was returned for insufficient funds and that he eventually shut down the service, estimating Court Compass was owed $90,000. LifeSurge denied wrongdoing and did not answer the reporters’ detailed questions by their deadline. - [34:04](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2044) **Education made up most reported revenue.** Financial documents put LifeSurge revenue at $1.97 million in 2021, $16.6 million in 2022 and $47.4 million in 2023; first-quarter 2024 revenue was $18.2 million. Ticket sales accounted for 8.4% of 2022 revenue and 9.2% of 2023 revenue, while base education made up 81.5% of 2023 revenue, or $38.7 million. - [38:03](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2283) **Internal accounts treated events as lead generation.** A 2023 financial statement listed $6.8 million in marketing, $5.3 million in talent and $4.4 million in event costs under lead generation; it listed impact classes under cost of sales. A May 2024 merchant agreement described an average transaction of $20,000 and a highest transaction of $60,000. - [40:08](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2408) **Card charges clustered in one half-hour.** Transaction records show that 72 Clover readers processed 567 successful charges on May 18, 2024, almost all for $197, the entry-level impact class price at the time. The records show that 78% of the charges occurred between 3 and 3:30 p.m. Butler and Torre connect that rush to what they observed at events. - [40:47](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2447) **A talent template mentions class receptions.** A LifeSurge talent agreement template says speakers would participate in a post-event Q&A and an Impact Class Student Reception. Torre notes that the template is unsigned and says the reporters do not know who signed an agreement with that wording. LifeSurge CEO Jeremy Nosek told them the company does not ask headline speakers to promote or endorse impact classes; Tebow’s recorded remarks urged attendees to complete their class signups. - [42:53](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2573) **Documents show thin reported margins.** The first-quarter 2024 documents list net profit of $919,042 and $2.5 million in overhead against $3.4 million in gross profit. They show $8.9 million in overhead for 2023, but LifeSurge did not provide the requested itemization. Torre describes the reported margins as thin. - [44:35](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2675) **Logan predicted a shutdown or rebrand.** Logan speculates that LifeSurge could shut down and return under a new name. Butler and Torre say their sources have reported shrinking audiences since the coverage, while public figures including Steele and the Benham brothers remain onstage. The hosts say further reporting is likely. ## Transcript Pablo Torre Finds Out, hosted by Pablo Torre, with Kiera Butler. Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there. [0:00](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=0) Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out, brought to you by AppleCard. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. Dude, I've got your tax returns. I've got your corporate financial statement. You've got money pouring out your ears. You have to pay your bills. Right after this. i love that there's more incoming than we can track i know i know it honestly was so i guess i don't know like i'm used to sort of a little bit toiling in obscurity and like just having people come out of the woodwork to give us tips was like oh my god this can be fun kira butler finally thank you for coming back in studio with us thank you so much for having me back it is fun to have new documents as part of our ongoing investigation with you and mother jones into life surge and tim tebow and everything else but before we get into this and the new stuff i was hoping you could quickly describe what happened the day after part one of our series dropped back on September 24th. Right. So on September 25th, Tim Tebow paused his relationship with LifeSurge. And he also said that his team was planning on launching an investigation of its own. The more the merrier. You know, for us, we're, you know, [1:27](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=87) having our team do an investigation, but also pausing our relationship till we can learn more about the facts to be able to understand more. Was there something you knew, was there something you knew about prior to the investigation, to Paavo's investigation, or? Honestly, I was at an anti-human trafficking conference yesterday and team shared with me when we were leaving as we were flying to Alabama for an event and, you know, kind of caught off guard with some of it. And I think that's why they're really trying to understand more of the facts to really learn it. Just what is your message to those people who are trying to get answers for potentially the scams that they had? [2:02](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=122) Well, I mean, I think, honestly, it's really important to get answers to understand every bit of that. So I just want to first thank the reporters who asked him about any of this. Yeah, I actually spoke with a student journalist with WRUF. Her name is Caroline Walsh, and she asked him some really tough questions, and he answered. [2:24](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=144) **Pablo Torre:** And when you hear Tebow answer those questions, the thing that I was caught off guard by was how caught off guard Tim Tebow was, apparently, because we not only texted his personal cell phone and interview request, but we'd actually exchanged emails with Tebow's camp and then sent them a list of 18 questions a week before, of course, we published. [2:48](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=168) Yeah, we included questions like this one. This was number six in our email. Quote, On social media and in other consumer review forums, customer complaints about LifeSurge abound, including many stories of attendees being pressured to take out loans to pay for impact classes and losing tens of thousands of dollars in savings. Some of the FTC complaints about LifeSurge allege that the company uses high-profile sports figures and Christianity to essentially lure customers into a sales funnel. Are you aware of the negative reviews of LifeSurge? Can you comment on these customers' complaints? And then question number seven was, quote, several of the customers we spoke to said that impact counselors had encouraged them to go into debt to afford the courses, that they had never made enough money with the strategies to get out of that debt. [3:39](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=219) Do you believe this kind of financial pressure would be ethical? End quote. And so, you know, not exactly hiding the ball on what our area of interest was. But I suppose in fairness, Tim Tebow, as he said, is a very busy guy. He's busy selling a new book as we speak. He's busy doing television. He was in Gainesville, Florida for ESPN. He's busy speaking at anti-human trafficking events, which we also said in part one, by the way, seems not just praiseworthy, but also exactly the reason why we thought that our reporting about LifeSurge would be of urgent concern to Tim Tebow specifically, particularly Kira, as you will remember, since we also told him that we had acquired tape of Thiebaud discussing these allegedly predatory impact classes at one of his more than 40 life-surge appearances on stage. [4:32](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=272) I know that many of you today have probably signed up for classes, have probably signed up to take the next step. And I want to encourage you to finish that, to follow through, to follow through on that commitment, to finish strong. But this is where we should also know that there was something that we have not mentioned yet, Kira, about another journalistic entity that was looking into this story. Right. So that was a report from a Christian outlet called The Roy's Report. And they published their own investigation about life surge last year in 2025. And three months before their investigation published, they had actually sent Thibault a list of questions that were very similar to the questions that we sent. [5:20](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=320) Yes, and I'll just read the headline of their article here, which they posted after our investigation dropped, which was, quote, Tebow's PR team knew of life surge allegations since at least 2025. And the article goes on to reference how they exchanged messages with Tebow's PR team. And then, yes, sent them this email that they quote from on July 29th, 2025. So their outreach actually included questions like, what is Tebow's response to attendees who felt drawn to the event by the speaker lineup only to later find themselves in great financial difficulty because of programs they felt spiritually pressured to sign up for. [5:55](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=355) And so one of the things I love about journalism is that it can become a group project. Our collaboration is just one example of this. The other, perhaps, is apparently taking place with Thiebaud himself. And so we welcome the status of their investigation, but I should also note that they did not respond to our request for comment, and they did not give us an update on what they are finding. And so we continue our investigation, which relied in part on first-person testimony like this from a minister and former LifeSurge attendee named John Simmons here today. They gave away two courses when I was in my event, one to a widow and one to a single mother. [6:38](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=398) When that widow and that single mother got into that room, who was gifted the $99 class, do you think they were gifted the $50,000 course? Because Tim Tebow is not in that room, but at the end of the day, they're there to sell you on an idea that going into debt is okay as long as it's kingdom-driven. And let me tell you, I got plenty of Bible horses that say the opposite. But LifeSurge, for the record, quote, strongly disagrees with the characterization of our company presented in recent reporting, end quote. And they went on to say further, Kira, amid their 3,000-word statement, which is published on motherjones.com, as well as our website, which are both linked in the show notes, this particular quote. [7:20](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=440) They said, We will not apologize for who we are, what we believe, or the work we do. The reporting presented serious allegations about life search. What it did not present with equal force was the full story, the thousands of students whose experiences stand in STARK contrast to that narrative, the extensive compliance infrastructure and safeguards we have built, and the facts and context we provided directly to the reporters before publication. We stand behind our people, we stand behind our mission, and we stand behind the work we have done alongside Tim Tebow for years. But by September 27th, the most prominent celebrity face across Life Surges event promos, the same guy who had spoken at the very first one-day event in July 2021, and has since spoken at more than 40 of these events since, he got removed from all of the upcoming event advertising. [8:15](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=495) So we have these two different versions of the Charlotte event poster, And in the first one, that was the original one, he is, like, front and center, clearly like the keynote speaker, whereas in the second one, he has disappeared. Yes. And so have others. So have others. Celtics head coach Joe Missoula backed out of the Hartford event that took place last Saturday, telling the Boston Globe, quote, Once these allegations came out, I just completely backed out of it. I'm not showing up there and obviously don't support any of the allegations or things that they're accused of. End quote. By September 29th, Magic Johnson's face had also been removed from the promo materials for a November 14th event in San Jose that he had been scheduled to attend. [9:00](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=540) And then former NFL head coach Tony Dungy disappeared from the lineup for the Tampa event scheduled for December 5th. Red Sox Hall of Famer David Ortiz is no longer on the lineup for the November 7th event in Fort Myers. Yeah, and that's just some of the names, right? There are plenty more non-sports celebrities who've also pulled out. Candice Cameron Bure of Full House and My Childhood's fame, she's gone. Nick Vujicic, a motivational speaker who has no arms, no legs, he's out. And I should point out also that none of these folks have responded to our request for comment. But all of this made me that much more curious what it would be like inside these life surge events in the weeks after our reporting came out. [9:48](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=588) And luckily, Lauren Windsor, who was in attendance in Charlotte on October 10th, shared this audio with us. of a familiar name, this being the president of LifeSurge, Sean Marcel. I don't know if you noticed, but recently, there's been a lot of conversation about our desire to be. Anybody notice over the last two weeks, there's been a little bit more conversation about it? Raise your hand if you know what I'm talking about. Okay, several of you. Listen, here's what I want us to all just acknowledge, that the media never lies. there are always that narrative is always you know i say it in just but i'm so glad that you're here today because i believe it's now more important than ever that believers understand that we are not required to check our faith on the pew on sunday and then go on the little tip of the week without the hope that we have in jesus how many of you know god's called us to be a light in a dark world amen so they're you know clearly doubling down they're unapologetic about, you know, their free mixing of Christianity and financial advice. [10:54](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=654) And how perhaps the media, it sounds like the problem is you. It's me. I'm the problem. It's me. It's us media types. But then the question was, okay, so which other celebrities would co-sign the life surge of the present that's saying such things? Which brings us to another piece of tape shared by Lauren Windsor. And I just got to disclose here, Kira, that I worked with Sage Steele at ESPN, I suppose. Technically speaking, she was doing extremely high-profile NBA studio show hosting gigs. I don't know her personally. We follow each other on Twitter, I guess. We have some mutual friends and colleagues. [11:37](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=697) But the thing that brings her to this story is that in 2021, for those unfamiliar, She was pulled off the air by the network after criticizing the company's COVID policy, their vaccine policy. And this made her this kind of anti-vax champion, this victim of cancel culture. And so she sued ESPN in 2022, eventually left the network after the lawsuit settled in 2023. And now she's an unapologetic pro-Trump supporter and also, yeah, does a bunch of Fox News appearances, as well as apparently stuff for Life Search. so i understand when we hesitate i understand why people just stay quiet it is real cancellation is real losing paychecks is real losing friendships and relationships is real but i can tell you your personal experience that what can come on the other side is beautiful i had no idea when i had my head on the table that day on august 14 2023 when my lawsuit was Settled. I won. I won. [12:46](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=766) So the theme is now defiance. Ed, for the record, PTFO also exchanged messages with Sage Steele's reps before publication of part one. In fact, and then again since then, and she has received questions related to our reporting about LifeSurge's alleged scam. But Sage Steele has not responded to our request for comment. But what LifeSurge has said is that, quote, with more than 3,000 Google reviews, the company has an average rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars, with 97% of users giving a 5-star rating. LifeSurge is proud of that record while continuing to look for ways to improve. Anyone can attend a LifeSurge event, often for as little as $20, hear multiple speakers live and in person for a full day, and receive lunch. [13:36](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=816) How was that lunch? I mean, it was solid, I thought. A good deal. A sandwich. But who else is sandwiching these faces on these posters now, right? There is Sage Steele. There is also the real-life Auntie Anne of the Pretzel Empire. She is refusing to cut ties as well. Well, there's also TV business guru Marcus Limonis of The Prophet. And we do know this because last Saturday in Hartford, Connecticut, we assigned PTFL producer Neely Lohman the same assignment that Mother Jones gave you, Kira, which is to say, will you please spend your day at A LifeSurge event? Right now, there is an agenda that demands silence from people that want freedom in this country, freedom of speech, and there's especially, they demand silence from Christians. [14:25](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=865) And I said, we're not about to back down now. And the next thing you know, we were on 200 one-on-one interviews. All the CNNs and the Foxes and Good Morning America was in our living room. Charlie Kirk called us and wanted us on his show. What a great guy. Here I want to introduce you to the Benham brothers, the identical twins, Jason and David. The Benham brothers themselves were baseball players at Liberty University, and they were pretty good. Jason, an infielder, got drafted by the Orioles in the 37th round in the 98 amateur draft. David, a catcher, got drafted in the 12th round by the Red Sox. [14:59](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=899) You know, there's an agenda today to make you and your children perpetually, generationally dependent on the government. Why might that be, Hartford? Control. God doesn't want his people controlled by any government. When we create our own income, we're not beholden to anyone. We're also not a burden to anyone. We have the opportunity to be a blessing to everyone. That's what God wants for his people. But they are probably best known for the HGTV reality show Flip It Forward, or perhaps more specifically the fact that it got canceled in 2014 after people realized that the Benham Brothers organized rallies where they said stuff about how hurricanes are God punishing our society for homosexuality. [15:41](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=941) When we say that sexuality, there is no boundary. When we say that marriage can be whatever you want it to be, we are breaching the boundaries of God. And we as a country, on the anniversary of 9-11, 16 years after that horrific terrorist act took place in our country, God is speaking, repent. Yes, you've rebuilt, but it's time to repent. And in Hartford, they talked about exactly what Sage Steele talked about, cancellation. Do you know how good that felt to be financially bulletproof in today's cancel culture? But what felt so much better and still feels amazing to this day is that we are spiritually bulletproof and so are you. [16:21](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=981) And so we were curious, how many people are attending LifeSurge events after our reporting and after Thibaut paused his relationship with them? So what we can now say, according to our sources inside of LifeSurge, this is in Charlotte and in Hartford, roughly 1,400 people still showed up to these events. You heard some of their applause there. And I think even more useful to observe here specifically is how successful in the room the sales pitch that you saw in Atlanta and Neely saw in Hartford proved to be when it came to signing up for these impact classes. which is still like the center of the story to us. [17:03](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1023) You pay your $97 at the main one-day event, and you sign up for these impact classes where in turn you are then offered the opportunity to buy these very pricey packages of financial education that can cost tens of thousands of dollars. And so at least in the Atlanta event, people were like rushing down to these tables. They were told that the venue size was going to be limited for the impact classes that the deal was only good for today. You had to, you know, rush down there to get the best deal. And people were taking out their credit cards and just shelling out $97 and signing up. That video, these photos, which you saw in Atlanta and Neely saw in Hartford, what was witnessed in Charlotte and all around the United States, apparently, according to our sources. [17:52](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1072) That's the thing that has been haunting me. Here you have a... So we were just talking about this crucial point of sale, this crucial point in the show when workers break out this fleet of handheld credit card readers, as you saw yourself, and people sign up. These are the attendees, the Christians, who have felt something enough that they wanted to pay more money to attend the thing that they've been told can provide them with the next step, whatever that next step is towards financial salvation in their lives. And what LifeSurge says, what they've said this whole time, is that these events are not bait and switches that only exist to generate leads where you lure such seemingly vulnerable Christians in with cheap tickets and lunch and Tim Tebow or Sage Steele and then funnel them into these allegedly predatory impact classes. [18:49](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1129) They say this is not what's going on here. Right. And in Hartford on Saturday, in the aftermath of our reporting, Sean Marcel, who's the president of LifeSearch, said something that our inside sources say is new. So we are led by the foundation of our faith, but we step out, informed by our faith, and we still have to make practical life decisions. So today, we also lean in a very practical nature. So when we go from worship into sometimes very practical, I don't want you to know what just happened. Are you with me? Say, if you're with me, say, I am. So I want you to know today is going to be a day of inspiration. [19:29](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1169) How many of you need a little encouragement today? How many of you need God to reignite something in your heart? Come on, let me hear from you if you want. And there's nothing wrong with being inspired. There's nothing wrong with getting your heart posture correct before God. But we also need practical next steps. So LifeServe is more than just an inspirational day. We're also a powerful education platform where we teach and train people how to create multiple streams of income, through stock trading and real estate and business development. And today, a portion of that day will be dedicated to that. [20:03](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1203) And so what I want to encourage you is to lean in and learn. Which sounds a bit like a disclosure. Not everything is for everybody. Sure does. A disclosure that, according to our sources, was not present previously before our reporting. And I also want to point out that what LifeSearch has always worn as the shield against these allegations is also the online reviews. the thousands of positive Google reviews averaging 4.8 stars, more than 3,000 of them as well as their Trustpilot score which is 4.4 with 580 reviews all of which is to say look, the people here, they love this they love these events even if you media types have all of these unfair criticisms of it which is why I think it is now especially important that we try to follow the money and we follow it to another lifelong Christian who has personally worked with LifeSurge by the name of Brad Logan. [20:58](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1258) My name is Brad Logan. I am the owner of a company providing merchant services and chargeback protection called Court Compass. So Brad Logan is the co-founder and COO of a company called Court Compass. And what Court Compass actually does, the merchant services that they provide, has to do with those portable credit card machines that we mentioned before. Yes. They are actually the ones providing these machines. In this case, it is Clover Machines, and they started doing this in 2024. So, in the one-day event when they were saying, hey, like, why don't you sign up for these impact classes? These were the machines that were running people's credit cards, correct? [21:39](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1299) Correct. And so, I'm delighted to now. be able to share my knowledge of credit card transaction processing with everybody. But basically, to simplify it, Court Compass does a lot. But yeah, they approve the transactions. They coordinate the transfer of the money, the funds, from a customer and their credit card to LifeSurg itself. Right. And in order for Court Compass to make their money, they take 3% of every transaction that they do with LifeSurg. Which is apparently standard in the world of credit cards. But it takes us now to the spring of 2024, because Brad Logan says he is backstage, in person, in Dallas, working at what turned out to be a pair of events headlined by Life Surge's biggest star, Tim Tebow, who helped them sell out Fellowship Church. [22:27](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1347) I already had met Tim Tebow in the past, but he was at that two-day. A lot of the standard crew that you'll see on their website was there. And I witnessed a lot of things that made me start scratching my head. But with all the dollars that were on the table, and we were literally just providing a service, I didn't think too much of some of the things I saw. And then throughout the day, the temporary workers that are brought into these one-day events, they have usually a great big room with food. There are teams of LifeSource employees that are there. [23:06](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1386) **Brad Logan:** And during the downtime when transactions are not being taken, I'm watching these people have the temporary workers go to the website and fill out positive reviews for a life search. [23:24](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1404) The workers themselves were doing that? This was temporary workers in the break room. So that's not normal, but it's really weighting their Trustpilot scores. So just to be clear, Brad Logan is the first person who has come forward to say that they witnessed employees explicitly instructing the temporary workers working for LifeSurge to fill out positive reviews on the internet like Google reviews and Trustpilot stuff themselves. Back in 2024, we are looking to further corroborate this. We have not yet. We've also gone to LifeSearch for comment, and despite exchanging emails with us and Mother Jones over two days through their PR firm, they did not offer a response to any of our detailed list of questions in time to meet our deadline. But they did say, amid complaints about said deadline, quote, we have little confidence that our responses will be represented fairly or accurately, end quote. But what we have been told is how much LifeSurge relies on those reviews online. They've brought it up like three times in the statement that they sent to us about how their reviews show what an upstanding and popular company they are. Yes. And in fact, according to our reporting now, which you can see in this photo we're going to show on our [24:49](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1489) YouTube channel, the staff lanyards worn by Life Surge employees, they have a QR code on the back and they present these to attendees in person because when you scan that QR code, that takes you to a place where you can just do a review of Life Surge in front of the employee on the spot, which is to say that the review as an instrument is a priority. And yet also not the most suspicious thing that Brad Logan says he's experienced because what he goes on to say is that Court compass his company they bought 170 of these clover credit card machine terminal things each of which cost 400 bucks thereabouts and all that was to be reimbursed by life surge when brad apparently kept asking to be reimbursed life surge instead offered him and court compass the chance to make even more money with them in fact they offered him the chance, apparently, to do the same job of processing these transactions, but at the next phase of the life surge pipeline. [25:50](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1550) Which, of course, is those impact classes, those three-day classes that you pay $97 and you attend, and then you are offered the opportunity to buy these packages of financial education for tens of thousands of dollars. Yes, where you can learn for that low price of your entire nest egg, in some cases, how to trade stocks or invest in real estate and all that stuff. I'd be 170 terminals at $400 a terminal. So it's not nothing. It's a chunk of change. Coupled with the fact that we were promised on the trade account, the numbers that come to mind were $75,000 a month, and that would have been my profit. [26:33](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1593) The real estate account was closer to $60,000 a month in profit. And so look, that's just a lot of numbers, but just to break it down as simply as I can, And Cord Compass, originally, the whole deal was take 3% on the standard impact class signups for $97. But as Brad is now going back to LifeSurg and saying, but what about all the other money you owe me for like the terminals? They're saying, we have a better deal actually for you. This could be a percentage of millions of dollars a month. That was the hook for them on us was, look, the $97 ticket, we might make $3,000 or $4,000 a month on those $97 tickets. [27:14](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1634) When you promise me the percentage on $8 million, $10 million a month, that's when 3% of that ballpark would, I pay a little bit of fees out of that 3%, and the rest goes to us. And so what does Brad Logan do? What he says is that he proceeded to attend himself a three-day impact class in Atlanta. This is in the fall of 2024. And yeah, he wanted to make sure everything went smoothly on what seemed like this incredibly exciting and enormous new account. But what he saw, apparently, was kind of staggering. The pressure with which they apply to the individuals attending these to get the credit card with the ability to pay for the course, to get financing, pull equity out of their house, it makes used car salesmen look like beginners. [28:15](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1695) These people are seasoned at what they do, and they're very, very damn good at it. Basically, what he's talking about was the same thing that we heard from folks in our last episode who had been through these classes. These were folks that were offered deals like taking out multiple credit cards with a temporary 0% interest rate from this other third-party vendor. Right. Credit stacking. Credit stacking was the term that was used. And then also, there's the ability to perhaps pull equity out of the home you have. Yeah, two of our guests talked about that very thing. They said at the three-day event, you have your own house. [28:59](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1739) Don't you have equity in your own house? Go use some of the equity in your own house. Which is, for the record, f***ing wild. But when it comes to just following all of this money, as Court Compass is concerned, at least, there is this other thing that we should understand about what Brad Logan provides in terms of services, which is that Cork Compass apparently isn't the only entity with some skin in the game when it comes to these transactions. What Brad Logan also says is that he relies on the outside risk departments of the merchant processing companies that Cork Compass itself partners with, who therefore might be also on the hook in case something goes wrong with this money. And what Brad says is that those risk departments also had questions. They had questions that only LifeSurge and its founder, Joe Johnson, could answer. The risk departments at our very dependable relationship merchant processors that we run through, the risk departments were flagging these accounts. [30:03](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1803) So I literally got on the phone with the heads of risk at three different processors that we worked with. And they were leery about the whole setup. So I go back to them and tell them I need financials. I need this. I need that. I need a tax return for Joe Johnson. I need information on who the signer on the account is going to be. And I get major, major pushback. And so this is where I just need to say that LifeSurge, once again, denies any allegations of wrongdoing. But that wasn't Brad's only concern. On top of that, it was getting harder and harder to get LifeSurge to actually pay him. The first time we tried to do the ACH pool for merchant processing costs and the first installment on the equipment, we got NSF'd. [30:58](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1858) What does NSF mean? So NSF is a non-sufficient funds available in the account for the amount that we requested. So eventually, after months and months of complaints, Brad decided to just cut his losses. I said, we're shutting the merchant IDs down. We're going to have access to the terminals shut down. You owe us thousands of dollars at this point. We haven't seen you pay those bills. We're going to turn everything off and we're going to walk away and we're going to call it even, Stephen. Well, what are we going to do with our events? what are we going to do? What are we going to do? I said, you're going to need to contact another processor. So I tried to stay calm. I didn't get upset. I was really, really upset. He and I had had some conversations over the phone over the past several months during 2025 before this call in August where I literally ripped him and he ripped me. And it had gotten very ugly. And at [31:59](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1919) **Brad Logan:** the end of the day, I would say we're roughly out 90 grand. So when we went to LifeSurg and we said [32:06](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1926) Brad Logan of Court Compass claims that you owe him 90 grand, LifeSurg again did not respond to our detailed list of questions in time for our deadline. And we should also note, I think, that when Brad was asked a question that you might be asking in the audience, like, why were you continuing to work with this company where red flags were now sticking out everywhere, he did have some things that he, in retrospect, admits don't look great. To have tried to work with them as long as I worked with them, I've regret for that, for trying to help them facilitate transactions because I was looking to recover the revenue that we had lost. [32:49](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=1969) And it was a simple business decision. And at the end of the day, it was the wrong decision. And so this is where, Kira, I think it's worth saying the thing that has been in my head as I've been listening to Brad, which is this third-party vendor is now alleging a parallel version, it feels like, of what LifeServe students, the customers whose payments Brad was processing, have described to you and me. Right down to Christianity actually being a key part of their pitch to him, to Brad. It's one of their pressure techniques when they're dealing with their merchant partners. They use, oh, give us a break, give us a better price. [33:31](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2011) We're a Christian organization. You know, we don't have as much funds as other organizations. Dude, I've got your tax returns. I've got your corporate financial statement. You've got money pouring out your ears. You have to pay your bills. And when Brad Logan said very casually that last part near the end about how, dude, I've got your tax returns. I've got your corporate financial statement. That's where I think both of us had the same thought. Can we see them? internal life surge documents that we have been chasing for a while but finally have in our hands thanks to third-party credit processing vendor brad logan who had acquired them from life surge itself, his client, amid all these concerns he had allegedly raised over these supposed red flags. [34:34](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2074) And I just want to start, I think, with a particular document that I want to draw our attention to. And this is LifeSurge's consolidated financials from 2021 to 2023, because for those who are tracking the timeline here, the very first LifeSurge event was 2021 in Tampa, headlined by Tim Tebow. And their revenue in 2021, Kira, was what? $1.97 million. But by year two, 2022, the revenue becomes? $16.6 million. Which is a pretty significant leap, I would say. It takes us then to LifeSurg's revenue in 2023. $47.4 million. Which is more than I guessed in 2023, frankly. And it proceeds from there. Because let's go to the consolidated financial statement for the first quarter of 2024. [35:32](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2132) This is when Brad Logan's relationship with LifeSurg started, why he has these documents. And... By March of 2024, they had made, Kira, $18.2 million just in that first quarter. Which would put them on track for $72.8 million in revenue in 2024. And the thing that I think is even more interesting than that, as everyone, again, may be wondering, so wait a minute, how much of this revenue then is from the tickets? It's the admittedly quite affordable tickets to hear these celebrities like Tim Tebow on stage. And the answer, it turns out with extraordinary clarity, is not a lot. [36:16](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2176) **Kiera Butler:** No. In 2023, the Life Surge ticket revenue was only 9.2% of the total. [36:24](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2184) And it was only 8.4% of the total revenue in 2022. And so the question we ask ourselves at this point is, so what in the f**k is LifeSurge's actual business? If the whole speaker thing is less than 10% of what they're actually getting money from, how are they getting all of this revenue? And the answer, it turns out, lies a little further down this document, because this is where LifeSurge details its revenue from what it calls base education, otherwise known as the allegedly predatory impact class programs. Ed, please read what it shows us. So over these three years, plus the first quarter of 2024, base education accounted for no less than 78% of life surge's revenue. [37:14](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2234) And so in 2023, base education accounted for 81.5% of life surge revenue, $38.7 million, which sort of backs up what our sources have been telling us from the very beginning. Right. This is a business around these classes. This is not actually a business of motivational speaking. And so this is where I also need to remind everybody for the nth time that life's disposition here has been that these one-day events are not simply lead generators for the company's actual businesses that we have been alleging in the media, these allegedly scammy impact classes, where the celebrity speakers serve as bait to generate leads, meaning people in the world of sales lingo, meaning really vulnerable Christians who will pay for your products and services. [38:05](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2285) And I say that because it brings us to yet another part of this same internal document, Kira, where Life Surge Now will show us what it costs to pay these speakers and produce these one-day events under a line on the document that is internally labeled what? It's labeled cost of lead gen, parenthesis, life surge. And underneath in 2023, you see that they spent $6.8 million in marketing costs, 5.3 million on talent costs, and 4.4 million on event costs. That is a lot. That is a lot. But also notable is what you see when you scroll down, which is a line that reads cost of sales, parentheses, impact classes. [38:54](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2334) So just to recap, LifeSurge in parentheses is labeled cost of lead gen, lead generation. The impact classes are labeled cost of sales, which indicates that internally LifeSurge perhaps sees this the way that we have been seeing it. The impact classes are the product. The other stuff is the funnel to get people to buy the product. A product, by the way, that LifeSurg's own signed merchant application and agreement from May 2024, a separate document that we have here, describes how. Under credit card transaction profile, LifeSurg describes the average ticket size as $20,000 and the highest ticket size as... [39:37](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2377) $60,000. And we see that price range again over and over in the even more granular credit card transaction data from Brad Logan and Court Compass, which we have also obtained. And I've never been so excited to look at a spreadsheet full of numbers that seem totally indecipherable, except for the fact that what they show us in detail is what you and our producer Neely both saw in person with the rush to these tables, right? There's a point of sale. And you go to the tables full of the dozens of Clover credit card readers in between the speakers. Right. So on May 18th, 2024, 72 Clover card readers took 567 successful charges, almost all for 197, which was at that time the price of the entry-level impact classes. [40:30](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2430) And 78% of those charges took place between one 30-minute period, 3 and 3.30 p.m. That is the rush that we have been reporting. And again, it's haunting to imagine it. People are competing to make sure they get to pay LifeSurg for these classes. Limited venue size. Limited venue size. And it raises the inevitable question, then, of what the speakers themselves, right, the alleged bait, what they themselves knew about any of these classes. Right. And in the statement to us, LifeSurg CEO Jeremy Nosek told us that the company does not ask its headline speakers to promote or endorse impact classes. [41:20](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2480) Which now takes us to yet another internal LifeSearch document that we've obtained titled Talent Engagement Agreement. And I should say, to be clear, that this appears to be an unsigned standard template from LifeSearch for such a document. And I just want to draw your attention to the very first numbered item in this agreement. 1A, services and term. The following services are to be provided by the talent to the producer. And in this section, it lists one item of particular interest, I think, to us. Impact Class Student Reception. Talent agrees to participate in post-event Q&A and reception. And so again, look, we've heard of the VIP receptions before. [42:07](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2527) This may well be that. And we don't know who signed a contract that had this exact language in them. This is just a template. it. But if we're going to refer to impact class student reception in a contract and you're going to enroll in those impact classes in part because there's a VIP being advertised to you, I can imagine how encouraging it might be to hear somebody like, you know, let's just say hypothetically, Tim Tebow say something like this. I know that many of you today have probably signed up for classes have probably signed up to take the next step. And I want to encourage you to finish that, to follow through, to follow through on that commitment, to finish strong. [42:56](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2576) And we'll reiterate here again that Tim Tebow has not responded to our request for comment. But Kira, there is just another thing that I want to bring up that didn't quite add up when we were reviewing this, which is that according to these financial documents, LifeSurge, as you put it, was on track for $72.8 million in revenue in 2024. That's as of the Q1 document. But their net profit, right? So their actual bottom line, once you take out those other costs and stuff, that was a lot smaller. As of Q1 2024, it was $919,042. Less than a million in bottom line net profit. Kind of wild in my perhaps amateurish financial analysis, but it brings us to the other portion of this document in which you learn that, oh, by the way, LifeSurge every single year is also taking millions of dollars in this un-itemized line item just called overhead allocation. [43:56](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2636) Right. In Q1 of 2024, they spent $2.5 million in overhead against $3.4 million in gross profit. And in 2023, that total annual sum, they spent $8.9 million in overhead. And we wanted to know, what is that? Can we itemize that, perhaps? And so when we asked LifeSearch for detail about whether those overhead line items may include executive salaries, executive bonuses, for instance, they did not provide such itemization. But what is inarguable, according to these documents, as we have them, is that the margins of Life Surge's business, Kira, are thin. They're almost shockingly thin. And while Sage Steele and the Benham Brothers, to their everlasting consistency, are defying apparent cancellation, they are holding on, refusing to get off the stage. [44:56](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2696) LifeSurge's audiences, what we've seen in person, as well as from our sources, it's been shrinking since our reporting came out. The funnel has been disrupted. Lead generation. It's becoming harder. And it raises this question that we here at PTFO decided to ask Brad Logan at the end of this interview that we did about where he thinks the business of LifeSurge could maybe go from here. They're going to end up shutting this. They're going to milk this for everything it's worth. They're going to shut it down. They're going to rebrand it and come back as something else. And there is just sort of like this ominous sort of warning embedded in that quote from Brad of like, it's cute that you guys are doing all this reporting. [45:43](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2743) And it's cute that you can disrupt the funnel and the numbers can dwindle down maybe even to zero one day in terms of people who are aware and want to still sign up for these impact classes. But there's almost like this, and you think that's going to be the end of the story, kind of a warning. Right. There's so much more that LifeSurg has in store. And I don't know if you're ready for the second coming. Oh, I'm ready. But the incoming, as we amass documents, has been profound, frankly. It's been amazing. The number of people who have wanted to share with us has been really inspiring. And while neither of us, of course, can speak for Tim Tebow's investigation. [46:23](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2783) And we await those results, Kira. I do think the good news is also the bad news for us, which is that I think there's probably another reporting trip in our future. Sounds like it. And we'll talk to you next time with the discover cash back card it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases activate and earn five percent cash back at different categories each quarter on up to fifteen hundred dollars in purchases that's five percent cash back at different places each quarter like grocery stores on gas and at Restaurants. It pays to Discover. Terms apply. See discover.com slash 5 for details. [47:15](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2835) I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone. And I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh. Anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them. Everybody listen up. Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade-in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for watch or iPad required. Addition terms apply for all offers. [47:45](https://realalpha.app/v/3PUGjIKtD00/?t=2865) ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show we recommend. Hi, I'm Molly Graham, host of Work Life, a podcast from TED. The most important lessons about work usually aren't the ones anyone teaches you. They come from experience, from uncertainty, from figuring things out as you go. On this show, my expert guests and I explore how careers really unfold through change, through doubt, through the decisions that shape who we become over time. Because those moments aren't the exception. They are the work. Listen to Work Life wherever you get your podcasts.