 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go Might pop might pop with your hosts Salda Stefano Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews Oh our boy came back into town man. Always a good time seeing our boy Matt. That's a that's a great dude, man He's just a chill guy. Yeah, I love hanging out with that. He is he's fun people. He's down to earth He's a smart guy easy cool man He's you know, there's there's some people that when we first meet him I just I'm like man if if we knew each other growing up or if you lived in my town There's no doubt in my mind that we'd be one of our guys Yeah, we'd be kicking it all the time because he's such a he's such a cool dude He's so hilarious man and Justin and him are like little booze and buddies. Yeah, yeah He's like he's like my long-lost brother. I mean Yeah, I mean didn't you guys make a video on the sauna or something like that Like an hour they were in there for an hour just doting on each other really didn't go anywhere I was like, where's this going bro? We didn't know I like tattoos. I like that. You're cool. Yeah, let's hang out No, and it's his podcast is doing pretty well Matt. He's the host of the um, so podcast You know, he's such a he has such a great attitude about Podcasting and what he's doing and I think and we talk a little bit about building a a business a podcasting an apparel line Like he's got a he's got a successful apparel He's got a very successful apparel. In fact, that's most of how he monetizes and he's done a really good job doing that And so he gives some great. I was right notes for sure Yeah, he gave some great insight on some of the do's and don'ts of building a business like that and you know what I like is his attitude of He literally flies to so many of these people On his own dime and a lot of times to interview them which that doesn't translate into a bunch of dollars For him and his business and we know what that was like. I mean many people don't know this but much of the early days of Mindful, we used to have to pay and fly all of our get we want to enter. We don't it's we Interviewing that we're also paying for them to come out fly out here and stay with us We had to do that for a long time in the investment in the future Yeah, it was and I think I think a lot of guys and girls that are starting podcast Don't think about that or don't realize that that may be something that they Could or should do as as they're starting off and I'm Matt touches on that and that's something that I think he embodies Yeah, he just has the right attitude about it And I think that a lot of people you're willing to do stuff like that that really will help get them those kind of Connections that network established so it's like yeah, of course, you know if you ever has something going on We're gonna promote it we're gonna help him out because he just says that that kind of an attitude going forward There's some funny stories, too We talked about some of it his first sales jobs and where you learn to sales skills and yeah When you worked at the strip club and how he lost his business the first time and had to get back on his feet That's right strip clubs. Yeah, it's some really really good stories. So again his podcast is um, so you can find him on Instagram at IHV III Matt Vincent or his website, which is the Hviii.com. That's the hate in Roman numerals or eight Excuse me with an H in front of it Roman numerals and that's his website So without any further ado here we are interviewing our good friend Matt Vincent You got a good radio voice Matt. Is that is that true? Yeah, I don't know that I feel that way I've always felt my voice is really weird. No, it's yeah, man. But that's what makes it good. Okay You got that. What do you call that like the Louisiana twang or something going on? Yeah, but there's not a time to it. I don't I don't sound like well school head on down to buy and shoot them boy. No No, I have it. I have an uncle from st. Louis. That is a boiling hot pot of gumbo Isn't that funny how some accents and some like are super like if you go to a bar and start talking that way All the girls want to talk to you some of them. It's just different accent. Yeah It's essentially yeah, cuz like does that work here aren't impressed with Australian accents. Mmm So like you southern southern gentlemen show up in Australia and and don't look like chewed bubblegum I'm assuming you'd have like lay the land Well, it's not true for all accents though, right? Because like some are more valuable than others You know what I love is your sayings from there are just Can you share some more sayings more sayings I'm sure there's a bunch that aren't acceptable It was weird, right? I know that seems strange in the south Darker than three foot up a cow's ass Oh my god, it's a good one. Yeah, that is dark. Yeah, it'd be fucking super black You wouldn't be able to see anything higher than giraffe pussy. I don't think that's a southern one though. Yeah for that one Fucked up like horse feathers soup sandwich What's a soup sandwich? Yeah fucked up like a soup sandwich like a football bat You know what sucks about this is every time you say one I picture it When you said giraffe pussy, I was like, oh yeah, I gotta I gotta get on my tippy Yeah, that is hard. Yeah, so you guys we were talking before we got on air We were talking about the whole marijuana thing and it's starting to make its way out towards you now Yeah, trying to try and it seems I'm fairly certain we've passed medical law, but there's nowhere you can get it So I don't know what yeah, what they do is they pass a law, but then they regulate the shit Yeah, the transitions always funny. It's like oh you can now legally buy it, but you can't smoke it. Yeah, that's illegal That's messing around over there. Yeah, you know it so I allegedly were supposed to be getting our first medical dispensary So if that happens, I'm gonna bet that it's gonna be hard to get a card It won't be there's not gonna be a bunch of shops on the Venice Beach opening up probably doctors and I'm for 40 bucks But is it weird for you to come to California and go to a dispensary? Yeah, dude. It's still it's still strange Like going to dispensary There's definitely a bit of like anxiety and nervousness that I'm not supposed to or I'm gonna say something wrong You don't got the lingo down. Yeah, like I just look like a cook and you know you kind of want some weed Yeah, yeah I'll take some of that light that light depot green house 60 40 Please then you go to you go to a dispenser. You guys have some joints You go to a dispensary with me and Adam and we're like grabbing the bud. It's not this one's got hints of You think I'm joking right now Yeah, it's true. We're getting a long snobs. We're getting long conversations over it But yeah, they read if they regulated enough, they're just gonna be in the black market It reminds me of like in New York. You know the big-ass black market for cigarettes in New York Lucy's Yeah, because exactly because they've they've taxed it so much that it's now become, you know Cheaper to buy it in bulk. Well, some guy will show up with a someone's gonna drive down to a different state That's right carton and then drive them back That's what they'll end up doing if they regulate like if they tax it too high here in California It's gonna be a black market for it. Well, I think it's I don't think it got rid of the black market at all I really don't I think for the I think for the most part. They're still I mean I was showing you guys some stuff Just recently there's still stuff that doesn't even make it into the clubs because the black market will will pay For the wholesaler significantly higher for that quality of product So it doesn't even make it in the clubs as a somebody who used to grow and well Is it when you say black market will pay more than the open market? Is it because they're sending it to? States and stuff that are it's a so there's a high demand because it's illegal in other states Yeah, yeah, that's I mean so that's and that's existed for quite some time now That's not going away because I would assume that if you were in a state like let's say Louisiana where it's far more regulated If you wanted really good weed probably and you buy it in the black market there probably came from a place like California Yeah, oh yeah anytime like I guess that I'd gotten weed in the past or something like that You know essentially and I'm relatively new to this like I didn't start smoking until in my 30s But it's you know, they go. Yeah, you know, we got stuff from California He's like anytime someone who now has weed in Louisiana. It's either that or they make trips to Denver Yeah, what what why didn't you smoke it before? Um, dude, I just had jobs Yeah, yeah, that's what he boiled down to I had jobs. Yeah, I had track and field through college You know, so we were drug tested and then after that I had jobs that I was drug tested at. What do you use it for now? pain relief fun Anxiety helps with appetite also asleep better. Yeah, you know, a lot of people say they use it for for pain. I never got Pain relief from it myself But a lot of people say it really works. Yeah, I'm not sure if I get pain relief, right? Like it's not like taking It's not like when you get drunk and don't notice you fucking smashed into a wall but it's It's like I just give less of a fuck about it. I think that's probably right. That sounds about accurate No, I think I think it does it doesn't it it doesn't feel localized though Like, um, you know, if you were to if you were to get like a shot a shot in it Right, like a shot of cortisone inside of it. It would that gives you like this instant release in the numbing Right, where I feel like when you you have a high enough dose of that when you're you're seeking You know pain relief. So you're getting something probably higher in CBD Yeah, you get kind of this what they call what we used to call like a body high Yeah, for sure Right where you just you just feel you sink into the couch and relax And so I think that's where you get the you know I would agree because there's definitely anti-inflammatory properties with uh with cannabis But it's not it's there's there are some acute anti-inflammatory properties, but it's not massive So like you're not going to get as big of an anti-inflammatory effect From having cannabis acutely as you would from like taking ibuprofen right take ibuprofen Yeah, but then you're not fucking with your liver. There's a bunch of other Yeah, but what I think part of the pain relieving is what Adam's talking about because a lot of pain is not just connected to the actual Pain of the pain itself, but the feelings around that pain So because you oh come on dude, you know, it's funny, you know, you say that but One of the biggest off-label uses of anti-depressant drugs is for pain Where people have back pain and they can't figure out what the cause is they'll put them on a on an ssri And then oh my back pain is gone weird. Yeah, very straight. Yeah, dude pains are the hardest things to treat Well, you see examples of this when you hurt yourself And you don't look at it at first and then you look at it and you see it And especially if it's a bad one and you're rushing in then all of a sudden the pain comes rushing in after the fact, right? Yeah, that's that's the worst. I got I took a discus to the shin. Oh, oh my god college I was gonna be cool and jump over it as it came at me. I did not Took a higher hop than I was expecting That's like the worst karate chop ever. Oh, yeah, it smashed me right in the shin. I was like I pulled my sock down and I was like, okay, we're all right. And then there's like just white spot Oh, no, and it just Blood fell out what that looked like the next day like a giant shitty scab How's your knee by the way, dude, it is way better. It um, what was the procedure you had again and which one? Yeah, let's give us a short recap if you don't mind so we've done minisectomies to We've had two other scope procedures. We three acls And oaths procedure where they What's oh, is that what it is like? No, that's all cartilage So it's like they cut like a 30 millimeter plug into the bottom of your femur and they put a fresh new cartilage plug in it Oh, shit. Yeah, so That one's been kind of exciting um So we did the oaths procedure and then The high tibial osteotomy was the last like major surgery. Is that where they remove some of the tibia? Yeah, they wedge it open to change the angle of my leg so that they can put the pressure on the side of my knee where there's More cartilage that works now. I know you matt you have a pretty strict regimen that you follow I watch what you do in the hot cold plunging What have been some like And I'm recovering right now with my achilles, which has been by far the worst injury I've ever personally experienced And you know, what has been some like go-to things for you that like you definitely have noticed like this gives me a Lot of relief and so it's been a staple in your in your regimen Uh, the hot and cold has been really nice I mean the hot because I mean it's it's great to sit in the hot tub like first thing in the morning I can kind of loosen up and stretch and try to get through the knee in a way that Like body weight is supported because I'm in the pool so I can kind of do some a little bit more passive stretching than just Killing myself in the gym, you know trying to stretch that early and then I've actually got a cold tub And uh, that that'll shut the knee up Like if it's pissed and gets really inflamed like I've been on a walk or trained or did something stupid because it still just gets aggravated I can I can dump it in there for a couple minutes and it it shuts up Yeah, so has that become like a staple thing that you do every day? Oh, yeah Yeah, so yeah my my morning routine is is get up and it's um hot tub stretch Drink some water I do a little bit of work with like a may spell to just kind of general mobility move around get the heart going And then I start having coffee after oh, yeah cold tub and then coffee When did you put that all together? Have you been doing that for a long time or was it finally after slowly built, dude? It's slowly built over the last year and just different advice from different people I've got to talk to and you know, what was good recommendations and it's it's just Now that's the routine that works, right, you know, yeah, it's uh, I I do uh, so I don't have a cold Plunge or anything, but what I do every single morning is I go After my workout I go shower and I do really hot water and I try to get it to a point where It's almost unbearable. So it's really really hot That's how I shower and then at the end I do a 30 minute. Excuse me 30 second not 30 minute 30 second Like as cold as it is the shower will go kind of a rinse. Yeah, and it's The single easiest but also single most impactful thing I can do at least that that's that easy that I've done so far in terms of Improving my health it almost you know what it feels like because in the morning, I'll wake up at five and right about 5 15 or so I'll have a little bit of caffeine and that caffeine will Take me through my workout and what happens sometimes with me with caffeine is after my workout And I'll eat a little bit and then I'll go, you know, we'll get ready a shower or whatever Is I'll get that energy dip afterwards a little bit But the cold rinse after the heat it's it's almost like I have more caffeine and it lasts Until the afternoon. So it's like this extra energy that I get and then the the science Surrounding cold dips. This is not dips or even just showers. We actually talked about this on a previous podcast They took a bunch of people it was a pretty large study and they had them do a 20 Second 20 30 second cold rinse every morning. That's it in the shower nothing crazy and they tracked them over the course of I think a couple years And a couple things happened one when the study was over Something like 70 of the people Kept continued doing the cold rinsing So like 70 of the people chose to voluntarily do it because they saw so much benefit percent. That's huge. That's huge 30 percent of the they had a 30 percent reduction in uh cold and infections. So cold sickness, whatever 30 percent from the cold just from taking cold just from cold They're all I talked about this before Out of all the things like, you know, you talk about Matt That's why I was curious about where it went and where you picked it up I mean Like you we've had an opportunity to talk to a lot of brilliant minds and everybody has their two sense of like Oh, you should add this into your regimen or you should do this Uh, this probably one of the single most impactful things is the hot cold plunge For me personally and for and I think the reason for that is I've always Thought of myself as somebody who has a weak immune system Because I used to get sick all the time. I used to attribute that to being in the gym I was like, oh, I'm I'm always in the gym. I've worked in this for 15 years and there's sweaty hands all over Do you think there's a family member poisoning you? Yeah, right? Or a family member that's trying to poison with that condition So I just assumed that it was always bad and um, I don't remember who it was that really kicked us off into doing You know the hot cold plunge and then uh, you know, we had whim off here and And then started to incorporate the showers first before I started to plunge as much And then I started and I didn't really wasn't even watching this marker And I realized like shit It's been a fucking long time that I got sick and it used to be when we all worked together Man, if sal came in he was sick or if Justin was sick. I was guaranteed. I'm sick like there's no way I'm getting worse than yeah, and then I get it worse anybody in longer Yeah, so And I I just always have to be the best took all of our stds at once. Yeah, no It's it's been it's been one of the things that I like to share with people because it's been such a game changer for me. So Um, I I've continued to do it and I and I did something anyone can do right. It's easy. It's cheap. It's free It's yeah, it's the same cost as whatever your water is. You just have to suffer a little right It's probably cheaper because you're not running hot water. You know, say you actually save money by doing probably one of those Right, right. Well, so so in russia, that's like a it's like part of their culture eastern europe It's part of their culture and you can go on youtube and see some of these elementary schools and stuff for kids Where it's snowing outside and part of their recess or whatever They'll run outside. They'll they'll all get in their bathing suits And they'll run out in the snow and go play in the snow and snow and then and they'll fill up buckets of water and These are little I've seen that. I know it's crazy. They're little kids are like they're like six years old or you know seven years old and Can I tell you something right now? If if if in america we saw A school doing that to kids. I know that we throw them in jail. It's so taboo, but like Yeah, say what like iceland gets that way that like it's just nothing to you know When you're there in the winter like kids still go to school and it's dark outside What 20 hours a day and it's cold as shit and it's like snow and you'll just see these like kids standing outside like on a bank Walk into school by themselves and it's dark. It's really a weird like where it's going on Yeah, it's we are just talking about this sal just spoke at the spartan race Uh, um just recently this last weekend And it's funny what we've seen in the last I don't know. It's only been about five years You know, maybe five or eight years that these Uh, real popular, uh, these muddy buddies the tough mutters the spartan races of they're just exploding dude exploding And I think one of the the prevailing theories for us is that it's This we're now in this generation that is so plugged in And we just don't comfortable. Yeah, we're so comfortable. We don't ever have to overcome adversity Especially I mean think about us like our generation we grew up with the computer right that it started in our generation And it's now evolved to where it's now in the palm of your hand 24-7 and we really haven't seen what that's kind of doing to us as a society But I think that this is an example of what I think some people are some of these smarter people already picking up on it Like you need it. You need that. I wonder if I yeah challenge. I wonder. Can I still climb over a seven foot wall? Can I still climb a rope? You know, can I still do all these things I could do 15? I get dirty No, he gets fucking dirty more people right like like as a species. We're we're really good at adapting to stress That's that's one of the things that we do very very well and it's It's pretty rad that we live in a time that uh We're not hunted I'm relatively never gonna be hungry right And I can be comfortable like my house is climate controlled my car is climate controlled the place I'll go to work is climate controlled So I mean you don't even have to deal with environmental temperature swings anymore for your body And so It's cool. We live in a time now that we can pick the stress we want Like I can say I want to Have the stress of from lifting weights to build muscle. I don't need any of the muscle I I don't have to go wrestle a bull and Or I got to make that choice because I didn't have to go lay 10 acres of fence posts today You know what I mean? Let's just I didn't have to deal with any of that I didn't have to shovel out coal from a mine and so You mean I get to have cold water on me like that has a choice Like that's the the stress that we get to pick But our body doesn't have any of those natural adaptations anymore because things are comfortable and Awesome, right. It is and what's awesome is that we get to choose it But what's not awesome is I think people don't realize that That it's important. We need it. Yeah, right. You need the stresses You need it and you know put yourself I mean for for people who might be disagreeing like Put yourself in a comfortable cushy Bed and stay in there and don't move and have people bring you food and have just wear a diaper and crap yourself and people Change your diaper and just stay in there and see what kind of personal hell It becomes not just physically, but my phone those bed sores. Yeah, so we need it's like we need Challenge, but challenge is hard. But challenge is what we adapt to right and so it also gives us meaning Yeah, like I mean, that's one of those things. Well, it's like the leading cause of death's retirement Right, which is crazy. Stop having a job. They fucking die. Have you seen the statistics on that? It's crazy It's ridiculous after retirement. I think the like all-cause mortality explodes within the first few years. It's insane It's insane. We need uh, we need to have that challenge for sure. We need that stuff and um, I think we forget You know and we forget when we raise our kids even Like in fact, we don't want our kids to be challenged. Yeah Yeah, that's a weird one, man. Like that's something I've been kind of thinking about is You don't have kids, yeah No, no, no and so with with the way things are I think that we're trying to like with medication and with You know participation trophies and and all this other type of shit It's like we're trying to cut off both sides of the spectrum. Like we don't want you to ever feel really bad But we're also going to take away you ever feeling really great And so they just kind of live in this world where Winning or losing doesn't matter or doing this you don't have that big of a difference in the reward versus You know the effort right and so I mean we medicate away from people feeling on either side of that spectrum So that they can just go through the middle and I don't know if that tied up of I don't know Autonomy or whatever. No, it's terrible. It's actually terrible Well, I remember an example that that we watched happen at the a company that all three of us worked at And they they what they started doing this was kind of like the last straw for me when I was there Was they they kept every comp plan. So I went through seven different comp plan changes in 10 years It's a lot right and every time a comp plan change comes out. It's for the benefit of the company Yeah, it's trying to save money. Yeah. Yeah, but what they are trying to do is they are trying to get these guys They're trying to cap The the people that were producing a ton and making a ton of money because it was based that way They are trying to bring them down and they're trying to bring like all the shit butts that were milking the system Kind of up and then everybody be in this middle And it totally backfired. I mean what it did was it was the people that were really driven to push push harder They all left because it's like we have nothing to push exactly. I remember that distinctively It's like we all were we're pressing each other so hard to get these to be the best in the company Get all these trophies get the accolades all that stuff. But like, you know, you throw the shit like that out there You know, I'm just gonna coast at that point, you know, I'm gonna look for something else somewhere else It's that stuff with socialism that makes me nervous. Oh, especially with oh my god You know with a country this size, right? Like And I don't know Iceland's Uh, you know government set up that well. They're actually very they're very free market. They have socialist Components. Yeah. Well, they've met medical stuff, but they're very free market In fact, their markets are I believe ranked higher than ours even in market and I think index And I think part of the deal there, right? Like you can do some of those things like I know Like if you have a kid you guys have like nine months of maternity leave To split between mom and dad. So I mean if you both want four and a half months off of work Cool, but there's nine total And the government pays 85 of what your salary is and then typically the company's over their match The the rest of it so that you you know can stay home And I think that stuff works well and good when they have a 2% unemployment rate Hmm It it works. There's always a trade-off. So who's paying for all that? Well, you're you're paying it either taxes You're paying it in lower productivity less efficiency. You're paying for it and less innovation So there's always a there's always a trade-off and my argument always is If there's a demand for it then the market will provide for it And if there's not a demand for it, we can only look to ourselves So in a free market society if people really did value that time off And everybody demanded it. Well employers would compete for employees by offering that kind of stuff So what's happening there is you're getting legislation that's saying this is how it should be You know that that's more of an of an economic Discussion, but you know, I I'm reading a book right now by Carl Jung Who's the the great psychoanalyst? He was this top student of uh, Freud And it's undiscovered self as the book. I'm reading. I'm not completely done with it, but He talks about the dangers of Collectiveism where And we all know the dangers of mob mentality mob rule We know what happens when you weaken the individual and try to strengthen the group They become very easy to manipulate and it becomes a situation with where all you need is a charismatic leader to provide false feelings of You know of meaning people love being misled and people do crazy shit so really it's Really that the the the the true way or the the best way to move forward is to understand That in individualism in your own individual Self your own individual rights Respect those and others and nobody's better than anybody else in that respect except for When you think a right is something you can take from someone else, which it's not And in that people have different characters So they'll have different value because some people are fucking more productive and some people are better and some people aren't But if you want to change things like you want to change society Start with the thing that you can you have the absolute biggest and most impact over and really the only thing that truly honestly Really exists because society is just a collection of individuals, right? It's not really what a society It's just a bunch of individual people So you so what you do is you focus on you So if everybody focused on themselves, how can we all change us? How can we change society or whatever you want to call it? We just focus on changing ourselves and then everything changes if we focus on this Group think and and and start to dissolve our own Individual with that is sovereign to you amount of self-awareness that it takes for for a free market to exist That's the problem. It's it's called responsibility That's it and that's just it but we don't have it and that's and I think that the argument So the argument to your against your side is that people want to be led People want to be told what to do people don't want to dig deeper in people don't want to try and figure out And that is the well the world needs ditch diggers too, right? Of course nothing wrong with that. No, there's nothing wrong with it but There's going to be people that that aren't going to have that drive There's also going to be for every guy that you've got that is a Elon Musk you're going to have the other side of the spectrum totally right and so and here's the deal like you want You don't want to have a society where everybody Gets exactly the same stuff and here's why I want somebody like elon musk or the late steve jobs or bill gates or you know, whoever I want those guys who are extremely intelligent who innovate who also dedicate way more hours time and in In effort into what they're doing than anybody else or most people are willing to do I want those people To make most of our shit and I want them to get benefit from it Yeah reward from it right I don't want I don't want it to be where a guy like that doesn't get to Create the most opportunities because he's the smarter dude. Yeah, just because there's no reward for it There's no reason to put in and how do we determine that? Well, we we create a system where His the way he benefits is by creating things that other people want. That's it now There is some there is some stuff. I like about like a universal basic income that I like You know just um always always think about stuff like this right like Like drowning people make bad decisions And so I think of people get caught in that state right where you're even if you're trying to make a good move and say you're You know making no money And you've got a kid or you got you know a car that sucks because you don't make any money And so let's let me let's say you're scrounging and saving the most you can and it's 150 bucks a month Right. It's a great start But then you have a flat tire on your car It's shit's gone, you know, you're out 600 bucks or whatever it is And then you're back to zero like these people you're in that position. You can't ever make The step to the next thing to not be drowning, right? No, that that's uh that exists 100 percent. There's a couple A couple things you want to examine when you look at that the first thing is uh from a moral standpoint From a moral standpoint the moral argument is this First off the the only burden that lies within a situation um in terms of for example The burden of you Taking care of yourself lies within you. No one else. That's the moral That's that's 100 percent uh accurate in terms of morality. Now. Is it desirable that other people help you? I think so 100 percent. I think there's also a moral argument to say that other people Should help but should they be forced? No Would an ideal society In an ideal situation you would have a society in which People help each other voluntarily right right in which which it forces you to be a good person Right saying like if I know that I want to have lots of You know, I want to have a large network of people That like me and care about me and probably when I'm in a situation like that they they would voluntarily help take care of them The biggest charity the the most charity the most voluntary help is given by Free wealthy societies compared to non-free Not wealthy society for sure even in comparison to how much they make But I think I think where a lot of that gets lost is is since a community and tribe and stuff like that People don't feel Accountable to the people around them like I mean, I'm fortunate enough that the neighbors that live next to us are really fucking good friends And so like we hang out and share dinners and do these type of things, right? But like I don't know the people that live across the street from me. Mm-hmm at all. And so Yeah, just what a different life it would be if like you and the 10 people that you really liked all lived on a cul-de-sac Oh, right. Yeah, sure And we just imagine that house you feel so safe too like that of course, right? The problem is my 10 people are across the country. They're not 10 people that No, I definitely think I definitely think it's desirable and and and good For people to take care of each other 100% Now, how do we get to a state a society like that? Well, that's where the accountability part plays in but I don't know how you That's the question build it. That's right. The question is how do we go from where we are now? To something like that I don't think you take a system like we have now and eliminate welfare because no You have so many people dependent on the system that if you did that you would you would cause a lot of problems You cause a lot of civil Unrest but you'd also cause like maybe death starvation, right? You'd cause it would be there You'd also have a spike in crime, right? Because there's definitely I mean look that sucks to say but that's one of the reasons that we we came up with welfare was so that If we can give someone enough They won't steal from us part of it that may be part of it But how do we go from where we're at now to a purely voluntary society? I think there's steps and I think one of the steps is what you talked about. I think a universal Basic income eliminating all welfare and replacing it with cash or is it just superior? What about say the first 30 grand you make is just not taxable. Yeah, it's a negative income tax That's a Milton Friedman talks about that and that's kind of along the lines of You know what I would what I would probably support more of but then from there you'd want to move Further and further to a purely voluntary society But the way to do that is to eliminate all barriers To enter the market eliminate all barriers so that people if they want to start a business They don't have to do all this bullshit. You know, I read this the story about this one I don't think we can make it all the way to a truly free society like that. I don't I don't think it's I don't know the reason why I don't believe it's possible is because I I think that We wouldn't be able to stomach what would happen if we're in a truly free space space like that Where we don't help anybody it's all voluntary There'd be a lot of people that died off and we and the stronger would survive the weaker would die off And as a society we would not be able to bear that handle that because and that's the truth So here's the fact of the matter what happened. Here's why I disagree with that. I first off I think it's a goal. I don't know if we'll ever get there But I think it's a I think it's a an honorable goal And of course we'd have to assess along the way if it's working or not But the best evidence we have is this when you look at The world and you look at history This the the the single most effective thing that's lifted people out of poverty in pure numbers and in pure efficiency and effectiveness The single thing that has fed more people and housed more people and closed more people Are free markets not a single or even cumulative government Decree or anything there's no socialized anything that has come even close you have countries like China you had the soviet union who Basically guaranteed that was their government. We guarantee everybody Gets a place to live and food to eat and whatever the result of that was mass starvation math mass deaths you had reductions in innovation reductions in freedom you had incredible Inequality and poverty and then you had countries like the u.s. Which prior to Prior to the 1900s we it was almost entirely voluntary. We had no income tax whatsoever Our borders were open you wanted to be a immigrant you just came here and we made you an immigrant and yet in america we saw The reduction in poverty it blew away anything that everybody anybody had ever seen and then the 20th century Was a reflection of that worldwide where you had markets freeing up worldwide you had the the the falling of the The you know the communism and the soviet union collapsed or the iron curtain came down You saw east germany, you know the become you know all germany became united it became free market You saw a reduction in poverty nobody's ever seen so although it may sound counterintuitive Nothing's come close to it at all nothing. I mean to the point where does starvation happen in western societies with with largely free markets To the far more people die of too much food I mean we have that homeless people it's not even just yeah It's not even just the starvation piece that I think I think you would see a lot of homeless people too We see we'd have people roaming the streets that just you haven't got their shit together Haven't figured it out you you might but I think you would if you would there's two We have it now right right we have it now and it's not that would just accelerate So so the question to me the question that I would say is this If let's say and i'm not again we're talking about a goal So I don't know if it if it if it could exist by the way, you're not a city planner Yeah, no, you know actually actually nobody is Nobody's a planner like central planners are terrible because they can't predict all the moving parts I just can't all I know is is that when we let people work together and we eliminate the barriers to People working together they tend to figure shit out there tends to be markets or they die off right So again, that's exactly what would happen is some of us would figure that out And come together and build our own communities and do all that stuff and then lots of us wouldn't And there I see what Sal's saying we got to get rid of the lower class Any of these freeloaders this is time I tell you what Sal says throw down the hatchet. Let's get rid of this I tell you what in the in the in the early in the early 20th century. I mean, I agree I agree with Sal. So it's like but at the same time too. I also see the flaws in us going back I think we might we might have jumped the shark already I feel like we might have gone too far with it and we've turned it into such a A welfare state at least for us But it is such a different time than the 1900s right because there's less jobs that are Labor driven right which is something that anyone can do Like man, if you're willing to actually work We can do that. We have not that there isn't jobs available for that. There definitely are But our society doesn't do that anymore because of eliminating all these different things yet There's a quote I like and it I'll probably butcher it and it's something along the lines of like You know, we'll be soldiers so our sons can be teachers and we'll be teachers so that our sons can be artists And We're there That's what we did. So what the fuck happens after that? We're the artists the artists are But you can't be mad that that's where we got that was the plan Well, no, what it would make sense for to be back to the soldiers is what it would make sense Like the artists what do they say strong men create good times good times create Uh weak men weak men create bad times bad times create strong men, right, you know, so So so here's the thing with that. Uh, let's talk about barriers first off to enter the market Do does the average job today or the average work today require more Skill or more experience than previous jobs Perhaps perhaps it does So what are the barriers to Getting that skill? Well, you got to go to school. You got to pay for school. You got to find information You got to pay for information What if but that's why I hate the fact that there aren't more apprenticeships the way things were that you could learn 101 from someone in a job, you know job setting. You're right. Well, my point is this What do we have today? That's completely eliminated all those barriers pretty much technology for one youtube videos I tell you what there's there are there's two or three homeless people that live out here Near our facility and and every once in a while, I'll give them Money or food or whatever every single one of them has a cell phone Of course they do every single one of them a fucking cell phone Which a thousand dollar device in their pocket that has all the information of forever I want to know what plan they're on because I want to jump on. Well, let me tell you something a cell phone Dude, if you have a cell phone you just walk over you walk over starbucks and you get free wi-fi a a cell phone when they first came out which was I don't know 1970 something in those dollars not even adjusted for inflation was something like a Thousand dollars and it was shit and it was just a phone Okay, today what the market has brought us the free market government There was no socialize anything to do this it eliminated all those barriers to become skillful or to learn information So much so that homeless people. Yeah, I actually just read an article too That was like describing how we're all kind of shifting more into skill based You know workforce like like everybody's going more into like going into an actual trade again So that that's going to be like a commodity going forward, which is interesting Well, I mean whatever because it has because there's fucking jobs Sure, right? Like if you want to if you want a job right now go being an electrician There's work or there's high demand right now. Totally. Learn to weld You'll have a job and get paid forever. Totally. But so so here's my my point with all of this is Regardless of do we think we can get there or if that's an ideal situation a goal no matter what It's a good goal, but we're going there anyway. Hey to tell you break this to you But you can try regulating and socializing whatever you want. It's all getting out competed by the market anyway Even the untouchable parts of our government like the FDA which Hardly anybody if I were to go make an argument Let's say I was a politician and I was making the speech and I'm like we need more free markets And then everybody's like yay, and then I said eliminate the FDA nobody would vote for me Everybody like no no no no we need the the food and drug administration. I want to say food Well, guess what's going to happen in about 10 years? Yeah, there's a device right now. I know because I see I know I can't wait. It's already it's already in In prototypes like a spectrometer or whatever it's like scans your food and let you know exactly like what kind of nutrients are in there Everything all that stuff everything pesticides if it's safe. You saw did you see the 3d printed house? Yeah, yeah, yeah fucking nuts, right 24 hours 24 hours under 10 grand Yeah, print yourself out amazing boom now magic print your own shoe your own clothes dude That's that's definitely direction things are going So I don't think there's gonna be I don't think there would be even be a market for socialize anything when it's like so direct So I mean the most powerful decentralizer we've ever seen Yeah, but I think we'll see more even I think that drives even more of a split between the upper and lower end So here's what happens with because you either figure it out or you drown So here's so here's what's happened so far and what is continuing to happen Does the gap between the ultra wealthy and and the lower class grow? Yes Do all classes go up significantly? Yes This is a fact. Is it my question would be is it necessary that it does that anyways? Maybe that's the way it has to go for a person to truly continue to evolve and better is you got to have that It's a it's a it's called a Pareto distribution So and this is in any creative field You have a small percentage of people who create most of the work So if you go to like music, there's a lot of musicians, but if you look at all the like, uh, you know grammy war You know winning music a small percentage of artists or the producers that actually produce like a few albums that are the ones that everybody You know are iconic technology Investments and yes, and here's a good here's a great example Let's say you're Let's say you're you know lower middle class and you have a thousand dollars to invest in the market And let's say i'm super rich and I have a hundred thousand or even a million dollars to invest in the market And you and I both invested identical Exactly the same you put a thousand in in the exact same investments. I put a million in and we both go up 10% How much money did you make how much money did I make? So now the gap between you and I has gotten larger Right, but we've both gone up and so what we find is if you go to a place like north korea and you eliminate the Forget the government because they're the government the difference between government officials and the The average person is massive right and that's the difference between you starve and you have food But let's just look at the average people lots of equality very little between them Lots of poverty very little mobility very little opportunity I feel like there's going to be a lot more opportunity in general whether people want to like succumb to it or not Like especially with the way that we're disrupting everything to free people up as far as now We can be creative again and in the create creative process The artistry is going to become way more valuable because it's unique and it's something that's You know like an asset versus sure the problem. We can't run into those We're starting to see like major infrastructure crash In the country like bridges are falling and other shit. That's oh, yeah That'll always be yeah, but we don't have the workforce that we did that used to build all those things We're gonna be able to 3d print them real soon. Yeah, that's the thing And let's do it now No, really that's where we're going is we're yeah, we're trying to get to that point where we have these machines and this ai coming in to kind of Skynet man, I'll tell you what it's common you're you're a little younger than I am but when we were kids Being an entrepreneur wasn't So like if you wanted to be an entrepreneur in the 1980s and 90s Maybe even early 2000s it usually meant you started a business. You had a storefront. It wasn't sexy It wasn't sexy. You started a storefront. You probably would need to either Get a loan or borrow money You mean go to a bank and like have to explain a thing and hope the lady liked you Exactly and not now they just go like what's your social? Yeah, exactly. All right But it would cost like, you know 50,000 100,000 200,000 dollars You have to sink this money in then you you'd have to serve your local community because the storefront was like Your local community try and make it work whatever today to open a bit Look, you want to start a podcast 500 dollars worth of equipment done. Yeah Oh for sure, right? It's crazy and kids today It's so cool to be an entrepreneur now. It wasn't like that when we were kids Well, it seems that it's really cool to say you're an entrepreneur Right the actual work that comes along with any of it, right? I mean that's it's kind of a dirty word in that respect Yeah, it's uh, yeah, I just I'd rather just tell people I don't know that I'm unemployed Did you know you wanted to be an entrepreneur or or did it just start to happen for you? Yeah, you know That was never something I really thought about right, but then I look so you had no desire Well, but I look back at it and the first thing I did out of college was I opened a bicycle shop I did the whole brick and mortar. I got a loan and suck money into it and Did did that whole thing and this is way better Yeah, yeah So was it when was it when you're competing that uh, you know traveling and all that you became Somewhat got the itch for it like somewhat nomadic about it No, I really had like I was happy with the last job. I had you know, it was it's great I had free time and it paid very well and no one really bothered me and You know, which is rare to begin with but and that was medical who sold medical No, I sold uh, petro stuff in the petrocoma fills out the willing gas plants and so Talk about a big market by the way, especially down there. Yeah, that's where you're going to work Oh, yeah If you were if you want a job along the gulf coast that pays well, you're going to work in oil and gas and um So I was doing that with the Highland games and just needed creative outlet And so creative outlet became doing some writing and trying to you know explain programming to other people trying to throw in this And that and then Like oh, well, I guess I wrote a book Well, then we'll publish that and we're able to self publish it You're right, you know because of the way the market is I could use a site like create space or something like that And I can you self published it. Yep self published put out a book. It's mine Yeah, I didn't have to go confuse someone about what it is. I'm trying to sell You know give him a massive chunk. Yeah, just awful And then you know a couple books later and then you know enough You know from my market and and customer base asking me to make a thing You know with shirts or whatever it is. We we make them right and so It really just kind of rolled into I hadn't never planned on this being what I do for a living But I mean here we are do you have uh, do you feel like some of your competitive side? Does it transcend into the business? Oh, of course it does. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean It's I mean I can look at like monthly and daily sales and stuff like that and I rarely look at it as Whatever the number is right like that. It's an actual amount of money It's just a high score that I'm trying to beat Every month right right like what do we do to beat that like we need 50 more sales to be last month Can we do a you know do a sale it doesn't make any sense financially to do something like fuck that we need better Get the numbers go crush go. Yeah, I want to win. Yeah, you're really self aware No one knows a fun guy who keeps things real So I'd love to ask a question like this to you is you know, what do you what are you currently struggling with Personally and with the business that you're like currently working on So one of the changes with the business is trying to figure out like stick to what you're good at And then higher people explain that like what how did you come to that? Well, so, you know, one of the things we were lucky to do in the beginning was you know, the way that we have our manufacturing and warehousing's done in Kansas through a friend of mine and We realized early on that It wasn't going to benefit our business for me to spend my time Packing boxes. All right, and there would have been a short window where I could have You know make a couple trips to the post office every week But like now with amazon like you can't be a company anymore. That's like, oh, we ship stuff on thursdays Yeah, like no you can't ship shit once a week and so At some point I would have had to outsource it anyway because then I can't do the things that help grow the business Right. I'm stuck running the business and I can't do any of the how do I get more people here? So you would just spend up with like a peak. Oh, then I got to work a peak and so That that's helped and so yeah competitive side now, you know sticks with you know Trying to figure out how to keep growing it and then How to hire people at the level you're at, right? You know, I can't go hire the world's most expensive marketing guy to do my shit. I can't afford him But has that been hard finding good people? Yeah, and I mean for the most part it becomes that that spot of like You know, I don't live here Right, so I'm trying to find people that are either local to me or local to my partner in austin But then find people that are affordable For our size business and what we're trying to use someone for So yeah, it gets it gets a little tricky and then at some point you go like Can I do this good enough? Let's just do that for a while. Yeah Yeah, when you look you look at yourself as owner slash ceo Like what do you think are your your strengths as far as being a ceo and where do you think your your weaknesses? Strength wise I do the creative side of it I have a very very clear vision of the brand and where I want it to go and then you know as far as You know everything under that umbrella right with the youtube or podcast I can talk like the one thing I can't outsource with my company is hire me You know and that is the face of it that is the guy who Had the message and did all that I can't pay someone to run the podcast and be me I can't so I need to spend my time Focused on the things that only I can do that. I can't pay someone to do Weakness would be Now I think you get caught up right like I end up feeling You get bogged down and things like well You know I need this to be produced in this many weeks and this thing coming out and then you know, how do I get Out of this and so I end up doing a thing that ends up more shotgun approach than Really being able to focus on a couple things that would be bangers And so you know trying to change that creatively, you know with uh the guys at slash that I work with that do creative stuff for us design work Is once I can supply, you know like ideas for a quarter. Mm-hmm. Just let them go So do you like think you mentioned your vision and you can see that out quite a bit and with the direction You're going with the brand like how does that look like is that changing and evolving or Yeah, the the changes evolve like I mean, it's not like we don't have a vision to the point of like, uh You know, how do we start getting hate brand stuff in academy? like You know or you know dicks or wherever else, right? Like I don't I don't see that and I've got some friends with local brick and mortars, but I've almost I almost jumped that spot To where Like, you know hooking up my buddy's store with with hate brand stuff Is more of a hassle for me than it is a reward, right? Because I have to manage the inventory then we have to make sure it's stocked instead of it's already in my warehouse And I'm selling it for full price But instead now I have to give you a part of it and it's the thing I have to fuck with right So it just you know that type of stuff I don't I don't see the brand going that direction ever, right? Like I mean look the brand's doing what it's doing and I hope that it continues To sell more things and that's really the name of it with apparel. Anyway, it's quantity over anything else If you're not going to move a lot of it, you're not going to make a lot of money, right? Um, I think we'll move into more cut and sell items and start doing things like that What's what do you mean? What's cutting so custom? Yeah, so custom items. So like, you know designing joggers or designing, you know, uh Hoodies and bottles or bags or whatever it seems like it's it's it's becoming more and more irrelevant to be in retail stores For apparel company, you're like the fifth person amazon.com, dude. Yeah, I I fucking ordered cereal You know Like I don't want to go To a store and then go there and they not have my size like I know have them I know what a fucking t-shirt feels like and I go into the mall Well that and we're I think we're a hair more I don't want to say we're more antisocial than we've been but We're gonna avoid the painful social interactions like fucking going to the mall to get a shirt. I agree You know or that our time's a little bit more confined to doing the other things that we're doing it, you know We're fucking everybody. I know it's got like three jobs That's crazy, you know, none of them are you end up with like three part time jobs that equal Like better than one real-time job So People are busy and doing stuff like that. And so You can order it in It's also convenient and the cost effective the cost of apparel Has gone down also over the years. So in social media marketing. Yeah, I mean Why would I put a store in a town that has a population of 200,000? Now do you do much of that right now? Do you do much Instagram Facebook marketing and affiliation stuff like? No, uh, we've got some athletes we sponsor and that's been really good for us With working with them and then So that's you know brings more eyes brings more stuff We've we've started to try to move into some ad space to see how it plays out But it's just one of those weird things that like you have to figure out the right recipe For it to really pay well Right and you know and then try to figure out whatever that law of diminishing returns is I remember some marketing asshole called contacted me I was like, you know, we'd like to do Facebook ads, you know, well, you know Just like two sentences in then asked me my budget I was like, well, what are you seeing ROI? He's our average customer seeing a 10 10 times return on budget I was like if you can prove that I don't have a budget All the money I've ever Is that cool? Can we do that? You can just fucking hand over. Yeah cash. Well like fuck off Right, yeah, you know And you see what's going on Did you see the we were talking about Elon Musk earlier? Did you see the whole thing with him? Hey pull the shit off Facebook? Well, that's I think that's just the security breach stuff. Yeah. Well, I know I think that's time to buy though I think that's Two billionaire multi billionaires. It's a nerd fight. Yeah who don't like each other and that's kicking That's a hundred percent. That's what that is. There is no Elon Musk is not worried about his shit getting stolen from Facebook. He's like, you'll know that before anybody else does I move this rocket past your facebook computer. It's totally a Don't they have a thing it goes back. Yeah. Yeah, they don't like is it PayPal? Is it back in the PayPal day? I forget the the the the story But I know they don't like each other very much and they've openly kind of Talked about it and it's subtle in a fucking world. We live in the two billionaires can dislike each other. Yeah, right But it actually it actually like you know, it's so great. They lost how many billions that was like it literally like a uh Probably like a 300 million dollar punch. You know, they just gave it totally totally does it does it affect We're moving people are like, whoa Dude, well now we get the Kardashians that will say some tweet and it affects like millions and not like killed snapchat Yeah, did you see that? Yeah, that was crazy They have that kind of power. Did you use snapchat very much? Uh, not really you're mostly youtube I've made you a really long time to snapchat. Does he seem to have Right a benefit for me. It seemed like it was for all the hoes. Yeah, I don't know Yeah, it seemed like a place to send dick pics to people. Yes, and I live with the lady I'll just show her I don't care if she leads it or not We call it a dick pic. I can live online really a flasher in the kitchen I just I took a cardboard cut out and put it around Pretend it's a picture. Yeah there save that in your brain. Oh, you can't get it. You have to download it. It's a big file It's buffering. Yeah, so in the name and the name of the apparel Business is it is part of the strategy because we have you know, we have apparel too. It's not like yours Obviously, it's not the center of our of our business, but is it's more like merch Like what yeah, what what is that like give us some tips like Is like speed of release important that you release something every month is it like what are the what are some some good takeaways for us For me and what worked for us We did we did like a weekly drop and everything we do has been limited and like we're not the first people to come up with That that you know limited quantities drive demand blah blah blah um You know and the goal was we wanted to try to figure out quantity so that stuff sold out in like 10 days You know so we would drop something else in two weeks And so you keep that spike coming because you've got essentially two types of customers You've got customers that have already bought shit from you and that are probably going to buy more And you you know in the and your hardcore customer falls in that group too These are the people that are going to buy everything you drop no matter what it is right and then you've got new customers and so There's going to be less of these people than the people who've already shown up And so I got to appease them too And keep giving them something new to buy While having something for these guys You know and so how do you what's the difference between them in terms of How you're designing stuff is it Is it just when you're focusing on the ones that you've you've always had that you kind of stay on a theme And then when you're getting new people you're trying to Now we really design-wise we've really just done whatever the hell we wanted to okay We haven't really looked at it that way as far as targeting new people are not right um Stuff that actually says hate brand sells better Then stuff that doesn't No, uh, I mean either way as long as the shirt says the actual name of the brand on it That seems to be a thing that'll sell better Have we found that too with ours if it says mine pump I don't know about that. I have to look into that When you said something interesting, I want to talk about this a little more So you you do a release and you figure out and the way you figure this out is based on your previous sales How many of these shirts I need to make in order to Yeah, 10 days 10 days, but every two weeks you do a new shirt drop Yeah, and we did that almost weekly for like two years And that would drop the new item every week and that single strategy right there You say makes a huge impact in sales. I think it helped us a lot, you know with our market I mean, I think everyone's a little different, right? And you got to kind of answer to what your customer base is asking for It doubled ours. Yeah, and if our customer base was willing to Keep buying stuff from us. Let's keep giving them shit to buy. Yeah, you told us that the first time How long ago was it that we we hung out with you five months ago? Yeah So when we talked to you five months ago, I remember you making that point to us Uh, I don't know. I think it was off air and then we went and saw drama Um Down in la and he talked a little bit about something like that too And yeah, we implemented it and yeah, I mean it works. Yeah, absolutely works And that helps like it for me like I like the creative side. I like making new things to to produce and so Like I don't want to have the same thing out for six months You know, because then it gets stale and it gets old like no man, let's all right shelf that one Let's go on the next What if you found things that like so for example for us, I know like Hats and hoodies are like terrible margins on those and they just don't sell as well as t-shirts Are there certain things that you've found that like these type of items people love these items tend right like More focus on the soft versus the heavy or you know, whatever T-shirts are always going to sell and t-shirts always do really well for us But that's you know, that's a fixed margin. We're all selling t-shirts um You know the higher dollar items. Yeah, you know some of them Some hoodies are better than others and then windbreakers and any of that But you got to do those higher end specialized items too to kind of reward the other people that are that are in Or maybe even spark that new new audience coming right that wants to you just keep the amount small Yeah, you just keep it because I wanted to sell out. Yeah What I don't want to do is eat half of them Right because they sat on the shelf and then have to do a weird sale down the road Do you do pre-orders at all? No, we started that way. Yeah, so The first three drops we did and actually, you know funded the business was we did a pre-order and then whatever Profit we had left over from it. We bought stock And then had shirts to sell. Mm-hmm And so that I mean, that's how we got the business going Now when you're trying to get new customers, what's your What's your been your most effective method of getting new customers? Is it just through your youtube or youtube is a big help, right? um And then doing this like the fact that i'm never home, you know, i'm out being on other people's platforms And and i'm not and you can track that you can see specific. Yeah, you can definitely see where it spikes Right like from from new traffic and always being outgoing and either being you know a collaboration on mark bell's youtube You know, that's a almost a well over a 300 000 subscriber base or going to be on somebody's podcast who has a bunch of followers Doing those type of things Really helps a lot And then the other side of it too is You got to be doing a thing that people want to follow Right and so like attracting more followers I think too was you know the fact that the athletes that we have that we sponsored are are into what we're doing You know that we handpicked them. We didn't just go shop instagram hoes that don't care what we're doing So you didn't just look at oh, they got a big following. Yeah, because I mean sometimes it's bullshit That's true. And who are your sponsored athletes by the way? We've got like 16 of them. So I'm not gonna ruin running down through that But I mean that's really where we see it You know is the discount code use and then reward those athletes You know, it's kind of funny as you see businesses go different directions and instead of trying to more Go vertical with integration with us like trying to get a warehouse and start printing and doing this We hired sales reps Which are essentially what athletes are, right? And so I mean the better sales reps you hire They generate sales, right and then you can reward them for being part of it So these aren't the sponsored athletes. These are separate. No, no, no, they are Just essentially that's what they are Because we haven't so we haven't done any that any of that where we sponsor people through social media and stuff like that And it's interesting because you know as you're you know, this is obviously it's what works because a lot of people do it How big of an impact do they make? You know, is it a big impact for me? Yeah, it's huge. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and that's do you think that would help someone like us? Like if we wanted to sell more apparel to have I don't know man I think I think it's a different thing. Like I mean, yes, we both sell T-shirts stuff on them. Sure, right, but You guys are selling We're selling our our brand but podcasting which is totally different, right, but it's not an apparel brand Well, yeah, it's not there's not a message behind the brand name not like that Exactly, right. So I mean mine pump is y'all and there's a lot of message and meaning between different stuff, but It's not it's separate entity, you know, whereas like I'm not selling um so merch for the podcast, right? That would be merch. That's exactly the best way to say it. Yeah that I didn't I didn't start a podcast based off of the apparel sales. I was already doing something like like with drama right like So it's you know, whichever one I think is interesting in the psychology of that, you know, like as a consumer You are drawn to like sort of a brand where they're doing things and it's all part of like I don't know you identify with it somehow, but that's people want to fit in dude People want to be part of a thing. Yeah, and and want to find that movement or that message that speaks to them. I mean It it's weird to feel like I am that For a person that's super fucking weird to say because I'm basically just trying to figure shit out every day. I wake up and But yeah, people people want to be part of something and I mean if people like fitting in To whatever group they think they can find I mean if you've got a message or something that speaks to some kid In the middle of nowhere that feels weird not a place. I mean right on right. Yeah, but that's music That's that's anything right? I mean, that's not new. Sure. Well, you're adding value to their life We just did a podcast interview with a man of buchi that just dropped yesterday and talking about this And that's exactly what what we were kind of telling Her and her audience was that you know, there's there's this value thing that you have to provide for people If they're gonna buy things from you and if you're having a hard time with that Then you're probably not providing enough value for those people. Well, right and that's look I I've got the shirts and I've got the apparel brand with hate brand and I've written a couple books But I'm also putting out, you know, three or five youtube videos a week That are content that have information in them or and or entertaining. Hopefully That's free I I do a podcast that's free that I travel to guest for that cost me money so that I can go do I'm on a lot of other people's podcasts to reach new people and I share information and ideas So that's also free I'm doing now free seminars In places, you know, and all that's fucking it's a thank you Yeah, and you feel that uh paying off each time you do something new that's free, right? Yeah Yeah, we notice the same thing for sure. It's a content war for sure. Yep Um, when you do your seminars, is it mostly about training an exercise? Are you doing seminars on on business entrepreneurship? No, definitely not business stuff. Um more life and Trainings the gateway for those conversations, you know that I think uh one of the things I said at the last one they got a response was You know consistency and hard work don't yield success That that's a fucking lie that we've been fed our entire lives But hard work and consistency yield progress and if we can focus on that Like that's a big change and like that type of message and that's not That plays in the gym of like man, just because you work out really hard and you watch your diet and this and that like You're not gonna be j cutler. All right, you know, he started at a different place than you And the guy's got the tools. That's why he's the best and there's one of them Right, or but but can you get better? Yeah You can be better than yesterday But I mean, are you entitled because you worked really hard to be the best? Nope Great point. Yeah, that's the that's the focus on the The the goal and the being versus the becoming right the challenge Well, because there's no there and that's that fuck up that amateur wants to chase, you know Is that idea that like if I can just do this thing that it figures it out or Yeah, I've seen it with professional athletes and friends that You'll pursue a thing and you get that singular focus in these people that it turns into this Like making deals about it that like look, I know this sucks and I know I'm being shitty But if you'll just let me run with it When I hit here it'll fix all this And there's no fucking there. Yeah, there's no point that you got there and you're like, okay, everything's solved Oh, no, it doesn't work. I tell the story of you know, working with gastric bypass clients who You know, you get gastric bypass surgery. You're gonna lose weight. You're forced to lose weight And they would lose weight and then we if they didn't embrace the challenge If they didn't embrace the change if they didn't embrace that on the way there and it was all focused on Just gonna lose this hundred pounds or whatever It was a tough ride for them. I've had him gain the way back. I've had several Gain the fucking way. You know how hard it is to gain the way back when commitment when you've yeah It is it is and it's because it's no different than lottery winners, you know two years later They're just as depressed as they way before It's not embracing that you know that that that challenge and that change so do you What can you tell somebody who? A kid listening right now who's like man, I want to start because Probably The most common business I don't know about nowadays, but I know before maybe 10 years ago five years ago whenever someone said I'm starting a business It was a t-shirt company. Yeah, of course. I think one of the most common What is some advice you can give someone if they if they're starting a t-shirt company? Well, that'll have them my first question is like why okay, right? Like I I didn't set out to start selling t-shirts. This is just where I've ended up Because the demand from the customers because of the message And so so you built the demand first, right? Yeah, but I think in a geared it's weird though Because it wasn't ever the plan like I started putting videos on youtube so that I could share Throwing videos with the other guys I was throwing with And we could see technique and work with each other Like I didn't do that to build an audience like the first videos aren't fucking edited It's funny. I feel like most the people that I have found that have been really successful They none of them really got in it with that intention a lot of them got in it with this intention of Well, I was just doing the thing that I was really fucking into why and then you find out. Holy shit There's a lot of other people respond to that. Yeah, right. It's attractive You know, you you totally see right through that and I think people like passion Yeah, and being into something and commitment and that sacrifice they see from athletes that You know that Fuck man, this guy's in his garage killing himself and training in some fucking parking lot sweating the death Right and and he's a world championship, you know as a world champion in a sport That doesn't exist in Louisiana Yeah, so I mean I kind of stick out a little bit so you could fucking do it Do you know what I mean? So after you asked the why and they asked that of themselves and whatever would or some like Objective steps or or things you can help someone on like you want to start a t-shirt company. You've got a good why What are some things people can do because it's such a for somebody new like, where do I start? What do I do my recommendation always is like I said before that it's It's a quantity game Anyway, you slice it that if you're gonna make that's very important that you say that If you're only gonna sell 10 fucking shirts, this isn't gonna be a job All right, so we got to sell a shitload of them So plan from day one to be scalable You know, how do you keep doing the thing that you're doing? Whether it's you sold one shirt today or a thousand So that you're not fucked Yeah, because the people don't realize the uh, and I remember that's a big problem Well, I remember two and a half years ago when we first kind of kicked up You know selling the apparel it got to a point where We stopped like putting any effort towards it because The amount of time and effort and when you looked at all the margins like shit It took away from the other things that make more money Right It took away ever the other parts of the business for us that were more important And then it was like, okay if we really want this t-shirt thing. So we had to hire Yeah, two employees So really even our apparel business right now, which I would consider it a a successful business in comparison to somebody who Wants to get into it Is doesn't really profit that much because we have to outsource the a lot of the work. So right, but that's how you scale it But that's yeah, that's why it's the quality we can make it work Yeah, so I think a lot of I think a lot of kids that get into the the business Don't really realize that in their head. They're doing the math like, okay So I'm making six bucks every shirt, right, but it doesn't play out. No, it doesn't play out I have 30,000 followers if only half of them buy a shirt. Yeah Yeah, that's how it works. No, that's hand to their cash over right It's exactly what I think a lot of them think of course you get into it. You don't realize How chow challenging that look man, I I've got a pretty decent background in art. I'm moderately creative and talented I can get by on Photoshop and illustrator and stuff like that But I don't do the finished designs for my company I'm lucky enough that I'm creative and can give direction So that my design team knows what the fuck we should shoot for Yeah But I have no problem realizing that they're better at this than me and that's why we're paying them Right because they'll yield more return On the other side right exactly than me being really bad at this for the next 10 hours and not accomplishing it Right. And there's a lot of there's more tools available or easily more easily available nowadays that allow you to scale Then maybe like 15 20 years ago, right like now you don't have to yeah Can you talk about some of those tools that well, I mean like you don't have to like store them You don't have to make them. You don't have to right and there's there's a lot of places that do Print on demand for apparel and that if you're gonna do that like you need really crazy quantities Because the margins are small yeah the margins get really really tight because the market has set what you can sell a t-shirt for So, you know, I was lucky that I have a guy that's that's more of an independent that does all the printing and Manages my warehouse, but I mean now he's got you know, essentially two people that only work for us and You know the pick pack and ship department, you know, I mean it's It's a son of a bitch, you know if we had a thousand sales on friday That's a lot of fucking bags to pack right, you know But you know, so how do I stay out? And and keep getting getting eyes to them to keep them packing bags instead of me killing two days Trying to pack them pack bags you know that type of scalability that that outsourcing is This is a key like that's a thing that you didn't happen plus the way the internet is You know with being able to reach a global audience from day one of opening a business You know, I don't need to live in a major market Right to sell shirts I mean that's why these weird brands can pop up and fucking I see stores in la And I don't understand a how they afford the storefront Or how they're selling a thing It frustrates me. I'm like I sold fucking bicycles and couldn't get it done And you're selling like hand-painted wicker baskets I'm fucking $18,000 a month rent on your storefront. Like what the fuck man I actually think there's really high turnover on on a lot of those shops down I think sometimes it's a really rich person's right off. Yeah, I right or just laundering of some sort Yeah, or or you think that oh if I'm here like the customers will just come in and that's part of it Though you see I mean that level of foot traffic still moves stuff Yeah, but you go into something like the specialty apparel stores and you're like there's six shirts in here Yeah, that's fucking it like Like how do you play like if you were busy today? Well, what was the plan like like max income you have here on site is like 200 dollars That's true But I think sometimes it's just part of the brand like they just need to have a yeah more front to But yeah, that's well you would you said it yourself that you wouldn't even have started a clothing line If you didn't have the following or the mass of people first people were asking for people were asking for it And that's I think I think a lot of kids that oh they have this idea they could draw well or they've got a brand They want to do they think that oh I can have this business, but I think that piece the piece that you Already built is definitely a shortcut right right. I mean you can do it the other way But the the having people and you know the following in the way it all works now It's sure shit a shortcut Yeah, I think I would say with social media and the way I think it's necessary. Yeah, I think because that's what we did We we started the podcast and we didn't start selling programs until A lot of people were begging us to right yeah, and so But that goes back to the give right like I was able to give video content and give information and share training knowledge and shared my training logs online for years I mean hell if you want any of the books I've written about programming you can just go read it there. It's all free right Um, I'm gonna be harder to decipher But it's there right and so I mean you you give out all this information for so long and People buy in yeah almost feel obligated sometimes. Yeah, because you've been doing it so frequently and it's like well I haven't really contributed to this yet So it's like if you do that all time pay for stuff you build authority in an audience And then it's kind of up to you what you want to sell right? They'll they'll buy it Yeah, I mean you can't have shit. Yeah, of course, but they'll they'll if you do that first That's probably the most successful way to do it. I would say is like build that Demand build that authority and then decide Okay, what do I what do I sell or what do I you know promote and your audience will probably tell you right? You know, I mean you'll probably have a good idea. Are you are you managing your youtube yourself? Or do you kind of call I do all that you do all that yourself do all that do all the instagram And then are you do you watch like certain patterns? There are certain types of vlogs that add you more subscribers. Are you pretty consistent with your subscribers adding mine's pretty consistent? um I stay away from like they uh The videos I know that I just don't want to do them and like that's the rule of thumb Like it's either fuck yes or no. Yeah, and if it feels weird and feels gross and feels like I did it for clickbait or like Oh, man, that's gonna be a great video like I it's just not for me. Yeah, I mean look it's and there's a talent to that too like I mean It's not like I'm sitting on a bunch of golden viral video ideas that I'm just like can't make that one So I mean if there was one that was the right fit and I came up with it Yeah, you know, I would do it but like I'm not doing a fucking count You know my macros for the day video or my 10,000 calorie challenge There's not a lot of thought that goes into it before you just kind of document Yeah, yeah, especially the vlog stuff right now, but we've got the other stuff that we travel and really Do production on yeah, and that's uh the drift to lift a series. You've got to be able that you've got to have Looked back now though to see like certain trends like oh when I when I make sure to document this way Or if I make sure to Look at the camera any videos that I've had attractive women in seem to help Especially if they're thumbnails on that's crazy. That's crazy. They should do a study on that Also any videos I can have hapthor doing things in Well, so if I could either be a hot female and or hapthor it would really help the youtube channel It helped his podcast too. Yeah They love a audio media Just hot chick with a weird voice Hey, did you evolve camera wise on youtube? Yeah, of course. Okay, so, you know, you start off using Fucking things to flip cam and your cell phone and other stuff like that And then that's you know now that having a pretty solid camera setup with a panasonic gh5 and different lenses that I travel with as well as a gopro and a point and shoot and You know options and then you go back and you're cutting and editing all yourself Yeah, and you are a bit of a you are a machine. Yeah, you get you get a fishing at it, right? So The the biggest difference when I have my camera guy with me and we do something is he's gonna shoot Six hours of footage that day Whereas if I'm gonna edit a vlog for today, I want that vlog to be probably 10 minutes long I'm gonna shoot Maybe 25 minutes worth of footage Yeah, and so I don't have to spend 10 hours siphoning through bullshit Now you're gonna miss cool stuff But I mean if you have an idea of what the overlying arc of the day was and what the message you want To get out of it to tell the story Shoot those things You know, I know I need x amount of b shots to cover up What other crimes I commit in editing? Besides uh half Thor and in attractive women are there are your vlogs do those seem to do best? Yeah, the vlogs do well, especially if they're pretty consistent because people Keep up with it, right? Like it's It's almost like a more formal version of the instagram story Whereas the instagram story you can just flood with garbage It doesn't it doesn't matter people click through it so fucking fast, right? You two vlogs they're watching it. Yeah, I feel like that would vlogging is an incredible way to build Connection with your audience. Yeah, man. It's weird going to the Arnold and people like know the names of my dogs You know, but I mean the reason they do is because I told them So you can't feel that weird about it But it is I think that that is a way I think I think the vlogging stuff and I watch a lot of them You know different people and I think that's what we wanted from reality tv Was to have interesting people to try to live vicariously through Yeah, and and see what their life is and this and that and then it just became this other thing They hacked it, you know say they hacked it for sure, but they had to right because of production cost Well, yeah, and then and the market demanded we viewed more we watched more when more drama happened when the crazy We have kept the vote that we'll watch the Kardashians lay on the couch like veal. That's like feel fueled by starbucks and sugar It's not gonna cook well. I won't eat that Bitter Real acidic You know, but but you're right like I mean the reason that shows on tv is because the market has said We like this more than this Crazy, right? Look, I mean The nfl and sports and people can say like what a pastime this is and stuff like that for america but If marketing found out that they could play a blue screen with a crying baby over for three hours And it doubled the views of the super bowl that shits on every channel tomorrow, right? Of course It ain't like we would we would cut sports and play that instead Oh, totally You know so totally how long have you been doing you've had the youtube channel longer than your podcast? Yeah, oh yeah for sure much longer. Yeah the youtube channel. I've had since I saw a video yesterday that would have been like pretty early and that's like 2011. Oh, oh, shit Yeah, so you've been at it Seven years at least five years hardcore. Yeah, I would say five years Pretty strong like really pushing it and the podcast has been around for how long Like six months six months 20 episodes and doing them every week now what Challenges podcasting versus challenges youtube how different of a world is it for you? It's totally different like uh, I mean especially if like doing the vlog things easy, right? Because that's just kind of a camera that shows up with what i'm doing during the day um But when we we travel with the drifter liftoff thing like that's work like we're trying to do pre-production We're almost storyboarding trying to figure out what the goals of it is and it's still reality-based We're not scripting it per se, but like I know today for example You know I want some establishing shots in the morning from coffee getting ready and talking about where we're hitting that Day and blah blah blah what we're going to do and then we need you know We need transition shots of driving maybe a drone shot And having that whole thing laid out for the six days that we're there and we're going to shoot 11 hours a day You you have put all this together yourself to or is this someone else on your team? That's yeah This is just me and my camera guy brock. Wow. Wow. You are fucking like you do you're like our friend craig You can do it all you do a lot of stuff on your own right, but it's the stuff you love to do Right. I'm enjoying all of it. Um, well, you also strike me though as the type of guy too that would find enjoyment in anything that he does You don't strike me someone that would I mean there's shit. I hate to do for sure. Right. Yeah, I just don't do those things anymore What what do you think that drives you to be someone like that because I find There there aren't a lot of guys like you that really do like I'm sure All the things you're talking about right now within the business You had to sit down and teach yourself or learn from somebody else. I'm sure you didn't have all that knowledge already No, I mean for sure like with editing right like I don't know right like grow up editing film Um, I got a little bit of info from the guy that's my my camera guy brock He kind of gave me some basics, but since I had years ago when I had the bike shop I was doing merch for the bike shop. I'd learned enough with illustrator and adobe because I needed to make shirts right And so I mean, I don't know where the artistic creative side comes from You know, but that itch I really has to be scratched for me And so whether that's creating something or going to do something or producing a thing Like I like I like writing. I like I like drawing and I like doing You know this type of stuff or doing the seminar things or being out So I mean that creative side's all part of it Would you say one of the most rewarding things for you then is to Create a new article or I mean a new piece of clothing or a new design and see it outperform Oh, it's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the coolest thing ever is, you know Seeing a concept come to fruition and then people dig it The hard part of it is like what the production schedule takes out of it Yeah, like how how that breaks you you know the idea that like So We'll have a drop May 24th. I think is what our next spring Big drop will be and we'll have many shit that'll fall between right but so so for that drop It's going to take we've got A week prior to drop is we need to photo shoot. We need to video And do all the promo work to get ready to edit all those things so that once the 24th hits we can drop everything So then I need six weeks prior to that To make everything for production You know, so if we need samples we need stuff like that. So I've got six weeks worth of manufacturing four weeks prior to that You know, and so the yeah, so the start of manufacturing is also the start of I need finished print ready files from my artist Four weeks prior to that is second look on print You know print ready files to give that a look and then go over color options and see what blanks match up and where we'd like to Actually go four weeks prior to that is the initial conversation of what we want to do with this line Hmm so Middle of february I'm trying to plan what's dropping may 25th and you didn't include anywhere in there any sort of photos or video shoots Yeah, that's the last week. Okay. So that's the last week Yeah, once we get everything and that's but that's getting planned. Yep way in advance Yeah, you have to put in that cushion So, you know, I mean that's when I got with the creative guys I was like, I'm in the next drops can be the 24th and so it was like, well, how long does it take to make it? So we need to 14 weeks, you know 14 or 15 week, you know out from From a launch date is the inception And do you when you drop are do you recommend to people that they Announce it and post it everywhere or is it a more subtle approach to we send it to our athletes automatically and the athletes are rewarded for You know code use and sales, right? And so If they don't push it They're not getting much in return. Yeah and and you see that and so You figure out who you want to work with that that's into it So you try to work with people that are bought in and it's not just buying time off their instagram And we've all seen that too, right that I mean if someone's pushing a thing and it doesn't seem genuine Yeah, people see it. It's an ad. It's fake. Yeah People see it's an ad and you don't want that either You know, I mean even when you do stuff that you post that Is something you're genuinely stoked on that maybe isn't an ad I mean the difference and likes on that verse You know something else that's a more motivational, you know genuine look at you as a person is a huge drop-off in in engagement, right? and so I don't promote hate brand stuff much at all like via my stuff, right It's it's what I'm wearing. It's there You know so it can be that, you know, it'll subtlety I guess or whatever it is. And so yeah, I'd like to athlete I don't you know, like, hey, here's the marketing plan guys I need you to say this in the copy and blub them links. I kind of was like new shirt new shirt Please wear it while you're going to train. I'll provide you with enough gear that you can't tell me you don't have my shit to wear You know, that's fair. Yeah um But it's yeah, it's it's a process and then the problem with that like that 14 week cycle Is by the time like I've gotten it and we're going to release it. I've looked at it so fucking long That I'm I'm done with it and I don't think it's cool anymore and I don't understand why it would sell That that becomes really tricky because then you're like, fuck me you start saying you're like, I don't think we did a good job here Whereas 10 weeks ago. I'm amped You know when you look at that when you look at the 16 athletes that you have Is there a a distinct discrepancy between the ones that perform really well and sell a lot of the peril Versus the others or is it pretty evenly across the board? No, it's it. Yeah, there's a ton of discrepancy I mean, there's some that do very well. There's some that that don't do well There's some that I sponsored because I like them and we're friends and I'm gonna sponsor them Whether it's sales or not, you know And so You see the ones that run a clean and tidy Instagram while also being an athlete That's what I was looking for is like Can you tell a major difference in how maybe one of them manages their Instagram on how that reflects? Yeah, they're not posting any blurry pictures and Weird shit like the the people that do it really well are running a business. Oh, wow You know, that's what they're in their Instagram is a fucking business and it and it reflects in the sales For sure a major difference. Yep for sure. Oh, wow any mistakes that you see some of them make or that you've seen maybe one other people Yeah Thinking that people will take more than one step to get to an item to buy it Hmm Yeah, you think that you wrote Hey brand goods on the picture and then there's not a link in your bio to get to me They're probably not gonna go too far small small things like that makes such a huge difference. It's weird, right? Yes, huge, but it's so true. Like it's the era we live in now, bro. Yeah. Well, you took me four clicks to do this Yeah, yeah clicks with your fucking finger give up when amazon when amazon had the buy now button I mean, you know how big of a difference that made now. They have where they'll show item addictive. Yeah predict That you're just swipe to order it. Yeah, you don't have to enter anything nothing I buy shit with my face now also. It's crazy It is nervous. That's more the robot's taking over dude That's the thing nothing worse than like saying shit around your phone and then ads pop up. I hate that I hate that shit But it's so true though that that part I think is so important that I think not a lot of people talk about is You know in this in this era Whatever the reason being whether we've gotten lazy or because that's just the market demands it because so many companies like amazon Are doing it at the end of the day if you don't recognize that I mean personally for us I I see a huge difference in Downloads purchases clicks, you know traffic on the website If we make it very accessible easy to get to where we're going if you make it at all Challenging they have to copy themselves and then if it's not a direct link it better be something cool, man Yeah, exactly. It's better be something like porn people will people will jump giant hurdles I'll go to climb up walls. I'll go through three clicks for porn. You mean this will poison my computer cool Worth it. I used to hike into the woods to go find it, you know, everyone Everyone who's over 30 has found porn in the woods. Why was there always porn in the woods? You know, do you think it's do you think it was some other kid? Yeah, it's a lure I feel like it's like a Hansel and Gretel, you know, oh my god Right, right. You're so right. I was in the corner like do you think just some like kids dumped his porn in the woods Or do you think it's a guy like just bummed out at home? And like can't get what he wants and so he's like guzzled just jerk off in the middle Just build a tree for it and whack it I just you know as a kid I saw a lot of porn in the woods But like I never saw just some like dude walking out there like what are you guys doing with my parents? I envision like a like a 16 or a 17 year old boy whose mom keeps yelling Stealing all the mags of these mattresses right quit. Yeah quit doing that shit even the laundry and shit Somewhere safe found like a high sobriety high society in the fucking woods right now It would be like an archeological dig site The fuck has this form of porn dinosaur tooth and porn. I think I missed that. I want that physical Turn the page, you know, until you have some weird stack in your house You get the stock pages. Yeah, that's not good. Yeah, especially the ones in the woods See I didn't grow up in the woods We actually found porn in a light like a street light on the bottom of the street light There was like a metal panel that you could open And we were walking by and I saw like something sticking out of it And when you're a kid This is straight up now when you're a kid in the 80s, dude, that's like pirate treasure. Yes Oh, dude when you're a kid in the 80s if you see Magazine pages even if you can't see what's on the pages sticking out of anything like that Porn, oh for sure instantly. I'm like, oh shit. What's that porn Easter egg hunt? It's just like instant happiness. That was right. Yeah, no finding porn as a kid is Amazing. I don't know what it's like now. You've lost it. Nobody cares now Even even for a kid who's not allowed to like let's say parents put them on If you've given your kid a phone, right if they're looking at porn It's the first thing they did as soon as you walked out of the room Yeah At the very least it starts on instagram. Yeah, they're not doing the anatomy book. So you have to flop over I remember looking at that shit. Yeah, dude. This book has a vagina in it. Yeah A bunch of kids hanging out in some weird aisle in the library. Totally. It's crazy So with with the with the podcasting because it's a different medium than the youtube How has that been for you? Has it what are the challenges? I really like it. Do you like it better than youtube? Yes, okay. Yeah, me personally. I like doing the podcast a lot because I like the long long form conversation. I also like I don't really have to edit it. Yeah, you know, so I'm just posting long conversations. Um But I'm like, I'm a talker. I like doing this. I like communicating this way. Um, the youtube thing Becomes a drag like there's nothing worse than watching yourself do things from 48 hours ago But yeah, I was there just don't give a shit. Yeah, and so I I could see outsourcing that Would be great, but like the podcast I like because I do have Interesting awesome people In my world and that I get to experience and I want to have those conversations with them and I think I'm really fortunate that I have friends that other people want to hear from And so I mean if I get to be kind of a cool vehicle to help expose or You know bring a conversation up that somebody listened to and change their day like fuck dude, that's rad Yeah, what are you learning about yourself right now as you're as you're podcasting more and more? Like do you catch certain habits that you do you like fuck? I wish I wouldn't do that as much. Yeah, what are you doing? The worst is just trying not to talk over people because I'll do it because I get excited About a thing, but it's like in the middle of a diatribe And so it's like fuck Get done so that I can say this thing and Try not to be in that part where I'm always just thinking about the next thing I want to say and actually be in the conversation gets tricky That's a that's a big one right there and that's I can always tell a difference from when we get interviewed by people Like the ones that are really skilled have that ability otherwise. It sounds like a can interview the whole time It's like you have these I'm talking about my childhood and all of a sudden you asked me about sales Whoa, where did that go? Where did that come from? Like, you know, it just and I think that makes a big difference for a listener As a listener I think when you get sucked into some of these conversations in your car or if in your headphones You get deeper and deeper and deeper and then if you have an interviewer who takes a left really hard I think that like It's a shock. Yeah, it shocks the audience for a second I think they kind of come out of that flow state for a minute. It sounds like an interview instead of a conversation Is what it is right and I want to have conversation. Yeah, you know, I mean, you know The big compliments I've gotten from people doing them and and I like the way that I've done it Right like the studio setting like this. I mean if this was my reality This is fucking rad But I'm traveling to go see people and so I use you know wireless lab mics And you know a lot of times we're at an Airbnb sitting around or something like that and People fucking forget they're being recorded. Yeah, it's just great. Yeah, and which is ideal Right. This makes that harder. Yeah, you know having the microphone feels more produced. Yeah, and I mean look I'm again Doing the best with the tools I have to accomplish the goal I want Right, right, you know if if I lived in a place that I was if I lived in venice, I'd have a fucking studio Right because someone's always going to be there. I could talk. Oh, yeah. I mean we go to LA. It's ridiculous We go to LA every month. Yeah. It's just so worth it. Necessary evil. Yeah It is everybody is it. Yeah, for this for this space, right? It's like, oh you mean I can accomplish 10 things today. Yeah That at home I have to wait to do over three months Right, like yeah, I just fucking go. But then you have to live in LA so That's So like once a month for about three or four days. Take a shower and fucking leave. Yeah, exactly Exactly. Just get a spot in venice and pretend you're not in LA Who's been uh, some of your favorite guests of the last because we haven't seen you for about five months So yeah, so yeah, so you guys were like probably episode two or three. Where are we really? Yeah, I would have been like that early on Yeah, yeah for sure. Wow. Oh, that was early Really good episodes. Uh, I had a surprisingly really good episode with uh, Andy golfing Oh, yeah, he's a great guy. Yeah, he's great, right? And good dude. Super smart guy I was nervous going into it that it would get very Nerdy and technical but he's not like that. No, he was a regular dude Yeah, and so we hit it off and talked a ton and I really really enjoyed that conversation That was one I was surprised about Um Other really cool ones are I got a chance to interview my tattoo artist for you know an hour 45 minutes while he was working on Oh, you were saying that's right. Oh, you were getting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I mean that was cool because I mean he's he's a stud He's at top of the hill doing what he's doing and so I mean that's interesting Like what are your big picture goals and how do you how do you keep pushing yourself to get better when you're On top of that hill And then you know, how do you technically get better at a thing? You know, how do where's your drive to keep that? And so those those conversations are cool. Uh, I got to talk with jim windler While we were up in ohio for the arnold and That podcast went, you know four hours long Yeah, doctor at all kinds of weird shit. Are you noticing anything like in particular with You know an episode being downloaded a lot or not so much or there are certain things that you're like I'm so early into it right that everything is still just climb. Yeah Where every episode is just right at or a little bit better than the one before especially if the guest is someone people know That's a really good sign right now. I mean, right. Yeah, it's exciting. You know, I have uh, You know, like a like the lady who's a ceo or one of the owners of power dot It's a great conversation, but she doesn't have the following Look, she doesn't have a you know, one and a half million following like nico does that'll be a dip in Probably downloads, right? But the conversation is still good. Yeah, and so the people that listen to it are still going to like it You know, and so I think there's a balance right to try to Have people on your show That interest you And can maybe bring you to a new audience is part of the thing Or expose you to a bigger audience And then you've got to sometimes be on the other side of that too Where you think people are red and you want to expose them to a bigger audience, right? Or the information's just fucking good and you just want to share an awesome conversation I mean, I think when when they both mix that's when you hit the the triple or the home run, you know Right, it's it's like and it's like having my wife on right like I want to do a couple with her and Well, she doesn't have a thing to promote This is just something I think would be interesting that people might get something out of right And so And there's strategy to it, but sometimes you also just say fuck that too. No, I agree I I agree. I think the our audience I think we now we've been able to measure this and it can't Sometimes the biggest name with the biggest following does not perform. Well, sometimes they don't promote it Right, it gets weird, right? And that's a big part of it too is that it's got to be pushed on both sides Do you get that a lot? Do you get a lot of do you get like some of these guys? Because I know you're like us where that's not even something that we ask. It's just I don't either Right, I will send over the information do it as you want. I don't care. I got the conversation That's what I wanted right this is this is purely fucking selfish for me I get to travel the way I want to and I get to fucking talk to people I'd like to have conversations with right right, you know and from there The people that I like I end up building a regular relationship with and they're fucking friends Right and that's really what I want, right is more awesome people around that make me want to keep pushing the needle to do More awesome shit. Do you do you feel though? There are a lot of times these bigger guests that you've interviewed like that they just they maybe don't Take the time to do that or they don't maybe see the same value in that as maybe someone like you I think could be overwhelmed. Yeah, I think they're just fucking busy Yeah, there's only so much bandwidth that they can deal with and it just gets pushed. I think it's a very uh Good attitude to have about that right like I mean, yeah, they're cocksuckers out there Of course there are but I'm not trying to have them on my podcast You know what I mean like I'll just skip a week. Fuck it. Have you not aired somebody yet? Have you had someone that some that you don't know? I haven't I haven't but now I'm 20 and I'm still talking to people I really want to talk to you at some point this will happen Well, I actually think at the point where you're at right now where it's growing sometimes that's the hardest the most challenging because You know not everybody who does give you the time of day like some of the best people you want to talk to You know are busy They don't have the bandwidth and if you don't quite have the following yet It might be hard to get on a show so you're kind of confined to okay I can get these people's attention if I fly to them or do these things for them and and if okay Who are those people that I want to get on this podcast? I remember that being very challenging for us Right, you know and you know and again fortunately and kind of goes back to the kid who wants to start a t-shirt company Right like you you kind of grow with the people at your level And so because I already have a following and these other things going on It's a pretty easy transition to starting a podcast. It's not an easy transition to being as good a podcast as I am You know with the apparel sales, right, but I'm not starting from zero Right, I didn't wake up one day and say I'd like to interview people and then start trying to send emails to celebrities Well, you add value no matter what you add value even to even to a large huge person in big business You already bring value to the table something some you know something of some sort, right? so I mean, you know, that's a huge help and and understanding that Like if you're gonna run a podcast and that's something you want to do like you got to have the chops too to be able to hold conversation right and If I can not a lot of people do the tough ones man, or when you have someone on And and don't grasp that it's a conversation Answer yes. No. Yeah Yeah, the fuck you want me to do with that Stuck telling stories. No, it's the worst And I've been I've been lucky that with the podcast I haven't run into that but I did outside sales In oil and gas industries. These were not The shining beacons of conversation that I took to lunch every week Right, right, you know, I've had to carry a lot of conversations or Smile through hearing someone say shit that I just know is ignorant and dumb Yeah for the greater good That's a good that's a skill bro. That's the skill that you developed. It is it is Do you think it mostly developed from that job or what fuck for sure? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm I'm a salesman, you know, that's I know that's what I am and that's what I do and it's Do you remember when you made that connection like oh, I'm kind of good at this and I like it like Yeah, it would have been Like I knew it whenever I did stuff with the bike shop. I knew it whenever I sold merch from my buddy's band That I could do it Uh, I'm good at the interaction with people. Yeah, but when did you get the the taste and the thirst for that? You like like I like I like this a lot a lot of that came from it It's the hunt With sales and like the oil and gas job. It was still exciting for me that like All right, I know they got a job coming up in 12 months Like I got to start now so I can have four or five lunches with them and build this rapport where we've never really talked about work To slowly get to this point of like, hey, man, you know, if this thing you guys got coming up Now were you taught that skill right there? No, you fucking just yeah, of course because you can't just show Fucking smash people in the face with bye. Bye. Bye. Yeah, but you know what people make that mistake? Everybody makes that mistake, but there's a lot of people at everything. Yeah, I know It'll be your friends house is something right just for you saying that and knowing how important that is I bet you that was probably one of the things that separated you from your peers Yeah, yeah for sure, right? Uh, and then I'd say A lack of my being able to play the game as well kept me from being very good at it Like there was a certain level of like, I'm not willing to cross that gross threshold I'll just not do that I don't want to fucking go with some creepy dude To the strip club and like watch him get gross and then I have to go eat dinner with him and his wife You know what I mean like Nah, man You guys go have a good time. Was that common? It's not common, but it has it happened for sure. Yeah You got it. There's a there's a misconception out there about sales and where if you want to be Successful in sales you have to compromise your integrity Depends on your definition of success. All right. Well, I'll tell you what Some of the most successful sales people I've ever met have some of the best integrity They're just really good at communicating just very good at communicating and maybe they've maybe because they've held that line They've got to a job where they get to hold that line. All right They get to do something right? I mean, look, I've also did a sales job that I was successful at It was fucking awful, but I had bills to pay. What was that like? Uh, it was terrible, dude It was the worst job I've ever had were you selling a home telephone service Yes at an AT&T store and so talk about get your ego shit sorted This is after I closed the bike shop. So I went from running my own thing Entrepreneur here's some humble pie son to back that's some of this humble pie to back deejaying at the strip club at night And working at this AT&T store six hours a day Or for six days a week and uh, like so I'm wearing a suit a shitty suit This fucking picture off the rack $150 suit fits me like garbage bags We'll like the way you look I guarantee it. Yeah, I want to hear you bring up Bambi right now And now come into the stage on one. We got cinnamon Two with a little bit less on we got Bambi put your clients together ladies and gentlemen If you ain't tipping your damn short tripping TNA action tonight at escapades total non-stop action you're way too good at that. Yeah Let's just do it asleep Her dad was never around She's here for money Hey, did you get get a couple heavy strippers come in you start? Yeah, what's the craziest thing you saw at that strip club people die Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait We have stripper die a stripper died That's the saddest thing I've ever heard like on the pole. No, no, she was in the back doing like a line of blow or something Oh, shit. It looked like she was currently trying to figure out how to breathe mexican pizza What what what so okay, so she'd come up in the dj booth while I was breathing. Yeah. Yeah, she's good. Um She'd come up in the dj booth for me and one of the other bouncers were talking and she's like You guys want any of these like big fucking handful of oxys? We're like, no Get the fuck out of here. She's like cool Gloop. Oh, shit. She throws this whole fucking handful down thinking they were like a xanax Oh, shit And like looked at her. I was like you better get the fuck out of here and she's like what I'm like You're gonna be fucking dead in 45 minutes. You just ate 300 grams and since I oh, you like called it Yeah, I was like you're in trouble And I was not wrong. Whoa How long did it take for that to happen like what what 45 minutes and she was in the back Yeah, some other girl walked out. I was like, hey, uh She's not just taking a nap What? Damn That's a great start up Do you have to shut down the club or are you like keep dancing? Come on go through the back. I mean shut down the club. Oh, that's terrible. They didn't miss a set on stage No, really? Straight ambulance through the back carry her out and then we didn't have a back door. No Wield her through the club, dude. Oh my god. This was not a nice place. I worked at No, shit, bro. Man. It's weird times, dude. Like what else did you see there? You went straight to death, bro. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah You wore me up right like sorry You wore me up like a bar fight first 20 a minute Maybe like a guy slapping an ass and then you punch like so the weird spot about working at a place like that, right? Like this is like a big chunk of the stories that you'll have of like insanity Is like in the first month And then it's normal And so it doesn't register as a crazy thing that happened. I get that And so you're just it just it was like working in the fucking wild west It was just a place that rules didn't exist And you were So well compensated for not having morals That that's how everyone played Now is it is it true that a lot of strip clubs are like groups of them are owned by like Organizations like ha's and stuff like that. Do you do you know much about that? This one was owned by a old redneck guy named steve Just one club. It's uh, he owned so he owned the property. Yeah, steve looked like willy nelson big fucking ponytail uh Like strippers He always had like four or five that lived at his house Do what you love. Yeah, and then The other owner was this two strikes felon vietnamese guy uh that To to get money to open a strip club Start an insurance company And collected premiums for two years for a company that didn't he didn't exist just collected premiums and denied service For two years and then went to jail Like so that was he like that was the plan so i'm gonna do this as long as i can Real stand-up characters there. I'm gonna i'm gonna do this thing. His plan was i'll do this as long as i can All the money goes to my brother. It's in his name I'll go to jail and then i get out and i have the money Oh, shit. That was part of the business plan. Oh my god. Wow. Did it work then did i mean? Yeah, he was the owner of a strip club. I mean, I don't know what worked means I mean i watched him get pistol whipped by steve one night So i mean what you saw someone get pistol whipped. Yeah, he found out men was stealing from him Yeah, i've seen that happen. So he pistol whipped him in front of us And we decided to stop steve from killing him because we thought it would be more of a hassle to deal with And if we just stopped him what Dark place, dude There's just things that happen in there that like outside the door you'd be like i would not do that And then in there you're like me that's what i meant by like I've heard that a lot of these types of clubs are like protected by HA's and major games We had a handful of motorcycle games that came through but like uh, we for the most part didn't allow colors in the bar Oh, okay, so you couldn't wear whatever your gear was Okay, and those guys always just showed up and wanted to get in fights with the bouncers and they weren't very good at fighting Oh, yeah, no, that's funny. At least in our area. They were not They were not skilled combatants What would be like the typical thing? Person that you'd have to deal with there Like is it normal a typical person that we have just drunk it's just overly drunk and too gropey And so when you walk them out and they want to leave and then occasionally they want to fight and drunk people don't fight well Don't get hammered and try to fight bouncers. It's a fucking terrible idea Probably gonna lose. Yeah, there's a bunch of them Don't get the shit beat out of you and some seedy strip club parking lot at 8 30 on a tuesday night It's gold number one. It's not a good look on you. It's about the bottom. Motherfucker. It's tuesday. Yeah, it's about the bottom Why are you so fucking wrecked the talent isn't even there on that night right now? Yeah, uh Talent gets weird man because a talent would show up on mondays Because you would only have regulars in the club So they'd make more money with less customers. You don't have to do the stage work No one's getting paid on stage like this is a strip club hack. No, this is good information. Yeah school There's that I mean you As a as a bouncer at least the one I worked at like I think my friends that still bounce, uh It seems to be a hair more regulated in a way that like the scams aren't there and so like one of you know one of the scams we had was You know the area right around the front of the stage like I mean even if it was dead ass empty And it's you know early in the night and big group comes in and they want to sit And they sit down there and like you approach them as a bouncer and like hey, man Look, I got a big party coming in later. These seats are reserved. I'm you know, I'm sorry And they get kind of pissy about it. And then you're like, man, let me see what I can do if you guys want to Take care of us Like oh, you know, but like you know when my party gets in y'all got to move So you got 10 dudes like it's easy for them to come up with 200 bucks So now I've given them chairs. Oh, um, these chairs aren't reserved So I've made money there And then the place gets filled up and I've done this a couple times now So the whole stage is full and some other chairs are full So some other big group comes in later and they're like, oh, man, police is crowded. They're nowhere to go I'm like, man, let me see what I can do And then they so they pay you for the chairs now, right? And you go tell the guys and you're like, hey man, that party's here And so they fucking happily get up and leave So, man, it's good times man. Oh, so that's a good hustle That one. Yeah. Yeah, that worked and the funny part is like, I know other guys that worked in strip clubs in different places And everyone's done it. Oh, really? That's gay all tapped into that idea. I've now I've never heard that I guess if you see it enough, right? No patterns. You're like, oh, it's funny now like going to a strip club Like no, it's so what do you see the man behind the curtain? Yeah Going on here. You're not pulling this one on me pal Dude, the weird one we had the scam and this was this was like management scam, which is is super fucking illegal It's called a be drinking And so the way that works is the girls would get tipped out at the end of the night better Based on the number of drinks they sold And so, you know, you girl sits down with the customer waitress comes up and it's like, hey, do you want to buy her a drink? Like, yeah, you know, sure, you know, what do you have? And you know, she says vodka or says, you know, whiskey or whatever it is, right? Well, the shot that comes back is water or right, you know, her tequila or whiskey I don't feel for that. I got bro. Yeah, I was 21 years old. Do it dude. I was 21 years old man I was in uh, hawaii money. She can't get that fucked up every year The top performers in the company gets flown out to hawaii stay there for a week It's really cool trip with you know, and the the best of the best is there. So it's a cool thing I'm 21 years old. I'm fucking full of piss and vinegar. Hell yeah And I go to this is also about the age I was working. Okay, so I go I go there With my regional vice president the divisional president the uh, there's all these big wigs And I'm the young 21 year old kid who's like rolling with these guys So I already feel feel like big shit as it is and then I get into this strip club And I'm a young confident guy that's never really had to ever pay for pay for sex So I'm like, I'm not well go into a strip. I think that's a confusion bit, right? That like that's why you would go to a strip club and I never took it is that even when I've gone by myself like It was a place that it's like there was there were sports on tv, right? It was dark There's less people than a regular fucking bar, right and there's comfy chairs and hot naked women And there's tits out, right, right? It's not the life, right? This seems so obvious Yeah, well I get in here and my attitude is like, uh, you know what? I'll just I'll talk to one of the girls. I'll meet someone here. I don't need to go through Get to know her, right? So I sit at the bar. I order a drink watching sports by myself Doesn't take but 15 minutes and probably the hottest car the hottest girl in the bar comes walking over stands next to me animal magnetism Oh man, right? So I'm feeling unconfident here And she sits down next to me and asks what's a good looking guy like myself sitting by myself and You know and we go back and forth and I just I'm sold that she's into me Of course and she asked me do you want to have shots with me? And of course I want to have yeah That's how we get drunk and let me get laid 100% that's going through this road guys And so oh, yeah, right away. I give the bartender my credit card and just open a tab And we're going and I'm going shot for shot with this girl and I'm like fucking seven eight deep, dude And I'm like I'm part of me is excited and I'm going like man. This is for sure happening This girl's totally sober. Yeah, she's going shot for shot with me and the time just keeps rolling Like we're an hour and a half in this conversation. I'm wondering like man How many more shots for this girl's gonna want to leave and get out of here? 2 a.m. Yeah, exactly. Yeah 2 a.m. And uh, and even then at this point, I still think it's gone. It's going my way Yeah, until I cash out and my tab is fucking like 700 dollars, dude And I was like and of course still trying to act like a boss, you know sign it Yeah, yeah, no, I'm going like, what were we drinking? I meant to do that. And then I find out later on Dude, I did not know welcome. I didn't bring her home by the way, you know And I find out that that was the whole hustle. I did not know that Did she give you her number afterwards and everything? I did have her number I did have her but I don't know if it's a burner phone I'm sure I'm sure she had her phone that she gives the fucking guys at the bar Yeah, yeah, because she you know, even then they would let the girls We had had customers that would fucking pay them rent and fucking do all kinds of shit. Oh, I bet. Well, we struggled to ever have terribly attractive strippers because Eager beats pretty and Right the horse the horse would run off the good looking ones Eager beats pretty yeah, that's kind of the rule of what we had going on like They'll do more Welcome to escapades, they're kind of Is that really how it gets down then it's at the place I worked at yeah. Yeah. Yeah Eager beats pretty yeah the place I worked at was sketchy But what was the turnover like for girls? Is it like the same core group or do you see a lot of turnover? It's like 80 20 like you had 20% that was always there lifers Your your lifers and then the 80% would just roll over chicks that would work for a month and you'd never see again Or work for a month and disappear and come back So you worked there then you opened your bike shop and then went back after your clothes. Yep. Oh, super cool same place. Yeah So like home when you because I knew I could walk in I kept the really I still have friends that work at the club Right like a different club, but it's all the same like managers and guys that I bounce with or a different club in bat rouge I stay in contact with them because there's some stupid fear in my head of like always have a fucking plan He's got that as a pocket. I can fucking go work tomorrow night If I give if I can send a text like I can go make whatever some cash tomorrow night Because I got bills I can figure out something else while I'm while I'm getting paid I'll beat up some scumbags. I will never not be impressed strategy and don't fucking burn those bridges man. It's good people to know Was that was that how tough was that selling your business and having to do that? It's gotten bad enough in the end that it It was a welcome They're like, okay. We need to shut the doors You know and so what ended up happening is my partner bought me out, which essentially means I left with my debt You know and it was his afterwards and so Like there was a big relief of when he finally just was like look man Go do your other thing. I know you don't want to be here. You're not and we can't support two of us How long did you try and run at that and how much debt did you? It's about three and a half years. Uh, I I got out with like 50 grand. Okay. It's not too bad Well, so I didn't have student loans. So at least I figured that out for myself 50 grand's a lot when you have no money No money. Yeah, that's a lot of fucking money. 50 grand's a lot of money Yeah, yeah, period Right, like I don't know if there'll ever be a point in my life where I don't think 50 grand's a shit Well, I think that what it what it highlights though is it was it was an education For sure, right? Probably one of the best educations you've probably ever had in business Yeah, I got a lot out of it and I mean part of the problem was that 22 year old me was trying to run the business side of the business There's a fucking huge mistake. I don't do that now with the current thing I'm doing I have a guide my partner does that side of things. Yeah, because I'm fucking bad at it Yeah, and I just don't give enough of a shit Yeah, but I just look at things like money's in right so money goes out We need more things to sell You know, you know, I don't want to track and do all the number part because they It cuts down on the creative side and then you get bogged in it And so the more that I can keep my head freed up to do do with what you're good at Yeah, do the do the thing that why we started this When you left and you got a job at the trip club again and in the job at AT&T or whatever back to AT&T Yeah, that's the worst job ever. Oh, why was it so bad dude? So We're selling home telephones, which is a fucking thing. No as cell phones are on a rise I'm at a cell phone store That sells iPhones and I'm selling a home telephone service. I don't work for AT&T I work for this third party. It's like I don't have a desk Or anything like I've got a clipboard And a notebook. Oh my god, I've been tortured for a while Yeah in a suit and so I just have to approach customers in AT&T stores and ask them about their home telephone service And if there's if I could help them by bundling Call waiting or fucking whatever garbage it is and maybe even throwing some direct TV That I could save money over the course of the month, which it never did It never saved Anyone money. Oh, that's hilarious. Oh, I love it when they tell you that you're gonna save money Mike, but what if I don't get that then I don't spend that. Yeah, but you're saving money Right and so that was like we had a notebook that showed the different plans and like if they moved from this to this what it would do and So it's easy to sell someone but like I had to approach a stranger and explain the thing that I did for Didn't did and I'm like, you know, you would just it was just high pressure sales Like the whole model of it was like I have to get your social security number in your name so that I can make a phone call to check on your current service to See what we can upgrade to change. Oh, yeah. And so you're just never giving them a question It's just always like so let me get your social security number and assumption close all day Yep Yeah, and so and You know be like all the notebooks says, you know, you're at $35 now and this is gonna lower you to 30 bucks a month, right? You know, blah, blah, blah, you know, you'll have call waiting on your phone. Just don't fucking use it um And then like sure enough like after you call in the order I was like, oh, you know their current their current bill right now is 34 dollars and the next bill will be 65 I'm like So I would just tell people like, you know, if it doesn't work out just cancel Cancel like in a month because I've already been paid my commission from doing Deal, right? Yeah. And so it's just bad, dude If you if if I always tell people this if you want to get good at sales go Go sell something with a fast sale cycle, which phones are and so are memberships and gyms So, you know where I came from fast sales cycles you get a lot of reps and Work and work and try and sell something that's hard to sell like you get a fast sale cycle and something That's hard to sell you are forged by fire. Oh for sure for sure You definitely are and then like the the real tough part of that job was uh like the guy who owned the company's this little indian fella and um Race Mars get him if anyone's interested But like I remember like I knew that we were just fucking people And so we would have we'd have a meeting at the office in the morning before we got sent to our stores They'd also send us to different stores every day so that when people were pissed they couldn't come back and Was that the real strategy? Yeah, I had to have been oh my god. It's hilarious, right? And so And then we had a meeting at the end of the day To like go over our sales And so the meeting at the first part of the day this was like 7 a.m. We met And went over sales tactics and like had a discussion of like if a customer says this you say this and like went over the fucking script and then like would do improv Like be a negative customer role play And uh Then at the end of the day we would come back and if you had like over x amount of sales Like we'd like rang a fucking bell and high-fived each other. That's that's in every like sales giant corporate manual Every sales job that has a faster sales cycle the bell is The leader we were we were we we saw the bell we were we were going somewhere the solar panel company. Yeah Oh, yeah, we were walking through and we saw the city. Yeah, and we saw bells and all of us laughed and we're like That's more dude. It's on It's there because it actually war because it does the motivator does work You're the thing you like that and a little bit of competition and like having like You know if you're doing this and then you could move up to this next position And then you're a team leader and then if you move up from that like you could have your own Weird third-party AT&T thing Now did you kick everybody's ass even though you didn't like the job? I did well at it. Yeah Yeah, it was me and two other dudes who were very good at it. Yeah, and then I just like I just quit I'm gonna stop doing it. Did you go from there to the oil? Yeah. Okay. How long did you stay doing that though for? Oh, so you got that before you got into the yeah, that was right after so this was this was I put out a a A resume Which is basically blank On monster.com and got an email from a company And this was the fucking first company that emailed me back and I went and looked and applied took the job and Did not make some mortgage payment You know, yeah, I was like, oh cool. You'll pay me starting tomorrow. That sounds awesome. I'll be there. I'll be there In the meantime, I'll find another job Best time to find a job is where you currently have one. Yeah, that is true Were you married at this time or not? Uh, not married yet. You guys are dating. Yeah, we've been going we're living together Um, how's her support been through because that's her support always awesome Um, but she knew that the bike shop thing was a sinking ship. And so I mean, you know, she busted ass too, right? Like she Picked up a second job that she didn't need she was a paralegal and got a second job to help And you know, I was never fucking home because I worked at the strip club at night and then did this thing at AT&T stores during the day and She was okay with the strip club working. Yeah Yeah, I had the job before we started going out and then like she met me bouncing at a regular bar Okay, like That works in bars That's how it goes and then you work at a strip club because it pays better than working at regular bars And it's less customers. Right. It's easy. Right. It's just weird Yeah, like if you don't have your shit together the strip club will eat you No, that's funny But you know, there's less danger than the regular bar or the the regular bar has a little bit less danger But there's not as much reward And we watch it fucking chew up and spit people out People can't handle that environment. Mm-hmm How how is it your your relationship changed as your your because now you have a successful business Right. Yeah, how is that? She's she's just always had had my back. That's great. But I've always worked I've never sat around and not been jobless or whatever. Right. I've never been the you know, not providing You know when things were bad or we were broke. I seem to always be able to figure out how to go make money I'd say that's a skill that I have I will work. I will take care of these responsibilities You know what comes with that though? And I think the lesson from someone like you is that You're willing to do whatever. I mean, it's like I don't give a shit. Right. I think look I think what I'm doing right now is awesome and it's currently successful But I've never had the same job for over 11 years Like that's the longest I was ever in a you know, a certain field or a career So to think that this is what I do until I'm fucking 60. I think it's insane. Right So I mean always eyes forward, right, you know and Winner if this stops being what pays my bills something else will you know, how many people you think have this ability? I think a lot of people are Well, I think people get stuck too in jobs like they hate and all this stuff Because it's safe and comfortable, but at the same time It's like you got to go through a lot of shit jobs to get to a point where we're at where it's like, oh my god How did I get so lucky that I'm in this kind of a job where everything is? You know like like it seems easy like I could just have a conversation and now You know, I'm doing this and I'm getting paid for this But it's like, you know, you have to go back and revisit all these stepping stones. You had to get crushed You know doing shit jobs digging holes And you know like doing some some stuff where like it's uncomfortable and it's it's fucking hard Got to be okay with eating shit for a while. That's right The at&t job provided me with a way to work in another job where I had some sales experience And then from there, you know was actually doing physical labor and these scanning and the refineries and then Realized that like well, we get paid some commission on top of salary. So like if we have more jobs, we make more money And so I just started coal calling people at refineries. Oh shit. So you you proactively started yeah I got better commission if we had jobs boom I'm trying to get paid. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I bet they loved you for that. Yeah, it was awesome They rewarded it very well and then eventually another company reached out that just wanted me to do sales Oh, shit. That's how that went down. So went to another company and then did was there for Four or five years and then got hired by another company that wanted to hire a guy in that region Being a sales guy and admitting that you're a sales guy and that you enjoy it and you like it What was the most rewarding month for you? Don't give me a story of like a just a performance that you did or a hard close or um The ones that always I felt good about were When I fixed a thing Uh and and what I mean like is so don't you give me the pg you fucking answer right now Don't give me the fucking what everybody's gonna say Well, like I never I never got fucking I never got like crazy You know commissions off of the the jobs I had once I'd gotten to sales role. They paid a great salary. Okay And so like closing big fucking sales and like getting us into a refinery that like we haven't been into before or like The the sales cycle in the oil and gas industry is so long Yeah, you said like four or five lunches. Yeah, and so I mean that's long like that would be short term Like there's a lot of jobs that like say what fuck it's March of 2018 right now like my brother still does this job and like I guarantee you stuff right now that he's plotting is 21 And so like that job that major turnaround doesn't happen until fucking 2021 Yeah, I got to start now Like I need to be over there I need to be seeing these guys and going to lunch and talking about the plan and do they have this in pants Yeah, what about then and in other that it finally comes through That's like when that fucking hits that you've had a job that you've chased chased and chased and it seems like you're getting fucking nowhere And I'm flying to chicago once a week For eight months to go take these guys to lunch or or fly to chicago to take these guys to lunch and have a meeting cancelled Oh, like oh cool. I'll just go home. Yeah, no problem This is a fun flight. That's what I was looking to do Is that how you handle that too? Because I feel like you would be that guy just you got paid the same either way Right, right. It just it just gets frustrating and then you have to play it like can't be a dick about it Right. Yeah, there's a guy man. Don't worry. So I'll go see some other people in the area You know fucking everybody else in the area Order a movie in the hotel room. Yeah, that's yeah, just fucking hang out. Go find a gym Go get some deep dish pizza. What about in all the professions combined like there has to be like so not just the oil I mean, I'm talking or the get oil and gas But I'm talking like your current business right now or maybe in the 18 t was there a A big month where you you were top in the company for 18 t Or was there a time when you first started selling apparel and you broke a major milestone? um, there was a time during at&t were like The second level of sales like that they had like if you could hit this many in this many days You know, then you you were hired as a promoted which i'm not sure what the fuck you got for that promotion um A pen. Yeah, you got to have other people report to you with no added money So you get more responsibility more responsibility. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Same money. Yeah power is what it was, you know But I remember like Three weeks in like I was already at the top Doing sales for the thing. Oh, wow and The the owner guy had you know basically said You know like in a meeting one morning. He's like, hey, you know, I'd like to you to share You know what you're picking up on that's working here. I'd been working in a strip club for five years So you had a great strip club story. No, I'm like, you're like My my goal was whatever got me to them buying this thing. I can give a shit what got us there My goal was them signing this sheet of paper, which means I got a commission What happened pre and post that fucking gives a shit So how'd you answer it? You fucking lied to people and and like so like I made up a bullshit thing and then oh, yeah Yeah, no, I didn't tell the group in the meeting like, you know, it's about listening and blah, blah, blah and uh So like afterwards like I talked to my boss and I'm like, hey man Do you know that we're just fucking people, right? because I'm okay that that's what we're doing But I need to know that you know that that's what we're doing And you're not lying to yourself and like he couldn't give it up to me to be like no, I know that's part of the gig Oh, really? And so like I quit. Oh shit That was like that was more of a lie to me than the idea of Lying to be that we were fucking straight up lying to people, right because it's almost like that's the job That's what I was the game. You could just not deal with me. I'm still in a home telephone service. You rube Why are you a mark that came in and bought, you know, this giant package that I'm going to get all the commission on Why? It's a home telephone. No one needs it. Well, I mean you may need it for your security system. Come on This fucking antiquated dinosaur that we were selling to people It's like selling newspapers. No, we're selling iron lungs Dude great training though. You hold your vaccines It got a lot easier when you were selling stuff that people wanted right and that you And you believed and now way cooler selling a thing that's essentially me right and a thing I like making right You know or or even training stuff like I fucking like talking about training. It's great Yeah, and so Yeah, this is way better But all that all that helped like I'm not nervous having conversations with strangers I'm not nervous Hearing no from someone doesn't mean a fucking thing to me. That's a that's a superpower that you have to Well, I mean it's a numbers game like if you realize what you're doing is sales You know, especially with the petrochemical thing like when I first started like I knew that Every 10 phone calls I made Gave me two people that would answer the phone one of which would have a meeting with me So if I need to book 10 meetings this week, I got to make a hundred phone calls. So That's the game And if for every 10 meetings equaled one That ended up in a second meeting And went to a possible job Like it just extrapolates out and it's beautiful because if you apply it that way and you the more you do it The better you get the the increased of the closes the increased of the shows the increase You just start turning this is exactly what I kind of had brought to The my fitness team that I felt that no other person brought in our in our space at the time On the fitness side on the you had all these fitness leaders That were talking about the the science behind fitness, which is good. I think it's important that you have educated trainers And then how to you know, do their files and track and understanding that piece and Communication of the clients, but nobody was really talking about the business side of it Right and at the end of the day all these people Want to do this for a living and want to be able to someone to make money. That's why you're here Right, and I thought it was a base start right see profit right and I thought it was really fascinating that nobody was talking about Like, okay. Well, why don't you just start to break this down mathematically like, okay You have to I have to talk to 10 people on the floor which with no pressure just talk to them I have to talk to 10 people out of those 10 people, you know, three or four of them are going to Want to actually have the conversation and actually ask me some questions That then leads me an opportunity to book them a free appointment, which that should be really fucking easy to convince They're already coming to the gym. Right. They're coming to the gym. They're already asking me questions Now I've got three appointments out of those three appointments You know one of those people or two of those people end up showing one of those people end up closing at an average of This dollar amount. So okay now we can Unpack your dollar amount. You need to make every single month. You tell me you want to make $10,000 a month I'll tell you how many people you got to talk to every single day You're not willing to talk to those people then fuck off Exactly you're never gonna want to work the money never going to be successful doing that But if you start and I tell every trainer this that's listening and this applies to any sales job But trainers especially You start tracking that you start paying attention to that Month by month and then you don't compare yourself to anyone else you compete with yourself You get better at your craft you see more people you get more it doesn't seem so mysterious anymore, right? It's the mystery that people fuck up. Yeah, it becomes you know the recipe. That's it and know in the recipe ski I mean, that's the same thing for I mean fuck. It's what we do with strength training Like, you know, it's really hard to say man. I want to deadlift 600 You know, but all right. Well, let's get you to four What do we do to get you to four? Well, we know that if we can hit these markers along the way We can get you to 600 We can fucking back it all the way out over two years or however long you want to do it Mm-hmm and I mean it it's the people that just show up and they're like I want this And then don't have an aim right like, you know You know a boat without a port in mind all the wind's bad And so fucking have a direction and that way you know how to harness what's in front of you to make it go somewhere That's right And and step two to that is be willing to fucking change when shit goes south. Right. Oh, yeah, you know realize oops Side step. Yeah So important. Yeah, you know, I think that that's something I've talked about a lot recently with you know in Seminar stuff is that is his failure, right? And that's what I was saying about like I don't care about hearing no Like no, I'm supposed to right how many here know so many fucking times it doesn't even register or how many Answer machines they get to because of trying to cold call. Mm-hmm. It would get so bad on cold calls that when someone picked up I was like Who the fuck was that one answer like is this Mitch? You know Well, it's true because nobody answers the right and then they answer you're like shit, man. Yeah, I'm from Just hope that they fucking will tell you their name So you remember who you were actually calling right and and so Like if you can listen like failures a way better teacher than success And so like don't be fucking scared of failure. That's where you get better And so like have the be be willing to fucking suck at something For a long time to get good at it, right? You don't just get it on day one. Mm-hmm. And so Like be bad at closing sales and realize where you were too pushy or you were too aggressive or that You didn't read this guy The right way I should have picked up on the things he was saying earlier about this and that that he's not the type Of dude that we're going to be able to push right You know or this is going to be way slower and he wants an actual friendship And then these other customers don't want anything to do with you Being afraid of rejection and being in sales is like being afraid to get punched in the face and being a boxer Right. Yeah, it's literally the same thing Yeah, like you can't go box if you're just Refused to get punched in the face and you're super afraid then don't box It's not going to right. It's yeah, if you're going to do sales You're swinging the bat. You're going to strike. There's just just the way it is Yeah, and sometimes you'll connect, but you're going to strike a lot my shit major league baseball man 25 percent. That's it Yeah, hallfamer I'll take those numbers What do you what do you think's the single best advice ever given to you that you've applied to your life now? And it's made a bit the biggest difference Hmm You know, I think it really goes to that that not being afraid to fail is that You know fucking failure happens man, but like You're gonna have failures and you're gonna have like major fucking failures But don't quit like just sidestep and make another move or decide like okay, that didn't work Let's go forward. Now. How do we learn from it? How do we how do we learn from the failures? And I remember being told that through sports and all these other things like Okay, well, what did we learn? We got beat what did we learn from it so that we don't fucking do this again Don't waste the failure right don't waste the fucking failure at all right because I mean if you went out and The first time you ever played basketball was like, you know a one-on-one tournament right and you won I'm like, okay basketball is easy. All right, maybe everyone you're playing against sucked right So I mean be willing to do that and be willing to always go find people better than you to be around to learn from you know don't The only thing that really bothers me doing the seminar stuff that I've done And I'm very conscious of like with my podcast or my youtube channel So I don't do a lot of how-to content because I get weirded out feeling like I'm an expert at anything And like I know that I've got valuable information and that I have the experience and I should be able to share those things but I personally feel like Man, if I make a video telling people how to deadlift like why wouldn't I just go get edcone to do that? I just call it right Fuck do I know You know why you share your story? Oh, it's exactly right. You know, I'm getting over that because it's not valid Well, that's why even like I asked questions like I just asked you right now Like uh, you know, I'm not asking you a direct answer about something that you can debate if it's right or wrong It's like I'm interested in I know your your path. You've shared it with us. I know how successful you are So it's interesting to me to hear like, okay What what what was this guy given when he was in his early 20s that kind of set him on this path of Being okay with that and you keep going back to this kind of failure And I think it's it's an important piece that a lot of young people don't get comfortable with right They run into it and the first time they have it. It's just They haven't been exposed to it a lot devastating for them and it's just they give up or they just oh It's not for me or we blame others. It's like, you know, I think that's why you gotta let your kids fail, man Yeah, the lesson is to get comfortable with it. It's gonna happen a lot It's gonna happen all you can get comfortable. You just can't get complacent. Yeah, it can't be okay You know, it's it's always when you can look at it as something to to move forward from um Yeah, that was a big a big part of what shaped everything. I think I think another really big change it would have been When my when my old man passed away when I was 31 Um, like that was a big change and like we didn't have like a weird relationship or any of that type of stuff, right? Like guy got sick with pancreatic cancer and died 11 months later and it's super fucking lame um But there was definitely a realization at that moment like like he was 62 and I was 31 and I remember just thinking that like He's fucking halfway No And if you are the fuck are you doing with your time? Are you doing anything that you actually like to do? Because these days are limited. I mean that shit's coming like you can be miserable Or happy and you're gonna fucking die either way So let's work on happy. Hmm You know and not stressed out and fucking anxious all day and doing things and being around people I want to be around like man at this point. I've had enough fucking lunches with people. I don't want to talk to I don't want to do it anymore. My answer is no Yeah, no, I don't want to go do a thing. Yeah But the stuff I want to do like I'm fucking in I'm there. Yeah, I want to hang out. It's never a hassle I'm not inconvenienced if it was an inconvenience. I would not have come You know and that's but that's I mean, that's whatever standard you choose to set You know, that's important to you and I'm sure that aggravates. I mean, there's there's shit that I skip I don't know. I should probably go to but I don't Yeah, but that's wisdom It's like you you understand yourself on the level where you can decipher whether or not This is really going to benefit you and your time versus, you know, something that you're a little more passionate about Yeah, or there's just something you don't want to fucking do or that What would you rather do nothing? Right alone and people appreciate that. Yeah, which is you know, you think like you're gonna piss people off Well, at least you know that if I show up, that's where I want to be Right, like I try to be pretty conscious that if I show up to a place I'm not sitting in the corner on my cell phone looking fucking bored of shit So what you're saying is you like us. Yeah, which is why I came for a couple days to fucking sit around here and do nothing You know And like I told you yesterday that like I mean there's part of it That's content and doing this and like having to calculate a plan of like, oh, you know These guys have a podcast. I've got a podcast. Let's go talk and do this thing, right? But there's there's part of it too that like You guys are better at a thing That I'm doing I want to go learn This is the same as I wanted to go fucking learn when I was you know starting to lift and would go to Ohio to hang out with Wendler for a week I want to learn from the people around me that are better than me and take the bits and pieces of like Well, this works for what I'm doing. This doesn't and if you get one fucking thing over a trip to be someone that You get to apply that makes a difference like totally worth it whole run. It requires it requires humility To to go somewhere and be like this person's better and I'm gonna sit down and just absorb And I mean if you're the best person in the room at everything you do fucking go find new friends Yeah, exactly never gonna grow. We we've we've interviewed some podcasters that just blew us away when they left We're like, whoa, did you learn this did you see how he did that? And oh, yeah, I love that try and keep them tight Oh, I love it. Yeah. Why wouldn't you try to keep those people, you know in your wheelhouse like I mean like like Kelly stirrats become one of my wife and I's like best friends And that wasn't the intention when we first went out and met the guy But then I mean he's as much as moved into a mentor role for me as anything without it being Without it being that right, you know that you just have that respect for him. Yeah Yeah, I've got that but it's it's some weird thing because you know he or mark bell or like john wellborn I mean these guys are all 10 years older than me So it is this weird Dad authority figure at the next point in their life, but it's also appear Yeah And and so it's cool, you know that I mean you should fucking have those people, man Yeah, absolutely. Well shit, man. We love having you on the show brother. I love coming out You guys are gonna do some uh, you and just gonna rip some youtube. Yeah You're moving the video you guys did Is one of my favorite one is the one was It's my favorite, bro, it's one of my favorite people were really bummed out that I pooped on some girls pillows Yeah, that's dude. That was so hilarious. I deal story to tell me. You have to keep that one ramped up Not a proud moment. I didn't say I bring out No, no you served it right because right afterwards you fold up and listen I know that I wouldn't be friends with me back I'm not a good. I knew I was in a good person. Yeah, uh great story. That was my favorite stories though. Well shit, man Good times again, bro. It's always fun, dude. Let's rip some more content on youtube. Yes content. Appreciate it. 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