Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - Joe Wallace | Former Von Dutch CEO, Pro Athlete & Entrepreneur | Coffeez Ep. 303

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

Former pro basketball player. Former CEO of Von Dutch. Serial entrepreneur. Joe Wallace sits down with Joe Shalaby and holds nothing back — the FBI story, buying a thousand foreclosed homes, building a sports agency, Von Miller's chicken brand, Galaxy marketplace, lessons from Magic Johnson, Kareem, and Floyd Mayweather, and why your network is your net worth.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

One, two. Welcome to Cofies with Joshalee. Thank you. How are you today? I'm well, thank you. Good. My name's Alyssa and I'll be your barista. Pleasure.

Can I please take your drink order? Moka Latte. Moka Latte, you got it. Okay, first I want you, because it's tradition, I want you to choose a chocolate of your choice to enjoy while I get your coffee ready. Alright, I'm gonna go right here. Beautiful.

Now let me guess, did you play basketball? I'm an ex basketball for that. Amazing. I love that. I love that. We're excited to have you on the show, Joe. Likewise. Let me bring you over here to Joe Chalaby now. Let's do it. Let's do it. Follow me, please. Thank you. Welcome to another episode of Coffies with Joe Shalby. Today I'm sitting here with Joe Wallace, former NBA player, Sierra Entrepreneur and a very active investor and VC. He was also the former CEO of Von Dutch. Please welcome the one, the only, Joe Wallace. Thanks, thanks, Joe. Thank you so much. Thanks for having. All right, Joe, we're going to dive right into it. I'd like to ask everybody the same question.

What's your morning routine? 4 a.m. check emails. Go through my text messages because I turn my phone off at about 8.30 at night because I've got to go to bed about 9 o'clock. And really start the day. Depends. Probably three days out of the week. I'm at Equinox at about 5 a.m. like I was today. Swimming and steam and sauna and just try to.

you know try brother try just try to stay afloat that's it 4 a m that's the early wake-up call well i go to bed early so i can't that that's the way to roll it is so uh you you know you former pro basketball player all your kids are uh you know collegiate level athletes what was life like when you transition from being a pro basketball player into the real world so i mean you know it was extremely difficult um first of all i've I've been an entrepreneur my whole life, you know, in my head, right? I've always thought about doing businesses and always, you know, looked up and admired business

guys, probably even more than I did basketball, right? Basketball players growing up in Oxnard, you know, my mother bring me down to L.A. And I'd see limos and, you know, I got caught up and all that and was like, man, how do they that, right? And it's just always been fascinating to me to see that. So, you know, after playing Los Angeles is brutal, you know, I stopped playing. in an era when LA was really fun and people were going out. So you just would, you know, you just kind of got caught up in that lifestyle of going out and really didn't know where to,

you know, uh, uh, hitch my wagon, right? There's just so many different opportunities. You really got to try to pick one and stay with it, right? So I've never really done anything in movies, which would have been the obvious. I remember one time I went to a, um, Nike had a basketball. Like in that era, it was the Michael Jordan era, when it was all these athletes were, they were really staying afloat by doing these commercials. like Nike commercials and all these different commercials. And I went to a commercial one time, and I sat there, a couple of my buddies that played basketball.

They said, hey man, come, you know, come do this Nike commercial with us. And they were making money, right? And I was like, you know what? I'm gonna come check it on. I'll never forget. So I was sitting in the, they had like these bleacher stands outside, and I was sitting there. And I never forget, I had my shoes off,

and all my buddies are sitting in their laugh. And this little guy comes out, he goes, quiet, and I looked at him. looked at him and I looked at everybody else and I grabbed my shoes and I left and I said right then in there it was the tone and manner in which he said that to me that I just went it's not for me so I left movies alone right so I just felt like Hollywood is a place that you got to you know you know you either got to know somebody it's going to be really tricky and they treat you you know they don't really respect you like I you know they do in other circles so when I seen that I said

you know what movies isn't for me then I tried my hand in real estate bought a thing thousand foreclosed homes you could buy them from the bank in a big big tranche you know back in the day do you remember that hell that was i bought that in uh it was uh 98 something oh no i wasn't around they were they it's like the mortgage thing it crashed or something like that and the banks just had all of these they had all this property and so what we were doing was buying them and then we were renting them and we were going to try to you know either renegotiate with the bank and and sell them tried that That didn't work, right?

So I just kept trying my hand in stuff. I also was bringing in athletes and having them invest money with other people's deals, and I seen that didn't work, right? So I really had to just buckle up and figure it out for myself, and I had to learn business on the fly, right? Not the greatest student in the world, but one of those kind of guys that really can, you know, I'm a sponge. I can sit down and really learn and, you know, figure things out relatively quickly,

and that's what I did, right? I got and just started getting around people. I'd go to business meetings, and I just sat down. I met a gentleman. You know, this is a crazy story. It's probably my craziest thing that's ever happened to me in my life. I met, had a buddy out of Seattle called me one day, and I was with my, you know, fighting my ex-wife, and I was staying in a hotel, and he calls me, and he says,

I got to get you on the phone with somebody. I'm in Seattle. I met this guy at a car wash, and he's got a bunch of money, man, and he wants to start a sport. He wants to do something in sports. right? He puts this guy on the phone, he's out of Seattle. And I start talking to this guy, and he goes, you know what, man? I want you to come up here to L.A. And at that time, what was I working at? I think I was at Johnny Cochran's.

I mean, Johnny had started a sports agency. And I, so I fly up to Seattle. This guy's about 32, about 20 years ago. He raised about $90, 100 million, right? And you could read about it. It's a company called genetics. So I fly up there. He hires me. At that time, I was making $125,000 that just started, right? He flies me up, likes what he hears, and immediately the next day, he moves me into the four seasons on Doheny. Puts me in a $1,500 a night room, right?

Wow. I bring my family. He gives me a $2 million contract, right? And then he, this is all, you can read all about it because it goes bad, I'll tell you out there right now. But he, guy was, he was rolling, right? So I was in LA. He was based out of Seattle. And he would, you know, I kind of ran his stuff.

And what he was doing, he was raising money. But he bought Nautilus. Do you remember Nautilus? Workout equipment. Yeah. Back in the day, Nautilus was probably the primary. Yeah, I think maybe. He bought it.

And what he was going to do was he was going to do something similar to Equinox, but it was going to be more of a, where you would go. would be doctors in there and chiropractors. So it would be like a workout facility like an equinox, but you'd also have all these physicians in there. They'd take your blood and the machines would know who you are. And it just had all this stuff. So anyway, so he hires me. I'm living in the four seasons and I put a bunch of people on his board. So I put Shaq on his board. I put Danny Sullivan on his board, who's the number one race driver back in the day, Eric Dickerson on his board, Bida blew on his board, Muhammad Ali on his board. I forgot the senator, Jack Kemp, Jack Kemp on his

board. So I blew his board up, right. He, uh, you know, he wasn't doing right. He wasn't doing right. So at about, you know, after about a year and a half of just me just hustling and getting his company to the point where I thought I was, you know, I thought I was going to be able to retire off that deal. I get a call, FBI, he got arrested, everything just kind of blew up in my, face and that's that's what I really just said you know what you got to do it yourself you just got to do it yourself just you know you you I literally sat on the you know edge of my bed and started crying it was like are you kidding me right that's what I knew I just had to figure it out for myself and that's when I just started really

delving into what people were doing industries what industry I liked or what I thought it would like and I really just you know what I really understood was try to to find what's hot right I'm one of those guys that takes every meeting. You know, I go to all meetings. I tell people that all the time, I've had things derived from meetings that, and I go to meetings with people that people don't think you should go to meetings with. You know what I mean? Like, you know, an Uber guy, I'll say, you know, I got a cousin that you got this idea. We want to meet. You know what I'm saying? Like, all right, what's up? Tell me. And listen, eight times out of ten, it's nothing. But I've met somebody

that's in my roller decks, and, you know, I've had some things come from them that I never expected. So, and, you know, I try to tell people this, too, and I tell my kids this all the time, you never know who knows who. You really don't, man, and don't judge a book by the cover. I swear, I've had some things happen and seeing that, you know, and it's true to the reverse, right? People can look really, really super rich and be, you know, you live in Newport. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? It goes both ways. So you just don't know what you're getting regardless. You really got to go fill it out and see what's what. That's a good point. There's a place called the Elks Lodge here in Newport Beach, and it's a private-only, private members-only

club, but to get into the club, it's like $200 a year. It's the cheapest club ever. But the members there are all like 60-plus, and they're all wearing beach shorts and T-shirts, and they're all just a bunch of retired dudes just drinking during the day. But the guy who introduced me to, it's a nine-year-old guy. He's the founder of a company called Chrome Hearts I wear. You know Chrome Hearts. Of course. So he's like, Joe, if you want to meet people like me, go to Elks Lodge. walk in there, you're like, dude, this place is dingy, and it's a bunch of old people. But these guys are all just, you know, they're all bawling like crazy. You're like, you never judge it.

But you look at these people, like a bunch of retirees. Of course. Of course. No, man, I mean, listen, more times than not, the guy that has money, that's how he looks. That's how he looks. That's how he looks. Every time. The guy that doesn't have money is dressed to the night. I'm just saying, you know, I mean, listen, you can find guys that have money that like the designer stuff.

But it's also, man, more times than not, you know, they're comfortable. Well, they're comfortable. Yeah, they are. They're comfortable who they are, and they're comfortable in life, and they really don't care what you think, to be honest with you. And that's kind of the best place to be, man. Well, I've got two questions.

One, what happened in that situation? What was that fraud? Because you had a pretty stacked board. I mean, was Shaq involved? Jack was Jack? Jack got mad at me. It wasn't good between me and Shaq for a minute. FBI called Shaq up.

I gave him a sword that we paid $12,000 for, and they took the sword back. He wasn't happy with me. A sword? Yeah, it was just a gift. It was a little small sword like that that we had engraved with Shaq's name on it and we did some stuff. And FBI took the sword? They called him and, yeah, he wasn't happy with me.

I seen him about, I don't know, six months after that. He goes, there goes. He's like, don't ever put me on a board again. He goes, but to his credit, I called him and he came to see that he got into the big box. I got a video of it, that big proto box. And he's been cool ever since. But yeah, he wasn't too happy with that. You know, he went to jail for 20 years.

I think he's out now. You know, the funny thing about... Master hustler, huh? But you know what the funny thing about it is? You couldn't catch that if you know him because he didn't drink. So, like, when he came to the Four Seasons off Doheny, you know, they'd have eight people. He sent $250,000 for me every month to spend to recruit and do by business. So the Four Seasons loved him, right?

So when he'd come, they have eight people outside when he get out of his car and wait for him. and he'd sit and talk to me for hours, but he didn't drink. It wasn't like he'd be up in a hotel suite and be a bunch of women, and he's having a bunch of... He did buy a lot of cars. He did.

You know what I mean? But it wasn't this obvious... Con-man. Yeah, it wasn't that. No, it wasn't that at all. It wasn't that at all. But it just misappropriated. You know, it was at a point in time in Seattle

where if you lived in Seattle and you missed Amazon, or you missed Microsoft, or you met... What other one? I think it's Amazon, Microsoft, and so if you miss those, everyone was portraying him as the next best thing. So people were, they were sending checks without him pitching.

They were just sending checks to the office because he rented out a billboard in their stadium, and Mariner Stadium. And he was smart, man. He's a smart guy. I'm not going to say he're in a lie. I don't consider too many people smart, but he was a smart man.

He was. I mean, when I talked to him, I was like, the dude's on a different, he's on a different level. but it just, they got him. And it was sad because I brought in my buddies. I was, you know, we're at the bar toasting as if we're billionaires. And the next thing you know. FBI.

Boom. Listen, they called me and they were like, this is Mr. Wallace. You got to come up to Seattle and you got to bring, you know, you should probably bring your lawyer. And I said, man, I'm going to bring him a lawyer in what day I need to be there. Stop all that silly. You've been listening to calls for the last six months. You know, I have nothing to do with any of these goofy stuff. I flew up there by myself.

I had a Mercedes. they tried to take from me, and I'd say the story real quick. I negotiate everything, right? So I'm up there and like, you know, Joe, you got to give that Mercedes back. You bought, you paid cash for it. We know you paid cash for it. And you got to get that. I said, no, I'm not giving that car back.

I'm not giving the car. I worked. I don't know about him. That's his deal. You guys deal with him, but me, I busted my ass for that car. I'm telling you. You know what I mean? So at the end of the day, they were like,

you got to keep the car. No. But you know what I got? Got him to auctioned and give me half. So they sent me a check for $75,000. Everybody was like, are you kidding me? Master negotiator. They sent me a check for $75,000.

Because they could have just took it. Come on, what am I going to do, bud? Get my car back? They already had the car. So that was fun. It was a unique experience, man. So you realized, man, I can't put my life in someone else's hands anymore. I'm going to go out and do this on my own.

So did you immediately pivot into being a financial entrepreneur? like you know because now you're in this like VC world right and and that's number one that's a really risky place to be right because you don't you don't know how to underwrite deals when you're brand new to yeah the VC world well you got to learn quick yeah you got to learn quick otherwise you're placing your money as a VC you're like you know well I learn nine times out of 10 yeah those deals don't go anywhere well I learn quick by primarily just taking some of my money and you know not doing well and just trying right I'm firm believer, man, that, listen, I'm the guy that is the eternal optimist. I love people. I want

everybody to do well. I've got that in me. My mother's instilled in me. I got the greatest mother in the world. Love her to death. God bless her. And I just, you know, I just really try and find things that are obvious or that I see have potential, right? So a lot of my stuff, even in the initial beginnings, I'll be the CEO, but I'll go find a CEO. I'm not, like, I don't have an ego, right? That, you know, it's got to be me. You know, I'm the CEO who's, you know, this is my thing. I'll create stuff all time, put people in it that know what they're doing, right?

I don't know these industries, right? I'm about to, like I am. I'm owning, there's a company called Wing Riot, and Wing Riot is pointing to be the hot, It's going to kill, what's that, wing stop. Von Miller, you've heard of Von Miller? Von Miller's a linebacker. He played with Denver. Von Miller, Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelsey, and Drew Breeze.

So, Von Miller owns a chicken ranch, chicken farm in Texas. But it's an organic chicken farms. So it's the best chicken in the world. So he started a, he's starting a, a fast food, wings and tenders called Wing Riot. But the concept is this, which is just crazy dope, right? He's taking containers, you know, old shipping containers, right? He's refurbishing them and he's putting in robots, right, that do all the cooking, do everything. Only two people work.

They take the container and they set the container like in a, like in a, like a Home Depot parking lot. Have you seen those, like Dutch Brothers coffees? And you guys seen it, Dutch Brothers Coffee, you've got the thing out there. So there's no inside seating. So it's just drive-through. But it's the best fresh organic chicken on the planet, right?

No seed oils. Kind of like a cane's, but better. But way better. It's our super organic. And it's the only thing from, you know, feed to the, from seed to plate, right? So they take the chickens, they see it. They distribute it so you know what you're getting, right? There's no hormones.

And right now, the way that people are, you know, ingesting and looking at their food, and for, you know, health and wellness purposes, I think that it's got a lot of legs to it. It's doing extremely well, extremely well. And, you know, you've got some major stars in it. And they're going to start popping up in stadiums. And so I'm going to do about 10 of those, right? And, you know, they net around 400. You only got two employees.

And the robots are capable because you got humanoid robots doing this. Well, these are, these are just, you know, they're just mixing the sauces and doing the chicken and doing the things you want to do and you just got a cashier or maybe somebody doing a little bit of maintenance. So it lowers the, you know, obviously your costs, right? But, and then the chicken's phenomenal. And then, you know, you got that star power behind it. So it's got some legs to us.

I mean, the star power is a big deal. I'm excited about it. You know, you get, you know, you know, you have two. Taylor Swift in there running around. Taylor Swift's on that deal, too? Well, Travis Kelsey is her husband. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

So, of course, he's going to get her in there. I mean, you know, we'll get to parlay that a little bit. That'll be a cool deal. I mean, you immediately pivoted into these financial sectors. I got, you know, it's so funny, Joe, you mentioned. You're like, I'm an internal optimist, and I am too. And just like you, I'm the same way. Like, I always see the good in people.

Yep. And that's, sometimes it works against me. because I also am the most scammed guy. You know, like, I always get scammed, like, all the time. Like, I'm just a sucker for getting scammed. And I look at it, you know, like, kind of like a blessing in disguise, you know. Like, they, I've been scammed, brother. You know, it is what it is.

I, you know, I always look at scamming like this. This is all I always look at when they do me. You know, I always say, you know, I always say there's no amount of money I would want to go that would want to end my friendship if I had a friend like Joe, right? So why would you want to scam me at a 50, thousand or 20,000, whatever that number is. It'd be a $200, right? Instead of a long-term relationship, I just never understood that when people

done, did that kind of stuff. I just was like, such a low amount. Like, they're not scamming me for, they're not getting a million dollars or something ridiculous, you know, but I just never understood it while the people's mentalities. And I tell you, man, L.A.'s, you know, L.A.'s got a lot of that. Got a lot of that. Have you lived here your whole life? Yeah, Orange County. in L.A. when I moved from Egypt initially.

You're Egyptian? Yeah, I'm Egyptian. Okay. I do some stuff. What's the guy's name? What's the richest man in Egypt? Telecom guy. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if I forget his name. Yeah, me too. God, I was supposed to... Do you go back? I haven't been since I was 15.

Ah, okay. I want to go. It's on my bucket list. Yeah, I want to go back. I just got back from the country of Georgia. That's the furthest side. You went to Georgia? Yeah, that's an amazing country. Silk Road? I went to Tbilisi. Okay. Yeah. I want to get a place in Batumi. Are you kidding me? It's amazing there.

It's an amazing family. You marry? No, no, divorce. I got four kids. I always got a thing about where I'm a proletes. You're in Newport, brother. You got a girlfriend. Yeah.

Do you wear Rolex? Gold one? Not a gold one. Go to Joie's? That's you. That's you. That's you. Stay a typical Newport guy.

Okay, yeah, that's right. No, I don't go to Newport. I don't go to Newport. I drive like, no, not, no, crazy cars. I got four kids. You got a bunch of kids. That's right. You're talking pretty. Listen, bro. I drive a Hyundai. I get it. I understand. I understand. I get it. No, no, no, no, no need to show off anymore. Yeah, yeah. The show off part is way, right. Real estate, I'll splurge.

There you go. But, but, uh, the, but the cars never. So what are you getting? Are you just, are you building your portfolio as you sell these mortgages? I always ask people that for real estate. Like, it's kind of hard. You look at all these great deals. Like, you have a, you have a real estate person come to you and say, Joe, I got an unbelievable deal right. here it's a corner it's we do but I'm like well why won't you get it yeah I always think like why would you give it to me yeah I get proposed deals all the time like real estate transactions build you know I'm looking at a property I'm supposed to be there today for a brand new building san clemeny Ocean View 5 million dollar house buy the lot build it up oh okay I'll flip it yeah yeah

so I'll do ground up construction deals with like a developer okay that way I'm not like because if a contractor does it with me I don't have to worry about the the contractor like Okay. Their worker is not showing up to the job. Understood. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All that stuff. We leave a lot of the pressure from you.

Yeah, exactly. Okay. So that's what I'm going to start doing a couple of those deals. Are you? Orange County's hot. You know, you got to, it's hot. So, I mean, you know, to find those deals is a gem. Hell, yeah.

I get proposed them. It's nice to be kind of in the weeds, but, you know, I, I'm rebuilding my net worth after after divorce. After divorce, you basically, you go from 100%, you're down at 25% of your net worth. There you go. My goal is to get back to that 100% initially this year. I love the comeback, brother. And then I'm doing it.

I love the comeback. So it was just my own personal goal, just like, hey, post-divorce. Yeah. I'm going to get back to my pre-divorce net worth. That's it. That's it. And then, you know, close. And Joe, you know, I've been down a bunch of times, right?

And that's honestly, you know, and I tell my son just kind of when he plays basketball, I say, listen, I'm not coming out here to watch you score 30 points. I'm actually coming out of. out here to watch you make 20 mistakes, right? Because if you're making mistakes, you're trying, right? So don't think that I'm coming out here and you've got to have this perfect game or you've got to do all this stuff to impress me. What I want to see is just aggression, right?

And you trying to do the things that you're supposed to do to get better. Then we can have discussions on how you need to be playing once we get past that point, right? So, yeah, man, I'm, you know, I wish I had gotten in the real. real estate. I tried that one particular time and just, you know, I got ADHD, so I just can't, real estate moves like a snail. It's a three-year deal. It just moves like a snail. For me, it's a nice, you know, I like security. Yeah, it's like I have this piece of property, but, you know, I'm teaching my kids entrepreneurship lately through a sports cards, so that moves really quick. There you go. You know, like sports cars were buying, flipping, trading. There you

go the grading process also moves like a snail now yeah it's funny to see my kids you know moving big money cards okay all right there you go I mean I gotta start somewhere yeah well it's the same uh there's there's multi-millioners billionaires moving cards now 100% a lot of people do that it's fun I mean listen I just you know I've never like crypto my son you know he's big in crypto he makes some decent money in crypto I mean he's good money for his age too but he 16 the 16 year old no I've got he's Joe Joe's 26 he went to he's down in San Francisco now he just got a new job but I remember for he came up to me smart kid man you know six four really good looking just a math got a math degree

he came up to me when we were at the house one day it's probably about 10 years ago and he goes dad you know what just take a look at this coin Bitcoin right I'll never forget because It haunts me to this day. He told you about Bitcoin? Yeah, he told me about Bitcoin. He goes, you know, I had to outsmart him. You know, listening to, son, son, son, listen, you're talking about a decentralized coin that doesn't have any backing by any government or gold or silver or any, how could that,

it's impossible. Like I literally looked at him and said, it's impossible, son, that that could be successful. How? What's it backed by? What if it just goes, poof? I just couldn't get my heart. around it, right? But that's logic.

It is logic. I just said it's impossible for that to be a coin or a tender that people use around the world and you can't track it and you can't. How do you, I was just like, well, what if somebody prints more or just makes more on a computer? So anyway, obviously, you know, it turned into what he's doing now and he's been doing great at it. But, you know, you missed those kind of things.

I missed out on a couple really good ones that I just, I'm. I wish I could take back, you know. But it's been a fun ride, man. I love it. I still take all kinds of deals. I'm doing some stuff today that I, you know, I'm getting into credit repair. I'm getting into CRMs and, you know, I'm doing all kind of stuff, man. You know, all AI-based.

All AI-based credit repair. I'm going to do AI-based credit repair. I'm doing Galaxy, which is a marketplace, which is going to, you know, it's going to replace like a Shopify and an Amazon. So it's a completely AI autonomous marketplace that allows creators and influencers to create their own store without any inventory. So I've got 30 vendors that I've signed up so you come and you can create your own shop. Let's say you want to sell peptides or you want to sell pet food or you want to sell hoodies or you want to sell bikinis or whatever. We've got 18,000 vendors.

You come on there. You don't need any inventory. You pay $500. We take 10%. You pick your vendors. you upload your logo, everything's 3PO through all of the vendors, so you don't touch anything, you don't do anything, and they ship your products. It's kind of like Printify.

Shopify. Printify and Amazon. Well, Printify, well, it's white label, but see, that's why I did it, because when I was with Von Dutch, I wanted to do bespoke products, right? And it was fractured, right? So there was, you had to get the hats here, the leggings here, and the jeans here. and then what I realized was that, you know, everybody's all over the map, even Amazon and Shopify because they, you know, they didn't, when I filed my patents, they were really for, they were

really designed to be a reseller model, right? So Amazon and Shopify are like you to go off and get something from like Alibaba, right? You find a little gold ducky, 32 cent. put it on your Amazon shop for $3.99. You know, people were making money doing that. But there was, where the world is going now is everyone's becoming their own brand. You even see brands now doing products designed after influencers, right? Like Alex Earle and all these people, they're going to be the brands of the future. Yeah.

That's why you see. Everything is personal brand. Everything is personal brands. So what I did was, and I seen that coming down the pike as I went and I spent about three months and I filed a patent with DLA Piper. Now it doesn't protect me a whole lot fully, but it gives me a leg up. And now I'm building out the tech to make, to make Galaxy 8, you know, I want to be the TikTok of, TikTok of like home, like online shopping, right? There's no cool online shopping. If you go on Amazon and you go on Shopify right now,

you see a bottle of lotion with just a number under it, right? There's just no vibe to it. There's no, you know, you just, you just, like, you don't have any pride, right? If I walked around and I said, you know, check out my Amazon store. And I go to your Amazon store, it's just going to be some, just nothing, right? Ours is going to be like more of a cool, hip version, you know, Galaxy is going to have influencer houses, we'll be a Coachella, we'll be, you know, we're going to be the place where people that want to, that have a vibe and are cool, want to have their pride, you know, do a bongs, you want to sell this, you want to sell, where you're selling really cool, dope stuff,

right where you've got Paris Hilton has a store on there with Lady Gaga and Alex Earle and all these other influencers people are going to have their selling their products not pushing someone else's products but selling their products right so you create your own brand and the reason you do that is because if you're selling

on Amazon right let's say you're selling on Amazon you're doing $3 million a year on Amazon right but guess what that's not your brand you're doing $3 million on us for the last of years you've done $12 million dollars, all of that data goes with you. Now you can sell your, you could sell it.

You can't do that on any of these others. You can't build it and sell it. You can sell your business. You can come out of galaxy and be like, made it out of here, right? Somebody purchased your brand because it's your brand. And that's where we're, you know, I think that's where e-commerce is heading. I think that's where everyone is heading as far as trying to get a new job. I mean, you know, it's probably going to cost me $60 to drive up here today.

You know what I mean? Not if you had an EV. Hey, I wish I did. I swear I'm going to get a Tesla. My business partner, it's a girl. She's got a Tesla. And I'm like, what did you spend right now to do that? She's like $22.

Is it what? Is that what you spent? I spend nothing on filling up three cars every week, you know, because I got solar. If you can catch a trend or you can see where the world is going and you get in there first, that's how you become a disruptor and you make some real money. You're raising a lot of money for a lot of products. What project are you the most excited about right now? Galaxy.

But I think the CRM and the credit repair, they're both really cool. And I just kind of fell into those. There's so many CRMs now. Like, how's it going to compete with like a Salesforce? Let me tell you how. So ours is fully, and it's already developed, by the way. It's fully AI automated. it. It has a webinar function in it. It has a built-in LinkedIn so it can actually make you money.

It'll go out and send out. Yep. Request. Everything. Not just request. No, it's going to communicate. It's going to reach out to you because I built it for an insurance MLM. Okay. So it's going to reach out to you and say, Hey, Joe, how you doing? My name is Joe Wallace and I'm, you know, senior profile, whatever, you know, that goofy stuff you get on LinkedIn. Yeah, but there's a lot of these big social platforms are very hip to AI doing that, and they block it. Now, there's ways to get around it. There's ways to get around it.

We haven't had any of ours blocked. Oh, okay, so it's really like. I get stuff every day all day on LinkedIn. I don't know about you, but I get all kind of stuff on LinkedIn. Right in your inbox. Every day. Yeah. A lot, a lot of them, every day, every day.

And they can't stop that. I mean, because eventually you're going to be sending out stuff via AI regardless, even if it's not spam. I'm going to have AI dictating all my stuff. Why would I want to sit there? I'm going to talk into a microphone and have AI knows how I speak. I mean, one of the things that I put inside, my CRM is a, and you need to check this out if you do stuff with AI, is a company called Million Ways.

So Million Ways is a behavioral AI. They've taken over 10 years to learn and through a bunch of subjects and people, data that their AI talks to you in a manner in a way which it knows you. And I know people think that AI does and it does it, but this one knows you because it obviously, it's empathetic, it has empathy. It'll reach out to you, and you definitely need to talk to them because you're doing mortgages.

And if you want to send me an email via your AI, that AI remembers our conversation. Right? And then it responds to me after analyzing how me and you have been speaking through our emails. Right? So if you've been angry with me or I've been angry with you or I'm indecisive, it analyzes all of that. Wow. And then it comes back to me and says, hey, Joe, this is Joe. I hope everything's doing well. It talks to me in a manner which I'm going to appreciate it because it knows my behavioral pattern. And that's different, right?

So I put that in my CRM too, right? So as you're trying to recruit and you're trying to do insurance and any of this stuff that these guys are trying to sell, the communication is key. And you can't just have a, you know, regular AI that's communicating. You need to have something that touches on people's emotions when you're trying to get people to spend money. And it's something you should take a look at, too,

because they're great sales. Anyway, I took that baseline of a CRM. which is fully AI automated, AI receptionist, does everything for you, emails, all that stuff. And then I added in the webinar component, which there's very few CRMs that have that. I think only one. I think it was Hub.

Hub thought. Yep. And then I added in the behavioral AI, right? So it made it different. Then I added in the LinkedIn. So now you have a CRM that can make you money, speak to your people with a behavioral AI that no one else on the planet has. and it's fully how you automated, right?

I'm not trying to be a billionaire off of the CRM. You know, I just, I got into it accidentally because the guy I know from him, I went to Napa Valley last weekend, and the guy has, you know, he's got a 60,000. It's a brand new project in the last week. It's taking me three weeks to put this together. I'm fast.

I stay, so I get up early. I get up early and I get to working, baby. And, yeah, I did it. I'm going to call my girl. You can hear right now. I call my girl right now. that works for me, Natasha, you can hear where we're at with it. You got to hear it. And because I'm super excited about this. I'm launching it on Tuesday. And I named it DLIQ.

So I'm really quick, right? So I named the DL IQ, Downline Intelligence, right? I added in all of those different features. And now I'm just going to run some stuff on TikTok. They're going to move over. My guy's going to move over a thousand salespeople because he's an MLM at $199 a month. Joe. No, that's great money. I mean, that's the stuff. That's one deal. And you own the actual software that,

itself. No. No. So here's what I'm doing. I licensed it first. Then I got all of these different add-ons and put them in there. I am developing something similar now that's going to be native. So you're just APIed everything in it. API it.

And that's another thing that I'm learning to do right now is I look at all these fractional industries. And I go, why hasn't? When I was looking for a CRM? I'm just like, well, I don't understand. Well, you could do all that through Salesforce, just API everything in and Salesforce. Self force is doing, this is another thing where people make a misconception. Salesforce is doing, I don't know, $30 billion or $20 billion, right?

Creating the RM, make $20 million a year. I don't need to hit, I don't care about Salesforce. There's some people out there that want mine. No, there's some people out there that want mine. I'm not trying to, I don't need, I don't need, go ahead, Salesforce. Listen, I'm just trying to get, from Calabasas to Paris. You know what I mean?

Just have a good time. I'm not trying to buy big mansions off it. But it took me two weeks, Joe. It took me two weeks. All those licenses. I had been on the timeout. Now, I did have to call and negotiate pricing and all this other stuff. It wasn't just, you know, I had to do some work.

And it wasn't just, you know, I got a platform and just started out and say, I had to get the guy, had to negotiate it down and get them all down. and get them all down and have them believe that I'm going to have a volume and numbers. I'd have to show them that. So it wasn't just as simple as I make it seem, but the moral of the story is I try. Yeah.

That's the moral of the story. And I tell everybody, whoever's listening. And I keep trying, man. And listen, I'll have a lot of failures, and I have no problem with that because, you know, I don't know what's going to fail and what isn't, but I do know that everything I don't do is going to fail. So.

Do you think that your sports history, allowed you to have that mindset where, like, failure is just part of the journey? Absolutely. Because entrepreneurship is a lot like being a great athlete. Yeah, absolutely. I think that, you know, my daughter is horrified of failure. I can't really get my son to be too entrepreneurial. He doesn't want to.

I got a brother that sells insurance. He never wanted to own his own insurance company. I would say, you know, you got me as your brother and you don't want to just, I don't mean you for him. And I just have always been of the mindset that you don't want to work for nobody. Well, that, and you could do whatever you set your mind to do. I just, I've never looked at another man's success and said, damn, he just is just out smart. I mean, he put into work. He took the chance.

You how many people you'll meet, you know, and you ask them, always ask people, how did you get started? How did you get started? What made you start? There's always something. Yeah. You know what I mean? Well, my buddy called me and he took me to Tahoe. And I, you know, you could.

Yeah. I get asked that question every day. How'd you get started? How'd you get started? And there's always, there's always a thing. But here's, it's nothing crazy. No one ever started with some crazy story like, oh, you know. No, no.

But you got to be open and getting started. Yeah. And that's always the key. Zero to one is the hardest never to get to. It is. It's the hardest. But you got to give it a shot. You know, listen, I don't, I'm not going to sit here and act like I'm some big, you know,

guy that just got the touch of gold. You know, I don't have that. But what I do have is effort, and I try. And I've had some really good ones, and I've had some really bad ones. But, you know, at the end of the day, I'm happy with myself because I give it an effort. I don't know if this CRM is going to do anything. I do know that I'm going to try. And I do know that it has a chance.

And you do know this, that it makes sense for the current climate. That's exactly it. So it makes sense. It's affordable. I've already got users that are going to be on it, so I'll make some money regardless, whether it is, you know. Now it's just adoption. How easy can you make it?

It is. It is. And marketing. And just marketing, Joe. Everything is marketing, Joe. So I just, I don't know. I just feel like, I mean, listen, when I got that job and I lived at the Four Seasons, I didn't know Shaq at that time. I didn't know any of those, I didn't know about I'm an Ali.

You know, I don't know anything about chicken wings right now. I don't know anything about that. And people always think that they have to be comfortable and know something in a space to do it. And I think the opposite. I just like, listen, man, you know, I, you know, Joe, do you know anything that I ask me? Do you know anything about, I don't know anything about that? But you know fundamentals of business?

I'll figure it out. Yeah. You know, you know what I mean, Joe? You know, I'll drive up to, I'll drive up to Newport Beach and take you over to the Pindry. And we'll have a second time I heard the Pindry today. And we'll have a couple of drinky drinks. We'll have a couple of drinky drinks. And you won't, you know what?

The power of doing that. Right. You know, taking someone out and getting them a cocktail for 15 bucks, you'll get $100 million with secrets. 100%. I do it all the time. People don't understand the power of networking. And one thing about you and myself, Joe, and maybe it's because we're both Joe and just God's hands upon us. It's like, we're just good networkers.

100%. And that's the value. Your net worth is your network. It is. I had a conversation with Magic Johnson. These are true stories. I don't, just so you know, when I say, tell you stuff, I don't, I don't boost it up to make it some great stories. This is just how it goes. So I've known Magic for about 30 years. I've played on his team with him, but he's also at Equinox. And he's there at about 5am, like I am not every day. But when he's there, he's there, right? So I see him. I see him. I don't know, about three weeks ago. Yeah, about three weeks ago, and I was talking to him. Because the one thing I talked to him about, that me and him was kind of similar is his personality allows him. is what has made him successful, right? We talked about that, and there's a big disparity between the relationship between Magic and Kareem. If you look at their two careers and business paths

and life paths, it's a thousand percent due to personality, okay? So Magic is the kind of guy that... Charismatic as hell. I mean, and you could, but approachable. Yeah, yeah, he is. Okay, Shaq is the same way. Karim is, he lives right by me. It is horrible.

Yeah. And he's horrible. Yeah. He's horrible. And I'm going to give you an example. And so what me and Magic were talking about, magic, I was telling, I was saying that to Magic. I was like, man, you know, Irv, you just, you know, you're killing it. And I just said, and I told him, I said, man, you know, you're, you know, your gift, right?

And I just said, you know, your gift is that you let you're, your approach. When he told me a story, he goes, Joe, we were playing at the forum. And I walk out. And you remember, I don't know, you never, so the forum had a club in it. It was like a bar. Yeah. I saw it in the TV show. The remake on HBO.

There you go. There you go. So you had to go, you know, you had to go. That's where everybody would go, right? So the players would go there. You know, I've got the girls in there and everybody's in there doing the thing. Jack Nicholson's in there and everybody's in there, right? So this guy had his son there and I guess Kareem came out and they were crazy about Kareem.

The son was crazy about him. A 10-year-old boy, he's crazy about Kareem, right? And he goes up to Kareem and he's just like, yeah, can I get a picture? No. So Magic's walking up. So Magic goes, I'll take a picture. picture, right? So Magic takes a picture with the son and the father, and Magic said he was buying a building downtown. And he comes to the building early, and he's sitting there. And, you know, he's just

sitting there. He said, yo, just sitting in a conference room. And this man walked in. And man goes, oh, it's you. Right? Magic said, I looked at him. He says, well, you know, what's up? It's the owner of the building. Right? And he says, the man looked at him and said, you got it. Chores. Magic was like, we didn't even talk to it. You don't know. I'm saying? And the man says, when my son was 10, he asked Kareem for a pitcher and you took a picture and he's one of the biggest attorneys in L.A. And that picture is in his office. And I was like, that's why I tell people to treat people with respect. You know, not that magic would have died if he didn't get the building, but that's a prime example of how it comes back around. Now,

Kareem is dying. You don't hear anything about it. He's isolated, right? And it's all because of his personality. I went on a trip with Magic and Karim to the Philippines to play basketball, and I'll never forget. I was in line, and Kareem was in front of me, and I remember these two businessmen came up to Kareem, and I just got done playing overseas.

I'm just got my little thing, and I'm trying to get some food. Magics there, and Kareem and Mark Guire and all these people. I'll never forget their faces when they asked him for an autograph. The way he looked at them and what he said to them and the disdain he said it in it and the way that they felt defeated, I said, God, dang, that was brutal. You see, I'm trying to get some fucking food. Two dudes, suits on, just looked at him and looked at each other. And I just was like, God, why?

Yeah. You know, I just was like, God. You couldn't even say it just politely. You had to just degrade them. Anyway, you know, and it's just a reflection about the opportunity. Magic's the guy that, you know, you lose to Boston Celtics. You'll see him in Fat Burger. By his cell.

You know, in the corner eating a fat burger. Magic's always doing autographs. Yeah, of course. He was the sweetest guy. I met him a couple times. Listen, Floyd Mayweather walks around with six bodyguards for no reason. Magic's in a damn. Jim, by himself.

You ain't got nobody with him. It's working out. You know what I mean? So it's just personality is such a key fact. Floyd's lost all his money. Yeah. You think anyone's going to come to help him? No.

Not a person. Why? Personality. Now he's got to do all these exhibitions just to survive. Nobody's going to watch that garbage. Nobody's going to watch that garbage. Nobody's going to help him put more money in his pocket. He was lighting cigars with $100 bills.

African-American community is suffering beyond suffering, and that's what he would do. I can't stand athletes that don't give back. I can't. Flaught your wealth like that on planes, lighten $100 cigars. God's watching. God's watching, bro. He's watching. And, you know, that's a reflection of the universe.

The universe has a way, bro. You know, you want to flaunt money like that. First of all, I don't know if anyone that's ever flaunted money like that. I don't love anyone that's ever just been blatantly million dollars sitting on your kitchen table for what

and all of those guys that do that they end up having a big problem for some reason the universe doesn't like it yeah it doesn't like you it's not blessed no it's not

it's not blessed and you want to stay blessed man and you want to help people and I tell people all the day man this little stupid game we play and like this if you really look at life man you're born and you die bro and what you do in between is all up to you and how you want to live this you but you ain't doing anything with your life just being normal and selfish and doing stuff

that can give you anything good when you pass you know what i'm saying and i just really truly believe that i just like you know we all get one shot at this thing and how do you live it i have fun man i love my life i just you know what the good and the bad times bro you know i try to wake up every day the same, you know, the same personality, the same upbeat, no matter how things are. You know, I just, I try to help people as much as I can. I'm the guy that if you ever need anything, you know, I'm not, oh, Joe, you want me to introduce you to Dan Gilbert, you know, but I want 5% of whatever you do, right? I'm not that guy either.

So I just, you know, I try to help people, man. I try to, and I've been blessed, man. I've had, I have my shares of ups and downs. but I can look back on my life and at least just say, you know, I gave it a good shot, right? And that's really what everybody can do. And I try to tell people all the time and I even tell my kids, traveling to me is the key to life. It really is. It's the one thing that if there's anything you do, anything, outside of had kids.

You've got to have kids. It's traveling, man. See it in the world, bro. Nothing more magical than that. It's so much truth to that. When I went to Europe, I was like, what am I doing? Why was I stuck in Newport Beach so long? I got to get out.

For what? You've seen Newport Beach, right? Yeah, yeah, I love Newport Beach. So what you're going to do? You want to just keep seeing it? See you forever? But also it's like you're locked in, working, work is just so part of your routine. It's a mistake.

It's a mistake, bro. Listen, that's when I tell you I'll go to Newport is when I can't travel. And I just go do a staycation. I do it. I just go do a staycation. I'll go check in for two days and just go and see and meet and do. And when I go out. Go to the pantry.

go to Joey's. What's the new steakhouse? The place right across from Red, Red, no, it's from Red O. It's right across from Red Oceans 48. Yeah, I go to Ocean's 48. But what I was going to say is, you know, I sit at the bar. I can go out. That's the best place?

I sit at the bar. Say hello to everybody. You know, let's get a sit with you every day. I'm trying to meet some people. Damn. You know, I'm just going to sit across from you again. Hi. How's day?

I know your day is, because I've been with your ass all day. I don't want. Okay. I wanted some new day. I want a new day. So, no, I got to, you know, I try to, I sit at the bar and I try to meet people and do my thing and learn and just, you know, I've had a lot. You know, I've lived, listen, I lived in Turkey. Yeah.

I was in Paris. I've lived in Argentina. I've lived in Japan. And I've lived in Spain. And I lived in Turkey. I'll tell you one old story. I lived in Turkey. She was right after the little clipper stint, got a job in Turkey.

I love dogs. So I'm a dog guy. I had a little pit bull in college named Cleco. So I take him to Turkey. Turkey is like, God, who is this idiot? You can bring a dog, right? It was in my contract. I'm not going to anywhere without my dog.

So don't call me without my dog. I got to go with my dog. So I take my dog. And nobody tells me in Turkey, right? They've got packs of dogs. that run the street at night. Packs. Packs.

Packs. Right? But I got a pit bull, so I'm kind of cool, right? Not that I want my dog fighting. He's never fought, but he will. He'll get out. Well, I take the guy out. He got beat up one time.

I'll tell you that story, but he was a little baby. He went and got revenge three years later. It was hilarious. So I'm in Turkey, and I'm walking my dog at night, and I'm seeing these packs of dogs and I got him on thing. And they're just do-d-d-do-d-d-d-d-d-d everywhere, right? And so I let him off the leash when the dogs leave, and I'll never forget, in the morning,

I went to go play, I went to go to my practice, and I, you know, I'm crazy about my dog. I open up my door, and he's walking towards me, and he's staring at me, and I open my door, and he's just looking direct me at me. He's just staring at, he's in the doorway, but he's just looking directly at me. And I'm like, back up.

Like, are you all right? Like, what's that? And he starts moving like this. He can't walk. So I grab him I said oh god I grab he starts foaming at the mouth So I put him in my car

He's leaning up against the window I never forget It was very traumatic for me And he's foaming at the mouth And I don't speak Turkish So and it's a stick shift They don't have any stop signs in Turkey So I backed the car up

My dog's dying And I'm going to these Turkish dudes As I'm going down the street And I'm running And I'm just, stop when I see somebody in a, hey, like, you know, come on, man, where, where, where, you know, two and, you know, I was doing that whole thing, get to another guy, he go, one more, you know, to the right, because they've seen him and that kind of news. So what happens in Turkey is they poison meat, and they throw it out there on the streets to kill the dogs.

I was like you could have told me that, man. And they threw it out. And so make a long story short, I get him into the vet, and they give him a shot, and I can't communicate with the vet, but he's going, doing this thing, and I don't know, my dog still looks bad. So I put him in a room, just close the door.

I say, I can't stick. I'm not going to watch him die. And I open the door in the morning. He was back to hell, you know, Tails wagon, and I just start crying like a baby. I was like, dear, Jeff. I would have left Turkey. I would left. I was like, you know, I'm out of here. You know, you're my dog. You guys killed my dog. I'm out of here. But just all of those experiences came from just traveling. You know what I mean? Like Paris was a blast.

Japan was a blast. I just, just so many different. And I tell my kids all the time, listen, when I lay down for the last time and I go through my memory banks, it's going to be some great memories that I have that I've gotten from just, being out and meeting and doing and meeting people, right? That you just can't do unless you're out there doing it. My son has a friend. He's from Orange County. He was his roommate in college, so he never, never knew the guy. This guy lives a life, and I'll tell you this real quick. His grandmother died, no, his mother committed suicide right before he went to UCLA,

didn't have a relationship with his father, just a bad situation. Nice kid. Nice kid. But one of those kind of guys, you know, just really, you know, the really cool white guys. There's just really just no, just had no, not presumptuous, didn't care who you were, just one of those free loving, just a good dude, right?

His whole motto in life right now is all he does is travel. You look on his Instagram, he'll be riding a bike in Nairobi. he'll be on the side of a place in Mexico where they just slaughtered a cow eating fresh taco I mean his life experiences I remember he came over to our house you know we got at our house and I'll never forget he brought his girlfriend and he's just one of those guys that has zero care about material things and I love that about people that are like that I'm not but I wish I was and I admire the hell out of them and I'll never forget I go, where are you guys going?

And he goes, Mr. Wallace, we're going to go up to Utah. Me and my girl traveling Utah. And I go outside, and it's this old Volkswagen. You know the little surf tight? Yeah. And I looked at him and his girl getting that car and drive way. And I looked at my son, and I said,

that motherfucker guts it right. He's going to go have a great time, going to be in a sleeping bag, enjoying the weather, fishing. I said, and where we're sitting here trying to figure out how we can get to a Rose Royce. You know what I mean? Not figuratively, but you know what I mean.

That's the whole fight with the world is material objects, right? And I just said to my son, I said, man, that dude's got it right, Joe. He can care less. Yeah. And if you could have that kind of a mentality in today's life, man, which is so hard to do because you just figure everybody's materialistic and everybody wants the best. things, but really the best things are like that picture behind you, right?

Yeah. Those are really the best things. And I live with that philosophy. I don't just talk about it. I really do. I love it. I mean, I do too. I do too.

That's why I try to like keep, you know, low pro. I don't do anything. Would you skydive? Give me the bucket list. I mean, what's the bucket list? So we're going to skydive. It's funny you mentioned Utah.

I'm going to Utah with my kids. I have a place in Utah. See, there you go. And they have indoor skydiving, but you're just like basically like flying. That ain't no damn skydiving. Yeah. Stop all that. Basically like flying.

Way of flying, y'all. It kind of like skydiving. It's indoor. But you can't get hurt. Okay. That ain't skydiving, but go ahead.

Yeah, I do have, I do have, you know, my bucket list stuff isn't very big because I, why? Come on, man. But now it's,

it's getting bigger after I got to travel. I'm going to give you some bucket list items. I bet you don't have. Let's say, you've been in a shark cage? No. See?

That's a crazy bucket list. Okay. You're rode in a hot air balloon? No. I just. So you got some bucket lift stuff, Joe. You got some stuff to do, baby boy. You done that?

Nope. And I'm not going to. I'm going to do the shark cage. I am going to do the shark cage. I've done the shark cage, actually, in Hawaii. But, yeah, well, I want to do it in South Africa. I want to go to Africa. Africa is my number one thing on my bucket list.

Africa, by far is it for me. I'm from Africa, so I do want a couple of those countries. Yeah, but I'm, you know, I'm an animal guy. Yeah. You know, I'm the guy that cries if the dog gets, killed. I'm one of them dudes, right? Yeah. And I love animals. I love seeing them in nature. I think it's the most majestic thing in the world is, you know, and I don't even know if I could, you know, a lion or a gorilla or I would just lose my mind, you know, if I could see those things. I don't know if you've

been watching, like, you go on social media, you'll see, you can go to, I think it's Kenya, where you can go into the forest and you've got the guides and you're in the jungle and the guerrillas walk by? Have you seen that yet? No. You see it? Man, let me tell you some right now, man, that thing pushed this white lady the other day. I was like, God, he just went, get out my way, bitch. The gorilla? Yeah. He didn't try to hurt her.

But it was just the power. I was just like, I want to see that. He didn't try to hurt it. He was just being funny. Because they're used to you being there. So every once in a while they'll pick one to mess with. Like they grabbed one lady. She was sitting there like this.

And he dragged her for about five feet. And he let her go. Get you. I was like, how dope is that? I know she's saying to herself, what a great, like, she'll never forget it, right? Yeah. Then the other day, the other day I was watching, I was on either Facebook or one of those, and this girl was kayaking.

She's kayaking. Eight orcas, Surrounder. When I say Surrounder, I'm talking about poking their head up. right here by her going down. And I said to myself, wow, I think I would have died. I would have had a heart attack. I was like, but that, but those are the kind of things that you get when you're, you know,

when you're out there in it and you can see it. I don't know, I just, I just, I think that anything, any kind of interaction when nature is such a blessing. Yeah, I love that stuff. Going back to the Pyramas of Egypt, is a bucket list thing for me. Have you seen them?

Obviously. I saw him as a kid, but I want to go back now as an adult. I'm gonna have a different appreciation. I mean, I went as a teenager, but I barely remember, and I wasn't super into it. Well, there's two things, obviously. Egypt's Africa, so I want to definitely go see that. But listen, there's only... It's the first country in Africa.

It's the motherland. It's the motherland. There's only a few things that you look at in the world that, and I don't know if there's even a few. Yeah, I guess there's a few. That can't be explained. And the pyramids are one of them. Yeah, they are. And as smart as we are,

we still can't do it. So explain that to me. You know what I mean? I just think gypsis are just super smart. You can't. Somebody get a 23 and me DNA testing. Make sure the boys are gypses. So, you know, you can't explain it.

You know, and I think that those kind of things that just make you boggle your mind are just so cool to see. I mean, I want to see them. So I'm going to ask you a couple of quick questions or viral moments. Okay, what's harder? Making the league or surviving business? Surviving business. Why?

You know, if you play basketball, you know how to play basketball. You don't know how to do business. And it's just hard to get, it's not like you can just go practice, you know. So it's just, it's tough. What hits harder? Losing the championship or losing your money? And why? money because money's hard to make all right did you ever cross past with jordan and what's the story

behind it yes and no real story asked him for a pitcher and he said no kind of like cream yeah exactly hey you got he's got he's got a he's got a contract with upper deck he's not allowed to oh okay well it's not said that's not what he said to me but anyway uh what's the single biggest financial mistake you've watched athletes make um Bad businesses, and then what I mean by that is back in the day, they would all do either record labels or clothing companies. It would be one of the two. Yeah. So trendy for that.

Yeah. Corporate boardroom versus locker room. Yeah. Which was more cutthroat? Yeah. Yeah. Corporate boardroom. All right.

What do you now know in business that you wish you knew when you were 22 with a ball in your hands? That people aren't as smart as you think they are. probably be one of my biggest things. I mean that the truth. It is. I sit across people that make millions of dollars and I always look across the money and I'll say, how, how?

You know what? I don't get it. How? Have you ever done that? Like, you're in the mortgage, people make all this money, and you talk to them and they're dumb as hell and you just go, how?

How do you do it? Hustle. A hustle cold chance. What's one thing fans completely misunderstand about athletes and money? Nothing. They don't misunderstand it. Athletes spend it like crazy,

and there's very few that are really entrepreneurial that are starting to be like Shaq. So I think the perceptions are reality for a lot of the guys. That's why, you know, you see a lot of necklaces and goofy stuff with big old panda bears on them, you know, with eyes, you know, gyms for eyes and just goofy stuff that you, Athletes just, it's all about the impression, baby.

When you grow up with nothing, you want to show people you have something. And that's been the biggest downfall of an athlete, really, to be honest with it. What's one lesson every man should learn from sports that applies to life and money? You know what? I would say that, to be honest with you, I think that's a good question. I think it's consistency, right? I think that you need to be consistent in your sports. and I think you need to be consistent in the way that you invest,

in the way that you approach business. And I think that consistency would probably be it. I mean, I sit down with guys all the time that I try to get to do like, you know, I got a guy, Fred Lee's, right? You know Fred Lee? He's a big, big real estate guy. And I go to his office the other day. And I'm like, Fred, listen, I got a deal, man.

I got a deal, Fred. You've got to hear this deal, right? Listen, we're going to make some money on this deal. I got that paper, and I said, he said, Joe, is it real estate? I said, no, man, but check this out. It's AI, and you're going to let me pass. He didn't let me pitch. He didn't let me pitch.

I don't do anything I don't know. So that's consistency. Now, what's one mistake people make when they try to reinvent themselves? One mistake people make when they try to reinvent yourself? I don't, you know, that's obviously through each and every individual. But the one thing I would say is that you can't reinvent yourself until you know yourself. I think you better know yourself before you try to reinvent yourself. And I think the hardest thing that people do and lessen in life for people is that they don't accept who they are.

That's right. And you got to accept who you are to change, baby. If you could put one piece of advice on a billboard for every 22-year-old pro athlete, what would it say? Be humble. Man, that would save every one of them. Yeah. Now, we like to end the show with this interactive game segment. It's like we call it Full Court Press, okay?

Okay. So round one, it's called corporate or locker room. We need stronger leadership. Corporate or locker room. Yeah, I'm going to say locker room. That guy isn't pulling his weight. Corporate or locker room. Locker room. Chemistry matters.

Corporate or locker room. All right. We need better execution. I'm going to say board room. So that's corporate, too. All right. Yeah, I'm going to say corporate. We've got to trust the system.

Corporate or locker room. Yeah. Locker room. It's a results business. Corporate locker room. Corporate. All right, segment two, million dollar decisions. One million dollars, but you can never watch sports again.

Take it? No. Courtside seats for life or a private jet for a year. Courtside seats. Let's go. Lose your phone or lose your wallet. Be 25 again or know everything you know now. 25.

Play in today's NBA or own a team? On a team. Of course. Floor seats at the NBA finals in a game seven or a closed door meeting with Warren Buffett. Closed door meeting with Warren Buffett. All right. Joe, you've been a pleasure to have. Anything you want to plug into the audience?

Any big things you want to plug into? No, no. Thank you. Truly appreciate you guys having me on. It's been a blast. And good luck with everything. I look forward to seeing you at Pindry. All right, let's go, Joe.

Thanks, Joe Was. Make sure you guys check them out.