Digital Social Hour - Avoid This $10,000 Marketing Mistake TODAY | Teddy Tarantino DSH #769

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

🚀 Avoid This $10,000 Marketing Mistake TODAY! Tune in now for a game-changing episode of the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! Are you ready to sidestep a costly marketing blunder that could save your business thousands? Packed with valuable insights, this episode dives deep into the dos and don’ts of marketing strategies. 🎯 Join the conversation as Sean and his expert guest unravel the secrets to avoiding this common pitfall. You won't want to miss out on these insider tips that can revolutionize your approach to marketing! 🌟 Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets. 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more eye-opening stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🚀 Ready to level up your marketing game? Let’s make sure you're on the right track to success. Don’t let this $10,000 mistake happen to you—catch the insights on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more! #socialmediamarketing #affiliatemarketing #marketingfunnel #onlinemarketing #facebookmarketinghacks #facebookmarketinghacks #marketingfunnel #makemoneyonline #leadgeneration #growthhacking APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] GUEST: Teddy Tarantino https://www.instagram.com/teddy.tarantino https://www.howtotalktogirlsatparties.com/ SPONSORS: Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I could go to another CVS and just go fill that same prescription. So there was nothing. It's kind of like, I'm crazy that this is the real thing, but there was no database saying that this prescription was filled, but not just that, it was actually the doctor. So I could go to five different doctors and get the same prescription for multiple things. Whoa.

Yeah. So you could print money. All right, guys. Crazy story for you guys today. Teddy Tarantino. Thanks for coming on, my guy. No problem. How's it going?

Good, man. Man, on drugs since 10 years old. Pretty much, yeah. What was the first drug? So I consider alcohol to be a drug. So alcohol is probably the first thing I ever did. So that's what, fourth grade? I probably got drunk for the first time in like kindergarten.

What? Yeah. That's like six. Yeah. So you were. I mean, like I was at a family party. So like Hispanic culture, parents were drinking and I snuck off and just started drinking some wine coolers. But I did get drunk.

Wow. But I didn't really. But that was like a one off instance. I wasn't drinking every day. But yeah, I got drunk for the first time probably in like kindergarten. did get drunk wow but i didn't really but that was like a one-off instance i was like drinking every day but yeah i got drunk for the first time probably in like kindergarten makes you wonder if it affected your brain development drinking that dude that's the least of it so i would imagine that my brain development has gotten pretty fucked up from drugs at a young age wow have you ever done a brain scan no i'd be so curious to see yours yeah i'm interested to see but i don't know i've

been i also got clean young so i got clean at 17 too oh wow but uh i remember when i was on drugs watching a documentary about addiction and they were doing brain scans on people and the most interesting part was they would flash pictures and uh the pictures would be so fast you can't even see them yeah and when they would show a thing of a crack like a vial of crack the person's brain would go crazy whoa and this person was, like a vial of crack, the person's brain would go crazy. And this person was clean like years, having done crack in years. And their brain would go nuts. And I remember like being on crack at the time.

I was like 14, 15 and being like, damn, I'm never getting clean. That's nuts. Yeah. The subconscious is powerful, right? Yeah. The brain's crazy. Holy crap. So crack at 14.

How did that happen? Was it like? I was so, when I'd get get into anything like really get into it like most addicts are like that some people become addicts later in life i was just always obsessive and you know i didn't have anything i was into and once i got into drugs i like really got into it so i like dissected every part of it, the culture and selling it, uh, weed, and then weed led to cocaine. And then when I was selling cocaine, eventually you run into someone who cooks it. And then I was selling to this guy who lived in a crack house and he was, he smoked crack, but he doctor shopped. So that's also, I got introduced to painkillers. So he was doctor

shopping for oxys and roxys and had all the prescriptions you can want but he just sold those he had been on heroin before and he got off of it so his only thing was crack and the first time i saw it i was like i'm never ever ever gonna try that that's crazy and then you see it a couple more times and get normalized yeah you kind of like it kind of gets normalized and i tried it and the first time i smoked crack cocaine i knew i would struggle with normalized, and I tried it, and the first time I smoked crack cocaine, I knew I would struggle with this for the rest of my life. Whoa, the first time? Yeah.

It was not good? Yeah, I never bought powder cocaine ever again, and I knew that forever I would always want to do this. Jeez. So what's the difference between cocaine and crack? Man, I guess it would be like I'm really into cars. So it'd probably be like driving fast on the street versus driving on the track. Okay. So you're faster. Yeah. So it's just like, you know, you think you could push your car on a road, but until you track your car,

you really don't know where your car car can do. And then, um, it's just way more intense. Wow. Yeah. What's doctor shopping? I've never heard that. Oh, really? So back in the day, there wasn't a database. So if you gave me a prescription for oxys and roxys and Klonopin, I could go to a CVS and fill my prescription. I could go to another fucking CVS and just go fill that same prescription. Holy crap.

It's kind of like crazy that this is a real thing. But there was no database saying that this prescription was filled. But not just that. It was actually the doctor. So I could go to five different doctors and get the same prescription for multiple things. Whoa. Yeah. So you could print money.

Yeah. So back in the day, I mean, dude, if you weren't on drugs or on pills, I was like, bro, we're getting you an MRI. We're going to the emergency room. Because if you don't know the game, I could get a piece of it. So I would teach, I was also under 18. So I couldn't even get my own script on my parents. So I, my hustle was that I would try to get people to get a script or fill a script. And then you would go to multiple doctors and that was doctor shopping. And then you would go to a lot of these mom and pop places that they just looked the other way. Yeah, like sketchy pharmacies. Yeah.

And all these big ones end up buying those, right? Yeah. I mean, the pain clinic industry was crazy back then. People who owned those made millions and millions of dollars. Is it still like that now, you think? No, because, well, now you're not really going to make tons of money like that because now they have that database but now what people do is they just get people to go shop for them so i'll i'll get like five homeless people to go and do that for me and bring the thing not homeless people but sometimes you know wow so they get people to doctor shop for them

but now they're more strict but um it went from oxycontin then they stopped doing oxys or selling them at the kick off an exciting football season with bet mgm an official sportsbook partner of the national football league yard after yard down after down the sportsbook born in vegas gives you the chance to take action to the end zone and celebrate every highlight reel play. And as an official sportsbook partner of the NFL, BetMGM is the best place to fuel your football fandom on every game day. With a variety of exciting features, BetMGM offers you plenty of seamless ways to jump straight onto the gridiron

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And then it just switches to a different drug. So if they say, we're not going to do Roxy's anymore, then people just start doing fentanyl. Damn. So that's where it's at now? People are just doing fentanyl? Now it's like straight fentanyl. And damn so that's where it's at now people are just doing fentanyl now it's like straight fentanyl and that's people's drug of choice so there was a time if someone got fentanyl in their heroin or whatever they'd be like upset now they like want that what

like they're they want fentanyl they want yeah can you die easily off that yeah dude it's crazy it's like russian roulette right now with my god on the epidemic and they put it in cocaine like uh i've owned drug and alcohol rehabs for years. And, uh, I had a client who went to the gas station, bought a dime of Coke, did it at the gas station and died. Whoa. And there was fentanyl in his Coke. They put it in everything. It's crazy. Holy crap. So when you're in rehab, you can leave. Well, this kid graduated. Oh, got it. Yeah. Yeah. There's different levels where people get jobs and they're an outpatient or something. Yeah. What's the level of people that come back to rehab once they're in?

Is it like prison? Because prison is like 80%, right? I always compare it to the gym. How many people sign up to LA Fitness and then freaking don't get in shape? So I would probably say the national average is single digit success rate. Wow. So you're talking 8% or 10% or lower. My treatment center for years, we were at like 15%.

Oh, wow. So double. Double the national average. And that really just goes to because we have long-term care. The only real statistic of like who makes it and who doesn't, that is like a fact fact is the longer time spent in treatment, the better your success rate. But that's also more money for the insurance company, so they don't really want to use that type of statistic because they have to dish out more money. So they probably only want you there for like a month, right? Dude, they're fighting you every day.

Really? So when you go to drug rehab, they don't say, hey, you're approved for 30 days. They say, what are you using? How long are you using? Okay, you could go to detox four days. That's it? Then on day four, you got to call the care manager, and then you have to negotiate more days and be like, he's not doing well.

He still has these symptoms, or he's still symptomatic or whatever. So then they'll give you, okay, one more day. So maybe you'll get five or six. Then when you go to a lower level of care, they'll give you okay one more day so maybe you'll get five or six then when you go to a lower level of care they'll give you 10 days so they give you days at like a clip and then you have to negotiate with the insurance company and then most insurance if you have really good insurance will cover you for 30 days but i would say out of all the insurance out there there's probably 20 that cover for a luxury nice drug rehab most of them are going to send you to a county funded place or a state funded place yeah

and yours was a private place yeah we're like private high-end luxury so we were like the top of the top which is also the hardest because insurance doesn't want to pay for that right there's some insurances that would look at our website and be like oh this is luxury we're not we don't even damn like just because it was luxury they'd be like you don't need any of this just go to the hospital so you're probably dealing with a lot of known people and high-end ballers and stuff no you would think so but you can work your mom can work at kmart you can have good insurance oh yeah so you can have good insurance just based off having a decent employer that offers a good health care okay so there are actually people who have tons of money who have really shitty insurance yeah and

just because you have good insurance doesn't mean it's good for substance abuse so your substance abuse benefits could be crap or your policy just doesn't have that coverage yeah i'm in that boat because like self-employed insurance is tough to find good ones, you know So I have to pay a shit ton for it. Yeah for insurance. Yeah, and it's like dude I don't even like western medicine. Anyways, like why am I even paying a thousand a month for this? Yeah, it's kind of crazy or insurance or south park just did an episode of like the american insurance Uh, yeah industry was so funny. It's such a scheme, right? I mean, yeah the insurance company is like The mafia. Yeah. No, you know you're they make up their own rules and they pay whatever they want to pay and then it's like um it's crazy because

there's no black and white like if this happens this is what we're gonna pay yeah it's like you submit a claim and then they like you got a debate debate and then i've had siblings on the same policy and one pays 50 one didn't pay anything then you've got to fight it and then whatever. I mean, it's sad because these people have insurance. They've been paying for insurance. They should be insured. Yeah, and they got the best lawyer. So if you can't afford a good lawyer to fight it, you're –

Oh, dude, not just that. If you really get into it, they'll be like, okay, we're going to stop paying you until this is done. So then you won't take any more. You can't take any more of their clients holy crap yeah and you built your rehab center to 20 million in revenue a year uh yeah that's impressive yeah was that one place or was it like no multiple locations like five locations holy crap yeah that's huge revenue and this was back in the day too yeah it wasn't too long ago i mean i left the company about a year

and a half ago but uh yeah i didn't even know until the other day but the other day one of my employees was like yeah we had 200 employees like we had 200 employees i thought we had like 130 how were you able to scale that quick um man a lot of treat that's actually slow in treatment there are people who scale 10 times that oh really dude i mean to me we were like modest growth and strategic. And there are some people who do what they got into the drug rehab business and went full fledged. And a lot of them failed. You know, the business has gotten worse and worse every year just because insurance don't want to pay and so competitive and saturated. But I thought that was like that pace.

We grew, but I didn't think it was like dangerous growth you know a lot of people they like filling the beds is the hardest part so a lot of people would be like well if we build it they'll come and i've seen so many places expand and not be able to when we were growing we were growing um 20 beds at a time 15 beds at a time there are some people who they'd have 50 beds, they'd open up another 200 beds. Jeez, that's too fast. Yeah, and it's like care goes out the window.

It's like these are people's lives. So staffing a facility takes a long time because even though you have good staff, it takes like a year for you to get a good core staff. I don't care who you are because it just takes a while for you to get those solid people. Yeah, the chemistry of a facility. But a small facility could have 60 staff. So even though 200 seems like a big number, we started out with 60 employees.

Wow. So one center is at least 60 employees. That's crazy. I didn't know that much went into one center, 60 employees. Yeah, yeah. Your overhead at a small treatment center could be 200 grand a month without marketing. And if you're not filling the beds at least 50%, you're probably losing money. Oh, at our facilities? Your overhead at a small treatment center could be 200 grand a month without marketing. And if you're not filling the beds at least 50%, you're probably losing money.

Oh, at our facilities, if we're not full more than like 75%, we're breaking even. Wow. So you got to be like 80% plus full. Yeah, just to make a little bit of money. And the turnover is high. So you got to constantly be. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean.

Is that why you left? The business is really crazy. Like I am am um i'm a different owner than a lot of owners a lot of owners like they just care about the money and whatever but um like did i ran group at my treatment center every week for like six seven years group yes i would run a group like a group yeah so i like bring in a speaker i would meet with the clients like i knew almost every client's name i would talk to the families oh wow so i was like pretty involved a lot of owners after they get off the ground they're not really even going to the facility they're staying at the corporate office and it's like dude i was really involved and it's like man i've probably been to like how many funerals have you been to only like two

actually how old are you 27 yeah i'm 33 i've probably been to like 50 holy crap yeah so you go to your patients' funerals? Yeah. I mean, I'm in recovery myself, so it's like half of those are my friends. Damn. You know, maybe more. I've probably been to like 100 funerals. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. 33. So it's like, you know, it gets, it's tiresome. If you work in treatment, you can almost work anywhere because it's 24-7. It doesn't close. There's no business hours. You're picking up people from the airport. There's people trying to leave at all different times.

You're talking to the family. You're dealing with a disgruntled population. I mean, you're dealing with people relapsing, wanting to come back. You're dealing with, you know, stopping them from sleeping with each other. Like they're pranking each other. Like it's like, you know, it's like a crazy summer camp hotel hospital yeah you know so that stress was just too much for you um i think i really loved it for a while but there was a time where dude like the deaths and the overhead and we were expanding and making the same money every year so we would double in size and we were making

more money three years ago. Wow. So it's like the industry was just so difficult and dude, some people are still crushing it and killing it, but a lot of people are really scaling back and hurting. Yeah. I've had two owners on the show, Eric Spofford, if you know him. Oh yeah. I think he sold his. Yeah. I think he sold his in like the height. Oh yeah. Like when he first sold, dude, if I would have had what I had back then, I'd probably be making five times. You had a nine figure exit, I think. Something crazy. And then Chad Carlson.

Not familiar. He has one in Cali. But yeah, his is smaller. But yeah, that makes sense why your recovery rate was double the average because you were hands on. I was hands on. And we had a lot of scholarships. So usually if someone runs out of insurance, their insurance is going to come in for 30, maybe 45 days, 15, 20 days of outpatient. We had graduate houses where you could stay there indefinitely.

Wow. So I've never even heard of a facility that would do this, but you could stay in a graduate house indefinitely. And our first graduate house had 10 beds. All 10 of those clients were clean two, three, four years. Damn. had 10 beds all 10 of those clients were clean two three four years damn because you know it's just like you know when you're in the military you're surrounded by like-minded people if everyone's waking up and going to the gym you're waking up and working out you know so it's like when you are in a safe environment um your chances of staying clean are so much higher yeah and then

it's when people leave or they get their own place and i'm not saying you got to live in a halfway house forever but statistically if you stay in a halfway house for like a year you know you have a twice better chance of someone else who immediately goes back to their own their old place that's cool and insurance doesn't cover that though no that was just cash pay we charged like 120 bucks a week and they would just stay there but they like if they stayed clean they don't have to leave wow you know so i think you were drug testing them yeah absolutely yeah so even though they're in this aftercare someone had years clean they're still getting drug tested you know they're still having like a house meeting once a week yeah there's still structure still curfew you know some

of these people just loved it like when you would go to their rooms it was so weird because usually at a halfway house people are trying to get out of there where houses were so nice that a lot of them during covid bro there wasn't you couldn't go rent a place for 100 bucks a week anywhere yeah you know so when you would go to their rooms dude guitars on the on the wall pictures of their family like they decked it out that's cool because they want to stay in that house it was a nice house most sober livings were in like shithole areas or sober livings were like nice houses. So a lot of them, they were like, man, I'm never going to leave here. Like they didn't want to fuck up because they knew, you know.

Yeah, that makes sense. It's hard to find a place like that. What was that moment at 17 for you? Was it a specific incident that happened that made you like stop? So people always ask me two questions, like how I got on drugs and how I got off. Yeah. And I got on drugs cause someone taught me, someone showed me,

someone introduced me. Someone's, you know, piqued my interest. And it was the same thing when I got off drugs. So I started going to 12 step meetings. I'm like a super hardcore 12 step person. Um,

and it's like when you start to go to meetings and you're surrounded by thousands of people who have gotten clean and their lives are just so like interesting and like you're just blown away it really inspired me and made me feel like i could do this forever and like one day like the uh the switch flipped like i remember i was like i don't know if i could stay clean you know i still want to get high and i was just like you know i'm young whatever and i'll never forget once this one meeting this guy ray googs was speaking and uh dude this guy was a heroin addict for like 30 years lived in washington dc homeless and uh he was probably 55 years old and i'll never forget he said he had five years clean and he said he was working on his second bachelor's degree

and he said this time next week uh or this time next year, I'll be going to law school. Wow. And I was like, dude, I just couldn't. You just don't hear about stuff like that. Yeah. And then I started following him around. I would just see him. I'm like, he wasn't full of shit.

And he actually ended up working for me at the treatment center for years. Nice. And actually became a lawyer. And you just hear stories like that and dude it just started to change how i how i thought about getting clean and um i wanted to do drugs because drugs were like crazy but like what was even crazier was like being clean like what if i didn't even drink or smoke or anything well what if i did get totally 100 sober and i was like that would even be crazy you know yeah so yeah like i went from being the

kid who like everyone in school was like dude that kid smokes crack like get the fuck away from him to like being someone who like doesn't drink doesn't party none of that wow total 180 were you a big adrenaline junkie still am yeah you know you just had to find a healthier yeah i think um my first three years clean four years clean like i really practice like uh the part of your brain that has like the breaking it's like dude i just believe that like i just never had that like i never had a slow down button i never had like a consider the consequence button like if it felt good i wanted to do it a thousand times you know and i really like my first probably five years clean like i didn't go to strip clubs i didn't go to clubs i didn't

socialize with other people that weren't in recovery i started reading tons of self-help books i was i got introduced like yoga and it's like i didn't even know how to be a kid wow you know so like my whole story is that like i just wanted to be cool my whole life like i just wanted to fit in and be with the older kids yeah i was always lying about my age and i was always driving when i shouldn't be driving and leaving the house when i shouldn't be leaving the house i couldn't follow rules and it's like um i really had to learn that like all my shortcuts were actually fucking holding me back damn you know everything i tried to do to like cut the line ended me up in a fucking handcuffs you know wow so i really had to relearn just to how to be with myself you know yeah that's

deep man so you had to grow up quick yeah i had to grow up quick but i also like regressed and like i also learned how to like ride a bike like i remember 17 well yeah because i knew how to ride a bike but i like i when i was in seventh grade i was selling coke and i was going to parties and i was like hanging out people in college so when i used to see little kids in my age riding the bikes i thought you guys are losers and i'm like when i first got clean one of the first things i did was bought a bicycle and i used to bike and i got into biking i started going to spin class wow like i used to think like bro you're going to spin class like you're a I used to think like, bro, you're going to spin class. Like you're a fucking loser.

And it's like I really had to like relearn to do things that I used to think were like corny, you know. And I got into biking. Like I still go bike ride, you know. Like I learned how to like be myself, you know. Yeah, it's easy to form those beliefs to fit in with a friend group. You start like hating on certain people, you know. Yeah, especially when you're young. Everyone's competing to be cool. those beliefs to fit in with a friend group you start like hating on certain people you know yeah especially when you're young everyone's competing to be cool and like you know all my friends i

thought we were so cool and like all literally like 70 of the kids i grew up with are either on heroin or in prison damn you know where'd you grow up i grew up in a nice area wow that's ironic right yeah so i grew up in a really nice area uh called davy which uh you know you have like million dollar homes and then you have trailer parks it's like it's like just because you live in that area doesn't mean you have money you don't have money but it's a big like i don't know uh diverse town yeah and uh dude there's just so many kids there that were just so bad like in that area i'm sure fort lauderdale in general we had the most pain clinics in the country jeez broward county had dispensed more medication uh painkillers than other states

combined holy shit so like that town was just like everybody started doing opiates wow so like you would go to a party and yeah you would see a kegger and people smoking blunts but you'd also see people doing oxycontin like it was nothing so you know when oxycontin started to go away people started to do dilaudid and dilaudid yeah it works if you eat it but you mainly shoot it so then these people are shooting pills now and then they're shooting heroin and then you know they're heroin addicts so holy crap like all my friends that i grew up with is crazy. Like, they all got addicted to IV heroin. And you said a lot of them ended up dying, too. Yeah, I mean, like I said, I've probably been to, like, 100 funerals.

Did that, like, numbness, like, did that ever stop? So when I was using it, it never really bothered me because when people would die, I would, like, be like, oh, well, it was a girl. She probably, like, weighed 90 pounds and did an oxidize and yeah just couldn't handle it or something but when i got clean it started to happen more and more and then um man it's like when you're using you have no feelings like you're totally numb and then when you get clean it's like the opposite effect wow i started crying watching the fucking public's commercial you know like I just started to have so much emotions and then like feel attached. Like I never felt attachment to people.

I never really had like friends. And then I start making friends in recovery and they start relapsing. Now I'm like worried about them. Now I'm like, fuck, this is what my parents went through. You know? And then it comes around full circle and then like, do they die?

And then you're like, you know, it starts to really affect you. And at Nine Months Clean clean the first kid i ever sponsored was my childhood friend and drug dealer i had last time i had seen him he was selling pills out of like a motel six and people are shooting up on the bed he was selling pills he was with this lady who was smoking crack fast forward i'm clean like nine months i'm speaking at a rehab and i remember he was like yo i know you and i started like i didn't recognize him because he lost so much weight in jail yeah and i started sponsoring him and um dude he died of an overdose oh shit so i was 17 and this kid died of an overdose and my first sponsee ever and that's when i was like damn like like we

really are like in in recovery like they give out chips because symbolize that you're gambling with your life and it's like damn we really are then fentanyl came out fentanyl didn't come off like two three years after that so if fentanyl came out man i think right now i think like 120 people die a day what a fentanyl overdose yes it's like 70 000 people a year holy shit that's in the u.s or worldwide no it's in the u.s wow that's in the U.S. or worldwide? No, it's in the U.S. Wow. That's in the U.S. So before fentanyl, the number was like 30,000.

Wow. So the number has doubled since fentanyl. That's crazy. So while we sit here and do this podcast, someone will overdose and die. That's nuts, dude. Yeah. Yeah. These days, you got to really test the drugs if you're going to even take them.

Yeah, and no one does that. It's like no one's testing their drugs. You know, there might be like a small percentage, but it blows my mind. Some people like do their drug of choice is fentanyl. They're looking for fentanyl. They're not like, they're not testing it because they want the fentanyl. That's insane. Yeah. It's crazy. Uh, what'd you transition to after this? I know you did some adult industry stuff too. Yeah. So like, I've always been into like, like sex and drugs, you know what I mean? And like when I got clean, like I kind of had this like perspective of like anything adult is like bad. And there's a lot of like Christian people in recovery. So like I kind of like never really talked about it or whatever.

But I've always been like promiscuous. And even in recovery, that's like not a good thing to be promiscuous, especially your first year. Maybe your second year, but like your first year you should probably chill out yeah which i did and then like as i got older like i just got like more interested and like uh i think at like 21 or 20 i went to like my first swingers club i went to a swingers club like dude i've never seen shit like this in my whole life i didn't even know this shit existed yeah i thought i didn't even know this went on like in america i was blown away that this is even legal and i was my first swimmer so i'm like blew my mind that's when i got like introduced like the idea

of polygamy or like open relationships and i started to become like really open-minded and um when i was 22 i had a friend who had like a big male escort agency. It was like one of the only straight male agencies. And I remember my friend could like never stay clean. And I would tell him like, dude, it's probably because you're doing this escorting shit. And then he got clean and we became like closer and friends. And I remember he was like, yo, I need you. I was like, for what?

He's like, I need you to like hook up with this lady in Miami and she's going to pay you. And I was like, dude, I'm not hooking up with an old lady. And he was like, who said she's old? And I was like, she's not old. And he sent me a picture of her. I was like, dude, she's hot. And then he, I was like, that girl's going to pay me. And he's like something like that. And I went down there and it would be like her sugar daddy would pay for guys to hook up with her. She would be blindfolded. It would be like 20 minutes. And he paid me three grand. So the first time I got three grand, he's not in the room.

He walks out and waits in the living room. And he just does this as a treat for them. And he told me that she thinks that we're paying her. I don't know what it was. I didn't ask a lot of questions. And and i would do that like a couple times a month and dude that was like an extra nine grand in my pocket and um that's when i started to like really see like this other world of like you know escorting and it was fun and then my friend alex adams shout out he's a number one male porn star ever.

He has like billions of views. Most viewed. I never heard of him. I know. Most people have, cause he does POV. So you never see him. Oh. You know?

But if you watch his stuff, you're like, oh, I've seen this guy before. So he like really is like the king of like the step brother thing, which that genre just like took off. Yeah. But he has billions of views. His name's Alex Adams, but you probably have like, don't but he has billions of views his name's alex adams but you probably have like don't he's he's not like on social media big he plays video games but dude makes millions of dollars killing it and back in the day i used to think like people who do

adult entertainment don't make any money yeah yeah especially men so i saw him go from like and he's also sober or clean he's in recovery a long time nice so i saw him get clean start his like little film company by himself one dollar nothing you know and go from like toyota corolla to like multiple mclarens and rolls royces damn and at the time he was super successful i was making money you know i was ready like a millionaire. I was your age, 27. And he, and I asked him, how does it work? And dude, he like showed me like the ins and outs of it. And I posted my first video and I would not show my face. Cause I'm still like the CEO of this company and do none of my videos were getting any views and you got to get views, like make money. Yeah. The odds,

right? Yeah. So I was like, what am I doing wrong doing wrong so i was like he does a lot of like talking you know so then i started to talk in them and i got like the number one video in 2018 no way yeah my video started making so much money and then i was like oh my god it's gonna take off and then people started recognizing my voice so then i was like dude i can't own like a rehab and do this yeah and then um you know i really am super loyal and like dude i don't want to screw over my business partners and like you know drug rehab is such a sensitive thing like no one wants to send their daughter to a rehab that's like owned by a guy who's doing all the change people don't take i'm also super young i started the treatment center at 25 so like a lot of people already didn't take me that seriously so i over compensated by being like super professional

like um man we just did things like by the book you know and um then when i left the treatment center i started posting my videos and i didn't realize that because of covid so many people had got into that industry that it was kind of what happened with my old industry was so saturated yeah i thought i was gonna make all this money and the videos make like a little bit of money like on of and stuff like that like a little bit like on pornhub and x videos and stuff like that but not like i imagined so you know i listened to one of your podcasts and you're saying like a lot of my success is like timing yeah and like yeah i've had success i've also have done a lot of things that didn't work out because of timing same yeah

i've definitely had my share of those too yeah yeah of is hard for guys too i heard anything adult is hard for guys you know because 99 of the clients are men right so it's like and you don't do gay content so it's even tougher yeah i mean if you did any type of even sus content you know i know a kid he's like he makes like sus videos what's that well he'll make like a tiktok of like him and his friend doing something borderline gay yeah but he doesn't do anything gay like on camera but he'll send like solo videos to guys like i've had guys ask me for like i had this guy offer me like 1200 for my underwear damn and i was like one like i don't need the money that bad yeah

i don't even feel right sending my underwear it's like another man i feel that so it's like but i did ask him how much would you pay just to see and i just like kept up in it and he was like yeah he like said he'd pay up to 1200 i was like no holy crap i just couldn't do it it's tempting though yeah i mean i guess like if i really needed the money but it's like i'm already successful like i don't really need 200 bucks that bad so i was just like nah i don't feel comfortable doing it you know but um i don't know like i refuse to do any of that even like when some of the men like message the of page well like when they're clearly interested in me i'm like i just can't do it i feel uh you gotta hit up adam 22 yeah do a little collab with lena

yeah that'll skyrocket your numbers jason love i heard made a ton off that video yeah so he made a ton of that video because that was like the first boy girl that she had did and because he's just a giant black dude and they're white and interracial stuff like that just pops off but like even with like podcasts so imagine this i'm sure so many people like oh if you get this guest on your show it's's going to pop up. Yeah. Doesn't work. No, it's not like that.

It's not like that at all. Like I had a podcast for a long time, Hell Has an Exit. And dude, we would pay big money for a lot of guests. Yeah. And yeah, it would help, but it wouldn't. So a lot of people think like in the adult industry, oh, if you shoot with this person, you'll blow up. It's not really like that. It's kind of like you just have to keep pumping out good content facts and dude i've shot with some girls that look like the girl next door

they're not like the most attractive looking girl they're very average looking and they will do way better than like a superstar girl that everyone knows wow i've shot with girls that they only did that one video with me and everyone wants to see more videos then because they're not known yeah so you know yeah like it would be cool to do something with adam 22 and um but it's like that's not a game changer for your career that's relatable though because with the pod i'll have on huge celebrities sometimes and it won't get as many views as just a normal guy dude i've listened to i remember i saw a podcast with one of like my favorite artists and it was mike posner right no i saw i saw his

on yours yeah but that only got like 10k and i'm like oh really shit like mike posner like wow i should have gotten 100k yeah i love him and i'm such a fan he's like one of my favorite people just because like i followed his whole like trek to everest yeah like all like it was dope his hike across the country yeah his story is so cool but i just think that i mean i was surprised that it got 10k i didn't actually haven't listened i was trying to listen to it today i was like i wonder if it came out yeah it's out it's out yeah but i was like damn because yeah he's such a huge name yeah i think people don't know him like because like i'll tell people like oh you know mike posner and people are like no and then you play his song yeah and they're like yeah i'm also like a big black bear fan so i just that's a good one too yeah i want to get

him on. Yeah, but it's like you would think. And then even if it does go crazy, I had videos get millions of views on TikTok. And it's like, dude, it's not bringing in a ton of money. I'm not Joe Rogan. So even with the podcast, I stopped doing my podcast because, dude, I probably put like 500 grand into my podcast. Dude, most podcasts lose a hell of money. I was unprofitable for six months, the first six months.

I've been unprofitable like three years. Well, I never paid guests, so that's a dangerous game. I was paying guests. I had like a whole team. We were pushing out ads. And not just that, like we never ran ads. So I know like- Oh, sponsors? Yeah.

Yeah, you need to. I know. I was just like, dude, I don't want to do ads. That's how you offset everything, though. I know. And it's just like, and then we would do ads and we'd make like 500 bucks yeah it's not a lot but it offsets all the like filming costs in studio and i was flying you know so after a while i was like you know i want to do something else so yeah yeah don't start a pod to make money if you're watching

this guys you're not gonna make shit yeah and originally i did it you know i did it just because i loved like having people's stories on there's like an addiction podcast but then eventually i was like well let me throw all this money at this and see what happens and i was like fuck that yeah i feel that so what are you working on now then i'm really trying to come out my books so yeah since 17 i've been keeping a diary so i have like 40 composition books and probably like i have word documents of diaries that are so big that you can't even open it like crashes holy crap so like i've been keeping a diary for literally 16 years so every day you're writing it not every day but every day for probably four years nice yeah maybe five years almost every day and then after that i've kind of like did it once a week

every two weeks sometimes i would go a couple months without writing, but I would update, like, my whole life. So I had it up for a while. And honestly, it, like, makes me so uncomfortable reading my old writings. It's like, this kid is so fucked. But, like, in my mind, like, I don't know. I'm like, I don't want to see that stuff. Like, I would imagine anyone reading their old diary kind of, like, super cringe. But I did put it out, like like before I had the treatment centers.

And there are people today who still know me from that. Wow. But I just love helping like addicts. So like whether I do the podcast or not, I'll always kind of do something creative to like spread that message. Yeah, I'm sure you get messages daily. Yeah. You've saved probably hundreds of lives indirectly that you don't even know about. I get so many DMs all the time.

I just got one the other day. Someone read it to me that runs the Instagram page. And it's like, dude, I get so many people who are like, bro, I had no idea that recovery was even a thing. Because where they live, when they go to meetings, it's all like older people. And he literally flew down, went to South Florida, started going to meetings, and is clean like three years. And he did the podcast. Wow. So it's like, you know, we've had like people that are like podcast alumni who like they

started off as listeners they were using and now they have years clean that's cool so yeah it's inspiring because that's relatable you know for sure yeah super cool teddy where can people find you and what you're up to next uh you can find me at teddy.tarantino and uh twitter i think it's just teddy tarantino and uh yeah, that's pretty much it. We'll link below, brother. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for watching, guys. Thank you, bro.

Yep. Thanks for watching, guys, as always. See you next time.