Digital Social Hour - Inside the $100 Million Mastermind Experience with Dan Fleyshman: Digital Social Hour #61

Episode Date: July 30, 2023

Attention podcast listeners! Get ready for an episode of The Digital Social Hour that's jam-packed with excitement, inspiration, and valuable insights. Hosted by the charismatic Sean Kelly and joined by co-host Wayne Lewis, this episode is an unforgettable journey through the world of charity, poker, and building meaningful connections. From the very beginning, Sean and Wayne dive headfirst into the multi-faceted life of their special guest, Dan Fleyshman. Known for his achievements in poker, the sports card industry, and organizing record-breaking charity events, Dan is a force to be reckoned with. Prepare to be amazed as Dan shares his venture into charity work, breaking world records for toy drives and organizing incredible events. Discover how he rallied people together without relying on money, highlighting the power of the human spirit to make a difference. But the surprises don't end there! Sean and Wayne are captivated by Dan's story of creating an animal sanctuary, having Tarzan himself, that's right, Tarzan, join his team, and their thrilling plans for content creation. As the episode unfolds, listeners are treated to a glimpse into Dan's massive network-building strategy, featuring star-studded events like Elevator Night and the mind-blowing $100 million mastermind experience. Rub shoulders with celebrities like Mark Wahlberg and Chris Jenner as Dan recounts his unforgettable moments. But it's not just about glitz and glamour - this episode gets real about money. The hosts unapologetically tackle taboo topics, discussing financial literacy, bankruptcies in professional sports, and the importance of having frank discussions about money. Prepare to be inspired as Dan reflects on the meaning of experiences and the value of cherishing every moment in our short lives. Join in as he lifts the curtain on his work ethic, mental preparedness, and his secret escape: poker. Through Dan's stories of building relationships, networking, and the impact of poker, listeners get a unique perspective on creating connections and raising funds for charity. Learn how you can incorporate poker into your networking strategy as Dan unveils the power of hosting charity poker events. But it's not all business and poker. Dive into the emotional depths with Dan as he shares his thoughts on loss, grief, and the emotional journey he's navigated throughout his life. Witness the power of vulnerability as Dan and the hosts touch on the importance of men embracing their emotions. As this incredible episode winds down, Dan looks to the future with Money Mondays and an upcoming toy drive. Don't miss out on the opportunity to be a part of his charity efforts and stay tuned for more exciting content. So, whether you're a fan of charity work, poker, or the world of high-stakes networking, this episode of The Digital Social Hour is a must-listen. Join Sean Kelly, Wayne Lewis, and special guest Dan Fleyshman as they take you on a rollercoaster ride of inspiration, knowledge, and the power of connection. Don't wait another second - tune in now and get ready to be entertained, informed, and inspired. Follow Dan on Instagram for more updates and we'll see you next time on The Digital Social Hour! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/digitalsocialhour/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

welcome to the digital social hour i'm your host sean kelly i'm here with my co-host wayne lewis what up what up and our guest today dan fleishman hello hello thanks for having me thanks for coming in i'm excited for this one i'm'm ready to go. Let's go. Let's go. Do we even need an intro? I don't think so. I mean, they should know who you are, right? I think people know me for different things. Yeah, Dan the man. You know, like some people know me for sports cards or acai bowls or masterminds or events or speaking or books. Who's your daddy? Energy drinks, like poker. They know me for different things. different things so i don't know that you know and some people don't know me at all obviously i don't have an ego to it there's plenty billions of people who have no idea who i am

so i think it's just interesting different categories of how they know me yeah the people that do you wear a lot of hats yeah life is short and i you know we're gonna die pretty quickly how do you want to be known what do you want to be known for ultimately my charity yeah we we broke the record for the world's largest toy drive last year damn um we're gonna break the guinness book world records again this what was the record what was the original way to do 160 000 toys we took over sofi stadium and like filled the whole field up with toys crazy um but the record that we broke for guinness was the most toys in one hour it was like i think we did 8 000 wow 8 000 toys you gave away yeah roger filmed it was a nuts it was the most toys in one hour. It was like, I think we did 8,000. Wow. 8,000 toys.

You gave away 8,000. Yeah, Roger filmed it. It was nuts. That's insane. It was the craziest hour of my life watching them process. Anyways. So people had to come in and get the toys quick.

So we had to take it off the pallets, rip off the plastic, manually count each one in front of a Guinness Book World Record official authority. Wow. And now we know how to break it again, but we wanna break different records for this year because it's our 10 year anniversary of the toy drive.

But I think the main thing I want people to remember me for is charity, because I want people to replicate my charity, not donate to my charities. I want them to do their own toy drives, do your own Thanksgiving food drive. You give out backpacks to the homeless. You don't need my backpacks. You give out backpacks to the homeless.

So I want people to replicate my charities in different versions that they like Why are you so big on charity? You donate millions to charity. What makes you so passionate? It's so solvable. Like if you really think about the three things that humans need this food water and shelter There are gazillion dollar companies that can help fix food, right? Think about how many food companies could fix food There is infinite capital that could fix water. Water is really fixable. It's really solvable. And shelter. That's like the easiest thing. If you really think about curing homelessness. And so I feel like my job on Earth is to show people how to fix these things, how to donate to these things, because it's so solvable. It frustrates me because there's so much bureaucratic red tape and so many hard things to get through from the government that we could solve it as private citizens and so that's why i'm always preaching about how to do charity how to do

it efficiently how to do it easily how you don't need a bunch of money to do it you just gotta like use your social media power and use your cell phone and you can do charity too do you think they're paying attention to what you're doing so that they can replicate it or even shine light on it because really i found out about your charity by just you know paying attention to you and you know most people kind of you know want to turn the blind side when it comes to giving a giving back yep that's why i talk about the ways to give to charities without using money so i think that's what holds a lot of people back is either greed or or nervousness or thinking i don't have enough money to donate to charity or my hundred bucks or a thousand bucks or two grand or

five grand is not going to do enough right i walk people through showing them how you don't have enough money to donate to charity or my $100 or $1,000 or $2,000 or $5,000 is not going to do enough. I walk people through showing them how you don't need any money at all. You could do a toy drive, Philadelphia, Mexico, anywhere you are in the world with your cell phone. Just getting people together, meeting at a building, telling them the date when to meet there, asking people to donate toys or food or homeless supplies or whatever. You don't need capital. You just need a cell phone and to rally the people together. And so I'm trying to remove that fear that people have of like,

I don't do charity or I don't want to donate to that because I don't like this or I don't like that or I don't have the money. I remove all those fears by showing them you don't need money to do charity. You need energy, time, and passion. Right. You're also big on animals. You started an animal sanctuary. Yeah.

Can you tell everyone what animals you have and why you started it? So we have 26 acres. It's in Temecula, right above San Diego. There's a guy named The Real Tarzan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. So I convinced him to move there. Oh, he lives there?

He lives there full time. He lives 30 yards from my house. He's right there. Oh, I always thought he lived in Miami. He did live in Miami. I convinced him to move there. And I said, hey building this 26 acre place half the place so basically like 9 to 12 acres will be yours for an animal sanctuary and you can build what's called the wild jungle w-y-l-d so you go to instagram look at wild jungle and you'll see tarzan there ostriches

camels zebras everything in between we have over 85 animals that we've either rescued or helped acquire to protect. And we keep getting more and more animals each week. And we're building Wild Jungle to be like a full-fledged brand where we can then donate millions of dollars to animal preservation and rescues. And so it started first. My wife really likes animals. So I wanted to have a ranch that had animals then when i realized the ranch that we were getting had a lot of like topography like space like mountains and cool areas whatever and was zoned to allow to have animals that's when i was like well i know

in tarzan for six or seven years yeah what if i can convince him to move there then i can take it to a whole nother level and now you guys can see it on social media. It's wild. Wow, that's sick. I never knew that. Dude, that's awesome. I swear I thought Tarzan stayed in Miami. 12.30 a.m. last night. We were outside. My wife's out there.

We all had to get out of bed because one of the goats had a baby. And so you got Tarzan waking up, giving birth to a freaking, helping a goat give birth, cleaning it off. It's messy. I don't want to describe it, you know, and then Six in the morning. He's making content getting like 50 million views on a video Mm-hmm going to clean up poop going to fly to India tonight to go make content like India Yeah, he's literally flying India to go make content with King Cobras and anyways like he's the perfect brand for My world and so I'm really excited to have him living with us

and making this content because he's helping animals we're making all this content together what's the most dangerous animal you have there that you're even scared of like no i'm not touching the the only animal i'm scared of is humans whoa that's a quote right there yeah wow i learned that one from tarzan because it's the only animal on this planet that you don't know their intentions. I know what a snake wants to do. I know what a tiger wants to do. I know what a bear wants to do when it sees me. I don't know what humans want to do.

Wow. What's your favorite animal on the ranch? There's a camel named Habibi. Habibi was the very first animal that we got. And when I see him and he sees me, we're just like, ah. So he knows exactly who you are. Yeah, well, I'm going to bring him carrots. So that's why he gets excited.

And then we got him a girlfriend. Her name's Naomi Camel. This is my favorite name on the property. That's funny. So yeah, that's my favorite animal. You're also the networking king. You started the most expensive mastermind in the world, 100,000 a year to join.

How did you get such a big network? So I was throwing free events for years, and I still throw them, called Elevator Night. I've thrown it 51 times for free. No tickets, no sponsors, no sales on stage, just free. And it was my excuse to get a lot of people together, and then I could invite really good-named speakers. It's a free event. I'd still get Russell Simmons, Jake Paul, all these guys that normally get paid a lot of money to speak were coming to speak for free because they knew I was getting 300 to 1,000 entrepreneurs for free. Like a lot of your networking events.

Same concept. And so I did that for years. And then I started speaking at a bunch of people's masterminds. And it felt like people were paying $25, grand 35 grand to be at like the radisson ball room there was no experience to it and i felt like i was like in groundhog day just going through the same thing over and over and over and there was very few masterminds that had like experience to it so i came up with 100 million mastermind experience 2019 i had not thrown a mastermind before i just spoke at masterminds and i I just showed people, like Sean, you're one of the first people to join.

I'm going to make the most experiential mastermind ever. It's very expensive. It's $100,000 per person. But I'm not doing it for profit. I'm going to go spend millions of dollars per event. So I would spend $1 to $2 million per weekend to throw these masterminds. The first event you came to, I spent $3.2 million in three days in three days how was that dude the people he had i believe it it was amazing changing my life i rented dan blazarian's mansion here in vegas the la one the crazy looks like a

compound it's not even a house i don't know what kind of mansion it looks like a palace uh we rented an 80 million dollar house on sunset we rented out the porsche experience we had mark walberg as our first speaker bruce bruffer introducing everybody yeah wow uh we had chris jenner magic johnson dennis rodman tiger performed uh and all those people nick cannon dj'd yeah yeah uh matt barnes matt barnes was training we had freaking what's his name chris rock there not chris rock. The other, another comedian, Chris Tucker. He was hosting the poker tournament. Yeah. I mean like there was just so many,

you know, that is an experience for sure. Especially having been around that. Bro, it opened my eyes. Like for real. And so that was our opening weekend. And then from there I'm like, okay,

well I can't go backwards. Right. You got, you gotta go up. You gotta go up. Yeah. And so we've been doing that since 2019. Um,

and I'll be doing that mastermind. I'll be 70 or 80 years old. If I'm in a wheelchair, I'll still be throwing that mastermind. Like I'm obsessed with networking and that experience. What is your goal of the mastermind? What are you trying to accomplish with people? So there's three parts to it. One part is networking.

So I want to bring in 100 entrepreneurs that are all doing between $5 and $50 million in sales. So the networking part is the business part. Saturday nights, I do a charity event every time. So I can raise six figures or more for charity every single time I throw a mastermind event. That starts to add up when it's been four years now and growing, six figures, six figures, six figures, you know, dozens of times.

And then the Sunday's the experience part. I'll rent out a stadium, there's only 100 of us. I rented out Diamondback Stadium, the Dallas Cowboys Stadium, I rent out stadiums and arenas for 100 people. The other part for me selfishly is i get to interview my heroes i'm interviewing hulk hogan mark walberg floyd manwether mike tyson like the people i grew up with we all grew up with watching right i now have a bankroll or budget to work with to go book my favorite people in history and sit down with them come here Paul Cogan, come sit next to me. You know, like, and so that part is super fun for me. And so that's why I overspend.

I could throw the same mastermind for two or 300 grand a weekend and still knock people's socks off. It would still be awesome. But if I spend one or $2 million a weekend and make it ridiculous, I can bring a, I'll build a legacy brand. People will go to these masterminds forever. People will be willing to show up too, because they know it's going to be an experience.

It's unlike anything else I've seen. You also started a business podcast. Yeah. It's already number one in three months. How did you pull that off? That was in three months. Yeah. Yeah. So we just launched it. Today was episode 18. Wow. So we've been number one for 29 days in a row. Number one entrepreneur podcast for 29 days in a row. Number three in the whole business category for 29 days in a row. It's really hard to stay in that because i'm up against 800 pound gorillas right like yeah for sure as you guys know there's a lot oh yeah absolutely we're top 20 we're hanging yeah yeah what 20 29 yeah top 20 is huge by the way you can think about it there's almost 5 million podcasts there's really only like a million that are active a couple

hundred thousand that are like really active and then like five to ten thousand that are like consistently every week so to be in the top 20 or 30 is nuts I just be really clear thank you I mean you guys have a lot of viral clips and that's why I want to be so blunt today you guys have the most viral clips I've seen in podcast so I created the money Monday's podcast because we grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money. Taboo. I think it's rude to not talk about money.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's the reason that we have financial illiteracy. I think that's the reason people are in credit card debt. I think it's the reason that people have so many fights. Over half of marriages end over – Financially. Financial. Yeah.

Because people don't know how to have open discussions. But? A lot of times, arguments happen between friends over like $ at a restaurant or 500 bucks at a nightclub and they didn't like talk about who was going to split it well let's all get bottles and like i was going to pay for it and you're like wait should i pay for it should i pay for it do i owe him now like that could have been settled with a very simple discussion or a text beforehand like hey guys i'll put up three grand you guys put up 500 bucks each and you know like for sure if i didn't say that and i expected 500 bucks each you guys could get mad at me't say that and I expected 500 bucks each,

you guys could get mad at me or vice versa. And so the whole concept of the podcast is to have very blunt discussions about money. And I ask people during the podcast to spread the word about having these blunt discussions with your friends, family, and followers. We need people to talk about money, about loans, rent, salary, leases, taxes, FICO score. What the hell is FICO? Like talk through these things. And that's why I think the podcast is doing so well.

We're having very blunt discussions with boxers, athletes, business moguls, from a Dan Bilzerian to a cannabis guy and everybody in between. You're going to learn from people. Today is all about real estate, for example. Like you're going to learn from people that just have really blunt discussion about money. Do you think a lot of pro athletes go broke because they're not open about discussing money? So it's a really scary stat. Over 80% of NFL players and NBA players go bankrupt, not just broke. Bankrupt.

Bankrupt within five years of leaving the league. Wow. Think about that. Crazy. I'm around them, so I see how it happens. Yeah. It's scary. Yeah, yeah.

And it's unnecessary. Yeah. I understand buying one or two cool cars, buying one cool watch, buying something. I'm not saying don't buy a watch, don't buy a house, et cetera. But have a balance. But bro, you don't need six cars.

You don't need a 19 person entourage. You don't need... Your cousin's friend, sister's friend doesn't need to get eight grand a month to work with you and fly around with you and pick up your clothes. He just doesn't. And so it's sad and frustrating to see

guys we all look up to making $12 million and $30 million, and then they've got to borrow $10,000 from us a few years later. That's scary. It's sad because they're not going to have another bite at the apple. That NFL player is probably not going to go make a million-dollar a year anywhere else ever again. So when they go blow through $6 million in the league, what are they going to do? I have one guy. I won't say his name, but he wanted to borrow 10 grand in exchange for his championship ring.

He was already out of the league. That's crazy. He was putting that up for collateral. Wow. Think about that. For two decades, that player was from eight years old to like 20-something years old. They were fighting through high school, middle school, getting into college, being the tiniest percentage to get into the league going to get a championship in whatever sport they got think

about that how rare that is and now they got to borrow 10 grand yeah you know how sad that is yeah i mean but it like you said it goes back to you know um not having that financial literacy and not being taught what to do with your money, not planting the right seeds, not having a balance when it comes to your spending, having a million dollars in jewelry on. For what? Don't get me wrong. I think it's good to have fun and do things in moderation, but it's moderation.

There's a big difference between the first watch and the fourth watch. You become numb to it. When you get your third Lamborghini, you're going to become numb to it. I you get your third lamborghini it's you're gonna become numb to it i'm serious yeah no no absolutely like and then when you go to 19 nightclubs in a row it feels the same you're gonna be numb to it and so that's why i don't preach about like hey don't buy don't buy your starbucks coffee get your starbucks coffee hey don't buy a rolex go go ahead buy a rolex buy a paddock boy go buy that one thing, but I promise you, the fourth car

is not going to change anything. You won't even feel it. Buying the fourth watch, you will not even feel it. You won't care at all. Not even one iota. Not even the next morning. I mean, you're right. I have five, and I only cared about the first one, to be honest. I don't even wear the other four. You don't even wear them. Yeah, you wear them every now and then. I don't even wear the one, yeah.

You're not even wearing a watch right now. I've had the same watch since 2008. Yeah. You're not even wearing a watch right now. Yeah. I've had the same watch since 2008. Yeah. Because I want to buy a watch company. I want to invest in a watch company. I don't want to buy more watches. I've had the same watch from Jason at Beverly Hills. We always joke about it.

For 15 years, I've had the same watch. I didn't have a car for the last seven years. I Ubered everywhere for seven years. Think about that. Because I want to invest in car companies. So what's your advice then? Like what do you spend money on? Charity.

Experiences and charity. Experiences and charity. Mostly experiences. The charity part to me, remember, I donate a couple million a year to charity, but I'm raised a lot more. So it's not like Dan's handing out 10 million dollars. It's not like I'm just making it rain to every charity.

I'm specific about the main charities that I'm involved in. I donate to some of my friends' charities, like Steveoki's charity things like like people that i love and respect i donate to their charities i know that the money is going to be used wisely but outside of that i'm helping raise money for other people's charities but the experience is what i spend money on experience is what i care about because those are the things that like we are going to reflect on because like again life is really short right we're going to reflect on those moments so i want to go to these rare countries i want to go to these rare events i

want to go to these experiences like because those are things that we're going to remember and those are things we're going to remember with our friends and family right what what are what are some things that you actually struggle with like what do you what do you battle with internally whether it's an insecurity or some things that you have to continuously overcome or prep yourself and talk to yourself? So the main thing is execution. Execution. I've taken on a lot of different projects. And it's a constant juggle of which one do I work on at what time of the day.

And if something is slacking, I overdo it. And if I overcompensate for the one that's slacking, then what happens to the one over here? And so I'm in a constant battle with myself of, I threw the world's largest toy drive. I'm going to do it bigger next time. Well, if I do that, it means I'm going to spend a ton of hours and months preparing for that,

which will take away from acai bowl restaurants or sports cards or masterminds or social media agency. I have a lot of things going on. And so've been really fighting with like don't do anything new just scale the things that i have and so it's a constant struggle a little every morning and sometimes i wake up at 6 a.m or 5 a.m lately been waking up at 4 a.m because i'm like i gotta do this i gotta do this i gotta do this i gotta do this wow and i don't need to do any of it but i need to do all of it right right i need to yeah like i you couldn't pay me 10 billion dollars this is an actual fact you could lie detector test you could not pay me 10 billion dollars to stop everything wow so you're not doing it for money

i couldn't care less about the money he's addicted i am addicted i'm physically addicted hello my name is dan placement i'm addicted to working like i'm addicted to it and i'm okay with that and i've accepted it my luckily my wife has accepted it she lets me be me lets me be a crazy freaking bastard working on all these different things and supports me in it but like i'm addicted so when you do mental health checks like what do you do to like have that balance like when you know things aren't going your way or you're frustrated. Because mental health is big. So what do you do?

Do you work out? I mean, what's your thing? So my only true escape is poker. That's the only time. Wow, and that's a stressful game. So you still work. But I enjoy it. I enjoy the good and the bad of poker.

And also, what's interesting is I enjoy the good and the bad of business. I know people are going to screw me over. I know I'm going to bad of business i know people are gonna screw me over i know i'm gonna have lawsuits i know employees are gonna leave me i know people are gonna compete with me no people are gonna talk shit about me people are gonna lie about me people are gonna i'm gonna have all these situations the reason i don't feel like i have the mental health problems that come up a lot because i'm aware of it in advance and i expect it let me give you a quick example if you're dating a girl for three years right and every single week you guys go to dinner at eight o'clock and every single week she

shows up at 8 40 because she's late at some point it's your fault to get mad at her at 8 40 you know she's going to be late because she did it over and over and over i expect her to be late so i make the reservation for nine o'clock and i tell her it's eight o'clock and she's gonna show me 8 40 we're gonna get there at nine everybody's gonna be okay i do that in every aspect of my life i know people are gonna screw up i know things aren't gonna happen on time i know this person's gonna fail i know this person's gonna i know things are bad are gonna happen because i've been through so many people dying screw me over etc over the years that i don't say i'm numb to it But I'm expecting those things to happen. Mmm. And so what happens is for a lot of people is They go through bad mental health situations because they don't think that the bad things are gonna happen

Or when the bad things happen, they overreact to them and think it's their fault It is not your fault that that girl shows up at 840 each time It's not that's part of who she is It's part of how she grows up takes her a long time to get ready and it's their fault. It is not your fault that that girl shows up at 8.40 each time. It's not. That's part of who she is, it's part of how she grows up, takes her a long time to get ready, and there's nothing wrong with that. By the way, when I say a girl, it could be the guy, it could be a kid, it could be a parent.

It's the same. It's an example of like, if you know someone's doing something over and over and over, you're gonna get mad at them. It's actually within yourself. You really have to look at those things in the situations, and I think that's why, from a mental health perspective, I'm calm in the chaos. Because I'm expecting, when I play poker, I've got pocket aces.

Sean's got pocket kings. And a king comes out, and we're playing for $100,000, and he hits the king. I don't get upset. My heart rate doesn't change. Because sometimes that's supposed to happen. It doesn't change the fact that I should play aces. What am I supposed to do, fold? No, I came there to play pocket aces. Sometimes Sean's supposed to happen. Doesn't change the fact that I should play aces. What am I supposed to do, fold? No, I came there to play pocket aces.

Sometimes Sean's going to have kings. Sometimes he's going to hit a king. Sometimes Sean's going to have aces. I'm going to have kings and I don't hit a king. And Sean's going to win again. And in one night he might beat me for hundreds of thousand dollars. I am perfectly calm throughout the whole process because as long as I know that what I'm doing is right, I'm studying what

I'm doing, I don't get upset with the result. The only thing I can do in my life is to be prepared for the situation. And if he gets lucky or I get lucky or this happens or the whole building falls down, like something happens, I stay calm in the chaos. Wow. I've never met anybody who played poker

when they're stressed out. That's fire. Yeah, that's a first. That is a first, but I get it. What's the biggest poker hand you've played in? I get it. So I've been playing recently a lot of hands that are over a million dollars.

Holy crap. No heart rate change, no sweaty hands. I've never talked about this at all, by the way. No sweaty hands, I've never talked about this at all, by the way. No sweaty hands. No like nothing. No. I've had some hands against some household name celebrities, some big business guys, some people that very interesting characters where we're playing and the hand is for $1.4 million.

So we're in for $700,000 each. That's a house. That's crazy. And then 20 minutes later, the same thing happens versus another player at the table for another $1.2 million. So you've lost those hands, some of those hands. For sure. And it doesn't affect you at all?

Not even a little bit. Not even for a second. Wow. My job is to study as much as I can, be in the right situation. If I made a mistake, then I'm going to analyze it over and over and over. I won't be mad at the table. When you get home, you're going to go. I still can think about it.

Right when you're talking to me, I'm actually seeing hands right now. I remember situations right this second. You have photographic memory. Very visual. Only of the hands that I lost. I can tell you with extreme detail the hands that I lost. Not the hands that I won. Right now, literally as I'm looking at both of you guys, I'm seeing hands of like, I had aces.

They had queens. They hit a queen for $800,000. I can see it right this second. The hands that I won, I can't see. Wow. So you focused on the Ls. Yes. Because I can't improve the wins.

No, not at all. I did what I was supposed to do I got I either got lucky or didn't get like Eric didn't get unlucky whatever the situation was But the ones that I lost If I played something wrong, right? I didn't do this right or I didn't read Sean like I could have known Sean had aced like yeah If I would have done something wrong, I'm not upset the table. Oh man that drive home that night I'm analyzing everything about it.

For real, man. Yeah. How good is the networking in poker? That's actually where I've met some of the biggest people in my life. Yeah. Because you get to sit with household name athletes. There's a lot of household name NBA players that play poker. Household name celebrities and actors, like the biggest of the biggest.

Yeah. name celebrities and actors like the biggest of the biggest yeah and so these are moments where where else am I going to sit with that person for eight hours ten hours twelve hours fourteen hours and there's only eight other people at the table right and most of them are like quiet because they're poker guys or business guys like so if I can speak and talk I can't to network with household name NBA player household name celebrity big business guy nine hundred million dollars of apartments. This guy is one of the biggest selling blah, blah, blah.

Like, I get to sit there with them for eight hours, 10 hours, 12 hours and have real dialogue. You get to build real relationships. The only other place you could do that is like on a golf course. And even then, I don't golf though. Yeah. It is different. You know, I don't do that. Yeah.

And so, like, to me, poker is my golf where I get to sit and spend time with someone. But there's people that are like the biggest names on the planet that I've got to just sit there and play with them for hundreds of hours. Like we'll play eight hours, eight hours, eight hours every single week for years. And so from a networking perspective, it's great. That's also why I throw so many charity poker tournaments. I throw charity poker tournaments like you've been to at almost every one of our masterminds. We throw a charity poker tournament on Saturday nights. With Steve Aoki, we throw a charity poker tournaments like you've been to at almost every one of our masterminds we throw a charity poker tournament on Saturday nights with Steve Aoki we throw a charity poker event lots of times and Dan Bilzerian's house

we'll throw charity poker events like over the years I've thrown so many charity poker events because it's a really good way to raise six figures really easily without having like everyone can just pitch in 500 bucks 1000 bucks, 2 grand, 3 grand times that by 100 you got a quarter million dollars charity is ecstatic the players by 100, you got a quarter million dollars.

Charity is ecstatic. The players are happy. Everyone has a good experience. They get to play with a bunch of football players and basketball players and musicians and rappers. Everyone gets to have a good time, and they're not having to donate $10,000. With 500 bucks, 1,000 bucks, two grand, can raise a lot of money for charity. So poker is one of my biggest networking tips. I'd love to. Go ahead.

Were you always uh fearless like when did you develop like all these skill sets and how were you as a as a kid were you just like always a risk taker jumping off of fences and shit or it's just like were you just one day like okay well i'm that guy like how were you as a kid, personality-wise? So when I was in high school, I worked three jobs simultaneously. And I lived outside. Like, my mom had a one-bedroom. So, like, I was outside. As soon as morning came or I was out of school, I would be outside until it got dark.

At all times for my whole life. That's also why I've never been sick. My wife always jokes about it. I've literally never been to a hospital in my life. Wow. After high school. And so just being outside at all times, you just get immune to a lot of things anyways. And so I started my company, I was 17 and immediately we're like battling with

the biggest clothing brands in the world. Did a million our first year, 9.5 million. We were 19 go public and we're 23. So I just got thrown in with the wolves and dealing with a lot of crazy business stuff. And from a personal level, I had some household name NFL players, Ricky Williams and then Darrell Russell. And I watched two different situations. Ricky Williams, one of the best running backs of all time, who would have broke every NFL record in history, just like he broke every college record in history.

Well, after what happened with the cannabis, he lost this crazy career, this amazing career that he was going to have. My other roommate, Darrell Russell, he gets into a bad situation. He gets falsely accused of something. He loses his situation with the Raiders and the Buccaneers, et cetera, and then tragically dies. Just runs into a bus on Santa Monica Boulevard at 6 in the morning. And so losing my roommate, roommate one losing a roommate to watch their career fall apart due to something that's now perfectly legal which is cannabis and then

two my dearest friend just crashed in the back of a car and you know this huge football player that's one of the best of all time just gone i just i had that feeling of like man life is really short right and then another friend passed away another friend passed away another friend passed away Family member passed away And so like after 10 15 20 people start passing away and some of them That are I had to rewatch it for years because they're well-known people and then watching it all over the news Do you ever cry I have cried? It's really rare. I did cry one that when the passed away, when Daryl passed away, I cried.

When did you stop crying? When it starts happening a lot, there's less emotion to it. Gotcha. Because, again, it's this weird thing where you start to feel like it's going to happen. And so I've had some people pass away that are like, I had three business friends pass away in the last two months. Whoa. Damn. That's insane.

You're young, too. And so, like, and I didn't cry for any of those, which I wish I would have, but I don't have that for a lot of people. But, like. Wait, what do you mean you wish you would have, but you don't have that for a lot of people? I wish I would have. I wish I still had that emotion. Oh, I got you. You're desensitized.

I wish I had that button still. Yeah, same. However, if my puppy passed away, I would cry. Fox. If my dog passed away. Different attachment. And I say that not to say like I would like to cry for more people. But it's happened so often that I can think of two dozen off the top of my head that are close to me.

Not just like the kind of know them or like you know of them or you've met them occasionally. Like these are actual like friend friends or people that have, you know, travel with me, live with me, go to dinner with me. Like close people that have passed away. When you start to get to a number like 20 plus, it starts, again, I don't want to say numb to it, but like it's different. No, that's what it has. That's a lot. You become numb. And so there are situations where I wish I would.

And I think the only ones that I have cried over is my grandfather, not my grandmother, even though I'm super close to her. I think about the fact of how rare I cry. Yeah, I don't cry often, to be honest. I think you kind of get numb to it. I cried a lot as a kid. I have nothing against crying. No, I know. If you trigger something now, I would cry right now and wouldn't feel bad about crying on camera i have nothing

against crying i think it's very healthy for people to cry right and again some of my closest family and friends call me like a robot because i don't have the emotions that i am aware of the emotions but i don't really have them because i've had so many tragedies from business friends screwing me over people passing away situations that go wild like i just had so many tragedies from business friends screwing me over, people passing away, situations that go wild. Like, I just had so many of them happen that there's just not very many things that could make me cry outside of, like, you know, my dogs. I don't think a lot of guys would admit it either. No, because crying is something that, again, as men, we all –

some people just don't cry. They deal with it in different ways. So I'm sure you deal with your emotions in different ways. I think it's powerful now the last few years. We've watched during championship games or boxing matches, et cetera, UFC fights, watching they show them crying. I think it's very powerful for people to see big, burly men crying. I think it's important for them to see it. There's nothing wrong with it at all.

Not even a little bit it is a powerful emotion that's releasing something inside of them whether it's a past trauma tragedy or they just worked for a decade to get to that moment and then they lose the world series of poker they get second they lose boston versus miami they lose game seven to blah blah like they fought their whole lives to be in that moment and then they lose. I think it's important for us to see LeBron James or Steph Curry or Conor McGregor. Like, seeing them cry,

I think it's important for our society, for men, to see it. That is perfectly okay to cry. Yeah. Man, it's been a blast, Dan. What's next for you? It's over?

It's been 30 minutes. Oh, my God, man. Damn. What's next for you? What are you trying to promote? The Money Mondays is obviously i'm passionate about that um the world's largest toy drive is coming up yeah this december i'm gonna try to do 10 cities wow are you doing 10 cities yeah it's vegas one of them yeah i'll help out

with that yeah yeah yeah 10 cities because our 10-year anniversary yeah you know definitely want to be involved in that yeah so yeah podcast charity um those are the main things you know people sports cards obviously cards and coffee yeah we didn't even talk about that yeah we opened up here at the manly bay that's our ninth store with marshall lynch that's a fun one yeah um i'm sure i'll just come back you know this 30 minutes went by so fast yeah we'll have to do a part two for sure wayne um thank you guys for watching make sure you follow me on instagram at the creator pop up running somewhere thanks for tuning in guys digital social hour i'll see you next time Thank you guys for watching. Make sure you follow me on Instagram at the creator. Pop up around here somewhere. Thanks for tuning in, guys.

Digital Social Hour. I'll see you next time. Peace.