Digital Social Hour - The Crazy Marketing Hacks That Made Me a Millionaire! | Joseph Fazio DSH #582

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

🚀 Get ready for an electrifying episode of the Digital Social Hour! 🌟 In "The Crazy Marketing Hacks That Made Me a Millionaire!" Sean Kelly dives deep into the incredible journey of Joseph Fazio, a marketing maverick who turned his wild strategies into a million-dollar empire. From military life to disruptive marketing campaigns, Joseph's story is packed with jaw-dropping moments and valuable insights you won't want to miss! 💡   Tune in now to discover how Joseph went from broke and living with his mom to owning multiple clubs and franchising businesses across the nation. 🎤 Join the conversation as he reveals the crazy hacks and unconventional methods that skyrocketed his success. 📈   Don't miss out on this eye-opening episode! 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! 🚀   Join us as we explore: 🔥 Secrets behind Joseph's disruptive marketing campaigns 📚 How he leveraged his military experience for business success 💼 The highs and lows of his entrepreneurial journey 🎧 And so much more!   Watch now and become part of our community. Let's get those success stories rolling! 🌟👊   #DigitalSocialHour #SeanKelly #Podcast #JosephFazio #MarketingHacks #Entrepreneur #SuccessStory #InsiderSecrets   #SeoHacks #StartupMarketing #BusinessMarketing #MarketingStrategies #EntrepreneurJourney   CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 00:41 - Joining the Military 04:59 - Babbel Language Learning 08:51 - Going Broke After the Military 09:16 - Finishing College 10:10 - Going Broke and Becoming a Millionaire by 30 16:52 - Disruptive Marketing Campaigns 18:55 - All Press is Good Press 20:47 - Saltmine Studios 22:05 - Music Catalogs 24:51 - Giant Pet Cat 27:50 - Caring What Others Think 29:24 - Importance of a Strong Support System 30:26 - Downside of Motivational Speakers 31:39 - Wrapping Up   APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail]   GUEST: Joseph Fazio https://www.instagram.com/josephfazio   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

So she really believed in you. That's cool to have that support system. I think everybody needs somebody that believes in them. We all have this innate belief in ourself that we're capable, but it's solidified when someone else, especially someone else you respect, identifies the same potential in you. Wherever you guys are watching this show,

I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe. It helps a lot with the algorithm. It helps us get bigger and better guests, and it helps us grow the team. Truly means a lot. Thank you guys for supporting, and here's the episode. All right, guys, from Phoenix, Arizona, Joseph Fazio here today. My man's got a crazy story. I can't wait to dive into it.

Thank you, Sean. Thanks for having me. Yeah. All right. So you grew up in a military family, right? I grew up in a military family. Dad was a Marine. Spent my childhood

at Camp Lejeune, Jacksonville, North Carolina. 12 of the 17 years I was in my parents' house, my dad was deployed. He was an artillery officer. So my perspective as a kid was one of the man

protects, provides, really isn't there. So it wasn't abnormal for me to think that dads go away and they go fight wars and come home. That was kind of the normal. So as I left my parents' house, went to college, I was pre-med at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, but there was something inside of me that always felt like

I wanted to serve myself. So my junior year of college, an Air Force recruiter came to the campus and they had a program. It was kind of new then, I'm dating myself a bit, but this is pre-2000s, so this is Y2K. And they came in and said they had this new program where if you could pass an ADPT, an electronic data placement test with certain score, that you'd get a million-dollar education with the Air Force. Yeah. And there was this really riveting speech by the general explaining the correlation between psychology and finance.

And if you understood people and you understood numbers, you could essentially do whatever you wanted. And they believed that technology was the future. And they wanted to prepare 12 people to take that on for the government. So of course, you know, raised my hand, said, I want to take this test, dropped out of college. Wow. And was shipping off to boot camp within the month. And they only gave that to 12 people, you said? 12 people.

And you were one of them? I was one of them. Wow. So how many people applied? No idea. Probably a lot. I mean, probably a million dollar education. Yeah. You know, they have recruiters all over the country and the recruiters were going to colleges all over the country looking for people that wanted to try this program. That's crazy. So what do you think got you one of those 12 spots? Uh, the EDPT. I got a 98 out of 99 on the ASVAB and I scored a 92 out of 99 on the EDPT. That's a physical health test?

No, it's mental. It's more of an IQ test. It's like a Mensa test. Interesting. Yeah, I'm into those tests actually. Yeah. Have you ever taken one? No, I want to.

My dad was a 150 IQ though. Yeah. So I think I'm decent. Yeah. We'll see. That's genius. Yeah, I know. Have you taken IQ tests? What'd you get? 154 Yeah. We'll see. That's genius. Yeah, I know. Have you taken IQ tests?

What'd you get? 154. Holy crap, dude. That's insane. And did you know you were that smart your whole life? Maybe indirectly, not through standardized testing, but I would sleep through class, never pay attention, and still would pass all the tests. I wish.

School was relatively easy. That's crazy, man. Didn't excel, though, in grades. I never did homework. Oh yeah. Yeah. Homework was always a bummer. Yeah. So you were in the military for how long? Six years active duty and then two years as a contractor afterwards. Did you get deployed? No, I did not. So I would have liked to have been deployed actually. Um, but the nature of my job made me a government asset that was, as they put it, more valuable to them in a, in a safe position. So I spent three years at Langley, which is a Langley air force base is obviously Langley in general as a CIA and

NASA headquarters. And so there's an air force base there in Langley air force base. And then the next three years was Afflewick, which is the Air Force Information Warfare Center in Texas. Wow. So three years there as well. And what exactly were you doing on a daily basis there? So cyber warfare was the, I guess, is the type of job. But my daily responsibilities aren't something I can talk about exactly. But cyber warfare warfare so that's

basically like um countries trying to infiltrate our cyber networks yeah yeah information warfare in and of itself just means the acquisition of data and then the utilization of it how are you applying that knowledge for our protection and that started becoming a big thing when you were there right early 2000s the internet was popping off. It was a lot less prevalent. You know, the government was, because of DARPAnet, ARPANET, they were involved, obviously,

in information and dissemination and that kind of stuff early. But programming was relatively new. So when I went through as a programmer, it was Ada and Cobalt and HTML and then XHTML and Java, JavaScript,avascript c c plus you know you had to learn all these languages to program and then it was oracle and database stuff and you kind of you need all of the knowledge you need the whole gamut and then there's a you know there's a plus

there's hardware and network and we had to learn all of it yeah it was a lot of education and it constantly changed and evolved and we got to work with um you know linux and microsoft and all the companies cisco so this is also a long time ago so the stuff that i learned in 2001 and two and three um wouldn't necessarily be relevant today outside of just the basic understanding of how things work yeah that's evolved a lot yeah my uh my dad was a computer programmer so i saw him have to learn a new language every two years. It's like, damn. And he's like 50 at the time. So I'm like learning not at 50. That's, that's tough, man. Yeah. Yeah. But it certainly helped, you know, I lacked discipline even though I had a Marine Corps officer as a dad. So I knew I needed the discipline. So I think it was beneficial

for me in that way. Certainly has helped me in business since then. Yeah. Yeah. Lacking the discipline because like you said, he wasn't hands on with you. He was out of the house 12 out of 17 years. Correct. Yeah. So I spent a lot of time as a kid being the man of the household. Right. So I developed, you know, maybe a more responsible demeanor early. I got used to being the man of the house, being the shoulder for my mom to cry on or the father figure for my younger brother, that kind of thing. Yeah. Grew up too fast, probably. Probably. And without a father figure, I mean, that's tough. Yeah, for sure. So from the military, were you able to carry anything over to the business world? I know you're really crushing it in business now. Absolutely. Yeah.

You know, it was a bit rough. After the military, I was married at the time. Married my high school sweetheart. Had two kids. Wow. Right out of high school, you said? We dated. We got married when I was 20.

She was 18. Wow. So we were together when she was 15. I was 17. And, you know, three years later, we were married. And a year and a half later, we had a kid. So typical small town stuff. But we divorced as I was getting out of the military. I wanted to pursue business.

And that was contrary to being able to provide for your family when you're walking into the business. It's kind of unknown, no safety net, no military paycheck, no insurance, that kind of stuff. So we didn't have the same goals. And so inevitably, it led to a split but uh she moved back to north carolina with my two daughters and i had to move back to be near my family well moved in with mom slept on the floor for two years and built my company dang yeah that's rough man because you probably came out of the military the pay's not that good right so you're broke it was was already horrible. Yeah. So I was absolutely broke. And now I have child support, right? Oh, man.

Yeah. I went from broke to broker. Had a negative net worth at 26. Wow. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. And you didn't even go to college and get debt. Didn't finish. Yeah. I ended up finishing my degree much later. It was kind of this pride chip that I carried with me that I wanted to accomplish two things. I made a kind of bucket list. I want to be a millionaire before 30

and I want to do it without a college education. Those were two things that I really wanted to accomplish. I was able to achieve both. But after 30 and being a multimillionaire at that point, I went and finished up my last semester of college. So you got your med degree? Oh, no, no, no. I ended up finishing my degree. I had so many credits through school between the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and then the Community College of the Air Force

because they send you through school and you amass a bunch of credits going through my tech training that I was able to finish a degree. I got an associate's in computer science and then I finished my bachelor's in human resources management. Nice. And have you used any of that in business? Not at all, but I got the piece of paper.

You got it hung up on your bedroom wall? Yeah. It sits in my office. I've never applied for a job since I started my own company. That's wild, man. So 26, you're broke, you're in debt and you become a millionaire by 30. Walk me through that process. So 26 to 28, um, inevitably I was forced to go back to work. Uh, I tried starting my company, didn't go well, didn't have the capital. Um, so having child support and, uh, moved back in with my mom, sleeping on a floor, and really, back was against the wall. I didn't have a choice. You know, the credit card was stacking up.

And so I went to Camp Lejeune and got a job as a, I designed their network security for Camp Lejeune. So it was a contract. Two years, and I was able to pay off my credit cards and get some kind of liquid to help me open a contract. Two years and I was able to pay off my credit cards and get some kind of liquid to help me open a business. But it was also my mother helping me. She took a second mortgage against her home. She believed in me that much. That's awesome, man.

Yeah. So she loaned me money. That is similar to Damon John, right? His mother did the same thing. Yeah. So she really believed in you. That's cool to have that support system. Because as an entrepreneur, it's rare to have that support system because as an entrepreneur,

it's rare to have that. I think you need that. I think everybody needs somebody that believes in them. You know, we all have this innate belief in ourself that we're capable, but it's solidified when someone else, especially someone else you respect, identifies the same potential in you.

And that's cool because she probably didn't have like an entrepreneur background. She just believed in you. My mom had nothing. Yeah. My, my parents split as well. And the only asset she had to her name was the house that she got in the divorce. And it wasn't a very valuable house. You got to imagine my father was a Marine too. So yeah. But still she basically put everything on the line, everything she had, man, she put it all, she bet it all on, on me. So, wow. That's a real one one man yeah and what was that

business at 28 that was so you know prior to going to college I had a small record label that I started with some friends and I wasn't talented enough as a musician myself to where I just organically became the manager of the whole thing. And management also meant marketing. So I started marketing in 1998. But back then it was a lot of getting flyers printed and backpack CD sales at malls and clubs. And you're trying to get people to believe in your music and you. And really, most of the time, I don't think they cared about the CD at all. It's just the way that you kind of pressure them into buying it.

$8, $10, $12, whatever. listen to it. I swear you'll like it. And, um, so developed a street team was doing a lot of promotion, music promotion, a lot of hand-to-hand combat stuff. And, uh, so I kept that company the entire time I was in the military and with the military training, I was able to start designing web pages and got into social media marketing when it was MySpace. Wow. Yeah. I didn't even know social media into social media marketing when it was MySpace. Wow. Yeah. I didn't even know social media marketing was a thing back then during MySpace. It was, yeah.

And it was reaching out to local establishments, clubs, that kind of stuff, and using these MySpace music pages as a reference point for the club owner to say, look, no, this person's relevant. People care. You want them to perform at your club. And that was kind of it. But it was so new that was kind of it but it was so new that a lot of people didn't even know what myspace was right yeah facebook wasn't a thing yet so uh so anyways i kept doing that the entire time when i created my company in in 2008 well i guess i'd had it for 10 years but this is when now I had capital. And I partnered with a local club owner who owned the

majority of the clubs in this area in Onslow County. And just said, look, let me take over all promotions, marketing. I want to be a partner. And he actually gave me the chance. So I got two lucky breaks. I had a mom that believed in me and a local business owner that gave me a chance. And that was it. I increased sales dramatically. Through MySpace marketing? Through all marketing. By 2008, Facebook was there. And of course, there was SEO. And so, we had more tools in our tool belt. But yeah, I was still doing the billboards. I was still doing the flyers. I was doing radio. I was doing all different kinds of marketing. And I worked it

out with them. Part of me going in and taking the position was, thankfully, I was smart enough to negotiate upfront what I could buy out the club for if I hit certain numbers. It was kind of a, if I hit these numbers and I earn this much equity, I want the ability to purchase the business at X price. And even though it was overvalued when I negotiated it, I hit the numbers relatively easily. And so. Nice. So you got ownership of a club. Yeah. So in 2008, I started. In May 2009, I acquired the first club.

And 10 months later, I acquired a second club. Damn. And so I wasn't even 30 yet. And I was, and I'd already, I was already a millionaire. I was 29. Now I own several businesses and my media company was doing well. And, and so by the time I was 31, I had, you know, I bought another club and 32 about another club and a Denny's. And then the Denny's turned into tint worlds. And I started franchising other businesses and buying commercial real estate. Amazing, man. Yeah. Are the clubs still a big thing of your portfolio or no? No, not at all.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, I sold most of my brick and mortar stuff. A lot of my franchises, my gyms, my nutrition stores, the clubs, the Denny's. Oh, so you sold it before it started or like after the pandemic? After the pandemic. Got it. Yeah. Because no one was allowed in. Yeah.

You know, from that time period, the 2008, 2009 time period up until 2021, I mean, I amassed almost 30 brick and mortar businesses. Damn. Yeah. That's insane. Yeah. I was buying a couple a year and I became a franchisee of a bunch of chains. You know, Denny's, bought the coasts.

Would you just look at the cash flow basically and determine if it was worth buying or investing in? Yeah. I think it's, I think a lot of entrepreneurs, we have aspirations to do everything. And I think I got bit by that bug. I wanted to do everything. And when you cash flow enough

and you don't depend on any one source of income, you understand that it's a leverage game. You know you have to leverage other people's time, effort, energy in order to keep expanding because you're one person, right? So I kind of played the role of de facto CMO of all these ventures. I learned very quickly that if I market these things properly, the business will be there, but then you need someone to run the operations. So I just kept finding operators. Found somebody to run all the Denny's, found somebody to run the Tentworlds, found somebody to run the Tentworlds, found somebody to run the gyms. So that's how you were able to scale so quick. Correct. Operators. Yeah.

You just have to get good at identifying good talent. And if you can find the person that's going to show up every day and work hard and treat the business like it's theirs, all you got to do is send the business. Yeah. Because your specialty was the marketing and you ran disruptive marketing campaigns, right? I'd love to hear about some of those. The one I remember was the Fyre Festival one. That was one of the best marketing campaigns I've ever seen. We've done a lot, man. Gosh, over the years, even disruptive marketing has changed so much.

I think we're all very familiar with the Kanye's and the Donald Trump's and the people that are really in your face and have learned how to spin controversy to their advantage. I'll tell you one of my favorite stories, a partner of mine, we've been partner 10 years, an artist, musician named Joyner Lucas. So Joyner did I'm Not Racist in 2016, November, 2016. We'd already been working together two years prior so you know when i met joiner um i knew immediately this guy has all the potential in the world uh but of course you know until everyone else figures that out you're just a talented artist that that nobody knows right um to his credit man i'm not racist was one his idea uh but two was put together with a nothing budget. I mean, a nothing budget. It was an abandoned warehouse in Boston and a team of five people, two of which were the actors in the video. There's a white guy and black guy and it's the juxtaposition of their race and their

perspective. And Joyner really orchestrated the whole thing. Wow. And, uh, you know, so you got one guy filming, you got Joyner kind of directing, he wasn't even his own, his own music video. He doesn't make an appearance in this video. Yeah. He's just singing over in the background. Everybody should go back and watch it. Yeah. It's called I'm not racist and it's, it's Joyner song, but he's not even in the video. That's crazy. And, um, and I think that's one of those examples of not just disruptive marketing, but timing very, very important to have the right idea at the right time. And then, and then leverage that concept. Um, as far as you can leverage it, whether you get negative or

positive backlash, you just got to keep hammering that concept. Keep hammering the nail. Right. That being said, do you believe in that famous quote, like all press is good press? I do. I do. I think you have to be able to navigate the bad press. You know, you have to be able to efficiently handle what comes at you to turn it into good press. Cause not all bad press is good press. If you don't know how to navigate it and utilize it. When it comes to navigating it into good press because not all bad press is good press. If you don't know how to navigate it and utilize it. When it comes to navigating it, do you make responses to negative articles and stuff or do you just let it? Sometimes,

sometimes you have to, um, you need to address certain issues and sometimes there is silver lining to the negativity. Sometimes it is best just to ignore it or counter it with something positive as you're getting the negative press and eyeballs are on you, you need to spin it or misdirect. Yeah, it's interesting, man.

I see Mr. Beast get some hate sometimes for curing people, like their eyesight or whatever. And it's like, how is that bad? You know what I mean? I don't know. Did you see that on Twitter? No.

People always will find a way to hate. I think Elon's a master of that. Yeah. I think the way elon handled that uh that disney situation with bob and yeah it was kind of abrasive but i thought it was amazing you know and he he's like really you're gonna blackmail me with money you know that's like the wrong guy to say that to right yeah yeah i mean this is somebody that they have an agenda and their agenda is to make a difference and i think he's gonna push no matter what happens at all costs and i genuinely believe even if you threatened him with taking everything he has

he's still gonna find a way yeah he's a minimalist like even though he's a billionaire right i think he doesn't even own a house right so so if, yeah, say whatever you want about the guy. I don't think it's going to stop his mission. Yeah, absolutely. He's going to take that negative press. He's going to twist it. Yeah.

And look how quickly that whole sexual harassment thing disappeared. I didn't even know about it. Yeah. See, there you go. Exactly. Yeah. That's funny.

Any other artists you're working with right now in the music industry? Yeah. Yeah. So another partner of mine, guy named Velvet Cash, myself and Paul Oakenfold, the DJ, co-manage him.

Velvet is my partner on a studio in Arizona, Salt Mine Studios. Salt Mine was created by Don, his father, almost 40 years ago. And it's by far one of the most impressive studios

in the country. And when I say we've recorded everybody, I mean we've recorded everybody. In Arizona? In Arizona. I don't know. People are filming out there. Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. Jack Harlow's there. Really? and when I say we've recorded everybody I mean we've recorded everybody in Arizona in Arizona I don't know people are filming out there oh man yeah yeah Jack Harlow's there yeah we did a little Nas X we did Kodak Black this year we've made four of Lil Wayne's six Carter albums damn just

did Carter six there at the studio yeah it's it's uh it's one of those you know kind of hidden gems but those that know know yeah that's cool Arizonarizona's got a little hip-hop scene huh yeah yeah big hip-hop scene um you know dmx made most of his music there really yeah wow i thought he was in new york pulling thugs in harmony g unit no he's from yonkers but he lived in arizona wow yeah we have months of footage nobody's ever seen we have two albums nobody's ever heard dude that's crazy you should make a documentary out of that stuff we are yeah my partner howard man who actually partnered with dmx while he was still live owns chain of custody on 96 songs wow yeah so there's a documentary being made right now love that stuff yeah studio is an interesting business model because i think people think

about the numbers but the networking i think is super valuable with studios extremely valuable yeah yeah absolutely and typically you, artists have other ventures that they're interested in as well. I think people are becoming enlightened now to their real value. Yeah. And so I think you see people

selling out their prior catalogs for massive numbers. Yeah, I saw that Bieber did it. Hundreds of millions. Yeah. Didn't Taylor Swift do it? Taylor Swift,

kind of against her will, but yeah. That's a whole nother story. Irv Gotti, I mean, 350 million. You got some big exits. Some huge ones. It's interesting. So are they able to sell that and the people buying them, how do they make their money back? Royalties, right? When you own the music, it's intellectual property. So if it gets streamed anywhere, you get a cut.

Wow. So that's the power that artists have that maybe they don't realize they have is that once you own that piece of work, you make money in perpetuity. That's where the marketing becomes extremely important because you can revitalize old catalogs. Yeah. There's songs from 10, 20 years ago. I still bump to this day, like Eminem stuff and they're still getting paid on those. Yeah. So you've got big institutional organizations like BlackRock are buying music catalogs because it's recurring cashflow. Yeah. I didn't think of it that way, but I also did see a clip. Who was it? Some rapper talk about how much he makes off

Spotify. He got like a billion views. I forget who it was, but he barely made any money. Crazy. Yeah. If you're only relying on the streaming revenue, you he barely made any money. Crazy. Yeah. If you're only relying on the streaming revenue, you're not going to make a lot. Yeah. I think he got like a billion views and oh, Snoop Dogg. Yeah. Yeah. Billion views got like 4,000 bucks. Yeah. What I thought was brilliant about Snoop, Shaq, 50 Cent, you know, these are guys that understood social media, how viable it was. So they kind of turned their personal pages into meme pages. Snoop Dogg, for sure. Yeah. More pop culture, right? And they were early in monetizing Facebook too. Yeah.

Waka as well. I saw that, yeah. So, you know, the power really is in controlling the content, controlling the flow, and being able to monetize impressions. You're mining attention spans. So as long as you can keep people's attention, you can redirect it to a paywall somewhere. Yeah, and those Facebook payouts were huge back in the day, man. Yeah, millions.

I've seen a few screenshots, like six figures a month. Yeah, absolutely. It's nuts. And now Instagram just rolled out monetization. So we'll see if they could do it there. Yeah, they're all going that way. They're going to have to.

I mean, expecting creators to continue amassing these large user-generated content vaults that they put on these platforms for free. It was unrealistic. I mean, they rode the wave as long as they could, but the platforms have to give back to the creators now. There's a power dynamic happening, for sure. Now, I noticed you were pretty low-key on your socials, actually, but there's a power dynamic happening for sure now i noticed you were pretty low-key on your socials actually but there were a few posts i want to talk about um the giant pet cat looks like a leopard yeah yeah so i have a serval serval african serval yeah wow and it's just basically uh is it a cheetah leopard or yeah yeah it's um you know it's it's uh it's it's small leopard family yeah a lot of people breed them. They create savannas, if you've ever heard of a savanna.

Grassland, right? It's a mix between a serval and a house cat. Got it. Wow. And is it super aggressive? No, no, no, no. He's been hand-fed since he was a baby. Damn.

Yeah. He did escape once. I should have seen that on the street. Oh, man. So we were filming, actually, a TV show at my house. And one of the producers left our front door open. Oh, no. And our cat escaped.

And I went full Liam Neeson and taken. He was gone for three weeks. Three weeks? And my house borders Indian Reservation. Oh, so you can't even go on the land? No, it's 40 miles of nothing and um so i went full military mode man i mean i was out there they're nocturnal so i'm out there at night with a night vision goggles and military gear and and my handgun just you

know there's bobcat there's coyote just tracking him looking for paw prints and you know his poop found him found him yeah wow where was heacked him. He was living in a tunnel, actually, under a street. Damn. And I don't know what he was eating, but he wasn't starving. He had to eat something. Yeah, he got in a fight with something, too.

He was pretty cut up, pretty messed up. And he had cactus spines in his paws. Oh, my gosh. I got videos of it. It's pretty crazy. Cats are usually pretty smart when they get out. They can find their way back. I feel like dogs just get lost.

Yeah. Cats are interesting, man. They kind of mark their territory, you know, one mile radius, two mile radius. They kind of keep expanding, but they do move kind of clockwise or counterclockwise. They find kind of their pattern. So once you figure out their pattern, you can almost predict where they're going next. Yeah. So that's what it was.

That's cool. Set up a cage. Had the Arizona Fish and Wildlife Department next. Yeah. So that's what it was. That's cool, man. Set up a cage. Had the Arizona Fish and Wildlife Department help. Nice. So they set up a cage and we threw some food in it and tracked him and caught him. What a story, man.

Was it a spontaneous purchase or did you plan to get one of those for a while? No, no. It's something I've always wanted. Yeah. That's cool. I'm into exotic pets. I used to want a flying squirrel when I was a kid.

Yeah. I actually had a flying squirrel in college. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Was it dope? Not as dope as I thought it would be to be honest. They're, they're a little more reclusive. I mean, once, once they really get comfortable though, you know, you wear clothes with pockets and they'll crawl in it and that kind of stuff, but that's cool. That's cool. Yeah. I'm into pandas. I don't know if I'd have a bear cause you could get killed,

but I want something, something pretty interesting one day it's uh yeah what's the next animal purchase for you i don't know man i just got a i think i'm going the other route i think i'm getting old i just got a golden doodle so i think i'm going yeah that's a safe play right there yeah um another ig post you said as a kid you were taught to care about what others think about you. Indeed. I think that was the military upbringing. You know, my dad having, uh, having been born to an immigrant, uh, himself, my grandfather, Italian immigrant. And, um, so my grandfather and grandmother, uh, really instilled the importance of fitting in to my dad. They wanted him to be American, where I think the Italian heritage is one of the coolest things about me and my dad. He looked at it as a negative growing up.

And he went to a private school. So my dad put me in a Catholic school. So I had nuns as teachers, and I was the bad one. I was the black one. I was the black sheep. I was getting hit with rulers. I got spanked, paddled, all that. And I was an altar boy. So I wore a uniform, you know, every day up until high school. So I think it was a lot of judgment, a lot of, you know, if you're not fitting the mold of their expectation then then you're bad and that was really hard programmed into me as a kid so growing up wanting to do something like a hip-hop record label

of course that wasn't received well by my family they wanted me to be a doctor lawyer right um i just i never wanted that so i think i just rebelled until the point where it made sense but i kind of lost lost touch with a lot of friends, a lot of family for a while, kind of went off, you know, if not for mom, who's just a unconditional supporter. Yeah. That's tough though. I relate. Honestly, I spent so many years trying to fit in, in school when I should have just been doing myself honestly, and just not worried about what other people thought. Yeah. And look now, now you're living your dream, doing exactly what you want. And it's interesting that people come around just because they don't see the potential in you, you know, that, that creates some sort of

reluctance to support you because they don't believe in it. And then when you prove it, then all of a sudden now they're like, Oh wow. The safe route, just never getting a job, all that never appealed to me for some reason. I just never gravitated towards that route. And you talk to a bunch of entrepreneurs. Doesn't it seem like a common theme? Yeah. Very few of my guests have graduated college.

Right. Yeah. And if we did, it was for some other reason. Yeah, it wasn't for. Because the expectation was there, not because we ever wanted to do it. Yeah, it wasn't for getting a job. Yeah. Similar story to you.

Like, they just wanted to prove their parents right or something yeah that's it or you already committed so we have this thing where it's like i committed to something i need to finish it because i said i was going to do it yeah um but yeah i think we all i think you know i think this expectation something that upsets me a little bit about motivational speakers and just people that you know try to push their beliefs on others in general. Just because somebody is an entrepreneur doesn't mean that everybody can be one. So when I see people selling these motivational speaking courses or, you know, take it as big as even the Tony Robbins of the world, and he's amazing, of course, true respect for what he does and what he's accomplished, but not everybody can be that, you know, the Gary V's, I mean, yelling at people

to quit their job and pursue their, come on, they're not equipped for that. It's tough. You got to be willing to lose money for years. People don't talk about that. Yeah. So the feeding on these people, it's almost parasitic in nature. It's like, pay me to give you good advice, but I'm going to give you advice that's not necessarily tailored to you. Yeah. You know, it's, it's tough road, man. I made 50 K a year in my first four years and that's it. And then I was working double the hours of a nine to five doing that. So if you're not willing to do that, it's, I wouldn't recommend it. Yeah. Well, even knowing your own limitations, right? Know thyself. So some people are, they're capable. Some people are just not, they don't have the tools.

Yeah. I think it's, um, it's a bit irresponsible to make everybody believe that they are capable. Yeah, no, I agree. They definitely show all the highlights of entrepreneurship on social media, but people need to actually understand what they're getting into. Absolutely. It's not easy. Joseph, it's been fun, man. Anything you want to promote or close off with? Not necessarily, man.

I will be getting my own show, so I would love to do this in reverse. Let's do it. I want to hear your story next time. Yeah, I'll stop by the studio in Arizona. Absolutely. All right. Thanks for coming on, man. Thanks for watching it. I want to hear your story next time. Yeah, I'll stop by the studio, Arizona. Absolutely. All right. Thanks for coming on, man. Yeah.

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