Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Say Less And Get More - Hollywood Producer Brant Pinvidic On Creating Shows Like "Bar Rescue" & "The Biggest Loser"

Episode Date: January 24, 2023

Brant Pinvidic (@brantpinvidic) is a producer, director, speaker, coach and the author of the bestselling book "The 3-Minute Rule: Say Less To Get More From Any Pitch Or Presentation". He joins Chris Van Vliet at the Blue Wire Studios as the Wynn Las Vegas to talk about how he became a Hollywood television producer, creating shows like "The Biggest Loser", "Bar Rescue" and "Intervention", how to pitch anything so it will be remembered, his adventure club called "Reject Average", living life to your fullest, leaning into the things you are best at and much more! Check out Brant's website: https://brantpinvidic.com For more information about Chris Van Vliet and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests. Follow CVV on social media:  Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All systems are gathered. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van! Brilliant! So good to see you, my friends. Welcome back to another audio adventure on Insight. I'm CVV, Chris Van Fleet. We are back inside the beautiful Blue Wire Studios at the Win, Las Vegas. And it's funny because I have a lot of people that will message me and say,

oh, that's so cool that you move to Las Vegas. Well, actually, I still live in California with my wife, Rachel, our dog Luna, Our baby that is on the way, I'm just in Vegas like a few times a month to do these interviews. We stack them up. We pre-record them. And I mean, if you've ever seen the video version of any of these interviews on my YouTube channel, you know that the studio is unbelievable. It is incredible.

So why would you not want to record there? And so happy to have my good friend Brant Pinn-Viddyk joining us in the studio for this one. He's someone that I've wanted to have on the show for a long. long time. He's a super successful Hollywood producer. The guy behind massive TV shows like Bar Rescue and The Biggest Loser. And you know, one of the most important things in that Hollywood world is being able to pitch your idea and get it out in a clear and concise manner. So he's now taken that skill of him being able to pitch these TV shows and get them sold and get them put on TV. He now helps anybody who wants to get their message out, not just in a clear way, but like get your message out.

so that people will remember it and be able to pass it along to other people. So he has a bestselling book all about this. It's called The Three Minute Rule, Say Less to Get More from any pitch or presentation. And I can't recommend it enough. So check out his book on his website. It's brantpinvidic.com. You can also check him out on social media. It's just his name at Brant PingVittick.

If you're looking for me, I'm at Chris Van Fleet. And thank you so much to join. John Jackson 6999, who left this review on Apple Podcasts. It says, awesome. This podcast is literally the best thing I've ever listened to. I just love it so much. And there's a bunch of emojis here, but like literally the best thing you've ever listened to? That's very kind, but it's got to be some sort of hyperbole there, right?

Literally the best thing. But in any case, thank you for the kind words. I will read one review on every single episode is my way to say, thank you to people like John Jackson who left this review. So if you're listening to the show right now on Apple and you haven't left a review, leave a few words. We'll read it out on the show. Or if you are listening on Spotify, man, the ratings on Spotify go such a long way. So if you have a second, click those stars and that's it. It's that simple. All right, let's do this thing. Please welcome Brand Pinn-Vittick. So good to see you. You too, buddy. Oh, man. I miss you. I miss you too. do. We've got a lot of adventures together. We have. We've had a lot of meals together. We go back. We go back. We have things. We have. We have deep connections. And I've been saying for a long time, we actually need to do this podcast. You're such a fascinating individual. You've had an amazing career.

And here we are. We're doing it. Here we are. So thank you for coming into the studio for this. I try. And you are the best dressed guest that we've had. Well, thank you very much. When I'm interviewing like, you know, when I'm doing like television movie junkets or when I'm doing red carpets, I'm dressed like this. In the studio, you know, a little bit more laid back. I get it. Listen, it's all about suit by choice, I say. I feel like you have a lot of superpowers. Well, thank you.

You do. Chris. I'm actually very curious. What do you think is your superpower? I think communication is the big one, being able to understand ideas, being able to convey those ideas to others in a way that they understand. effectively has proven over and over again to be, I guess you would call my superpower. That is what I do better than most people in the world.

You're so good at getting a big idea and being able to like, this is the whole thing, the three minute rule, you're so good at taking a big idea and narrowing it down to like, all right, this is the actual thing you're talking about. You've been talking for 20 minutes, 30 minutes. This one line is actually the thing you're talking about. Yeah, and I never would have understood or like explored how valuable that is in the marketplace until you,

see how hard it is for people to do that. People get so entrenched in their ideas and what they are doing that they can't see the path to explain it. They don't know how to build a foundation of understanding for other people. And so for whatever reason, you know, that skill of mine happens to translate pretty well into a lot of different industry. When did you realize?

When did you realize you could do this? You know, it's not like a natural thing. It was developed. It was specifically developed. And I can remember when it really started, after I first moved to Los Angeles and I was in Hollywood, I was going to a big pitch meeting at CBS and I, you know, I've been the lobby of CBS chatting,

waiting for my turn to go into the pitch room and outwalk Simon Cowell. And oh, there's Simon. So he says, hi, we're chatting. And I'm like thinking to myself, oh, man, I don't really like to follow Simon Cowell into a pitch meeting. This sucks. And then I see him looking over my shoulders as we're chatting and I turn around and it's Mark Burnett walks in.

And I realize like, oh, Mark's got the 330 slot. It means he's going to be pitching after me and I'm wedged. between these two superstars and I am less than I, I mean, I'm nothing today to them. You could imagine how little I was. And that's the guy who created Survivor, Shark Tank and so on and so on. Yeah, one of the greatest producers of all time. Of course. So I just caught almost like a wave of panic.

And the idea was like, hey, I can't be in this room yipping and yapping and yapping and trying to impress the president of the network. They don't really care about me. I got to get in it out here. And we went in there and we were talking and then a little chit-chat. And I was in and out of that room. pitch the show. Here's what the show is.

Here's what we think it's good for CBS. Here's how we're going to make it. Here's the budget. And that was it. And I got out of the room. I think it was like nine and a half minutes total. And my agent was like,

that was like one of the best pitches I've ever heard. Wow. He's like, oh, so clear. It was so crisp. It was so effective. We had to do that from now on. I was like, hmm, okay.

So I started doing it a little bit and we sold the show to CBS, by the way. And so I ended up, I ended up doing that a little bit more often where I would just get to the point. Like literally just get to the point. And I started to get this reputation around Hollywood as one of the best pitch producers in the business. And I remember thinking like, you know, I'm not trying very hard. I'm not really doing a lot of stuff out of the box. And so when I hone that skill to be like, okay, strip all the other crap away, what is the simplest, clearest message here?

Once you just start doing that, then I could add other flare, cool elements, things that sort of like were more dynamic. And that's sort of how the reputation grew and so. So went from there. So let's take it back. I always love talking to fellow Canadians. In fact, we just had a fellow Canadian in here right before. It was Murray the magician. He has a show at the Tropicana.

And you do that thing where you're like, oh, you know, all these other famous Canadians and you name off like all of them. Where does this story begin for you? It's in Canada. I'm running a nightclub. Okay. Terribly.

And I couldn't keep people in the bar on Sundays after football. They would just flock out of the bar as soon as the games were over. And that used to bug me. And I used to have to come up with ideas to do how to keep them in the bar. So I came up with these ridiculous bar games that I would play and give free drinks and get people to do. And people would do dumb stuff when they think there's a prize on the line. Like they did really dumb stuff.

Yeah, it was crazy. And so after I lost the bar, I moved back to my hometown of Victoria. I was goofing around and I just couldn't figure out what to do with my life. And I was talking to one of my buddies who happened to own a bar. And so I was telling him what these bar games, that we used to do. And he said, we should do that as a thing at the bar. And so we, before podcasting was a thing,

we were going to do it as like a radio talk show idea from the bar after hours kind of thing. Yeah. And it was before technology was advanced enough that you could really stream it. Like it was happening streaming, but the very first night, we couldn't get it streaming on the internet.

And we couldn't take calls. So we just pretend it. So it's like you and I sitting here, but there's nothing going on. Well, everybody in the bar lost their minds. They thought it was the good. greatest thing ever, right? And they used to do dumb stuff for free drinks. They did really dumb stuff when they thought they were on the radio. So then we got the idea like, well, what if we did that

this is a TV show? Then people would go, bupah, bum. And so we pretended a fact that we were going to shoot this pilot for a TV show idea. And we did. And then I couldn't sell it in the United States. I tried, I tried to sell it everywhere. Couldn't sell it in Canada. I couldn't sell anywhere. I was just like, why does nobody want my show? And so I thought, oh, well, I don't have the show finished. So I went across Canada and did that same show in bars across the country. Wow. And I thought, okay, well, now that I have the show, now they'll have to buy it. And the Canadian, one of the, I mean, I remember her. I don't want to out her, but this woman who ran much music, which is the MTV of Canada. I believe I had a meeting with her. Yeah. Basically

said, well, thank God. Thank God for her. Like, I tell you, the people who tell you know, and are the worst to you sometimes give you the best possible, like, outcome. And she basically says, you're an idiot. This is not what we do we can. I'm not buying your stupid show because this is like an American show. It doesn't qualify for any Canadian points. It's not a documentary about aboriginals that was

shot 200 miles from a city center. Those are the most points. That's what I buy. And then I get the Canadian content points as much as I can for as few hours as I can. Then I buy friends for $80,000 an episode. Why would I buy your stupid show? Like, get out of here. Don't ever call me again.

And so I went to the United States And I was like, I just have to beg and find And I found a producer Would listen and they found a producer Because they saw the stuff And that's how it just exploded from there Wow And the United States, much different than Canada

They were like, this is really impressive What you've done What you've been able to do here is impressive We see potential What was it called? Originally was called Party Quest And then it was Then when we sold it to NBC

They called it King of Vegas And then it never got made We sold it as a pilot. You should make this now. I know. No, I'm done with TV. You are? Yeah.

What was the first? So, you know, I think we're kind of jumping all over the place here, but then you move to Hollywood. You start pitching TV shows. You become a prolific producer. And he produced some of the biggest shows on TV and pitched the biggest shows on TV. Yeah. Give us like three of the biggest ones. So, you know, for me, Bar Rescue is probably the biggest one.

You know, John Tafer was a big, big hit. And he was great. and that was, you know, a lot of luck getting that through. And he's a huge talent. You know, you can pitch that show and have it do well. So we did that with Extreme Makeover Weight Loss Edition, which is a big show as well. My company did Big Loser. Like, so we've had some good, we've had some good runs.

What was the first big hit that kind of set things off from there? I mean, it wasn't as much as the big hits because I had lots of cable hits that like intervention was a big hit. Growing up Goddy was a big hit. But it's like it really wasn't, the fact that they become a big hit is really the people who actually produce I'm like, I just come up with the ideas or I just manage them or I'm just running the company. Like, intervention is fascinating. I know.

Like, and here's the thing. Fascinating. You know, it depends on who I'm talking to. People will be like, oh, you created that show. And it's like, sure, whatever. Like, yes, no, maybe so. Nobody cares. I want to pause you for a second.

How do you come up with the idea for intervention? Oh, I didn't come up with the idea for intervention. Okay. No. No. It's just, it happened. Again, I was running the company that one of the producers came up, the network, wanted to develop it.

It grows into that, right? Like, that's how the TV world works. you come up with an idea and then 57,000 people get involved. Right. And if every single thing in the world goes right, it gets on the air. And then if the four things that didn't go right start to go right, it might rate and you might get it hit. Right. So, but for me, like the one that set apart was an old school one called Princess of Malibu and Fox.

We did that. Yeah. That was a big show. You know, it didn't rate, but it was big to get it on the air. And so then once I started selling shows like that, it just like cascaded. And I sold hundreds of TV shows. What was the original idea behind? Was it biggest loser first or extreme weight?

Biggest loser was the very first weight loss show that ever went. And that was like, you know, and that was an amalgamation of a couple of ideas that the network had. They never wanted to do it. Then, you know, got in big, Ben Silverman kind of convinced them. And they had to find somebody to produce it, which was J.D. Roth and the company I was running. And then I came in there. And I remember saying to the guys, like, shouldn't we be doing a ton of weight loss shows now that this is a huge hit? And so that's when we did Extreme Makeover Weight Loss.

And then I did probably another 12 or 13. team weight loss shows after that. I could see a network going, I don't know if we want to watch people lose weight. Well, the interesting story is that when the first season of Biggest Loser, we had to get a restaurant and they made us pay to have the signs painted

so that no one would know what restaurant it was at when we were filming. That's season one. And I think by season three or five, we were filming in the White House. And so it was, people didn't want it at first. I think the fascinating thing about that part of your career is you're very much an ideas guy. Yeah.

And you can look at an idea and immediately go, yeah, that could be something. That could be something. Or you go, yeah, that's not going to. Yeah. So in my development office and in life, for anybody listening, you know, your success will be dictated by the things you choose not to work on. Right. Like that is that people, most people are paralyzed by options.

And they can get a lot of ideas or a lot of things to the one yard line, I say. And anything, every idea could almost be a TV show. And that's what I'd tell my development team. Anything could be almost a TV show. That's not what we're in the business up. We only have so many hours in the day. You only have so many things you can spend money and time and energy on. If you pick the wrong ones, it will cause you great pain and failure.

If you pick the right ones, it isn't even about pick the right ones, just not picking the wrong ones. The right ones will find their way through. You'll always find something to work. But it's picking the wrong ones that I find is the most difficulty for people as they pick the wrong thing because they think it's sort of close. So what do you think it is that prevents people from crossing over? You know, they've gone 99 yards.

They can't go that one extra yard. Reasonable probability of success. I teach this to school. Like I teach, I speak at schools and colleges for free across the country. Because I think it's just an absolute shame that, you know, the curriculum that we teach in our public and private schools is atrocious. And anybody in the industry should be embarrassed that this is what we still do. we don't teach entrepreneurship, we don't teach financial literacy, none of those things. It's just

gross. So I teach entrepreneurial things to any school that wants me to come there. And the one thing I ask the kids every time is, do you believe that you can be anything you set your mind to? And they all raise their hand, yes. It's like, who the hell is feeding you these terrible ideas? That is not true. Like, it is not true. Anything you set your mind to, you should do. And anything you can do, you should set your mind to you, but it doesn't mean because you set your mind to it, you're going to be able to do that. And I'll show a clip from Lady Gaga

at winning her Academy Award. And she's in tears and she's saying like, don't let people tell you no and don't let people tell you, you can't do it. And people told me that I was never going to make it. I just kept pushing through. And then I finally here I am. And I was like, what are you doing?

Why are you telling people this? She's one of the greatest performers of all time. And people told her no. So guess what? If you aren't already one of the greatest performers, like the odds of you making it to Lady Gaga success are zero. So don't listen to her. That's the worst advice you could possibly get.

It's like that's not real. So you're just crushing the dreams of young Americans. You know what? I'm okay with that. And I wrote an article for Forbes. Like, that's like sometimes no is the right answer. Like listening to your inner voice and saying like,

I can do it anyways when everything else is telling you no is a terrible idea. And you have to know the difference between, you know, self-doubt and situational doubt. And those are very different, right? And that's where people, and a lot of the people I train and coach, I teach them to understand those differences. Self-doubt is self-defeating. Situational doubt is self-protecting.

And that's really important. So you get this skill of like being able to figure out what a great idea is, what's not a great idea. You pitch some incredible television programs. How do you realize you can start applying that to businesses? Well, it was funny because I was in at the Lux Hotel in Los Angeles, and I had family in town, and it was late night, we've been drinking, and Spike had just passed on a brilliant show idea,

and so I was pitching that show to one of my uncles. And he was like, oh, my God, that's the greatest idea I've ever heard. And I was like, yes, I know. And I was like, wait, I got another one, and I was pitching another idea. What is it? I can't remember. Like, it's so many of them I can't even describe to you how many bad decisions are made when my wonderful shows aren't pitched.

But so I pitch him another one. and another one, right? And he's like, these are the greatest thing ever. And my ego is filling up and I needed the upswing, you know. And I'm very animated. I'm standing up and I'm pitching. And so, and everybody's had a few drinks. And then a guy comes over and definitely not a local, you know,

and he comes and says, hey, I've been watching you. It's kind of amazing watching, watch you. Can you teach my clients to do what you do? Wow. And I was like, no, I can't teach people to sell TV. Like, get out of here. And he's like, no, no, no. Can you teach my clients to pitch their ideas without putting people to sleep?

And I was like, I don't know. I have no idea. So we happen to be in Florida at the same time, different conferences. He's a huge investment banker that run these big investment conferences, oil and gas, biotech, blah, blah, blah. And he says, well, you come by and like meet one of my guys. And we're out. He's terrible.

So I go down, I go down there. I meet it's an oil and gas company. It's a $2 billion oil and gas company. He's a CEO. He gets up, presents what his company is and pitches why you should be wanting to get involved. It's 23 minutes long or whatever it is. and it was the worst thing I'd ever heard in my life. The worst pitch I'd ever heard,

I've never heard anything like that. And I was like, oh my God. And they were like, what do you think, Brett? I was like, ah, I think I have to watch it again and I'll take some better notes. But yeah, so we pitched it again later this afternoon. And I went up to Matt and I said, hey, is it, did you say that you could still drill for oil at $31 a barrel when everybody else is laying their rigs down at 37? Like, is that what I heard? He's like, yeah.

And I was like, it took. you 17 minutes to mention that. Like, maybe we could move that up. And so I read some of his slides. And, you know, begged me like, hey, can you redo my entire presentation? I was like, I got a job. Flew it to Los Angeles. On the weekend, I helped him in a hotel room, ballroom or whatever.

And he left a voicemail on my phone. And he was almost in tears. And he just said, you changed my life. I've never felt like this. I used to hate going on the road, raising money. Now I'm so excited. I'll never forget what you've done. for me. Wow. And I was like, oh my God, no network president has ever said anything like that to me

before. They don't even say thank you. And you know, like you and me, we're one chromosome away from being a caveman. It's just like, I'm just like, my ego is like, Brad, one. And so I asked the investment banker, got any other people. And it's like, you want to make friends an investment banker? You just make him's money. And so those guys completely their raise. He's like, yeah, I got other terrible clients that can't pitch. Can you help them? What's the biggest mistake that most of the make. They try to tell you everything they know all at once. And what's the thing that you teach them? I teach them how to lay the foundation of understanding. So if you think about what we do in Hollywood as storytellers, what we've always, what people always know in the pitch world and the

sales world is the sort of state and prove method. Chris, would you like to eat anything you want and still lose weight? And you're like, oh, yes, I would. Let me tell you. Right. I'm going to state something big that you want. And then I will explain it to you and prove that I can do it. And if we had a time machine and we can go back to 1987, that would work amazingly well. But picture yourself in an elevator, an elevator pitch and someone says, hey, Chris, I have an investment that could make you 10 times your money by the end of the year. Do you lean in and be like, ooh, tell me more? Or do you lean out and go like, oh, God, total crap, right? Like, we recoil from that now as an audience. We're so used to it. And so what I teach is called the inform and lead method. It's what Hollywood's been doing for 100 years, right? We're going to, I'm going to take you through the detail.

piece by piece to build your understanding so that you will be led to the conclusion. You will start to understand, oh, wait, so I can make 10 times my money by the end of the year after I explain it to you. And you think about it, and I use this on stage all the time where I'll show a picture of that Titanic. And it's like, does anybody know what happens to this boat? And like, everybody in the world knows. So why are you sitting in the theater for three hours to watch a movie about a boat that you know sinks, right?

It's because we tell the story, right? If you're, and if you're looking at my favorite movie, Shawshank Redemption, we don't, we don't start the movie, be like, Andy Dufrein escapes from this horrifying prison. Spoiler alert, by the way, if you haven't seen it. Right. It's not too good movie. We don't start with that. Like, oh, he's going to, he escapes. Let me tell you why, right?

Like, we lead you through the characters, the understanding, the emotion, piece by piece. So at the very end of the movie, it doesn't matter how many times you've watched it. You're like, please, I can't wait for him to escape, right? Yeah. And that's sort of where I, I retrain people. So your book is called The Three Minute Rule. Book is called three minutes. How did you determine that it's three minutes?

Well, we used to do that in the edit bay, right? Like every scene had to resolve within three minutes. I'll use the example, like when I do on stage with Shark Tank. Yeah. You know, somebody comes in to pitch an idea. Almost every pitch is three minutes. That's right. And it's like, that's a three hour session, right?

Yeah. And they boil it down to almost exactly three minutes. Because it's like you, there's a ton of science behind it. But we as human beings, we process information in sort of these three key categories, right? We conceptualize. We contextualize. we actualize. So once we understand the concept,

that's the first thing I need to do. What is this? What's going on? What are we doing? Then I understand the context, which is like, okay, how does this relate to me? And then I actualize,

which is like, do I want to get involved? What's my next move? That's what we do. You know, you can decide what you're going to wear for dinner tonight or whether we're going to go to war

with some other country. Same exact decision making fun. It's interesting, and you point this out in the book, like if you were to go out to dinner tonight. Yeah. And then tomorrow, your friend goes,

I was dinner last night. Your summary of dinner is probably going to be about three minutes. At the very most. In my seminars, I'll do this as a clear example. I'll get people to come up and pitch me their favorite movie. And it was like, tell me every detail,

everything, just walk me through the whole thing. It's like, you don't get to three minutes. That's so true. You know what I mean? It's like, this is a movie you've seen 50 times.

You love it more than anything. It doesn't matter what it is, or I'll have people close their eyes and you at home, you can do this as well. It's like, and I'll ask them, I'll be like,

I want you to answer this question. why do you live in the house you live in? Why did you buy that house? Why did you choose that house? Okay, then ask yourself why that's important. Why that neighborhood? Why this, right? You're talking about the biggest purchase in your entire life.

Sure. And you will explain it to yourself in your own head in like four sentences that have no adjectives, no descriptors, nothing. And it's like, you know, and when I tell people to close their eyes and do that, and the funny thing is I did this in New York on stage, and I tell everybody in the audience, I want you to answer these questions. And so it's like, I had forgotten that like to tell people open their eyes. There's people like five minutes, ten minutes later. And then in New York, I used to do cars.

Like, tell me why you drive the car you drive, right? Yeah. And which seemed like a good idea. Except for nobody in New York drives, right? Yeah. But the idea is like you could explain the biggest decisions of your entire life in three sentences. So if you can do that for your biggest thing, like why wouldn't I do that when I'm explaining you something?

Right. And that's just, that's the key to. pitching presenting communication in a modern world. So often at Hollywood we'll see like, well, it's like Jaws except it's on a bus. Right. And what's interesting about that is now we have a frame of reference for both of those things. Right. As silly as that is, it's like that is, I mean, I teach that process, right, the what meets what process.

You've got to be able to at least explain that. And again, listening, if I pitched you the amazing race for the smartest people in the world. Right? Like you kind of get an idea. It's like, well, the amazing race is like amazing race in Jeopardy. It's like it's the most yeah, the amazing race is the most knit with people. Well, matter of you, the smarter people, what would they do? And it's like then when I tell you, it's like a group of MIT graduates, a group of John Deere Boeing engineers doing instead of simple IKEA building projects, it's massive challenges. I'm sold. Right? Like now you're two, three sentences in pretty well everybody kind of can picture what the TV show looks like. And then what I try to explain is imagine pitching that to a professional TV producer who's running a TV network who's produced more TV than I have. Like, do I need to say a lot more than

that? Like, no, he's kind of got the idea. Now let's get into the nitty-gritty that makes it different. Why aren't you pitching TV shows anymore? I'm already sold. To be honest, it lost its luster for me. TV was an outlet for me to be successful. And growing up in Canada, you know, all I wanted to do is would be successful in Canada is like a thumb or a grip on your throat trying to strangle you from being successful every day as well. And it was just a difficult process. And all I wanted to do was be accepted. All I wanted to do is find my place and my people. And I couldn't find that in Canada. And when I came to Los Angeles, that was my people. But it made sense. And you're able to do everything you want to do. Like this is when we first became friends, right? When I first moved

LA three years ago. You were like, oh, yeah, so yeah, that's my background. I do all that pitching stuff. I've got this book. That's all great. I've also got this adventure club. And we do the craziest things in the world. And why don't you join us sometime?

And you're talking about like swimming with sharks and like, hell of skiing. I mean, give us some more of the things. Yeah, we do. Here's the thing. We do just fun, interesting, really great sort of weekend type adventures, right? So a lot of these car rally. All of those are like bucket list items. Yeah.

Most of them are. Yeah, we went glacier kayaking. We've done a lot of crazy cool things. And that's the thing I love about you is that no one can tell you no. No. Because here's the thing like, you know, I got to a point where, you know, you do well. You know, things go well. You make some money.

You've got that part of your life sort of somewhat taken care of. You get a little bit older. My kids are a little bit older. I used to be very, very important to everything that they were doing. And then you lose a little bit of that. And same thing in television. It's like, once you get a few. shows in the air and your IMD credit, you know, scrolls a few pages. It's like, well,

what are you doing now? You're not spending the money you're making. I'm chasing deal to deal to just get paid a little bit more. It's just like, I just ran out of the joy. And, you know, I probably told your story when I was driving down the 4 or 5 in traffic and some guy had jet skis on the back of his truck. And I was like, I haven't been jet skiing in like 10 years. Like, why not? It's like, right, because my friends, not only because they're not up jet skis, My friends don't even own pickup trucks in Los Angeles, right? Like, and I got so angry was like, when am I going to jet ski again? Like, this is crazy.

Like, all I do is work and, and chase relationships and all the crap that comes with Hollywood. And so I rented five jet skis that weekend. And I sent emails out. And I had like, 30 people want to come. And I was like, well, where were you guys? With your jet ski wanting, right? Yeah, yeah. And it was interesting because the head of CBS had emailed me said, oh, I wish I could have gone jet skiing that weekend.

I love that idea. Let me know when you're going again. And you know, like, my job is to try. to get in with a guy at CBS. So I was like, I'm going next weekend. Tom. And so I rented five more jet skis. Then it was like, well, what else do I want to do?

I like to go off-roading. Okay, well, we'll rent a bunch of dune buggies. And so it became a way for me to be important and give people experiences and produce some joy for people, which I, in my sort of insecure and narcissistic way, love being the center of attention. And so I do it by doing benevolent, fun things. That works. And it just gave me an excuse to find more.

things in life that were bigger, better, bolder experiences that I could feel like I won the weekend. Do you have anything left on your bucket left? I mean, honestly, there's very little. Like, there's very little. I would imagine. We're going, this year, we were tried to do it yesterday, but the weather didn't, but we're going to go kite skiing this year. So it's like, you know, kite surfing, but with skis.

So that's what I've been really wanting to do. Man. Like, I really wanted to do that. So most of the other stuff, it's like we've done a version of it now. And like I don't do like high impact like base jumping or skydiving. Like I'm not into that level of adrenaline. I'm more in the experiential side. So we've like whitewater rafted all over the place and caught every kind of fish you could

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There's no doubt about it. Hosting the World Cup on the home soil comes with its pressures, but we're just really excited just as the people are. The U.S. Soccer podcast, presented by Henko, follow and listen on your favorite platform. I'll never forget when I called you, I don't know, would have been about two years ago. And you're like, so I just bought an RV. and me and the family are going to drive around and go to every 40, all 48 states.

Yeah. Well, listen, that is it. It's a great lesson. And a lot of my clients, and I do a lot of consulting for major sports teams on high performance and mindset and all that kind of stuff. And that's one of the things that I've been talking a lot about is the idea that the commitments that people feel they're making

to be better, to do better are not as big as you make it out to be. Right? Like, you know, Chris came on a very, very big adventure with me up to go. canyoneering at the seven teacups, which is one of the premier sort of repelling canionering water, these sort of establishments that you can possibly go to. Yeah, it was unbelievable. Right. But it's like, it's a huge commitment to say yes to that.

It's big to do. But in reality, it's like, it's a weekend. You come up and you do it. That was a day trip. Yeah, it was a day. And it was amazing, right? And you were such a prolific guide. Oh, thank you.

Like, I'm like, I'm basically leaving my life in your hands here. And you're like, yeah, don't worry, just do this thing. And you were right. And so. And the water was like 38 degrees. Yeah, it was cold. That was a cold. That was cool.

But, you know, when we did the RV, the thing was like, I was going to go for six months, go for all 48 states in an RV. I don't, I'm not a camping guy. I'm not an RV guy. I have a life, as you know, like relatively active in general. And so it's like, I'm just going to pick up and leave for six months and just drive around. And, like, it was so crazy. I remember when we left the driveway, I was like,

I can't believe I'm doing this. But in reality, it's like I was less than 48 hours away from taking the RV to the local dealer and be like, buy it back, hopping on a plane and showing up back at home. Sure. It felt like a huge commitment,

but in reality, as I realized like, wait, all I'm out to do is to enjoy life, have experience, do well. And if at any point, this doesn't meet that standard, I can just go back. And that's what I say.

to people when they're thinking about moving or going trying something else or, you know, I have a buddy who's trying to convince his wife to go live on a boat for a couple of years in Florida. I was like, yeah, go do it. And if you don't like it, sell the boat. Yeah. You know, and I think that that's been hard for people lately as they get really good at one thing.

And that usually is their work. With I who I train. It's really good. They're good in the court. They're good in the field. And everything else in their life, they're kind of average at. They're mundane. And so instead of working on those areas, because that's not fun.

I don't like working on things that I'm mundane at, right? I like working at things that I'm awesome at. Yeah. And we're all the same. And so what I try to show people is that, hey, you can be as good having fun, recreational moments with friends, family adventures as you are at the office. It isn't a vacation from your life. It should be part of it.

Yeah. And that's what the travel club is, which is, you know, is you and I run it all nonprofit. It's literally just for fun and adventure, just so I can have go people to play. It's an interesting concept, an interesting idea to say, like, go try something. If it doesn't work out, that was just a few days, weeks, months, maybe a year or two of your life. That doesn't define who you are. No. And it's, so many people are held back by that. And they're waiting for the right moment. They're waiting for the right moment to start a podcast. They're waiting for the right moment to get a side hustle. They're waiting for the right moment to write a book. They're like, they're waiting for

something to happen. And I went through that myself, right? Like, I wanted to write this book, but I was already having like, you know, very large clients, like a Fortune 500 clients. And I was like, if I just do a little bit better, then I'll be, I'll be good enough to write this book, right? And what you realize in life is, is it's not who's the most qualified. It's not who's ready. It's who puts up their goddamn hand and says, that's me. I'm doing it. There are a thousand TV producers with better credits, better history, more success that could

written this book. And do you know how many of them did? None. So, like, I did it. And I'm the guy. And now that's, I'm the expert. And they now come to me for stuff. And it's like, yeah, well, you could have done it too. Maybe they didn't want to. I'm just saying, like, that's where people did. And I, and I had so many people from the television and film industry come to me after the book came out and I left the industry and I started doing this all, you know, full time effectively. And basically ask me how they get out of the business. Because, you know, a lot of people don't feel like they have marketable skills. Like, if you're a doctor, I get it.

But for most people, they don't feel like their skills are transferable. And it's because they just have a very myopic view of where their world fits for that. You know, how many people reached out to me when I left the day-to-day of television in 2019 to focus on content creation, podcasting YouTube? So many of my friends and colleagues who still work in local television or just work in television in general would reach out and say, I see what you're doing. How can I do that too? I know. Isn't that crazy?

It's fascinating. There's also something to this. It's the idea of when you start doing something, people will start to see you in that way. And I'll never forget because I met you in 2020 in the heart of the pandemic. We were going on these adventures. I knew you as adventure brand. And here you are a suit brand sitting in front of me. Professional brand.

And you said like, oh yeah, like I made a decision in my career that I was going to wear tailored suits. and I was going to look great, no matter where I was going. That's right. All day, every day. I said, like, when you go to meetings and stuff, you said, no, no, when I'm going to, like, the kids baseball game, when I go to the restaurant, like, I'm going to wear a suit all the time. All the time. I'm like, all the time?

All the time. And you said, you know, I would think maybe after like six months or a year, people start to go, you're the suit guy. And you said it was within like a few weeks. It was literally, it was almost, because that's what I thought. I thought if I did a year, then it would be part of the description. You know, Brandt, tall, good looking, wears a suit, right? Kind of looks like.

Will Arnett. Yeah, exactly. And it was so fast. And there are people today still who haven't seen me outside of it. But it's suit by choice. And you know, when you see someone a suit by choice, you know. And it was before how I met your mother, Barney Stinson, any of that came. I was there before.

But what I'm saying in that is that can also be your identity for anything that you wanted to be. Use Brandt's suit as that. Yeah, you could do that in any part of your life. Like if you make a commitment to doing something different, that could be your identity. And it can also change. If you have an identity right now that you're not loving, like it changes fast.

Yes. It changes so fast. We live in such a day and age right now with, we're being inundated with technology and information all the time. Yeah. Then I feel like if you were to make a stand today and make a decision today and go, I want to be an expert on whatever, fill in the black. Yeah.

You could then start speaking about it on your social media. You could make a podcast about it. Yeah. You could write a book about it. it. And within about 18 months, you're probably going to be an expert about it. That's right. And if not less. And the reason why more people don't do that is not because it's not available. It's not because they don't have the skill. It's not because there isn't an easy way to do it. It's because they have limiting beliefs in that they could actually pull it off. And what they,

again, like, train this a lot is like, if you start and you don't like it, you can always undo it. You don't have to, like, nothing is that big of a commitment. And I think for me, the big twist for me is like after I got out of the rat race of like chasing money. And it was actually Tony Robbins who got me off that mode because we were talking about, I was saying I wanted to get out of television, but I was in the middle of a big deal. And I had a new deal on the table. I hope Tony doesn't listen to this because I'm going to tell a little secret. But I had a big deal on the table.

And then I, you know, in midst Tony and I were friends and I told him was like, I don't want to do this TV business anymore. I want this to be my last pitch. But I got one more deal. And it's a lot of money. So I got to do it. If you tell Tony Robbins, you're doing something for the money, oh, is he on you? You know what I mean? Like, and he'd get you pumped up.

I can do anything, right. And so I'm telling him, you're right, Tony. I am going to quit. It's up. I'm going to follow my dream. That's what I'm going to do, Tony. But then I'm looking at the offer and like, ooh, that's going to be tough. And the company now are pretty far apart in what I wanted, what they wanted to pay me.

We were quite a ways apart. There was a lot of haggling to do. But you kind of know that it'll probably end up in the middle, right? And I was like, I think I probably have to do that. Yeah. And so he could hear me hesitating. And he's like, what the hell's wrong with you? And I just said, like, Tony, it's a lot of money.

Like, I got to pay. So he had me do this exercise where I basically showed him my net worth. And he looked at it. And he was talking about how I process everything. And he's like, oh, yeah, well, you live like a poor person. Like, your mentality, that's what you do. Like, that's not how rich people act. We don't look at everything on a month to month.

Like, this is just total amateur hour of what you do. I was like, what? And so he got me in a different frame of mind. Now, the funny part is that I was actually coming up with lies in my mind of like, what I'm going to tell Tony when I take this deal, right? Because I don't want to disappoint the guy. Yeah. So I'm trying to come up with ways.

Oh, they made it not exclusive, Tony. I don't have to do it or like I couldn't come up with anything. Anyways, the company actually called me back and said, hey, we're too far apart. I think it's better if we part ways. Wow. And so then I call Tony and be like, you can't believe it, Tony. They offered me triple. And I still said no because I mean, right?

But it was like the moment where I was like, all right, I'm never looking at my day-to-day, my monthly bill. Like I'm not doing that anymore. I'm looking at life years at a time. And I'll figure it out. And when I was out of TV and I sold enough books, like I don't need to sell any more books. I don't have a product to sell.

Like you can't go and buy anything from me right now. And it's been like that for a couple years. So when you're in the world where you're like, I don't have anything to sell you. I don't have anything to get anything out of you. If we have a relationship, like there's, you know, I helped you with some of the stuff.

you were doing and people you were looking, connecting you with people. And it's like, there's nothing for you to buy from me, Chris. There's nothing for us to exchange other than our relationship and that capital. And I realized that when I started trading that and genuinely doing things like the travel club and the sort of the free stuff I do, everything else changes. Then all of a sudden, financially, like, it's the stupidest thing to say, but it's like when you stop worrying about it, it gets better. I've had really good years because of not doing, not trying to do stuff. It's because there's other things in life that have such a huge impact on the people around you. And focusing on that a little bit more will help everything else.

There's going, can't be people listening to this going, can I join this travel club? Yes, you can. It's called rejectaverage.com. And you're still accepting new people? Yeah. Yeah, it's not difficult. I mean, I like good people. So if you're a good person, you like to do fun stuff.

Yeah. Good people only. But yeah, I do stuff all the time. A lot of it, there's two sort of things. There's adventures that I'll put together that people can go on. And then there's like, Brand is going on an adventure who wants to join. And not to say anything, but those are more fun ones. I still need to swim with sharks.

That keeps getting canceled. Yeah, that might be a tough one to get back on. Oh, no. What do you mean? There's a lot of ecological problems in Mexico surrounding the shark viewing. I'm going to swim with some great whites. We did the great whites. Yeah, I got the most incredible video ever seen.

But if that opens up again, we'll know this year, if it opens up this year, you'll be the first on my list. I want to be the first on my list. Great socks, by the way. How do I not notice these? Well, I'll tell you something. I'm not surprised you don't notice it because women notice things. I learned that too when I started dressing is that all the things I didn't care about, like the collar. Like, you see the collars, stiff collar, cuff links, belts, ties, shoes.

Got the monogram here. These are little things that only women really notice, which is good because that's. I'm a fun sock wearer. These are pretty fun. Yeah, those are pretty fun. And I think for me was when I got my first American television job, my boss sat me down. Because at first he was just like, yeah, you know,

whatever you've been wearing on TV, that's great when I was working in Toronto. And I came there and was like wearing a t-shirt with like a blazer and jeans or something. And then about a month in, it calls me into his office. And he had ripped out some pages from GQ magazine. And he goes, I'd like, you to be more like this. I said, oh, but I really like wearing what I'm wearing. He's like, yeah, I just think that this would be a better look. This would be a better look for. Yeah. And I went, all right, great. So if I'm going to wear suits, you know, up here, I wanted something

down like my socks or my suit line or where I could go. Still me. Still you. And that's kind of stuck. I like that. Well, listen, I mean, you are a shiny example, right? Like, if you work hard, you'll get lucky. That's the thing that I try to explain to the kids. Like, the luckiest people I know are the hardest working people I've met. Well, what's that phrase?

It's funny, the harder I work, the luckier I guess. That's exactly right. You know, and I say, like, you just keep working hard enough.

You'll be an overnight success, you know, and then people will come up and be like, oh my God, you're so lucky because they're, they're looking at your highlight reel as their treasure map. And that's a huge problem. And I try to deprogram these kids from that.

It's like you cannot look at Taylor Swift or Ed Shearren or LeBron James or any people that you see there and be like, that's the roadmap to success. It's not. That is that is not a treasure map. It doesn't work like that. What if you were to take a little bit from Ed Sheareran, a little bit from Taylor Swift, you saw LeBron do this and you kind of learned from all their stories made of your own? Listen, if you can do that, that's fantastic, right? The problem is you don't know what you can do. And like, here's a great example.

You know Alex Ramosi. He's kind of blown up on social. Yeah. Right? And he's giving, and he gives great advice. But the difference is, is when you look at him, look at his arms, okay? Look at his arms. You tell me, do you have arms like that?

A guy who could have arms like that is someone who has an exceptional set of skills and determination and focus. And so the advice he's saying works for him because he's a guy who can build arms like that, right? And so you at home, if you don't have those skills using his advice, he's very difficult to do. But you could build arms like him. Could you? If it was, of course. Really?

Eat more, lift lots of weight. Sure. If you had the right nutrition and coaching and time, yeah. Yeah, except that's not the way the real world works. Okay. The real world works. We all know how to look like that. We all know how to be Chris Sveld.

My arms don't look like that. They're pretty bloody good. Holy crap. They're good. This is really not. The shirt is not fitting me anymore. It's pretty good. Look, instead of guns.

And listen, everybody at home, it's not the car you drive. It's the size of the arm. You hang out the window. Okay. But we all know how to look like that. The details are there. It's the mechanics mentally that we don't have. I don't have that.

I would love to have arms your size. I don't because I can't. No, you can't because I can't make it happen. I can't commit the time, the energy, the focus, the dedication. There's a whole bunch of things that I can't do. And that's part of my baked into my personality into most people's personalities. So I caution if you're looking at highly successful people that do something at an incredibly high level, it's very difficult to cherry pick certain elements of what they do

and incorporate it. Because you're saying they're all tied in together. Again, Alex Hermosi's arms belong to a person who can work that hard and that focus. Well, Alex Hermose's original business was starting gym, so it all makes sense. Okay. But when you listen to what he's done, it's like he's done things that are exceptional. I'll give you a perfect example. I did a television show with John Bon Jovi.

One of my favorite performers of all time. It was a highlight of my life. I had breakfast with John Bon Jovi, just the two of us. When I looked at the calendar, my sister was like, you got breakfast tomorrow with John. I was like, wait, where are the other people? It's just the two of us. One of the great moments of my life. As we were developing the show,

I called him one time to talk about something. He picks up the phone. We're chatting on his cell phone. And I was like, hey, I hear the guitar in the back. And I was like, John, oh, man, what are you doing over there? It's a cool rock star stuff. And he goes, no, I'm practicing my scales. Okay?

This is John Bon Jovi. This is not John Bon Jovi 30 years ago. This is John Bon Jovi four years ago. Practicing scales. Wow. And so it's like you don't know. what goes through that effort to become what John was. And again, you don't know how difficult is to get arms the size of Alex from Moses.

It's really difficult. And it's like, it's just really difficult. And so he can apply some of those things to business and all that stuff. And I find that people, they go too deep into the guru system. They sign up for courses. They sign up to be part of things. And it's like, what I teach in the school is reasonable, probability of success.

Does this have a reasonable probability of success? We've all know that restaurant that's been 14 different restaurants on the corner that never works. And yet some other chef or some other person will think, I can do it. It's because they don't understand the reasonable

probability of success. When that gets to be too difficult, it makes everything, because success is hard. And you've got to focus. And if anything is against you, it's like, don't do it. And like, I said, so like I said, I like Alex, I love his advice. Just be careful because a lot of it you can't follow because you can't follow it.

It's no different than him telling you how to get arms, 20-some-inch arms. Like, yes, in theory works if you're that guy. We have covered so many things. I know. I love this. So you know I end every conversation talking about gratitude because it's such a big important part of my life. I wake up every day. I say out loud three things I'm grateful for and I really at least make me.

at least make me realize it got some pretty good things. Yeah. What are three things in your life that you're grateful for? I am now, I am very grateful that I started the process of this gratitude journey earlier because I realized how much work it is.

So I can now feel, I don't call it gratitude in my sort of thing. I call it sort of, I call it sort of the victory piece, the high intensity living, right? Like I feel like I'm going to win today. By the end of the day, I'm going to be like, I won it. I crushed it today.

This is amazing, right? When people ask me, don't you ever take a day off? I was like, yeah, I do. And I crush it. Oh, my God. If there was a prize for who lays by the pool for four hours and did nothing, I'd be on the podium. So I'm really thankful that I started that program early. So I was able to do that.

It's given me the opportunity. And I learned that phrase, I can't believe this is my blank. I can't believe this is the house I live. I can't believe that's a great way of phrase. I phrase that all. I can't believe this is my car. I don't believe this is my wife. I know. Can't believe these are my kids. And you learn people sort of teach the idea that you have to live in that moment. And it's like, no, you can't live in

that. You can practice small moments that can become larger moments. And then most of your day can be in there, but you can't do it all once. So I'm very thankful for that right now. Um, you know, standard stuff. I got three amazing kids. And I got that whole family thing is, it was pretty spectacular for me. So I'm pretty happy about that. But the other thing I'm really grateful for is just the, the future and the relationships. that I'm going to explore. I feel like I've unlocked a lot of potential for more joy, for myself, for others. And I've learned, when we went across the country, we learned how easy it is to impact people's lives positively.

You can bring joy to people so fast, so easy. It's a text. It's a kind word. It's something you do for somebody. We did what was called dinner across America where every single night we just went and found some stranger and invited them to come to dinner with us. I'm going to talk my kids about, like, how, again, how you can just impact people's lives with something so basic is like, hey, can, you want to come dinner with us? Tell us your story. Yeah.

And so, like, I'm so thankful and grateful, like, I have a year ahead of me to just, like, explore that at the highest level. What a great way to end this. Man, you're rampant vivid. Thanks. I mean, I appreciate it. Just nothing to, again, nothing to sell. Just talking. All right, buddy.

Okay, big thank you to Brandt for joining us in the studio. Thank you for being with us in the studio as well. Head to Brandt's website, brantpinvidic.com to get a copy of his book, the three-minute rule. And if you're looking for Brand on social media, it's just his name. At Brandt Pinvittic. I'm at Chris Van Fleet, and Harold S. Kushner said it best. Do things for people not because of who they are or what they do in return, but because of who you are.

Be great. Be grateful. We'll see you on the next one for some more insight. Jim Rome takes on sports. Why? Because I have a job to do. With rapid fire takes. So I don't want to hear from you lava pigs on this notion today. No idea what you're talking about. You're complaining more than you like to breathe air. It's like you get up in the morning only to complain and cry and moan on social media

about things that you don't even understand. He's the spitfire of sports smack. Ticket ban you of, but get up in here. The Jim Rome Show podcast. What's your beef? Follow and listen on your favorite platform. You've been warned.