Julian Dorey Podcast - #40 - Chaz Cervino - Selling Your Company; Entrepreneurship; Playing College Football, & Happiness

Episode Date: March 24, 2021

Chaz Cervino is an athlete/influencer manager, businessman, marketer, and investor. Currently, Chaz is the founder of Cervino Co., a management and consulting firm that works with companies and high-profile individuals. Previously, Chaz co-founded Today’s Business & Today’s Athletes. TB & TA offered services that included marketing, digital media, athlete/influencer management and consulting. In 2021, Chaz exited both companies and founded Cervino Co. ***TIMESTAMPS*** 2:32 - How Chaz landed the Cleveland Cavaliers as a client at age 24; That time his company stopped an planned attack against LeBron James; Affiliate Marketing background; Athletes short window for brandability 17:18 - Chaz’s football career at Syracuse; Why Doug Marrone was a terrible person; Chaz’s transfer to Hofstra; The problems with college football recruiting; Doug Marrone’s terrible reputation everywhere he goes 33:35 - The cancellation of Hofstra’s football program; The Jones Brothers at Syracuse (Arthur Jones & Chandler Jones––along with their brother, UFC Champion Jon Jones) 39:02 - Todd Marinovich & Marv Marinovich background; The Todd Marinovich 30 for 30 44:27 - Players Chaz played with who he immediately saw “NFL” in; Concussions & CTE in football; Weed & Painkillers in college football 55:27 - College athletes getting paid; Reggie Bush 1:03:05 - Chaz’s decision to leave football behind 1:10:15 - How Chaz built his athlete client rolodex; Kevin Garnett & Ray Lewis; The sleaziness in the athlete management industry; The problems with modern-day college education 1:29:02 - Why Chaz left Today’s Business; Alignment & Vision when building a company; Video Content; Focus on Happiness 1:47:46 - Relationships in Business; Cervino Co; The Naval Ravikant Model 2:00:40 - Where things are going (trends); NFTs; Decentralization; Industries that have been massively disrupted that now have the opportunity to disrupt 2:26:49 - Sports changed by Covid 19 Pandemic?; Young kids and fear; Masks; Carolina Panthers Tackle, Russell Okung on critical thinking; The mainstream media has let us all down 2:43:38 - Chaz’s career and life transition over the past 3 years; Trust; The fear of letting people down; Not Trying too hard ~ YouTube EPISODES & CLIPS: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0A-v_DL-h76F75xik8h03Q  ~ Show Notes: https://www.trendifier.com/podcastnotes  TRENDIFIER Website: https://www.trendifier.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Terms and conditions apply. Visit bmo.com slash viporter to learn more. And you have discussions about it. You have discussions with your partners and communicate that to your partners saying, you know what, I'm just not really happy where things are going. What can we do? How can we make things better? You know, you have to address those things.

You have to bring them to the forefront you're not going to hide them like a little child and freaking pant and scream and cry and shit like that no you have to fucking have hard conversations what's cooking everybody i am joined in the bunker today finally finally thank god by my very good friend mr chas servino this podcast has been a long time coming we will explain in this episode why it hasn't happened until now, but I look forward to having Chaz in here again. He's got not just a perspective on marketing and business, which he's had an incredible career so far, but he's got a perspective on life that I really appreciate and want to make a regular part of this show. This is one of my favorite people, just a great all-around human and somebody who's making some moves and doing some pretty cool things.

So we'll get into that, what he's allowed to today. Some of it's kind of new. Wink, wink. But I really, really enjoyed this conversation and I know there's going to be a lot more like this to come. So I hope you guys enjoy as well. Anyway, if you're not subscribed, please subscribe. We are on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. And if you're on YouTube right now, hit that subscribe button, hit that bell button, and leave a like and comment on the videos. Thank you. They're coming out great. Let's keep those rolling. If you haven't had a second to do that and can leave a five-star review with a comment on there, I would really, really appreciate it. That said, you know what it is.

I'm Julian Dory, and this is Trendfire. Let's go. This is one of the great questions in our culture. Where is the nuance? You're giving opinions and calling them facts. You feel me? Everyone understands this, but few seem to do it.

If you don't like the status quo, start asking questions. So, Cavaliers, we landed probably in like, don't even know 2013 or 2014 we were still oh wait yeah this is so we had moved to the restaurant we were above above the restaurant then we moved into fairfield into the fairfield commons which was a thousand square feet felt like we were on top of the world. Is that next to the gas station? Yes, it is. Like on all 46 right there.

All 46. I know where that is. Yeah, it was right before the Sunoco there. Hilarious. It looks like apartments. They're like brick apartments. It looks like apartments. That's one way to call it.

But we felt like we were on top of the world there and it was uh you know one of my business partners had a he had a connection with a cousin of his that worked at the cavaliers which was fantastic so we established a relationship with them i found out my cousin was the vp of operations so that also helped us, you know, kind of cement like, Oh, these guys are real. Like they're real people. They're not just like random, random kids. And,

and pretty much they were like, we're having a lot of trouble like monitoring our Twitter account. So we're like, what do you, what are you talking about? They're like, well, if people are at the games and say like a spill happens or like,

and someone spills their Coca-Cola or, or like something like they need immediate attention to within the arena at that time people were tweeting at at the at the q arena so like we need we need someone to monitor this like 24 7 like and uh we're like yeah we could we could do that and they're like now why wouldn't they just do that internally? So they were – they had their security guards who really didn't know Twitter. And this is like – this is 10 years ago, a decade ago. They didn't – they had their security guards monitoring their Twitter.

The guys didn't know how to really navigate it or what to look for or how to respond. You just got to be really quick. So they ended up bringing it in-house. But at the time, we were monitoring it and then sending them reports that next morning based upon what was being said. So it was also at the arena, but then it was also like things that were, who were tweeting at the Cavs.

Like anytime. Anytime. Overnight or all day? Overnight. Okay, so you guys handled the graveyard shift. Yeah. So yeah yeah we were doing the dirty work we do anything now we have the cleveland cavaliers on our client list

fuck yeah so that's like kind of the breakthrough moment yeah yeah and um and then which was really interesting was that one of the tweets that came in was said because lebron had just left so we got the calves when they were like the worst of the worst like lebron had just left to miami which was that yeah that was like two or three years before he hadn't come back yet put it that way they didn't come back they were as bad as yeah they were as you can be so one of the one of the cleveland fans actually said um he goes when lebron comes back to the stadium i'm gonna shoot up the stadium that came on your watch yes as our yeah our company watch so what do you do so he sent it into the sent it into uh the cavaliers letting them know like hey this guy just claimed this i think we should you know you guys should look into this oh yeah so if my if my uh

my memory is correct they had reached out to law enforcement or i wasn't sure if it was the fbi or some sort of law enforcement you know got the guy's address went to the guy's house and he had over like 10 unlicensed guns at his holy shit he was serious and And they arrested him. Wow. I don't know. If someone's going to do that and they're going to tweet about it prior to doing that, I don't know. Well, they're crazy. You never know. They could be well calculated and planning something out with that, but they could be dumb enough and crazy enough to do something like tweet it out because they're dumb enough and crazy enough to think to do something like that in the first place it's i i mean you and i and say we can't relate to that it's it's craziness it's absolute craziness and they pretty much told us that thank you guys so much for for bringing this to our attention because we're sifting through

how many people are tweeting out the calves every freaking day now are you thousands of people are you doing this yourselves going through yourself the tweets you don't have like you don't have an algorithm reading for them no this is just manual man this is you got you got the interns being paid pizza to go through and find the unabomber yes i mean in other words yes i mean at point, we did have a few employees. We had like two or three employees starting part-time, part-time employees to go through it. Wow. And that's 2013, 2014.

Yeah. So you've been operating for two or three years. You get the calves, but still all the content, still just the management. When did it shift? Because you ended up having two companies too you had today's business and today's athletes and today's athletes leveraged everything you did ended up doing not just this inside of today's business to work with athletes and influencers so you went far far beyond this but if you were going to an influencer or an athlete in like 2013

2014 it's just like a content management guy. You aren't going to land those guys. So clearly like after this, it had to make some sort of shift. It made some sort of shift. We started creating some tech within the affiliate space and being able to track conversions and sales. Now, can you talk about the affiliate space for people? Because everyone knows what it is. They may just not know what it is.

Yeah. When you see an influencer or an athlete or anyone on social and they, they're like, Oh, use my code and get 20 bucks off. Um, or, or make sure you use this link when you're signing up for a website. That's pretty much just, uh, an affiliate link where people use in order to get discounts. But the individual, the athlete who is putting out that particular post with that link will then get compensated, whether it's compensated in cash, in product, but they are getting compensated some way somehow for referring that particular person. That's pretty much as simple a format as it is.

And we were in the process of creating some tech that would actually, when you have an influencer or an athlete, they would be able to use this platform and then find a deal through the platform with the brand and then be able to utilize that link in order to make money off that particular transactions. Was that the thing you were working on with Pepper Jam? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, because you guys ended up, I mean, that was a heavy part of the business.

Oh my goodness. Heavy part. Yeah. Like beyond just like the athlete links and everything, it was more like you were like an influencer network with it. Yep. So you're bringing in people to also match them with deals yourself. Exactly.

That's what we did for a lot of athletes. Influencers was bring them in, being able to curate deals for them with different brands. We were really big in the, in the supplement space at like bodybuilding.com, new track. So you core like a lot of those because the fitness, the fitness space and that nutraceutical space, I mean,

huge margins. Yeah. So, and on, and on Instagram, even in in 2015 2016 2017 like this is huge huge on social well when did the shift really like in your eyes go to instagram where it's like that's where our focus is that's where the main money is because at the beginning you're doing 2011 2012 instagram wasn't even created till 2012 you're doing facebook you're doing twitter

oh yeah but then it really i mean the action not that facebook doesn't have action i mean i think it's fucking cesspool but you know like it still clearly has a lot of revenue instagram's where the the culture is and where the world is in that way so when did that shift really start to happen in your eyes about 2015 2016 and it was like we got to go all in on ig and that was i mean at that point when you're when you're and you know how visual instagram is you got to put out good content yeah so you got to put out good really good content for for your influencers athletes and everyone alike and then in order for and then you got to keep creating tons of creatives for all of these influencer campaigns, athlete campaigns for affiliate, you know, and being able to like, okay, create this video, tell them, all right, do this, do this. And really, because when you're working with these athletes and influencers, some of them are true creators, which is one thing. But the athlete space that I notoriously in,

former athlete, played football in college, like this is, they play football for a living. They play in the NBA for a living. Like this is not what they do. If you're an influencer, you're a creator, this is what you do. All day. This is what you do every day.

So you're coming up with creative ideas. You're coming up with concepts. When you're an athlete, you're putting up whatever you want on your social media, whether it's a brand, oh, I just partnered with this brand, so on and so forth, so people know,

you add that affiliate link. Putting that twist on it and giving them some more creative and some really cool concepts behind it then sets you apart because they're usually, all right, this is blocking and tackling. This is what we're doing. Right.

X, Y, and Z. If they do enough. If they do that at all because they're not really, they don't really, you know, they don't really care about, you know, some people care,

like Juju cares about his brand, cares about his Instagram, cares about his YouTube, his TikTok, the whole deal. Some guys could care less or they don't even want to be even on the social media platform.

So sometimes it was a, it was a struggle just to get people, hey, I think you really should, considering like your playing days only last a short amount of time, you know, capture as many followers and individuals that know who you are and like who you are while you're still playing, while you're still on TV, because when you're done, you're done. And either, you know, you're good enough to be inducted to the Hall of Fame or do some other stuff, but that's it afterwards.

You never have that attention again. Unless you have already curated a platform to be able to continue to have it. And still, what a lot of these athletes, it seems to me, don't realize, and it's hard, man. You come in at 21, 22, 20, 19, whatever, you don't understand

shit. I didn't know anything at that age, so we expect them to know this. No, they just don't you don't understand shit you know like i didn't know anything at that age so we expect them to know this no they just don't get it like the the ability to have all those cameras automatically on you because that's your job and the amount of awareness that creates around you and the interest it creates around you because there's the unknown of what you are going to do performing said job win lose have your stats whatever you're you you can't replicate that and these guys are often the last to know as well like forget the fact that some of them can have their career end like that you know suddenly they play bad one

injury yeah exactly they get injured they're done but they also may just you know they might be chugging along and kind of taking it for granted. And then they're 29 and suddenly they lose a step. And they lose another step that season. And the next year they come there and they're struggling to make the roster. Or, you know, they're getting traded or bought out in their contract in the NBA. And suddenly, like, not only do they not have a star and not have that attention because they're not on the court or on the field right now. We're not playing much. But now it's over.

And now it's like two years later, like two years later like oh yeah yeah i remember you hold on let me go back and watch the game and see who's really playing that that's a hard conversation to have with these guys because when they're in the moment and they're the star or they're on the up you're not thinking like that no it's the last thing that you even want to put in your mind never mind have those conversations or have those hard conversations thing that you even want to put in your mind never mind have those conversations or have those hard conversations you don't even want to put that in your client's mind that like hey this could be over but reality sets in you're you got to be a realist at the end of the day and you got to be able to tell them hey unfortunately it's not going to last forever yeah so you move you move into affiliate pretty heavy after 2013. You start.

No, no, that was probably, that was a little later. We moved into full digital first. We moved into like doing SEO. So organic search. We moved into, you know, doing paid ads on Google, then social ads. We moved into the ad space prior to moving into affiliate. And so you built up your creative chops when you were doing that too because when you're right yeah you're basically running an seo is something that even to this day like people are still like oh yeah seo we do it or oh seo yeah that thing you need it you need it i mean if you people can't find you on google you know might as well be in the fucking desert that's it man so you were focused pretty much all on Google with that.

Because we were still working on small, medium-sized businesses. And those medium-sized businesses, hospital systems, construction companies, like those businesses, real estate companies, they need SEO. If you're looking for an apartment in Edgewater, if you're not showing up on the first page, there's eight other, you know, there's three ads and there's, you know, five other listings on the first page. So that's it. That's it. who the hell's going to the second page the data going of people that go beyond the first or second choice on google i don't have it up right now but it's ridiculous it's like 80 some percent of people don't go past the first choice when they type something in or

80 go after that that the three ads exactly so So even if people are paying up top, the people who have the organic may not even get rewarded because they don't go past that. I mean, it's crazy when you think about it because we have such an appetite for instantaneous decision. And there's all the – think about all the things people Google in a day. It's how they get the answer on anything and everything they want to do. So when you take into account, it's not like they're searching one or two things a day. When they're searching shit, they're searching a million things. They don't have time to go to page two, click this article, go back. You know how much work that is, man.

I got to go back. I got to go back onto the Google – no, no, I can't do that. I mean now it's all Google knowledge panels. Now it's like the frequently asked questions right on Google. I mean, now it's all Google knowledge panels. Now it's like, you know, the frequently asked, you know, the frequently asked questions right on Google. So they tell you. What's Google knowledge panel? It's literally, it's like it curates the internet

and pretty much gives you like a profile on individuals, on businesses, and it's around the first page. So you really don't have to click even on the, you don't even have to really click on a website or something you know wikipedia whatever it may be to to get on there they really want to they want to give you that answer right on google's home you know on the home page i mean the home page is is just the search is this a search search uh bar so i mean they want to give you those answers and the quicker google provide you with answers, the more reliable it is and the more you're going to search on there because it's giving you the information.

Now, when did you guys start really talking with the athletes and influencers? And did that happen naturally? Was that a conversation like, oh, let's start focusing on this or how to go? I think 2013. Me and my business partner both played college ball so you play i played wide receiver no where where i played at syracuse and then ended up transferring to hofstra the cuse oh the cuse is yeah i loved it there yeah that was um who was the coach when you came in greg robinson greg west west west coast guy so he didn't fit too well on the East, but you know, we loved,

we loved Gregor's and you know, he, he only won like four games his fifth and final year. And that was your freshman year? 2009, 2008 was my freshman year. Redshirted my first year and then played every game as a redshirt freshman in 2009. And then coach got fired, stayed through spring ball, stuck it out because that's pretty interesting stories.

Who came in? Doug Marone. Doug Marone. Is he still the head coach at Jacksonville? No. No, he got fired, right? No, no. Irvin Myers now.

Oh, yeah, Irvin Myers. I forgot about that. That's crazy. Yes, it's crazy. But, yeah, he was the head coach until, what, like a couple months ago, I guess? Yeah, do you have, like, those buttons around here where it's, like, I don't know. Like, they have it on those game shows or, like, on, like, Kramer where it's, like, do you have any of that? Like, some really, do you have something?

Hit that. What the F? Yeah. Are you kidding? Like a hawk. that like some really we have something hit that yeah so that's where i'm like that's never been used before never been used never been used i love it i love it i have one on my on my desk that says no. Oh. Yeah. That's right to the point. I like that.

Yeah. No. So Marone comes in. And literally the guy is just a total, total fucking ass clown. How so? Why? The guy is on like some high horse and just wants it and i understand it from the perspective now i do as a business owner and somebody down the line when you're 17 18 years old you just don't you don't respect it and you don't agree with it so he came in and was pushing

everybody to transfer. Didn't matter who the heck it was. I mean, we had a wide receiver that ended up playing in the league for a number of years, Mike Williams. Yeah. He let Mike do whatever, you know, Mike could do no wrong. Right. Mike had, you know, 40-inch vert and the guy, you know, was 6'2", 6'3", and was out of this world athletic so um but everybody else on the team we had to do you know 6 a.m workouts but they were five days a week usually you do 6 a.m workouts like two days

a week this is after he comes in this is spring ball so as soon as he comes in we start off off season conditioning and winter workouts that's's the first, you know, conversations. Everything is like, okay, we're getting into spring. We're getting into winter workouts and then spring ball. Did he tell you he wanted you to transfer, though? Like, did he sit? Because you said he made everyone want to transfer. Was that a conversation?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So, but that was, I mean, he hinted at that throughout the winter conditioning and spring ball and then afterwards ladu was like all right i think you should transfer you know x y and z pretty much he was telling me that i was gonna like you know wash the dishes and like like like weird like weird shit like oh yeah you're gonna be holding the bags for the next three years here i'm like i just didn't understand what the fuck he was talking about i'm like i don't i don't really get it we just in and part partially when

he first came in we had to do all all new assessments 40 5 10 5 uh 100 meter so we had to do all that and i was you know and i'm not saying me it was it was it was over 40 guys transferred that's a third over a third It's a third of the team. Can you put a team on the field at that point? No, you need to get a ton of JUCO transfers. You need a ton of people coming in to fill the team at that point. He's making that like the NFL, though. These are college kids.

Well, that's the whole thing. Did I choose to sign a letter of intent with you, Doug Marone? No. I inherited you like a freaking like a terrible stepfather yeah like i don't know what you you know but he came in so we had to do these five day a week you know winter conditioning and people were leaving 6 a.m 6 a.m but if everyone so it was called manly field house where syracuse still trains, the football field house, and if you didn't have your manly issued sweatpants, sweatshirt, he sent you outside in Syracuse with a foot of snow

with shorts and a t-shirt on. So you had to wear the uniform. No, no, no. If every person on the entire team didn't have their uniform, then you had to go out there with shorts and a t-shirt. If everyone came out there with sweatpants and a sweatshirt, you could wear your sweatpants and a sweatshirt and go train, you know,

you know, humanely. If that's a word. It is. Alright, good. So, you could train in sweatpants and sweatshirt, but think about this. People were walking off the field with hypothermia and frostbite and giving him the middle finger and leaving the field because it was in you, me.

He was trying to get him a transfer. Of course. He was trying to get him a leave. Yeah. But that wouldn't, today, that wouldn't go. He'd be fired in a second. Are you kidding me? He'd be fired in a second.

In a second. One Instagram story about it, he's gone. He's finished. Honestly, for that, he's gone. He's finished. Honestly, for that, he should be. That's fucking crazy. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm sure. But this happens so often in college football.

I was just watching the news, and there's, what is it called? Hazing. There's tons of different rules now about hazing and and about freshmen coming in like some of it's for the good some of it's for the bad exactly you know you don't want to coach forcing who he's the boss of forcing 18 19 20 year olds to go out and i mean in syracuse had to be what minus 10 degrees out there easily yeah like that that's not that's not humane no it is your word but you know there's like some softness around some other things, too. Like when people overuse hazing and shit like that.

No, 100%. And I can definitely relate to that. Apples and oranges. Syracuse and at Hofstra both did some freshman type stuff. Because when I transferred there, I was a junior in the classroom. But I was a junior coming in. But I was kind of like, when you're a transfer, who do you relate with you're also with like a bunch of the freshmen that are coming in because you don't know anybody either so you did transfer so when I did transfer

to Hofstra um but you have to do like funny things as like hazing you have to do like a skit and like uh all right get up in front of get in front of the team and like do like a funny skit of like you know make fun of another player or the coach or like that's fine come on that's more than fine it's like these paddle slapping and like like like you know shit that you know it's just like doing the stuff that we had to do like yeah that's that's that's like that's what you you know what i mean though because the line now like there is no line people are like you know they're instantaneously soft about shit and everything's getting taken away. Because, you know, everything's transparent. But on the Marone point and him coming in, this is a topic I actually think about a lot.

Because college coaches, college football coaches at D1 schools or college basketball coaches, like the big money-making sports, it's cutthroat business. They come in, they got a short leash, they got it, and it's their career. They either win or they're out, and they don't get it. The chances of getting a second chance are very, very hard. Slim to none. So I empathize with the fact that they need to put their best product out there. But there is something wrong with the fact that they need to put their best product out there but there is something wrong with the system where you have it with kids stuck in the middle because i don't care what you say if you're in the nfl if you're in the nba you're being paid hundreds of thousands millions of dollars business deal with it coach doesn't want you too fucking bad you're going to

another team you play in the fucking league, dude. That's what it is. When you're a college kid, let's even think worst case scenario. You're a freshman. You've never been away from home before. Coach gets fired. That's the coach who sat in your living room and said, I'm going to be – looked your parents in the eyes, looked you in the eyes and said, I'm going to be like a second father to you. And now suddenly they're gone. And so for me, when these other coaches come in, they need, I understand they have a job

to do and they have to have some hard conversations. Like if the last system was a spread offense and this is going to be a West Coast offense and there was a quarterback who was recruited there to play spread, right? Well, he's probably not going to play West Coast. So be like a dad to him and help him figure out his life. Don't be like, yo, fuck you. Get off my team. I was talking with Grant Wiley about this on a podcast a few weeks ago because he was there when Rich Rodriguez came in at West Virginia.

Now, Grant started as a redshirt freshman. Michael Vick won freshman of the year as a redshirt freshman. The year after, Grant won redshirt freshman of the year in the big east as a redshirt freshman so he was look he was one of the best players on the team okay even him when rodriguez came in he didn't look at grant and say grant transfer but he looked right at grant he was like yeah listen everything you did it means shit to me dude same it's the exact same words that they used at syracuse that played in every game last year had a few catches nothing nothing to brag about but when you're on

the field you're like okay what's the next step I want to play more I want you want to play that's where you're there there's nothing wrong with the motivation is my point there's nothing wrong with you know hey there's certain things that have to change we have a job to do whatever but the fact that these guys are just when they take these jobs they're like i'm gonna get all my guys in here so i don't give a fuck what you do if you're here you no longer matter and i'm gonna throw you out in the minus 10 degree weather just to prove that you know you need to leave that's bullshit that's over the line but there has to be the i understand the business there has to be that balance I understand the business. There has to be that balance there. You can't treat these kids like cattle.

And I saw it. I've talked about it before. I've talked with you about it. I saw it up close with some of my guys in college, some of my best friends who played D1 ball where we were. I watched how the coach mistreated them, and that pissed me the fuck off. And in a couple situations, I'll never be okay with that in any way, shape, or form. And I'm thinking like, damn, that's not – it was D1AA, right? That's not even D1A like Syracuse or something.

Nothing like it. This is a moneymaker. It is a business, and they take it – they put these kids in the middle of it, and they don't fucking pay them. That's bullshit. It's bullshit. It's bullshit. And I think, I mean, to a couple points, they won't let you transfer in the same conference. I couldn't transfer anywhere else in the Big East. Is that still a rule?

I think it's changed, but at that point, you couldn't transfer in the Big East. Come on, I'm getting recruited on the east coast who the fuck is recruiting me it's the big east man like obviously i had a lot of one double a schools and like so who else is recruiting you so i end up transferring to a one double a which i didn't have to sit out at all which was great but you have to oh that's how so if you transferred to anywhere 1a you would have had to sit out a year. Sit out for a year. When I have no choice of this, it doesn't make any sense.

But then to Doug Marone's point, do I understand where he's coming from? As someone who founded my own business, ran my own business, like, yes, I understand. You want to get as much of your own people in here as possible. If you're just taking over a new business as a new CEO and you inherit this company or buy this company, you're going to keep a couple of the top people and you're going to siphon through 90% of the other ones to bring in your own people. I get it. It's the way you go about it and the lack of respect that you have for other human beings that are kids.

That's why i refer to him as an ass clown because he's just it wasn't the right thing i never really you know did i ever publicly fucking say anything about it no no but around small circles around you know football guys around other guys that you played ball with playing new york new jersey game with i play in the all-american game and in florida like those are the guys where you you can fight in the stuff because they've been there and done it they all play d1 ball they all played high level they know how it works and you know what to your point it is a business but you're also dealing with kids and you're dealing with kids that exactly they're sitting in your living room telling you they're

going to take care of you and is it their fault that they got fired it's their fault they did they didn't win you know what there's a lot of factors that go into it at the end of the day you can't hold these kids hostage at a place that they didn't even decide that they want to go with this particular coach like you got to be able to train i think they have loosened the rules over the years this was just during my time that i personally experienced that couldn't even transfer in conference i think now there's a whole transfer like now it's like really official now with a transfer portal like all right this guy's going to be moving into the transfer portal it's this quarterback from oregon or this you know so it's it's a little bit better it's definitely

better but at the same time i think they're loosening up they understand man you can't can't do this you can't do this to kids it's a lot too. You're uprooting your life and you're young. You're not a professional. You're not 25 or 30 or whatever and like this is just how it works. You're young. You're out of your house for the first time. You're on a college campus, which is like this enclosed community and suddenly like boom. You have to leave here.

You have to leave all your friends. You have to leave the thing that you sat there and sign your letter of intent to commit to to go somewhere else. I mean the onus – not the onus. The higher pressures of the situation are not the onus the the higher pressures of the situation are on the kid there because now it's like well fuck and you gotta go keep getting your goddamn degree the whole time what program are you gonna go into it's such a crazy concept to me and and you know i'm glad you speak up about it because guess what it fills in blanks too when doug marone went to the nfl you know he

let's let's give him some credit here oh yeah when he came into syracuse despite the fact he was hitler you know he turned it around a little bit i shouldn't call him hitler but you know what i mean right of course like you know he turned they at least started winning games and he did get his guys in there but you know he had to leave blood on on on the streets to do it and so he goes to the nfl coaches for the bills for a couple years did something shady at the end there to get out of his contract i forget what it was it was fucking shady it was you remember yeah do you remember i don't know what exactly he had to do but i remember it was like a whole bunch of controversy around yeah so if you listen to like the guys that played for him there they all rip him then you watch him

go down to jacksonville and again start to turn around what they were doing there and fell off a cliff and so you see these guys like the jaylen ramses of the world even the leonard fournettes and what label do they get because they're pros and you know with jaylen and leonard they do like to talk a lot entertaining guys right they get the label of oh they're prima donnas they're problem childs or whatever no i don't think so i i think they've kind of proved that point at this point because they left the ship a lot of other people did no one had anything good to say about him they're all at least happy where they are now fournette just won a super bowl with tom brady in tampa and it's you know we put these tags on these players and people don't know what some of

these guys are like behind the scenes and so getting the view into like how he was in college you think he was going to be any different in the pros now he's got the total professional label on it of course he's going to be the same he's going to be worse than the pros and some guys i think you know i can't can't you know i i really don't want to talk about him anymore because he's just he's just it brings back bad memories. At the same time, at that point, then I transferred to Hofstra. You love Syracuse though, right? Love the school.

I love Syracuse. Love the school. I met a ton of great people that I'm still best friends with today, like friends forever. And transferred to Hofstra. And as soon as I get there, it's like, okay, we're getting started. So I'm all jacked up. I don't have to sit out at all. I can start playing.

And so it's the first couple games of the year. I end up breaking my rib, puncturing my lung, catching a ball, running down the sidelines. And then I'm out the whole rest of the year. And you were playing all wide receiver pretty much in college. Wide out. They were going to start using me like um coach pat node was the uh the offensive coordinator he was like all right we're gonna

start using like wildcat different things as like you're using your quarterback skill stuff like that in the week that week of practice i'm like all jacked up i'm like all right been here for a few weeks all right now let's now i'm finally like getting into the groove. This is like 2010, something like that? Yeah, 2010. That's like when Ronnie Brown and Cadillac Williams in Miami was doing the Wildcat and beat the Pats. Yeah, so this is when that was like the big, oh, everyone's got to do this. Oh, yeah. And that's where, so then I get hurt.

I'm out the whole year. That offseason, they literally canceled the football program. Cancel the program. Like they don't, they gone. They don't have a program anymore. They don't have a football team anymore from 2011. Oh no,

this is 2010, 2010. When did that? So is that like right after the season? That was right after the season. We're getting ready for winter condition. We're getting ready for, no, we're getting ready for like off-season workouts. Finished the season.

We're getting off-season workouts. And I remember I was in freaking a math class taking a test, and I get a thing like come down to Margiata Hall, which was the football facility at Hofstra in Long Island. And they were like, oh, yeah, come down. Urgent, urgent, urgent meeting, urgent team meeting. Walked down there. And by the time I got there, everyone was in the parking lot, like, crying or, like, upset because they were like, dude, I fucking worked my way up all the way.

I'm a senior here. Now you're going to cancel the whole program? You know, it was pretty uh pretty surreal just the the why they can't chain of events i think the new president of the school didn't care for it um didn't care for football didn't care for for what it did for the school from a cultural standpoint from from a uh from a camaraderie standpoint money involved yeah it costs it costs money to run the football program quite a bit and uh and he was putting a medical school in at the time and i feel like that's where things started shifting i think there was another shift because um because the jets left

left the hofstra facility that they used to that they used to do all of their training camp there and they ended up moving to florin park yeah so that was i think another another big you know revenue hit to the uh to the school and to the to the program so i mean crazy because i had a bunch of really cool really really cool guys that went to hofstra before before me that really were like, oh, you got to come. You got to build on that tradition, the wide receiver tradition here. Yeah, they sent guys to the league. Yeah, Colston was there at the spring ball game that I attended prior to committing.

So, like, it was very, very weird it was a very weird time um because i was i was just trying to figure out what the wait what am i gonna transfer again and pretty much that was one that was one semester so you transfer you basically decide to transfer like in the summer yeah right right so right after spring ball so maroon goes through the whole thing he He tells me, you're going to be holding bags. You're going to be washing dishes, whatever it may be. I'm like, fuck, man. And you played in every game as a freshman. As a freshman.

As a freshman. I was a freshman, played in every game, only had a few catches. What was your 40? 4-4. Legit. You were fast. Yeah. I got a little slower at Syracuse just because they're putting the you know i don't

even agree with some of the things that in college programs that they do like all right you got to get underneath the bar yeah you want to put on weight dude i'm i'm speed i'm quickness and agility i was up i was up to like 185 when i should have been at 175 still um but i still was in top five fastest um 40s on the syracuse team which my boy art jones just brought up the other day shout out art jones there's a throwback how's he doing shout out baby's doing good he had he had what like an eight nine year career yeah yeah colts ravens won a super bowl that is the the third brother chandler and johnny bones jones right yeah art's their brother yeah wow so you played with him at syracuse yeah i played with chandler and johnny bones jones right yeah art's their brother yeah wow so you

played with him at syracuse yeah i played with chandler and uh and art so oh you played with chant fuck yeah what year was chandler yeah i think he was 2012 i think he was 2012 or 2013 i could be wrong did he come in with you was he in he? He came in the year after. So my redshirt freshman year was his freshman year. And Art's was your? Art was there prior. So I think Art's two years older than Chan. Oh, so he was the year above you and then Chan was the year below you. Yeah.

God, who else did you play with there? There were some good players coming on. Justin Pugh, my man Pugh. Oh, Pugh. How's he doing? So I didn't play with him, but he came in after me and then we became really close friends. Who else? Who else? Who else?

You're talking about guys who play in the league? Yeah, and then even like some guys who might know for whatever reason. You told me about this. It was like the first business coming out of – Oh, Marinovich? Yeah. Todd Marinovich's brother played? Yeah, Todd Marinovich yeah todd marinovich's brother yeah todd what was his name uh mikhail mikhail okay so he was up at syracuse too yeah mikhail was really good um did you meet the father marv yeah dude i was i had a little

business venture with uh with marv and mikhail out of college out of college yeah that was that was pre kind of digital pre me with uh today's business and everything it was what for like a month uh i was still running it one when i was with today's business so there was a lot of riff having that business and another business kind of starting wait wait so with the father and mikhail yeah now was the father harder than marone that's the real question the father just wouldn't he he didn't really talk too much he was very very to himself very silent that was older in his in his day he was very he was old in his days you know he was in his probably mid 70s and i guess 60s and he was um i think you know pretty much we were trying to

uh utilize his teachings and his trainings to be able to bring them to the masses i mean he's Troy Polamalu freaking BJ Penn um the UFC back and these are all back in the day when Penn was jumping out of the pool and landing on the outside of the pool. It was like, oh, shit. Like, yeah, that's the water workouts that Marv was doing with Tyson. He was training all these guys. Yeah. Tyson Chandler when Tyson was the defensive player of the year with the New York Knicks. You know why I'm surprised at that? Why?

Because, you know, the story was out on the older son. Because I guess McHale was a lot younger than a lot younger yeah right so todd was the old for people that don't know what we're talking about todd was the robo qb yeah he was the and what was the full story there todd was parade all-american he was the number one draft pick by the raiders which mikhail's godfather was Al Davis because Marv was the first NFL trainer. He created the NFL Combine. It was Marv Marinovich. Marv Marinovich created the NFL Combine.

Yes. But with – okay. All right. I didn't know that. That's crazy. Which is pretty crazy to think about. But so Todd was quarterback at USC, drafted by the Raiders, was the – like I don't know who,

like the Peyton Manning, the Andrew Locke, like this was a can't, can't miss prospect. And Marv's teachings and training is as a toddler, he would stretch him. He would train him like literally since he was like a toddler, training him like a maniac, not letting him eat.

Like he never could have any fast food, Oreos, nothing like that. It was all. He never ate sugar, I don't think. Never ate sugar. Like never had it or something. It was like never in his system. He never provided his son sugar, Freddie.

But he was to the 10th degree of coddling and then also grooming him to be the next great quarterback. And Lefty, he was unbelievable. Yeah. And then, you know, I think he just – he was burnt out, and he was just like – and he went off – kind of went off the deep end. I would too, man. I mean, yeah, it's crazy. Oh, yeah.

When you think about it. It is. It is. It is. And I think Marv definitely didn't take that approach with Mikhail. He kind of let him, to a certain degree, like as he was growing up, he was very strict. Then he kind of loosened the reins up because he saw what happened with Todd that he didn't want that to happen with Mikhail. So there's a great 30 for 30 on this. Unbelievable 30 for 30.

Yeah. Oh, it was so this. Unbelievable 30 for 30. Yeah. Oh, it was so good. It was so good. I'm like, I have a lot of respect for that guy, for Todd Marinovich. Because, you know, mentally, not to totally rain on his dad here, but let's just call it what it is mentally that is um to note like once you get out into the world like even just going to college and seeing what else is out there and like something as simple as seeing someone else eating sugar it's you know the tree of life mentality of of like well what the fuck have i been doing that's gonna play with your head

oh yeah you know and and he went to some dark places and obviously his career didn't pan out because of it because as you said he just burnt out and i guess had some drug problems and stuff but yeah you know he's had his life in order for a long time now and and i'm really i was i walked away from that documentary with a lot of respect for that guy because he's not bitter no you know he's i forget what he does now but he's like a pretty successful guy um and that that's that's that's hard because that's ingrained in you you know yeah and uh you know rest in peace to marv marinovich who just passed away recently did i didn't know that not a few months ago yeah um so but it was uh yeah there's a lot of great people that came through, that came through Cuse.

I mean, the Jones brothers, huge. What a family. Oh, my goodness. Unbelievable. I mean, there's so many great guys that came through that organization. Tony Fiametta. Yeah. He was a monster.

Were there guys, you know, like whether it be a Chandler or an R or somebody like that, when you came onto campus and you're watching guys for the first time, is there something in your eyes that goes Sundays? That happened to me with DeLon Carter. He was a running back. He played in the league for four or five years. He was like Mr. Ohio. You just look at him and you're like, uh-oh, that dude had,

I don't know what they call it, popcorn muscles. There was muscles on top of muscles and you're like, oh, and he doesn't even, he was working hard, but he couldn't work that hard because he would have been too big to be able to be that fast and strong and break tackles and make moves. But you saw that guy

and you're like, he he's gonna be in the league and he was yeah it's you know and it's it's kind of crazy too because you watch high school football games and stuff sometimes there's like a sophomore playing or a freshman you got an o-lineman who's like 5'10 185 and then you you get to like d1 and if an o-lineman walks on there at like 6'3 and 270, get to the calf and start eating, pal. Like you're going to have a problem here. You better start doing your squats and lifting. It is a whole, whole different level.

And then that's why, you know, they say every play is like a car crash because it's just huge humans hitting each other. Yeah. You're just having freaking collisions every freaking play. I didn't want to think about my brain and CTE. Dude, I think your brain's – I've known you for a long time now. I think your brain operates pretty well. It's all right.

I've never noticed you zoning out or anything like that or not talking really, really fucking fast. But it's true. I mean, there's a lot of guys. Oh, it's real. true i mean there's a lot of guys you know oh it's real yeah it's real um and it's a lot of positions too it's not just linebacker d-line or you know o-line or running back it's it's a lot of another thing we were talking about chris henry who's buddies with grant rest in peace chris henry he was the first guy because he tragically died very young i believe he was the first guy who they confirmed had cte because he died in 09 when they were first studying what this could be and his mom was nice enough to donate his organs

for you know for other people to have transplants and donate his brain to study his brain and he was a you know he was a stretch the field wide receiver he wasn't you know this guy wasn't you know he wasn't getting hit that hard all the time and even he had it that's that's creepy x amount you're only seeing think about it you're you're practicing i would say 10 times more than you're playing. In football, you don't realize it, but you play for a few hours on a weekly basis. Never mind what goes into spring ball. You're practicing and playing and hitting each other, really doing hitting drills.

I know they've limited a lot of that over the years now because it's just it's too it's too much what was it like when you were there were they starting to pay attention to that or was it yeah it was still not at all still just get out there and hit a motherfucker yeah and one of my best friends i talked to him all the time and and he was like and he played linebacker and he's like but do you understand if they're like, all right, run it back. When I am the middle linebacker and you have Tony Fiametta, who is a battering ram. The guy was, I looked at him and said he was one of those guys that you're like, he's playing in the league. And he did for a number of years. Cowboys, a bunch of different teams.

The guy was a monster. He was big, man. So your job is in practice. They're like, okay, we're gonna run iso okay you know it's coming it's just the inside drill so there's no wide the wide outs the dbs everyone is doing one-on-ones or they're doing you know scale drill where they're running patterns and they're doing covering and stuff like that this is inside drill so he's like okay we're gonna do an iso so he's the middle linebacker

and tony fiametta goes through the hole and you're like all right he's gonna come and hit me and he's running fully full speed full speed at me boom boom and you're like okay run it back so he's just gonna run right at me and clock the shit out of me and i gotta stand here like a wall and take this boom boom like you're ringing your head is ringing your body is you're like this isn't right yeah no one has any no one and all they do keep taking tylenol ibuprofen painkillers it's just that's just how how he shouldn't deal with that and then guess what and people blame him for that but it's like what what would you do you know and then the coach is in your face screaming get up let's go it's pretty it's it's pretty crazy but then guess what that's on a tuesday that's a random tuesday

what's happening on wednesday what's happening on thursday fridays the walk through saturdays the games then you're in the game yeah then you're never mind on what's on wednesday what's on thursday and you're just like oh wait i gotta stand here by a guy who's 240 running a 4-4 i don't even know what the force or maybe amazon web services now has the freaking analytics on like they definitely do my brain just moved 10 times yeah man uh you know so you get shook up i i'm this is a constant constant uh discussion in my house on kids do our kids play football you know well you played from the time you were what? Like two years old. That's why I know. We got the videos.

Shout out Fairfield Falcons. You played for the Fairfield Falcons? Yeah. Oh, no, no, no. We were on like the D team. I don't even know what they called us, but we were in the Fairfield League. My dad created a little league over there

with like 100 other fathers. Of course he did. Of course he did. And we ended up beating like the the older fairfield fackins when we were like two or three years old we paid like the five and six year olds beat him up god but i i don't even don't even know i mean he did have consent forms by the fathers yeah yeah um i think it's statute of limitations now over 20 years because he does have the videos we haven't watched those videos a number of years

so um i know we would like to start getting those out there on youtube i think i think mothers and women would have a hard time watching you know two or three year olds like tackle and beat the shit out of each other um at least it's and not that it's good at least it's two and three year olds though you know when you're two-pounders coming at each other. You're right. The force. The force. It's not good, but you know what I mean.

It's different. No. I mean, you're a baby. Yeah. Yeah. It's not quite there. But I've talked to a lot of guys who, whether it be friends or people i meet who maybe play at the collegiate level and stuff and they talk about maybe when they're like a year or two out from playing and

they're lucky enough to not really be like damaged and their head clears and they're like the fuck that what is this they never felt it before because they've been playing football since they were 10 years old you know and they never realized there's like that fog there because every day it's like hit hit hit hit hit hit okay hit hit hit you know the way they get through it especially in college i mean it's it's it's you smoke weed at night that's pretty much like how you can't even yourself can't do that in college you're getting drug tested you couldn't do that in college no i mean they've been drug testing forever but everyone smokes all the football players smoke i know they they do and it's coming out now like more and more are coming

out saying they do but college you're getting drug tested man you're getting thrown off the team a lot of guys got thrown off the team really oh yeah they rather give you painkillers at that time this is all yeah i guess so 20 have any painkillers and shit. What else are you providing someone that's having chronic frigging neck pain? I mean, never mind your head when you're hitting people like this on a daily basis, but your back, your knees, your ankles, I mean, your whole body. That's when you talk to guys who play ball, they're like, all right, are you healthy? And then you show the injury report like, oh,'m healthy no i'm questionable i'm probable like dude if you're if if they're saying you're healthy you know you got a bunch of nicks and bruises you're not going out there like all right we're like we're in the middle of summer like all right we're i'm good no you you're beat

your body is beat up man yeah and some of the injuries these guys play through, it's terrible for you, but it's amazing. It is amazing. The willpower, the type of just strength, mental strength that they have throughout this whole thing to be able to go out there and play at the level that they play and withstand the type of injuries that they have and play through them is incredible. And again, I think we've come back to this point like five times,

but prime example, the cattle mentality with the coaches. Like, oh, yeah, you're a little nicked. You're good. Get back out there. Like, what? I remember one time my buddy Meat, that's exactly what he sounds like. He was one of the most athletic people I've ever seen in my life, like straight up hillbilly athleticism from the country.

Just naturally, probably when he was three, picked up a bar and squatted it. never watched a video because I didn't even have access to it but there was a video of him in practice with his knee where somehow because he's a freak you know squatted like 700 pounds he was insane somehow not every single ligament in his knee tore he probably like slightly tore his MCL and some of the not the ACL but the other ones yeah but his knee they were telling me went back like a toothpick and they you know he was like oh fuck like oh my god comes off the field they wrap it in ice and that's like a tuesday right yeah on friday they're like so you good you good to go for tomorrow he's like you're fucking kidding me i've been walking around on crutches all week.

I'm in a nice thing. They're like, yeah, we can take the crutches off. You'll be good. A little tortle or whatever. You'll be fine. Yeah. He's like, no. But the next week, playing.

That's, to me, I'm just, and I'm amazed by it. But that's so, it's, it does not sit right with me. It just straight up doesn't. If it's your career, all right, you make that decision, fine. You're making millions of dollars. If you're making money and everyone's like, oh, you're getting a scholarship, you're getting a scholarship, dude. You can learn more on YouTube now, man, than a $250,000 or $300,000 bill from a university. Couldn't agree more.

And I assume you're completely in favor of some of the light legislation we've now gotten that needs a lot more. But the early legislation here that says that college athletes can earn money on their individual brand. Huge. Yeah. I'm all behind it. I know Cali and Florida have stepped up. But it's the name, image, and likeness. What does that apply to?

So what's an example? I think it's all through on social and being able to promote brands, being able to promote companies, being able to generate money through your own YouTube, through your own Instagram, through these social media platforms that you wouldn't notoriously be able to make any money off. You wouldn't even be able to take a ride from somebody the ncaa wouldn't even let you take a ride from somebody so say we were going out and we were going to a restaurant and some and a friend's father or somebody wanted to like hey i'll drive you guys over there technically you're not allowed to even jump in a car with somebody to take you somewhere so the ncaa has made a lot of strides

probably not to their own liking obviously but they've had to adapt to the times yeah where these kids you couldn't get it they wouldn't allow you they wouldn't allow you to get the job they wouldn't allow you to earn any money if you're if you're a uh if you're an athlete because think about athletics like 100 hours a week just week, just to frigging, just to play ball. I just thought of this one though. I just thought of this one. Cause hypothetically an athlete could, they could get a job on campus as a barista or something, but they have no time to do that.

They don't have time to do that. And then as an, yes, could they do that from the, from the football team at Syracuse? None of those guys had jobs at at Hofstra there was a couple guys that worked for the school you're right but if like say if I was at Syracuse at Hofstra and I want to get a a job at like a local car dealership like washing cars I don't think you were able to do that so all right I'm just thinking of this on my head i've never thought about this one but it seems like second nature now let's say i was a high school football player three years ago four years ago whatever yep and on the side i had a youtube channel in high school where i made money because

i had over a thousand subscribers and whatever I did wasn't football something else this happened you got to look it up what it was it was a guy I think it was in the UCF team um did he have to shut down his channel to go there yeah he had a YouTube channel which he was making money on and the NCAA like told him either you got to shut down this channel or you can't be on the team. I'm not going to drop a word on that. No, no. We all know what you want to say, and it's awful. It's awful. I think they're moving towards a better solution here.

Because they have to. They have to. They don't want to. I think you said that. They don't want to. No. I mean, think about the money they want to. I think you said that. They don't want to. No. I mean, think about the money they make. I've never looked at the contracts.

Tickets. I mean, television deals, radio deals. I mean, it's just. You remember like the college football video games when they were big, growing up? And it wasn't Reggie Bush. It was number five. Like, what?

But you know you're using reggie bush because he's got a 99 rating on everything and it's number five and he just won the fucking heisman trophy for usc but reggie bush makes no money on that oh and and guess what you know how in december 2005 or 2006 whatever year it was you remember how reggie bush went went on stage and and was elected the the heisman trophy winner on national tv and you know gave the speech people were crying you remember that didn't happen yeah it didn't happen yeah you never saw that it it didn't happen because because reggie bush took a couple dollars oh it's ridiculous it's ridiculous it it just it it pisses me off it is it will i mean

but then i think about so many other things in life and how it's so backwards and you're just like how is this still working how is this doing why how is this happening so when you think about football and you're like i can see how it's happening in football if it's happening in your everyday life on on different things that you come in contact with or just like football and you're like, I can see how it's happening in football. If it's happening in your everyday life on, on different things that you come in contact with, or just like, you know, you're like, you just can't believe some of the things that went on that happened. I mean, so if you say, Hey, if it's going on in football, yeah, it's worse things that are going on, but it's, it doesn't, it's not, it's not, it doesn't sit well with you.

You're not like, all right, this is cool. No, it's just, just another thing you got to deal with when you're not like all right this is cool no it's just just another thing you got to deal with when you're going through when you're going through life and i'm sure there's so many different so many different aspects of um of sports and how and how it relates but i think there are moving in the right direction yeah where if you do sell a particular jersey you uh you can you can make some money off your of your own name and anything off the field you should be able to do you should have complete control if you want to create your own merch you want to do something go ahead and you want to have your own youtube channel exactly let's let's go

conservative and let's say stuff that is not tied to football yeah right which i think they should be able to do all of it let's be clear but like if you're going to start somewhere if someone has like a streaming channel where they're a bit they're a gamer and they're great at call of duty or fortnite or something that has nothing to do with the football field they they have every that is theirs you know so and i can only imagine only imagine the stories and instances you have because we'll talk about it but i think that's where we started this whole rabbit hole on this but you've lived your life after college and in college around the best of the best and in the athlete circles but even i who have has not done that i've heard from some people who know some people or some people directly who you would who are model citizens who

did nothing wrong or whatever and even they took money in college and they're like yeah dude like of course and i'm like oh my god i hope that never gets out and at this point they're like i don't fucking care you know because it was years ago or whatever but they're like of course we did i had nothing i worked a 65 hour a week job and i had nothing you think if some guy's like hey you, here's five G's and I'm making the school all this money. I'm not going to be like, hey, you know, yeah, actually, that sounds great. Of course you're going to do that. There's nothing wrong with it. No. And believe me, I've had a lot of conversations with guys, played at all different schools. Like, do you take it? Do you not take it?

If you're in a position where your mom can't pay her rent where your little sister and little brother are living in a house you're taking it and that and that's that's life like that one's legit that is you know what i mean like you're taking it if you're not and you and you know what you could do this and you know what things are all right you don't want to put your you don't want to put yourself at risk you want to put your family and yourself at risk, your education at risk, your future endeavors at risk. So shit, yeah, all right, no. But if it's on the table, which it's on the table most of the time,

you're going to take the money. Yeah. So you always stayed around the athlete circles because I guess after Hofstra shut down the program, you didn't transfer again. You called it quits. You know what? At that point, I was like, I lost so many credits in the same communications program from Syracuse to Hofstra. So it was only one semester. It was only that semester. So if I transferred again, I would have been in three schools technically within that's a lot one semester that's a lot and it was like all right i'm gonna be in school for another two years just taking the same classes that i already took and i think i was a little burnt out at that point you know i was playing ball since i was two years old getting to you know when you're 20 when you're 21 22 you're like all right i worked this hard got a full scholarship i got a year a year and a half left of school um they're gonna honor my scholarship do i take another scholarship because i had a few other places that wanted me to transfer and play

there right away but you had a couple years of eligibility because you read two years of eligibility okay got it so and i probably could have had a i probably could add some leeway with the with the with the punctured lung because i was out that whole year so i could have got a medical red shirt um but at that point i was like you know what i'm just gonna i'm gonna go to school i'm gonna start focusing on on my next on what i want to do next. So I started taking a bunch of internships. I started taking the LIRR into the city, saying finance, this. Do I want to, what do I want to be involved in? What do I want to do?

What do I like? Because that's the other thing when you're playing, when you're playing ball and then say you played for four years or five years, you had a good college career. All right, he's a good little player. He's got, you know, a thousand yards, this thing. You're not going to play in the league. You're not going to play. You you're not you're not going to the next level to play so then you get out of school and you're like all right what am i going to do now you don't have time to take an internship when you're playing ball

no you don't you don't have time to take an internship hour a week job so more than that way more than that and at that point i'm like know what, I'm just going to go to school. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna start taking some internships and getting ready because plus, I was always playing sports. When I was on the when I was in second grade, I was on the fourth grade team. When I was in fourth grade, I was on the sixth grade. When I was in sixth, I was on the eighth when I was, you know, we always played up. So I had a lot of friends that were older than me over here. So everyone's there making money i'm still in school and now i'm not playing ball i'm like the fuck am i gonna do you're thinking about the next one i got i'm like all right now wait and wait they canceled the program like i

don't have like there's no choice i'm not thinking about football anymore that's the only thing i thought about between football and basketball for my whole life and at that point the football program's done i'm not playing basketball in college. All right, what am I, like, that was my life was sports. So at that point, I'm like, you know what? Just gonna, I'm gonna finish school here and I'm gonna take some internships and focus on what the heck I'm gonna do after school.

And that's what I did. And then started uh agency at 2011 was it tough having the decision made for you like what did that make it harder because it's not like in in a sense yes you made the final decision like i'm not going to transfer again like i this is life right like this is too much for me like i need to make make sure my focus is on education because you don't know with the next career whatever but you know you didn't cancel the program no they they canceled the program if they hadn't canceled the program you'd have still been playing oh yeah and you know you were in a big enough school and

a great enough player coming from the d1 level that you might have been able to do some damage and take it to the next level and then suddenly like nope that's gone so you're sitting there and you're like well now they've made this situation so much harder for me. And, you know, this is, again, about my life. And I can't, if I go down this road again, I'm giving up a lot on the education side. I got to redo some stuff. I don't want to do this. And you know what?

This is just a sign. I got to stop. But, again, like you had to stop because someone else did something. Did that make it harder versus you just saying, hey, you know, it's not in me anymore. I want to go to my next phase of my life. I don't know if it made it harder. It just made it real that it was over. Like it was just reality.

It's like, all right, if I'm not going to go transfer, go to another to another school another semester start all over again do you know it's tough starting like just going to another school transferring acclimating yourself to the school knowing where things are it's a fucking it's a pain in the ass yeah it's like people don't like change people don't you know but i would say if i didn't lose all those credits and i wasn't i wouldn't have been that far back from an academia standpoint i would have i think i would continued, but it was just that extra. All right. It's schools don't want to transfer the credits. They want you to take the credits at the school that you're, that you're attending.

They don't want to transfer over freaking all your credits from the previous school. Yeah. So even at the same programs, they wouldn't transfer it over. So I feel like from that standpoint and also knowing that it wasn't really my decision, as you're saying, it wasn't my decision to stop playing. It was the controls, bigger powers than I am that put a stop to it. I couldn't watch college football for five years. I couldn't watch college football for five years. I couldn't even talk football. I couldn't, I didn't want to hear anything about football.

I didn't want to even talk about football, but that's all I knew. So it was a very weird. Cause I knew I could have been out there. I knew I could have been playing. And when you're watching college football, you can't even watch Saturdays. You can't talk about it.

It's very emotional. My whole life is you work every day of your life to get to a point where you get this scholarship. And then, and then, as you said, it's taken away from you. But not, it's not your decision. It's their decision. Your whole life has to change your whole motivation, your whole goal setting. And suddenly you don't have that. You don't have that one constant and so yeah and then you know and it's not it's not like your body was given out or

anything you were in your peak it's like i can go play this better than anyone so you know watching other people do what i love to do and knowing i can't do it anymore because i'm not in a situation where i have the opportunity to that that's hard. It sucked. I mean, there's a lot of guys who when they retire and they're done, they say the same thing. They still can't watch it for several years because they miss it. It's like this bond you have with it because you were at the top of the class of it. Never mind when, exactly what you said, never mind when you work your whole life for something

and you're at the peak of your performance, you're going into your junior year in college. And then it's like, nope, there's no program here anymore. That's crazy. No program? What are we talking about? I didn't even understand that. I'm like, wait, there's no football team? So it's gone.

It's gone. Like there's no team here anymore. Like we're literally getting it's gone. It's gone. There's no team here anymore. We're literally getting rid of it. It's weird. But even if you couldn't do it anymore, you kept, and this is what you leveraged to then jump off of, to kind of build yourself as having buzz around you and also being a guy who knows the guys, right? You kept that whole athlete community that you had built throughout your whole life who when they become successful and become pros and stuff

obviously they get connected to everything including stuff outside of sports like you kept that all around you and as you were building up today's business for two three years there and starting with the nuts and bolts the basic basic content curation and some of the stuff you talked about, like community management, doing things. The blogging attack. Yeah, exactly. So you're building up the basic elements to get to more things like affiliate and start to SEO and start to move into things that require more expertise or building your own

tech like you were with affiliate. At some point there, you started integrating in the athletes so you started saying like hey now some of these guys who i grew up playing with or i played with at syracuse or i knew on the circuit you know even like you played with gronk and in high school at the all-american game stuff like that now they're successful let me go use what i use now to leverage to be able to help build them up and also build out through them so that it seems like that started to happen maybe like 2013 2014 i think i think you said that yep maybe yeah but yeah you know 2014 we started where did you start basically like who did you have to start with obviously you're not going straight to like the superstar you know you're

unproven in the space like how does it happen how do you build the rolodex and we'll get to where your rolodex went yeah you start building your rolodex with backup linebackers backup backup tight ends backup uh long snappers you know you you build your it's like and guess what what are you doing oh what other athletes do you work with oh work with this guy work with this guy work with this guy you're you're you're literally talking to and working with um and doing pro bono work for then ath for then said athlete because you need clientele to work with from there so i you know a lot of people it's that discussion about do you do some pro bono work do you do things for free and then give people things for free when you know it's worth something you know how much time you're putting into it yeah you have to i mean at that you you have to how

do you get expertise and how do you get experience without working on these athletes when they're like all right what athletes have you worked with nobody no you have to do freaking pro bono work and then these athletes and entertainers and influencers you know they don't want to well they talk and tell everyone you know oh this is my want to, well, they talk and tell everyone, you know, oh, this is my guy. This is who's, who's doing this for me. And then you build up your network through, through doing good work by people. So you go from like the long snapper to the linebacker or something like that. Yeah. To the starter. Then you go from this, from the linebacker who has 50,000 followers to the wide out who has 200,000 followers. And then you go from the, from the wide out to, to the,

to the top 10 guys in the league. Then you go to some, then you get into the hall of famers and you're like, Oh wow. Now I'm working with some prominent guys that not everyone knows in America that everyone knows internationally. And that's pretty cool. When you're like, when you walk into places and you know that like all right if someone doesn't know my clients then they're not they're not in they're not for us we're not working with them so like who are some of the guys you ended up working with so a couple of the big uh big boys that we started working with towards uh probably 2017 2018 was kevin garnett ray lewis um a couple of like the big

hall of famers that hey if you say hey who's the greatest linebacker in nfl history lt ray lou you also work with derrick brooks oh yeah yeah yeah he was smoking a lucia last night lt baby i love that he loves lucia. Yeah. That's great. Your dad was on that right away. Yeah. Lawrence, you got to try this. You're going to love it. But yeah, so you, but Garnett was, he was technically a business partner too, right?

Yeah. So he wasn't just a client. He brought him into Today's Athletes. Brought him into Today's Athletes as a partner. And then he opened up, you know, like, like KG has an unbelievable network of guys. So he opened up a ton of doors with, you know, KP, with, you know, Rondo, Big Baby. You know, his crew, you know, his guys. So, you know, and he's, you know, arguably one of the biggest,

most competitive guys in the world at his sport. I mean, when you're an MVP, you're an NBA champion, you're an All-Star Game MVP. Jordan's last All-Star Game, KG's the MVP. You made like 15 of them too. That's a lot of All-Star teams. So it's really unique. But you know what? You good work by by people they refer to the other good people and you want it you want to keep building that network that's the same thing in business same thing with the athletes the same

thing in life and i think that's that's really that's just the recipe and as as you move up you're not doing pro bono work you start out with that and then it gets to the, okay, eat what you kill. You bring in deals, you get 20% or whatever the industry rate is on the backside pretty much, right? Yep. So you did that and then you would do like the personal branding, so content creation, any ad decisions. Ads, events. We helped run the Ray Lewis hall of fame event in la put all that together all the creatives some other marketing material uh the guest list i mean it was unbelievable who i'm

even you know rubbing shoulders with at that at that event man it's it's uh it's pretty cool that you could be in those circles but then not be too uh you know not too fanboy but at the same time you know you're because you feel like you know i feel like i'm at that level when i really never i'm not i'm not even playing the league bro i'm not who am i i played a couple years and played a couple years in college ball um gives you credibility though you do have a sense of credibility playing college ball but you know with those guys when you're hall of famer and stuff like that it's like it's the next level oh yeah i'm not saying it's anywhere near that stratosphere but as far as like you got some

credibility yeah you're doing business with them and they're trying to find commonalities and stuff and they're like oh this guy you know he played d1 ball yeah okay like he kind of gets it or he played with this guy or knows that guy okay cool and then they'll kind of talk to you right that's hey people want to work with people that they like and that they could trust you cover those two bases you're pretty much you're pretty much good man you just gotta you gotta be likable you gotta be able to tell them how it is in a way that they could respond to it and they see that you want the best for them you know what i mean you could tell somebody one thing and they just negatively it's just the response that

you get from that person but you could you know in a way is it's all about how you say it how you deliver it at the same time you have to be real with these guys but you have to you have to deliver good news bad news whatever it may be because there's a lot of communication. So communication is so important with all these guys and being able to have their teams trust you. It's not just them. They could trust you, but then their manager, their lawyer, their sister, their PR

person, their whole team's got to really be on board with you in order to get some of these deals done. Does that make it a lot harder though when there's a million people around? Because, you know, these guys are huge, right? They have everyone coming to them. You have so many – you have a person for everything.

And it does make it harder. But if you've established those relationships with those individuals, I think it also makes it easier because they have familiarity. They have respect for you. They know what you do. They know what you bring to the table and the expertise you bring. So it's like, all right, now I got four people. Now it puts pressure on the athlete or the entertainer to be like, oh, shit, I got four people all being like, you should do this.

You should probably do it then well the the other thing is that whole industry gets it and frankly fairly in a lot of cases gets a bad rap because there's a lot of sleazeballs you look around like athlete management or like just athlete marketing and stuff like that there are a lot of people just looking to be a star fucker putting their hand in somebody's pocket and that's where you hear these stories about so-and-so stole money or you know fuck somebody over and that's the unfortunate thing because these guys their lives are you know they have a limited window to be great and their lives are that's what they do right they don't have time to sit there and figure that not everyone's juju smith schuster like you said earlier you know they're not and he gets shit for that you know

sitting there making their creative or being creative in the first place like they they have a job to do and they have an ability for a short time to leverage said job off the field to make money and so when you see all these guys who are constantly taking the instagram with somebody just to show that they're like in their circle and shit you know i've found that any of the athletes i've ever been around they have a huge and credit to them they have a huge radar on that like they are very unlikely to trust you or like let you in over a long and you know it takes a long period of time because they've seen plenty of their friends get fucked over by people and so when you're going in there and first establishing relationships you know you're going in there with with a relationships, you're going in there with a Kevin or a Ray, like tops of the top, and they already have all these people around them.

Is it you making the relationships with all those other people, like you said, that kind of gets them, the athlete, to be like, okay, my people think this guy's cool, so he's cool? Or how much of it is like you one-on-one just kind of looking them in the eyes and them being like, all right, I trust this guy? Both. It's both. A hundred guy both it's both 100 it's both you got to build that community of of uh was evangelist yeah yeah you have to build that community of people that trust you that that like dude i'll fuck with this guy no matter what the fuck he brings to the table and then you got to look at that that athlete or the entertainer in the face and be like, all right, I trust him too. Because if that athlete doesn't trust you,

it doesn't matter if there's people around them. But if there's people around them and he trusts those people and they trust you, you got some wiggle, you got some room. You got some room to work with. So I think, you know, these guys have all been burnt. Yeah. As you get older in life, you're going to get burned.

It's just going to happen. Friends, family, you know, it's just business. Freaking whatever you're going to get into and someone's going to let you down. And someone's going to burn you in some way. But you just got to be, you got to really look at it from a perspective that, you know what, I'm blessed this happened to me. It did happen this time. And you know what, I'm going to become a better person. Maybe I'm going to trust a little less.

Maybe I'm going to do more due diligence on this person before doing business with them. You know, you're just, you just become more seasoned as a business person, as a connector. And, and you kind of go through life where it's, you know, you still want to have an open mind and an open heart, but you also want to, you know, you also want to be somewhat guarded in what you're doing. You're not going to be so naive and so trusting to everybody. And that's kind of, you know, what I went through. You know, you go through some struggles, you go through some hard times, you do some, you know, you have some breakups. Well, guess what? It just makes you, makes you also appreciate the good people that you, that you surround yourself with and the individuals that you, that you truly want to fuck

with because it's a, because it's, are not commodities those are rarities those are those are really you know and i've met probably dude i've had at one point it was like five six meetings a day for 10 years and thousands and thousands of people i've had we talk about that internship program probably had 450 interns look up to you as a mentor and you guys had a lot of employees too yeah at one point we had 50 yeah wow so it was you know there's a lot of people looking up to you there's a lot of people that that that are looking for you for help and mentorship so i think from that perspective you you want to it's like you don't want to give them this fairy tale world that this is like oh this is great you know no one's going to ever screw you or fuck you or

burn you but at the same time like you have to kind of give them the hard truth on on what on what's going to happen how to deal with it and just keep moving forward. You got to keep moving forward. I would, you know, that's, and just keep, hey, but it, you know, as a young person being, um, what is it? Blissfully ignorant. Yeah. Unaware. Yeah. Unaware.

And you know, I knew football and basketball my whole life. My dad taught me to be a good person, but I didn't know a lot about business. You know, I knew some about business. i didn't know a lot about business you know i knew some about business i didn't know a lot about business i learned a lot as we created the businesses as we did the businesses and as we you know did business with all different types of vendors all different types of partners referral partners and all these different types of entertainers athletes influencers so i learned a lot by doing it there's a difference when everyone's like on the team when you're playing the sport right like you all have that common goal there might be okay

you're a wide receiver they're linebackers like they have a little bit of obviously like they have their position room you have yours but you're all kind of part of the same thing but i think that's really important what you bring up when you get into business and you have all these moving pieces that are their own islands outside of what you do that you may not even have a close relationship you just need right you have this vendor that handles this thing that you rely on like oxygen every day and then if they fuck up well that's a problem and shit we haven't even talked with them in three years you know it's to your point like we always like to make sports parallel with things and parallel with business, and it is. Don't get me wrong.

But there are enormous differences that you can only learn once you do it. You know what? I think you're absolutely right, and you don't really think about it too much, but it's kind of like if you're a business owner and you outsource one service line of your business, that's kind of like having your offensive coordinator not in your own facility. It's kind of having your defensive coordinator, you know, not, not at your home, not at, not at your home field when you're, when you're calling defensive plays, you're like, all right, well, this is our partner over there.

We got to make sure that they're going to execute the same way that we're pitching this. And you were learning your products coming in there too. You were trying to figure out the industry. What are we going to do? What the hell? What are we doing? That is awesome. So it was so much fun. Awesome learning the whole digital landscape, being able to really, you know, the nuances behind it, the programs that you use not to use the people to work with. I mean, it's just, it's unbelievable. The last 10 years, just going through everything. I, people say say i mean what what did i learn in college though i don't know i learned how to you know network a little bit but

my dad's been teaching me how to network since i was born out of the womb you know what i mean like met good people definitely friends forever so i think that uh that certain things i just don't know what i learned there that has applied to me being like a successful you know business person not that i was at college with you or know it you really studied or what it was like in the classroom but just like blind look and seeing what you've done and how you've done it you didn't need a day at college because every everything that you've done in your entire career is always like new school stuff so it's things that are in the ether and things that are kind of in culture that you learn hands-on. They're not – well, now they do.

But they're not teaching social media courses at college until a few years ago, long after you were gone, right? And then to your point, you were connecting your whole life. You had the best example of all time, your dad. And that just carried right over. You didn't need to go to college to know how to do that you you were doing that so there's a lot of arguments now like what is the worth and especially as people pay in like 200 300 grand for four years of school and it's a prime example because everything you did was experiential. It was like, oh, well, we fucked that one up or, oh, we got that one right.

Let's do that again. And then like, oh, so that's how that works with business. And I don't want to shit on education or anything, but there has to be – we have to come up with some kind of balance here where it's like, well, OK, the people – like people who are going to be doctors, yeah. They need medical school. People are going to be doctors yeah they need medical school yeah you know people are going to be lawyers yeah you know i think they should probably go to law school right of course there's some obvious ones but then there's a lot of gray area where we got to be like well what are we really applying here like i could see people in in the creatives who are or maybe go to film school and stuff like that and they learn a lot there right they learn

from great directors and shit but you know what what was the communications major doing for you to do this that's that's what i'm that's what i'm saying and then when you're coming out of school making 40 50 000 and you have 200 plus in debt i don. It just, it seems a little backwards in the arena that I'm in, in the digital, in that world, social marketing, digital marketing. Like you weren't learning about this in school, especially at the time.

Now, I think there is some courses over the last few years. But in that space, it's like, what did I just pay? $200,000, $300,000? What did I get? Like, you always want to look at your ROI. If you're spending money on digital ads, it's like, what's my return on ad spend? What's my return on investment? What's my return on investment? That's literally like all you hear about when you get into business, because when you're talking to people are, what am I going to get out of this? All right. Well,

you know what? We're going to, you know, build this website for you. Then we're going to create some other lead pages. Then we're going to, you know, run some advertising,

run them through the funnels, you know, like, okay, but that's the ROI. What do you, what do you get from, from school or communications programs?

What you're going to get an ROI coming out of school right now. It's not a positive ROI for 10 plus years. And what is it? Time is the most valuable asset? I don't know. It's pretty scary. It is. It is.

But I appreciate what you said a couple minutes ago a lot because I think that's a great perspective to look on things where you talk about hey these these 10 years taught me a lot and it's been a hell of a ride and you said something like that and you know talk about being burnt as well and the difficulties you've insinuated about when you're breaking up a business especially when you founded it with people and it was your baby and you took it, took it from the basement, literally to, into a multi, multi, multimillion dollar business working with hall of famers and on all these fronts. I mean, it's a hell of a story and it makes it all the more harder to leave that. And I want to get to that and talk about that. What I will say as a note, you know, you and I obviously talk all the time.

We've been waiting to have you in here until this was all legally finished and everything naturally and finally it got done. And so we can talk. So, you know, so far this has been a great conversation and we're going all over the place. I love it. We're probably going to be talking for a while longer. So I don't know where I'm going to pick up place. I love it. We're probably going to be talking for a while longer. So I don't know where I'm going to pick up the beginning of this podcast. So I don't want to repeat anything. I'm just thinking out loud right now. My guess is we'll probably, I don't know, we'll see where it picks up. So some of the context here, in case it was not at the very

beginning where I know we mentioned some stuff because we're talking for a long time. You know, this was 10 years, I believe, like nine, 10 years you had this. And you started the process to leave about a year and a half ago. And again, very successful. That's not the issue. Making great money over there and working with some crazy people. but what was the motivating factor, turning 30 and going, hey, I built this great thing. I have all these things going, but this ain't it. I got to go and do something else for myself here.

I think lack of alignment on vision moving forward because did we have a vision when we first started? lack of alignment on vision moving forward. Because did we have a vision when we first started? No. No. It was just like, shit, we got to sign some clients. Let's make some money. Let's just like, let's get in my parents' basement.

Like, I'm looking to, let's get an apartment. Let's survive. Let's survive. Yeah. Like, I got to prove to my parents that, like, I don't need to go get a nine to five. Like I can, I can make it on my own without, without getting a job and being able to move out,

you know? So, uh, lack of, lack of continuity on the vision moving forward, I think was the ultimate factor is that, you know, you have to be on the same page with your partners and your

individuals that you, uh, that you start something with. And I think after that long period of time, we had an amazing run. But I think at that point, it was an inflection point of like, okay, where are we going? We're going this way, we're taking the path to the left, we're taking the path to the right, you know, where, where are we really going with this? And we just weren't on the same page. And if you're not on the same page, how, you know, if, you know, it's we really going with this and we just weren't on the same page and if you're not on the same page how you know if you know it's like all right if you're the head coach then you have your exactly we're gonna keep going back to football basketball whatever great analogy for this yeah if if you're an if you're a head coach but your offensive coordinator

is going one way your defensive coordinator is going the other way or you have a co-head coach and you guys just aren't on the same page are we gonna you said it are we going to be a run and shoot team or are we going to go west coast do we have a running back that's going to be a bruiser like a fortinet or do we have you know i don't know why i'm saying cadillac williams but i love cadillac williams and they both played on tampa totally different maybe in different decades um but you know it's like how are you gonna play are you gonna play fast pace are we you know if it's it's at a basketball team you know love basketball probably just as much as football if not more are we gonna play fast we're gonna play slow who's our do we have a good center we're gonna throw it into post

a lot like an imbeed or are we gonna are we gonna be more of like the warriors and we're gonna be able to you know be able to move and shake and be able to you know really kind of shoot the three ball a little bit uh better than you know we don't really have that guy that we could throw to in the post and he could do it you know and he could go one-on-one for us and then be able to make decisions from the post there you got to play differently and unfortunately the visions were just going different directions where it was best that we went in our separate directions what was what was your vision like what and and that's a loaded question yeah um i would say the vision i said i really wanted to go more towards the video route.

I think that's where things are going. I think that's where, you know, content is really, content is being consumed through video. I still love the athlete space. So I really want to go through video, multimedia, podcasting, and really put like 100% of my back, 100% into that space, into like a nice, a cool pub where you're putting out good content. True content creation. True content creation. That's really where I felt that our brand needed to to kind of go down that route um but you know the partners really didn't weren't feeling that feeling that uh feeling that space they didn't didn't believe in video didn't believe in kind of uh where where I thought things were

going right and and I know that's like kind of a generalization, but I understand exactly what you mean. There's like, how are you? Are you a production house? Are you a content creation place? Or are you still with, and believe me,

the SEO is a core part of the business. Social is a core part of the business. I felt that we could have incorporated pretty much everything with a video production component because we still have probably 30% of our clients are doing social with us. And being able to create that multimedia, push it out through their social, push it out through their channels channels build up our own assets and i talk about this all the time with different athletes influencers stuff like that like when you're building up an instagram page or you're building up your facebook page it's

fantastic i think it's believe me that you need to utilize those platforms but if you're going to continue to build on those platforms and not build on your own assets where it's like your own website your email list your phone your contact list those things huge as you move so you're going to go from okay i'm on facebook okay twitter's out now okay now i have to go to instagram i have to go to pinterest now there was tumblr along the way there was you know reddit communities there's all these different communities t TikTok communities now. And now I'm on Clubhouse. Great.

Use all of those to continue to build your database of owned assets where you could drive them to your site, similar to what you're doing here with Trendifier, and being able to own those assets and say, hey, if I send an email out to a million people, we're going to see a lot more to that million people than if i had a million followers on on twitter right now don't spread yourself too thin yeah dude i as music to my ears listening to that because especially like the influencers they don't and end the athletes too let's just throw them in there they don't think about this they're like oh yeah you know i have my x amount of followers on instagram that's what i love well what what if what if

people move off that platform? What if you get kicked off that platform? I mean who the fuck knows these days, right? You don't have that. I heard Mark Cuban talking about this a few months ago with Bryce Hall on a podcast. Anthony Pompliano and Bryce Hall have a podcast where they bring on people to teach Bryce about business because he's, like, 20 years old or 21 and, like, this influencer on TikTok and Instagram and everything. And Mark Cuban was telling Bryce, he's like, you know, what's your email list like? And Bryce is like, I mean, you know, the kid's 21.

He just built all these millions of followers. Not his fault or anything, but he was like, you know, I got a little one or whatever. And Mark's like, well, listen listen i would make sure i built that up because you can take that anywhere and then you can get people to come wherever you're gonna go because if you get off these platforms or like they suddenly aren't there you're done you those people they don't know where to find you they're not going to go out of their way to do it because they got other people you know they got a lot of clutter in their life and i i'd never heard it put that simply and i was'd never heard it put that

simply and i was like damn no that's actually that's more important than ever now yeah he's spot on so that's where i saw the vision going is that we need to create our own assets and i built i i thought the best way to create our own assets was to have this production where we could do a lot of production for ourselves but then also sell that to the athletes, the influencers, the brands. And then we could be like, okay, come, come to our studio. We'll bring in said athlete. Here's said product. Boom. And you could really, then you could go to that brand and be like, Hey, we have this content. How much would you, what would you guys pay for that content? Oh, you'd pay three grand for that content? Okay, done. It's already been shot. You're selling things and you don't need to, all right, we have to set up this.

We need to pay, you know, because we had those relationships. You can't do that without those relationships. You can't do that without the space. We had over 5,000 square feet of space that we can use. You know what I mean? That's where I think things were really going and we could have been kind of trailblazers um by doing that you saw yourself as having built inroads and some of the hardest places to build inroads and the star power around that and the value you were adding

there and saying we can capitalize for our guys and then they're going to want their guys for us to have provide the same type of service and be able to do it in a way where we're not just going at the commoditized things like seo or i mean this is what it is seo is a commodity there's a lot of seo people out there a million seo people yeah and and look there are there a million athlete and influencer marketers out there yeah sure how many of them get into the circles you got in? And then also the key differentiating factor, the intuition and creativity. And also to put on top of it what you did, which is understanding exactly the things outside of that that are important and organizing it to make sure that like, hey, Kevin Garnett, Ray Lewis, what's your email list like what's your what is your newsletter list like okay have you thought about doing x type of content that that could then generate these

people for you to get eyeballs on and own that asset forever so that no matter where you have to go you now have it that's that's a good vision man access that's the word. I think we had a, you know, we failed at executing on the access that took us 10 years to build. And I think that was something that was really tough for me to swallow. because you do so much pro bono work. You do so many different things throughout the years and so many little things that nobody sees. All those little things that you're running around doing this or doing that, no one sees it. And I felt like there was a failure to execute on an opportunity with the access that we had at that time. And I think that was the, you know, we just didn't have the same vision, man.

It's tough because when when you're 22 and you don't even have a business that you don't even know what your business needs to be and you're trying to put food on the table like all right how are we going to survive you can't really know and it's not like you guys did something wrong with that you were just responding to the times like oh shit you know college is over like we gotta do something with our lives right and you're figuring it out but it's so important as you go in business that the communication is constantly there and you are constantly as new things come up and new opportunities come up you're constantly having the conversation around direction because the farther along you get and the bigger you get the more money that's coming in, the more difficult it is to leave, the more difficult it is to split, the more difficult it

gets to make the decision to be like, yo, this isn't right. And I think, you know, having a front row seat to your whole situation, and then you ending up having to leave there and the divorce that that was, which, you know, you can get into as much of that as you want to or not as much of that as you want to, whatever. I'll respect it either way. You don't have to say anything that you're not comfortable with. But, you know, getting to that point, it took a long time. It took a long time to accept it, too. And then you're so I mean, and there's a lot of money coming in, too.

You're so deep that it gets hard to just be like, oh, I got to make this decision and go. At that point, you're not 22 anymore and you don't have – you have a wife. You have bills. There's a lot of decisions that need to be made that go into it. But when you think about it, what's the ultimate decision? Happiness. So if you're not really happy in what you're doing because there's a divide in the vision

of where you want to take the business, then you just have to be like, you know what? I just want to, all right. You know what? I just need to, I want to be happy. And you have discussions about it. You have discussions with your partners

and communicate that to your partners saying, you know what? I'm just not really, not really happy where things are going. What can we do? How can we make things better? How, you know, you have to address those things. You have to bring them to the forefront.

You're not going to hide them like a little child and freaking pant and scream and cry and shit like that. No, you have to fucking have hard conversations. And those are the things that you have to do and you have to learn how to do. So I think that also, you know, you, you, through, through tough times, you just learn that you have to do certain things that you just, you're not really comfortable doing. Do I want to confront my partner on this? Do I want want to talk about this is this the right time to talk about

it we just got out of a meeting where you know we lost a client or you're or we gained a big client is this the time to bring up something that i'm not happy about when you just signed a twenty thousand dollar a month client right yeah what do you mean things aren't going good there's money yeah so but i think ultimately you just got to be you got to be happy in what you're doing you gotta you gotta feel a sense of accomplishment on a daily on a daily basis i think that's something with me that i like on a day-to-day basis if i'm not accomplishing something i you know you're hard on And that's, I think any good business guy, any good salesperson, any good entrepreneur, if they're not upset that they didn't accomplish more that day, they're just like, oh shit,

I did great today. All right, I'm good. That might be if you're in a nine to five or you're somewhere where you're not striving to take it somewhere or what's the next step or what's the next level or what's the next milestone I'm going to hit, then maybe you're content with some things. But as an entrepreneur and as somebody who's, you're going to own your own business, you're going to start your own page on Instagram. You're going to do that. You're like, all right, well, I gained 200 followers today. All right, well, guess what? I'm getting 400

tomorrow. All right, I need X amount of interactions. I need X amount of views on my podcast. There's milestones and there's things and it never stops. I know, you know, as I talk to you and on a day-to-day basis as a very close friend, like I'm like, oh shit, like this motherfucker doesn't stop. Seven days a week, you don't even know what day it is. You're like, all right, wait, what's today? Oh, it's Wednesday or Thursday.

Because you're so locked in, there's so many edits you have to perform. There's so many hours it goes into watching this three-hour podcast that you're making edits, you're looking at, you're evaluating. It's endless amount of time. Endless amount of time that goes into what you built here is this awesome community of people coming on your show

to talk to you about the most intimate things in their life their business their work their personal life so i think from from somebody who who just wants to always you know do better or get better every single day you're you're never satisfied i don't know i'm just you know you make a couple deals you sign a couple things great it lasts for like a couple hours you know for me for the next one for me personally it's like okay you just got you just got a deal done or uh working with a client okay i'm happy about it but i'm not like oh man i could just all right i could relax now i don't know maybe another few years as i get servino co really built up and i'm like ah ah, this is nice. I doubt it though.

You know what though? This is important though, because you're experiencing this now too, because it's yours, right? Like it's got your name on it. You're the decision maker. You have the flexibility and everything. And you were just making the point about my podcast. That's the lucky thing i had with this too there's not cooks in the kitchen here the only person that needs the vision technically is is me and then obviously i want my guests to believe in it too right but you know they're one by one there's a lot of them coming in so at the end of the day the decisions are on me and the fuck ups the the things that go right it's it on me. So I at least have that and I don't have the stress of thinking about does this person completely agree with this decision I'm going to make or this direction I want to take stuff.

You know, you didn't have that luxury. That's a day to day with like 50 decisions every single day that you're making. Yep. And it doesn't, it's not even big decisions it's like all right what do we or what food are we ordering for the holiday party well if that was a legit problem then you know that was a sign right there let's be honest like if you were designing on on if you were fighting over what you're ordering and food in the office i mean that like that's kind of it right there yeah it wasn't like it wasn't like that specifically but yes it's there's so many decisions and if you're not on the same page if you're not on the same vision on the overall

vision on things then yeah it's it's going to be hard to get through even some of those day-to-day questions that that go on decisions that you have to make. Now, when you went to leave there, though, you know, obviously, I mean, I don't know exactly how long that was brewing or what your thought process was. But you talk about this lack of alignment. Did you try to get them on the same page as you or come to their page a little bit? Did you try to communicate that over a period of time or was it kind of like hey i see this is just going in a different direction so i'm out i think i tried to communicate as much as i could that i wasn't happy where things were or i wasn't i didn't i wasn't on the same page as the guys and um i think i made that clear quite a few times we had some really some long heart-to-hearts you know train up to boston train back like we had some serious like

like sessions where we're just trying to figure out some common ground trying to figure out how we could move forward and um you know i think there was a lot of discussions about it unfortunately we just couldn't get the same page i mean all right i'm gonna try this you're gonna try this let's see if we can make work okay in order like it's either it's either this this is it like you have to there's a couple different things that were like drawn in the sand we're like okay you know we could there's there's different things that we like drawn in the sand. We're like, okay, you know, we could, there's, there's different things that we could do to make it work. And then there is like, this is a make or break. Either this changes or I'm out. And I pretty much said that a few times, multiple discussions about it. And ultimately we're trying to do what's best for the business

and for all of us. If I'm unhappy, that's not good for the business. That's not what's best for the business. And if my partners aren't happy, that's not what's best for the business too. We wanted, at the end of the day, we're always, I think that's what good partners do. That's what good businessmen do is that they never put themselves before the business and their own personal matters before the business. So, and their own personal matters before the business. It does get harder as you get older because you have a lot of personal responsibilities as you get older,

rather than when you're 21 starting a business out and what personal responsibilities you have at 21. There wasn't, it was, how do we make some money so we can move out of our, out of our parents' house? So I think we had a ton of discussions and we just couldn't, we couldn't agree. We couldn't agree on where to move forward, on who to move forward with, disagreements with management, different agreement with style.

It's just a lot of different things that you're a different person when you're 22 rather than 32. It's pretty interesting you get older and you're freaking you know there's different factors too people are married you know everyone's wife has their opinion on different things everyone's uh parents then have more opinions on things when you're younger and you're 21 22 you're like ma let me just figure this out fuck it we're just going yeah when you get older there's there's so many different factors you have different mentors that you've leaned on for years there's different people that you that you look to for for help and advice and everyone's given every partner

maybe different advice and it's not it's not a bad thing but everyone's trying to you know do what's best for the business but then also keep their personal agendas at bay, yet like their personal agendas are important as well. Like you want them to be personally happy and feel personally successful at the same time that the business is successful. So dealing with a lot of personalities and I think that is, that's just about as hard as about anything. Signing a client can be pretty easy in some respects rather than just being on the same page with the people that you do business with every day.

Once you sign them, what do you do? That whole situation, like what are the services we're providing? What are we looking to do long term yeah i i love that you bring up alignment as the main thing because unfortunately you know that that is what leads to people going their separate ways and all the things that can come with that in the behind the scenes the drama the the difficulty the breakup the divorce that it is but you it's not like you were doing anything wrong coming out. Cause as we said now, like six times you had to put food on the table and then you had to,

you had to find your way into it. But you know, it takes a lot of balls to get to that point and then hit the button and, and move on. And for you, I felt like from the outside, you know, kind of watching this unfold, which you don't expect that to ever be coming. I would have never – three years ago, I would have never seen that coming for you. What you guys were building was fucking unbelievable. But you never know what's going on back there. So for you, it seems like to me you look at business as relationships. You look at business as before I figure out what I'm going to do for you or what you're going to do for me,

do we fuck with each other on a personal level? And do we have our best interests at heart, right? So whether that be forming a relationship with a CEO or an athlete, it's the same type of thing. And I've always been in awe of that for how you do it and how effectively you do it and how people from all different backgrounds, before they even know what you can do, want to do business with you. Like, Jazz, just figure something out. I'm in. And that's hard because then you can spread yourself thin.

And so now I see you coming out with Serbino Co., which we might have talked about that. We've been talking all goddamn day. We might have talked about that at the beginning. It's probably not on this podcast because that was hours ago when we were just like bullshitting. But if it is, sorry for the repeat. Like, you know, with Cerbino Co., you're coming out here and it's yours, like we talked about. You're the one making the decision and you're also coming at it from like a consultant realm. So what are some of the things you're looking to do right now and how's it set up in your mind at this new beautiful birth of a company? an agency that I've had before, just in terms of that, if you sold certain things at one point that you weren't selling before, you could then dictate or tell your team internally, this is what we have to do for this particular client. So it's a little bit different that I need to have my team behind me, the subcontractors, the individuals that will be handling a lot of the day-to-day,

I need to be strictly, you know, very aligned with them. So the Servino Co. is on my name, but I will also be doing business with a lot of other businesses in terms of getting a lot of the work done. And to do that, that's where my 10 years experience comes in is that I vetted the process. I vetted the process. I know what vendors to go to for the, for, for what and what their expertise is, what's their bandwidth, what they can handle, what they can't handle. Um, and I think that is a little bit different than, than how it was, than how I structured it more of the old school way at today's business was, okay, we have, you know, 30 employees. They all have 401ks, health benefits, the whole deal.

Now it is more on that I have, yeah, you're putting the pieces and you're aligning them with the right individuals. I think when you have an agency like that and you have so much overhead that you tend to either turn away business that doesn't fit for the individuals and the services that you provide, or you're kind of sticking a round peg in a square hole and you're kind of shoving it in there. And sometimes that works. Sometimes you shove it in there and it works for a few months or six months so that does happen um but it also tends that you you know you ruin some relationships because it's not a perfect fit yeah and you're never all gonna we always have perfect fits no what's perfect you know you always have to mold and and be kind of that that play-doh where you're working in different in different molds and different people.

So I think now I'm at a point where I sit down and consult with an individual or a business, an entrepreneur, or an athlete, and I'm like, okay, this is the plan, this is the strategy, set it up for them, and then be able to align them with the right individual or company that I think would work best for them. And, and that's where I think it's a little bit different and where the consulting aspect comes into play because they're hiring me to, to be their quarterback, which going back to my high school days by quarterback.

So I'm being, I'm being the QB and pretty much they're coming to me and say, Hey, this is what we need to do from a, from a social perspective, or, you know what, what this is, the challenges that I'm facing based upon the challenges that they're coming to me and say, Hey, this is what we need to do from a, from a social perspective, or, you know, what, what this is the challenges that I'm facing based upon the challenges that

they're facing, then I could provide them a solution that I think works for them. Or, you know what, I may have amazing, great contacts all over the field and this, but still might not be aligned. And that's something that I'll be, you know, have to communicate to the client that this, you know, maybe, you know, my services right now at where I'm at in, you know, you know, first Q1 to 2020 just doesn't fit the needs that this, you know, maybe, you know, my services right now at where I'm at in, you know, you know, first Q1 to 2020 just doesn't fit the needs that they're looking for. Yeah, you're the moat now. You're the decision maker for these guys. And I know what we're thinking about and what the listeners might be thinking about based on what they know about you off the top of their head is a lot of the high profile individuals, which naturally, you know, that's kind of the main thing you're doing. And the number of those

relationships you have, both that have been known publicly and a lot privately is pretty absurd. So leveraging that to now have the credibility to be that guy who, yeah, you're not the guy building this or doing that. You are getting them to the people who do it and being their manager like a true manager and not you know just being a control freak on everything and having it inside it's a beautiful thing i mean look what you built there and creating all those jobs and doing that business model is amazing and it's commendable but it also to your point you know round peg in a square hole squared peg in a round hole whatever the fuck it is one of them you know like you are you're essentially then putting yourself into

well this is where we are and then the conversation about outsourcing things gets harder too because it's like well what can we do in here you know so for you to now have the flexibility i don't know how much if if you heard it nival ravikant et al, who's prominent out in Silicon Valley, founded AngelList.com. Brilliant guy. One of his main things is that most companies, great companies that are in this upcoming era now, if they're not creating a product that changes the world, right? Like some kind of crazy tech product or some sort of something that people buy and actually use and it's more consulting and stuff like that the best companies the most powerful people are going to run tight and thin they're going to have limited employees and they're going to have a clear structure that sets up like well here's what we handle in-house and

here's what we do to make sure we get to all these other companies like this who handle these specific things and so to me from the outside servino co seems to be set up in a perfect way where that's what you're doing and you're leveraging those 10 years of all these guys who have across all the i mean your industries are insane it's not just athletes and influencers all these powerful guys fortune 500 companies whatever we're like oh chas oh my god yeah you now get to leverage that and say hey i'm your guy what you need you come to me. I'll make sure we get to the people that do it.

Because by the way, I have networks there too in all these other places. I know people that do this, do that, do this, do that. And they want to do right by me too. So anyone I bring to them, they're going to do right by. That's so true. That's literally Servino Co. in a nutshell. But you can't get to that point

without having 10 years experience, going through that agency route, understanding the whole digital landscape. And then this is, it's kind of like, all right, what's the second climb? I feel like this is a perfect second climb for me, where I have the experience and the expertise to be able to do this. I wouldn't have been able to do this 10 years ago. So you have to go, you know, the things that you have to go through, the education that you have to learn you know might learn certain things playing ball and and

and in college but you know being you know starting your own business at 22 and being able to do it and build it up from nothing to where it is something you learn a ton of unbelievable um i don't know what to call it. You learn so much. You can't even put, it's an understatement. You learn so much. You learn everything that you need to know inside and out about the business. So it's invaluable.

It's fucking invaluable. Well, the other thing that you really developed over time, just getting into these worlds and then getting into newer and newer ones over time like adding to your lines of business like you guys did and then finding your new interests is figuring out where things are going versus where things had been like even if you were early to it you you and i were talking earlier again i don't know if it was on the podcast but about how when you were starting off with just like when you were 22 with social media management, even though it was early on, 2011, whatever, it was still around for a couple years. It was a commodity.

Anyone could send out the tweets for people and say like, oh, look at me. I'm taking care of your brand. Whereas then you moved more towards things where it's like, well, no, you got to have expertise on this. You got to be able to do this, do that. So now you're finding yourself in a lot of circles where you're dealing with high level projects and you don't have to speak about what you can't, but, you know, dealing with things in the tech space, dealing with the digital ether where our world is gone in COVID. So, you know, what are some things that you are allowed to talk about right now that, you know, you're

working on or spaces you're involved in where you see major, major value propositions and, you know, it being like the first inning? You know, there's certain, you know, there's certain things you want to touch up on. There's certain things that you don't. I think one thing that I can say that I've dove, you I dove headfirst into is pretty much this – in the crypto space is also a lot to do with these NFTs. I mean I don't really – I know a little bit about it and I'm learning more about it. But there's – I don't know how much I really want to talk too much about that space. I do really like that space. But there's, you know, where that is going. NBA top shot. I know

you've had a couple individuals talking about that, which is unbelievable. Like that space is, is so cool. I see the staying power within that space over the next 20 years and beyond and then i also see the uh the opportunity to be able to get in on the ground floor of different things like that so um you know those things interest me though you know but that's also what interests me on getting into social yeah in 2011 you know it there – What's coming next. What's next? What do we need to be prepared for? How do we – how does these things like an NBA top shot or a nifty gateway, how does that evolve? What's the next step for them? Because you're always trying to look at what's happening, how to evolve, how to know, work in that space with different people. So it's,

I'm really interested about it. I think I'll continue to learn more about it and see how I can incorporate it into Servino Co. But yeah, I think, you know, marrying that with some physical products, which also, and then also just you know bringing that to influencers athletes alike i think is is going to be super important you know now what the listeners couldn't see that i could during that little q a right there is the wink winks like i don't want to touch some things yet so i i know exactly what you mean gotta stay hush hush on some stuff that i'm sure we'll learn about very soon but let's keep it on the high level of what you just mentioned because i like that you brought that up the nft space as a whole which as you said anyone that's coming out minus people who have been legit in blockchain and deep in crypto for like four or

five years who really know their shit minus those people which you know that's a select few anyone who's like yo i'm an nft expert man they're full of shit you know this is something that was around in in 2017 i wasn't you know and i was looking in in the crypto spaces i didn't know what the fucking nft was i mean i i learned what an nft was when i had cole cannelli here in depaul guy by the way depaul guy love it back in spartan back in the end of december who has been in the crypto space since 2016 knows fucking everything and everyone and he started talking about nfts and then i started researching it i didn't know anything about it like i didn't know

what it was same time that i learned about it right through right through the pod exactly so you know all these people who are like yeah you know we've been in this for a while. No, no, you haven't. Right. But for people who are listening and going, what the fuck? You know, an NFT, non-fungible token. You know, let's define this high level. I had on Nick Garol, as you said, who was deep into NBA Top Shot early on and learned all what this was really in the last few months but with with top shot we've seen this two-dimensional digital asset where you take these nba plays that have occurred in 2019 or 2020 of great players shitty players

everything in between you put digital art around them with scarcity right so maybe one play has 10 versions of it another play has a thousand the one that has 10 and has lebron james is worth a lot more that has a thousand that has lebron james right and you put it out on the open market and when people buy it through this top shot community they own that and it's record on the blockchain so no one else like you can't copy it you know that you're the only person that actually owns it and the key is you own it in the digital world it's not sitting here it's not tangible right it's not like the pictures on your wall or you know even like a video well i don't want to go too deep but yeah

things that are in front of you right it's no you own it on your phone you own it on the page that people go to and see that it's your page and it's kind of crazy that we're concepting this, that we're trying to get into this concept now because we've kind of missed the boat on it in my opinion. It's been around for over three years. Not even – 100% right. I'm going deeper than that though. The whole digital aspect right one of the things you taught me a few years ago i i won't say it as well as you did but you were like the decisions of where things go are people who are below the age of 25 what are they doing ask them what they're doing

and that's probably where the value is going to be and it's so fucking true you look at how like social media how every platform was born it was born on the kids the teenagers and stuff still is and that's the point nfts who values the nfts the people who grew up in the digital economy and believe that when they own some when they own a fortnight skin they get to show that off in the ether rather than like wearing at the school you know you and me maybe we don't totally think that way but you know are you starting to personally see the value in that and like the clout and intrinsic value that it has when someone buys something that's only on the phone or on their computer oh yeah i see it all the time i think gary v's been freaking pumping this shit like crazy man

and i think you know i really you know i really i respect where he comes from um and his perspective on it because he's on the pulse but i think it's i think it's got long-standing power you see where things have gone you think all right do you buy certain things on, you know, in physical form now or do you do it in digital form? Music, completely digital form now. Yep. Books, you look at kind of all these different aspects, you know, there's still some physical copies of these things. You can get an album cover. Yeah, you can still get, you know, I think you could still get a CD.

I mean, but do people do that, you know? So I think everything's really moving to the digital front and that's also, so that's why the internship program and not to get off topic on the NFTs, that's why the internship program was so important. It brought in, we pick, you know, you have 30 interns every semester. They tell you what's going on too. You're talking to them about art. What are you guys doing? What apps are you guys using? That's literally the questions that I would ask them. What do you guys, you know, what, what are you communicating on? What are you building things on? What are you, you know, creating things on? So that was part of

it. And then the second part is then the top two or three people that really loved, you know, the culture, the, the, the brand, everything that we were building, then they would come on as a possible employee or part-time through school or, or, or give them some extra hours, um, while they were still at school at that time. So it was a, um, I call it, it was a lot of R and D as well as, um, as well as, you know, recruiting. I never even thought of that. Oh, great. Great R and D. That's what I'm saying. Tons of great platforms that we learned from. That's crazy. You know, it was like, what are you guys doing? And it wasn't like they were doing it in school.

They were just doing it like in their dorm room or like outside of school. It wasn't like, oh, I'm taking this class and they're teaching me this. And I'm not trying to knock school. I'm not. No, no, I know what you're saying. But they weren't doing that in their classrooms. They were doing it outside of classrooms on the the social front, and on these different platforms. So it's very interesting.

Gary Vee says all the time, how much would you pay for that blue checkmark? It's only on Instagram. It doesn't even transfer. That blue checkmark doesn't transfer from Instagram to Twitter. To your hat. To your hat. It's not in physical form, but people pay real money for that. People pay real money to buy these digital assets, which I think – I mean we talk about it trying to understand this digital asset world and what NFTs are.

And it's like, okay, well, I bought a skin on my COD game, Call of Duty. Okay, great. But people love that. All right, I got this new gun or i got this you know why it's the same thing that you put money into you know uh all these all these games on your phone why do you why do people put money into reddit so they could give a you know a rocket emoji to a friend like a sticker like it it's very that's all what we're talking about is these digital assets that don't really exist in real life or don't exist in physical form yet are super valuable for people under

the age of, you say 25, I even say under the age of 21 that truly, that truly value digital assets just as much as physical assets. And everything that we know over the last year, physical assets has, and you know, rare physical assets like sports cards and that stuff you had my brother on that were like have skyrocketed. Like they're in the stratosphere. And that's physical. That's physical. physical products, like the Jordan rookie card, you get an NFT or you there's X amount of NFTs, and then you have the physical card, and then buying them together or working with them in

some sort of way, I think is truly like, old school, new school, kind of combining them together and then having something that's, you know, hey, pops, I'll get I'll give you this, this physical card, I'll keep the digital asset. And he's like, all right, cool. Yeah, yeah, man. It's like the intergenerational And he's like, all right, cool, cool. Yeah, man. And it's like the intergenerational divide and conquer when you look at it where you actually morph those two worlds, which is crazy. And eventually the older generations, like everything else,

your grandpa who said in 2009, as mine did, I will never have a goddamn iPhone. Well, you know what? Had one by 2015. So people get with it like as we assimilate but it does take time it does it does but there are you look at overall trends and stuff and obviously covid changed the world and changed how we look at things and changed how we view work and and all these all these different things and we will this will be a cultural case study for

decades i mean you know we're gonna see the remnants of this for the next 50 years to see what what it really caused but some trends that we've seen like lack of trust in institutions now moving to individuals right we've seen a lot of that you know with people from across the political spectrum not trusting government for different reasons but the same broad reasons at the end of the day like they're behind closed doors they do their shit they don't have our interests in mind guess what we now have the tools of the internet to be able to work together as individuals and take back you know even things down to money which is why you see moves to bitcoin and in crypto and stuff that's quote-unquote decentralized but we also have seen these different value shifts right so we're talking about the digital one moving to that world

how much does that then inject the shit right and let me be clear what i mean by that everyone's gonna throw an nft on something. You remember back in 2017 when Bitcoin was blowing up and crypto was blowing up for the first time and suddenly everyone was a token expert. My favorite one, you saw a Long Island iced tea company on Long Island changed their name from Long Island Iced Tea Limited or something to Long Island Blockchain because they just wanted to get in blockchain. Everyone wanted to throw the word blockchain on something and create a product there without thinking about what the actual integration of blockchain was. Very similar early on here with NFTs. What didn't happen there is blockchain didn't get rendered useless at all. Simply, it had to go

through a market where suddenly all the bad actors and people who were opportunists left the market because they were full of shit. And then the great ones rose and now we're seeing blockchain getting integrated in a beautiful way on so many things including NFTs. So I think what you're going to see, and this is what I want your thoughts on with NFTs, is that there are going to be a lot of people creating an NFT out of something that has absolutely no fucking business being an NFT. Things that have no value zero you know and and not to call some people out but I've seen some early deals here where it's a nobody putting out work and because there's not a lot on the market yet people are buying it like crazy for millions of dollars in some cases and it's like well long term some of that once everyone runs to the market the real ones

are going to rise what is this asset is that just some bullshit that some guy made to say i did an nft or is that something that like yo if i have that my friends are going to be like damn i got that you know and and the scarcity world is the other thing like when you inject the supply you're not going to have scarcity just by default there's only so many people that can buy so many assets right but the ones that have the value like the products that are created to have the value people now really value that whole like i have it and you don't because there's only so many that are available in the physical world we've seen it throughout history.

Like they always talk about the tulip craze in Europe back in the 1600s or whatever. When everyone started wanting tulips, what happened? Everyone started growing fucking tulips. And then once everyone was growing fucking tulips and trying to sell them, what happened? Prices of tulips went through the floor. Once you have this set scarcity in the ether where it's like, nope, only 10 were ever made that's it so like you get your hands on that you're guaranteed like yo i have something that will never be recreated that's an interesting world to think about because we don't really have a precedent there no we don't and i think that's why i think between scarcity

between the between extra or extra discretionary income right now when no one's traveling. I mean, people want to experience things in real life too. We're talking about the digital assets and digital space, but I think once things open up a little bit, especially at this time, I think they're going to be a little bit less dollars moving into that space.

I don't think by any means is it going to hurt the space by any means. It's just going to, it makes the space a little bit, I think that the space is, it's at, it's a very high place right now. It's not, I don't know if it's at its height, but it's very high. So I feel like once things stable out a little bit uh you have some some real guys coming to the market i think it would just become a little bit more of a you know i don't know they call that thing stable coin or whatever the heck it is yeah within crypto i think it just becomes more stable i i believe that right now it's a little high it will probably see a dip uh like anything else and then it would be just becoming more stable once, because I don't think it's going anywhere. People are going to own assets. People don't want to own, you know,

so many, you know, it's, believe me, I've moved. I've moved a few times. Moving sucks. I'd rather have everything in a digital wallet on my phone than be packing up all these freaking pieces of artwork and things I've collected. I'm a collector. I like to hoard things. And that's my wife. She freaking hates it. She hates it. She's like, you're a hoarder collector. I like to hoard things. And that's my wife. She freaking hates it. She hates it. She's like, you're a hoarder. But I like to collect like trinkets. I like to collect really cool things by cool people, have stories behind them. That's kind of like one of the things I love to do. You know what I mean? Like that's just, I find that to be really enjoyable. And I think now that's where it's shifting over to digital assets, NFTs, next level. But right now, yeah, you said it. There's people putting out shit NFTs. Am I out

there buying these shit NFTs? No. Why the fuck would I spend my money on some shit stuff? I know it's going to be there for the next 20 years and beyond. Do I need to buy one right now at the height or at the height or very high of the market when everyone else is buying these damn things maybe if it's something that i really love and want to see but it's also you know some things where i know it's going to be i know they're going to be creating more digital assets yeah so it's first inning it's the first inning you know if 2017 was early i mean when they first started it this is like first second inning of where it's going to be. And yeah, I love the industry, love where it's going. And I think there's a ton of really, really cool possibilities that could be,

that creatively can be done with a lot of these, you know, artists and influencers, athletes alike. So it's just a really cool space to be in. I think brands are going to, I think that that's where I think the next level is right now. Individuals are putting out there. They're going to be working with brands. They're going to be marrying things with physical products.

There's, I think there's a lot of layers to where this thing goes. And I, and you know, everyone throws the term blockchain out there, but it truly is a ledger of where the transactions are made on these platforms and then to be able to track secondary transactions or if something sells for 25 000 and resells for 50 000 being it being being having a ledger of that of where it sold for and then you know um having that attribution that's a lot of you know a lot of that stuff goes back to my days in affiliate, affiliate, where we were doing so much affiliate, it's like, okay, well, if

someone buys this, you get a piece of this. Now, it there's another, there's a next step to that, there's another layer to that. And it's all being tracked on the blockchain, rather than through some other third party platforms that we were using to track that are still very big right now. So I think that I'm really long on the space. Yeah, and well, yeah, those platforms are still big and some of the most quote-unquote centralized platforms in the world, YouTube and Instagram, like they're all huge, right? But it's hard to concept a world where suddenly, you know, you put blockchain on it or whatever, but take that out for a second.

It's hard to concept a world where suddenly things are not quote-unquote centralized they're that decentralized which starts to get into the point where people are like all right what the fuck are you talking about yep but in a world where what you access on your phone or through your network doesn't have to go to one central hub all the phones and all the networks have access to this and have the record of it so you know someone in the middle can't change that record you know when you send a dm on instagram it doesn't just immediately go to that person's inbox it touches the instagram servers first which have a record of it handle it and push it out so if you want to hack instagram

you just hack their servers, and now you've hacked every single user that's attached to that. With the decentralized, quote-unquote, blockchain concept, no, you have to hack all the phones and all the computers to effectively hack it. So it makes sense what it is. And I just think with COVID and the lack of trust, again, hitting on the institution point you're only going to see more of it even if it's hard to picture in your head well what would a

decentralized instagram look like i don't know i don't know i don't know how that works but there's pete there's smart people working on it and so you see things like the nfts rise up it's just a it's a piece of an overall trend you know and i it's a typical life imitates art man yes and there's also i mean if you really think about it i think what jack dorsey i think he sold the first tweet there's actually another platform i was on it the other day that you can buy tweets you could bid on tweets you can uh you could purchase them if the individual you know i i mean that's where it gets like it just it gets foggy and this thing and it goes to and believe me is there is there bitcoin friggin casinos out there that people know about that don't know about yeah i've been

on those sites i've you know you do research you're on there there's so many crazy things that you could put your money into or not i mean i bought a couple cause you know um sculptures like it's the artist cause i don't know if you ever heard of it but bought some of those things it's all based on the scarcity of it it's all based on the artist and i think this also this world now now with NFTs and all this other stuff, I think it's giving the artists back like that control. Because they were, I mean, even at an agency level, they're creating tons of pieces of artwork. And I think that they're, you know, more on like the back end of it where now when they display a lot of this stuff on social media, but you're not really – you're getting other jobs from that. You're not really selling your artwork.

There are certain marketplaces where you do sell your artwork, but I think it's giving them an ability, which, I mean, I love that. That expertise in the art space, photo editing, it's – what a really cool space that is. So to give them these platforms like this I think is awesome. What about music though man that's the biggest one think about how like fucked musicians got and not that it was intended this way but once it went to streaming and itunes was invented and the ip and the ipod iphone eventually came in the the monetary gain and ability to earn on their songs that they got went through the floor because all the record companies, which already took half their fucking shit, lost control. Right.

So now you look at it. It's really interesting to think about this space, but musically and how the artists in that space have gotten crushed with, with going digital. Now they could take a, uh, take some, take some of that revenue back for themselves and release it through themselves. Granted, they probably have, you know, contracts with, um, with agencies and so on and so forth, but, uh, that's a great, that's awesome to think that they could take some control back. Cause they got absolutely destroyed with, you know, from going know albums cds all they got destroyed that was a huge money maker huge money maker they make no money and now it's now it's they really only were making money with tours and uh you know physical concerts where has that been the last year with covid yep so i mean

any of you also think about that space you go into musicians and then comedians comedians got crushed man got crushed the comedians who won over the past year i mean i can think of three in particularly off the top of my head andrew schultz tim dillon and whitney cummings in a way and I know a little bit less about her whole situation but they won because they were ready for the digital world they were ready for taking their comedy to YouTube taking it like already having podcasts set up Schultz didn't but having the type of content that people were going to consume like crazy and be and have the chance for it to be viral and constantly being out in front of people where they're not on the stage building you know the old school way and

now you've seen so many even great comedians lose a lot of traction because they made all their money on the tours they made all their money doing the stages and suddenly oh well can't do that and they didn't have the operation ready to go and they don't know that world yep you know it's that's a lot of like the legends in comedy yeah so i think there could be a space within the nft or within that within that kind of digital assets that these comedians can do you know privatized you know what is it uh stand up for actually yeah that's interesting you know a private kind of a private room or whatever it may be but i think even if you know what's that platform patheon or something that you could donate patreon patreon yeah patreon you could have a community there where people pay

you to put out you know private content you could have a private account on youtube so i don't know if people are utilizing you you know, these certain resources, but I think where the digital assets are going and the scarcity behind it, rather than putting it on those platforms, I think is really what's unique. And I think these, these artists are finally, you know, you talk about decentralized, you talk about all these places and based off the blockchain, I think they're going to be be the the ones that win at the end of the day in this space where over the last 10 15 years it was it's still trying to get figured out it's like you're searching for searching for gold and you're just sifting through when is it going to open up when is it going to open up so i feel like

a few of these things that are happening right now are giving them the ability to really capitalize on their craft and their expertise. What about sports and athletes, though? Because that's obviously a sweet spot for you. You know, look, I don't think anyone liked the NBA bubble when they had to do that. And at least they're not in the bubble anymore. Like they're playing games in their stadiums that are mostly empty. Obviously, it's got to go back to normal as we get vaccinated here if it doesn't we got a big problem as a society and people have seen the goalposts

move over and over and over again so who the fuck knows but i can't ignore the trend i've talked about this before but on in game six of the nba finals last with LeBron James playing in it and the LA Lakers playing in it I think they had 300,000 some viewers that same night CNN and Fox News had to combine like 10 million viewers you know and that's like dinosaur cable right and so I look at this and I wonder how much COVID has changed pop culture now like things like music that you put in your headphones and shit that you can go about your day and it gives you an emotion and stuff that hasn't that's only been great right if you were an artist that was set up to be able to capitalize on this and record some music and put it out there like cool sports i wonder about a little bit because people

still gambled on it like crazy i had aunt the bookie in here yeah he's great and the fucking character but you know they were still doing that but that's just the human nature of like those humans they want action they they don't even watch it when they're betting on lucas wavy and table tennis which you know shout out to lucas wavia which does not exist but you know it's not like they're watching that you know they just they they want the sick action whatever but i i wonder about how seriously we take these common pop culture institutions in the new digital world do people care as much are there more things that they're now interested in i mean when you go on social

media it seems like people are more interested in talking about content and talking about creators and talking – and I'm just speaking very high level right now – talking about things going on in the world or bitching about politics more than likely rather than where some of that oxygen would have previously been seriously spent on sports. I wonder about how they come out of this. I mean what are your thoughts there? That's a great question just because I love basketball, so I'm watching the bubble. Was it hard to watch because it looks like a pickup game? Yeah. I would watch pickup games. So I would sit in a gym and watch practices of college teams

and guys that know that grew up watching so like that wasn't that really didn't affect me the way i think it affected a lot of others that are just casual fans not really like dedicated to the game and love the game the way it did so but um i think it will change i think over time i think it will change. I think over time, I think it will change. But I think surprising, I think it's going to change for the better. Because I think you were also talking about Top Shot. We're talking, we're talking about how you, you know, these 2D images and where they're going to be and stuff like that.

Well, I feel like the, you know like the games will be at a different level and will be displayed in a different way for individuals and consumers to be able to digest them in a different fashion. So I think if these games were playing on in front of us or now we could record the games, watch them at different times, all that really on demand i think sports still give a gives us that that um it gives us that time where we're like you know we can have it on demand but we'd rather watch it live you know and i think the live portion of of that will still exist um But I think, I don't know, I'm kind of rambling here.

I just, I'm so, I love sports so much, it's hard for me to kind of think about them really not being as prevalent as they currently are in society and people put so much onus on their team and their, you know, and kind of, you know, putting so much onus on their team and kind of putting so much eggs in that basket, you'd say, because they just – like the NFL. Do I get upset about the NFL? Of course. Because Tom Brady can play for 20 years because no one can even touch him in the helmet.

Yeah. Can't even touch this guy in the helmet. It's a major penalty. So do I get mad at those things on how things have changed? Of course. Do I still watch the NFL? Do I still watch the Super Bowl? Yeah.

I don't know if I couldn't watch it. But do I get upset about how things have changed and how the game has changed in both the NBA, the NFL, and these other leagues? Of course. I mean, just soft as shit. Well, and again, though, the kids who are watching that, that's what they're used to now. And then you go back to what we were talking about earlier with taking on head-on collisions on a daily basis,

and then your head is, you know, it's like, what do you want? Yeah, you can't have it both ways. Can't have it both ways. Can't have it both ways. Can't have it both ways. But it's thinking about the sports thing. Why do we love sports? When do we come to love sports? We come to love them when we're growing up.

Why do we love them when we're growing up? Because very often we play those sports and we dream about being the gladiators who actually made it, whether it be football, basketball, whatever. One of the things that, again, I don't know how this turns out here, but I think about the kids all the time, because I'm not a kid at this point, right? Like I'm not in school and I'm not around them all the time. But I think about the kids in this COVID era who now, you know, this is a reality. Think about the, especially the most impressionable ones, you know, this is a reality. Think about the, especially the most impressionable ones, you know, like the eight, nine year olds who are coming into themselves for the first time, right. And, and having their own thoughts. And now they live in this world where there's fear, fear, fear, you know, you're, you're separated from people. It's not natural to be close to

people because you might get sick, right. Which by the way, for kids, you might get sick with something that has like a 0.0001 chance of fucking killing them don't take my stats literally people go look it up for yourself i'm not a fucking covid expert but you get the point like kids aren't really dying from this it is a huge outlier right and yet they're they've they are in this world where suddenly that's the worst thing and everything that used to be natural isn't and one of the down many downstream effects is sports you see some of these high school games that weren't fucking mass on the court i could i i didn't believe it i couldn't believe it bro like and and the kids

they don't want to play they're they're home they're they're doing remote school and stuff they're do you think they're like signing up for the soccer team or the football team no no they're not and do you think they're going to want to do that next year what are the downstream effects how many kids suddenly don't play sports or don't get social period and then what effect does that have in our long-term viewpoint of those people in society the athletes that's another thing to think about here shit i can't i couldn't walk through freaking costco with a mask on and a jacket i was freaking hyperventilating i don't know how people do it in their jobs on a day-to-day i work you know working from home i i do not know day in and day out to wear that mask or wear multiple masks and a shield on your face

for for as your norm the multiple mass thing is hilarious the multiple mass thing is fucking hilarious i can't it's i really and and it's not like you know we're not arguing the efficacy here like that's not the point it's just it's crazy that that is a reality that people have had to get used to and whatever and they better not be getting used to it after we're vaccinated because that's the whole fucking point. To be normal again and get our kids socializing and not having your face fucking covered and stuff. But, dude, it is – societally, we could go across the board and say, where does this – how does it affect relationships? How does it affect your ability to form relationships?

It's scary, man. I really, yeah. I, you know, I like this topic. I don't like to, you know, dwell on it because you don't want to dwell on this whole, you know, the pandemic and COVID and talking about it, talking about it. But it's true, man. You can't, you don't know how to say hello to people. You don't know how to shake their hand. You don't know how to give them a fist pump.

Are you hugging family? You're not hugging people. You don't know to shake their hand. You don't know to give them a fist pump. Are you hugging family? You're not hugging family. You're not freaking kissing family. What are we doing? You have no, you can't even tell what their emotions are or how they look. Are they smiling at you? Are they saying hi?

Are they friendly? You have no freaking clue. Yeah. And it's not, you know, saying these things at this point, it's not to be like, I don't know why people haven't created a clear mask. So you can see people's face through a mask that can actually protect you.

I haven't seen any of that. I did see one. Did you? It's weird. I guess that gets fogged up. Does it? Oh, that was what, what's his name? Andy Reid was happening.

He was getting all fogged up in his visor. And that was a visor, you know, which is like next level. It's still not, you know what I mean? Like, and it's not – again. But I've never seen anyone visor, no mask. It's a mask visor because then you still can't see people's face. It's – on the court, dude, I saw it on the court. I really – I was like I can't even – this is –

I know we value human life more and more over the course of history, which is a very positive thing. Not arguing with that. But 80 years ago, they were jumping from fucking planes on Normandy and there was like a 40% chance they were going to live. And now, you know, there's this fear on people the same age to wear six fucking visors and a mask on the very off chance they're actually going to die like there you should be able to say out loud that hey this is really bad and we have to do things different until we get it fixed until we get vaccinated and stuff totally on board you should be able to say that out loud without someone pointing at you and saying oh so you don't believe in it oh you think this is wrong we all know people who've gotten really banged up about this we know some people who have died as well right absolutely they tend to be older or they tend to

be in good shape that is a fact but it's happened right you don't very sad really see as much of that with or nearly as much of that with the regular flu that's also a fact right so you should be able to say like hey this is really serious and and we need to make adjustments and we need to be able to ride this out with said adjustments until we're at a point where, hey, we got the vaccine now. We're good to go. But you shouldn't have to be off the deep end about it. And it's just – because you're – again, like your whole business is built on relationships. It's built on shaking hands and meeting and personally understanding people.

Hard to do that right now. Very hard. Very hard to do that. People don't necessarily want to meet. They don't want to converse. They'd rather just do a Zoom call or Google Meet. And you're getting used to it. You're like, okay, yeah, it's cool.

I don't got to leave my house. It's like, oh, it's kind of – but then again, you can only establish such a relationship where you're not actually fucking sitting down with people and breaking bread, talking to people. And just being around others. I don't know. I don't know when that next shift is going to come. Hopefully, it comes this summer. I'm hoping that we're going to kind of get a little bit more of that normalcy where people do want to go out, people do want to meet.

I've just seen a lack of enthusiasm to get out there and start freaking meeting new people and just meeting people in person. As I'm starting ServinoCo, you want to get out there and meet as many people as you possibly can. But internally, do I want to – like if I meet with somebody, that also affects who's coming to my house tonight, my in-laws. They're all – my parents. Do I go see my grandparents? So if I go on a business meeting to somewhere and I'm sitting down with a couple of guys, all right, then I go to my grandparents' house. You're always worried about who you're going to affect afterwards which is understandable and that's why you know i i it's funny to talk

about the double mask and the whole shield if that's what people need to feel comfortable it's really sad and unfortunate that they can't go out and just feel comfortable with one mask on or just trying to do what would you know and just go out there without anything and just kind of just live in your life but there's so many implications to this it's very weird um i i am and sometimes you just forget and you know saying invite a friend over did he is he is he vaccinated does did he take a test before he came over oh my god shit did he take did he take a test so much you can do man once we just need to get vaccinated you know i mean i agree i get it done and and like you know i'm looking to sign up as well i know you and i talked about that like getting it done that's what people are starting to do too you're seeing i think we passed 50 million like three weeks ago

or something so we're probably i don't want to estimate the number but we're higher than that now across the country. Like that's a great sign. And now, you know, people like us are getting in on it. People feel safe. Yeah. I mean, that's, just get back to some normalcy. People go out there and, you know, go out to dinner.

I know they're opening up, I believe in Jersey now, it's like 50%. I think they're moving from 35 to 50. You know, I didn't understand the 10 p.m curfew so you you can you can get COVID from COVID knows COVID knows when you close at 10 p.m that it okay if you're there after 10 COVID knows you fucked up and it's going to come get you but before 10 it's going to chill at the coat rack you know it's not going to come in it knows like oh no no mike uh mike's here at 9 45 he's oh there he goes he's leaving we're good mike you're free to go i didn't get that one it's it's

hysterical and you know for years some of these like i guess like maybe the tea partiers and some of the like some right-wing people always use this term sheep right and so you couldn't really use it unless you wanted to get painted in that light and now it's it's more of a broad term that you see more and more people using because of what's happening out there and i think it's kind of hilarious yeah but the um the lineman on on carolina russell okung whose twitter is unreal doesn't tweet about anything football he's like a brilliant critical thinker he put out a video that i think was from tiktok a few weeks ago where it was i think his caption was something along the lines of this man is using a lint roller and no one is asking a question when you build a

and i'm paraphrasing here when you build a society of sheep they're gonna keep being sheep and when you build a society of people that aren't asking questions, this is what you get. And what it showed was some random building in a city block. Could have been a Starbucks. I don't know what it was. I couldn't see on the inside. A guy was standing outside using a lint roller and stopping people at the door and going like this, holding his arms out to get them to get like a security wand. And he was taking a lint roller as a security wand and then saying, okay, you're good.

Come in. And people were lining up and letting him wand them with a fucking lint roller. No one was asking a question. By the law of averages, a lot of smart people were in that line too, not asking a question. That's what I worry about with this. It's not about masks and that shit. It's all the other stuff. Like when are you going to say, okay, so you're saying we're still going to need to do this after we get vaccinated?

These are simple questions, and people need to ask them. And I think he's right about that. There's not enough people asking that. Not a lot of people. They'd rather just kind of go with the flow, unfortunately. No, it's – I'm pretty perplexed about every – it's just the media. You go back to the media play, can't trust what they say. Can't trust – I haven't watched the media since early fucking March 2020.

I used to on the treadmill or elliptical at the gym that we'd have CNN and Fox News right next to each other. I loved it because you would laugh your ass off at it. Absolutely. They're both loony bins it's you can't laugh at i mean i just stay away from watching it ever you can't laugh at them anymore they're they're fucking they're crazy and you see it's like it infects people's minds 100 it's you know it it's it's not good but anyway but before we get out of here on on a more personal note and whatever obviously we've waited to do this for a while.

Yeah. And now you're free. Yes. Free to last. But, you know, looking back on from my perspective, like the last three years since we really started working closely together and doing all kinds of stuff, where you were and what you were doing obviously very successful had the company had at that point built all the serious relationships too we're doing that things but you you you talked about it earlier in this conversation not being happy and not knowing what the next steps were and where it was going from my seat having the chance to sit there and

learn from you also get a lot of opportunities to unlock my own world that you unlocked for me and there's people like you that i owe a ton to a very select group of people and you're at the top of that list so thank you but you know seeing how you went from step to step here to to take control of your life and get yourself in this position to have this type of freedom and be able to have the vision you want to have and leverage all the things that you did build. That currency you built was the people you built who are not your network. They are your relationships. They are your friends. They are the people who call you at 3 a.m. and you answer and vice versa. It gives me a lot of hope in the world

because if we have examples, people who lead and lead by example and show other people how business is done and how you're good to people and everything comes around, you're the kind of guy that needs to have that platform and needs to have that forefront, not just scream like, oh, look at me, look at my life, you know, on a fucking beach on Instagram like half these guys do. You're somebody who's lived in the dirt and has gotten dirty with people. And what I mean by that is you're somebody who's been through it and had the ups, had the downs,

understood what's important at the end of the day. And now you finally are, it's a beautiful thing seeing you succeed. And I know some of the things you got going on that we can't talk about, but we will very soon on a future podcast. I just want to say from my seat, it's a beautiful

thing to see you now able to get out there and do this and be able to build that platform. And so I'm grateful that you can come on here and start the front edge of the public side of that. And I want to make you a regular guest moving forward with all the things that you're at the forefront and doing. Well, that was definitely better said than I could ever say it. And no, it's fucking awesome. I love what you've built. This is unbelievable because I've known you before you were running a very successful podcast and being this amazing host, which we have talked about plenty of times.

I think getting out of the commodity, is it commodity, right? Yeah. Getting out of the commodity business. Getting out of the commodity business and getting into a business where, can anyone else replicate Chaz Servino? I mean, I'm sure there's other people out there that are great networkers and great directors, but they're just, they're just not me. It's more subjective.

It's more subjective. And, you know, a lot of people, a lot of, there's millions of companies doing SEO. We talked about this. There's millions of companies doing social media. There's millions of companies building you a website. Granted, I could do all those things, but they, I also am bringing a wealth of knowledge relationships connections to the table so what what i didn't realize 10 years ago was that that's really valuable really really valuable i didn't realize that till maybe a few years ago when i'm like oh shit and then as i just as i was going through trans this transition it just came to came to light

that like like dude this is like this is something that no one else can really teach can't teach what yet what you have like to anybody you can't teach what you have look look at everything that you built here look at everything that you're doing on your end. You can't be, people can have podcasts, right? Can they be trend to fire? Can they be trend to fire? No, you're, it's exactly, it's you. You can't replicate, you can't replicate you. And I feel like that's the same thing with me, with Servino Co and where I'm going and what I'm building is that it's, it's so unique and it's one of a kind. And that's something that I love that I can't like, I'm just – I'm happy that I'm in this place right now that I can really relish in my own kind of – my own little world. And I don't really need to rely on anybody else. It's pretty unique and I could effectively provide tons of value to

people which is ultimately as i as i think i said in the beginning i don't know exactly what you said before i don't know if it was before after whatever it may be um but it's just it's so cool that you know you can make your you know call your own shots make your own decisions um all right you can't buy trust you're right that's who you built yeah that's that's very true you have to be able to trust the people that you're you're in business with and you have to be you have to you're right it's it's just it's really it's really cool to be able to do that with people and then to trust you with their businesses, with their, I don't want to call it their livelihoods, but a lot of these people, a lot of when you talk about them, when you talk, yeah, when you talk about, you know, building, building a foundation for their, for their self, for their self, their business,

their digital platforms, and they're putting that in your hands and like, okay, like, I trust that you're going to handle this for me. I take that very seriously. I have a major fear of letting people down. It's out there. I do. I really – That's not a bad fear to have.

I really do. I don't know why. I don't know. Maybe it's through, you know, growing up or how my parents were, how my grandparents were. I don't – I just have a, I don't, I don't like to let people down. I also like to be able to be that person where I can help people. And at this point now my business is truly, um, in the consult where I'm being this

consultant, I'm going to have to tell some individuals, which I've done the past, but it was different when it's your agency. Now it's your name, it's SerinoCo. And like, now it's going to have to turn people down that I personally, I really can't help you. Like there's going to be times like that. Do I want to be able to help a lot of people? Of course, but you know what? I got to, it's not right to tell people

I can help everybody because sometimes you really can't. You can't work with a lot of small businesses that maybe you cracked your teeth with, you know, at the beginning. It's just, and that's a credit to you because your time is valuable and you got to spend it in the places that are most valuable and where you can add the most value. And you can do that with the powerful or Ray or something, or, you know, some of these other guys, you're not, you are, you're building it with all the other people around them, including the people who maybe don't have like a huge role in stuff.

And you take them just as seriously as you take Kevin and Ray. And there's not a lot of people, everyone says like, Oh, I treat the doorman the same as the CEO. Very few people do that. Your dad does that and you do that. And so I, you know, I, I think a lot of that is like an environment thing where you learn that at a young age that was instilled in you and that makes you a scarce asset. Yeah. I think you bring up a great point because I don't really, I don't, there's a, I have, I have blinders on when it comes to really judgment on where you come from, what you've been. And it's probably, I mean, shit, man. My dad posted the other day my first team in Jersey City.

But I was, you know, that team that I was on, I don't know if you guys know the book Miracle of St. Anthony. The Miracle of St. Anthony? The basketball team from St. Anthony's in Jersey City. But that was the team that became that team as they grew up. So pretty interesting on that front. But it was probably, I was in so many different environments. I was in so many different environments as a kid. I had to adapt to all

these different places and i had to be able to earn respect uh at the same time not what's a cool not shit on people you know what i mean yeah yeah so when you're going to a different environment you no one knows you. Okay, why is this? What's this kid going to do? Okay, well, I got to show respect. I got to be good enough, but I can't be like, I can't do it in a way. Maybe you could explain it better. You're better at words than me, Jules.

But, I mean, you have to do it in a way where people are like, oh, dude, I fuck with that guy. But he's not like shoving it in my face. He's not trying too hard. That's it. Yeah. You're not trying too hard, but you're gaining the respect of others. And I think that's part of teams. That's why, you know, and that's why it's, you know,

I am doing the Servino Co by myself, but there's teams around me that I'm building and relationships around me that I've built for the last 10 years that are really the foundation of Servino Co. I think that's really what it comes down to. I don't know if I assume you just kind of come by this honestly and don't notice it. And I've said this about a couple, at least a couple different people I've had on this podcast because it's very true about them too. But it's a crazy good asset to have these days. And that is you are somebody who's not afraid to say, you know, I don't know about that,

but I'm going to talk to the guy who does, or I know the guy that does let's bring him in. And so many people just want to bullshit and be like, oh yeah, let me tell you all about that. You know, put an insert filler words here and figure something out that they have no business on. But that's what makes you the connector. Cause you're like, you know where your lines are of like no fucking idea on that and there's people who

who inherently appreciate that because they're like all right this guy's not bullshitting me you know and especially when you're dealing with people who have a lot of inbound coming at them they get bullshitted all the time by people who claim to be experts on stuff and they aren't and so you know what you know you know what you know, you know what you don't know, you know where you're an expert, you know where you're not, and you know when to draw that line. And, you know, that's what you talk about not trying to be something you're not. That's the literal definition of it. Yeah, I think being involved in so many of these different environments and being subjected to so many different types of people and all different walks of life, I think have given me that ability to be able to kind of relate to a lot of different

people on a lot of levels. Like I didn't grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth. I also didn't grow up where, you know, I didn't have food on the table on Sunday. So I think I was in between. And I think that that also, I was subjected to pretty much every type of environment. So I think that definitely helps, you know, make you, you know, make the, you know, what makes you, you. And I think that's why I said like, you know, you don't have to, you have to be somebody else, you know, at the end of the day, you're one of a kind and that's where something that is, it's not a, it's,

I hate using that thing commodity now, but it's just, I feel like so many people are in, all right, how many graphic designers are there? Millions upon millions. And I think the NFT space is going to help, you know, help them, you know, and yeah, that example. So I know what you know, and take out. Yeah, that example, sure. So. I know what you mean, though. You know what I mean? And then I also think about how many millions of people do SEO. How many millions of people are running Facebook ads? Like, if you don't know how to run Facebook ads, you're of the, you're not of the majority.

Because the majority of people know how to run them now. If you don't. So, I think. And business. And business. And business owners, yeah. And business owners. You're setting up your google my business page like like you have like those are necessities in business

those are different things that you need to do certain things and those are things that i will handle for businesses but then there's plenty of things that businesses will come to me that aren't as cookie cutter or aren't as or aren't as um uh you know out there that it's easily accessible to find good quality people. And I think that's where I'll be able to come in and provide clarity on some of these harder issues that business owners, that entrepreneurs, that athletes and influencers face on a daily basis that they need solutions on. Well, we've been looking forward to doing this, as I said, and you're going to be in here a bunch.

So this is the first little soiree. We kept it higher level today, which I liked. I mean, I don't really know when it's going to get deeper or whatever. We had some moments like that today, and this was a great conversation. Thank you for doing it. But I think there is, especially as you get to reveal some things that are going on here, I think there's a wealth of, of knowledge and information, as I said earlier, that, that you could share with people that they're going

to take a lot of value out of. And I'm very, very excited that you're onto this act two of your journey because act two is always better than act one. It is. It is. Act two is always, always a little bit better i uh i really appreciate you having me on the podcast i've seen the other i think we're at like am i like 38 you're gonna be like 39 or 40 because i'm filming i'm filming back to back 39 or 40 so you know you've had some great guests awesome to be a part of that community that you're creating on the podcast here. That's something that you always want to be in exclusive companies. I think – well, thanks so much for bringing me on, Jules.

I really appreciate it. Thanks, brother. Yeah, I like that you call this exclusive company. We're building, baby. We're building. We'll do it again soon. Absolutely. We'll keep working on some stuff.

Sweet. Everybody else, give it a thought. Get back again soon. Absolutely. And we'll keep working on some stuff. Sweet. But everybody else, give it a thought. Get back to me. Peace.