Living The Red Life - $10K to $100 Million in Product Sales With Michael Gonzalez

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

How do you take your last $10K and turn it into $100 million in product sales? You start a detox tea company just when Instagram is blowing up, and you ride the red wave of success all the way to the top! Today’s guest is the GOAT of Instagram marketing, FitTea Founder (now exited) and now the Tea CEO, Michael Gonzalez.Michael is in the hot seat beside our man in red, Rudy Mawer, and they’re reflecting on the value of growing a business alongside a personal brand in this modern age of social media. A time when you can drop cash getting a celebrity endorsement and then have all sorts of eyeballs checking out your operation.Michael’s operation started small — just him and his mom packing tea — but because he was prepared to take marketing risks and develop a high-quality product to match, he was able to collapse time and scale fast! Michael’s story is a tale of living the red life for real, from dancing with Beyoncé to shots at the bar with Post Malone, it’s all here. Rudy brings his shrewd business acumen to this party too, bringing it all home for you. All you have to do is take the red pill — and jump!“I’m a believer in everything. Like radio, it didn’t matter. Put you on the moon? I’ll put you on the moon. You know what I mean? So that’s how I think about brands.”  ~ Michael GonzalezThe first 1000 to click here and send the promo code from the podcast can claim one of my courses for FREE!  - https://m.me/rudymawerlife In This Episode:- How do you make a high-quality product that consumers are willing to pay more for?- What do you get when you combine ideas, trust, and risk?- The perfect recipe to kickstart your own business.- The Pros and Cons of building a brand on a personality.- Is the celeb shoutout still worth it? - Discover the secret to building a successful business!- How do you cope with anxiety as an entrepreneur?- On the phone with pirates when they intercept your cargo!- Living it up at Puff Daddy’s 50th- What is the value in getting a shoutout from Kim Kardashian?And more!Connect with Michael Gonzalez:Instagram The book Michael recommends - Hope and Help for Your NervesFit Tea Connect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagram

You don't know. Tomorrow's not promised. You know, one of the beauties is like, we're gifted this moment, this time frame. So, you know, do it today. What's the worst that can happen? At the end of the day, tomorrow the sun will come up again. If you're blessed enough to be alive again, you can try again.

You know, I failed a lot. I failed a lot before 50. If I told you some of the things I did, you'd be like, holy crap. You know what I mean? And just jump. go for it. My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life,

ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. Guys, what's up? Back for another episode of Living the Red Life here with Michael, the TCEO, a.k.a. the GOAT. Look at those guns. Welcome, buddy. He took 10K to 100 million product sales. That's why I wanted him here. Plus, he's wearing a red shirt just for me. I made sure to have the red shirt on today just for him.

Thanks for coming in. Thank you for having me. So, a couple of things to go into right away. 100 mil in in product sales. Yes, sir. The TCO, what is that? Like the capital T or the T you drink? The T you drink. Good. Healthy beverage. Dive in. Tell us the story. How does that I started Fit Tea in 2013. I had $10,000 to my name and literally got really, really fortunate at this beautiful thing. God gave. Instagram landed right on my lap. But honestly, honestly, I was looking to lose weight. I tried a bunch of detox teas.

They tasted really bad. Like that market is really generic. And I was really obsessed with Apple at the time, like Steve Jobs and how do you make a premium product? How do you make really high quality product that the consumer is willing to pay a premium for? The average detox tea would go for like four to seven dollars, really inexpensive. And most of the time the ingredients reflect the price. And so I started obsessing with what's called artisan teas. And like artisan teas smell really great and they're

fragrant and they taste almost as if they have sugar, but they don't have sugar. And so I started with a really small batch family company was the only company that was willing to give me a singular box. Cause I only had $10,000 to start. And so I called a bunch of places and they were like, oh, well, you know, we need at least a minimum order of 50 grand. I didn't, you know, it was out of the question, but this mom and pop just so happened. was a blessing in disguise i didn't realize that they were known for making artisan teas and they were really good at it like the the owner there his name's oliver he was super passionate and i didn't realize when i pick up the phone this guy was going to be this ball of energy yeah yeah and i was like i don't even need a box you know and so

he was like sending me samples samples samples samples tried them all they were amazing they tasted almost like juice you know smelled amazing right when you opened it so flagrant so wonderful and I was like this is I know I have something and Gave me one box and then my next blessing was the name 50 was a six-letter domain even in 2013 Yeah, kind of expensive to get a six-letter domain event even random numbers So it was an auction just so happened and i was like crap you know and i was really like this is the name i knew it in my spirit yeah and i had just left work because i was working a job that i absolutely hated at the time

and i was driving home and i was bidding on my phone for the domain and it was like 1 000 like fuck 2 000 3 000 fuck fuck fuck you know like not gonna be able to win this auction and actually the person really outbid me it went to like 16,000 so I went home I felt defeated I was like damn I lost this auction beautiful just a beautiful damn damn name and I was like where are we gonna be weight loss this and like you know I felt so defeated I went right to bed the next morning morning I woke up, the register called me and was like, listen, the guy that outbid you is not willing to pay. And we'll give it to you for regular registration fee. What's up, yo?

Win's a win, man. So I was super, super happy. I remember that they very vividly drew the logo by hand, scanned it into, I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know you can just go hire graphic designer. A very primitive website I created. There was no Shopify at the time. So Shopify was in its infancy, but I wasn't aware of it.

So really hyperlinked website thing, no CRM, nothing. And then I got the tea, we packed it by hand, me and my mom, and just in, we lived in a, you know, two bedroom condo. I'm just doing it all by hand with a hand sealer, stickers, you know, build the website and then Instagram. You know, I noticed that they, the people that hit the popular page were there for a certain period of time. You got to go back to 2013. Sure. A lot less bells and whistles than most people know Instagram now. And I was like, I bet you if I contact everyone that makes the popular page, that an influx of traffic would come to the website.

And I was a little bit knowledgeable in traffic because I did SEO stuff. Yeah, yeah. Really primitive SEO websites. So I understood analytics. I understood traffic, but nothing to this extent. So I spent maybe like like i don't know like two thousand dollars in t overall cost but the traffic i put all the money into buying shout outs and i was like i'm gonna do like a big launch you know so me and my mom packed up we

thought it was a lot like 400 units like barely anything and you know i bought the traffic and at the time i had paypal notifications on my phone. And, you know, I'm still pretty new to all this. And so the first sale came in, like, the ads started going up, and they were, like, $25. Yeah, I was going to say the shout-out. We probably didn't know what they had. And, I mean, the biggest person on Instagram at that time was only, like, 300,000. Well, at least small. There wasn't really big whales yet.

And a lot of the big whales were page owners. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah the pages yeah and um so you know i paid paid maybe like i don't know 1600 which i thought it was a lot but bro it's just a nuclear ding ding ding ding ding it's like almost like it would not stop it's and i was like holy crap i knew my life changed that moment quit my job went all in took every dollar did you sell out a lot You had to order more that day? I sold like, on the first day, it was $16,000 in sales. And just that little, and we only had like four.

So you got like 100x almost. Yeah. And I knew everything was going to change. I knew my life was on a different trajectory. And this was going to be like everything I had to obsess over. But when you do something like that so quickly, you don't have the infrastructure to support at all. You're down as you go. You know, customer service, you know, actually taking it to the post office, you know, simple logic.

But if you're on the second floor, you got to go down the stairs. Yeah. A lot of sacrifices in the beginning i tell people all the time you know it requires a spirit that's very because i would work from the moment i woke up eyes went down and wherever i landed my mom would find me on boxes or on top of like there's photographs of me knee deep or like scooping up tea so that was kind of the you know well what was the that's awesome story like that growth, right? And what, you know, this whole podcast is the red life, right? And living the red life.

And to me, you know, that's a play on taking the red pill and building your dream life, right? So a lot of people are trying to quit their job or in that position or grow their business. And it's super awesome probably for them to hear like it just starts somewhere, right? And it's like a combination of like idea, trust, risk, a bit of luck along the way, right? We know it's all of those things combined, right? But you made the decision to go through all that and fall asleep every night on the boxes and all that. You got to be the BS you went through at the same time, I'm sure. All right. So what was the, you know, Instagram and the influencers? Let's talk about that. How did that work? How does it work this day? How can people use it to make money? So back then, you know, it was just a photo platform.

Yeah. It was really easy to take a photograph and send a caption to somebody and then negotiate a rate. Sure. You know, nowadays is much more competitive, too. Back then, there was not so many bells and whistles. There was no live. There was no stories. There was no DMs, for crying out loud.

It was merely a photograph platform, and it had hyperlinks on the profiles. Now, it's much more harder to go, okay, hey, go to the website directly from the photograph. You're going to have to build upon multiple iterations with a person and a visual. I'm really big now that brands are less meaningful and persons are more. Totally. And the more you become obsessed with really sharing who you are, like you're doing an amazing job, right? You have created an identity, a color scheme. Everything that I was very passionate

about at 50 is what you're doing. 50 had a set of colors and a set of ways of doing things, and they all had to reflect upon that. You're literally doing the same thing, but the beauty is you can talk. 50 couldn't talk. So I told people all the time, the advantage of building a brand with a person as the face value is much bigger than just saying, buy my product. And what's so funny about that is I learned from like a business guru, like 10 years, 12 years ago, like, and he was older, you know, like 50, right? But he's like, never build a brand on you because you can never, it's hard to sell. Right. And I totally agree. Like from a business valuation

standpoint, it can bottleneck you, but but it's like and so i kind of went on part of a journey where i was like growing the company trying not to be the face and now i've like gone full circle the other way where i'm like the total face but then i have i flow it all into a company right it can stand by itself and i think that's like the perfect balance and it's like you see that with like the kardashians and rihanna and like people that are building these billion dollar brands off the back of their name it's like if you can feed use the personal brand to feed the entity but still have some segmentation that's the winning formula i think yes 100 like the kardashians made a formula they figured it out yeah like i remember

my first post with the Kardashians. How much was that? So I paid Kylie Jenner, I paid her $12,000. That's my first post. Was that, was you like? Yeah, I was like fucking crazy. You're like, oh my God, this is shit. Yeah.

It was probably our biggest post at that point. Yeah. And it was like 2014, somewhere around there. How did you feel the minute, wiring that money or sending it? It was pretty crazy. I was like, what the hell are we doing? This is nuts wiring that money or sending it? It was pretty crazy. I was like, what the hell are we doing? This is nuts. But I was building upon what I was already doing.

I knew it was going to be fine, but I didn't realize. Holy shit, she was going to make us 700 racks, you know, like from that singular post. And the amount of traffic we had never seen a bike in. But it comes with side effects. You get much more eyeballs. You get much more eyeballs from legal and government. So there's different't like it. Yeah. But it comes with side effects. You get much more eyeballs. You get much more eyeballs from legal and government.

Yeah, so there's different aspects to it. So you have to be prepared for that influx of eyeballs. And you don't think that when you're in mall, like when mall kids say, I am businesses, just trying to buy eyes.

He went and said, oh, like, how can I push this traffic? I was always watching the traffic meter, you know? I'm not a legal guy. And my attorney would be like, what the hell did you do? What did you do now, Michael?

And I'm like, oh, you know, we spent $2 million in digital ads on a Tuesday randomly, you know? And by far, I was probably one of the most aggressive to ever do it. Like Fashion Nova, me and Rich, I always feel like we're intertwined a little bit. Fashion Nova's like, dominate. Like now, he's the double goat. If I'm the goat, he's the double goat. Because his category is much more. Bruh.

That's a guess. Like a million dollars a week, maybe. More. More, yeah. At this point, yeah. He's super aggressive. I was super aggressive. So, I mean, like like we never got that high and it would

always be like really peakful moments right so like oh today we're gonna do two million yep but then the following week would be like 100 so i spend right now um about 500k a month on facebook ads for my own brand how if i spend that half a mil on the ig shout outs how do you think it would do it would do you would crush it you think even as like selling because i spend that half a mil on the ig shout outs how do you do it do you would crash dude you think even as like selling because i see that with like fashion over and like these broader products right like weight loss tears clothing but when you're more in this like online money space marketing space you think the celeb shout out route still a good route 100 yeah interesting if there's a snowball effect that's intrinsic that you won't

realize at first. Yeah. Compounds. And six months from now, they'll know you because you did that one thing. Yeah. Yeah. And then depending on how creative you decide to make those interactions, right? You can be boring. Oh, you know me. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like that kind of thing. But if you do what you're doing, it just makes it easy. Yeah. And then people will know you for that. They know the color red. You don't own red, right? But see how that works, right? So you're already on a path that's much better than most.

And it won't take long. It won't take long. And it already, like, every time, you know, like I would walk up to Floyd Mayweather and he goes, Rudy Red. Right. You know, Grant Cardone, the same. And it's like we double down on that and you double down on that side too. Right. You know, Grant Harden, the same. Yeah. And it's like, we double down on that and you double down

on that side too. Right. That's amazing. And then you add the celebrity, you add the creative, you add the influencer. I was in the case of, I didn't care

who promoted the product, right? As long as the product was getting some type of exposure. Sure. And I'm a believer in like everything.

Like, right? Like radio. It didn't matter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Put you on the moon, I'll put you on the moon. You know what I mean? So that's how I think about brands. And I was super obsessed of like, how do I turn Fit Tea, this thing that I created in my mama's house, into Coca-Cola?

How would I do that? Right? Coca-Cola has been around for 100 years. It got a lot of time. But they didn't have an Instagram. Yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like if they had Instagram back in, you know, 100 hundred years ago they would probably be one of the show their biggest brand

now can you imagine they had that amplification but they did like i would even say they figured it out still because i remember like there's old clips and stuff of like them with the military right like during the war like dear ads we, like, so that's probably like, that was with us and the influence. Where would be the broadcast, right? Media is, you know, media. Newspapers, right? It's the front of a newspaper, right?

But it's interesting to think about it. So when I had 50, I had 10 racks. Like, how am I going to turn into a Coca-Cola? I didn't have private investors. I was doing this on the whim, you know what I and you know as i took capital i would put it back into the business and revenues would support whatever madness i was coming basically what we do yeah right yeah and uh and so i really fuck with what you're doing right like it's the same type of energy vibe so i just want to see you win yeah i kind of another one like before obviously what we met but now you got to go on

the side press some buttons so i think one thing with the celebrity stuff like because we're obviously we work with celebs floyd and people people think it's out of reach everyone else that i know is like how the what are you doing right talk to that because like i think there's people listening that could do the celeb shout outs jen out a book. So for our work week by Tim Ferriss, this simple chapter in there that he talked about, that book had a big impact on my first book that I read. And like Tim, like if you're watching this, like you need to come over here, spend some time with my guy because like I was like super influenced by that book. Yep.

Right. And such. So he had it inside the book. So I was like, I'm just going to contact all the companies that were in the that. Yep. Right. And such, so he had it inside the book. So I was like, I'm just going to contact all the companies that were in the book. Yeah. And they started, wow.

They started contacting me back. It was crazy. Particularly, I got a hold of an agent. His name was Bob. And Bob was just a squirrely older man that just had his foot in some industries. Right. But he was a good salesman.

Right. And he would call me and, and then he got me in a flow too. I loved it. Because every week, instead of it being like, oh, I'll send you 10K and then he would vanish, he would call me and was like, I got this guy. I got this next guy. Oh, I need you to go here.

Oh, I got this next guy. And that gave me the gas to keep the money kind of in an era that nobody knew like really sponsorship, right? So we were kind of creating that. He was a bit like the sales the you on the influence i got really again another blessing that i didn't realize i was gonna get this this guy that was gonna go south right here on and he was obviously making sure good money but that's the whole point a lot of times young entrepreneurs one of my

biggest rules is when you give you get right and right? And that comes to money, love, time, energy. And a lot of times entrepreneurs forget that. It's not just, okay, I'm going to pay this guy to go do it. It's that guy's got energy to that. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? And obviously he was opening doors for himself to get into different rooms. And then as time went on, we were making so much noise on social that kind of flew to us.

It's not like you said it comes down to the wall. This effect starts to happen and you just like you said, it comes down to the wall, this effect starts to happen and you just, you know, you grab it and a lot of times it's picking up the phone too. Like that's the other thing I talk to entrepreneurs is really strange. Thank you economy doesn't really flow very well anymore. We look at most e-com guys look at it as straight numbers.

Sure. I'm gonna send traffic to a website and you get desensitized that you forget that there's an actual human being trusting you with their money right that it's that value exchange that they forget that like okay i'm gonna say thank you yeah and that goes from marketing to we call every single customer as it hits up people down it says in that office call every single customer because if you don't do that where does the line draw and then everyone wants to automate it right it's like order ai and automation and i've learned like

i just do the opposite because it's like i get that from like an efficiency standpoint but i have 100 employees which is my i think advantage over every other internet marketer right everyone else they make more money profit than me but they have 20 staff so i'm like well i've got i can build the team and the company so i think i can build more connection with the members more personalization because i have the hands here i can build more content so like i'm playing the long game right that i'm gonna win because eventually i'm gonna have 500 employees of course no one else is right maybe grand but that's it but that infrastructure that you're building is you know micro and over time like in a year or two years 10 years yeah like a lot of people they want the success in a month sure no like 30 days or less they don't and they don't want to even go the whole endurance yeah yeah yeah so i you know i'm you know i'm giving

you a lot of kudos man like i i see what you're doing here. It's amazing. It's really something special. I think with a little bit of tweaks, a little bit of special sauce, magic. Dude. I love it. So let's talk about like 100 mil is a lot of sales. It's a lot of sales. A lot of sales, right? So the influencer side is a big part of it.

But what else, right? Because there's more that came after that that you listened. I mean, Fit Tea had a lot of different channels. First was, you know, me building a small business, really. And I was always really obsessed with margin. Like, how do we, even if it's 10 cents, how do we become more efficient? So for the most part, it's a high margin business because it's just tea. Tea costs maybe $0.20 for a teabag for one finished product.

With 14 teabags, it's less than $1 to make the full product. There's margin, even if you're stupid. You know what I mean? So I was stupid in the beginning. I didn't know what I was doing. It was just a cup worth of tea. Here we go, and we're sealing it. and my mom and me high-fiving but as time went on you have to become more efficient as skill becomes a problem and uh so we built really efficient teams

and machinery I had like literally one of the biggest tea manufacturing um facilities right in Orlando Florida that we were doing 80 bags a minute so like you know that didn't happen overnight just like year one we were doing everything by hand you know cut it bag it sell it you know different than the illegal game we were doing it legal you know with a scale and people doing it by hand and then as time went on we got our first piece of equipment and that was a clunky monster and it only did 14 bags but it was like manual and he used compressed air it's crazy and it's funny because like me and you right we've grown we've grown through those phases but i'm sure just like i do now obviously you're out of it these days but at some point when you got to

like the end or the top you look like you just think one day like i still remember like packing it right it's like crazy to look back i I remember hiring on Upwork and Fiverr, my like first two staff in India at $5 an hour, sitting on a bench in Tampa, working by the river, pulling my hair out because I had to explain 20 different times about mobile optimization to this guy that barely understood English, right?

And it's like now we're running million dollar launches and I'm not even involved. Like I just QA it at the end and give the strategy and it goes live and i'm like oh that was good well done great job guys if i've ever yeah but it's like just crazy right it's a crazy spark yeah that spark is so special i tell people all the time really focus on that moment because your time you know we're limited time governments you know we're not here for very long i'm very blessed to be here with you today right like this is a moment of our life and it's the same thing with business like i look back in the eight years i tell people the money it's it don't get me wrong it's an amazing thing it's a means to the end yeah right like the thing

really the really greatest gift i ever received was the actual going through 50, right? Nobody can be me, right? Nobody's going, no, I can't be you, right? Like, I'm not doing your journey. So that journey was such an awarding thing that sometimes. The early days are so special, too, right? You have to look, you know what I mean? And we get so transfixed on the capital that we forget, okay, my mom's right there building.

So I spend a lot of time on it. Oh, I'm doing this thing with my cousin over here and i'm on you know i'm packing up bags over here my best friend's losing his mind because the boxes are not here yet he wants to get it done because he wants to make sure that i'm okay and that spark is really hard to replicate too like i can't taste of it from time to time yeah like here today i'm getting like i feel like i almost can taste that even though you're in a different level don't get me you're not in the beginning you're already in the mid to even towards the end really right but that spark is super yeah you know it's special you don't really see and i find like i'm conscious of that because sometimes you drift out of alignment to it right like even unintentionally you're growing it's just going well you do a new partnership and like i every three months i check myself because sometimes i'm like

i'm not enjoying my day-to-day anymore i'm on too many calls there's too many things there's half of this doesn't serve me and it only it's only in the last year or two that i've been like strong enough to say no like cut it right even because it could be a million dollar thing and it's like very hard to like go sorry is like i'm like yes i'm probably gonna lose five million but sorry because it just doesn't know my ass yeah like you only can go you're a human being so like you can only go so far like when i hear about elon musk i'm like what he has to be an alien right like there's no like how how is that even yes and like i couldn't i feel like i'm a good entrepreneur and i still feel like i'm still early in my entrepreneur journey you know because you look at like top ceos they're yeah we're yeah they're twice our age for sure so you

know i feel like i'm still early in the game yet i've done a lot of really amazing things but it's you only can do so much before you start to burn like for me 50 like around 2016 I started getting anxiety I didn't realize had this underlying but I kept pushing forward yeah and then eventually I got a full-on disorder I mean I was a full-on GAD and I was out the game for like a year I took me to recover well and I always tell people my secret to recovery because of what happened to me. I didn't know it was going to happen. And I feel like it's not discussed in the entrepreneurial world at all. We wear these, if you want to brag, these ego,

and it can go from one entrepreneur to the next entrepreneur to the next, and they don't show kinks in their armor. And I like to share that all the time with people because it was a tough moment in my life. So Dr. Clara Weeks, super simple book, Hope and Help for Your Nerves. She was a research scientist. She realized that her patients, she was a regular practitioner doctor. She wasn't a psychologist, that they were experiencing symptoms that she couldn't diagnose. She couldn't understand why they were having panic attacks, why they were nervous, why their hands were shaking, why they felt nervous all day long. Like me, I had a panic attack driving home. I was working on so much crap. I was doing manufacturing. I had Walmart calling me on the phone. I had a million dollars here, $500,000 going that way. Parnassians, yes. Oh, I need to be on a plane to LA. Okay. Try to lose weight

because you're in a phrase to the 50. Okay. so i was doing all these crazy things and then i got like had one pain attack but i was like oh it's no i'm gonna go rest and go home yeah the next day i woke up i was still shaking i was like wait what why am i shaky and no doctor could give me the right answer it's crazy and uh so six months of that and what happens is with a disorder, it's typically like a bad habit. You start to obsess. Instead of obsessing over the business, I was obsessing over my symptoms. You go deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. And so I recommend that book all the time to entrepreneurs because it's like undoing the habit.

It's undoing. And it's such a simple, it's called The Acceptant Method. I don't want to like go too deep in it. I always like to touch on it because it was really important. It sparked into happy tea. I don't want to go too deep in it. I always like to touch on it because it was really important. It sparked into Happy Tea. I don't know if you know. Yeah. I recover from a disorder

and I decide, you know what? I'm going to go public in the Canadian markets and we're going to raise a bunch of money. That's what we do as entrepreneurs, right?

We're our biggest enemies. I always say on that, I mean, it's important. I always tell myself internally i can do anything i just can't do everything great and i said good model yeah i always tell myself that sometimes when i want to make the hard decisions on what do i keep and not keep and if i'm doing too much i just remind myself of that so just to finish up i would love to like what is some of the craziest stories of going to 100 million product sales like this because there's we've talked to

you know people don't where do we see it we're like running big companies 100 staff like there's a lot of bs what are some of the crazy so good bad what are some of these i've only told this story probably like two so you're getting some exclusives okay so uh i got a call in the middle of the night it was a bunch of numbers on my phone. So I'm like, there was a very big prank culture in my office. Like your car would disappear and it'd be, you'd go look it up and it'd be like 30 minutes away. You know, like my best friend would be like, have a good time. You know, like, or the, you know, the office would be filled with bricks. Yeah.

Walk in and there'd be like literally a hundred bricks. Like they must've took like three hours to do this. But it was a very prank culture. So I got a call and it was this guy. He's like, I have your container. And it was like very sinister. And I thought I was getting pranked. I'm like, fuck off, yo. Jamel could play with me. You know, I got your container. I want a hundred thousand dollars. And I'm like, are we going to burn the whole thing? But I legitimately had a container coming from overseas, you know? And it was not like $5.

It was literally a whole thing for the whole GNC stores, all of them. Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know, fuck off. Yeah, yeah. And the next day I get a call, and it's the FBI. And I'm like, holy shit. They were like, we intercepted pirates.

I was like, I was talking to motherfucking pirates. I would have just gone in all staff and then just said, at channel, who was that good one? Right, yeah. Yeah, 100% thought it was a prank. And no, it was legitly. And so did they recover it? They recovered it. They're like, it's safe.

It's on the way, Mr. Gonzalez. Everything's fine. And so we get it. We're laughing. We're opening up and things so you're like my taxes were went to use use yes they really they protected my and i get it and it was all misspelled it was a misspelling during menu i was like why didn't the pirates i don't know it's calling the number, you know? So that was that one.

That's a good one. Another one, I got invited to Puff Daddy's 50th birthday. A good friend of mine is really close with Puff, and I got this super special thing. Yeah, yeah. And I had dressed to impress, and every celebrity in the world was there. And I didn't realize how heavy. I'm talkingbe bryan the kardashians he jacala you know every mofo was there i was drinking shots

with post malone and and at some point in the night i was like going through a crowd it's so you know it's puff party super crowded yeah and kind of got wedged between a group of people and you know i'm looking this way i look I look this way, and it's Beyonce. And so, you know, at that point, I'm really sober. It's early in the evening. I'm like, Beyonce, you look beautiful. You know, I hope you have a really wonderful evening. She's like, thank you.

And I'm like, you want to dance for a second? Because we're literally, like, stuck. She's like, ah. She just laughs, you know. I'm like, have a great evening. Of course, fast forward the clocks four hours later at a Puff Kennedy party. I go up, you know, you think you've created a connection with Beyonce. And so I, like, walk up to her, like, Beyonce.

And, nonce behold, me, like, Hove is right behind me. And he, like, gives me a small shove. He didn't, like, push me, but in my mind, it was like, rah, you know. I turn around, look at the output around he's a really big man and he was super cool it was not like he was trying he was literally trying to get me out the way because he was going in that i don't think he in my mind he pushed me because we're dancing we're trying to dance beyonce into my drunken state but it was it was just that he was trying to get out of the like me out of the way in his direction and of course a lot of people there were like in their faces with phones and stuff so i wasn't doing that i was legitimately just trying to have a really fun night the eye for you were going to

lead with that you asked you tried to negotiate a shout out no are you crazy false party no the closest business stuff i did there was just like trying to be cool. It's the craziest shout out that ever happened. The Kardashian? Yeah, definitely Kim. Yeah. It took a lot longer to get. So like from Kylie, probably 2015. Oh wow, so it's a step in swing.

No, it's much earlier than that. 2014 I got Kylie, but it took four or five years later to get Kim. So, you know, $700-something thousand for Kim. That's really awesome. Was it worth ROI? Oh, yeah, totally worth it. They're an amazing family.

They go above and beyond. Like, people don't realize they're just people, too. Of course, yeah. And they really tried, you know. Like, they ended up giving me, like, stuff into the TV show, and our products were showcased, and it was just really, and they're, really cool too. And,

um, but super great for the brand. They opened doors that we probably never like Walmart's deal was probably a precedent towards the working with them. Obviously we did a lot of marketing, but the snowball effect happened. Yeah. I love that.

That's important. People always look at like, especially as, as marketers, Grant Cardone, I talk a lot with him about this and he's like a big advocate ROI. Like as marketers, Grant Cardone, I talk a lot with him about this and he's like a big advocate. ROI, like as marketers, we can sometimes fall in the trap of like,

okay, I spent 100K, did I make 100K back? But like, and I'm a big, like I invest money and stuff and people, even my staff are like, what are you doing? It's like, you're the ROI guy, why are you doing this? And I'm like, you're not getting the,

like, let me explain like how this is gonna work. And then they say I get it I don't know if they really do you know but some of the some of the time they're like okay you're crazy but okay right we're gonna listen you know it's time like a lot of times the wugazi effect happens you know yeah yeah you don't quite have the can't just say one to one-one, right? And if you're willing to go over that jump and know that the chess move five moves ahead is much better than the... But you've got to be the strategist to do that. You've got to think ahead. And you've got to take risks. In this life, nothing is rewarded unless you take some type of...

And I feel that's what Elon does with Twitter. Right? Like, he's just playing a bigger chess game than we can fathom, most of us. But most people won't get him. Like, the dude's suing fucking rocket ships and electric cars. It's like, who the fuck would be to talk about that guy? You know, like most people, the credit, understand the stockholders, right? Sure.

But a lot of times, the stockholders are just a skin, one to one. They look him really short. Yeah. And maybe he's fucking wrong. Who knows? Like, I mean, see, right? See, right. But he seems to have pulled some yeah yeah shit so people ask me a lot i did an interview on him i'm like recovering that and i'm like i think the guy he's just at a different

level and he's got a plan figured out and we'll see it right at the end of the day but i think he i mean he knows what he's doing like i feel like the reason why Twitter has a lot of relevance is because of him. Oh, it's him. Yeah, it's him. I've been a big Twitter user for a long period of time, probably since really early on, almost from launch. And I feel like it's much better than it's ever been. Yeah.

I almost feel like it's a platform to put money into again. That's the innovation side that I think is why I believe in Elon. And like, you're a great example of like you, you innovated in your own way. The whole Instagram shout out thing, you were one of the first and it scaled you to where you scaled and you had to figure that out as you go. Right. And it's like success in life rewards those people, the risk takers, like you said, the innovators.

So, yeah, I i mean i think for everyone you know listening to understand the influence impact the compounding roi the use of celebrities and that more is possible if they think it's possible but i also feel the inspiration you were packing boxes in your you know with your mom super cool if you have the heart and the you know you have to put into the universe there was a long period of time, like I was working a job I didn't like, right? And this is as personable as I can get, right? There was like a six-month window where it was just manifestation, if you want to call it, prayer, if you want to call it, whatever it is. I'm going to build something and I'm going to put it into the universe.

It was also me putting it on paper, saying it, then telling people, I'm going to do this thing. And then also the study. People don't realize education and really putting that time to really learn a craft requires time into studying, you know? But then it's like, how do you take that study of knowledge and put it into practicality? Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure.

So, you know, it was SEO. I'm'm gonna learn how to do you know analytics but that had an effect understanding and having a logic of okay the social media thing has come i think it could be a traffic source right that's how i looked at it i didn't think of it like oh i'm gonna become famous right i looked at it as like oh just as simple as like i can get clicks on a way so it's about so simple you know and so like that belief system of first, you know, number one, I believed I could do it. I had saved my own money of work that was really hard for two years

and not a lot of money either. And risked it, you know, put it on black and said, okay, we're gonna do this thing. Anyone would have thought I was done. And you didn't buy the Rolex, you put it on you. The first major purchase, I tell people, I bought a Tesla cash, Yeah. A Model S. My mom basically had to put a gun to my head because she was like, do I need this? Do I really

need this? Do I really need to buy this? It was a lot of that. You know, it took it. I don't really spend. Yeah. I tell people all the time, for me at least, wealth was more about like, I can do whatever I want. Freedom. Yeah. Whatever I can do. Tomorrow, if I want to sleep in, I'm going to sleep in. Where some people, it's the trinkets and the things. Yeah, yeah.

Which is great too. Everyone's wealth is different. But building a legacy within a brand is the most, you can't take that away. Everyone knows me as the 50 guy.

Wherever I go, if they know about it. And I'm not even really well-renowned, but the brand, if I show them a picture, they're like, oh, I've seen it on Instagram.

You know what I mean? Yeah. And that's the tick. I don't have a type.-known, but the brand, if I show them a picture, like, oh, see it on Instagram. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that's, that's the tick. You can't have a take that away. Like, it's really, it's a really cool thing. So just to finish, I always ask this question towards the end. The whole, you know, show and the theme of my brand is taking the red pill, building your dream life, living in wonderland.

What would you say to someone that's on the edge deciding between the blue and red pill? Just jump, man. Yeah. Life's so short. You don't know. Tomorrow's not promised. You know, one of the beauties is like we're gifted this moment, this time frame. So, you know, do it today.

You know, what's the worst that can happen? You know, at the end of the day, tomorrow's sun will come up again. If you're blessed enough to be alive again, you can try again. Yeah. You know, I failed a lot. I failed a lot before 50 i have if i told you some of the things i did you like holy crap you know what i mean and um just jump go for it good i love it well let's wrap up there you heard it here jump first figure it out make the decision

commit go all in that's what we always say that's how you can live the red life dude i appreciate you coming on thanks until next time guys keep living the red life. Dude, I appreciate you coming on. Thanks. Until next time, guys. Keep living the red life.