Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 742: Matt Vincent on How to Build a Successful Apparel Business & MORE

Starting point is 00:00:00 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Oh, our boy came back into town, man. Always a good time seeing our boy, man. That's a great dude, man. He's just a chill guy. Yeah, I love hanging out with that guy. He is, he's fun people, he's down to earth,

Starting point is 00:00:26 he's a smart guy. He's a cool man, he's, you know, there's some people that when we first meet him, I just, I'm like, man, if we knew each other growing up or if you lived in my town, there's no doubt in my mind that we'd be- You'd be one of our guys. We'd be kicking it all the time

Starting point is 00:00:39 because he's such a cool dude, he's so hilarious man. And just in him we're like little booze and buddies here. Yeah, yeah. He's like, he's like my long. And Justin and him are like little booze and buddies. Yeah. He's like my long lost brother. I mean, I like you guys. Did you guys make a video on the sauna or something like that? Yeah. It did like an hour.

Starting point is 00:00:53 They were in there for an hour. Just doting on each other, really. They didn't go anywhere. Just kidding. I was like, where's this guy bro? We didn't know. I like tattoos. I like that.

Starting point is 00:01:03 You're cool. Yeah, let's hang out. No, and his podcast didn't know. I like your tattoos. I like that. You're cool. Yeah, let's hang out. No, and his podcast is doing pretty well. Matt, he's the host of the UMSO podcast. You know, he's such a great attitude about podcasting and what he's doing. And I think, and we talk a little bit about building a business, a podcasting and a parallel line, like he's got a very.

Starting point is 00:01:22 Yeah, because he's got a successful parallel. He's got a very successful, a very successful apparel. In fact, that's most of how he monetizes and he's done a really good job doing that. And so he gives some great notes for sure. Yeah, he gave some great insight on some of the do's and don'ts of building a business like that. And you know, what I like is his attitude of he literally flies to so many of these people on his own dime and a lot of times to interview them, which that doesn't translate into a bunch of dollars for him and his business. And we know what that was like. I mean, many people don't know this, but

Starting point is 00:01:56 much of the early days of my publics that to pay and fly all of our get we want an interview. We don't hear it's we interviewing them that we're also paying for them to come out fly out here and stay with us we had to do that for a long time. And we have some in the future. Yeah, it was. And I think a lot of guys and girls that are starting podcasts don't think about that or don't realize that that may be something that they could or should do as they're starting off and that Matt touches on that and that's something that I think he embodies.

Starting point is 00:02:23 Yeah, he says the right attitude about it. And I think that a lot of people you're willing to do stuff like that that really will help get them. Those kind of connections that network established. So it's like, yeah, of course, if you ever has something going on and we're gonna promote it,

Starting point is 00:02:36 we're gonna help them out because he just says that kind of an attitude going forward. There's some funny stories too. We talked about some of his first sales jobs and where he learned to sales skills. Yeah, when you worked at the Strip Club and how he lost his business the first time and had to get back on his feet.

Starting point is 00:02:49 That's right, Strip Club stars. There's some really, really good stories. So again, his podcast is um, so you can find them on Instagram at iHVII, Matt Vincent or his website, which is the hvii.com. That's the hate in Roman numerals, or eight, excuse me, with an H in front of it, Roman numerals, and that's his website. So with any further ado, here we are interviewing our good friend, Matt Vincent.

Starting point is 00:03:15 You got a good radio voice, Matt. Is that true? Yeah, you do. I don't know that I feel that way. I've always felt my voice is really weird. No, it's not, man. But that's what makes it good. Okay. You got that, what do you call that, like,

Starting point is 00:03:28 Louisiana twang or something going on? Yeah, but there's not a time to it. I don't, I don't sound like swamp people. Well, school and head on down to buy and chew them, boy. No, no, no, no, no. No, I have an uncle from St. Louis. That is a boy and hot pot of gum bowl. Okay.

Starting point is 00:03:42 Is there any, isn't that funny how some accents and some like are super like, if you go to a bar and start talking that way, all the girls will talk to you. Some of them, not the opposite. It's just different accent. Yeah, it's essentially, yeah, cause like,

Starting point is 00:03:54 there's not more than takes aren't impressed with Australian accents. Mm. So like, you Southern, Southern gentlemen show up in Australia and don't look like chewed bubble gum. I'm assuming you'd have like lay the land Well, it's not true for all access though, right? Cuz like summer more valuable than other you know what I love is your sayings from there are just Earlier chicken chicken chicken teeth. Yeah, like chicken. Yeah, yeah

Starting point is 00:04:21 Good shit. Can you share some more sayings? More sayings? Oh, maybe. There's that punch that aren't acceptable. That's a weird ride. I know that seems strange in the South. Darker than three foot up a cow's ass. It's one of my favorites. Oh my God, that's a good one. At his dark.

Starting point is 00:04:39 Yeah, he'd be fucking super black. You wouldn't be able to see anything. Higher than giraffe pussy. I don't think that's a southern one though. Yeah, for that one. Yeah, fucked up. Yeah, fucked up like horse feathers soup sandwich.

Starting point is 00:04:57 What's the soup sandwich? Yeah, fucked up like a soup sandwich. Oh, like a football bat. You know, it sucks about this is every time you say one, I picture it. Yeah, yeah, that's the thing. Visual that sells it. When you said draft pussy, I was like, oh, I got to get on my tippy, sticky, yeah, that is hard.

Starting point is 00:05:16 So you guys, we were talking before we got on air, we were talking about the whole marijuana thing and it's starting to make its way out towards you now, yeah? Try and do try and it seems I'm fairly certain we've passed medical now, yeah? Try and do, try and it seems, I'm fairly certain we've passed medical law, but there's nowhere you can get it. So I don't know what. Yeah, what they do is they pass a law, but then they regulate the shit out of the course.

Starting point is 00:05:33 Yeah, the transition's always funny. It's like, oh, you can now legally buy it, but you can't smoke it. Yeah, that's illegal. Oh, there you go. Dubs messing around over there. Yeah, and you know, it, so allegedly, we're supposed to be getting our first medical dispensary.

Starting point is 00:05:47 So if that happens, I'm gonna bet that it's gonna be hard to get a card. It won't be, there's not gonna be much of shops on Venice Beach opening up with doctors and I'm for 40 bucks. Is it weird for you to come to California and go to a dispensary? Yeah, dude, it's still, it's still strange.

Starting point is 00:06:04 Like go into dispensary, there, dude, it's still strange. Like, going to dispensary, there's definitely a bit of anxiety and nervousness that I'm not supposed to, or I'm gonna say something wrong. You don't got the link down. Yeah, like I just look like a cook, and you know, you kind of just wanna move in. Yeah, I'll take some of that light, that light, deep, green, how 60, 40 Indica, please.

Starting point is 00:06:23 Then you go to a dispensary. Yeah, I have some joints. You go to a dispenser. We have some joints You go to a dispenser with me and Adam when we're like grabbing the bud with smut. This one's got hints of You think I'm joking right now Yeah, it's true. We get a long snobbs. We get a long conversations over it But yeah, they regulate if they regulated enough There's just gonna be another black market it reminds me of like in New York You know the big-ass black market for cigarettes in New York?

Starting point is 00:06:45 Lucy's? Yeah, because, exactly, because they've taxed it so much that it's now become cheaper to buy in Bolson. Well some guy will show up with someone who's gonna drive down to a different state and drive in the carton and they drive them back. That's what they'll end up doing if they regulate, like if they tax it too high here in California,

Starting point is 00:07:04 it's just gonna be a black market for it. Well, I think it's, I don't think it got rid of the black market at all. I really don't. I think for the, I think for the most part, they're still, I mean, I was showing you guys some stuff just recently, there's still stuff that doesn't even make it into the clubs because the black market will pay

Starting point is 00:07:21 for the wholesaler significantly higher for that quality of product. So it doesn't even make it into the clubs. As someone who used to grow and... Well, is it when you say black market will pay more than the open market? Is it because of their sending it to states and stuff that are... So there's a high demand because it's illegal in other states? Yeah, for sure.

Starting point is 00:07:39 Yeah, that's... And that's existed for quite some time now. That's not going away. Because I would assume that if you were in a state like let's say Louisiana where it's far more regulated If you wanted really good weed probably and you buy it in the black market there probably came from a place like California called Yeah, yeah, anytime like I guess that I'd gotten weed in the past or something like that You know essentially and I'm relatively new to this like I didn't start smoking until in my 30s But it's you know like oh, yeah, you know, we got stuff from California

Starting point is 00:08:07 We's like anytime someone who now has weed in Louisiana. It's either that or they make trips to Denver Yeah, what what why didn't you smoke it before? Dude, I just had jobs Yeah, that's what he pulled down to I had jobs Yeah, I had track and field through college, you know, so we were drug tested and then after that, I had jobs that I was drug tested at. What do you use it for now?

Starting point is 00:08:33 Pain relief, fun, anti-anxiety helps with appetite, also sleep better. Yeah, you know, a lot of people say they use it for pain. I never got pain relief from it myself, but a lot of people say it really works well for them. I'm not sure if I get pain relief, right? Like it's not like taking, it's not like when you get drunk and don't notice you fucking smashed into a wall, but it's, it's like a, I just give less of a fuck about it.

Starting point is 00:09:02 I think that's probably right. That sounds about accurate. No, I think it does. It doesn't feel localized though. Like, you know, if you were to get like a shot in it, right? Like a shot of cortisol inside of it, it would, that gives you like this instant release in the numbing.

Starting point is 00:09:17 Right, right. I feel like when you have a high enough dose of that, when you're seeking, you know, pain relief, so you're getting something probably higher in CBD. Yeah. Yeah, you what they call it, what we used to call it, a body high. Yeah, for sure. Where you just feel you sink into the couch and relax. And so I think that's where you get the, you know, quote, I would agree. I would agree because there's definitely anti-inflammatory properties with cannabis,

Starting point is 00:09:39 but it's not, there are some acute anti-inflammatory properties, but it's not massive. So like, you're not going to get as big of an anti-inflammatory properties, but it's not massive. So like, you're not gonna get as big of an anti-inflammatory effect from having cannabis acutely as you would from like taking, I'd be profan, right? Take every profan. Yeah, but then you're not fucking with you. There's a bunch of other. Yeah, but what I think part of the pain relieving

Starting point is 00:09:57 is what Adam's talking about, because a lot of pain is not just connected to the actual pain of the pain itself, but the feelings around that pain. So because you emotionally, oh, come on, dude, you know, it's funny, you know, you say that, but one of the biggest off label uses of antidepressant drugs is for pain, where people have back pain and they can't figure out what the cause is, they'll put them on an SSRI and then, oh, my back pain's gone.

Starting point is 00:10:22 Yeah, very straight. Oh, mine, dude, pain's a little hard to think. It's crazy. Well, you see examples of this when you hurt yourself and you don't look at it at first and then you look at it and you see it. And especially if it's a bad one and you're like, come fashioned in.

Starting point is 00:10:35 Then all of a sudden the pain comes rushing in after the fact, right? Yeah, that's the worst. I got, I took a discus to the shin. Oh my God. Oh my God. God, I was gonna be cool and jump over it as it came at me. I did not.

Starting point is 00:10:47 I did not. I did not. You took a higher hop than I was expecting. That's like the worst karate chop ever. Yeah, it smashed me right in the shin. I was like, oh, like pulled my sock down. I was like, okay, we're all right. And then there's like just white spot.

Starting point is 00:11:02 Oh, no, and it just, it's what it would fill out. What that's like just white spot. Oh, no, and it just, let's, what it would fill out. What that looked like the next day. Like a giant shitty scab. A bruise, and I went around for two weeks. Oh man. How's your knee, by the way? Dude, it is way better.

Starting point is 00:11:16 What was the procedure you had again? Which one? Yeah, let's do that. So, give us a short recap if you don't mind. So we've done minisectomies, too. We've had two other scope procedures. We three ACLs and Oats procedure. Where they,

Starting point is 00:11:34 what's Oats is that what they're actually? No, that's all cartilage. So it's like they cut like a 30 millimeter plug into the bottom of your femur and they put a fresh new cartilage plug in it. Oh, shit. Yeah. That one's been kind of exciting. So we did the oath procedure,

Starting point is 00:11:50 and then the high tubula osteotomy was the last major search. Is that where they removed some of the tubia? Yeah, they wedge it open to change the angle of my leg so that they can put the pressure on the side of my knee where there's more cartilage that works. Now, I know, Matt, you have a pretty strict regimen my leg so that they can put the pressure on the side of my knee where there's more cartilage that works. Now I know you have a pretty strict regimen that you follow.

Starting point is 00:12:08 I watch what you do in the hot cold plunging. What have been some like, and I'm recovering right now with my Achilles, which has been by far the worst injury I've ever personally experienced. And you know, what has been some like go to things for you that you definitely have noticed like this gives me a lot of relief. And so it's been a staple in your regimen. The hot and cold's been really nice. I mean, the hot because it's great to sit in the hot tub first thing.

Starting point is 00:12:32 In the morning, I can kind of loosen up and stretch and try to get through the knee in a way that body weight is supported because I'm in the pool, so I can kind of do a little bit more passive stretching than just killing myself in the gym, trying to stretch that early. And then I've actually got a cold tub and that'll shut the knee up. Like if it's pissed and gets really inflamed, like I've been on a walk or trained or did something stupid because it still just gets aggravated, I can dump it in there for a couple of minutes and it shuts up. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:13:03 So has that become like a staple thing that you do every day? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, my morning routine is get up and it's hot tub stretch, drink some water. I do a little bit of work with like a mace bill to just kind of general mobility move around, get the heart going. And then I start having coffee after, oh yeah, cold tub and then coffee. When did you put that all together? Have you been doing that for a long time,

Starting point is 00:13:26 or was it finally after? It's slowly built, dude. It's slowly built over the last year and just different advice from different people I've got to talk to and, you know, what was good recommendations? And it's just, now that's the routine that works. Right.

Starting point is 00:13:40 You know? Yeah, it's, I do, so I don't have a cold plunge or anything but what I do every single morning is I go after my workout I go shower and I do really hot water and I try to get it to a point where it's almost unbearable So it's really really hot That's how I shower and then at the end I do a 30-minute excuse me 30 second not 30 minute 30 second Like it's cold as it is the shower will go kind of a rinse. Yeah, and it's like it's cold as the shower will go, kind of a rinse. And it's the single easiest, but also single most impactful thing I can do,

Starting point is 00:14:10 at least that's that easy that I've done so far in terms of improving my health. It almost, you know what it feels like? Because in the morning I'll wake up at five and read about five, 15 or so, I'll have a little bit of caffeine. And that caffeine will take me through my workout. And what happens sometimes with me with caffeine is after my workout and I'll have a little bit of caffeine and that caffeine will take me through my workout and what happens sometimes with me with caffeine is after my workout and I'll eat a little bit and then I'll go

Starting point is 00:14:30 you know get ready a shower or whatever is I'll get that energy dip afterwards a little bit but the cold rinse after the heat it's it's almost like I have more caffeine and it lasts until the afternoon so it's like this extra energy that I get. And then the science surrounding cold dips, this is not dips or even just showers. We actually talked about this on a previous podcast. They took a bunch of people, it was a pretty large study, and they had them do a 20 second,

Starting point is 00:14:59 20 to 30 second cold rinse every morning. That's it, and the shower, nothing crazy. And they tracked them over the course of I think a couple of years. And a couple of things happened. One, when the study was over, something like 70% of the people kept continued doing the cold rinsing. So like 70% of people chose to voluntarily do it because they saw so much better. That's huge. That's's huge 30% of the they had a 30% reduction in Colt and infection so cold sickness whatever 30% from the cold just from taking a cold just from cold They're talking about this before the ad of all the things like you know you talk about Matt

Starting point is 00:15:37 That's why I was curious about where it went and where you picked it up I mean like you we've had an opportunity to talk to a lot of brilliant minds and everybody has their two cents of like, oh, you should add this into your regiment or you should do this. Probably one of the single most impactful things is the hot cold plunge for me personally. And I think the reason for that is I've always thought of myself as somebody who has a weak immune system

Starting point is 00:16:01 because I used to get sick all the time. I used to attribute that to being in the gym. I was like, oh, I'm always in the gym. I've worked in this for 15 years and there's sweaty hands all over. You think there was a family member poisoning you? Yeah, right, or a family member that was trying to poison. What's that condition in the jail for syndrome?

Starting point is 00:16:17 Yeah. So I just assumed that it was always bad. And I don't remember who it was that really kicked us off and to doing the hot cold plunge. was always bad and I don't remember who it was that really kicked us off into doing, you know, the hot cold plunge and then, you know, we had Wim Hof here and then started to incorporate the showers first before I started to plunge as much. And then I started, and I didn't really, wasn't even watching this marker. And I realized like, shit, it's been a fucking long time that I got sick. And it used to be, when we all worked together, man, if

Starting point is 00:16:44 Sal came in, he was sick or if Justin was sick, I was guaranteed I'm sick. Like there's no way I didn't worst it in. Yeah, and then I get it worse anybody in longer. Yeah, so, and I just, I always have to be the best. You took all of our STDs at once. Yeah, no, it's been one of the things

Starting point is 00:16:59 that I like to share with people because it's been such a game changer for me. So I've continued to do it. And I know it's something anyone can do. Right, it's easy because it's been such a game changer for me. So I've continued to do it. And I know it's something anyone can do. Right, it's easy. It's cheap. It's free. It's, yeah, it's the same cost as whatever your water is. You just have to suffer a little. Right. It's probably cheaper because you're not running hot water.

Starting point is 00:17:15 You have to save money by doing probably one of those. It's a good deal. Right. Right. Well, so, so in Russia, that's like a, it's like part of the culture. Eastern Europe, it's part of their culture. And you can go on YouTube and see some of these elementary schools and stuff for kids, where it's snowing outside, and part of their recess or whatever,

Starting point is 00:17:34 they'll run outside, they'll all get in their bathing suits, and they'll run out in the snow. And go play in the snow, and they'll fill up buckets of water, and I've seen that. I know it's crazy. They're little kids are like six years old or seven years old. And can I say something right now? If in America we saw a school doing that to kids,

Starting point is 00:17:56 they grew up throwing a jail. It's so taboo, but like they put a stick in there. Yeah, say what? Like Iceland gets that way. That like it's just nothing to, you know, when you're there in the winter Like kids still go to school and it's dark outside What 20 hours a day and it's cold as shit and it's like snow and you'll just see these like kids standing outside like on a bank

Starting point is 00:18:17 Walk into school by themselves and it's darker. It's really a weird like what's going on? Yeah, yeah It's we are just talking about this. I'll just spoke at the Spartan race, just recently this last weekend. And it's funny what we've seen in the last, I don't know, it's only been about five years. You know, maybe five or eight years that these real popular, these muddy buddies, the tough mudders, the Spartan races,

Starting point is 00:18:41 of there's exploding, dude, exploding. And I think one of the prevailing theories for us is that it's this, we're now in this generation that is so plugged in, and we just don't. Comfortable. Yeah, we're so comfortable. We don't ever have to overcome adversity. Not at all.

Starting point is 00:19:00 Especially, I mean, think about us, like our generation, we grew up with the computer, right? It started in our generation. For grew up with the computer, right? It started in our generation. For sure. And it's now evolved to where it's now in the palm of your hand, 24 or seven. And we really haven't seen what that's kind of doing to us as a society, but I think that

Starting point is 00:19:15 this is an example of what, I think some people, some of these smarter people are already picking up on it like, you need it. You need it. I wonder if I, yeah, I wonder, can I still climb over a seven foot wall? Can I still climb a rope? Can I still do all these things I could do 15 to? Can I get dirty? I really guess fucking dirty or?

Starting point is 00:19:32 I think people, right? Like as a species, we're really good at adapting to stress. That's one of the things that we do very, very well. And it's pretty rad that we live in a time that we're not hunted, I'm relatively never gonna be hungry. And I can be comfortable. Like my house is climate controlled.

Starting point is 00:19:56 My car is climate controlled. The place I'll go to work is climate controlled. So I mean, you don't even have to deal with environmental temperature swings anymore for your body. And so it's cool. We live in a time now that we can pick the stress we want. Like I can say, I want to have the stress from lifting weights to build muscle. I don't need any of the muscle. I don't have to go wrestle a bull.

Starting point is 00:20:17 I got to make that choice, then have to go lay 10 acres of fence post today. You know what I mean? I didn't have to deal with any of that and have to shovel out coal from a mine. And so, you mean I get to have cold water on me? Like that has a choice. That's the stress that we get to pick. But our body doesn't have any of those natural adaptations anymore because things are comfortable. And awesome. Right. It is. And what's awesome is that we get to choose it, but what's not awesome is I think people don't realize that it's important. We need it.

Starting point is 00:20:51 Right. You need the stresses. You need it. Put yourself, I mean, for people who might be disagreeing, like put yourself in a comfortable, cushy bed and stay in there and don't move and have people bring you food and have just wear a diaper and crap yourself and people change your diaper and just stay in there and don't move and have people bring you food and have just wear a diaper and crap yourself and people change your diaper and just stay in there and see what kind of personal hell it becomes, not just physically, but my phone with those red sores.

Starting point is 00:21:11 Yeah, so we need, it's like we need challenge, but challenge is hard. But challenge is what we adapt to, right? And so, it also gives us meaning. Yeah, like, I mean, that's one of those things, well, it's like the leading cause of death's retirement. Right. Keep raising.

Starting point is 00:21:27 Keep raising. Keep raising. Keep raising. Keep raising. Keep raising. Keep raising. Keep raising. Keep raising.

Starting point is 00:21:34 Keep raising. Keep raising. Keep raising. Keep raising. Keep raising. Keep raising. Keep raising. Keep raising.

Starting point is 00:21:42 Keep raising. Keep raising. Keep raising. Keep raising. Keep raising. Keep raising. Keep raising. We need that stuff and I think we forget, you know, and we forget when we raise our kids even. Like, in fact, we don't want our kids to be challenged. Yeah. Yeah, that's a weird one, man. Like, that's something I've been kind of thinking about is... You don't have kids, yeah?

Starting point is 00:21:54 No, no, no. And so, with the way things are, I think that we're trying to, like, with medication and with, you know, participation trophies and all this other type of shit. It's like we're trying to cut off both sides of the spectrum. Like, we don't want you to ever feel really bad, but we're also going to take away

Starting point is 00:22:11 you ever feeling really great. And so they just kind of live in this world where, when you're losing, doesn't matter. We're doing this. You don't have that big of a difference in the reward versus the effort. Right. And so, I mean, we medicate away from people

Starting point is 00:22:26 feeling on either side of that spectrum so that they can just go through the middle. And I don't know if that type of autonomy or whatever. No, it's terrible. It's actually terrible. Well, I remember an example that we watched happen at a company that all three of us worked at. And they, what they started doing,

Starting point is 00:22:45 this was kind of like the last straw for me when I was there was they kept every complex. I went through seven different complex changes in 10 years. It's a lot, right? And every time a complex change comes out, it's for the benefit of the company. Yeah, it's a huge same money.

Starting point is 00:22:58 Yeah, yeah, but what they are trying to do is they are trying to get these guys, they're trying to cap the people that were producing a ton and making a ton of money, because it was based that way. They are trying to get these guys, they're trying to cap the people that were producing a ton of making a ton of money because it was based that way. They are trying to bring them down and they're trying to bring like all the ship butts that were milking the system kind of up and then everybody be in this middle and it totally backfired. I mean what it did was it was the people that were really driven to push push harder. They all left because it's like we have nothing to push. Exactly, I remember that distinctively. It's like, we all were pressing each other so hard

Starting point is 00:23:29 to get these, to be the best in the company, get all these trophies, get the accolades, all that stuff. And you throw that shit like that out there. I'm just gonna coast at that point. I'm gonna look for something else somewhere else. It's that stuff with socialism that makes me nervous, especially with, oh my God. Oh my god. You know, with a country this size, right? Like

Starting point is 00:23:48 and I don't know Iceland's You know government set up that well. They're actually very they're very free market. They have socialist Consignants. Yeah, well, they've met a medical stuff But they're very free market in fact their markets are I believe ranked higher than ours even in market and and I think and I think And I think part of the deal there right like you can do some of those things like I know like if you have a kid you guys have like nine months of maternity leave the split between mom and dad so I mean if you both want four and a half months off of work cool but there's nine total and the government pays 85% of what your salary is and then typically the

Starting point is 00:24:25 companies over there match the rest of it so that you you know can stay home and I think that stuff works well and good when they have a 2% unemployment rate. It works, there's always a trade-off so who's paying for all that? Well you're paying it either taxes, you're paying it in lower productivity, less efficiency, you're paying for it and less innovation. So there's always a trade off. And my argument always is, if there's a demand for it, then the market will provide for it. And if there's not a demand for it, we can only look to ourselves. So in a free market society, if people really did value that time off and everybody demanded

Starting point is 00:25:05 it, well employers would compete for them by offering that kind of stuff. So what's happening there is you're getting legislation that's saying, this is how it should be. You know, that's more of an economic discussion. But I'm reading a book right now by Carl Jung, who's the great psychoanalyst. He was a top student of Freud. And it's undiscovered self as the book I'm reading. I'm not completely done with it,

Starting point is 00:25:28 but he talks about the dangers of collectivism where, and we all know the dangers of mob mentality, mob rule. We know what happens when you weaken the individual and try to strengthen the group. They become very easy to manipulate and it becomes a situation where all you need is a charismatic leader to provide

Starting point is 00:25:50 false feelings of You know of meaning people love me and miss and people do crazy shit. So really it's Really that the the true way or the best way to move forward is to understand that the true way or the best way to move forward is to understand that individualism, in your own individual self, your own individual rights, respect those and others, and that nobody's better than anybody else in that respect,

Starting point is 00:26:14 except for when you think a right is something you can take from someone else, which it's not, and that people have different characters, so they'll have different value, because some people are fucking more productive and some people are better and some people aren't. But if you wanna change things, like you wanna change society,

Starting point is 00:26:31 start with the thing that you can, you have the absolute biggest and most impact over. And really the only thing that truly honestly really exists, because society is just the collection of individuals, right? It's not really what a society. It's just a bunch of individual people. So you do as you focus on you.

Starting point is 00:26:49 So if everybody focused on themselves, how can we all change us? How can we change society or whatever you want to call it? We just focus on changing ourselves and then everything changes. If we focus on this group think and start to dissolve our own focus on this group think and start to dissolve our own individual. The problem with that is the amount of self awareness that it takes for a free market to exist. That's the problem. It's called responsibility. That's it, and that's just it, but we don't have it.

Starting point is 00:27:14 And I think that the argument, so the argument against your side is that people want to be led. People want to be told what to do. People don't want to dig deeper in. People don't want to try and figure out, and that is the... Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too. Right. Of course, nothing wrong with that.

Starting point is 00:27:31 No, there's nothing wrong with that. But there's going to be people that aren't going to have that drive, there's also going to be, for every guy that you've got that is a Elon Musk, you're going to have the other set of the spectrum. Totally. Right, and so... And here's a deal. Like, you want, you don't want to have a society where everybody gets exactly the same stuff. And here's why I want somebody like Elon Musk or the late Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or, you know, whoever. I want those guys who are extremely intelligent,

Starting point is 00:28:05 who innovate, who also dedicate way more hours, time and effort into what they're doing than anybody else or most people are willing to do. I want those people to make most of our shit and I want them to get benefit from it. If you're bored from it, right. I don't want it to be where a guy like that doesn't get to create the most opportunities

Starting point is 00:28:27 because he's the smarter dude. Yeah, just because there's no reward for it. There's no reason to put in that. And how do we determine that? Well, we create a system where the way he benefits is by creating things that other people want. That's it. Now, there is some stuff I like about

Starting point is 00:28:41 like a universal basic income that I like. Always think about stuff like this, right? Like drowning people make bad decisions. And so I think of people get caught in that state, right? Where you're even if you're trying to make a good move and say you're making no money, and you've got a kid or you got a car that sucks because you don't make any money. And so let me, let's say you're scrounging and saving the most you can and it's 150 bucks a month. It's a great start.

Starting point is 00:29:13 But then you have a flat tire on your car. It shit's gone. You're out 600 bucks or whatever it is. Then you're back to zero. You're in that position. You can't ever make the step to the next thing to not be drowning. Right. No, that's that exists 100%. There's a couple, a couple of things you want to examine when you look at that. The first thing is from a moral standpoint, from a moral standpoint, the moral argument is this. First off, the only burden that lies within a situation

Starting point is 00:29:51 in terms of, for example, the burden of you taking care of yourself lies within you, no one else. That's the moral, that's that's 100% accurate in terms of morality. Now, is it desirable that other people help you? I think so, 100%. I think there's also a moral argument to say that other people should help, but should they be forced?

Starting point is 00:30:13 No. Would an ideal society, in an ideal situation, you would have a society in which people help each other voluntarily. In which. Which forces you to be a good person. Right, saying like, if I know that I wanna have lots of, you know, I wanna have a large network of people

Starting point is 00:30:31 that like me and care about me and probably when I'm in a situation like that, they would voluntarily help take care of that. The biggest charity, the most charity, the most voluntary help is given by free, wealthy societies compared to non-free, not wealthy societies. Oh, for sure, right. Even in comparison to how much they make.

Starting point is 00:30:50 But I think where a lot of that gets lost is since a community and tribe and stuff like that, a lot of people don't feel accountable to the people around them. Like, I mean, I'm fortunate enough that the neighbors that live next to us are really fucking good friends. And so like we hang out and share dinners and do these type of things, right? But like, I don't know the people that live across Street from me at all. And so, yeah, just what a different life would be if like you and the 10 people that you really liked all lived on a cul-de-sac.

Starting point is 00:31:21 Oh, right. Yeah, sure. And we just imagine that house, you feel so safe too, like that. Of course, right. The problem is my 10 people are across the country. They're not 10 people that. No, I definitely think it's desirable and good for people to take care of each other, 100%. Now, how do we get to a state of a society like that?

Starting point is 00:31:44 Well, that's where the accountability part plays in, but I don't know how you, you killed it. That's the question. That's right. The question is, how do we go from where we are now to something like that? I don't think you take a system like we have now and eliminate welfare because you have so many people dependent on the system that if you did that,

Starting point is 00:32:00 you would cause a lot of problems. You'd cause a lot of civil unrest, but you'd also cause, like maybe death, starvation, you would cause a lot of problems. You'd cause a lot of civil unrest, but you'd also cause, like maybe death, starvation, you'd cause. It would be, you'd also have a spike in crime, right? Because there's definitely, I mean, look, that sucks to say, but that's one of the reasons that we came up with welfare was so that if we can give

Starting point is 00:32:17 someone enough, they won't steal from us. Part of it, there may be part of it. But how do we go from where we're at now to a purely voluntary society? I think there's steps. And I think one of the steps is what you talked about. I think a universal basic income eliminating all welfare and replacing it with cash or is it just superior? What about say the first 30 grand you make is just not taxable? Yeah, it's a negative income tax. That's Milton Friedman talks about that. And that's kind of along the lines of,

Starting point is 00:32:47 what I would probably support more of. But then from there, you'd want to move further and further to a purely voluntary society. But the way to do that is to eliminate all barriers to enter the market, eliminate all barriers so that people, if they want to start a business, they don't have to do all this bullshit. I read this story about this one.

Starting point is 00:33:06 I don't think we can make it all the way to a truly free society like that. I don't, I don't, I don't know. The reason why I don't believe it's possible is because I think that we wouldn't be able to stomach what would happen. If we're in a truly free space, space like that where we don't help anybody, it's all voluntary. There'd be a lot of people that died off. And we, and the stronger would a lot of people that died off. And the stronger it would survive, the weaker it would die off. And as a society, we would not be able

Starting point is 00:33:29 to bear that and handle that, and that's the truth. So here's the fact of the matter. It would happen. Here's why I disagree with that. First off, I think it's a goal. I don't know if they ever get there, but I think it's an honorable goal. And of course, we'd have to assess along the way

Starting point is 00:33:43 if it's working or not. But the best evidence we have is this. It's an honorable goal, and of course we'd have to assess along the way if it's working or not. But the best evidence we have is this, when you look at the world, and you look at history, the single most effective thing that's lifted people out of poverty, in pure numbers and in pure efficiency and effectiveness, the single thing that is fed more people and how is more people and closed more people are free markets. Not a single or even cumulative government decree or anything. There's no socialized anything that has come even close. You have countries like China, you had the Soviet Union who basically

Starting point is 00:34:18 guaranteed, that was their government, we guarantee everybody gets a place to live and food to eat and whatever. The result of that was mass starvation, mass deaths. You had reductions in innovation, reductions in freedom, you had incredible inequality and poverty. And then you had countries like the US, which prior to the 1900s, it was almost entirely voluntary. We had no income tax whatsoever. Our borders were open. You wanted to be an immigrant.

Starting point is 00:34:47 You just came here and we made you an immigrant. And yet in America, we saw the reduction in poverty. It blew away anything that anybody had ever seen. And then the 20th century was a reflection of that worldwide where you had markets freeing up worldwide. You had the falling of the The you know the communism and the Soviet Union collapse or the iron curtain came down you saw East Germany, you know The become you know all Germany became united it became free market

Starting point is 00:35:16 You saw a reduction in poverty nobody's ever seen so although it may sound counter intuitive Nothing's come close to it at all, nothing. I mean, to the point where does starvation happen in Western societies with largely free markets? To the far more people die of too much food. I mean, we have that homeless people. It's not even just the starvation piece that I think you would see a lot of homeless people too.

Starting point is 00:35:41 We'd have people roaming the streets that just you haven't got their shit together, or haven't figured it out. You might, but I think, I would, if you would, there's two, there's two, we haven't now. Right, right, right. We haven't now, and that would just accelerate that.

Starting point is 00:35:54 So the question to me, the question that I would say is this, if let's say, and I'm not, again, we're talking about a goal, so I don't know if it could exist. By the way, you're not a city player. Yeah, no. Actually, nobody is a goal. So I don't know if it if it if it could exist. By the way, you're not a city plan. Yeah. Yeah. No. You know, actually, actually nobody is nobody's a planner. Like central planners are terrible because they can't predict all the moving parts. They just can't. All I know is is that when we let people work together and we eliminate the barriers to people working together, they tend to figure shit out. There

Starting point is 00:36:20 tends to be markets or they die off. Right. So I get that's exactly what would happen is some of us would figure that out and Come together and build our own communities and do all that stuff and then lots of us wouldn't and there was you would sell saying we got to get rid of the lower class No any of these freeloaders. This is time. I tell you what so I just throw down the hatchet. Let's get rid of it I tell you what and the in just throw down the hatchet. Let's get rid of this. I tell you what, in the early 20th century, I agree with Sal, so it's like, but at the same time too, I also see the flaws in us going back. I think we might have jumped the shark already. I feel like we might have gone too far with it

Starting point is 00:36:58 and we've turned it into such a welfare state at least for us. But it is such a different time than the 1900s, right? Because there's less jobs that are labor-driven, right? Which is something that anyone can do. Like, man, if you're willing to actually work, we can do that. We have not that there isn't jobs available for that. There definitely are, but our society doesn't do that anymore because of eliminating all these different things. There's a quote I like, and I'll probably butcher it, and it's something along the lines

Starting point is 00:37:31 of like, you know, we'll be soldiers so our sons can be teachers and we'll be teachers so that our sons can be artists. And we're there. That's what we did. So what the fuck happened such that with the artists, the artists are, what did you can't be mad that that's where we did. So what the fuck happened such that? Were the artists, the artists are, what did you, can't be mad that that's where we got? That was the plan. Well, no, it was, it was,

Starting point is 00:37:50 it made sense for it to be back to the soldiers is what it would make sense to have the artists. What do they say, strong men create good times, good times create, weak men, weak men create bad times, bad times create strong men. Right. You know, so, so here's the thing with that. Let's talk about barriers first off to enter the market

Starting point is 00:38:07 Does the average job today or the average work today require more skill or more Experience than previous jobs perhaps perhaps it does so where the barriers to Getting that skill well you you gotta go to school. You gotta pay for school. You gotta find information. You gotta pay for information. But we also-

Starting point is 00:38:30 I hate the fact that there aren't more apprenticeships the way things were that you could learn 101 from someone in a job setting. You're right. My point is this, what do we have today? That's completely eliminated. All those barriers pretty much. Technology for one.

Starting point is 00:38:43 Oh, YouTube videos. I tell you what, there's two or three homeless people that live out here near our facility and every once in a while I'll give them money or food or whatever. Every single one of them has a cell phone. Of course, every single one of them, a fucking cell phone, which-

Starting point is 00:39:00 A thousand dollar device in their pocket that has all the information if forever. I don't know what plan they're on, because I want to jump on that. Well, let me tell you something. A cell phone. Forizen. Dude, if you have a cell phone,

Starting point is 00:39:08 you just walk over Starbucks and you get free Wi-Fi. A cell phone when they first came out, which was, I don't know, 1970 something, in those dollars, not even adjusted for inflation, was something like a thousand dollars. And it was shit. And it was just a phone, okay? Today, with the market has brought us,

Starting point is 00:39:27 the free market, there was no socialized anything to do this. It eliminated all those barriers to become skillful or to learn information so much so that homeless people actually just read an article too that was like describing how we're all kind of shifting more into skill-based you know, workforce like everybody's going more into, like, going into an actual trade again.

Starting point is 00:39:49 So that's gonna be like a commodity going forward, which is interesting. I mean, whatever. Well, because there's fucking jobs. Sure, right? If you want a job right now, go being electrician. There's work. There's high demand right now.

Starting point is 00:40:01 Totally. Learn to weld, you'll have a job and get paid forever. Totally. So here's my point with all of this is regardless of do we think we can get there or if that's an ideal situation, it's a good goal no matter what. It's a good goal, but we're going there anyway. I hate to tell you, break this to you, but you can try regulating and socializing whatever you want.

Starting point is 00:40:23 It's all getting out competed by the market anyway. Even the untouchable parts of our government, like the FDA, which hardly anybody, if I were to go make an argument, let's say I was a politician and I was making the speech and I'm like, we need more free markets and then everybody's like, yay, and then I said, eliminate the FDA, nobody would vote for me.

Starting point is 00:40:40 Everybody's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, we need the food and drug administration. I want to say food. Well, guess what's going to happen in about 10 years? There's a device right now. I know because I see it. I know it. It's already in prototypes. So you expect the spectrometer or whatever. It's like scans your food and lets you know exactly like what kind of nutrients are in there. Everything, everything pesticides. If it's safe, you saw that you see the 3D printed house? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. 24 hours.

Starting point is 00:41:06 24 hours under 10,000. 10 grand. Yeah, it's amazing. Boom. Now, imagine printer own shoe, your own clothes. Dude, that's definitely a direction. Things are going. So I don't think there's going to be,

Starting point is 00:41:17 I don't think there would be even be a market for socialized anything when it's like so direct. So, I mean, the most powerful decentralizer we've ever seen. Yeah, but I think we'll see more even, I think that drives even more of a split between the upper and lower end. So here's what happens with,

Starting point is 00:41:32 could you either figure it out or you drown? So here's what's happened so far and what is continuing to happen. Does the gap between the ultra wealthy and the lower class grow? Yes. Do all classes go up significantly? Yes.

Starting point is 00:41:51 This is a fast, and my question would be, is it necessary that it does that anyways? Maybe that's the way it has to go for us to truly continue to evolve and better. You've got to have that kind of. It's called a Pareto distribution. So in any creative field, you have a small percentage of people who create most of the work. So if you go to music, there's a lot of musicians. But if you look at all the Grammy-winning music,

Starting point is 00:42:18 a small percentage of artists. Or the producers that actually produce like a few albums that are the ones that everybody, you know, are iconic. Technology, investments, and the S stuff. And here's a great example. Let's say you're lower middle class and you have $1,000 to invest in the market.

Starting point is 00:42:35 And let's say I'm super rich and I have $100,000 or even $1,000,000 to invest in the market. And you and I both invested identical. Exactly the same. You put 1,000 in. In the exact same investments, I put 1,000 a million in. And we both go up 10%. How much money did you make? How much money did I make? So now the gap between you and I has gotten larger. But we've both gone up. And so what we find is if you go to a place like North

Starting point is 00:42:59 Korea and you eliminate the forget the government because they're the government difference between government officials and the average person is massive, right? And that's the difference between your star and you have food. But let's just look at the average people. Lots of equality, very little between them, lots of poverty, very little mobility, very little opportunity.

Starting point is 00:43:17 I feel like there's gonna be a lot more opportunity in general whether people wanna succumb to it or not, like especially with the way that we're disrupting everything to free people up as far as now we can be creative again. And the creative process, the artistry, is going to become way more valuable because it's unique. And it's something that's, you know, like an asset versus the problem we can't run into, though, it's we're starting to see like major infrastructure crash in the country. Like bridges are falling and other shit that I have.

Starting point is 00:43:46 Yeah, that'll always be something. Yeah, but we don't have the workforce that we did that used to build those things. We're going to be able to 3D print them real soon. Yeah, that's the thing. And let's do it now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, really, that's what we're going is we're trying to get to that point where we have these machines and this AI coming into kind of, you can't trust or you the infrastructure. SkyNet, man, I'll tell you what it's

Starting point is 00:44:08 common. You're a little younger than I am, but when we were kids being an entrepreneur wasn't so like if you wanted to be an entrepreneur in the 1980s and 90s maybe even early 2000s it usually meant you started a business you had a storefront. It wasn't sexy. It wasn't sexy. You started a storefront. You probably would need to either get a loan or borrow money. It would even go to a bank and have to explain a thing and hope that he liked you. Exactly. And not now they just go like, what's your social? Exactly.

Starting point is 00:44:39 All right. But it would cost like 50,000, $100,000, $200,000. You have to sink this money in, then you'd have to serve your local community because a storefront was like your local community, try and make it work, whatever. Today to open a bit, look, you want to start a podcast? $500 worth of equipment. Done.

Starting point is 00:44:55 You serve a podcast. It's crazy. And kids today, it's so cool to be an entrepreneur now. It wasn't like that when we were kids. Well, it seems that it's really cool to say you're an entrepreneur. Right. The actual work that comes along with any of it, right?

Starting point is 00:45:09 I mean, that's it's kind of a dirty word and that respect. Yeah, it's, uh, yeah. I just, I'd rather just tell people I don't know that I'm unemployed. Did you know you wanted to be an entrepreneur or, or did it just start to happen for you? Yeah. You know, that was never something I really thought about, right? But then I let it look back. So you thought about, right? But then I looked back. So you had no desire.

Starting point is 00:45:27 Well, but I looked back at it. And the first thing I did out of college was I opened a bicycle shop. I did the whole brick and mortar. I had you on a loan and a sub-money into it. And did that whole thing. And this is way better. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:45:39 Yeah. So was it when you were competing that, you know, traveling and all that, you became somewhat got the itch for it, like somewhat nomadic about it? No, I really had, like, I was happy with the last job I had. You know, it was great. I had free time and it paid very well

Starting point is 00:45:54 and no one really bothered me and you know, which is rare to begin with, but. And that was medically sold medical? No, I sold stuff in the petricum of it. Oh, that's a willing gas plant. And so, talk about a big market, by the way. Oh, I see a few of you are down there.

Starting point is 00:46:07 Yeah. But that's where you're going to work. Oh yeah. If you want a job along the Gulf Coast that pays well, you're going to work in a willing gas. And so, I was doing that with the Highland Games and just needed creative outlet. And so, creative outlet became doing some writing

Starting point is 00:46:24 and trying to explain programming to other people people trying to throw in this and that. And then, like, oh, well, I guess I wrote a book. Well, then we'll publish that. And we're able to self-publish it. And you're right, you know, because of the way the market is, I could use a site like Create Space or something like that. And I can. You self-published it? Yep. Self-published, put out a book. It's mine. Yeah, I didn't have to go confuse someone about what it is I'm trying to sell. Give them a massive chunk of it.

Starting point is 00:46:49 Yeah, just awful. And then, you know, a couple books later, and then, you know, enough from my market and customer base asking me to make a thing, you know, with shirts or whatever it is, we make them. Right. And so, it really just kind of rolled into a head never planned on this being what I do for a living. But here we are. Do you have, do you feel like some of your competitive side? Does it transcend into the business? Oh, of course it does. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's I mean, I can look at like monthly and daily sales and stuff like that. And I rarely look at it as whatever the number is, right?

Starting point is 00:47:25 Like that it's an actual amount of money. It's just a high score that I'm trying to beat every month. Right, right. Like what do we do to beat that? Like we need 50 more sales to beat last month and we do a sale. It doesn't make any sense financially to do something. Like fuck that, we need better.

Starting point is 00:47:40 We need better. Get the numbers. I want to crush goal. I want to win. You're a really self-aware dude. We're winning. No one knows. A fun guy who keeps things real.

Starting point is 00:47:48 So I'd love to ask a question like this to you is, you know, what are you currently struggling with personally and with the business that you're currently working on? So one of the changes with the business is trying to figure out like stick to what you're good at and then hire people to explain that. Like how did you come to that? Well, so, you know, one of the things we were lucky to do in the beginning was, you know, the way that we have our manufacturing and warehousing, stunning Kansas through a friend of mine.

Starting point is 00:48:14 And we realized early on that it wasn't going to benefit our business for me to spend my time packing boxes. And there would have been a short window where I could have, you know, make a couple trips to the post office every week, but just like now with Amazon, like you can't be a company anymore that's like, oh, we ship stuff on Thursdays. Yeah. This is like, no, you can't ship shit once a week. And so at some point, I would have had outsourced it anyway, because then I can't do the things that help grow the business.

Starting point is 00:48:47 I'm stuck running the business and I can't do any of the, how do I get more people here? So you would just end up with like a peak? Oh, then I got to work. A peak. And so that's helped. And so, yeah, competitive side now, you know, sticks with, you know, trying to figure out how to keep growing it and then How to hire people at the level you're at, right? You know, I can't go higher the world's most expensive marketing guy to do my shit

Starting point is 00:49:13 I can't afford it But as I've been hard finding good people Yeah, and I mean for the most part it becomes that that spot of like Yeah, I don't live here, right? So I'm trying to find people that are either local to me or local to my partner in Austin, but then find people that are affordable for our size business and what we're trying to use someone for.

Starting point is 00:49:35 So yeah, it gets a little tricky. And then at some point you go like, what can I do this good enough? Let's just do that for a while. Yeah. When you look at yourself as owner slash CEO, like what do you think are your your strengths as far as being a CEO? And where do you think your weaknesses?

Starting point is 00:49:55 Strength wise, I do the creative side of it. I have a very, very clear vision of the brand and where I want it to go. And then, you know, as far as, you know, everything under that umbrella right with the YouTube or podcast, I can talk. Like the one thing I can't outsource with my company is hire me. You know, and that is the face of it. That is the guy who had the message and did all that.

Starting point is 00:50:21 I can't pay someone to run the podcast and be me. I can't. So I need to spend my time focused on the things that. I can't pay someone to run the podcast and be me. I can't. So I need to spend my time focused on the things that only I can do that I can't pay someone to do. Weakness would be... Now, I think you get caught up, right? Like, I end up feeling... You get bogged down and things like, well, I need this to be produced in this many weeks and this thing coming out and then, how do I get out of this?

Starting point is 00:50:51 And so I end up doing a thing that ends up more shotgun approach than really being able to focus on a couple things that would be bangers. And so trying to change that creatively with the guys that slash that I work with that do creative stuff for us, design work, is once I can supply, you know, like ideas for a quarter, just let them go. So, do you like think, you mentioned your vision and you can see that out quite a bit,

Starting point is 00:51:17 and with the direction you're going with the brand, like, how does that look? Like, is that changing and evolving? Or would you be involved? Like, I mean, it's not like, we don't have a vision to the point of like, you know, look like is that changing and evolving? Or would you be evolving? Yeah, the changing. It's not like we don't have a vision to the point of like, how do we start getting hate brand stuff in Academy? Or dicks or wherever else, right? I don't see that and I've got some friends

Starting point is 00:51:37 with local brick and mortars, but I've almost jumped that spot to where like hooking up my buddy's store with, with, hate brand stuff is more of a hassle for me than it is a reward. Right. Because I have to manage the inventory then, we have to make sure it's stocked.

Starting point is 00:51:54 Instead of, it's already in my warehouse and I'm selling it for full price. But instead, now I have to give you a part of it and it's a thing I have to fuck with. Right. So it just, you know, that type of stuff, I don't see the brand going that direction ever, right? Like, I mean, look, the brand's doing what it's doing

Starting point is 00:52:11 and I hope that it continues to sell more things. And that's really the name of it with a peril anyway. It's quantity over anything else. If you're not gonna move a lot of it, you're not gonna make a lot of money. Right. I think we'll move into more cut and sell items and start doing things like that.

Starting point is 00:52:26 What do you mean, what's cut and sell? Custom. Yes, a custom item. So like, you know, designing joggers or designing, you know, hoodies and bottles or bags or whatever else. It seems like it's becoming more and more irrelevant to be in retail stores for a payroll company. You're like the fifth person.

Starting point is 00:52:44 Amazon.com dude. Yes, I fucking ordered cereal. You know, like I don't want to go to a store and then go there and they not have my size. Like I know what I fucking t-shirt feels like. And I go into the mall. Well that and we're I think we're a hair more, I don't want to say we're more anti-social than we've been but we're gonna avoid the painful social interactions like fucking going to the mall to get a shirt

Starting point is 00:53:13 I agree You know or that our times a little bit more confined to doing the other things that we're doing it, you know We're fucking everybody on those got like three jobs That's crazy, you know, none of them are, you end up with like three part time jobs that equal like better than one real time job. And so people are busy in doing stuff like that. And so you can order it in. It's also convenient and the cost effective,

Starting point is 00:53:39 the cost of a peril has gone down also over the years. So in social media marketing, I mean, why would I put a store in a town that has a population of 200,000? Now, do you do much of that right now? Do you do much Instagram, Facebook, marketing, and affiliation stuff? No, we've got some athletes we sponsor and that's been really good for us with working with them. And then, so that brings more eyes, brings more stuff.

Starting point is 00:54:08 We've started to try to move into some ad space to see how it plays out. But it's just one of those weird things that like you have to figure out the right recipe for it to really pay well. Right. And, you know, and then try to figure out whatever that law of diminishing returns is. I remember some marketing asshole called contacted me. He's like, you know, we'd like to do Facebook ads, you know, well, you know, just like two sentences in

Starting point is 00:54:30 then ask me my budget. I was like, well, what are you seeing ROI? He's our average customer seeing it. 10 times return on budget. I was like, if you can prove that I don't have a budget. You can, of course. You can't have a fucking, all the money I've ever been fine.

Starting point is 00:54:42 I'll get to you. Is that cool? Can we do that? You can just fucking hand over. Yeah. You have to have fucking all the money I've ever had to find. I'll get to you. Is that cool? Can we do that? You can just fucking hand over. Yeah. Cash? Well, like fuck off.

Starting point is 00:54:49 Well, it's gonna take about six months. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And you see what's going on. Did you see the, we were talking about Elon Musk earlier. Did you see the whole thing with him? He pulled a shit off Facebook.

Starting point is 00:54:58 Well, that's, I think that's just the security breach stuff. Yeah, that is. Well, I know. I think that's more. I think that's two billion security breach stuff. Yeah, it is. Well, I know. I think that's more. I think that's two billionaire multi billionaire. Two, it's a nerd fight. Yeah, who don't like each other. And that's kicking a fight.

Starting point is 00:55:12 That's kicking a fight. 100% that's what that is. There is no, he won't just play chess. He won't let me just wrap this. He won't let me just wrap this. He won't let me just wrap this. He's not worried about his shit getting stolen from Facebook. He's like, he'll know that before anybody else does.

Starting point is 00:55:23 Does he move this rocket past your Facebook computer? No, right. It's totally a... Don't they have a thing? It goes back? Yeah, yeah, they don't like it. Is it PayPal? Is it back in the PayPal day? I forget the story, but I know they don't like each other very much and they've openly kind of talked about it. And it's subtle. What a fucking world we live in. The two billionaires can dislike each other.

Starting point is 00:55:43 Yeah, right. But it actually, it actually like it. other. Yeah, right. It's locked. But it actually, it actually like it's a currency. Well, like, you know what's so great? How many billions of dollars? That was like, it literally like a, uh, probably like a $300 million punch. You know, that he just gave it. Totally.

Starting point is 00:55:54 Totally does it, it does it affect his. I was then removing people are like, whoa. Dude, well, now we get the Kardashians that will say some tweet and it affects like millions and not like killed Snapchat. Yeah. Did you see that? That was crazy. Man, that kind of power. Did you use Snapchat pretty much? Not really. You're mostly YouTube, right? You're two really long times to Snapchat just seem to have a benefit for me.

Starting point is 00:56:16 It seemed like it was brought to host. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it seemed like a place to send dick pics to people. Yes. And I live with the lady. I'm sitting in a picture. So, I'm sitting in a dick pick too. So I just show her. I don't care if she leads it or not.

Starting point is 00:56:30 We call it a dick pick. I can live online. Really it's flasher in the kitchen. Yeah, I just take a cardboard cut out and put it around. Pretend it's a picture right there. Save that in your brain. Oh, you can't get it down. Yeah, it's not.

Starting point is 00:56:43 It's a big file. It's buff file. Yeah. It's buffering. So in the name of the apparel business, is it part of the strategy? Because we have apparel too. It's not like yours. Obviously, it's not the center of our business,

Starting point is 00:56:55 but it's more like merch. Like what is that? Give us some tips. Like speed of release important. You release something every month, is it? Like, what are some good ways for us? For me, and what worked for us, we did a weekly drop, and everything we do has been limited,

Starting point is 00:57:15 and we're not the first people to come up with that, that limited quantities drive demand blah, blah, blah. And the goal was we wanted to try to figure out quantity so that stuff sold out in like 10 days. So we would drop something else in two weeks. So you keep that spike coming because you've got essentially two types of customers. You've got customers that have already bought shit from you and that are probably going

Starting point is 00:57:39 to buy more. And your hardcore customer falls in that group too. These are the people that are going to buy everything you drop no matter what it is. Right. And then you've got new customers. And so there's going to be less of these people than the people who have already shown up. And so I got to appease them too and keep giving them something new to buy while having

Starting point is 00:58:03 something for these guys. What? You know, and so. What's the difference between them in terms of how you're designing stuff? Is it just when you're focusing on the ones that you've always had that you kind of stay on a theme, and then when you're getting new people you're trying to... Now, we're really... Design-wise, we've really just done whatever the hell we wanted to.

Starting point is 00:58:24 Okay. We haven't really looked at it that way as far as targeting new people or not, right? Stuff that actually says hate brand sells better than stuff that doesn't. I'll spell that. No, I mean, either way as long as the shirt says the actual name of the brand on it, that seems to be a thing that'll sell better. Lots and dirt. That's just. Have we found that too with ours?

Starting point is 00:58:45 If it says, I don't know. I don't know about that. I have to look into that. Yeah. When you said something interesting, I want to talk about this a little more. So you do a release and you figure out, and the way you figure this out

Starting point is 00:58:55 is based on your previous sayings. How many of these shirts I need to make in order to estimate? 10 days. That's 10 days. But every two weeks you do a new shirt drop. Yeah, and we did that almost weekly for like two years. And that would drop the new item every week.

Starting point is 00:59:11 And that single strategy right there, you say makes a huge impact in sales. I think it helped us a lot, you know, with our market. I mean, I think everyone's a little different, right? And you got a kind of answer to what your customer base is asking for. It doubled ours. Yeah. And if our customer base was willing to keep buying stuff

Starting point is 00:59:27 from us, let's keep giving them shit to buy. Yeah, you told us that the first time, how long ago was it that we hung out with you? Five months ago. Yeah, so when we talked to you five months ago, I remember you making that point to us. I don't know, I think it was off air. And then we went and saw drama down in LA.

Starting point is 00:59:44 And he talked a little bit about something like that too. And yeah, we implemented it. And yeah, I mean, it works. Yeah, absolutely works. And that helps, like for me, like I like the creative side. I like making new things to produce. And so, like I don't want to have the same thing out for six months. You know, because then it gets stale and it gets old like,

Starting point is 01:00:05 man, let's, all right, she'll find one. Let's go on the next. Mm-hmm. What, if you found things that like, so for example, for us, I know like hats and hoodies are like terrible margins on those and they just don't sell as well. It's teachers, there's certain things that you've found that like these type of items, people love,

Starting point is 01:00:21 these items tend to like, like, like we're focused on the soft versus the heavy or whatever. T-shirts are always going to sell. T-shirts always do really well for us, but that's a fixed margin. We're also on T-shirts. The higher dollar items, yeah, some hoodies are better than others, and then windbreakers and any of that, but you've got to do those higher-end specialized items too to kind of reward the other people that are in.

Starting point is 01:00:47 Or maybe even spark that new audience coming, right? That wants to... You just keep the amount to do it. Yeah, you just keep it because I want it sell out. Yeah. What I don't want to do is eat half of them because they sat on the shelf and then have to do a weird sale down the road. Do you do pre-orders at all?

Starting point is 01:01:03 No, we started that way. Yeah. So the first three drops we did, and actually funded the business, was we did a pre-order, and then whatever profit we had left over from it, we bought stock, and then had shirts to sell. Mm-hmm.

Starting point is 01:01:19 And so that, I mean, that's how we got the business going. Now, when you're trying to get new customers, what's your been what's your, been your most effective method of getting new customers? Is it just through your YouTube or? YouTube's a big help, right? And then doing this, like the fact that I'm never home.

Starting point is 01:01:35 I'm out being on other people's platforms. And I'm not, and you can track that. You can see specifically. Yeah, you can definitely see where it spikes, right? Like from, from new traffic and always being outgoing and either being a collaboration on Mark Bell's YouTube, that's almost a, well over a 300,000 subscriber base

Starting point is 01:01:52 or going to be on some ways podcast who has a bunch of followers. Doing those type of things really helps a lot. And then the other side of it too is, you gotta be doing a thing that people wanna follow. Right, and so like attracting more followers, I think too was the fact that the athletes that we have that we sponsored are into what we're doing.

Starting point is 01:02:19 You know, that we hand picked them. We didn't just go shop Instagram hose that don't care what we're doing. You can just look at, oh, they got a big following. Yeah, because I mean, sometimes it's bullshit. Just true. And who are your sponsored athletes, by the way? We've got like 16 of them, so I'm not going to ruin it.

Starting point is 01:02:35 Okay. Run it down through that. You're not going to do it. But I mean, that's really where we see it, you know, is the discount code use and then reward those athletes. You know, it's kind of funny as you see businesses go different directions. And instead of trying to more go vertical with integration

Starting point is 01:02:52 with us, like trying to get a warehouse and start printing and doing this, we hired sales reps, which are essentially what athletes are. Right. And so, I mean, the better sales reps you hire, they generate sales. And then you can reward them for being part of it. So these aren't the sponsored athletes. These are separate. No, no, they are. Yeah, yeah. Just essentially that's what they are.

Starting point is 01:03:14 Because we haven't, so we haven't done any of that or we sponsor people through social media and stuff like that. And it's interesting because as you're, this is obviously what works because a lot of people do it. How big of an impact do they make? Or is it a big impact? For me, yeah, it's huge. Yeah, yeah, and that's, do you think that would help someone like us, like if we wanted to sell more peril to have?

Starting point is 01:03:37 I don't know, man, I think it's a different thing. Like I mean, yes, we both sell t-shirts stuff on them. Sure, right? But you guys are selling, we're selling our brand, but it's podcasting, which is totally different. Right, but it's not a parallel brand. Well, yeah, it's not a message behind the brand,

Starting point is 01:03:54 the name, not like that. Exactly. I mean, mine pump is y'all, and there's a lot of message and meaning between different stuff, but it's not, it's separate entity. You know, whereas like, I'm not selling I'm so merch for the podcast.

Starting point is 01:04:09 Right, right. That would be merch. It's exactly the best way to say it. Yeah. That I didn't, I didn't start a podcast based off of the apparel sales I was already doing, something like, like, Wadrama. Right.

Starting point is 01:04:21 Like, so it's, you know, whichever one I think is, that's interesting and I called you that, you know, whichever one I think is interesting and ready. I called you that, you know, like as a consumer, you are drawn to like sort of a brand with, what they're doing things and it's all part of like, I don't know, you identify with it somehow, but that's what people want to fit in, dude. People want to be part of a thing. Yeah. And, and, and want to find that movement or that message that speaks to them. I mean, it's weird to feel like I am that for a person that's super fucking weird to say because I'm basically just trying to figure

Starting point is 01:04:51 shit out every day, I wake up. And, but yeah, people want to be part of something. And I mean, if people like fitting in to whatever group they think they can find, I mean, if you've got a message or something that speaks to some kid in the middle of nowhere that feels weird, not a place, I mean, right on. Right. But that's music that's anything, right? I mean, that's not new. Sure.

Starting point is 01:05:15 Well, you're adding value to their life. We just did a podcast interview with Amanda Bucci that just dropped yesterday and Tom Olesson. And that's exactly what we were kind of telling her in our audience was that, you know, there's this value thing that you have to provide for people if they're gonna buy things from you. And if you're having a hard time with that,

Starting point is 01:05:33 then you're probably not providing enough value for those people. Right, and that's, look, I've got the shirts and I've got the apparel brand with Heybrand. I've written a couple books, but I'm also putting out, you putting out three or five YouTube videos a week that are content that have information in them or indoor or entertaining, hopefully.

Starting point is 01:05:52 That's free. I do a podcast that's free, that I travel to guest for, that cost me money so that I can go do. Right. I'm on a lot of other people's podcasts to reach new people and I share information and ideas, so that's also free. I'm doing now free seminars in places. You know, and all that's fucking, it's a thank you. And you feel that pain off each time you

Starting point is 01:06:19 do something new that's free, right? Yeah, we notice the same thing for sure. It's the content more for sure. Yep. When you do your seminars, is it mostly about training and exercise? Are you doing seminars on business entrepreneurship? No, definitely not business stuff. More life and trainings the gateway for those conversations. You know that I think one of the things I said at the last one I got a response was, you know, consistency and hard work don't yield success. That's a fucking lie that we've been fed our entire lives, but hard work and consistency yield progress. And if we can focus on that, like that's a big change and like that type of message and that's not That plays in the gym of like man just cuz you work out really hard and you watch your diet and this and that like

Starting point is 01:07:12 He's not gonna be Jay Cutler You know he started at a different place than you and the guys got the tools That's why he's the best and there's one of them right or but but can you get better? Yeah You can be better than yesterday, but I mean, are you entitled because you worked really hard to be the best? Nope. Great point, dude.

Starting point is 01:07:32 That's the focus on the goal and the being versus the becoming the challenge. Well, because there's no there. And that's that fuck up was better. It's always better. Amateur wants to chase, you know, is that idea that like, if I can just do this thing, then it figures it out.

Starting point is 01:07:46 Or, yeah, I've seen it with professional athletes and friends that you'll pursue a thing. And you get that singular focus in these people that it turns into this, like making deals about it that like, look, I know this sucks and I know I'm being shitty, but if you'll just let me run with it, when I hit here, it'll fix all this. And there's no fucking there.

Starting point is 01:08:09 There's no point that you got there and you're like, okay, everything's solved. Oh no, it doesn't work. I tell the story of working with gastro-bipass clients who, you know, you get gastro-bipassers or you're gonna lose weight, you're forced to lose weight, and they would lose weight. And then we we if they didn't embrace the challenge if they didn't embrace the change if they didn't Brace that on the way there and it was all focused on just gonna lose this hundred pounds or whatever

Starting point is 01:08:34 It was a tough ride for them. I've had him gain the way back. I've had several Gain the fucking weight. You know how hard it is to gain the way back when commitment when you've yeah, yeah It is it is and it's because back when you've, yeah, it is. It is. And it's because it's no different than lottery winners. You know, two years later, they're just as depressed as they were before. It's not embracing that, you know, that, that challenge and that change. So do you, what can you tell somebody who a kid listening right now who's like, man, I want to

Starting point is 01:08:59 stick because probably the most common business. I don't know about nowadays, but I know before, maybe 10 years ago, five years ago, whenever someone say, I'm starting a business, it was a T-shirt company. Yeah, of course. It's like one of the most common. What is some advice you can give someone if they're starting a T-shirt company?

Starting point is 01:09:17 Well, that'll have them. My first question is like, why? Okay. Like, I didn't set out to start selling T-shirts. This is just where I've ended up like why? Okay. Right? I didn't set out to start selling t-shirts. This is just where I've ended up because the demand from the customers because of the message.

Starting point is 01:09:32 And so. So you built the demand first. Yeah, but I think that's so- And it's weird, it's weird though, because it wasn't ever the plan. Like I started putting videos on YouTube so that I could share throwing videos with the other guys I was throwing with,

Starting point is 01:09:46 and we can see technique and work with each other. Like I didn't do that to build an audience. Like the first videos aren't fucking edit. It's funny, I feel like most of the people that I have found that have been really successful, none of them really got in it with that intention. A lot of them got in it with this intention of, but I was just doing the thing that I was really fucking into what and then you find out holy shit

Starting point is 01:10:06 There's a lot of other respond to that because it's attractive, you know, you totally see right through that and I think people like passion Yeah, and being into something in commitment and that sacrifice they see from athletes that You know that a fuck man this guy's in his garage killing himself and training in some fucking parking lot, sweating the death. Right. And he's a world championship, you know, is a world champion in a sport that doesn't exist in Louisiana. Yeah. So I mean, that's castic out a little bit. So you can fuck and do it. Right. Do you know what I mean? So after you ask the why and they ask that of themselves and whatever, what are some like Objective steps or things you can help someone on like a you want to start a t-shirt company. You've got a good why What are some things people can do because it's such a for somebody new like where do I start? What do I do my recommendation always is like I said before that it's

Starting point is 01:11:04 It's a quantity game anyway you slice it. If you're gonna make, that's very important that you say that. If you're only gonna sell 10 fucking shirts, this isn't gonna be a job. So we got to sell a shitload of them. So plan from day one to be scalable. How do you keep doing the thing that you're doing, whether it's you sold one shirt today or a thousand. So that you're not fucked. Yeah, because the people don't realize the, and I remember, that's a big problem. I remember two and a

Starting point is 01:11:41 half years ago when we first kind of kicked up, you know, selling the apparel, it got to a point where we stopped like putting any effort towards it because the amount of time and effort and when you looked at all the margins like shit, it took away from the other things that made more money. Right. It took away every other parts of the business for us that were more important. And then it was like, okay, if we really want this t-shirt thing, so we had to hire two employees. Yeah. So really, even our apparel business right now,

Starting point is 01:12:06 which I would consider it a successful business in comparison to somebody who wants to get into it, is doesn't really profit that much because we have to outsource a lot of the work. So, but that's how you scale it. But that's why it's important. We can make it work. So I think a lot of kids that get into the business

Starting point is 01:12:25 don't really realize that, and they're ahead, they're doing the math, like, oh, okay, so I make it six bucks every shirt. But it doesn't play out that way. I have 30,000 followers, if only half of them buy a shirt. Yeah, yeah, that's not worse. They just fall into their cash over. Right, that's exactly what I think a lot of them think.

Starting point is 01:12:42 Of course. You get into it and you don't realize how child challenge me Look man, I've got a pretty decent background at art. I'm moderately creative and talented. I can get by on Photoshop and Illustrator and stuff like that But I don't do the finished designs for my company I'm lucky enough that I'm creative and can give direction so that my design team knows what the fuck we should shoot for. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:13:12 But I have no problem realizing that they're better at this than me and that's why we're paying them. Right. Because they'll yield more return on the other side. Right. Then me being really bad at this for the next 10 hours and not accomplishing side. Right. Exactly. Then me being really bad at this for the next 10 hours and not accomplishing it. Right.

Starting point is 01:13:27 And there's a lot of, there's more tools available, or easily, more easily available nowadays that allow you to scale than maybe like 15, 20 years ago, right? Like now you don't have to, yeah. Could you talk about some of those tools that, well, I mean, like you don't have to like store them, you don't have to make them, you don't have to.

Starting point is 01:13:45 Right. There's a lot of places that do print on demand for a peril and that, if you're going to do that, like you need really crazy quantities. Because the margins are small. Yeah, the margins get really, really tight because the market has set what you can sell a t-shirt for. So I was lucky that I have a guy that's more of an independent that does all the printing and manages my warehouse, but now he's got essentially two people that only work for us.

Starting point is 01:14:13 And the pick back and ship department. It's a son of a bitch. We had a thousand sales on Friday. That's a lot of fucking bags to pack, right? You know But you know, so how do I stay out and Keep getting getting eyes to them to keep them packing bags instead of me killing two days Trying to pack them pack bags You know that type of scalability that

Starting point is 01:14:41 That outsourcing is This is a key like that's a thing that you didn't happen. Plus the way the internet is, with being able to reach a global audience from day one of opening a business, I don't need to live in a major market to sell shirts. I mean, that's why these weird brands can pop up and fucking, I see stores in LA

Starting point is 01:15:02 and I don't understand a how they afford the storefront or how they're selling a thing. The frustrates me, I'm like, I sold fucking bicycles and couldn't get it done. You're selling like hand-painted wicker baskets. I'm fucking $18,000 a month rent on your storefront. What the fuck man? I actually think there's really high turnover on a lot of those shops down there. I think the time that's so really rich rich price right off. Yeah, right. They're just laundering of

Starting point is 01:15:29 Or you think that oh if I'm here like the customers will just come in and that's part of it though You see I mean that level of foot traffic still moves stuff. Yeah, but you go into something like the specialty apparel stores And you're like there's six shirts in here It's fucking it. Like, what if, like how do you plan, like if you were busy today, what was the plan? Like, like max income you have here on site is like $200. That's true. That's true.

Starting point is 01:15:59 But I think sometimes it's just part of the brand, like they just need to have a more front to, but yes. Well, you would, you said it yourself that you wouldn't even have started a clothing line. Sometimes it's just part of the brand, like they just need to have a door front to, but yes. You said it yourself that you wouldn't even have started a clothing line if you didn't have the following or the massive people for it. People were asking for it. And I think a lot of kids that they have this idea

Starting point is 01:16:18 they can draw well or they've got a brand they want to do, they think that, oh, I can have this business, but I think that piece that you already built is most of the most shortcut. Right. I mean, you can do it the other way. But the having people and the following and the way it all works now, it sure shit, a shortcut.

Starting point is 01:16:38 Yeah. I would say with social media and the way, I think it's necessary. Yeah, I think, because that's what we did, we started the podcast and we didn't start selling programs until, a lot of people were begging us to. Right, yeah. And so,

Starting point is 01:16:51 You know, but that goes back to the GIF, right? Like, I was able to give video content and give information and share training knowledge and shared my training logs online for years. I mean, Hill, if you want any of the books I've written about programming, you can just go read it there, it's all free. and shared my training logs online for years. I mean, Hill, if you want any of the books I've written about programming, you can just go read it there, it's all free. Right.

Starting point is 01:17:11 Be harder to decipher, but it's there. Right. And so, I mean, you give out all this information for so long and people buy in. Yeah, almost feel obligated sometimes. Yeah. Because you've been doing it so frequently. And it's like, well, I haven't really contributed to this yet. So it's like, if you build,

Starting point is 01:17:29 I do that all the time, pay for stuff. You build a authority in an audience, and then it's kind of up to you what you want to sell. I mean, they'll buy it. Yeah, I mean, you can't have shit, of course, but if you do that first, that's probably the most successful way to do it I would say is like build that Demand build that authority and then decide okay, what do I what do I sell or what do I you know promote and your audience

Starting point is 01:17:54 We're probably tell you right, you know I mean you'll probably have a good idea are you are you managing your YouTube yourself? Or do you kind of call it you do all that you do all that yourself do all that do all the Instagram and then are you do you kind of call it? No, I do all that. You do all that yourself? I do all that, do all the Instagram. And then do you watch certain patterns? Is there certain types of vlogs that add you more subscribers? Are you pretty consistent with your subscribers? I think mine's pretty consistent. I stay away from the videos I know that I just don't

Starting point is 01:18:19 want to do them. And that's the rule of thumb. It's either fuck yes or no. And if it feels weird and feels gross and feels like it did it for clickbait or like, oh man, that's going to of thumb, it's either fuck yes or no. Yeah. And if it feels weird and feels gross and feels like it did it for clickbait or like, oh man, that's gonna be a great video. Like, it's just not for me. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:18:31 I mean, look, and there's a talent to that too. Like, I mean, it's not like I'm sitting on a bunch of golden viral video ideas that I'm just like, can't make that one. You know? So, I mean, if there was one that was the right fit and I came up with it, yeah, you know, I would do it. But like, I'm not doing a fucking count, you know, my macros for the day video or a 10,000

Starting point is 01:18:52 calories challenge. So there's not a lot of thought that goes into it before you just kind of document. Yeah, yeah, especially the vlog stuff, right? Now, but we've got the other stuff that we travel and really do production on. Yeah. And that's the drift-alift-a-series. You've got to be able to, you've got to have looked back now though to see like certain trends like, oh, when I, when I make sure to document this way or if I make sure to look

Starting point is 01:19:12 at the camera, I hope. Any videos that I've had attractive women and seem to help? Especially if they're the thumbnails on that. That's crazy. That's crazy. They should do a story on that. Also, any videos I can have haapthor doing things in, well, so. If I could either be a hot female and or Hapthor,

Starting point is 01:19:28 it would really help the YouTube channel. It would help this podcast too. Yeah, right. You're a hot shit. I'm not shit. I love audio media. No, that's not. I'm just hot chick with a weird voice.

Starting point is 01:19:38 Yeah. Did you evolve camera wise on YouTube? Yeah, of course. Okay, so, yeah. You start off using, I use a flip cam in your cell phone, and other stuff like that, and then that's now to having a pretty solid camera set up

Starting point is 01:19:51 with a Panasonic GH5, and different lenses that I travel with, as well as a GoPro and a point in the shoot, and options. And then you go back and you're cutting and editing all yourself? Yeah, and you're a machine. Yeah, you get a, you get a fish in at it, right?

Starting point is 01:20:07 So the biggest difference when I have my camera guy with me and we do something is he's going to shoot six hours of footage that day. Whereas if I'm going to edit a vlog for today, I want that vlog to be probably 10 minutes long. I'm going to shoot maybe 25 minutes worth of footage. Yeah. And so I don't have to spend 10 hours siphoning through bullshit.

Starting point is 01:20:33 Now you're gonna miss cool stuff. But I mean, if you have an idea of what the overlying arc of the day was and what the message you wanna get out of it to tell the story, shoot those things. You know, I know I need X amount of B shots to cover up what other crimes I commit in editing. Besides a hap Thor and attractive women, are your vlogs do those seem to do best? Yeah, the vlogs do well, especially if they're pretty consistent because people keep up with it, right?

Starting point is 01:21:00 It's almost like a more formal version of the Instagram story. Whereas the Instagram story, you can just flood with garbage. It doesn't matter. People click through it so fucking fast. You two vlogged, they're watching it. Yeah, I feel like that vlogging is an incredible way to build connection with your audience. Yeah, man, it's weird going to the Arnold and people like know the names of my dogs. You know, but the reason they do is because I told them.

Starting point is 01:21:27 So you can't feel that weird about it. But it is. I think that is a way. I think the vlogging stuff, and I watch a lot of them, you know, different people. And I think that's what we wanted from reality TV was to have interesting people to try to live vicariously through. Yeah. And see what their life is and this and that.

Starting point is 01:21:49 And then it just became this other thing. Well, then they hacked it, you know what I'm saying? They hacked it for sure, but they had to because of production cost. Well, yeah, and the market demanded it. We viewed more, we watched more, when more drama happened when they crazed you. We have kept the vote that we'll watch the Kardashians lay on the couch like these.

Starting point is 01:22:07 That's like feel. That's what they are. Just a jewel by Starbucks and sugar and lay on the couch. Fuel by Starbucks feel. Yeah, it's not going to cook well. I won't eat that. No. It's bitter.

Starting point is 01:22:21 It's a little acidic. It's a sweet, it's plastic and bad. But you're right. I mean, the reason that shows on TV is because the market has said, we like this more than this. Crazy, huh? Right, look, I mean, the NFL and sports and people can say like, what a past time this is and stuff like that for America.

Starting point is 01:22:40 But if marketing found out that they could play a blue screen with a crying baby over for three hours and it doubled the views of the Super Bowl, that shit's on every channel tomorrow. Of course. It ain't like we would cut sports and play that instead. Oh, totally. Yeah, so, how long have you been doing, you've had the YouTube channel longer than your podcast?

Starting point is 01:23:00 Yeah, oh yeah, for sure. Much longer. Yeah, the YouTube channel I've had since, I saw a video yesterday that would have been like pretty early and that's like 2011. Oh shit Yeah, so you've been at it Seven years at least five years hardcore. Yeah, I would say five years pretty strong like really pushing it Yeah, and the podcast has been around for how long? Six months six months 20 episodes and doing them every week now would

Starting point is 01:23:24 Challenges podcasting versus challenges YouTube, how different of a world is it for you? It's totally different. Like, I mean, especially if, like doing the vlog, things easy, right? Because that's just kind of a camera that shows up with what I'm doing during the day. But when we travel with the drift to lift a thing,

Starting point is 01:23:42 like that's work, like we're trying to do pre-production, we're almost storyboarding, trying to figure out what the goals of it is, and it's still reality-based. We're not scripting it per se, but like I know today, for example, I want some establishing shots in the morning from coffee getting ready and talking about where we're hitting that day and blah, blah, blah, what we're going to do, and then we need transition shots of driving, maybe a drone shot, and having that whole thing laid out for the six days that we're there and we're gonna shoot 11 hours a day. You've put all this together yourself too or is this someone else on your team that's

Starting point is 01:24:15 yeah this is just me and my camera guy Brock. Wow wow you are fucking like you do you're like our friend Craig you can do it all you do a lot of stuff on your own right but it's the stuff you love to do right. I'm enjoying all of it Well, you also strike me though is the type of guy too that would find enjoyment and anything that he does You don't strike me so and that would I mean there's shit. I hate to do for sure Right, yeah, I just don't do those things anymore What what do you think that drives you to be someone like? Because I find there aren't a lot of guys like you that really do.

Starting point is 01:24:48 Like I'm sure all the things you're talking about right now within the business, you had to sit down and teach yourself or learn from somebody else. I'm sure you didn't have all that knowledge already. No, I mean for sure like with editing, right? Like I don't know. Like, fucking girl, editing film. I got a little bit of info from the guy

Starting point is 01:25:04 that's my camera guy, Brock. He kind of gave me some basics, but since I had years ago, when I had the bike shop, I was doing merch for the bike shop. I'd learned enough with Illustrator and Adobe because I needed to make shirts. Right. And so, I don't know where the artistic creatives I've come from, you know, but that itch I really has to be scratched for me. And so whether that's creating something or going to do something or producing a thing like I'd like, I like writing, I like drawing, I like doing this type of stuff or doing the seminar things or being out. So I mean, that creative side is all part of it.

Starting point is 01:25:39 Would you say one of the most rewarding things for you then is to create a new article or I mean, a new piece of clothing or a new design and see it outperform. Oh, it's awesome. Yeah, it's the coolest thing ever is seeing a concept come to fruition and then people dig it. The hard part of it is what the production schedule takes out of it, like how that breaks you.

Starting point is 01:26:02 The idea that like, so We'll have a drop May 24th. I think is what our next spring big drop will be and we'll have many shit that'll fall between right but so so for that drop It's gonna take we've got a Week prior to drop is when you do photo shoot when you do video And do all the promo work to get ready to edit all those things so that once the 24th hits we can drop everything. So then I need six weeks prior to that to make everything for production. You know, so if we need samples, we need stuff like that.

Starting point is 01:26:40 So I've got six weeks worth of manufacturing, four weeks prior to that. And so, yes, so the start of manufacturing is also the start of, I need finished print ready files from my artist. Four weeks prior to that is second look on print ready files to give that a look and then go over color options and see what blanks match up and where we'd like to actually go. Four weeks prior to that is the initial conversation of what we want to do with this line. So middle of February, I'm trying to plan what's dropping May 25th. And you didn't include anywhere in there any sort of photos or video shoots?

Starting point is 01:27:16 Yeah, that's the last week. Okay, so that's the last week, that's once we get everything. And that's, but that's getting planned way in advance. Yeah, you have to put in that cushion. So, you know, I mean, that's when I got with the creative guys, I was like, yeah, man, the next drop you have to put in that cushion. So, you know, I mean, that's when I got with the creative guys. I was like, yeah, man, the next drop's gonna be the 24th. And so it was like, well, how long does it take to make it? So we need to, it's 14 weeks, you know, 14 or 15 week, you know,

Starting point is 01:27:34 out from, from a launch date is inception. And do you, when you drop, or do you recommend to people that they announce it and post it everywhere, or is it a more subtle approach to? We send it to our athletes automatically and the athletes are rewarded for, you know, code use and sales, right? And so if they don't push it, they're not getting much in return. Yeah. And you see that. And so you figure out who you want to work with that's into it. So you try to work with people that are bought in and it's not just buying time off their Instagram.

Starting point is 01:28:08 And we've all seen that too, right? That I mean, if someone's pushing a thing and it doesn't seem genuine, yeah, when people see it, it's an ad. It's fake. Yeah. People see it's an ad and you don't want that either. You know, I mean, even when you do stuff that you post that is something you're genuinely stoked on that maybe isn't an ad,

Starting point is 01:28:29 I mean, the difference in likes on that versus something else that's a more motivational, genuine look at you as a person is a huge drop off in engagement. Right. And so, I don't promote hate brand stuff much at all like via my stuff. Right.

Starting point is 01:28:46 I mean, it's what I'm wearing, it's there. You know, so it can be that, you know, bit of subtlety, I guess, or whatever it is. And so, yeah, I'd like to ask the athlete, I don't, you know, like, hey, here's the marketing plan, guys. I need you to say this in the copy and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, fuck on it.

Starting point is 01:28:59 He's like, new shirt here. New shirt here. So people wear it. Please wear it while you're going to train. I'll provide you with enough gear that you can't tell me you don't have my shit to wear with you. It's fair. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:29:11 But it's, yeah, it's a process. And then the problem with that like that 14 week cycle is by the time like I've gotten it and we're gonna release it. I've looked at it so fucking long that I'm done with it and I don't think it's cool anymore. And I don't understand why it would sell. That becomes really tricky because then you're like, fuck me. You start saying you're like, I don't think we did a good job here. Whereas 10 weeks ago I'm amped. Right. When you look at the 16 athletes that you have, is there a distinct discrepancy between the ones that perform really well and sell a lot of the peril versus the others, or is it pretty evenly cross aboard?

Starting point is 01:29:52 There's a ton of discrepancy. I mean, there's some that do very well. There's some that don't do well. There's some that I sponsored because I like them and we're friends and I'm gonna sponsor them, whether it's sales or not. You know? And so, you see the ones that run a clean and tidy Instagram while also being

Starting point is 01:30:10 an athlete. That's what I was looking for. Like, can you tell a major difference in how maybe one of them manages their Instagram on how that reflects? Yeah, they're not posting any blurry pictures and weird shit. Like the people that do it really well are running a business. Oh wow. That's what they're Instagram's a fucking business.

Starting point is 01:30:29 And it reflects in the sales for sure, major difference. Yep, for sure. Oh wow. Any mistakes that you see some of them make or that you've seen maybe one of the people. Yeah. Thinking that people will take more than one step

Starting point is 01:30:42 to get to an item to buy it. Hmm. So if you think that you wrote Hey, Brand Goods on the picture, and then there's not a link in your bio to get to me, they're probably not gonna go too far. Small things like that make such a huge difference. It's weird, right? Yes, huge. But it's so true.

Starting point is 01:31:00 Like, the era we live in now. Bro, yeah, well, you took me four clicks to do this. Yeah. When clicks,, you took me four clicks to do this. Yeah, it clicks. Yeah, clicks with your fucking finger When Amazon when Amazon had the buy now buttons Me you know big of a difference that made now they have were they'll show Yeah, predictor that you're trying to order it. Yeah, you don't have to enter anything nothing I buy she with my face now all so it's crazy It is that's more than You don't have to enter anything, nothing. I buy shit with my face now. Also, it's crazy. It is.

Starting point is 01:31:26 That's more than a robot's taking over, dude. That's the thing. Nothing worse than like saying shit around your phone and then ads pop up. I hate that. I hate that shit. Yeah. But it's so true that that part, I think, is so important

Starting point is 01:31:37 that I think not a lot of people talk about is, you know, in this, in this era, whatever the reason being, whether we've gotten lazy or because that's just the market demands it, because so many companies like Amazon are doing it, at the end of the day, if you don't recognize that, I mean, personally for us, I see huge difference in downloads, purchases, clicks, you know, traffic on the website.

Starting point is 01:31:59 If we make it very accessible, easy to get to where we're going, if you make it at all challenging, they have to copy themselves and then pay, if it's not a direct limit. It'd better be something cool, man. Yeah, exactly. It'd better be something like porn. People will jump, giant hurdles.

Starting point is 01:32:15 I'll go to get some new models. I'll go through three clicks for porn. You made this a poison, my computer, cool. He worked it. I used to hike into the woods to go find it. Everyone, everyone who's over 30, has found porn in the woods. Why was there always porn into the woods to go find it. Everyone who's over 30 has found porn in the woods. Why was there always porn in the woods? You know, do you think it's,

Starting point is 01:32:30 do you think it's some other kid? Yeah, it's a lure. I feel like it's like Hansel and Gretel, you know, oh my God. So more sun rise in the corner like that. Do you think just some like gigs dumped this porn in the woods, or do you think it's a guy like just bummed out at home

Starting point is 01:32:43 and like can't get what he wants inside the gus of just jerk off and Yeah, build a tree fort and whack it. I just you know as a kid I saw a lot of porn in the woods but like I never saw just some like dude walking out there like what do you guys doing? I envisioned like a 16 or a 17 year old boy whose mom keeps yelling at her for can't have shit in his house. Yeah, I could deal in all the mags in these mattresses. Right, quit, yeah, quit doing that shit in the laundry and shit.

Starting point is 01:33:08 So we've found like a high society in the fucking woods right now. It would be like an arc in a lot of called dig site. The fuck has this form of porn. So tooth and porn. I think I missed that. I want that physical sht turned to page. You know what I'm saying? And so you have some weird stack in your house.

Starting point is 01:33:25 You get the stuck pages. Yeah, that's not good. Especially the ones in the woods. And you get a new thing. So I didn't grow up in the woods. We actually found porn in a light, like a street light. On the bottom of the street light,

Starting point is 01:33:36 there was like a metal panel that you could open. And we were walking by and I saw like something sticking out of it. And when you're a kid, there's just straight up now. When you're a kid in the 80s, dude, that's like pirate trips. Yes, well, dude. When you're a kid in the 80s, if you see magazine pages,

Starting point is 01:33:51 even if you can't see what's on the page, it's sticking out of anything like that. Poor. For sure. Instantly, I'm like, oh shit, what's that? Poor Easter egg, huh? We opened it where I had life. Like, it's porn.

Starting point is 01:34:00 It's like, is it happiness? That was right. Yeah, no. Finding porn as a kid is amazing. I don't know what it's like now. You have lost it. Nobody cares now. That was right. Yeah, no fine and porn as a kid is Amazing. I don't know what it's like now. You've lost Nobody cares now. Mark. Even even for a kid who's not allowed to like let's say parents put them on a lot If you've given your kid a phone right if they're looking at porn It's the first thing they did as soon as you walked out of the room At the very least it starts on Instagram. Yeah, they're not doing the anatomy books

Starting point is 01:34:25 So you have to flop over I remember looking at that shit This book has a vagina Yeah, yeah, but yeah, I know some weird I'm a lot more totally crazy So with with the with the podcasting because it's a different medium than than YouTube How has that been for you? Has it? The channel really like it. Do you like it better than YouTube? Yes.

Starting point is 01:34:47 Okay. Yeah, me personally, I like doing the podcast a lot because I like the long form conversation. I also like, I don't really have to edit it. Yeah. You know, so I'm just posting long conversations. But I'm a talker. I like doing this.

Starting point is 01:35:01 I like communicating this way. The YouTube thing becomes a drag. There's nothing worse than watching yourself do things from 48 hours ago. Yeah, I was just don't do this shit. Yeah, and so I could see outsourcing that would be great, but like the podcast I like because I do have interesting awesome people in my world that I get to experience. And I want to have those conversations with them. And I think I'm really fortunate that I have friends that other people want to hear from. And so, I mean, if I get to be kind of a cool vehicle to help expose or, you know, bring

Starting point is 01:35:42 a conversation up that somebody listened to and changed their day like, fuck dude, that's rad. What are you learning about yourself right now as you're podcasting more and more? Do you catch certain habits that you do? You're like, fuck, I wish I wouldn't do that as much. The worst is just trying not to talk over people because I do it because I get excited about a thing, but it's like in the middle of a diet drive. And so it's like fuck. Get down to that, I can say this thing.

Starting point is 01:36:10 And try not to be in that part where I'm always just thinking about the next thing I wanna say and actually be in the conversation. It gets tricky. That's a big one right there. And that's, I can always tell a difference from, when we get interviewed by people, like the ones that are really skilled, have that ability. Otherwise, it sounds like it can

Starting point is 01:36:28 interview the whole time. Right. Right. It's like you have these it's not I'm talking about my childhood. And also you asked me about sales. Yeah. Whoa, where did that go? Where did that come from? Like, you know, it just and I think that makes a big difference for a listener as a listener. I think when you get sucked into some of these conversations in your car, or if in your headphones, you get deeper and deeper and deeper. And then if you have an interviewer who takes a left really hard, I think that like, wow, kind of like a shock, right? Yeah, it's a shock. Yeah, it's shock.

Starting point is 01:36:55 Yeah, it's shock. Yeah, it's shock. The audience for a second, I think they kind of come out of that flow state for a minute, you know? It sounds like an interview instead of a conversation is what it is. Right, and I want to have conversation. Yeah. You know, I mean, you know, the big compliments I've gotten from people doing them in, and I like the way that I've done it,

Starting point is 01:37:08 right? Like the studio setting like this, I mean, if this was my reality, this is fucking Brad. But I'm traveling to go see people, and so I use, you know, wireless lav mics, and you know, a lot of times we're at an Airbnb sitting around or something like that, and people fucking forget they're being recorded. Yeah, it is great. And which is ideal. This makes that harder. Yeah. You know, having the microphone feels more produced. Yeah, and I mean, look, I'm again,

Starting point is 01:37:32 doing the best with the tools I have to accomplish the goal I want. Right, right. You know, if I lived in a place that I was, if I lived in Venice, I'd have a fucking studio. Right. Because someone's always gonna be there, I could talk. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 01:37:44 I mean, we go to LA. It's ridiculous. We go to LA every month. Yeah. LA just isn't necessarily evil. Yeah, it is where everybody is. Yeah, and we do. For this space.

Starting point is 01:37:53 Right, it's like, oh, you mean I can accomplish 10 things today that at home I have to wait to do over three months. Right. Like, yeah, I just fucking go. But then you have to live in LA. I know. That's trying to avoid it. Don't go to your show. So, like, once a month for about then you have to live in LA That's

Starting point is 01:38:05 Once so like once a month for about three four days Hour from leave yeah exactly exactly get us bought and Venice and pretend you're not in LA who's been Some of your favorite guests of the last because we haven't seen you for about five months So yeah, so you guys were like probably episode two or three Where we were yeah, I would have been like it early on, yeah, for sure. Wow. That was early. Really good episodes. I had a surprisingly, really good episode

Starting point is 01:38:30 with Andy Galtman. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's great, right? And good dude. Super smart guy. I was nervous going into it that it would get very nerdy and technical, but he's not like that.

Starting point is 01:38:39 Yeah, no, he was regular dude. And so we hit it off and talked to Ton and I really, really enjoyed that conversation. That was one I was regular dude. And so we hit it off and talked to Ton and I really, really enjoyed that conversation. That was when I was surprised about. Other really cool ones, I got a chance to interview my tattoo artist for an hour, 45 minutes while he was working on it. You were saying that, right? Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 01:38:56 And so, I mean, that was cool. Because, I mean, he's a stud. He's at the top of the hill doing what he's doing. And so, I mean, that's interesting. Like, what are your big picture goals? And how do you, how do you keep pushing yourself to get better when you're on top of that hill? And then, you know, how do you technically get better at a thing? You know, how do, where's your drive to keep that? And so those, those conversations are cool. I got to talk with Jim Wynnler While we were up in Ohio for the Arnold and that podcast went you know four hours long Yeah, Dr.

Starting point is 01:39:31 All kinds of weird shit. Are you noticing anything like in particular with you know an episode being downloaded a lot or not so much There are certain things that you're like I'm so early into it right that everything is still just climb Yeah, yeah, where every episode is just right at or a little bit better than the one before especially if the guest is someone I'm so early into it right that everything is still just climb. Yeah. Yeah. Where every episode is just right at or a little bit better than the one before, especially if the guest is someone people know. That's a really good sign right now. Right. Yeah, it's exciting.

Starting point is 01:39:53 Yeah, I have, you know, like the lady who's a CEO or one of the owners of Power. It's a great conversation, but she doesn't have the following. Like she doesn't have a, you know, one and a half million following like Niko does. That'll be a dip in Probably downloads, right? But the conversation is still good. Yeah, and so the people that listen to it are still gonna like it You know, and so I think there's a balance, right to try to have people on your show that interest you and can maybe bring you

Starting point is 01:40:25 to a new audience is part of the thing. Or expose you to a bigger audience. And then you've gotta sometimes be on the other side of that too, where you think people are red and you wanna expose them to a bigger audience. Or the information's just fucking good and you just wanna share an awesome conversation. I mean, I think when they both mix,

Starting point is 01:40:44 that's when you hit the triple or the home run, you know, it's like having my wife on, right? Like I want to do a couple with her. And she didn't have a thing to promote. This is just something I think would be interesting that people might get something out of. Right. And so, there's strategy to it,

Starting point is 01:41:02 but sometimes you also just say fuck that too. No, I agree. I agree. I think our audience, I think we now we've been able to measure this and it can't, sometimes the biggest name with the biggest following does not perform the best. But sometimes they don't promote it. Right. It gets weird, right?

Starting point is 01:41:16 And that's a big part of it too, is that it's got to be pushed on both sides. Do you get that a lot? Do you get a lot of, do you get, like, some of these guys, because I know you're like us where that's not even something that we ask. It's just, I don't either. Right. I will send over the information and do it as you want. I don't care. I got the conversation. That's what I wanted. Right.

Starting point is 01:41:32 This is purely fucking selfish for me. I get to travel the way I want to and I get to fucking talk to people I'd like to have conversations with. Right. Right. You know, and from there, the people that I like, I end up building a regular relationship with and they're fucking friends. And that's really what I want. Is more awesome people around that make me want to keep pushing the needle to do more

Starting point is 01:41:52 awesome shit. Do you feel though there are a lot of times these bigger guests that you've interviewed like that, they just maybe don't take the time to do that or they don't maybe see the same value in that as maybe someone like you? I personally. I think it can be overwhelmed. Yeah, I think they're just fucking busy Yeah, there's only so much bandwidth that they can deal with and it just gets pushed. I think it's a very Good attitude to have about that. Right. I mean, yeah, there are cocksuckers out there of course There are but I'm not trying to have them on my podcast

Starting point is 01:42:22 You know what I mean like I'll just skip a week, fuck it. Have you not aired somebody yet? Have you had someone that's some that you don't? No, I haven't. I haven't, but I'm 20 and I'm still talking to people I really want to talk to. Yeah. At some point, this will happen.

Starting point is 01:42:34 Well, I actually think the point where you're at right now where it's growing, sometimes that's the hardest and most challenging because, you know, not everybody who does give you the time of day, like some of the best people you want to talk to, and you know, are busy, they don't have the bandwidth, and if you don't quite have the following day, like some of the best people you want to talk to and you know are busy They don't have the bandwidth and if you don't quite have the following yet, it might be hard to get on the show So you're kind of confined to okay, I can get these people to tension if I fly to them or do these things for them and and if okay

Starting point is 01:42:56 Who are those people that I want to get on this podcast? I remember that being very challenging for us, right? You know and you know and again Fortunately and kind of goes back to the kid who wants to start a t-shirt company, right? You kind of grow with the people at your level. And so because I already have a following in these other things going on, it's a pretty easy transition to starting a podcast. It's not an easy transition to being as good a podcast as I am with the apparel sales.

Starting point is 01:43:22 But I'm not starting from zero. Right. I didn't wake up one day and say, I'd like to interview people and then start trying to send emails to celebrities. Well, you add value no matter what. You add value even to a large, huge person in business. You already bring value to the table. Something.

Starting point is 01:43:37 Something of some sort, right? So I mean, you know, that's a huge help and understanding that, like if you're gonna run a podcast and that's something you wanna do, like you gotta have the chops too, to be able to hold conversation. And fucking not a lot of people do. The tough one's manner when you have someone on and don't grasp that it's a conversation. Is this answer yes, no? Yeah.

Starting point is 01:44:01 The fuck you want me to do is that. It's like dumb stories. It's the worst. I. Yeah. The fuck you want me to do with that? So it's like, don't store your stuff. It's the worst. I like these. And I've been looking at that with the podcast. I haven't run into that, but I did outside sales in oil and gas industries. These were not the shining beacons of conversation

Starting point is 01:44:18 that I took to lunch every week. Right, right. I've had to carry a lot of conversations or smile through hearing someone say shit that I just know as ignorant and dumb. Yeah. Yeah. For the greater good.

Starting point is 01:44:30 Right. Yeah. That's a good, it's a skill, bro. That's a skill that you developed. It is, it is. Do you think it mostly developed from that job? Or a fuck for sure. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 01:44:39 I'm, I'm a salesman. You know, that's, I know that's what I am and that's what I do and it's, Do you remember when you made that connection? Like, oh, I'm kind of good at You know, that's, I know that's what I am and that's what I do and it's, do you remember when you made that connection? Like, oh, I'm kinda good at this and I like it. Like, yeah, it would have been, like I knew it whenever I did stuff with a bike shop. I knew it whenever I sold merch from my buddy's band

Starting point is 01:44:56 that I could do it. I'm good at the interaction with people. Yeah, but when did you get the taste and the thirst for that you like? Like I like this a lot lot a lot of that came from It's the hunt With sales and like the oil and gas job It was still exciting for me that like all right

Starting point is 01:45:15 I know they got a job coming up in 12 months like I got to start now So I can have four or five lunches with them and build this rapport where we've never really talked about work To slowly get to this point of like hey, man you know if this thing you guys got coming up now Where you taught that skill right there? Oh you fucking just yeah, of course because you can't just show fucking smash people in the face with Bye bye bye. Yeah, but you know we people make that mistake I bet you can just add a people at everything. Yeah, I know your friends house I bet that you're right just saying that it no happens how important that is I bet you that was probably one of the things that separate you from your peers. Yeah, yeah, for sure, right? And then I'd say a lack of

Starting point is 01:45:53 my being able to play the game as well kept me from being very good at it. I mean, there was a certain level of like, I'm not willing to cross that gross threshold. I'll just not do that. I kind of want to fucking go with some creepy dude to the strip club and like watch him get gross and then I have to go eat dinner with him and his wife. Oh, you know what I mean? Not man. You guys go have a good time. Was that common?

Starting point is 01:46:19 It's not common, but it happens for sure. Yeah. You got it. There's a misconception out there about sales and where if you want to be successful in sales, you have to compromise your integrity and your definition of success. Well, I'll tell you what, some of the most successful sales people have ever met

Starting point is 01:46:37 are some of the best integrity. They're just really good at communicating. They're just very good at communicating. And maybe they've, maybe because they've held that line, they've got to a job where they get to hold that line. Hold it right. They get to do something. I mean, look, I've also did a sales job

Starting point is 01:46:50 that I was successful at, it was fucking awful. But I had bills to pay. What was that like? It was terrible, dude. It was the worst job ever. What are you selling? Home telephone service. Yes.

Starting point is 01:47:01 At an AT&T store. And so talk about get your ego shit sorted This is after I close the bike shop, so I went from running my own thing Entrepreneur here's some humble pie son to back that's some of this humble pie to back DJing at the strip club at night And working at this AT&T store six hours a day Or for six days a week and so I'm wearing a suit a shitty suit Off the rack $150 suit fits me like garbage bags. Well, like the way you look at guarantee it. Yeah

Starting point is 01:47:37 I want to bring up Bambi right now and now come into the stage on one we got cinnamon Little bit less on we got Bamb bamboo put your hands together ladies and gentlemen If you ain't different you're tripping DNA action tonight at desk a base total non-stop action you're way too good at that. Yeah Elections to sleep Dad was never around She's here for money. You get a couple heavy strippers come in, you start.

Starting point is 01:48:09 What's the craziest thing you saw at that strip club? People die. Fuck, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We have stripper die. A stripper die? This is the saddest thing I've ever heard. Like on the pole? No, no, she was in the back.

Starting point is 01:48:20 Doing like a line of blow or something. Oh shit. It looked like she was currently trying to figure out how to breathe Mexican pizza. What? What? So, okay, so she come up in the back doing like a line of blow or something. Oh shit. Look like she was currently trying to figure out how to breathe Mexican pizza. What? Whoa, what? So, okay, so she come up in the DJ booth while I was reading. Yeah, yeah, she's good.

Starting point is 01:48:34 She come up in the DJ booth for me and one of the other bouncers we're talking and she's like, you guys want any of these? Like big fucking handful of oxies. We're like, no. Get the fuck out of here. It's like cool. Glute. Oh shit. She throws this whole fucking handful down thinking they were like a Xanax

Starting point is 01:48:55 Oh shit and like look down on it. You better get the fuck out of here And she's like, whoa, I'm like you're gonna be fucking dead in 45 minutes. You just ate 300 grams of something Oh shit, you like called it. Yeah, it's like you're in trouble and well, it's not wrong. Whoa You called it. Yeah, you're in trouble. And that was not wrong. Whoa. How long did it take for that to happen? Like what? 45 minutes.

Starting point is 01:49:09 And she was in the back. Yeah, some other girl walked out and was like, Hey, uh, she's not just taking a nap. What? Damn. That's a great start. You have to shut down the club or you're like, keep dancing.

Starting point is 01:49:20 Come on. Go through the back. Oh, that's terrible. It's a set on stage. No, really? Strait ambulance through the back, carry her out, and then we didn't have a back door. No, we'll do through the club dude.

Starting point is 01:49:31 Oh my god. This was not a nice place I worked at. Dude, no shit, man. Oh, it's weird times dude, like, what else did you see there? I mean, you went straight to death, bro. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You wore me up, like sorry. No, no, no, no, no dude. You wore me up, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, And then it's normal. And so it doesn't register as a crazy thing that happened. Right, I get that.

Starting point is 01:50:05 And so you're just, it was like working on the fucking Wild West. It was just a place that rules didn't exist. And you were so well compensated for not having morals. That that's how everyone played. Now is it true that a lot of strip clubs or groups of them are owned by organizations like HAs and stuff like that? Do you do know much about that? This one was owned by an old redneck guy named Steve.

Starting point is 01:50:33 Just one club. It's all he owned. So he owned the property. Yeah. Steve looked like Willie Nelson, big fucking ponytail, uh, like strippers. Obviously, he always had like four or five that lived at his house. Do what you love. Yeah. And then the other owner was this two strikes felon Vietnamese guy that to get money to open a strip club started an insurance company and collected premiums for two years

Starting point is 01:51:06 for a company that didn't exist. Just collected premiums and denied service for two years and then went to jail. Like that was the plan. So I'm going to do this as long as I can. It's a real stand-up character, sir. I'm going to do this thing. His plan was, I'll do this as long as I can. All the money goes to my brother, it's in his name. I'll go to jail, and then I get out and I have the money. Oh shit. That was part of the business plan. Oh my god.

Starting point is 01:51:33 Wow. Did it work then? I mean, yeah, his owner is strip club. I mean, I don't know what worked means. I mean, I watched him get pistol whipped by Steve one night, so I mean. What, you saw someone get pistol whipped? Yeah, he found out, men was stealing from him. Yeah, I've seen that happen a lot.

Starting point is 01:51:48 He pissed a whipped him in front of us and we decided to stop Steve from killing him because we thought it would be more of a hassle to deal with than if we just stopped him. What? It's a dark place, dude. There's just things that happen in there that like outside the door, you'd be like,

Starting point is 01:52:00 I would not do that. And then in there, you're like, that's what I meant by like, I've heard that a lot of these types of clubs are like protected by HAs and major games or organization. We had a handful of motorcycle gangs that came through, but like, we for the most part didn't allow colors

Starting point is 01:52:15 in the bar. Okay. So you couldn't wear whatever your gear was. Okay. And this guy's always just showed up. I wanted to get in fights with the bouncers and they weren't very good at fighting. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 01:52:25 No, that's funny. At least in our area they were not. They were not skilled combatants. What would be like the typical thing person that you'd have to deal with there? Is it normal? It's a typical person that we have just drunk. It's just overly drunk and too groovy. And so, you walk them out and they want to leave.

Starting point is 01:52:43 And then occasionally they want to fight and drunk people don't fight well. Don't get hammered and try to fight bouncer's it's a fucking terrible idea. Probably gonna lose. Yeah, there's a bunch of them. Don't get the shit beat out of you in some CD strip club parking lot at 8.30 on a Tuesday night.

Starting point is 01:52:59 It's not a good look on you. It's about the bottom. It's about the fucker. It doesn't give me a Tuesday. It's about the bottom. It doesn't give me a Tuesday. Yeah, it's about the bottom. Why are you so fucking wrecked? The talent isn't even there on that night, right? Now, talent gets weird, man, because a talent would show up on Mondays, because you would only have regulars in a club. So they'd make more money with less customers. You don't have to do the stage work. I mean, no one's getting paid on stage. This is a strip club hack.

Starting point is 01:53:27 No, this is good. This is good information. Yes, cool. There's that. I mean, as a bouncer, at least the one I worked at, I think my friends that still bounce. It seems to be a hair more regulated in a way that the scams aren't there.

Starting point is 01:53:42 And so one of the scams we had was, the area right around the front of the stage, like, even if it was dead as empty and it's, you know, early in the night and big group comes in and they want to sit. And they sit down there and like, you approach me as a bouncer and like, Hey, man, look, I got a big party coming in later. These seats are reserved. I'm, you know, I'm sorry. And they get kind of pissy about it. And then you're like, man, let me see what I can do if you guys want to take care of us. Like, oh, you know,

Starting point is 01:54:07 but like, you know, when my party gets in, y'all got to move. So you got 10 dudes, and it gets easy for them to come up with 200 bucks. So now I've given them chairs. Oh, well. These chairs aren't reserved.

Starting point is 01:54:16 So I've made money there. And then the place gets filled up, and I've done this a couple times now. So the whole stage is full, and some other chairs are full full so some other big group comes in later and they're like book My hand police crowed or they're in over to go. I'm like man. Let me see what I can do So they pay you the chairs now, right? You go tell the guys and you're like, hey man that party's here. And so they fucking happily get up and So man it's good times man. Oh

Starting point is 01:54:46 That's a good, hustle and roll. What did it do? That one, yeah, yeah. That worked. And the funny part is like I know other guys that worked in strip clubs in different places and everyone's done it. Oh, really? That's gay. All tapped into that idea.

Starting point is 01:54:57 I've never heard that. I guess if you see it enough, right? You see the patterns, you're like, it's funny now like going to a strip club. Like, no. You see the man, you're like, it's funny now like going to a strip club. They're like, doing it to you. You see the man behind the curtain? Yeah. That's what's going on here. Yeah, pull this one on me pal.

Starting point is 01:55:09 The weird one we had, the scam, and this was like management scam, which is super fucking illegal. It's called a B-drinking. And so the way that works is the girls would get tipped out at the night better based on the number of drinks they sold. Mm.

Starting point is 01:55:24 And so, you know, girls sit down with a customer, waitress comes up and say, hey, you want to buy her a drink. Like, yeah, you know, sure, you know, I think, what do you have? And she says vodka, says, you know, whiskey or whatever it is, right? Well, the shot that comes back is water or, you know, tequila or whiskey.

Starting point is 01:55:39 I don't feel for that. I got broke. I was 21 years old. I did. I was 21 years old. I was in Hawaii. Money, you can't get that fucked up. Every year, the top performers in the company get flown out to Hawaii, stay there for a week.

Starting point is 01:55:54 It's a really cool trip. You know, and the best of the best is there. So it was a cool thing. I'm 21 years old. I'm fucking full of piss and vinegar. Hell yeah. And I go to... This is also about the age I was working.

Starting point is 01:56:05 Okay, so I go first of all work. With my regional vice president, the division president, there's all these big wigs. And I'm the young 21 year old kid who's like rolling with these guys. So I already feel like big shit as an idiot. And then I get into this strip club. And I'm a young confident guy that's never really had

Starting point is 01:56:26 to ever pay for sex. So I'm like, I'm not, well, going to a strip, I think that's a confusion bit, right? That like, that's why you would go to a strip club. And I never took it as that. Even when I've gone by myself, like it was a place that there were sports on TV.

Starting point is 01:56:43 Right. It was dark. There's less people than a regular fucking TV. Right. It was dark. There's less people than a regular fucking bar. And there's comfy chairs. And hot naked women. And there's tips out. Right, right. What's not the like?

Starting point is 01:56:52 Right. This seems so obvious. Well, I get in here and my attitude is like, you know what? I'll just, I'll talk to one of the girls. I'll meet someone here. I don't need to go through. Get to know her. Right.

Starting point is 01:57:03 I sit at the bar. I order a drink, watching sports by myself, doesn't take but 15 minutes, and probably the hottest girl in the bar comes walking over. Nice. And stands next to me. Animal magnetism.

Starting point is 01:57:13 Right. So I'm feeling confident here, and she sits down next to me, and asks what's a good looking guy like myself sitting by myself, and you know, and we go back and forth, and I just, I'm sold that she's into me. Of course. And she asks me, do you want to have shots with me?

Starting point is 01:57:26 And of course I want to have shots. Yeah, that's how we get drunk and we get laid. Yeah, 100% that's going to a history of guess. And so right away I give the bartender my credit card and just open a tab and we're going, and I'm going shot for shot with this girl and I'm like, fucking seven, eight, deep dude. Yep.

Starting point is 01:57:44 And I'm like, pardon me, it's exciting. And I'm going like, man, this is and I'm like fucking seven, eight, deep dude. And I'm like, part of me is excited and I'm going like, man, this is for sure happening. This girl's totally sober. Yeah, she's going shot for shot with me. And the time just keeps rolling. Like, we're an hour and a half in this conversation. I'm wondering like, man, how many more shots for this girl's gonna wanna leave and get out of here?

Starting point is 01:57:59 Uh, two a.m. Yeah, exactly, two a.m. And even then at this point, I still think it's gone. It's going my way. Yeah, until I cash out and my tab is fucking like 700 all and I was like, and of course, still trying to act like a boss, you know, sign it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm going to go like, whoa, we'd recommend you that. And know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

Starting point is 01:58:27 I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

Starting point is 01:58:35 I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

Starting point is 01:58:43 I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. and guys at the bar, yeah. Yeah, cause she, well you know, they were like, girls that we had head customers that would fucking pay them rent and fucking do all kinds of shit, skandless me. Oh, I bet. Well, we struggled ever have terribly attractive strippers

Starting point is 01:58:54 because eager beats pretty. And, right. The horse, the hustle hoars would run off the good looking ones. Yeah. Yeah. Eager beats pretty.

Starting point is 01:59:06 Yeah, that's kind of the rule of what we had going on. Yeah. They'll do more. Welcome to Ask a Faze. They're kind of whole. That's the real deal. That's real deal. Is that really how it gets down then?

Starting point is 01:59:19 At the place I worked at, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Eager beats pretty. Yeah, the place I worked at was sketchy. But what was the turnover like for girls? Is it like the same core group or do you see a lot of turnover?

Starting point is 01:59:31 It was like 80, 20. Like you had 20% that was always there. Lifers. Well, you're livers. And then the 80% would just roll over. Chicks that you would work for a month and you'd never see again. Or work for a month and disappear and come back. So you worked there, then you opened your bike shop and then went back after you close

Starting point is 01:59:48 it up. Yeah, super cool. Same place. Yeah. So like home, because I knew I could walk in, I kept a really, I still have friends that work at the club, right? Like a different club, but it's all the same like managers and guys that I bounce with are at a different club in Baton Rouge.

Starting point is 02:00:03 I stay in contact with them because there's some stupid fear in my head of like always have a fucking plan. You know, he's got that as a pocket fucking go work tomorrow night. If I can send a text, like I can go make whatever, some cash tomorrow night, because I can figure out something else while I'm getting paid. I'll beat up some scumbags.

Starting point is 02:00:19 I will never not be in the pro. I love that strategy. Yeah, no fucking burn those bridges, man. Good people to know. Was that how tough was that selling your business and having to do that? It's gotten bad enough in the end that it was a welcome, they're like, okay, we need to shut the doors. So what happened is my partner bought me out, which essentially means I'd left with

Starting point is 02:00:42 my debt, you know, and it was his afterwards. And so, there was a big relief of wanting to finally just was like, look man, go do your other thing. I know you don't want to be here, you're not, and we can't support two of us. How long did you try and run at that, and how much debt did you? It's about three and a half years.

Starting point is 02:01:00 I got out with like 50 grand. Okay, it's not too bad, but. Well, so I didn't have student loans, so at least I figured that out for myself. 50 grand's a lot when you have no money. No money, yes. That's a lot of fucking money, man. 50 grand's a lot of money, period.

Starting point is 02:01:12 Right, yeah. I don't know if there'll ever be a point in my life where I don't think 50 grand's a shit. Well, I think that what it highlights though, is it was an education. For sure, right? I got a lot of education. You probably ever had in business.

Starting point is 02:01:24 Yeah, I got a lot out of it and I mean part of the problem was that 22-year-old me was trying to run the business side of the business Fucking huge mistake. I don't do that now with the current thing I'm doing I have a guy and my partner does that side of things. Yeah, cuz I'm fucking bad at it Yeah, and I just don't give enough of a shit Yeah, but I just look at things it. Yeah. And I just don't give enough of a shit. Yeah. That I just look at things like money's in, right? So money goes out.

Starting point is 02:01:50 We need more things to sell. You know, you know, I don't want to track and do all the number part because it cuts down the creative side and then you get bogged in it. And so the more that I can keep my head freed up to do. Do with what you're good at. Yeah, do the thing that why we started this. Mm-hmm. When you left and you got a job at the strip club again and in the job at AT&T, we'll never back to AT&T.

Starting point is 02:02:15 Yeah, that's the worst job ever. Oh, why was it so bad? Dude, so we're selling home telephones, which is a fucking thing to me. As cell phones are on a rise. I'm at a cell phone store that sells iPhones and I'm selling a home telephone, which is a fucking thing to me. Cell phones are on a rise. I'm at a cell phone store. That sells iPhones and I'm selling a home telephone service. I don't work for AT&T.

Starting point is 02:02:31 I work for this third party. It's like I don't have a desk or anything. Like I've got a clipboard and a notebook. Oh my God, that have been torture for a while. Yeah, and a suit. And so I just have to approach customers in AT&T stores and ask them about their home telephone service. And if I could help them by bundling,

Starting point is 02:02:52 call waiting or fucking whatever garbage it is, and maybe even throwing some direct TV, that I could save money over the course of the month, which it never did. It never saved anyone money. Oh, that's hilarious. Oh, I love it when they tell you that. You're gonna save money, Mike,

Starting point is 02:03:07 but what if I don't get that, then I don't spend that? Yeah, but you're saving money. Right, and so that was, like we had a notebook that showed the different plans and like if they moved from this to this, what it would do. And so it's easy to sell someone, but like I had to approach a stranger and explain the thing that I did for, did, did.

Starting point is 02:03:23 And I'm like, you know, you would just, it was just high pressure sales, like the whole model of it was, like I have to get your social security number in your name so that I can make a phone call to check on your current service to see what we can upgrade to change. And so you're just never giving them a question. It's just always like, so let me get your social security number

Starting point is 02:03:45 and I can jump she close. Okay. Yeah, and so, and, and, you know, be like, oh, the notebook says, you know, you're at $35 now and this is gonna lower you to 30 bucks a month, right? You know, blah, blah, blah, you know, you'll have call waiting on your phone, just don't fucking use it.

Starting point is 02:04:03 And then, like sure enough, like after you call in the order, I was like, oh, you know, they're current, their current bill right now is $34, and the next bill will be 65. I'm like, fuck. It's either just to help people be like, you know, if it doesn't work out, just cancel. Right.

Starting point is 02:04:17 It canceled like in a month, because I've already been paid my commission from doing it. You know, deal. Right. Yeah. And so it's just bad, deal. Right. Yeah. And so it's just bad, dude.

Starting point is 02:04:26 If you, if, if, I always tell people that's, if you want to get good at sales, go, go sell something with the fast sales cycle, which phones are, sort of, memberships and gyms, that's where, you know, what I came from. It's fast sales cycles. You get a lot of reps. Yep.

Starting point is 02:04:40 And work and, work and try and sell something that's hard to sell. Like you get a fast sales cycle and something that's hard to sell, you are forged by fire. Oh, for sure. For sure, you definitely are. And then the real tough part of that job was like the guy who owned the company, this little Indian fella.

Starting point is 02:04:59 And race, smars, get him. If anyone's interested. But like, I remember, like, I knew get him if anyone's interested. Uh, but like, I remember like, I knew that we were just fucking people. And so we would have, we'd have a meeting at the office in the morning before we got sent to our stores. They'd also send us to different stores every day so that when people were pissed, they couldn't come back and find the guy who's managing. Yeah, I had to have been.

Starting point is 02:05:24 Oh my God. it's hilarious. Right, and so, and then we had a meeting at the end of the day to like go over our sales. And so the meeting at the first part of the day is was like 7 a.m. we met and went over sales tactics and like had a discussion of like, if a customer says this, you say this and like went over the fucking script

Starting point is 02:05:43 and then like would do improv like be a negative customer. Roll play. Yeah. And then at the end of the day we would come back and if you had like over X amount of sales, if we'd like rang a fucking bell and high five to each other, that's that's in every like sales giant corporate manual. Every sales job that has a faster sales cycle that Bell is the leader we were. We were, we were, we were, we were, we were, we were going somewhere, the solar panel company. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:06:14 We were walking through and we saw Bells. So the city, yeah. And we saw Bells and all of us laughed and were like, and like, that's what we're doing. It's on. It's there because it actually worked. It does motivate us. It does work.

Starting point is 02:06:26 You're the being like that in a little bit of competition and like having like, you know, if you're doing this and then you can move up to this next position and then you're a team leader and then if you move up from that, you could have your own weird third party AT&T thing. Now, did you kick everybody's ass

Starting point is 02:06:43 even though you didn't like the job? I did well at it, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It was me and two other dudes who were very good at it. And then I just quit. I got in a stopdance. Did you go from there to the oil? Yeah.

Starting point is 02:06:53 Okay. How long did you stay doing that, though, for? Oh, so you got that before you got into the oil? Yeah, that was right after. So this was, I put out a resume, which is basically blank, on monster.com and got an email from a company. And this was the fucking first company that emailed me back.

Starting point is 02:07:13 And I went in and looking, applied, took the job, and did not make some mortgage payment, you know? Yeah. I was like, oh cool, you'll pay me starting tomorrow. That sounds awesome. I'll be there. I'll be there. I'll be there. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:07:27 In the meantime, I'll find another job. Best time to find a job is what you currently have one. Yeah, that is true. Were you married at this time or not? Not married yet. You guys were dating? Yeah, we'd been going, we were living together. How has her support been through?

Starting point is 02:07:40 Because that's a very good time. Her support is fine. Her support is fine. Her support is fine. Her support is fine. Her support is fine. Her support is fine. Her support is fine. Her support is fine. been through because that's a very good and always awesome. But she knew that the bike shop thing was a sinking ship. And so I mean, you know, she busted ass too, right? Like she picked up a second job that she didn't need. She was a paralegal and got a second job to help.

Starting point is 02:07:55 And you know, I was never fucking home because I worked the strip club at night and then did this thing at 18 T stores during the day. And she was okay with the strip club working this. Yeah, I had the job before we started going out and then she met me bouncing at a regular bar. Okay, like, I worked in bars, it's how it goes. And then you work at a strip club because it pays better than working at regular bars

Starting point is 02:08:17 and it's less customers. It's easy. It's just weird. Like if you don't have your shit together, strip club will eat you. No, that's funny. But there's less danger than the regular bar. The regular bar has a little bit less danger, but there's not as much reward.

Starting point is 02:08:33 We watch it fucking chew up and spit people out. People can't handle that environment. How is it your relationship changed as your, because now you have a successful business right? Yeah, how is that? She's she's just always had had my back. That's great. But I've always worked I've never sat around and not been jobless or whatever right. I've never been the prov- you know not providing You know when things were bad or we were broke I seem to always be able to figure out how to go make money I'd say that's a skill that I have.

Starting point is 02:09:06 I will work. I will take care of these responsibilities. You know what comes with that though, and I think the lesson from someone like you is that you're willing to do whatever. I mean, it's like, oh, I'll give a shit. Right. I think I think what I'm doing right now is awesome, and it's currently successful. But I've never had the same job for over 11 years. Like that's the longest I was ever in a I was ever in a certain field or a career. So to think that this is what I do until I'm fucking 60, I think is insane. So always eyes forward.

Starting point is 02:09:37 When or if this stops being what pays my bills, something else will. How many people do you think have this ability? I think a lot of people are just think, I think people get stuck too in jobs like they hate and all this stuff. Because it's fucking comfortable. But at the same time, it's like you gotta go through a lot of shit jobs to get to a point where we're at, where it's like, oh my God.

Starting point is 02:09:57 How did I get so lucky that I'm in this kind of a job where everything is, you know, like, like it seems easy, like I could just have a conversation and now, you know, I'm doing this and I'm getting paid for this, but know, like it seems easy. Like I could just have a conversation. And now, you know, I'm doing this, and I'm getting paid for this. But it's like, you know, you have to go back and revisit all these stepping stones. You had to get crushed, you know,

Starting point is 02:10:13 doing shit, jobs, digging holes, and you know, like doing some stuff where like it's uncomfortable and it's fucking hard. Gotta be okay with eating shit for a while. That's it. The AT&D job provided me with a way to work in another job where I had some sales experience. And then from there, you know,

Starting point is 02:10:30 was actually doing physical labor and the scanning and the refineries. And then realized that like, well, we get paid some commission on top of salary. So like if we have more jobs, we make more money. And so I just started co-calling people at refineries. Oh shit, so you proactively started doing it. Oh yeah, I got better commission if we had jobs.

Starting point is 02:10:51 Boom. I'm trying to get paid. Yeah, yeah. Wow, I bet they loved you for. Yeah, it was awesome. They rewarded it very well. And then eventually another company reached out that just wanted me to do sales.

Starting point is 02:11:02 Oh shit, that's how that went down. So went to another company and then did, was there for four or five years, and then got hired by another company that wanted to hire a guy in that region. Being a sales guy and admitting that you're a sales guy and that you enjoy it and you like it, what was the most rewarding month for you?

Starting point is 02:11:19 Tell me, give me a story of like a, just a performance that you did or a hard clothes or the ones that always, I felt good about where, of like a, just a performance that you did or a hard clothes or um, the ones that always I felt good about were when I fixed a thing. Uh, and what I mean like is so, don't you give me the PG you fucking answer right now? It's not who it's not PG. Don't give me the fucking, what everybody's gonna say.

Starting point is 02:11:37 I never, I never got a saying. I never got like crazy, you know, commissions off of the, the jobs ahead. Once I'd gotten to sales role, they paid a great salary. Okay. And so closing big fucking sales and getting us into a refinery

Starting point is 02:11:52 that we haven't been into before, or the sales cycle in the oil and gas industry is so long. Yeah, you said like four or five lunches. Yeah, and so I mean, that's long. That would be short term. There's a lot of jobs that like say well fuck It's March of 2018 right now like my brother still does this job and like I guarantee you stuff right now that he's plotting is 21 And so like that job that major turnaround doesn't happen till fucking 2021

Starting point is 02:12:18 Yeah, I got to start now like I need to be over there I need to be seeing these guys and going to lunch and talking about the plan and doing this and dance. Yeah. What about then and other finally comes through? That's like when that fucking hits that you've had a job that you've chased, chased and chased and it seems like you're getting fucking nowhere and I'm flying to Chicago once a week for eight months to go take these guys to lunch or fly to Chicago to take these guys to lunch and have a meeting canceled. Oh, cool. I'll just go home.

Starting point is 02:12:46 No problem. It's a fun flight. I was looking to do. Is that how you handle that? I feel like you would be that guy. You got paid the same either way. Right. It just gets frustrating.

Starting point is 02:12:56 And then you have to play it. It can't be a dick about it. Right. There's a guy I'm into. I'll go see some other people in the area. You know, fuck everybody else in the area. That was a kid. Or a movie in the hotel room. Yeah. see some other people in the area. You don't fucking have anybody else in the area. You don't know. That was a kid. We're removing the hotel room.

Starting point is 02:13:06 Yeah, that's it. Yeah, just fucking hang out, go find a gym. You're gonna get some deep dish pizza. What about in all the professions combined? Like there has to be, like, so not just the oil. I mean, I'm talking, or the get oil and gas, but I'm talking like your current business right now, or maybe in the AT&T was there a big month

Starting point is 02:13:22 where you were top in the company for AT&T or was there a time when you first started selling a peril and you broke a major milestone? There was a time during AT&T where like the second level of sales, like that they had like if you could hit this many in this many days, you know, then you were hired as promoted which I'm not sure what the fuck you got for that promotion. A big pen. Yeah. You got to have other people report to you with no added money.

Starting point is 02:13:51 So you get more responsibility. More responsibility. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Same money. Yeah, power is what it was. Yeah. Yeah. But I remember like three weeks in, like I was already at the top doing sales for the thing.

Starting point is 02:14:05 Oh, wow. And the owner guy had basically said, you know, like in a meeting one morning, he's like, hey, you know, I'd like to you to share, you know, what you're picking up on that's working here. I'd been working in a fun strip club for five years. So you had a great strip club story. No, I'm like, no, so My goal was whatever got me to them buying this thing. I can give a shit what got us there. My goal was them signing this sheet of paper,

Starting point is 02:14:31 which means I got a commission. What happened pre and post that fucking gives a shit. So how do you answer? Fucking lied to people. And like so like I made up a bullshit thing. And then like, oh yeah, yeah, no, I didn't tell the group. I was like, you know what, it's about listening and booboo, booboo, and it's like afterwards, like I talked to my boss and I'm like, hey man, do you know that we're just fucking people, right? Cause I'm okay that that's what we're doing. But I need to know that you know that that's what we're doing

Starting point is 02:15:00 and you're not lying to yourself and like he couldn't give it up to me to be like, no, I know that that's part of the gig. Oh really? And so like I quit. Oh shit. That was it. Like that was more of a lie to me than the idea of

Starting point is 02:15:12 that we were fucking straight up lying to people. Right, because it's almost like that's the job. That's what I was supposed to do. The game, you could just not deal with me. I'm still in a home telephone service. You rude. Like where are you in Mark that came in and bought this giant package that I'm gonna get all the commission on? Why are you a mark that came in and bought this giant package that I'm going to get all

Starting point is 02:15:27 the commission on? Why? It's a home telephone. No one needs it. Well, I mean, you may need it for your security system. Come on. This fucking antiquated dinosaur that we were selling to people. It's like selling newspapers.

Starting point is 02:15:43 No, we're selling iron lungs. Really? Dude, great training though. Holy man, it seems. It got a lot easier when you were selling stuff that people wanted. Right, and then you bullied, and you bullied, and you bullied,

Starting point is 02:15:54 and now way cooler selling a thing that's essentially me and a thing I like making. Right. You know, or even training stuff. Like, I fucking like talking about training. It's great. And so, yeah, this is way better, but all that helped. Like I'm not nervous having conversations with strangers.

Starting point is 02:16:12 I'm not nervous hearing no from someone doesn't mean a fucking thing to me. That's a super power that you have to give a shit. Well, I mean, it's a numbers game. Like if you realize what you're doing is sales, you know, especially with the petrochemical thing, like when I first started, like I knew that every 10 phone calls I made gave me two people that would answer the phone,

Starting point is 02:16:33 one of which would have a meeting with me. So if I need to book 10 meetings this week, I gotta make a hundred phone calls. That's the game. And if for every 10 meetings equaled one that ended up in a second meeting and went to a possible job. Like it just extrapolates out.

Starting point is 02:16:50 And it's beautiful because if you apply it that way and the more you do it, the better you get, the increased of the closes, the increased of the shows, the increased. You just start turning it up. This is exactly what I kind of had brought to the my fitness team that I felt that no other

Starting point is 02:17:06 person brought in our space at the time, you know, on the fitness side. You had all these fitness leaders that were talking about the science behind fitness, which is good. I think it's important that you have educated trainers and then how to, you know, do their files and track and understanding that piece and communication with clients. But nobody was really talking about the business side of it. And at the end of the day, all these people want to do this for a living

Starting point is 02:17:31 and want to be able to some want to make money. That's why you're here. Right, and I thought it was step-based. Right. See, profit. And I thought it was really fascinating that nobody was talking about, like, okay, well, why don't you just start

Starting point is 02:17:42 to break this down mathematically? Like, okay, you have to, I have to talk to 10 people on the floor, which with no pressure, just talk to them. I have to talk to 10 people, out of those 10 people, three or four of them are going to want to actually have the conversation and actually ask me some questions. That then leads me an opportunity to book them a free appointment, which that should be really fucking easy

Starting point is 02:18:03 to convince. They're already coming to the gym. Right, they're coming to the gym. They're already asking me questions. Now I've got three appointments. Out of those three appointments, one of those people are two of those people and one of those people end up closing at an average

Starting point is 02:18:15 of this dollar amount. So okay, now we can unpack your dollar amount. You need to make every single month. You tell me you wanna make $10,000 a month. I'll tell you how many people you gotta talk to every single day. You're not willing to talk to those people then fuck off. Exactly. You're never going to get the money. Never going to be successful doing that. But if you start and I tell every trainer this that's listening and this applies

Starting point is 02:18:34 to any sales job, but trainers, especially you start tracking that, you start paying attention to that month by month and then you don't compare yourself to anyone else. You compete with yourself. You get better at your craft. You see more people, you get more reps. It doesn't seem so mysterious anymore, right? It's the mystery that people fuck up with. Yeah, it becomes, you know the recipe. That's it. And no one the recipe is key.

Starting point is 02:18:52 I mean, that's the same thing for, I mean, fuck, it's what we do with strength training. Like, you know, it's really hard to say, man, I want to deadlift 600. You know, but, well, let's get you to four. What do we do to get you to four? Well, we know that if we can hit these markers along the way, we can get you to 600. We can fucking back it all the way out over two years or however long you want to do it. Mm-hmm. And

Starting point is 02:19:17 I mean, it's the people that just show up and they're like, I want this and then don't have an aim. Right. Like, you know, a boat without a port in mind, all the winds bad. And so, fucking have a direction. And that way, you know how to harness what's in front of you to make it go somewhere.

Starting point is 02:19:42 That's right. And step two to that is be willing to fucking change when shit goes south. Right. Yeah. You know, realize, oops, side step. So important. Yeah. I think that's something I've talked about a lot recently with, you know, in a seminar stuff is that is failure, right? And that's what I was saying about like, I don't care about here and no. Like no, I'm supposed to. How many hearing no so many fucking times it doesn't even register or how many answer machines

Starting point is 02:20:10 I get to because of trying to call call. It would get so bad on call calls that when someone picked up, I was like, yeah, yeah. Who the fuck was that one answer? Is this Mitch? You know? Well it's true because nobody answers the phone.

Starting point is 02:20:26 Right, and then they answer you're like, shit man. I scared of failure. That's where you get better. And so like, have the be willing to fucking suck at something for a long time to get good at it. You don't just get it on day one. And so like, be bad at closing sales and realize where you were too pushy or you were too aggressive or that you didn't read this guy the right way.

Starting point is 02:21:05 I should have picked up on the things he was saying earlier about this and that, that he's not the type of dude that we're gonna be able to push. Right. You know, or that this is gonna be way slower and he wants an actual friendship. And then the other customer is no one anything to do with you. Being afraid of rejection and being in sales

Starting point is 02:21:20 is like being afraid to get punched in the face and being a boxer. Right. Yeah. It's literally the same thing. Like you can't go box if you're being afraid to get punched in the face and being a boxer. Right. Yeah. It's literally the same thing. Yeah. Like you can't go box if you're just refuse to get punched in the face and you're super afraid, then don't box.

Starting point is 02:21:31 It's not going to, it's, yeah. And if you're going to do sales, you're swinging the bat, you're going to strike. There's just just the way it is. Yeah. And sometimes you'll connect, but you're going to strike a lot. My ship makes a league base. Well, man, 25%.

Starting point is 02:21:41 That's it. Call a favor. That's it. I'll take those numbers. That's it. What do Famer. That's it. I'll take those numbers. That's right. What do you think is the single best advice ever given to you that you've applied to your life now and it's made the biggest difference?

Starting point is 02:21:53 Hmm. You know, I think it really goes to that, that not being afraid to fail is that, fucking failure happens man. But like, you're gonna have failures and you're gonna have like major fucking failures. But don't quit, like just sidestep and make another move or decide like,

Starting point is 02:22:18 okay, that didn't work, let's go forward now how do we learn from it? How do we learn from the failures? And I remember being told that through sports and all these other things like, okay, well, what did we learn? We got beat. What did we learn from it so that we don't fucking do this again? Don't waste the failure.

Starting point is 02:22:35 Right. Don't waste the fucking failure at all, right? Because I mean, if you went out and the first time you ever played basketball was like, you know, a one-on-one tournament, right? And you won. I mean, okay, basketball is easy. Maybe everyone you're playing against sucked. So be willing to do that and be willing to always go find people better than you to be

Starting point is 02:22:54 around to learn from. You know, don't... The only thing that really bothers me doing the seminar stuff that I've done and I'm very conscious of like with my podcast or my YouTube channel, so I don't do a lot of how to content, because I get weirded out feeling like I'm an expert at anything.

Starting point is 02:23:12 And like I know that I've got valuable information and that I have the experience and I should be able to share those things, but I personally feel like, man, if I make a video telling people how to deadlift, like why wouldn't I just go get Ed Cohn to do that? Right, I just call it. Right.

Starting point is 02:23:26 Fuck do I know? You know. Well, you share your story. Exactly right. Right, you know, I'm getting over that because it's not valid. Well, that's why even like I ask questions, like I just asked you right now, like, you know,

Starting point is 02:23:38 I'm not asking you a direct answer about something that you can debate if it's right or wrong. It's like, I'm interested in, I know your path, you've shared it with us. I know how successful you are. So it's interesting to me to hear like, okay, what was this guy given when he was in his early 20s that kind of set him on this path of being okay with that? And you keep going back to this kind of failure. And I think it's an important piece that a lot of young people don't get comfortable with. Right. They run into it. and the first time they have it, it's just... They haven't been exposed to it a lot.

Starting point is 02:24:09 It's devastating for them. And it's just, they give up or they just, oh, it's not for me or we blame others. It's like, you know, I think the... That's why you got to let your kids fail, man. Yeah, the lesson is to get comfortable with it. It's going to happen a lot. It's going to happen a lot. Well, you can get comfortable.

Starting point is 02:24:22 You just can't get complacent. Yeah. It can't be okay. You know, it's always when you can look at it as something to move forward from. Yeah, that was a big part of what shaped everything. I think I think another really big change would have been when my, when my old man passed away at when I was 31. Like that was a big change

Starting point is 02:24:45 and like we didn't have like a weird relationship or any of that type of stuff, right? Like guy got sick with pancreatic cancer and died 11 months later and it's super fucking lame. But there was definitely a realization at that moment, like he was 62 and I was 31 and I remember just thinking that like, he fucking halfway. No. And if you are, the fuck are you doing with your time? and I remember just thinking that like, you fucking half way.

Starting point is 02:25:05 No. And if you are, the fuck are you doing with your time? Are you doing a thing that you actually like to do? These days are limited. That shit's coming. Like you can be miserable or happy and you're gonna fucking die either way. Let's work on happy.

Starting point is 02:25:24 And not stressed out in fucking anxious all day and doing things and being around people I want to be around like, man, at this point, I've had enough fucking lunches with people I don't want to talk to. I don't want to do it anymore. My answer's no. No, I don't want to go do a thing. But the stuff I want to do, like I'm fucking in. I'm there. Yeah, I want to hang out. It's never a hassle. I'm not inconvenienced. If it was an inconvenience, I would not have come.

Starting point is 02:25:49 Mm-hmm. You know, but that's, I mean, that's whatever standard you choose to set. You know, that's important to you. And I'm sure that aggravates. I mean, there's, there's shit that I skip. I don't know, I should probably go to, but I don't. Yeah, but that's wisdom. It's like, you understand yourself on the level

Starting point is 02:26:06 where you can decipher whether or not this is really gonna benefit you in your time versus something that you're a little more passionate about. Yeah, or that's just something you don't wanna fucking do, or that. What would you rather do? Nothing. Alone.

Starting point is 02:26:20 And people appreciate that, which is, you know, you think like you're gonna piss people off with that, at least you know that if I show up, that's where I want to be. Right. I gotta try to be pretty conscious that if I show up to a place, I'm not sitting in the corner on my cell phone looking fucking bored of shit. So what you're saying is you like us? Yeah.

Starting point is 02:26:37 Which is why I came for a couple days to fucking sit around here and do nothing. And like I told you yesterday, like, I mean, there's part of it that's content and doing this and like having the calculated plane I'm like, oh, you know these guys have a podcast. I've got a podcast. Let's go talk and do this thing, right? But there's there's part of it too that like You guys are better at a thing that I'm doing I want to go learn This is the same as I wanted to go fucking learn when I was you know know, starting to lift and would go to Ohio to hang out with Wynnler for a week. I want to learn from the people around me that are better than me and take the bits and pieces of like, well, this works for what I'm doing this doesn't.

Starting point is 02:27:12 And if you get one fucking thing over a trip to be someone that you get to apply that makes a difference, like... Totally worth it. Yeah. It requires, it requires humility to go somewhere and be like, this person's better and I'm gonna sit down and just absorb. I mean, if you're the best person in the room at everything you do, fucking go find new friends.

Starting point is 02:27:31 Exactly, yeah. Yeah, exactly. You should never get a grow. We've interviewed some podcasters that just blew us away when they left for like, whoa, did you learn this? Did you see how we did that? Oh yeah, I love that.

Starting point is 02:27:41 We try and keep them tight too. Oh, I love them. Yeah, why wouldn't you try to keep those people, you know, in your wheelhouse? Like, I mean, like Kelly Storetz become one of my wife and I was like best friends. And that wasn't the intention when we first went out and met the guy.

Starting point is 02:27:56 But then, I mean, he's as much as moved into a mentor role for me as anything without it being, without it being that. Right. You know that you just have that respect for him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, without it being that. Right. You know that, you just have that respect for them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got that. But it's some weird thing because, you know, he or Mark Bell or like John Wilborn, I mean, these guys are all 10 years older than me.

Starting point is 02:28:17 So it is this weird, dad authority figure at the next point in their life, but it's also a peer. Yeah. And so it's cool You know that I mean you should fucking have those people man. Yeah, absolutely. Well shit man We love having you on the show brother. I love coming out. You guys are gonna do some you and just gonna rip some YouTube The video you guys did What is one of my favorite one is the one was it's watching the ball back

Starting point is 02:28:46 It's my favorite bro I really bummed out that I pooped on some girls pillows. Oh, that's dude that was so loud. I don't know. You have to keep that one ramped up. Not a proud moment in I'm not bringing out. Yeah, I bring out you served it right because right after where you fold up was listen I know that I wouldn't be friends with me back.

Starting point is 02:29:02 I'm not a good I do I was a good person. Yeah. Great story. I'm not a good, I do always it a good person. Great story, I was a little bit of a fan of stories though. Well shit man, good times again bro. That's always fun dude, I love it. Let's rip some more content on YouTube man. Yes, come to it, appreciate it. Do it.

Starting point is 02:29:14 Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbumble at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbumble includes maps on the ball, maps performance and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout nutrients in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundles like having

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