Next Level Pros - #17: Dan Fleyshman - Record-Breaking IPO Founder, Master Networker, and Philanthropist

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

In this episode of the Founder Podcast, host Chris Lee interviews Dan Fleyshman, the youngest founder of a publicly traded company in history. Dan shares his entrepreneurial journey, starting from his early success in the apparel industry to launching an energy drink brand and later an online poker site. He discusses the challenges and opportunities he encountered along the way, including going public and dealing with the legalities of online gambling. Dan emphasizes the importance of networking and building meaningful relationships. He advises entrepreneurs to go beyond superficial interactions and find common ground with people to create an emotional connection. He also stresses the need to maintain communication with contacts before making any business asks. The conversation delves into Dan's experiences in the online poker industry, particularly during the time when the FBI shut down several major poker sites in the United States. Dan shares how he had to manually pay back thousands of players and ultimately decided to close his own site due to the uncertain legal landscape. Despite the setbacks, Dan went on to become a consultant for Morgan Stanley and land consulting gigs with land-based casinos in Las Vegas. He shares his strategies for success, highlighting the importance of learning from others who have already achieved what you aspire to do. HIGHLIGHTS "I started researching everything about poker sites, like I was playing every site, asking every question, talking to executives, talking to the licensing people." "If you notice, people always ask, Where are you from? That's to find something relatable." "So once I had the 1500 bucks, I was like, That's it. I'm going to retire. It's over. I already know what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life." TIMESTAMPS 00:00: Introduction 03:07: A Young Entrepreneurial Spirit 07:54: Going Public 10:47: Stepping Away 18:03: Partners 24:02: Payback Time 27:11: Gaming 33:25: Creating Genuine Connections 41:35: Giving Back 53:01: What Motivates You Today 🚀 Join my community - Founder Acceleration https://www.founderacceleration.com 🤯 Apply for our next Mastermind https://www.thefoundermastermind.com ⛳️ Golf with Chris https://www.golfwithchris.com 🎤 Watch my latest Podcast Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-founder-podcast/id1687030281 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1e0cL2vI1JAtQrojSOA7D2?si=dc252f8540ee4b05 YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@thefounderspodcast

Welcome to the Founder Podcast, where we explore the journeys of some of the most successful and inspiring entrepreneurs from around the world. I'm your host, Chris Lee, a serial entrepreneur with a passion for building and growing businesses. Throughout my career, I founded multiple nine-figure businesses and learned a thing or two about what it takes to succeed in the world of business. I want to share those lessons with you by searching out the coolest guests on planet earth and have them share their own incredible stories. But this podcast, it's not just for entrepreneurs. It's for anyone that's

looking to be inspired by these stories of people who have overcome incredible odds and create something truly remarkable. So join me on this journey as we explore the fascinating world of entrepreneurship and meet the founders that are shaping it today. Let's dive in. Welcome to another episode. Today, I am joined by Mr. Dan Fleischman. Dan is the youngest founder of a publicly traded company in history. Absolutely crazy. So he initially licensed his apparel company for $9.5 million at the age of 19. And then he later went on to scale his energy drink product to over 55,000 retail locations. So over the years, Dan has launched a number of different businesses, one of the top five online poker sites globally.

He's thrown over 51 elevator nights, co-founded the $100 million Mastermind Experience, has spoken at over 250 business events. In fact, the very first time I ever met Dan was at a business event just almost 10 years ago. He's angel invested in over 43 different companies. His agency, Elevator Studio, has spent over $60 million on social media influencers. This guy is an incredible founder. He is actually the host of the Money Mondays podcast, which has consistently been at the top of the charts for Apple. And he is building the first national chain store in the

sport card industry. He currently has nine locations, and it's growing. Cards and coffee, super dope. But I think more importantly than anything, Dan is a giver, right? He gives back. He does absolutely incredible things. So Dan's main passion is his model citizen fund in which he creates backpacks for the homeless filled with over 150 different emergency supplies items. And I know, I'm pretty sure if I remember right, Mr. Dan, you set the world record or the Guinness Book of World Records for largest toy drive this last Christmas. Is that right?

Oh, yeah. You're going to break the record again. Oh, man. oh man dan i think uh the coolest thing about you is you're everything that i stand for a guy that is passionate about business family being a part of the community uh but more importantly giving back and just doing incredible things for society so excited to have you on the show today. Welcome. Thanks for having me. It's going to be fun. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So Dan, dude, how old are you now? 41. 41 years old. So you got into entrepreneurship at a very young age. Give me that backstory.

Nobody just takes and licenses a brand at age 19 for nine and a half million bucks, right? Like there, there's definitely a precursor to that story. Give it, give us that backstory. So if I throw you in the pool, you're either going to swim or die. Right. And so, you know, I was 17 years old working three jobs. I had to make money because we didn't have any money and so the money i was making was to help hopefully pay for college because i was planning to go to san diego state so we made a bunch of t-shirts that just said who's your daddy like big huge like just you know printed at a local place sold out 100 shirts at 15 bucks each i'm a millionaire right i got

$15 so once i had the 1500 bucks i was like that's it i'm gonna retire it's over i already know what i'm gonna do for the rest of my life so we went to a clothing convention uh we wrote over a million dollars in orders at the opening show and we didn't have a real manufacturer to make it and so you gotta swim or die right so we go to la search start walking the streets asking around for manufacturers we find one anyways we get introduced to this guy who i'm still friends i literally talked to him this morning 20 20 plus years later um he owned fender guitars ocean pacific body glove la gear all these huge clothing brands and so i went to him he took us under his wing helped us fulfill those orders

and then a year and a half later he helped us get that nine and a half million dollar licensing deal with starter apparel and then next four years i'm building up the clothing brand and then i'm like you know what there's 900 energy drinks and they all taste like cough syrup they all have that thick taste to them what year was this this is 2003 leading up to going public 2005. Okay. So 2003, man, there was hardly, so there were, I mean, according to you, there was a bunch of energy drinks on the market. I don't even remember energy drinks, you know, 20 years ago.

It seems like that game has completely changed. So yeah. So keep going. So at that time, it's still obviously just the same way it is now. Red Bull, Monster, Rockstar and a few other brands do all the sales and then the other 800 do a little bit of sales. Right. So. Right. I love Gatorade. So I was like, I'm going to go find the chemist from Gatorade. I'm like searching around. I get lucky to get introduced to one of the chemists. He has this cranberry pineapple flavoring and we immediately win flavor of the chemists, he has this cranberry pineapple flavoring. And we immediately win

flavor of the year. Like we're on the cover of every beverage magazine. And he said, once you do over a million dollars in sales, I'm going to give you my green tea version. And the green tea, I also have a zero sugar, zero carbs, zero calorie version. It's like, wow, this is amazing. So we ended up doing that. We go public in i'm 23 years old life changes right there's no real social media back then besides like myspace so um i started going on every tv news interview i'm wrapping vehicles i'm doing nascars with our name on it like i'm doing everything i can to promote because again social media doesn't really exist smartphone doesn't exist you know there's no there's no iPhone.

So I get into a bunch of stores. Then from 2005, 2009, I literally don't remember anything except selling. We got into 55,000 stores, 43 distributors. All I did was sell every single day, morning, noon, and night. That's all I cared about. On the 10-year anniversary, I resigned from the company. So I could start. I want another feather in my cap. How many employees did you have at that point?

Not a lot. 31, 32. Wow. So you guys were in 55,000 locations, very employee light. What kind of, what kind of revenue were you doing the, when you, when you stepped away from it? Um, we were at 18 to 24 million on a consistent basis per quarter. And then it went from, you know, there was a lot of waves from the chain stores. It was very interesting. Right. So, I mean, dude, 100 million, close to 100 million dollars a year in energy drinks.

That's pretty impressive. So you you step away. You're at the top of your game. You got the feather in your cap. So what I mean, I guess I guess the question is, like, why? You step away. You're at the top of your game. You got the feather in your cap. I guess the question is why? Were you no longer driven? You're no longer passionate about energy drinks? What got you to step away? Because you're definitely a serial entrepreneur and love to be involved in all kinds of different things.

What made you make that first leap? It was more of an emotional thing, not a business thing. I'd done the same thing from 17 to 27. And there was like, situations were happening with business partners and shareholders and investors. And like being public is a big headache you know like every quarter you gotta file a 10 10 q and an 8k and you gotta have cfo review it then you have to have an auditor review the cfo and an auditor review the auditor and so i'm spending like 200 grand a month 100 grand a month 200 grand a month on legal and accounting every single month and so there's days there's some days where i would just be in an accounting office for 10 hours. Then I would be in the lawyer's office for nine hours straight. And so like, it just became not fun. Question regarding that. Cause yes, you're exactly right. Public,

huge headache. If you could do it all over again, would you have gone public? Yeah, I would. It gave us the liquidity to be able to do deals with stock, issuing shares to do endorsement deals. We were doing endorsement deals with MasterP. I couldn't afford to pay MasterP with a check. Remember, he was huge back then like i could give him stock i couldn't afford to pay for a nascar right i couldn't afford i couldn't afford to write a check for a nascar it doesn't matter how many millions of dollars in sales you have nascar is expensive right you're talking about 150 000 or race 150k or race if you if nothing bad happens right and so like that now the sponsorship deals were two to four million dollars i can can't just stroke a check for that. Right. But I could give you that. I can't give them stock. And so being public was very useful in that regard. Would I go public now? Absolutely not. Just from a life perspective, not from it, not because it doesn't it's not functional. It's just even when you have a really good CFO, even when you have a good CFO and a COO, et cetera, ultimately your name's on it and you're the one signing and you're the one

that can go to jail if they do it wrong. And so like, you got to look at everything all the time. And I just, I don't want to go through that again. Um, it was, it was very,

very time consuming from that perspective. Would I be on the board of a public company? Yes, I am on the board of public company. Like what I, what I advise public companies. Yes. But would I ever go through those filings again for. Oh, God, no.

Oh, man, you're you're you're you're speaking to me right now. We've we've considered going public with our, with our company. So I just recently stepped into the chairman role of, uh, of our business and, and, uh, promoted a, uh, a CEO and, uh, you know, right. Obviously the financial markets for the last 12 months have been crap, right? Not, not conducive for, for going public, but we've considered doing it in the next 12 to 18 months. But, um, you, you definitely, you, you definitely have striking a little, little bit of fear into me. So that's good. So dude, you, you go, you step, you step away from this thing, 10 years in, you're looking for something new. What, what, like, what kind of, was there an identity crisis when you, when you stepped away from this thing? Like what?

Walk us through that. So when I stepped away, it was I had a vision of what I was going to do. I wanted to start an online poker site. And I wanted to become, there was a void in the market. There's 550 poker sites. Similar to the energy drink, I wanted to make the best tasting with i never i knew i was never gonna be number one energy drink right red bull and monster rockstar these companies doing billions of dollars i didn't expect to become number one right i want to become

the best tasting with poker same thing poker stars they were doing eight million a day in revenue full tilt four and a half million a day in revenue i'm not gonna go beat them right good i'm not i'm not trying to beat them right but if i could be the coolest poker site, that'll put me in the top five, top 10. And that's a great, you know, that's a great business. So I went and signed, I went and signed deals with Dan Bilzerian, DJ Steve Aoki, Playboy Playmates, poker pros that were like the young, good looking, you know, like I put together this cool team right when social media is happening, right? This is 2009, 2010. And so I put together this fun, cool team to just make us stand out in the poker scene. And that's also part of why I left is I knew what I was going to do next. I knew I was going to do

something fun. Um, and it was going to still be like a a cool fun adventure i wasn't just leaving you know the public company life to go you know do something boring going to start a poker site so how long did you so how long did you plan this before you went and go or was it like came to you one day and you were ready to run two weeks from then like how walk us through that process yeah so i thought about it and then i started researching everything so i have this saying obsessively stalk your competitors and so i just started researching everything about poker sites like i was playing every site asking every question talking to executives talking to the licensing people like what's i just researched everything and that took months because i like really wanted site, asking every question, talking to executives, talking to the licensing people.

I just researched everything. And that took months because I really wanted to understand before I go dive into a market, I was going to self-finance it. So before I go spend millions of dollars to build a poker site, I wanted to learn everything about it to make sure there was a good lane for me there. And once I found out that Bodog, Bodog was the one cool brand out there. I found out they were just going to focus on sports, sports betting and not poker. I said, okay, that's it. That's my lane. I can be the cool brand. And that's what we did. So it was all, it was all less than a year. Awesome. That's, that's cool. So what, uh, what kind of investment was it to, to launch this thing? launch this thing in development costs, software?

Because obviously pretty intensive. And this was what, 10 years ago, 2012, 2013? So we started 2009. Oh, 2009. Yeah. Technology wasn't as great back then. So I started with $2.6 million to get it started um which comparatively to my competitors was not much obviously and luckily it's a very quick revenue generating business so once you have traction

the money comes in daily not not monthly and so i got a lot of players initially because i did some really viral videos with dan bozerian with steve aoki like we blew up an rv in the in the desert when we spray painted victory we spray painted our brand victory poker on the side of the the rv um we made these crazy man you were doing you were doing social media you were doing social media marketing before social media was even a thing you know like blowing up cars i mean this, this is, this is like Mr. Beast and like, you know, all these other, like nowadays, you know, they've just only figured that stuff out in the last five years. You were doing this in 2009. Yes. 2009. And so

our marketing video back then, our videos back then in the graphics look better than videos now. Like the, our videographer, he's amazing. He still works for me now, by the way. He lives like six minutes from me. Again, 15 years later. And so the videos we had back then, if you just type in like victory poker model photo shoot or victory poker photo or victory poker contest, those videos were epic. Like I watched them every couple of months. They're so cool to watch like the memories anyways so you're gonna have to you're gonna have to drop we're

gonna have to put that one in the show a couple a couple of these uh images of you just blowing up stuff i love it good stuff so you launch you launch that thing and how long did it take for you to get to number five so within within 10 weeks, we were the biggest, sorry, within 10 weeks, we were live. And then within 10 months, we were the top five site. And we were averaging 6,000 to 22,000 new players per week. And so it was a very rapid growth. So what are the legalities?

I mean, there's gotta be a lot of hoops and stuff to jump through to be able to launch like an online poker gambling site. Like what did that look like? Or did you just hire a sweet lawyer that figured it all out? So I picked up and moved to Malta. I never even heard of Malta. And I literally put on a backpack. Wait, Malta, we're talking like south of, that's like just south of, what's it called? Italy.

Right beneath the boot of Italy. Yeah, okay. Right beneath the boot of Italy. The boot of Italy is a 45-minute boat ride. So I put on a backpack and I go to Malta. And I rent a hotel room for a few days and then find an apartment and move in. And stay there for two years. I had to be in Malta because there's only three options, Malta, Seychelles, or Gibraltar

to get my gaming license. Seychelles and Gibraltar are not livable for a young adult male. So Malta was perfect for me. And so I got there. I hired KPMG Accounting. I hired a consultant that helped other poker sites. He had a big poker site. I hired a consultant that helped other poker sites. He had a big poker site. I hired another consultant. I hired consultants to help me set up shop and get it done properly.

I partnered with a software developer that built poker sites for one of my competitors, a really big competitor. And so I fast forward the process by hiring people that have already done it, right? I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. I'm trying to make the wheel better, bigger, faster, and stronger. And so I hired people that have already,

you know, they know a lot of details. So that's how it got started. Yeah. So we were live in 10 weeks. Wow. Dude, that,

that is so impressive to, to be able to be live that quick with soft. So how long did it take to develop out your software? You're saying within those 10 weeks you did all that? Yeah, because we partnered with a network, a company that builds software for other sites. And so we did it together. And they happened to be based in Malta.

It was amazing. Their offices were like a couple hundred yards from where I lived. Yeah, man. What I just am hearing from your whole story and I think is important in any successful founder, entrepreneur or whatnot is like finding other people that are already doing it, already know how to do it, partnering with those people, leveraging relationships, not being scared to jump into unknown waters, right? Just willing to go, figure it out, pick up, jump in a backpack, head over to Malta because it's the only spot that you can make it work. And then just finding all these different levers. I think too often, entrepreneurs, small founders, small entrepreneurs, right?

They try doing everything themselves. And it's just they beat their head against trying to figure it all out without hiring professionals, consultants, teaming up with people, leveraging relationships that they have. So the fact that like obviously you figured this out at a very young age, right? And so going into this, this second or third business, whatever you want to call it, um, you know, you, you knew exactly how to go in scale. And I think, I think that's just important for young listeners to understand, like, if you want to go and, and, and run a business, right? Don't, don't try, don don't don't rely on only your ability and think that you have to figure everything out on your own is what i would say but uh cool man dude wild so how long

so is this is this uh gambling site still running did you sell it off what ended up happening with that yep so a couple years into it it's 10 10 in the morning i happen to be in vegas i'm about to have this mega meeting at 12 o'clock the guy that invented the slot machine loyalty card right you know like when you see the old people at the with like a little right right right card he sold that for 440 million dollars uh okay he owned the wheel of fortune and jeopardy slot machines. He was like the, you know, the legend in the gaming. I'm supposed to meet with him at 12 PM. It's 10, 10 in the morning, April 15th, 2010 or 2011. And I get a phone call from Dan Bilzerian. Where are you?

I'm like, I'm at the Bellagio. Where are you? He's like, why aren't you in Malta? I was like, I got a big meeting at 12 o'clock, blah, blah, blah. And he was like, it's over. It's over. I'm like, what's over? You sound like the sky is falling. He's like, turn on the TV. So hang up with him, turn on the TV. And it's on every channel that online poker is shut down in America.

Billions of dollars have been seized. Billions of dollars have been seized billions of dollars have been seized from full-tail poker stars number one two and three sites all got seized by the fbi you log into their website it said property the fbi on their website like i go to my website what's going what's going through your head right while you're watching this like dude i you're giving me anxiety just like thinking about it. Like, tell me, tell me what was going on in your mind at this time. So I immediately, I call my lawyer, I call some other guy. I'm like, did I do something wrong?

Cause, but our site isn't taken by the FBI. We don't have a letter, not a phone call. Everything's fine. Our site works. Players are playing. The other sites literally say seized by the FBI, property of the FBI. So I'm like trying to figure out like what the hell did they do? And am I screwed? Like what happened, right? I'm calling around. People are calling me.

Again, there's no texting. This is like 2010, 11. And so I go to my meeting. It's at 12 p.m. at the Hard Rock. And I'm here. I'm going to my meeting. It's at 12 p.m. at the Hard Rock. And I'm here. I'm going to see Edward, this guy's the multi-zillionaire in the gaming space. I walk in. I've never met this guy in my life.

And he says, man, you look like somebody died. I was like, wow, well, turn on the TV. So he turns on the TV. Well, I feel that way. There it is. There it is on ESPN right there. Just online poker shut down. Billions of dollars to seize in 16 countries, even like non-extradition countries where their money was seized.

I'm like, oh, my God. So he calls this guy named Steve Wynn. He just puts him on speakerphone. Old Steve. Just Steve Wynn. Right before this happens, right before Black Friday, which is what it was called, Steve Wynn had just announced a mega partnership with one of these three sites. Oh, gosh. He's infuriated.

How could they not know? How could they not see this? This is such a big deal. He's so upset of the situation because there's this mega deal he just did with one of the biggest sites and now they're seized by the fbi and obviously he's a partner with them and he's like dude i can't right you know he's a regulated business right so here's the twist the this bazillionaire in the gaming space he didn't let me know that what he actually wanted me there for was downstairs. He has me, I was there to train 11 sheriffs from California,

how to play poker and blackjack for the next four hours. So I think I'm like public enemy number one right now, right? Like I think I'm FBI's most wanted list. I didn't do anything wrong, but I don't know what's going on. And so we get down there and right away he jokes with them and tells them about it. And I tell them too, like, Hey, I might be public enemy number one. So this might be my last hurrah. And we're all just joking about it. I was like, just to be really clear, I didn't obviously didn't do anything wrong here. I don't know what they did yet, but I'm definitely not in trouble. And I just tell them straight out.

One of them keeps messing with me. He keeps like tapping his handcuffs. He's like, yep, I got eyes on him. I got eyes on him. So I'm there teaching them poker until four o'clock. I can't wait for four o'clock because I want to leave. Right. And go like make phone calls.

Anyways. Right. Long story short, over the next four days, April 15th to April 19th, I manually pay back 41,000 players. Manually. I'm tweeting. I'm tweeting. I'm MySpacing. Like, hey, guys.

I'm Facebooking. Like, there's no Instagram. But like, hey, guys, if you have money on my site, please, please withdraw a hundred percent of your funds, withdraw your money. Everyone withdrew except for 41,000 people. So I had to manually pay them back. Just to be clear, like imagine back then how hard that is. And so, oh man.

Yeah. April 19th, I was supposed to be in Costa Rica that day. I had booked all these models, all these models from all over the world to come to a photo shoot. I was just getting in a large funding round from one of the big sports betting sites was about to put in a huge amount. We already signed it. They were putting in a bunch of money. And so April 19th in Costa Rica, I'd already rented out the whole hotel. All the poker pros were flying in, all the models are flying in, photographer, everything was done. My mom is on the phone for two days straight trying to get refunds for me to help me. Anyways, hotel did not refund me, let's just be clear. I lost $63,000 just like hotel bookings alone. And so for the next four

days, I'm just paying everyone back so that I can sleep at night because I don't know what's going to happen. Luckily, I did because it took three to four years for everyone to get their money back from those other sites. And not everybody got their money back. Yes. Wow. So you got everybody their money back? Within four days.

Yeah. Wow. Instead of four years. 41,000 transactions. You know, this actually reminds me. So Dan Caldwell was a guest on my show. Do you know Dan? Oh, yeah. Tap out. Brand was posted as the initial sponsor of the first Ultimate Fighting Championship from the TV show, right? The reality series. Like his site literally shut down that day at like 3,000 transactions.

And then there was like thousands, some like 20 or 30,000 transactions that they only captured the credit card number. And then they had to go through and manually process it. So obviously his is the better side of the same story, right? Like, like he was getting money, but he had to do these manual transactions. Literally, I think in like the same timeframe, we're talking like 2010, 2011. Um, anyways, wild, wild that you had to do that 41,000 in the fact that you did it in four days. And so what ended up happening? I mean, everybody's, I'm sure, dying to know. You got everybody their money back. What ended up happening with the business? Yeah. So America was over 50% of my business. So I just closed it down after those four days

because I didn't feel comfortable with what the government was going to do next. And the players were not going to get their money back anytime soon for years from the other sites. And so there's gonna be a bad taste in people's mouth. And so I just stepped away and made sure everyone was cleared up. And then I became a consultant for KPMG, sorry, Morgan Stanley, because they wanted to understand the gaming space i became a consultant for three land-based casinos in las vegas so they knew that they weren't going to be the ones to be able to do online poker later so they hired me as consultants to advise them how to do because i'm the only american ceo from poker everyone else is dead or in jail. And so I had a unique situation there to go be a consultant.

And then that actually – So what ended up happening in the poker space? Did it come back online? I don't play online poker, so educate me. There's only four states in America that it's regulated, which is crazy. You can bet on horses, you can buy lottery tickets, you can play bingo, but you can't play the only skill game. All the other games are games of chance, except for poker.

Poker is a skill game, you know? Right. And it's really strange to me that you can only play it in a couple of states here. Wow. So it did end up coming back online for like poker stars and all those guys it just took years to to be able to to get to fight through the legalities or what was that so full tail poker got lucky that poker stars bailed them out poker stars bought them to pay off their debts to keep a not have a black eye in the whole poker market.

And so if it wasn't for poker stars, it would have been tragedy. They came and saved the day on a big level. But that took years. You know, that was a big, long process. So Dan, based on everything I know about you and based on your story that you've shared or whatnot, you're phenomenal at networking, right? Getting to know different people or whatnot. What are some strategies that maybe you can teach some younger entrepreneurs on how to network, how to like build value or whatnot, like walk us through a process of like, obviously you landed these deals as like consultant or what, these are all based off of

network. You don't just end up like as a consultant randomly, right? People don't just randomly call you like, walk us, how do you do that? So a lot of people meet someone and they get a business card or they do a handshake and they think that they're now friends. You're not even acquaintances, right? Because if I put you in a lineup a month later, it's unlikely that person will even remember you. If you just exchanged a business card or did a quick handshake in a room with four other people, you just met them for a moment, a brief moment in time with no context for the most part. And so building some context with people and building a bit of an emotional attachment or a bit of top of mind awareness, you have to drop something that's either relatable to them. So like if you notice people always ask, where are you from?

That's to find something relatable. And they'll be like, oh yeah, I'm from Albuquerque, New Mexico. And you'll then say, oh yeah, my cousin's sister's friend's uncle is from Albuquerque, too. Who cares, right? Like, what does that even mean? But people would try to find something relatable to build a bit of an emotional connection. So you want to find something that's actually relatable that will help people remember who you are. Nowadays, because the way that you have mobile phones, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, TikTok, carrier pigeons, email, there's so many ways to get a hold of someone nowadays. You want to have some type of relationship with the person. So you have to have some type of communication with them along the way before you do an ask. So before you ask them to invest in a deal,

before you ask them to do some type of partnership, before you do one of these things, you do want to have some type of an emotional attachment built up with them, even if it's the smallest of things, right? Like let's say Chris lives in Dallas, Texas. Well, if I see a new fancy restaurant opening in Dallas, Texas, I might send Chris a link like, hey, the new Komodo from Miami is opening up in Dallas, Texas. You should check it out. I'm not even there, right? I'm just sending Chris something interesting that's in his city.

And if I'm going to go there in a month, I'm like, hey, when I come to town, Chris and I, we can go to Komodo, right? We can go to that fancy restaurant. Yeah, you're creating value even though it's a tiny bit of value, right? Like in my mind, like you thought of me outside of just normal day to day, saw that, hey, this cool restaurant's opening up. Like to me, I'm like, huh, that's cool. He thought enough to actually send this to me. That's valuable. Yep. Now what happens is someone else.

Keep going. Someone else brings up that restaurant or Chris actually goes to that restaurant. It now relates back to me, like something interesting. Maybe Chris is in real estate. I send him an article or a link or a quick message about the new Airbnb thing or the new high-rise, you know, something relatable to his industry. Again, he now is going to talk with other people about the Airbnb or the high-rise or whatever his business is in the real estate game, and that's relatable back to me. And so these little things about interactions along the way, help you build a bit of a rapport with someone before you're like, hey, I'm coming to Dallas, do you want to go to dinner? If I didn't send him the Komodo thing about the cool restaurant, if I didn't send the article about Airbnb, it's kind of random out of nowhere, like, hey, do you

want to go to dinner? We don't really know each other, right? Chris and I met at a quick handshake or a quick business card i don't know chris is busy he's got a hundred million dollar company right what does he really want to go to dinner with random dan does he i don't know because we didn't have any true engagement what what you're sharing right now is like so important it's so simple so simple but i think so many people miss on this man like it it's's, and it's wild, right? Like the, the fact like to create these connections that somebody is going to consistently think about you every time that they talk about that article, go to the restaurant, think about the restaurant,

pass by the restaurant, right? Like they can literally drive by the restaurant and Dan's going to flash in their mind because he sent a text message recommending this thing. And dude, like this, dude, this is gold nuggets, man. And I, and I think, uh, you know, you may think it's very simple and it is, but very, you know, uh, what's like obvious and practiced are two completely different things. And so, dude, thanks. Thanks for, uh, thanks for sharing that. I would add like something that I've done similarly. Like, dude, I've actually never thought about like the restaurant recommendation or articles.

I think this is genius. You know, gifts. You know, I think gifts are one of the easiest ways to network. Like if you meet somebody for the first time and you figure out when their birthday is, or you send them like a little something for Christmas, something that is like within their lane of, you know, what they like,

like this hits home. I remember, so me and Alex Ramosi, we went to a mastermind. I hosted a mastermind up at my cabin. Alex was there. And, you know, we had spent some other time together at other events, but we spent four days together and he got to know me pretty well. Afterwards, Alex sends me a signed Russell Wilson, uh, frame thing, which I'm a big Seahawks fan. And, uh, you know, literally every time I look at that thing hanging on my wall, I immediately associated with Alex. I, I, I just remember like how amazing of a

duty is, whatever else. And so I think like, that's even like the next level, right? Is like, yeah, like what you're talking about is just effort and then maybe a little bit of money with gifts or whatever. So dude, thanks for sharing it. Like what, what other, what other nuggets should we take in the networking world? Fun fact. So four days ago, Russell Wilson had his kid's birthday party at my house at the ranch. What? You're kidding me. Yeah. No, I just put, I just put, you know, it literally just had his kid's birthday party at the ranch.

Nice. Ciara's there or anything? Where's your ranch at? In Temecula, like right above San Diego. Okay. Wow, dude. We're going to have to, we're going gonna have to talk more about that that's super dope i'm i'm excited so what anyways you said keep in mind what so there's another trick that i've used my whole life when it comes to remembering how to network so let's say i'm just gonna use chris lee lives in dallas as the example right i'm just he doesn't live in Dallas. I'm just saying that as the example. All right. Dallas it is. In my phone, I write Chris Lee Dallas, and then I write, so the city

is very important. And then I also write either how I met him or what businesses he's in or what category he's in. Like if he's in real estate, fitness, health, e-commerce, whatever that thing is. So what happens is I now know when I want to send an article to people in Dallas, obviously he pops up. If I'm going to go to Dallas, I now can text message or call the 11 people on my phone that are in Dallas and say, hey, I'm staying at the W Hotel Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday at 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. I'm going to have like a meetup in the in the lobby can you come over if he can't come over I still earn brownie points because I invited him to something that's cool if he can come over fantastic I made it short and easy it's only

two or three hour window I make it short and easy so if he can come by it also leaves an opportunity for him to be like I can't come then but what if I come over Saturday night or Saturday daytime, whatever. And the whole process of just being able to invite him to something makes it easy. I'm not going to remember every Chris Lee in Dallas, Texas if I don't have the city name in my phone. This is a very important thing. I also don't need to invite everybody that's in Dallas, Texas over, right? If I met like the restaurant concierge and like the guy that runs a clothing store in the sneaker shop, I don't necessarily need to invite them to the same thing. I'm inviting Chris to meet, you know, like with six other business people.

I don't need to invite like the waiter or the waitress from the restaurant. So you're keeping them also in mind of like who you're inviting to wear. And the reason I like to do hotel meetups is it makes it easy for me because I'm staying in that hotel. And if I stay at a hotel like the W, it's easy, you know, for people to come by there. I typically try to stay in a hotel that's in like the downtown or metropolitan area. And I've literally done this my entire life, like all of the time. I do it. I did it yesterday. Like I do it all the time, wherever city I'm in. I will invite people over to meet me at the hotel in the lobby or in the restaurant there.

Cause it makes it very easy process to catch up with people. And again, even if they can't make it, I have my, my brownie points with them. Dan, dude, what you just shared, like I'm taking notes, bro. Like this is good. Like I always thought I was a good networker and like got to know, you know, some pretty cool people or whatnot. But like you are giving, this is a master class on networking right here. Just such a small thing, right? The way you take the notes, the way you associate with the cities, the way what you share with them, how you hold all the meetups. Freaking love this dude. What else you got? You got anything else to share with that? But dude, like, I mean, that's enough, but I mean, I'm willing to jot down anything else.

So the main concept of all of this is really like planting seeds along the way, right? It's kind of like the value, you know, people talk about like value, whether there's actual value in these things or not necessarily, it's more just like, Hey, here's a news article. Hey, here's a new restaurant. Hey, I'm going to be in your city. Hey, can you come by to meet up with me? Like, these are just a lot of interactions. And at some point Chris is like, Oh wait, I want to invest in sports cards or my friend likes acai bowls or hey, I know someone who would be good for Dan's mastermind. Maybe I should send someone to his free event. I'm in

Chris's mind for other stuff and now he thinks about Russell Wilson like, oh yeah, the ranch. Maybe I should go take my kids to the ranch. These are all just random things that necessarily didn't provide value to Chris, but I'm in his mind for different things that might be associated to his life. One day from now, one week, one month, one year, three years from now, who knows when that thing is. And if nothing ever comes from it, who cares? What did it take me? A few seconds here, a few seconds there. It's not like it's taking me a ton of time or energy or money to do that. But by building up these relationships, a lot of stuff happens that you don't even realize it.

Because now Chris might be at another mastermind with Alex Ramosi, and then he brings up the ranch to him. Alex brings it up to someone else, and then all of a sudden someone else from someone else ends up renting out the ranch for something. The butterfly effect happened just because I was interacting with Chris. Chris interacted with Alex. Alex interacted with someone else. And the butterfly effect came back to me. Again, if nothing ever happens, don't lose anything, but planting all these seeds, some things might happen. It's interesting. Really what you're talking about is the added

effort, the plus one. In the book, Raving Fans, it talks about like delivering what's expected plus one. We know that like the difference between a five-star hotel and a four-star hotel is really just effort, right? Like it's just that added extra, like being aware of who people are, you know, folding the towel into a certain way or leaving a little handwritten note or whatever it is. And, and so like, dude, this is, this is good stuff, man. I appreciate you, uh, you sharing that dude. Um, so tell me, let's, let's shift gears here into your charities. I want to, I want to talk about this cause I think this is like so important what you're, what you're doing. Um, like what, so you, you talk about that. This is your passion. Like, tell us, tell us more about it.

So I was doing a lot of charity poker tournaments, raising money for other people's charities for years. Sunday night, here's $144,000. Monday becomes Wednesday. Wednesday becomes next week. Next week becomes next month. And I don't really hear what happened with 144,000. I do another event, raise them a quarter of a million dollars.

Monday becomes Wednesday. Wednesday becomes next week. I just don't really get to see, feel, and touch what happened after I helped raise the money for these people's charities. And so I wanted to stick with charities that I could see, feel, and touch. Very simple things that had a true cause and effect that were not just going to a multibillion-dollar charity. Nothing wrong with

those charities i just know that they are going to get government funding grants donations for billions and billions of dollars i'd rather put my 250k to something that i can see feel in touch and right away and so because those are still important topics but i wanted you know you know what i'm saying so i made a charity that was very direct I'm going to make backpacks with 150 items and give them to the homeless or women abuse shelters or teen abuse shelters or orphanages. That's it. I've never changed it once. I'm not going to ever change it. It's very simple and direct.

150 items in a backpack. Give it away. But I also did it so that people can replicate me and don't have to donate to me. Meaning Chris can make with his kids. You can fill up Ziploc bags and do the same thing. You don't need backpacks. You can fill up duffel bags. You don't need backpacks. You can put 20 items or 200 items. You can adjust it based on you. I just want to show people how easy it is to give away things to the homeless. So I've done that for a decade. You know, I think that's so cool. Let me just cut you off here real quick. I think it's so awesome that

you're doing this because of the impact that it has, not because of the glory that you get. And I think a lot of times charities are so focused on like, hey, look at this big, amazing thing that we did. We are this organization. I'm this person. This is what I stand for. This is what I represent versus like being on the ground floor and doing the work, right? Like getting it to the actual homeless people where every dollar gets to them. And whether Dan or not gets the credit of who that backpack went to, it doesn't matter, right? Because you're doing something phenomenal. I think that is like so, so important because we get so caught up. There's a lot of people that are charitable or whatnot, but it's so much about their own image. It's so much about

these own things. And so like, dude, let me just say, thank you. Thank you for being a man that is actually enacting real change without having to receive the credit. That's awesome. I appreciate that. My real true goal and all the charity is so people replicate it and have nothing to do with me. Like during COVID, we did this thing called the tipping dinner. At first we did a hundred dollar tipping dinner. And then we also do a thousand dollar tipping dinner where you invite 12 of your friends pitching a hundred bucks each. If you're with me, we're going to pitch a thousand bucks each. So better show up. And we surprise the waitress or waiter with this really big tip. Half goes to the staff, half goes to the waiter or waitress that's waiting on our table. Hundreds

and hundreds and hundreds of people now tag me every one or two months. Let's just say this, 40 to a hundred people a month tag me doing tipping dinners all over the world. And then there's probably thousands that do it that have no idea who the hell I am, which is even better. Right. Right. And the whole concept I actually, I have quite a, I have quite a few friends that do it now because of you, which, which is just phenomenal. Like the fact that the fact that you've created that, and, and I, I've actually done a little bit of them myself. Uh, you know, when I go out with my family, um, on, on certain occasions, we'll ask like the whole, the whole back, uh, like the,

the crew or, you know, the, the cooks or whatnot to come out and we'll, we'll give them a hundred bucks each or whatever. And it's like that there is worth way more to me than like donating a hundred thousand dollars to some random charity. Like so once again, thank you for being an example of that. That's so dope. Keep going. I cut you off. So then throughout the year, the last nine years, I have a different charity called Trina's Kids Foundation, where we bring 300 Latin families downtown LA to the building called Hubble Studio. And we do a report card day, a back to school day, a Thanksgiving food drive, and then the toy drive. The toy drive has compounded, right? First year, there was eight of us on the floor wrapping toys, then 21 of us, then 30 of us.

Now we're able to fill up a whole stadium at SoFi Stadium with all these toys. Even with the toy drive, on almost every single post, I just ask people, you do a toy drive in Dallas, Texas. You do one in Philadelphia. You do it in New Mexico, El Salvador. You don't need to donate to my toy drive. You do a toy drive. And you don't need money to do a toy drive. And that's the whole point of my marketing of marketing of charities because nobody knows there's no organization. I don't say donate to something. I say toy drive, toy drive,

toy drive. I don't say like donate some of this organization. I want people to do toy drives. And so I showcase to them, you don't have to have any money. You're going to have a building that people can drop off toys to. You're going to have to have a building that people can drop off toys to. You got to have a cell phone to invite people to drop off toys. And you got to put in energy to go rally the troop. You don't have to have a big following. Go drive over to local offices and knock on the door and say, hey, real estate office, can you guys gather toys from your staff for a month? Hey, accounting office, can you get your 15 staff to bring toys for the next month? And then just tell different offices to put toys together. And then on December 15th, whatever the date, December 15th, everybody bring toys to one building and that's where the headquarters will be. That's it. There's

no, you didn't spend a dollar. That's awesome. I, I've actually, I've actually been inspired by your toy drives. I want to, uh, I want to do a similar thing that the thing that, so we, uh, as a business, we've always done similar things. We've done like food drives, toy want to, I want to do a similar thing that the thing that, so we, as a business, we've always done similar things. We've done like food drives, toy drives. We've given back on Thanksgiving raised for a few families. The thing that we always struggle with is like the end user, like actually getting it to somebody. Like we, we have, there's a lot of people that want to give and we want to give and whatnot. So like, so walk us through that. Like where, how do you, how do you find the end user that all these toys can go to? Yep. So for example, we did in Los Angeles, we did the toy drive and then the next few days in Salt Lake city during the postings

for the toys, we also post for local homeless shelters, orphanages, women abuse shelters, and children's hospitals and say, hey, if you know anyone that works at a children's hospital, a homeless shelter, an orphanage, et cetera, let them know that on this date, December 15th, that they can sign up to come over and pick up as many toys as they want for their organization. And so we're just asking, and surprisingly, a lot of times we'll find it. When we have a need, like we have too many toys, like we did in Utah, we had too many toys. So we started calling on local shelters ourselves, like outbound, literally calling like, hey, here's a picture of all the toys we have. Send cars over, send SUVs, send vans, whatever you want.

Come pick up as many toys as you can today or tomorrow. And so we will outbound call. But for the most part, it's homeless shelters, children's hospitals, women-abused shelters. Awesome. Awesome. Have you ever done a food drive or has it mainly been the toy drives? Yeah, so we do a food drive during the Thanksgiving. During the Thanksgiving food drive, we also do a food drive like for other supplies. Very cool.

Very cool, man. So, so inspiring. I love just the mentality of like, you want to, you want to create a culture of it, create a wave, uh, you know, get other people bought in through social media, getting, you know, involved wherever they, wherever they can. And it's, and it's not about Dan. It's about the good that Dan is inspiring, which I absolutely love. Best practice from one of my buddies. So I had him on this podcast, Casey Baugh, which is very similar to like your tipping thing or whatnot. So Casey, uh, keeps a few thousand bucks, um, on him at all

times, any in from like twenties to a hundred dollars. And he is always looking for ways to give it away. Um, and, and he just talks about how like that creates the, the, the greatest feeling of, of being involved and giving back and just like listening to the inner voice of like, how can I impact and change the world today? And, you know, I've seen him, you know, give a thousand dollars to a Uber Eats guy that you could just tell was out there hustling and just needed that, that extra or, or whatever it is. And I think it's just incredible best practices as, as just to add that onto some of the incredible things that you shared with us today. Sweet, uh, Dan. So what, uh, what, go ahead. During VCon for Gary V last week, during VCon for Gary Vaynerchuk last week in Indianapolis, I was there with my videographer

and I were in a meeting and the waitress was just amazing. Southern bell, super sweet. She's like, I made the sweet tea myself. You know, like it was everything about it was so sweet. And I could, you could tell that she was pregnant. She was kind of hiding it, but she was pregnant. And she had mentioned that she had started working day shifts because she couldn't work night shifts anymore. So I said, pick a number between three and 10.

She said seven. So I tipped her $777.77. Full-fledged cry. I don't post it, obviously. Full-fledged crying. So excited. And she explained, she's like, my tips got cut in half because I work day shifts, you know, because I can't work the night shift because obviously I'm pregnant.

And so like, there are moments where I'm giving a normal $5, $10, $20 tip. But then there's moments where someone stands out, right? Like, this waitress is clearly like super good, super pregnant, and still smiling and working her butt off, you know, like, and in those moments, I will over tip, there's no post about it. There's no video about it. There's no, you know, there's no thing behind those. But when people that are listening, when you see someone standing out, right, they work somewhere that's hard, right? Those are the times that's interesting for you to give them a $20, a $50, a $100, doesn't have to be 700 bucks, give them 50 bucks, 100 bucks, and you could literally change their whole week or change their whole month. And, and, you know, the, the interesting selfish part about this is like, there's no better feeling in the world than when you do something like that or right. Like, like it, and it's, it's so, it's so cyclical in a way of like, you do something so good and you, it feels like you get the greater return out of it. And so then you do, you know, and, and, uh, so I've, I've always, I've always thought

that about like giving, it's like, man, it like, this seems so like outside of myself, but reality, it's a little selfish because of how amazing, amazing it makes you feel. So good stuff, dude. So, so tell us what, what motivates you and get you out of bed right now. So you're 41 years old. You've had all this success. You're involved in charitable things. You're invested in all kinds of different businesses. You're building empires.

Like what drives you today? So this is, I'm in like scaling mode. I'm not taking on new deals. I'm in scaling mode. So the sports card stores, building a full national chain store, right? The acai bowl restaurants, we got 60 locations. We open one every six days for Ever Bowl. My agency, I'm not scaling.

The agency, I'm not scaling. I like the size of it. I don't like clients. And so I want to keep it exactly where I am. I love the clients I have. I don't want a bunch of new clients. And so the mastermind, I'm scaling that because I really want to put on a big show that those are really fun for me. It's $100,000 per person. So it's really crazy like experience.

But I added a fourth weekend to that and I just keep doing these crazy things since 2019. My free events called Elevator Night. I'm throwing number 52 right now with Shopify coming up with Neil Patel. I'm doing those more and more and more and scaling those up, but they're free. So it costs me more money, but I created an even better experience and I partnered with someone like Shopify and still bring in household name speakers like Neil Patel, but it's completely free. There's no tickets, no sponsors, no sales on stage, just free. So I'm looking at things in my life that I can scale up. Sports cards, acai bowls, masterminds, et cetera. And then obviously the toy drive, like we broke the record last year, but I want to completely overdo it and do it in a bunch of different cities this year because it's our 10 year anniversary.

And so really just scaling the things that I have is what drives me. And then the ranch is fun, right? Like we have, we rescued 85 animals so far from ostriches and zebras and camels and everything between. And so that part's really fun to me to like build that, that animal sanctuary ranch. You know, I live there, but it's also like an experience. And so, yeah, those are my driving forces that I just have a lot of different action going on, but I enjoy the ones that I'm working on. And there's no like real money part to them. Like they are, they all have businesses to them. That's the fun part of the game of it. But if a business was losing, winning, crushing it, scaling fast, like I enjoy the game of it like a lot more than the actual like uh income from it that's not really an interest of it that's not interesting to me because for the most part i just reinvested right back into each one of these companies i don't you know like i'm not doing it for the money part i know people say that i physically am not because i just want to scale them like i could throw my masterminds right

for a couple hundred grand for a couple hundred grand a weekend i spend one to two million bucks a weekend that's not practical. I do it because I want to make this whole experience. And it's my excuse personally to interview my heroes. I get to go interview Hulk Hogan and Mark Wahlberg. I'm overdoing it because for me, it's a personal thing. I'm enjoying that. And then the last thing is the podcast.

I'm now addicted because of how well it's doing. I'm like addicted to the game of like I want to stay in the top five consistently just because the game of it. It's hard. It's hard. As you know, podcasts are hard for consistency. And so now I'm addicted. I waited four years to do a podcast. Now that I'm doing it, I'm like, okay, it's working.

Let's go for it. So that's kind of my, my world in a nutshell. So awesome. So you, you really talk about like, you're not doing it for the money. And, and this is a principle that I have taught my employees, my close circle or whatnot, that like the goal shouldn't be the fruit, right? Like the fruit is what's produced from a good, healthy tree. So I'm a, I'm a tree farmer. Um, part of, part of what I do is I have a heart, I have a hobby farm, 23 acres, nine acres of cherries, different things like that. I love trees. I feel like trees teach us more about life and leadership and anything than, than anything else in nature. And, uh, the beauty, the beauty of a tree is like under good conditions, it produces, it produces fruit, but sometimes right, bad weather, bad circumstances, whatever else happens where my cherries don't produce.

Now, does that mean that the tree is bad? Does that mean that, you know, I should just go down? No, it just means that the circumstances sucked in the interim, but we can become a tree, the fruit will be there, right? The fruit will show up. And when it shows up, it's going to be big. It's going to be great. You're going to have plenty of money. You're going to have all these different things, but that's not what you're working for. You're working to become a great tree. And, and, and dude, I think that's just phenomenal. What, what you're sharing as far as like, what drives you, what gets you out of bed, what, uh, you know, it's, it's becoming the best version of yourself. It's the tree. So, uh, pretty awesome. Now, morning routine, atomic habits, like different habits that you have on a daily basis that you feel like that set you apart, maybe best practices outside of the networking. We've already talked

about that. What are, what are some of your, just your secret compound sauces? So the main thing is the word relentless. Like every single day, I'm going to do a bunch of texts, phone calls and emails and social media every single day. Cause that just compounds, right? It's been 20 plus years. That's 7,000 times. And if I've done three or four or five texts, that means I've done 35,000 texts. What if I did five or 10 blogs? That means you did 35, right? Like math and time compounds really quickly. And so I'm relentless about doing that. I don't have the morning habits of like meditating and all the things that like a Jim Quick or Ed Milet, those like guys that have those type of perfect mind structures. That's not for me

because my enjoyment is the text, the email, the bad stuff, the lawsuits, the headaches, the employee did this, this, someone tried to steal over here. Like the game is so interesting to me that I dive right in, even though you're not supposed to like look at a blue light right away, you know, like all the typical things I'm, that's not not who I am I'm not trying to change the things that drive me from that perspective and so my daily habit is to is to just do a lot of stuff right if I do a lot of texts a lot of emails a lot of phone calls a lot of text messages a lot of like I do a lot of referrals so I'm like hey Chris meet Alex or Moses like that whether I get anything from that now, later or never, just doing a lot of those interactions and introductions.

Like I just do a lot of stuff every single day. And I know that I've been doing this game for 20 plus years. I'm going to keep doing it for decades more. That all just adds up. So I think I don't. Go ahead. And what? I don't let things linger.

And so if there's a bad thing, let's say Chris and I have a dispute or an argument or miscommunication or I was supposed to be here at 9 a.m. and I don't show up on time. I don't leave things open-ended. I immediately talk about it or immediately address it no matter what. Good, bad, hard. There's no such thing as a hard conversation to me because it's just part of the game like things happen someone's late someone messes up someone the manufacturer didn't show like i just talk about it right away i don't let it linger on um because lingering leads to gossiping and so i don't want chris to then gossip to alex and alex gossips to someone else and like and it was over nothing that we fixed four hours later we could have fixed it

right away you know i'm saying in those four hours rumors and gossip happened and it was over nothing that we fixed four hours later, we could have fixed it right away. You know what I'm saying? In those four hours, rumors and gossip happened and then nobody cares about the truth later or the, or the good news later. They care, they like the gossip, they like the drama. And so I tried to remove that right away. So awesome, dude. So, yeah, I mean the principles that you're sharing right now are like so very important. Well, one, so you're, for you, your daily habits are being relentless and addressing the hard things, right? Never allowing the hard things to ever, ever linger, right? No matter how easy or difficult the conversation, getting it over. But I, but I think the greater principle of what you're talking about is what, so Alex, my buddy, uh, or Mosey, he talks, he talks about there should never be anything that is a should, right? Like what works for Dan Fleischman

won't necessarily work for Chris Lee. Won't necessarily work for Alex or Mosey. There's nothing that we should do every single day, right? You shouldn't, it's not, I have to meditate. I have to work out. I have to be relentless in my text. It's like figure out what works for you and that you can compound and do it on a consistent basis. It's just, it's really just consistency in whatever that works for you. Right. And so there, there's no one recipe for success. There's no one recipe, like, like some person can get up at 4 30 AM and that's what works for them. And some, another person can sleep until 8 AM and immediately get on their blue light, right. Immediately get on their text threads or whatnot. And that works for them. And so I think this is like, that's such an important principle

for this day and age of like hustle culture, or like, there's only one way to have success culture, like destroying that and just understand that consistency is the key. And you just got to be consistent at something that works for you. And so I do, I appreciate, appreciate you sharing sharing that. Best, so two favorite books that you would recommend to anyone or two books that have changed your life. So the old school one is Think and Grow Rich. It's just, it's timeless to me. And the other one I like is Never Eat Alone. It's, there's just like so many basic things in these books that just make you think about daily life stuff like Never Eat Alone. And like The Thinking Grow Rich, everything about it.

I don't know. These are just books that like I would look back once every year or two just to kind of refer. I don't read the whole thing every single time, but I'll go back and refresh and look through it. But I also do want to say the 48 Laws of Power, things like this, books that have straight to the point things are how I consume content. Where it says a one-liner or one-paragraph thing, a bunch of different things to teach me that way is how it sticks in my brain. And so I look at books that have very specific points, not necessarily novels or fiction or things like that. I like books that have very detailed takeaways. Got it. Love it. Thanks for your share. Dan, what's the best platform to follow you on? Where can we find you? Instagram, Twitter, what's, what's the best platform? So every platform is the same screen name and just at Dan Fleischman, but Instagram is the most fun for me just because it's a very visual platform that I interact with the

most, but I'm there on Facebook and LinkedIn, TikTok, et cetera. Very good. So last, uh, last parting thoughts. I mean, what, uh, what, what's the last message that you can share with us that inspires some, maybe someone, you got a young budding entrepreneur that's thinking about taking the risk or they're thinking about giving up, can't push through. What advice do you have for that person? Stay calm during the chaos. There's a lot of chaos in our society right now with the media, with friends, with TV, with real estate's crashing, this is crashing, that's crash. It's like, there's a lot of chaos, but then you go to the restaurants and they're sold out. You go to the nightclubs, you can't book a table because they're sold out. You go to the fancy

hotels and they're booked up. Like we're not in a recession and we're not going to be in a recession. Will there be financial hurt, especially on lower income? Of course, because inflation sucks. Right. But we are we're never going to have a true recession anymore because we have smartphones. We have a lot of ways to make money nowadays, a lot of ways to sell things, a lot of ways to make extra capital, et cetera. So the point of it is during these times of chaos is when you can, if you stay calm, see a lot of opportunity. Oh, that person has a $4 million plumbing company and they want to close it because they don't want to run it anymore. You could step in. That person has a $2 million social media agency. They don't really know what

they're doing and you're really good at social media. You could step in and get 10 to 50% of that company or all of it. There are a lot of situations that are going to arise, especially this year and next year during election year, where there's a lot of chaos. And when you stay calm during that time, keep your overhead low. This is very important. Keep your overhead low at all times. You don't need a three bedroom when you live by yourself.

You don't need a five bedroom house when it's just you and your girl. You don't need three cars, I promise. You don't need three watches. You need one. Like you can get one of the things that you want. So you can still have the material thing that you want. You don't need a second, third or fourth. You will become numb to those things. And so if you can stay calm during the chaos, keep your overhead low, you will stand out and be able to thrive no matter what happens in the markets. Man, that was money. Thanks for the incredible advice. Dan, thank you so much for your time today. I know it's extremely valuable. You're a busy man. You got amazing things. We wish you luck in going crushing it. Until next time. Thank you. Bye.