Next Level Pros - #7 Dan Fleyshman - Youngest Founder to IPO in history, Networking Genius, Charitable Trendsetter
Episode Date: June 5, 2023This episode will blow your mind. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Dan discussing his rollercoaster of a career from "Who's Your Daddy?" t-shirt licensing as a teenager, to taking his f...irst company public at the age of 23. This Founder has experienced a myriad of adventures throughout his career. Stay tuned for gems about how to network with the best people in the world... because this guy is doing it. You won't regret your time spent listening to this one!
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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.
He initially licensed his apparel company for $9.5 million at the age of 19.
Then he later went on to scale his energy drink product to over 55,000 retail locations.
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 and spoken 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 record for like largest toy drive this last Christmas. Is that right? Oh, yeah. We're going
to break the record again this year. Oh, man. Dan, I think 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, 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 been 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 $9.5 million.
There's definitely a precursor to that story.
Give us that backstory.
So if I throw you in the pool, you're either going to swim or die.
And so 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 a hundred shirts at 15 bucks each. I'm a millionaire, right? I got $1,500.
So once I had the 1,500 bucks, I was like, that's it. I'm going to retire. It's over. I already know
what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. So we went to a clothing convention. 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 got to swim or die, right?
So we go to LA, 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 plus years later.
He owned Fender guitars, Ocean Pacific, Body Club, 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.
And so this is 2003 leading up to going public 2005. 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.
So 2003, I started...
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 20 years ago.
It seems like that game has completely changed.
So, yeah.
At that time... yeah at that time
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 loved gatorade so i was like let me go find the chemist from gatorade i'm like
searching around i get luckily get introduced to the one 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
end up doing that. We go public in 2005, I'm 23 years old. Life changes, right? There's no real
social media back then besides like MySpace. So 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. There's no iPhone.
So 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 another feather in my cap how many 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? We were at 18 to 24 million on a consistent
basis per quarter. And then there was a lot of waves from the chain stores. It was very interesting.
I mean, dude, close to $100 million a year in energy drinks. That's pretty impressive. So
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, I mean, you're you're definitely a serial entrepreneur and love to be involved in all kinds of different things.
Like what 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 got to file a 10 10 q and
an 8k and you got to 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 it gave us the liquidity it gave us the liquidity to be able to do deals with stock
you know issuing shares to like do endorsement deals we were doing endorsement deals with like
master p i couldn't afford to pay master p with a check, right? Remember, he was huge back then.
I could give him stock.
I couldn't afford to pay for a NASCAR, right?
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 a race.
$150K a race?
If nothing bad happens, right?
And so like that that now the sponsorship deals
were two to four million dollars i can't just stroke a check for that right but i could give
you them 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 etc 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 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 a public company.
Would I advise public companies?
Yes.
But would I ever go through those filings again for, oh, God, no.
Oh, man, you're speaking to me right now. We've considered going public with our company. So I
just recently stepped into the chairman role of our business and promoted a CEO. And, you know,
right, obviously, the financial markets for the last 12 months have been crap, right? Not conducive
for going public, but we've considered doing it in the next 12 to 18 months.
But you you definitely you definitely have striking a little little bit of fear into me.
So that's good. So, dude, you you go, you you step away from this thing 10 years in.
You're looking for something new. What what like what 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's a void in the market. There's 550 poker sites.
Similar to the energy drink, I wanted to make the best tasting.
I knew I was never going to be number one energy drink, right?
Red Bull and Monster and Rockstar, these companies are doing billions of dollars.
I didn't expect to become number one.
I wanted to become the best tasting.
With poker, same thing.
Poker stars, they were doing $8 million a day in revenue.
Full tilt, $4.5 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
that could be the coolest poker site that'll put me in the top five top ten and that's a great you
know that's a great business so i went and signed i went and signed deals with dan bozarian 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.
And it was going to still be like a cool, fun adventure.
That 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 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.
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 betting and not poker. I said, okay,
that's it. That's my lane. I could be the cool brand. And that's what we did. So it was all
less than a year. Awesome. That's cool. So what kind of investment was it to launch this thing in development costs, software?
Because obviously pretty intensive.
And this was what?
10 years ago?
2012?
2013?
So we started 2009.
So technology wasn't as great back then.
So I started with $2.6 million to get it started,
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 monthly.
And so I got a lot of players initially because i did some really viral videos
with dan bozarian 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
marketing videos 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 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 and the graphics look better than videos now. Like 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. 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 that's how I got started.
We're going to have to put that one in the show.
A couple,
a couple of these images of you just blowing up stuff.
I love it.
Yeah.
So you launch,
you launch that thing and how long did it take for you to get to number five
so within 10 weeks we were the biggest we're 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 wow it was a very rapid growth so what i mean what are the legalities i
mean there there's there's got to be a lot of hoops and stuff to jump through to to be able
to launch like an online poker gambling site like what uh what did that look like or so i
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?
Right beneath the boot of Italy.
Okay.
Right beneath 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 another consultant. 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 is so impressive to be able to be live that quick with software. So how long did it take to develop out your software? based in Malta. It was amazing. Their offices were like a couple hundred yards from where I lived. 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, you know, 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,
you know, and then just finding all these different
levers. I think too often entrepreneurs, small founders, small entrepreneurs, right. They try
doing everything themselves and, and it's just, they beat their head against the, you know,
trying to figure it all out without hiring professionals, consultants, teaming up with
people, you know, leveraging relationships that they have. So, you know, 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, 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 run a business right don't don't
try don't don't rely on only your ability and think that you have to figure everything out
on your own is is what right exactly but uh cool man dude wild so how long so is this is this uh
gambling site still running did you sell off? What ended up happening with that?
Yeah, so a couple of 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 with like a little card.
He sold that for $440 million.
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 p.m it's 10 10 in the morning april 15th 2010 or 2011 and uh i get a phone call from
dan balzerian 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
from full-tail poker stars.
Number one, two, and three sites all got seized by the FBI.
You log into their website and said,
property of the FBI on their website.
Like I go to my website.
What's going through your head
while you're watching this?
Like, dude, 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 someone like i'm like did i do
something wrong because 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. 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, you know, 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 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 you know he's a regulated
business 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 asked 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 all right
and so right 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 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 you know 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 um over
the next four days april 15th april 19th i manually pay back 41 000 players manually
i'm i'm tweeting i'm tweeting i'm my spacing like hey'm MySpace-ing, like, hey guys, I'm Facebook-ing, like, there's no Instagram, but like, hey guys, if you have money on my site, please, please withdraw 100% 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.
Like anyways, hotel did not refund me. Let's just be clear. I lost sixty three thousand dollars 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, it took three to four years for everyone to get their money back from those other sites.
And not everybody got their money. Really? Yes. Wow. So you got everybody their money back?
Within four days. Yep. Wow. Instead of four years 41 000 transactions you know this
uh this actually reminds me so dan caldwell was a guest on the show and uh he's the he's the do
you know dan oh yeah tap out so yeah tap out yep so this actually reminds me a little bit different
version but when when uh his brand was posted as the initial sponsor of the first
ultimate fighting championship from the TV show, the reality series, his site literally shut down
that day at 3,000 transactions. And then there was thousands, some 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 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.
Anyways, wild, wild that you had to do that 41,000 in the fact that you did in four days.
And so, so what ended up happening? Like, I mean, everybody's I'm sure dying to know,
like 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, 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 or sorry, Morgan Stanley, because they wanted to understand the gaming
space. I became a consultant for three land-based casinos in Las Vegas. 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 it because I'm the only American CEO from poker. Everyone else is a debtor 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.
It's really strange to me that you can only play it in a couple of states here.
Wow.
It did end up coming back online for PokerStars and all those guys.
It just took years to be able to fight through the legalities?
Or what was that?
So Fulltail Poker got lucky that PokerStars bailed them out.
PokerStars bought them to pay off their debts
to not have a black eye in the whole poker market.
And so if it wasn't for PokerStars, it would have been tragedy.
They came and saved the day on a big level.
But that took years.
That was a big, long process.
Yeah, poker's been...
Dan, based on everything I know about you and based on your story that you 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 build value or whatnot. Walk us through a process of
obviously you landed these deals as a consultant or what. These are all based off of network. You
don't just end up as a consultant randomly. People don't just randomly call you. 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 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, someone else brings up that restaurant or,
or Chris actually goes to that restaurant. It now relates back to me, right? He'll think about me in
that process. Um, something happens in Dallas, Texas, and there's like a new, a new ban on
Airbnbs or a new thing for high rise residential, 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 he's, you know, 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 a 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 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, 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, 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 something that I've done similarly. I've actually never thought about the restaurant
recommendation or articles. I think this is genius. Gifts. I think gifts are one of the
easiest ways to network. 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,
I just posted the video. Yeah.
It literally just had his kid's birthday party at the ranch.
Nice.
I just posted a picture of it.
Is that everything?
Where's your ranch at?
In Temecula.
Right above San Diego.
Okay.
Wow, dude.
We're going to have to talk more about that.
That's super dope.
I'm excited.
So 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 going to use Chris Lee lives in Dallas as the example, right?
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 and 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.
Whatever city I'm in, I will invite people over to meet me at the hotel in the lobby or in the restaurant there
because it makes a 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 this is good.
Like I always thought I was a good networker and like got to know, you know, some pretty, pretty cool people or whatnot.
But like you are given, this is a masterclass on, on networking right here.
Just a, 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
like, I mean, that's enough. But I mean, I'm willing to jot down anything else.
So the main concept of all 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. Like
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. Like 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?
Like 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.
Cause 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 a butterfly effect came back to me.
Again, if nothing ever happens, don't lose anything.
But planting all these seeds, some things might happen.
You know, it's interesting.
Really what you're talking about is the added effort, the plus one, right?
Like 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 multi-billion dollar charity.
Nothing wrong with those charities. I just know that they just going to a multi-billion 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 could make with his kids.
You could 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, you know, 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 like 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 dollars tipping dinner. And then we also do a thousand dollars 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 surprised the waitress or waiter. We surprised 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 100 people a month tag me
doing tipping dinners all over the world.
Then there's probably thousands that do it
that have no idea who the hell I am,
which is even better, right?
And the whole concept was-
I actually, I have quite a few friends
that do it now because of you,
which is just phenomenal.
The fact that you've created that, and I've actually done a
little bit of it myself. When I go out with my family on certain occasions, we'll ask the whole
back, the crew or the cooks or whatnot to come out and 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,
for being an example of that.
It's 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've actually been inspired by your toy drives. I want
to do a similar thing. So 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. There's a lot of people that want to give and we want to give and whatnot. So walk us
through that. 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 and vans, whatever you want. Come pick up as many toys as you can
today, you know, or tomorrow. And so we will outbound call,
but for the most part, it's homeless shelters, children's hospitals, women abuse 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 for other supplies.
Very cool.
Very cool.
Man, so inspiring.
I love just the mentality of you want to create a culture of it, create a wave, get other people bought in through social media, get involved wherever they can.
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 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, Dan. So what, what, go ahead. During VCon for Gary Vee 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 there 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 and 77 cents.
Full-fledged cry. I don't post it. Obviously it's full-fledged crying. So excited. And she
explained, she's like, my tips got cut in half because I work day shifts, you know,
cause 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.
It 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 you know, 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, and 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. What drives you today? So I'm in 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 Everbowl. 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 like, 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 like the masterminds, I'm scaling that because I really want to put on a big show.
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. 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 income from 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 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 like this whole like experience and it's my
excuse personally to interview my heroes right i get to go interview hulk hogan and mark walberg
you know like i'm overdoing it because it's for me it's a personal thing like i'm enjoying that
um and then the last thing is the podcast you know like 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 um consistently uh just because the game of it it's a it's a hard
it's hard as you know podcasts are hard as for consistency and so now i'm addicted i waited four
years to do a podcast now that i'm doing it i'm it's working. Let's, 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 at becoming 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, you know, it's becoming the best version of yourself.
It's the tree.
So 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 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. If, 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 a
morning habits of like meditating and all the things that like a Jim quick or an 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, that's who I am that's 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 that all just adds up um and so I think I don't go ahead and do what I don't
I don't let things linger and so like like, 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 9am and I don't show up on time. Like I don't like 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 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. So I try 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 oh 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 mo 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 a.m and that's what works for them and some another person can sleep until 8 a.m
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 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. 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 real rich the 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 I do want to say like the 48 laws of power, like things like this, books that have like straight to the point things or how I consume content where it says a one liner or one paragraph thing.
A bunch of different different 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? you instagram twitter what's what's the best platform so every platform is the same screen name and just at dan fleishman 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 etc very good so last uh last parting thoughts i mean what
uh what what's 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 and this is crashing and 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 with 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.
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. Thank you. you