Shaun Newman Podcast - #631 - Sean Alexander

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

He is the President & Founder of KAILANI, Canada’s fastest growing outdoor lifestyle brand. We discuss his journey from losing his job to selling coolers out of the back of his vehicle to landing orders from Canadian Tire and Costco. He opens up on his thoughts about Covid, Coutts and DEI. Let me know what you think. Text me 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcast E-transfer here: [e-mail] Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/ Email: [e-mail] Text: [phone] – and be sure to let them know you’re an SNP listener.

This is Tom Luwango. This is Alex Craneer. This is Franco Tarzano. I'm Dr. Peter McCullough. This is Joshua Allen, the cowboy preacher, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Monday. How's everybody doing with government deficits running out of control?

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Windsor plywood builders of the podcast studio table for everything wood. These are the guys deck season. Oh, yeah. I know, we just had snowstorms and everything else. But I feel like, you know, you're probably chilling. I got to watch a hockey game out on the deck in round one

and two two's um sugar in the oilers skated through gonna be uh man their power play was legit anyways watching it on the deck at night

with the little fire oh yeah nothing beats that so when it comes to mantles decks windows doors sheds talk to Windsor Plywad here in town now let's get on to that tale of the tape shall we

he's president founder of Kaylaani Canada's fastest growing outdoor lifestyle brand I'm talking about Sean Alexander. So buckle up, here we go. Welcome to the Sean Numer podcast. Today, I'm joined by Sean Alexander. So first off, thanks for making the draft. You're welcome.

Glad to be here. Yeah, long-time listener. I appreciate that. It's funny to the listener. I go on, people don't believe me. I go on Twitter daily, but other than that, I really don't try and interact with social media. I think at times it is the bane of human civilization. I know there's lots of great things.

come off of it but like I get sucked into rabbit holes real easy and pretty soon I've been on there for four hours and I got young kids and on and on and on so there's just certain social medias that a friend text me on Snapchat said for happy birthday and so he called me say I said in a snapchat I'm like I'm on Snapchat probably two years he's like oh and I'm like yeah I like I don't know and the next one was I I don't know why I went on LinkedIn and normally I don't really pay much attention but I was looking for somebody's credentials and uh I also said you had like like six miss messages. And usually in those LinkedIn's, it's like all job seekers trying to like, you know,

hey, you want to get this job? Hey, you want to? And I'm like, no, I don't. I actually, but there was one that stuck out. Sean, I like, oh, hmm. All right, fine. You suck me in. So then I clicked on it.

Here it's like a five, a month old message. And you'd left me your number. So I called. And this is, you know, I'll come out about that. Yeah. No, Sean, I said to that message because I, um, I thought I had kind of a unique story, something maybe a little bit different than what you. you're used to. And I've bought a company that I started. I've got a storied background. And obviously,

I've the last four years, become very opinionated as far as forming my opinions and listening to both sides of things that have been happening in the last number of years and just really started to become a lot more unbridled. And now working for myself and building this company and being in a, in a sector that's not a common company that people start. I thought we had kind of a unique story, and obviously I have to promote it, promote the business, and I thought this would be a good way. And so that's why I reached out. And yeah, you invited me up here to Lloyd Minster.

Well, let's start here. Let's start here so I don't forget it. And when you get telling your story, I won't forget it. And what I've given them, folks, is a one ounce silver coin. So, you know, one of the things about coming all the way here. I don't know. He gives me a cooler, folks, which I'm going to put out a post out on social media because it is, You know, it is freaking cool and people got to see it.

But from my end, working with Silver Gold Bowl, we came to the idea of like, you know, for a person that come to Lloyd Minster and come sitting here. That's no small feat for a lot of people. They got to hop in a vehicle. They got to driveaways and on and on and on. And one of the ways we try and show a little appreciation is that is a one ounce silver coin for coming all the way. It's silver maple leaf. So that's the new ones.

I've been giving out ones with a First Nations man on one side and a buffalo on the other. This is the newest version that we've started. So there you go. Coming all the way here, that's silver gold bull. Well, they originally had a Rocky Mountain House. Now they sit their head office or one of their head offices is in Calgary. Well, thanks, Sean. I'll add this to my collection because I do have silver.

I do, I'm very much into the, I think it's very important for everybody to understand the value of silver and gold, you know, and bullion, not derivatives that you might buy from a broker. So very well versed in the value of what this is and what it's going to be in the future. Right. And we're going to see a huge increase on this. So thank you very much. Well, I don't know what's cooler. How many times I've had somebody go, oh, yeah, I'll just slide it in the old collection.

I know exactly where this is going. And, you know, you kind of get the – or the first time or sometime I give that coin. Nobody's ever held a one-ounce silver coin. Even seeing it there, you know, those are the newest ones. I think I gave out one on the Brothers Roundtable. I think that was the first one. This is the second one because normally, and I've kept one here so I can,

that's one that we gave out previously. Oh, okay, yep. The Buffalo. The Buffalo. The U.S. Buffalo. These are hard to find. These are actually, they're sold out of a lot of places a lot of time.

They go quick. Yeah, for the commemorative value of the Buffalo. There you go. Well, if you'd been. Want trade? Same silver. Come on. This is that.

Here it's the same dollar value, really, if you want to exchange it. It's like the buffalo over the Canadian one. You just said rarity. I'm like, my hope is, you know, we'll see where it goes with Silver Gold Bowl. You hope that it goes a long time. And I'm hoping every different iteration of coin we give away that I can keep one of them. And I don't know, display it.

I haven't quite come to a conclusion on that. We'll see how long it goes. And if it doesn't go that long, then life will move on and you'll carry on with life. But if it does, you know, maybe we'll always give away the Maybelief and the idea will be done. But they were supposed to send me silver bulls to start with. And that never happened. It got the bison. And now it's the Maple Leaf.

So, yeah. Well, as a point of note from what I read the other day, the, if you look at the S&P versus, say, the value of gold and silver over a 20 year span, gold and silver is actually given more of a return than 20 years on the S&P. So if you, you know, if you stuck a thousand bucks into an S&P stock versus, say, putting a thousand bucks into gold, you would have seen a much bigger increase than. what you would have with the gold and silver, with commodities. I got you.

I got you. So, yeah, no, it's quite interesting. Everybody get out there, silver gold bowl. Yeah, well,

it's a shameless plug, but they, they were at the Cornerstone Forum on the weekend. Oh, well, I guess now it's like two weekends ago. And I know gold and silver

was a huge topic, so I don't know. It's a nice way to segue into your story. I just, I know I get, sometimes I get going and then I forget all about it. And it's the last,

like, man, going for hopping all this way. So it's nice to get it in the way, out of the way, right at the start. Yep, they do. Okay, let's hear some of the story, Sean. You know, like people are wondering, you know, I know a little bit now, but I would love to hear the story of Sean Alexander and the company you've created, you know, just walk us through this and we'll see where we get to. So I think it's probably best to tell you exactly how the company is and then tell you how I started it. And then we can kind of backtrack on how I,

I might have had some experience in many different industries to actually kind of pull this all together because I think I've got a unique skill set that just from experience over 30 plus years, 35 years of working. And so I started a company in 2019. Actually, I started an idea. I moved into a lake community just in the west side of Calgary. And I was probably one of the first, you know, 10, top, you know, 10, 15th home to be built there. And it's a master plan community.

And it's going to, it's got to what will become. in the next two years, Alberta's largest lake community. And I was working in the oil patch downtown for 15 years, downhole tools, drilling tools, you know, wireline, completions tools. You can see in my brain, I'm already going. Yes. And you have that experience in the oil patch as well. And so I had thought to myself, geez, I could sell my neighbors.

I'm sitting on the beach one day. And I'm just looking at everybody. And some of them are bringing down brand new boxes right from, right from the retailer, the Costco's and the body glove paddle boards. and they're opening up the boxes and trying to figure out how the paddles go together and pumping these things up. And I'm like, they just came right from the store with that. And so I thought I could, with my experience, I knew how to offshore, you know, source offshore

manufacturing. And so I thought, you know, I should get into manufacturing paddle boards because there's going to be eventually 4,800 homes in this community. And I was looking for literally a side gig out of my garage to complement my oil and gas career. and I started sourcing some paddle boards and then started selling them. After a while, I thought, you know, I don't know if this is really the thing that's going to make me a lot of money. Because not everybody wants to be on the water, nor do they want a paddleboard, but they want to be on the beach. So then I got into, so this roll around to, you know, roll around to January, February.

And actually January of 2020, just before COVID, I got laid off in the old patch. And so, again, being a very opinionated guy, I'm not afraid to tell my boss what I really think and I might have maybe told them too much and and I got laid off and and so I thought how do how many how many power powers am I going to be able to sell right and I and I realize I'm not going to sell that many to pay my mortgage pay my bills support my family out two kids a wife children in sports and I thought what else could I manufacture design and manufacture import and then sell via Facebook marketplace and Kijiji and I and I thought, you know what, I always wanted a Yeti cooler.

And I'm going to say it right now. I'm going to say, yes, Yeti. They're number one in the business as far as, as far as a premium rotomolded hard cooler. And I thought, I've always wanted one, but there's only two reasons I don't have one. I can't afford it. Or if I can't afford it, I can't justify it. And those are really the only two reasons anybody else doesn't have one either. They either can't afford it or they just can't justify it, but they could afford it.

And they just think it's stupid. And I thought, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to find a factory that can manufacture cooler that's every bit as good as a Yeti because they're a great marketing company. They've got this brand awareness about them. And I'm going to sell this out of a trailer, door to door, cornerstone pop-ups, and I'm going to import these suckers. So I imported my first shipment first week in May, and within three weeks, I'm sold out. Now I filled the whole garage, not the whole garage, but a good portion of the garage.

And right away, before I'm even sold out, I call the factory backup. And just so I can pause for a second, and you're only selling them off of Facebook and Kijiji. Facebook and Kijiji. Yeah, I bought a nice, I had to have a reason to buy this new motorcycle trailer that I, you know, and I logo wrapped it. And I was just, I'd created a website as well because I had a background in web development through a friend of mine. And I reached out to him and said, hey, let's put this website together. I need to have an e-commerce platform to legitimize the brand.

I had created this company name called Kailani. It was for the paddleboards, simply for. paddle boards and what is kailani mean it just means see and sky in hawaiian and um so kailani k a i laan i and i just means see in sky and i thought hey that's cool and so um then i get into the paddle boards i'm gonna i'm gonna put it on his camera jack so jack is probably editing and where am i going here can i get that i don't know why anyways it doesn't matter it's it's a it's a nice cup he's got thank you sean brought me a couple smp in grave cups and i might add i already kind of said it but a giant cooler that he's talking about that I'm going to put photos up because that is that is something I've never received anyways I'm interjecting so so you sorry you you build a website you buy a whole bunch of Yeti style coolers but not yetis correct you do your research you find it you buy them and then you sell them via

Facebook and marketplace yeah and Kijiji yeah so I get up every morning at you know 8 o'clock my trailer is reloaded from the night before I repost the ad on Facebook marketplace in Kijiji. So it's kind of top of, like it's again kind of re-kicked to the very top. And I offer free delivery anywhere in Calgary. People can go to my website. They can purchase it there. And then I'll deliver it to them for free. Or whatever they like, right?

I'll even ship it to them. So I was shipping actually coolers via Canada Post. I got a business account with Canada Post. I was shipping coolers. I was going to the post office every day. Every day, just dropping one or two off. And people were finding me through these because I would do different Kijiji markets, Calgary, Edmonton, you know, Winnipeg, Toronto, and I was shipping across the country,

like literally first month. And so at that point, you know, I realize, like, I'm already, I'm already like a ways into this thing, like just two weeks, and I'm already a ways through the inventory. So I call the factory up again. And I say this time, make me four times the amount of what I bought my first order. So we've got now a full container, full container, which is, which translates basically to a 53 foot tractor trailer unit, coming down the the alley and they're all on pallets. I've got to unload them and then hand bomb them one by one, almost 300 coolers into my garage. Now I've asked my wife, because a roof-to-roof, or Florida ceiling, I've asked her to park on the street because I've got to sell these coolers and I'm looking

at it. I'm like, at any point is she going, you're nuts? Yeah, she thinks I'm nuts. Yeah, she does. Maybe not anymore, but she's support, yeah, not no more. She's supportive, but she's like, my husband's going nuts. At the time, she sees that I'm selling them. And, and, and, and, and, And she's like, but neither one of us could have guessed that we would get to this point. And so it was merely just a means to an end to pay the bills. Like literally that's what it was. And I thought, you know, I'm selling these coolers. The website's up and running.

I've got the name. It's Kailani, C-N-Sky and Sky. It's got some cachet to it. It's Hawaiian. I've been to Hawaii once. But who doesn't love Hawaii? If you've never been, who doesn't want to go to Hawaii? And so anyway, so I get the second shipment probably July 10th.

And I'm literally, I bust my ass for 30 days. I'm sold out by mid-August when I go on holidays. Sold out. I did four times the volume in just a week and a half, two weeks longer than it took me to sell the first at, you know, one fourths. Yeah, you're like, this is going to be, this is going to work. And I'm like, this has got some legs because it's all about price point. People want to value on it. days with the way things are going, the prices of groceries, the price of everything, the price of

vehicles. And if I may say, and you probably already know all this. But like, so when I, when I first looked at the cooler when he brings it in, it looks like a Yeti. And there is a thing about the Yetis when they come in, you're like, man, that has a nice cooler. And then you hear the price, you're like, yeah, that's a little more I want to spend. I think of, um, I have, uh, same train of thought, different, different product.

Uh, in the middle of COVID, I bought, um, a squat rack. and I walked into my brother's house and he had this squat rack. It looked really sharp, like red and black, like just sharp colors. And I started talking to him, and then he said,

you know, like you go on Facebook marketplace specifically. And it's, I don't know, three grand. I'm going to pull a number out of my ass,

folks, sorry. But roughly, you know, like something like that. And this all in brand new with like everything was 1,200 bucks. Maybe it was 14 now.

Recently. This was 2021. Okay. Oh, yeah. And I was like, how is that possible? How can they, and so then I just went and bought one.

I just like, was like, and once, and now people come over and they see it on a lot. You must have spent like five grand. I'm like, no, it's like, that's the thing. It was $1,400 bucks. And the thing about that cooler is that's going to be the first question. Oh, you must have spent. Now, obviously this is a little unique situation,

but you can imagine how quickly it spreads like fire between people going on. It's a nice cup or that's a nice cooler. Yeah, where did you get it? Where'd you get it on for you is what I'm getting at. Yeah, no, totally. It's, um, I get a lot of referral business. just from people having it. Obviously, a shameless plug.

Feel free to put it up right here, by the way, if you want to squeeze it between the thing. Well, the only problem is is I'm looking at the cameras and I'm going, it's not going to grab it. I'm going to actually, what I'm going to do for people on Monday when they listen to this is they should just pause it and go to my social media and I'll have a picture of the cooler on there. That way they can be like, oh, yeah, that is something. And I'll probably take a couple of multiple pictures because that's a nice looking unit. Yeah, well, thank you. So, and I might add. And I've got the matching cup for you too as well.

You got, you know, I know my, I don't know, my, I don't know, my gold pee. It's kind of like an off, I don't know. I was trying to pick. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We didn't have a gold, but we had this new dune color. And I thought, okay, black and dune together. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's close.

It's close. Yeah. So we might make a gold cooler. Who knows, right? It might fly. I tell you what, when Tom Luongo's wife was in, folks, she gave me a one of his pot. Here. This, this, so Tom Longo, gold gold, gold, gold.

It's in Gunn podcast. His wife makes pottery with a goat on it, right? Okay. So she hand makes those. And she gave me one, which isn't here, but the top of it is actually gold dusted. Gold dust. Gold dust. 22-carat gold dust on the top.

I laughed. I'm like, well, this is going to be my new cup all the time. Now, I bought more off of her because I'm like, these are super cool. Tom comes on the show once a month, roughly. And I'm like, whenever somebody comes in and we're going to have, I don't know, a nip of scotch or something. I'm like, we might as well do it out of his cups. Yeah. No, very nice.

very nice. So I guess back... See, I'm getting us off track. Oh, no worries, no. My entire life's off track. So you're rattle it off in two extra weeks longer than the first batch, but it's four times the amount of coolers. You're going, this has a ton of legs. Okay. A ton of legs.

We decided to go on holidays. We're in Kelowna, and I kind of put together a business plan on how do I... What am I going to do? Because really, I'm now at the end of the season. It's August. We're going to Colona on holidays. taking a break, but at the same time, I don't have a job. I literally do not have a job.

And who's going to be buying coolers from a guy in the middle of winter, right? I'm coming into the shoulder season, coming into September. And I said to the wife, as soon as I, as soon as I, my wife's Tracy, by the way. And I said as soon as I get home, I'm, I need to plan a road trip. Because I know that if I can get this product in front of people, they're going to see it. They're going to see the value. And I put together, you know, my whole, my whole idea when I started this was I, I did think, okay, if this really has legs and it goes, I've got to be able to have margins in here for retail partners, right?

I can't just do just an e-commerce play because I don't have the distribution. So how do I factor in what a retailer is going to want from a margin perspective, but still leaves me what I need for margins, right? And then they would then sell it to the end user consumer. So you're sporting good stores, your hardware stores, and all the rest of it. And so I decided to go on the road, hit the highway. I started in Calgary on a Sunday night, and I drove all the way, the Fernie BC and I knew I knew that I'm going to start with the Canadian tire in Fernie BC so I got there Sunday night probably was one of the last weeks of August and I was going

for seven days and the route was going to be Fernie BC then down to you know trail Castle Gar all through the Coonies Grand Forks overdose so you have a meeting with Canadian tire no I don't have a meeting with anybody I'm just going to wing it my entire life's been winging it so your idea was walk me through this you can drive to Fernie Bede and you're going to pull up to the Canadian tire and then what. And I'm going to clean up in the Starbucks and then I walked in and I had a cooler under my, a couple of coolers in my hands. And if for those of people out there that don't know this, Canadian tire, they're all,

it's a corporation, but they're all independently owned. You're all independently owned and, you know, independent business people that got into the, into the Canadian tire corporation and got trained and then bought a store and then they get moved all around the country and they move from one store to the next store to the next store and you slowly get the bigger, better stores the longer you're in it. And so I went to Fernie, cleaned up in the Starbucks, walked in, asked to speak to the owner. Well, sure, shit, the owner is actually stacking shells. Okay, I want to, I want to, just before we go to that, so you looked at the map and went,

you know the background on Canadian Tire and you go, Fernie is one of the lower stores, so it would be a first time owner, first time, or what was this, why specifically Fernie? Just route-wise. I wanted to get over to the to the Okanagan. And so from Calgary, I went to Fernie and then I just planned how many places I'm going to be hitting and the mileage I'm going to be doing each day and where I'm going to be stopping. And the plan was to hit every Canadian tire that I could find because I knew they had a backdoor way of getting into, you know, getting into a Canadian tire. If you can't get in through the corporation through their vendor gateway system, and I tried. I tried all summer long.

They didn't want to talk to me. They've got coolers. They don't know who this guy is from Western Canada. We don't need your product. That was kind of the, that was the rift. And so I was a little put out, but I knew there was this backdoor way. If I can get a store owner or a couple store owners to endorse me, there's this way of getting in through the back door through these store owners.

And once you get approval to sell to one store owner, you can then sell to every Canadian tire in the country. But it's dialing for dollars. You've got to pick up the phone. You've got to get a hold of that owner. You've got to call him. You got to go see him. But all you need is one owner because they,

The next owner can open up a door to the next one and the next one. I don't know how that works. And they'll talk to each other. They talk to each other all time. They go to these national conventions and things and they do these AGMs provincially throughout the country. And so Canadian Tower was obviously the whale, right? That's the whale.

So I need to come home with a win. I got one week to prove this out, Sean. I got no money for a mortgage other than what I made over the summertime. But, you know, there's expenses to that. Yeah, no, I believe me. You know, and kids sports are expensive. and you have kids and you're literally looking at exactly what I've built over the course of five years, right? Like I understand everything you're saying.

Yeah. Because when I finally quit my job, which was April 2022, I had six months. And your wife probably thought, how the, am I going to, how are you going to make money doing a podcast once a week? What are you doing? That's what she thought. Probably. And my wife probably thought. The only difference is you had weak.

and I'd built myself six months. I'd built myself a window of six months. Oh, to kick it off. Oh, to survive, yeah. Like financially, I could survive for six months, taking a huge hit from where I was working in the oil field. But compared to your story, right, I didn't get let go. I walked away.

I too gave my, you know, Baker Hughes, the group there, I told them what I was doing and how I was walking and out the door I went. And everybody probably thought I was nuts and probably thought it wasn't going to work. And my mother, you know, they just joked about this. And that was in 2019, though. 2022. I started in 2019. But 2019, I was doing this.

Oh, he started the podcast of 2019. That's right. And you were still working at a bakery. For three years, for three years, I worked full time and did this after hours, early mornings, weekends, any moment I could. I listened to Joe Rogan. That's where this quote on the back wall comes from. And with Annie Jacobson, she wrote a book, Project Paperclip, among others.

And it was a nothingberg episode, in my opinion, except for like three minutes in the middle of it, you know, you almost tell Joe Rogan's frustrated with her or something. I don't know. And they talk about getting stuck. And Joe Rogan's telling her. When you're younger, you're not stuck. You can literally live out of a car and go do, he was talking about comedy. You can literally, you know, you can live like nobody else can live. Because as soon as you get older and you get married, you have kids, you have responsibilities, and you can't neglect those. And so you're stuck. And then she goes, so you're saying you can't get out of it when you're older? And he goes, no, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is when you're older, you know, you got whatever time you have,

you have to attack it like you're trying to save the world. Now, that's the end of a long, two-minute spiel he does on it. And so that's what I did. Every night, every morning, I get up five Sundays for like a year straight. I worked from one to five every Sunday on my days off, doing podcasts in here, just rattling them off, rattling them out. And I built myself this window. So in April 22, on April 1st, terrible April Fool's Day joke because I wasn't joking. I went and for six months I had this window where we took a huge financial step back and said, we're going to give this a go. And I remember going back to it, my mom, my mom would be like, so when do you get an actual job, right?

And now you think about it. I just had 240-ish people descend upon Lloyd this past weekend. from all over the world. And you go, you know, like, can it be more successful? Can it be more financially stable? Always. I'm not sitting here. I'm not a millionaire.

But at the same time, in my profession of where I took a leap from, it's proven itself out. It's working. Sorry to interject. No, no worries. No, it's. I just completely understand taking a week and being like, well, let's see if I can make this work.

Like, that's a giant leap of faith. Well, I, I mean, taking a week was really kind of what I had from a time perspective because then school starts and my wife and I are both you know employed or at least she was now employed and I wasn't but I'm responsible for getting the kids to school in the morning and picking them up and both of us at the time we're working downtown and but you really learn how resilient you are when you are unemployed but you also really realize what you really need and what you don't need from a dollar perspective because I was making great money in the oil patch I was doing exceptionally well you know almost 15 years down to

downtown and working working out in the field. And when you have no job, I mean, I, COVID happened March of 2020, which really threw a wrench and everything. And the only thing that Trudeau has ever actually done for me, because I could, you know, talk about everything he hasn't done for me. Sure. The only thing he has done for me is that year, it was a culmination of circumstances with COVID and basically the federal government then went to all the banks.

and they basically paved the bank's interest to defer every, to provide a product to defer everybody's payments. So what allowed me to, you know, basically walk away from my payments and just have them tacked on to the end, I had six months of mortgage payments that were now deferred, six months of truck payments that were now deferred, motorcycle payments,

boat payments, like all these things that we get ourselves, you know, into when you're doing well, um, were costing me money. And so I was able to figure out, okay, I don't,

if I don't have to make those, payments. We can live on a pretty small shoe string budget. And that's kind of when I started this company. And so I hit the road, walked into the Fernie. And I guess that's probably the biggest thing. Shout out to Angus, Angus McKenzie in Fernie, BC. I think he's still the owner there. Him and his wife, Margaret. I walked in, they came out to the parking lot. They're out there for well over an hour. Show them the product. Show them the paddle boards I had. You know, custom bamboo paddle boards. The coolers, they loved them. Canadian tire only had a white cool. And these were all colored coolers, much the same as what Yeti markets and some of these other

companies out in the marketplace now. And so he said, I want this. I'm going to send you, I'm going to send you an Excel spreadsheet that you're going to have to fill out all the information on. We send this right to you right away. Then I'll send it into head office and we will get this over the goal line for you. And where are you going next? And then I said, well, I gave him my route. And I told him where I'm going.

And he then made a couple calls to a couple of the dealers who are friends who are friends of his. on this next seven day route and said, hey, watch out for this guy. He's going to be coming in and showing you something. I think these things are fantastic. And I think he also do wanted to have some validation that he thinks it's a great idea. And what do they think? Right? Because they all talk.

And so basically, fast forward, I hit trail, I hit Castlegar, I hit all the outdoor sports stores. I hit the bike shops, you know, as far as how much time I had. I worked all the way through Grand Forks into a so use, hit the home hardware. I hit all these different places. I'm doing show and shine. on the side of the road, like in parking lots, pulling all the stuff out, then just walking in and saying, hi, my name's Sean, I'm with Kailani. I've started this great company. I'm a one-man

band. I'd like to show you this product. Oh, and by the way, Angus up the road at Canadian Tire is filling out all the paperwork right now, and it's going to get over the goal line, according to it. And so they were all more interested because that's the hardest part. If you can get the over the goal line with this back end, you know, contract, you can sell to all of them. So fast forward, I got to Colonna. I went to Penticton. I went to Colonna. I went to Merit, Camloops, Salmon Arm, Golden, Revy, Vernon, you know.

And I came home with 130 grand in purchase orders in seven days. And I'll tell you, I was on the side of the road. I actually teared up. This is probably the first time I've not teared up telling the story. because it's an emotional thing because you either got to make it or you don't. And you've got no prospects in September of 2020. The world's turned to shit. And what am I going to do?

There's no jobs in the oil patch. Now, I could go work in the field, but then it takes me away from my children and my family and who's going to drop them off and how does that impact my wife. And so I had to make this thing work. I got home and then I got another problem. I got 130 grand of purchase orders and I got a $50,000 line of credit. what am I going to do? So I call up a friend of mine and I've known him for 30 plus years and I said, do you want to go in with me on this? And he said, I can't right today, right now, but I want to

introduce you to someone. And so he introduced me to someone that is now my investor slash partner group, investor group. And it was it was through that referral and a 30 plus year relationship that he was willing to stick his neck out because this, you know, my buddy Mike, uh, known him a long time. You know, we come from a school of, you know, you don't, you don't, um, what's the word? Even I do this today. I have a hard time sticking my neck out for people because I've been let down. And it's, if it's my name on the line and I'm going to stick my neck out for someone,

I got to know that that guy is going to deliver, especially when it comes to getting someone to invest in this company that I've just started, right? And so, um, so I, I agreed to meet with his, his partner. his investor, up in gasoline alley at the donut mill on the side of the highway, we sat there for a couple hours. I showed him my business plan that I said, I can do $2 million a year. But this is the kind of money I need. I need an investment that can actually fulfill this $130,000 in purchase orders from Canadian tire and these other retailers. And I'm going to need working capital to really kick this off. And I will do, I will do $2 million.

Actually, I think I said $2.5 million in the first year of business. And so, They were, you know, the, uh, the investor group looked at me and, um, yeah, through through someone vouching for me, he came on board and within three weeks, he gave me a million dollars to kick this thing off and he has ownership stake in the company and, um, basically has been a, uh, he's a business owner. He's, uh, business acumen that's, you know, can't be bought experience. And, uh, so he helps guide us with certain things and he holds my feet to the fire and makes me accountable to certain things, reporting to him exactly where we are on a weekly basis, you know, P&L statements and income statements and things like that. And we're now, yeah, we're four years in now.

I guess we're four years in now when it was by myself. But we're three and a half years as a real full-fledged business once the investors came on. How much did you do in the first year? First year, since I've already publicly stated this on a number of different places, we did 2.1 million in the first year. So 2.1 million and it was myself and three individuals because I had to put a team together. It was just me by myself out of a trailer, but now I need to go rent a warehouse. I need to hire a creative director. I need to hire an operational manager. I need to have someone that, you know, so I kind of, yeah, I'm not going to say I'm lucky,

but I believe that people are, when you put yourself in the right place and you surround yourself with good people, good things come to you, right? And so, and so yeah, I just, at the end of the day, I knew a guy that was one of the fastest paddleboarders in the country.

Called me up out of the blue. Really like my paddle board. There's a fastest paddle border in the country. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's a thing. It is actually a thing. These guys are, you know, he's still living the surfer life.

And he reached out. I'm a professional dodgeball player or something. Sorry, folks. If you're a professional. Yeah. So it's, it's, uh, I didn't know it existed, but I knew that they had paddleboard races. Sure. Right.

Lake Kalamalka Lake and stuff. And, and I knew they had these, and he reached out to me and he competes all over the world. And he reached out to me and started asking me about paddle boards. The next thing you know, he said to me, hey, I know someone that's putting on a ladies paddleboarding event. Will you sponsor it? And I still had a few coolers left. And I said, yeah, okay. Like, I just landed Canadian tire.

and it was probably the second week of September 2020 and I said yeah I'll sponsor it and so I brought some prizes and put my flags up in my tent and everything else and got to talk to people and excited about the what I'm going to be doing with Canadian Tire now and so anyway I sponsored it

and then I had my boat out there that day and a guy says hey can I hop on your boat and take some photos and he's got a camera and a telephoto lens and he says my sister's actually the coordinator for this whole event And I said, sure, hop on the boat. Next thing you know, you know, where I'm chatting with him, what do you do, Michael? And what line of working in?

And he tells me he's a graphic designer. And he's a web developer. And he works for this company that designs and, you know, makes sunglasses. And I said, so you do graphic design too, and you build websites? Like you can write code and all this kind of stuff. And you're a photographer too. And then he pulls a drone out of his pocket. And then he out of his bag.

And he's flying a drone now shooting 4K footage. He goes, oh, yeah, and I do some video editing and I can make commercials. And I'm like, geez, this guy's a marketing unicorn, right? Like to find a guy like this. And he's sitting on my boat. And I just said to him right there, I said, hey, when this race ends, I said, I'd like to talk to you about an opportunity. Because I'm looking for someone exactly like you. And I had experience before rolling gas in the marketing advertising world.

And so I knew what I was looking for. And here he is sit on my boat. Like, what are the odds? Like, what are the odds? if I didn't sponsor that event and just give away a bunch of free prizes, I would never have met this guy. Right? So just out of my, just, like just for networking purposes, right? I never would have met this guy.

So sometimes you take a leap of faith on stuff that you think, you know, I don't know what's going to come from it. And you just do it because it's the right thing to do. And it's going to be fun anyway. You know, you're talking about your new company. And then next thing you know, you meet this guy. And so that's, that was really kind of the real. start of the company is he came to my house the next day. I didn't feed him a single thing. I gave him, we drank a lot of coffee and we sat there for seven hours at my kitchen table and I said,

I need you to bring me everything like your portfolio, bring me catalogs you've worked on and done for all the companies you work for. I want you to show me your portfolio of websites because I was basically a job interview. And then as soon as he was done, I said, look, this is what I'm doing. I've, this is what I'm doing. And I've got a potential investor as well that's going to give us the working capital and I'm going to give you shares in the company. And that's what I did. I gave him shares in the company and I said, but I'm going to need your commitment. You know, like you're a full-fledged team member. Are you on board? And that's what he did. So he came on board and that was two. And then I said, now since someone vouch for me and I think you're a person of

integrity, I said, do you know anybody that you can vouch for that can build the back end inventory management systems that sync with the website, has warehouse. experience, invoicing, payables, basically like a bookkeeper. Right, I'm asking for a lot of things here. And he says, actually, I do. I know someone. And I said, who is he? He goes, well, I've worked with them for the last 15 years and he works with this other

company. So, and during COVID, they all got laid off. They all, they all were kind of, you know, free spirits, contractors, doing whatever they can to pay the bills. And I said, okay, can you set up a lunch or breakfast? And we go to this breakfast place the very next day. And we sat there for three hours and he took. told me everything you needed to tell me, just question and answer. And, and I looked at Michael

and I said, do you vote for this guy? And he's 100%. And that was enough for me. Because if you're going to vote for that guy and you're going to, and if you're thinking, if you think like me, that means more than anything. So I hired Brent. So Brent came on and he's basically our entire operations manager. I mean, um, without a, you know, he's not a guy that's about titles. And, um, so that's, yeah, that's kind of what we did. So we run very lean. We run very lean. Went leased to warehouse.

Got it loaded with coolers. Everything was landed by November. And we shipped into 2020 into the first Canadian tire. Actually, all seven of them. And then a bunch of other stores. And, yeah, finished up that first year with $2.1 million. So my investors were happy. It's a little shy from what I planned.

I think I was trying to go for $2.4, $2.5 million. And ever since then, it's been going great. and yeah so that's kind of that's the that's kind of probably the shortest it's a wild story you know like when you think about it folks that's a wild story get let off look around go this yeah i could probably sell this you start digging into it you land on a company that can do it cheaper build product that you like on and on and on and you just start going it's pretty um you know you think about it, if you just put your mind to something, what you can accomplish is pretty incredible.

And when you have no other option, too, and it's a matter of, you know, you will burn the candle at both ends to make things work. Now, in fairness, I mean, it's the, it is probably the hardest thing I've ever done to get to this point. It's not been the easiest money either, you know, at all. It's not like going to work, you know, eight to five, Monday to Friday. Is that easy money? And, you know, the old patch isn't easy money either, right?

Is that easy money? Is that no. The answer is no. No. I mean, it feels like it's easy because it's guaranteed. And I put that in quotes because we think it's all guaranteed. Well, salaries are guaranteed until you get fired because you're not performing. Right.

You're not performing, right? And so. Or until you get into disagreement with the boss or, you know, and on and on and on, right? Look at all the stuff that's coming down. Just like a Jordan Peterson with the DEI or others, right? You have something that you just disagree with. Or are you going to put your livelihood on a long? line to tell and are you speaking against a big machine which is usually a big company

not everybody's like that I don't think that's easy money it feels at the time like it's easy money because you're getting a great wage you're getting you know for me a company truck and a company credit card and and on and on and you're making very good money yeah but it can end very quickly you can end just as quickly as this could yeah yeah no and and and so you know I would tell everybody like you got to have it something you got to have something in you to be able to start your own business and and truly because it's There's no easy hours either. Like this isn't Monday, Friday.

And I have to remind my wife, you know, that sometimes I got to work till eight or nine o'clock at night because I'm dealing with factories overseas, which are, you know, big 12, 14 hour time change. And they're ahead the day, the next day, right? And so there's that. And then sometimes I've got to work on weekends. And when you're a business owner, and I always use the analogy like Dana White. Dana White, you know, I like Joe Rogan.

I like Dana White. you know, people that are involved in in sport as well. I kind of attracted to people that are in sport because commitment to sport is kind of the same thing. You don't get good at anything unless you're always doing and you're committed. And so knowing, you know, like your hockey, you know, your hockey career and stuff.

And, you know, I was listening to you on the way up here on one of your podcasts and you said something about your wife. She said she'd leave you if you actually made the NHL. And we talked about that. We actually just talked about that. We went to a couple's retreat. Yeah. And what did she say?

Now I'm spacing on her answer because I brought that back up. And I always assumed she would leave me because I'd never be around. But that's not what she said. Now I'm going to space on the answer, which is terrible because it surprised me. And isn't that funny? I just, it's like it's gone. I can't remember. And now I'm going to sit here and stew on it for a bit.

But yeah, it's funny when you say that, I look at podcasting. And you were asking, you know, when you first started, you did one a week. And I said, yes. You know, like, I didn't know if I was going to like this. One, I just wanted to kind of ease into it. And then you liked it. And then you thought, okay, well, guests are going to be hard to find. And maybe at the start it was like a little bit, but it's funny, right out of a list, are people going to listen to it?

That's a different story. But to find guests to talk to. There's, you know, a billion people, nine billion people on the planet. Like, to find guests, they're everywhere. Everybody has a story. To find guests that are entertaining. Okay. Now we can discuss that.

But I started one a week and it wasn't enough because I was doing like three in a week but then having to wait three weeks to release them and having to wait and total my thumbs and it's really bugging me. And then the time and what you're talking about on that particular show, if it's current events or whatever you're doing, it's three weeks old information. Correct. So then people are listening and they're like, I wish I could hear this live or it's just kind of old.

It's one of the things with the Brothers Roundtable is why I got to figure out because we're talking about sports. and the playoffs. But you don't want to wait a day to hear that. You want to hear it immediately. And if it's live stream, then you feel like, and so that's why we do the mashup live. So that it's as current as it can be.

As fast as we can get it out, that's what we're doing. We do it live stream. Now people can interact as it goes along. But forgive me, I'm getting off on a tangent. The consistency and the repetition make you very good at anything you set your mind to. That's why I got upwards of five. And I've thought about 365 and 365.

65, although my wife might hate me because I'm like, but the whole purpose is to get where you're very good at something. And you don't do that by lifting weights once a week. If you play basketball once a week, my son who's 12 isn't going to progress. Kobe Bryant talked about it, you know, and, you know, he threw, I think, 500 balls a day, 500 balls a day every day, right? Before 1,000 balls a day, he took 1,000 shots. And that's how you get good, right? Muscle memory, it starts training, you get just to get very good at the feel. Wayne Gredski talks about it.

And I go back to, again, the sports, and you can relate to this. I can relate to this. I come from a background where I was a high-level ski coach and ski instructors from 87 to 2017, and we touched on that before we started. But then I was a high-level cyclist as well. So, you know, pro-elite Canada Cup. You know, I was racing world cups. You know, I was a, I was considered an elite rider, but we raced with the pros.

So I had sponsors. I had a sponsor. I was a sponsored rider, and they paid for airfare, and they paid for. for hotels and and expenses and things like that but I wasn't on like a pro team and and and I got to travel around and and race across the country and and meet a lot of people and so I did that but again I did that based on something that I truly loved and I and I think I'm kind of back there maybe like maybe you love this maybe you don't I don't know the podcast podcasting podcasting the only thing sorry do you love it like do you love it do you love does it seem like work

when you're coming here and we're sitting here and we're talking. No. Does it seem like work? No. So there's parts of the podcast that feel like work. Yeah. But this right here is about as natural as breathing for me. So could I do 365 and 365?

Yes. Now, the rest of it that comes with it, there's stress involved. You know, you're asking like what happens here as we film and what the things. There's things afterwards that has definitely work. But this is about if I had a team, I could probably rattle off 365 and 365 if I didn't have to do all the You're talking one every day, like 365 days of year, one every day. Yeah, just try it. Casey Nice.

You got to take five days. You can't take weekends. Casey. Your wife will divorce you. Casey Nystad, okay? Have you ever heard this story? Casey Nystad? Okay.

Casey Nystatt was a YouTuber. And forgive me, folks, I don't know his entire background. I've just watched the story on it and read on it. So he started doing YouTube videos shorts. And, you know, he'd release four a month. One a week, right? And one out of ten would go ballistic. So he went, what if I just release more videos?

Eventually I'm going to have more. Because I'm doing more. And if it's one out of every 10, so I'm 10%, even if I'm, you know, if I do 30, now I'm getting three a month. And if I, the more, then I'm just going to climb. So he did a video a month, video a day, sorry, for 365. And it ends with him eventually getting a Nike contract to do a commercial. And him and his buddy take the money.

And the commercial is them traveling the world with it and not doing a commercial, just filming them. becomes a commercial Nike doesn't like it but it becomes a huge uber success I just look at that and I'm like 365 is going to push me out of my absolute comfort zone it's going to force me to do things that I probably you're right I probably at times I'm going to hate it but at times five now I go like it's kind of like kids when you have your first one you're like I'm never having a second then you have a second and you almost build you build a little resilience to it you're not at the start after the second one hurts the third one hurts now I got three and I'm like yeah I could probably have four

Now I'm doing five episodes a week and I'm like, yeah, I could probably do six. Like I have weeks where I do 12 in seven days so that I can take holidays. And you do two in a day maybe or? Oh, yeah. Well, today's two in a day. Right? So it'll be coming Monday, but we had the mashup this morning. That's a podcast.

And that's actually a very intensive podcast because we go through 30-some odd articles, 30-some headlines. And in the 30, there can be as many as five things you got to go through to get to where, okay, right? twos builds this document it is it takes me probably three and a half hours to make sure that I know and so it's labor intensive yeah whereas Sean Alexander I can read a couple articles I can listen to a podcast I can watch some things on Kalani and I can be like okay I'm like I got a all right I think I got a general feel but I love experiencing from this so yeah like when I go

on holidays um and I need five episodes for the next week now I have to double up on a week so now I got to do like 10. So I've already know I can do more in a week. It's the no missing, right? This week, everybody's heard into my voice. You were down from last, the event, right? In the event, it took everything out of me, then to try and get back and then to realize,

like, I can't even talk right now, how we're going to do this. When you called me on, was it Sunday or Monday? Monday morning, yeah, you sounded like dog shit. Yeah, and I'm like, part of it's like, I just don't know. It wasn't you going out drinking and party on a weekend. It was, I could hear it in your voice like, like, okay, he's out for. for a few days. Yeah.

The cornerstone took me to the end of my, first time I ran events, but it's the first time I've ever done a full day conference. And it took me to the end of my bandwidth. I couldn't handle any more than I took on. Yeah. I took on probably 10 steps further than I should have went, and then 10 more.

And by the time Sunday afternoon came around, I was, I felt like I'd been hit by a train. I don't know what that feels like, but that's what I felt like. Yeah. No, it's like I can, I can relate because I, I have been working a lot lately. And, uh, but yeah, no, I, like I said, I, I like to use the analogies of what athletes and I'm trying to get back to where I was.

It's funny. I think back to a, uh, a job interview that I did with a, um, with a recruiter back. It's had to have been probably 2002, 2002. And I remember like it was yesterday. Because they called me to tell me the answer that I gave them is kind of why they didn't hire me. And the answer was they said, what's the best job? you've ever had in your life. What's the best job?

Great question. Great question. And I said to him, you know, when I was trying to get into the business, you know, the corporate sales, pharmaceutical sales, all these sorts of things. And, and I said the best job that I ever had and they didn't know my background in sport. And I said, the best job I ever had was for eight solid years in Edmonton. I was a bicycle messenger.

So I wrote all day long. I ate anything and everything I could. I was pumping five, 10,000 calories a day of food. And I'm riding all day long downtown office towers, you know, and I got to know it really gave me insight into the corporate world. I'm doing time calls in the in law firms. I'm going to the courthouse filing documents. I'm at the legislature grounds. I'm eating lunch with Ralph Klein.

I'm literally eating the, you know, if you know this, but steak and Caesar salad in the legislation, the legislature cafeteria in the back. Yeah, at the time it was like $5.99, $4.99 for a nice steak and Caesar salad and whatever else you want. And there's ministers in there. And the premier, Mr. Klein was the premier at the time. And I'm sitting there and I've got all my cycling gear on and a helmet on. And I'm just wolfing down a bunch of food before I finish dropping stuff off. And then I'm back up into the downtown core delivering parcels. Sure. And so I got to meet a lot of people.

But at the same time, I was well read because I read the paper every single day. my morning coffee because I needed to be conversed with these people that I'm in the elevator with and I'm riding up and they're all dressed fancy and then suit jackets and and and I felt kind of like if I want to converse with these people I have to kind of be on their level and I'm a young kid I'm I'm 16 at the time 17 18 19 20 and I'm racing bikes at night training at night riding all day long racing on weekends traveling it's just that was my life tip top shape that was my I was in phenomenal shape and And I ate anything and everything, but I didn't have a regimented diet. I just packed in the food and I was a skinny kid. And so that was the best job I ever had. And this recruiter told me that that was the wrong answer. And I said, well, why? I said, I was happy.

Like I was outside every day, all day. We don't want you to be happy. You know, and I loved my job and I got to meet so many people. And, you know, and that transition to some other, you know, career moves that I made over time. And I said, I love that job. And I'd love to be able to get back to something like that, right? Like if you love your job and Wayne Gretzky is a good example. There was a woman I watched just the other day, or it was maybe Wayne Gretzky himself.

I'm trying to remember how it went. But it was something where he gets parents coming up to him all the time and saying, I want my son to go pro. I want him to be in the NHL. You know, what kind of training did you do? And it was actually Wayne Gretzky that said this. And he said, you know, he was telling a story about, you know, something a parent said to him. You know, how much training did you do a day or a week or a month?

And he says, I never trained. I just played. I loved playing hockey. I just played, played, played. And he loved hockey so much that, yeah, he was getting the training he needed to become this phenomenal athlete and this hockey player that was just far and away better than everybody else. and saw things the way, you know, he saw it. Only Gerkeski saw it. Yeah.

Only he saw where he needed to be, as they say, right? Sure. And, um, and that was my life when I was a bike messenger. I never trained. I just rode. Like I just raced. I would sprint cars. I mean, I'm not going to lie.

I was probably, I was drafting buses at 100, 80 kilometers an hour across the high level bridge. I'm, you know, I'm sprinting cars light to light. I just was having fun. And then I'd go race it, you know. You get, you get, you get, You'd get a kick out of this then. When I was 20, we biked across Canada.

I heard that on the way here. And we got to go down the... Ah, what's the highway that goes in the hope? The down one. Oh, the Prince, the Coca-Hala. Coca-Cola. We went down the Coca-Hola and we were passing semis. We were going so fast.

No, you're probably doing 80 kilometers an hour. Yeah, well, our Spadomber wouldn't go past, I think it was like 70-some, so yes. And halfway down, I thought, if I hit a rock, I'm dead. I should probably slow down, but that feeling of going by a semi- When how old were you when you did 20? 20 so you have no fear you don't even think about crashing and like I'll walk away Right probably but nowadays like if I roll my ankle off of a step like man I'll be out for two weeks Right like you just you start thinking about geez this could really hurt if I fell off this six foot ladder right now right changing this like 100% and dan's are quite like to this is like breathing the thing I miss

was stepping on the ice and playing in a playoff game. Watching the playoffs right now, right? There's just almost no feeling like that until I started hosting events. Did you ever walk onto the, did you ever get on to the, step onto the ice, how big was the crowd that you ever got to experience? Probably two to three thousand would be my guess.

But a significant crowd, that's a lot of people. Yeah, to be loud. Yeah, to be loud and to be into the game and to just have an atmosphere of like, oh, man, this is intense. Yeah. And stepping onto the stage is the closest thing I've ever had to that experience again, which surprises me every time it happens. Same nervousness.

But, like, now I know it's coming and it's kind of fun. And I know that I'm going to, you know, it's kind of my, the ice surface. I want to control it. I want to, that's why probably people, you know, when they come, they're like, you know, you're pretty, I'm almost ADHD, I think, when it comes to like shows and how they're supposed to function. I put a lot of time and effort into making sure it is the best possible experience for anyone there.

And I don't know where that came from. I, you know, but to me it's, it's probably from sport. You will probably be your own worst critic. And so if something goes wrong because it's different than how you planned, I would say that if you're like me, you might get down on yourself,

but the watching audience at an event. or somewhere where you're emceeing, they don't have a clue. They don't know that you missed a beat or you forgot this, but you'll be harder on yourself than anybody else. And they might, and some of them might pick up on it

or others might not understand why something's bugging them until they have it explained to them. Yeah. This is what you're, you know, this is what happened. This is why it bugs me and,

oh, you put it that way. I never really thought about that, you know? Yeah. Well, you could probably even, you could probably even turn into a laughable moment where you actually tell them what you just messed up on. Tell the whole crowd.

say, hey, I was kind of expecting this to go a different way, and this has just happened. It's thrown me for a little loop. Well, sometimes you just have to adjust when things don't go right, right? So, like, it's happened to me twice now. The first time I was more bent out of shape, but technology didn't work the way I wanted it to. So we just adjusted on the fly.

This past weekend in the afternoon, we had all the speakers come back up on stage, and I realized, like, first five minutes, oh, this isn't going to go the way I thought it was. And so we jumped to live Q&A almost immediately, where I'm walking around the crowd with a mic. Was it too slow? Was it just not?

All the speakers are prepared one 14-minute speech. And then they got a second opportunity to come up and speak for a second 14 minutes. 14 minutes straight. 14 minutes, Sean, they think 14 minutes is like two seconds. None of them are very happy with me. Even if they are happy, they're not very happy. They're like, I should get a half an hour. I should get 45 minutes.

I should get an hour. I don't know. I'm not. I'm not picking on anyone. I'm picking on you all. And the answer I've always said, well, that's not the answer. the way, you know, but if it's my event, then I can be like, no, this is the way I do it. If somebody hires me to come in, I'm like, well, no, you can do what you want.

If you don't want my opinion, that's fine. I'll do whatever you guys want to do. Totally fine. But in my world, I designed something, and it's to my rules, and so then they have to abide by them. And so I had designed it so that they could have 14 minutes, so they could have their half an hour, but 14 minutes in the morning, 14 minutes in the afternoon. And in my brain, I went negative, positive.

We're going to talk about the problems. We're going to talk about the solutions. It can be beautiful. And then what I heard resounding from all the speakers is preparing for one is really tough and it's hard to split it into two. So they all came and talked in the afternoon. It wasn't a struggle. It was more of like filibustering. Like they didn't, it's hard for them to prepare a second one.

So they started talking and right away, you know, the first guy was like, yeah, that's all I got to say. And really, I'm like, ah. And it was like literally one of the speakers and myself almost at the same time, let's just go to Q&A, right? Boom. So out in the stands like walking around with the mic, I just went, at no point me being on stage, let's interact. As soon as we got the interaction, the excitement, the energy in the room picked right back up, and it was electric.

And I, you know, immediately it's like, well, mark that one in. We're doing that next year because it really worked. And it changed it from the morning. It wasn't just a guy talking. Now you get to interact with the guy and hear different questions from the audience. And the lovely thing about my events is it's eclectic. You'd fit right in. These aren't people that don't have a story. And I'm saying everybody has a story, but these people have like, man, they have come from all over the planet for a specific reason. So their questions aren't

weak questions. They're like right to the point. There isn't listening. You're like, man, I should. Well, even, you know, when you think about, and again, I watch Joe Rogan a lot. I listen to Jordan Peterson a lot. I like, I like people that are outspoken, aren't afraid to kind mix it up and give their own opinions and stuff. But even a Joe Rogan in a setting where you've got a thousand people, he can only think of so many questions. And there's going to be some good questions coming out of the audience because there's just that many minds hearing, taking it in, that sort of thing.

So a Q&A from the audience always, you know, the only thing is you do risk the chance of giving the microphone to someone who's going to go off on some loony bin tinfoil. That is always my fear. That can happen. But if you address it right at the start of like, hey, listen, the more you talk, the less you get to hear them. I find most people, even if it's tinfoil, I mean, heck, I'm tinfoil, right? So like at the point, right now. After four years of what we've gone through, I'm starting to wonder, is there a conspiracy

over the last 10 or 20 years that I have heard about that hasn't come true? Right. So I'm not even worried about the conspiracy. see that I'm more just worried that the story is five minutes for the question. That's the biggest thing. Let's shorten it up. Let's keep it to 30 seconds or less question so that you can get an answer. And we can hit as many people here as possible.

That comes back to the facilitator, the guy holding the mic and explaining it to the audience. The moderator has to cut him off. He has to be tight. And that is a skill that I hope to be even better at because it's a lot of fun when you go to an event that is tight, man. You know, you go watch a hockey game. It's a performance. That's right. And you don't think of a conference as a performance, but I do.

I look at it and I go, this is really what it is. You go to a workshop to learn a skill. It's different than if you come to hear speakers share ideas and try and like, I don't know, I think of like a collider where, you know, neutrons are hitting off each other. To me, that's when you bring people together to discuss complex ideas from different perspectives. That's exactly what's happening. And if you can do it right, they explode on each other. And all of a sudden, they on it and is, oh, man.

Even as a hose, I'm like, man, this is interesting. Yeah. Well, I'm, I'm interested to see the outcome of something that happened last Monday was through a, through a PR agency that reached out to us. So fast forward, let's say to, you know, through the company, Kailani, you know, and a shameless plug here, you can look at us up, kailaniSports.com or Kailani Outdoors, actually, I just registered, because we're kind of getting away from the sports. Paddleboarding is a sport, so to speak.

Which is funny. I'm sorry, paddle boarders. I hear that and I go, how is that a sport? Regardless. Hey, but if you could fight on a paddleboard, you got to get to the other end, but anything goes, right? Add fighting into anything, now it's a sport. That is fair. That'd be kind of fun.

I mean, you can't get hurt thrown in the water, kicked off your board. You know, that'd be kind of interesting to watch. But so last year, I wanted to help, you know, to, my job is to promote the company. I'm the president of the company. I've got investor partners. I've got employees. It's my job to do sales and also promote the company and get us, you know, bigger retailers, more retailers, chain stores, all these sorts of things. So what can I do to increase our brand recognition across the country?

So I decided to audition for Dragon's Den. And so that's CBC Dragonsden. And I auditioned in April of 2023. And it aired November 2nd. So it's quite a long time to do the production, the post-production stuff. and you can check it out if you just Google CBC, you know, Dragons Den, Kailani, you'll be able to see it. And for all the listeners out there, yes, I cried on stage because I was actually quite emotional. My son was with me.

He was 11 at the time. And actually, no, sorry, he was 10. He hadn't turned 11 yet. And, you know, he's sitting, I know he's in the back, in the background, and he's watching on a monitor. And, you know, we flew all the way to Toronto. And you get emotional there. You're telling the story. I'm telling how I cleaned up in the story.

Starbucks walked into the Fern EBC, you know, I'm tearing up on the side of the road because it's like, wow, I just landed these guys. If I, if I'm to take the owner of that Canadian tire at his word, and he is saying, I'm going to get this into the, into the company, into the store, you know, you tear up. And then you think, geez, you know what, I, you know, I set my mind to something. I went and did it. My son's behind. We traveled here. He likes watching Dragonsden with me. He's 10. And he's like, dad, I, so these, this, these guys have no revenue and they're, They're talking about their valuation being a half a million dollars. How can that be?

They have no revenue and he's 10. So I'm trying to give him some insight into, you know, what is a valuable company? Is it a good product? Like, does it solve a problem? And that's what we went on Dragonsden to do is to show them that we came up with a cool brand, a cool product, the market clearly, you know, by this time I've now a number of years in. I think I was just, again, something I aired on national television, so I'm okay to say it here. but I believe we were, I think we were just shy of $6 million at the time when I went on the show

in two and a half years in business. And so that resonated with them because, wow, you've sold this much in coolers and drinkwear and soft coolers and paddle boards and what else do you have and dry bags and other outdoor gear items. And so I got a deal on the show. It was Wes Hall that, you know, I was asking for a half a million dollars for 15, percent of the company and a further half a million dollar line of credit, right, at nominal, at whatever market rates are, fair market rates, if you're going to be one of my partners.

And so he made me an offer and I accepted it. Actually, I originally went in at half a million for 10%, but we were willing to go in our heads to 15, and that's what he offered, and I jumped on it. And because I saw the value of a network, right? It wasn't so much that we needed the money. It was what could that individual bring to the table as far as the people that he associates with and a network and not mention beyond a, you know, if there's a, if there is a popular show on CBC and stuff, Dragon's Den is probably one of the ones, isn't it? It's, I think at one point it was. It was because people, people like to hear these human stories.

They also, people, whether it's Shark Tank down in the States with, I think Mark Burnett's show. And, you know, people like to see. these human stories of, hey, maybe I can do that too, right? And that's, you know, maybe I can start this, or I have this dream of starting this little thing, or it's a home-based business, how do you scale it? And everybody likes to see success stories like that. And then in the beginning days, just like, you know, American Idol and all the rest of them, everybody wanted to see the train wrecks, too, right? So they kind of got away from that format where they were embarrassing people and ridiculing them, right? Because that's, it's kind of a... It doesn't work in today's society, maybe?

But you can't maybe because it's because you're bullying them, right? You're belittling them. You're bullying them and all the rest of it. So I don't mind the format now. You don't need to be laughing at people to make yourself feel better. So I don't miss that aspect of it. And so we we walked away with the deal. We walked away with the deal on the show and then the show aired in November.

And so ever since then, things have really kind of taken off, but not because I actually never did the deal. We never closed. We never actually did the deal. Um, so for those people that are watching and watch Dragons Dan, it's a, it's a well-produced show. Um, well-produced show, uh, great people that work on the set. Um, I know this because it was my second time. I actually went on the show in 2006 and unsuccessfully didn't. Oh, I audition for another little thing I was doing while I was my old and gas career was going. And you did, you got on the show or you didn't? No, I got on the show. Yeah. It was season two, episode five. And, um, and so. And what was it? Oh, geez, I don't know. Do you want me to tell you? Yeah.

What do you mean? You're going to say, oh, by the way, I was on Dragon's done twice. So just to get on the show is like you get 3,000 people auditioning a year. Yeah. And they whittle it down to, you know, I think they send about 150 people. But they were getting tens of thousands of people auditioning in the Cross Canada tours in the first number of years. And so I beat out that many people to be selected to go to Toronto. And I think they at the time they had, you know, they bring 200 people in the hopes that they

can find 150 that's good television, right? And so I was season two, episode five. I'd started a company called where's my stylist.com. Because in the previous life, I had worked in the hair care industry, you know, hair care products, shampoo, conditioner, all the rest. So I'm a sales guy. What can I say? Sean, I'm a sales guy.

So I'm going salon to salon. I mean, I know Lloyd because Lloyd was my territory, right? I travel all around Alberta and northeastern BC selling hair care, professional hair care products and chairs and me. and mirrors and furniture and this and that. You don't want to open a hair salon? You call this guy, right? Okay.

So I was traveling around and restocking shelves and merchandising and that was kind of my consumer package goods experience. And so one day I went into the hair salon and again, I'm talking about like when I'm in my mid-20s. My mid-20s is when I'm doing this. And I, hair was important. We're hanging out in the bar. We're hanging on the bar, you've got to have good hair, good nice gel.

You have to look good. And so, you know, I walked into the hair swan. My hairdresser's gone. She disappeared. She quit. Went somewhere else. And I said, hey, I'm here for an appointment with so-and-so. Yeah, she doesn't work here anymore.

She quit. I'm like, well, where'd she go? Like, I'm not going to let anybody else touch my hair. It was kind of a, like, it was important to me. Well, it's funny if you find a good hairdresser over time, you build a bond with them because they're, you know. And for guys, we still do that. We build a bond with a hairdresser, and that's who we go see. For women, it's, it's, you know, it's even.

even more crucial, right? Like they don't, my wife doesn't go, she's been going to the same guy, Donnie for, I don't know, 20 years, right? And so, like she doesn't go anywhere else. And so anyway, long story short, I ended up creating a company go, Where's My Stylus.com? Because I walked into the hair salon. She's gone.

For two years, I floated from hair salon to hair salon to hair salon to hair salon. And at the time, I was, you know, formally in the business. And, and so anyway, I finally, I walk into this one out of the blue. It's on the street corner. walk in and there she is. I said, where have you been? Why didn't you contact me? Well, I don't have your number. And the owner of the hair salon wasn't going to give her the number. So I said, you know, I should create like an online database, like a website. And apps didn't exist. Remember this. Apps didn't exist. LinkedIn didn't exist. Facebook was just coming out, but it wasn't available to the general

public. It was like for university students. And so I'm going to create this website called where's my stylist.com. And you as a hairdresser will actually upload your, create a profile, put a picture on there. I had MapQuest. Before Google Maps, I had MapQuest on there. So if you wanted to find where the hair salon is, if you spoke, let's just say you spoke Swahili or Arabic or, you know, Dutch, right? You just type in, you want a Dutch-speaking hairdresser and my website would find it for you if there was a Dutch-speaking hairdresser. How did I miss this in searching?

Okay. In searching me? Okay. This is wild. So anyway, so I went on the show. My valuation was not, you know, web businesses get a good mold. multiplier, right? And so I went on the show and didn't get a deal, but they gave me some feedback and, you know, you can watch the show. If you type in, it's somewhere online. Where's Mystallist.com? And long story short, Kevin O'Leary, you know, he kind of came at me hard. And Arlene Dickinson was great. The rest of them aren't on the show anymore. But so that was an experience I had. It was a long flight home. But that was an experience I had. And so really my second time going back for Kailani, was really personally it was to number one reason promotion i got to promote the company i got to get on

national television um our episode was over eight minutes on national television if i had to pay for that i'm betting it would have been somewhere between a half a million and a million dollars to have on on on cbc prime time on a thursday you know that's how much it would have to pay and in this situation i just had to put myself out there again take the risk go do it and and get on on tv um so So it probably helped that I actually cried on national television when they're asking me kind of my background, where I come from. I'm talking about my only gas a little bit. And I was out there for well over an hour, taping, nonstop, on stage, standing, and you're

just getting peppered with questions. So it's really given me, I think, some unique insight into helping people. And that's why my neighbor just reached out to me. She's taping this Sunday. She's flying out there right now, and she's taping. And I don't know her. She just reached out to me as a, she heard about my story, saw me on TV, and she's taping. She knew I lived in the community and now she's going and auditioning on the show or doing the taping

And so she called and started asking me for advice and what do I got to look for and she basically I let her just give me her whole pitch and and And she's ready. So I'm hoping some good things come come out for her and But I think I'm probably the only person in the country that's been on the show twice so my little claim to fame and this time I came away with a deal on TV We didn't bother proceeding with it later because our valuation changed I've just landed a deal with Costco as well. So we're selling our coolers into Costco as well as 600 other, you know, customers across the country. From promo companies to, you know, mom and pop, you know, hockey shops, sports excellence stores, some source for sports stores, home hardware, RV dealers, you know, boat dealers.

And we're looking for more retailers, obviously. But we're going to try to do it right. You know, we're not going to blanket our product everywhere where it's on every street corner, some brands because I want it to, you know, I want them to do well with our product and sell because it's a good value for the customer. It's not as much money as the other big guys that are out there that we're aware of. So, yeah, so that's kind of. Where do you sit today? Like, things are guns of blazing. You know, you talk about being an outspoken guy. now that you're your own boss.

I mean, obviously, I have partners and everything. You've mentioned that. Where do things sit today? Well, you know, I think I would, I'd be remiss if I didn't comment about the last three, well, the last four years has been just a train wreck shit show. The world, you know, the start of COVID, you know, in a way I think I got lucky in the sense that I had something to take my mind off of things with something. fun and you know selling selling kailani corner to corner but at the same time september you know

after i landed this after i landed um the canadian tire um after i landed canadian tire this was september 2020 i was i was beat down with covid i was totally beat down i didn't subscribe to the um i didn't subscribe to what was actually going on and i'll tell you why so in 2019 when i was reaching out to all these factories like i was talking to factories going back into mid-2019, right? And I knew of the coronavirus long before it ever hit the shores, right, in the U.S., Canada, all around the world. I knew there was something happening in October of 2019 because my factories had talked

to me about it and said, oh, yeah, no, this is kind of happening. It's like another SARS, blah, blah, blah. And so I was well aware of it. And being someone was just constantly, like, I like a good conspiracy theory. I like a good conspiracy story. They make some of the best movies, you know, like the government's lying to you. You know, like, sure. We all believe these movies that the government lies to us.

So why would we not think that they're going to be lying to us in this situation? And so I knew about this in, like I said, late 2019, November 2019, that supposedly the story was this, this something came out of Wuhan. Fast forward now to March. Kids are now at home. Their whole year, the rest of the year, they're working. and, you know, teachers are teaching on Zoom. The kids are not getting any education at this point, right? Everybody's scared.

Everybody's wearing masks just quite yet. We weren't wearing masks yet. No, not yet. But the story was, the story was, um, wear a mask for everybody when it did finally come out. But the story at the very beginning was masks don't help you. It's not going to help you, right? It's like trying to catch a, you know, catch a fly with a tennis racket. You know, yeah, or better yet, let's try to, um, even something bigger.

catch a fly with a chain link fence right it's not it's just going to go the particles of a virus are going to go right through a mask and so so i didn't buy into a lot of this stuff and i wasn't afraid like i guess i'm a to me i'm a i take things head on like i just you know and for lack of a better word in this day and age if people aren't swearing with what happened um and swearing to this day about what we're going through even to this day with all of the stuff whether it's the introduction of CBDCs or universal basic income or mass immigration unbridled unfettered, not even checked, but yet, but yet I'm getting the blue glove treatment when I'm flying of Toronto, right? Because I'm, you know, like, it just, it doesn't make sense. And so there's

so many things here in the world that don't make sense. And so September 2020 rolls around, and I am now on the Saturday Freedom Rally downtown Calgary. And I was there every Saturday from September 2020 onward. And it created, it took a little bit of a toll with my wife, because she's like, well, I want to go do this on Saturday. I'm like, well, hon, you know, for these three and a half hours, I'm, I'm going to be downed down. Because we've got to show up, right?

And, and then, you know, that was, I was meeting like-minded people that really didn't bind all this bullshit. And I've seen what companies, companies being devastated and shut down and everybody just buying it and going along. And I've just never been a go-alonged together. along. I've been a critical thinker since day one, right? Like, you got to ask questions. If you're not asking questions, then your head's in the sand, because there's questions to be asked. There's always questions to be asked. You just can't, just can't accept something, right?

And so that was kind of what I was going through in late 2020. Even, even with the success with Kailani, I was going through that. So it took a, you know, it took a little bit of a tool. And, and then the, and then the trucker convoy happened. And I was, the emotion. that came over me, probably like you. Like I remember being on the side of the highway and tearing up, like literally tearing up because I'm watching these trucks and these people and everybody honking and I'm seeing the footage, you know, as this thing's moving across Canada, I'm seeing the footage on social media and I'm like, wow, like this is like people are coming together.

It didn't matter what nationality, what race, this and that. It was just people coming together. and that kind of gave me a new, right? Like I just like, I realize at that point that I'm not going to sit quiet. If my neighbor wants to, fine, but I'm not. Because it's my kids, it's my kids' future. So that's kind of where I'm at now. It's, um, we're, I think people think we're out of the woods and I don't think we are.

I really don't. We're definitely not out of the woods. Like there's a lot of shit that's going to be coming down the park. It is unique. Yeah, I will say this. It is unique for, uh, I don't know, you won't call yourself big, Ben, maybe you will it is unique for in my opinion bigger business than I am to speak openly about it I would say there's a lot of people that behind closed doors will say the right things but to come on

this show and then to talk about it it's is interesting to me because that doesn't happen well I shouldn't say often but I mean everybody looks at the guest list it's not like the CEO of I don't know who can I pick on in town here will be Cinovis right I'm talking oil and gas or, you know, I don't know, like just start rattling off all the people that own big companies that maybe talk like this behind closed doors. But they wouldn't talk public. I have no idea what's Nova's CEO. Thanks, folks. I want to make that very adamantly clear.

But I just mean like you don't hear that. Dana White sticks out because he is the head of a giant organization and he is on fire right now. Why? Because he got some, he had some prognosis. with health that was not great. And he's figured that out. And now he realized what's important in life. And you don't have enough.

You don't have, we don't have a lot of time, like realistically. No, no. You know, when you think, you know, a person might live till they're 80, 82, I think is the average lifespan. I mean, when I was, you know, when I was 10, I think average lifespan was 72, 72 or 73 years old. Well, that's just my phone. Don't worry about it.

And so, you know, Dana White has said straight out and many other people, you don't got a lot of time on this earth. And so, you know, make it count. Make it count. And I think now, you know, I'm going to grow this. I'm going to grow our business and my team's going to grow the business to the best that we can, the best that we can do by providing products that are, you know, of value to people. They use them.

We're Canada's an outdoorsy, outdoorsy company or sorry, an outdoorsy country. And did we lose the video feed? Yeah, so for the audience watching this, this has been a problem. Sorry. I'm distracted right now. My camera died again, and I was telling Sean, that's why we got a new camera, but we're waiting on the lens to come because this keeps happening, and I want to scream.

No, shit happens. Shit happens. Yeah, shit's been happening now for like a month and a half. It's driving me nuts. And we have the new camera and came, and then I realized, because I don't realize, that it needs a lens. And I'm like, yeah. Should happen.

Should happen. Anyways, it doesn't matter. Sorry, my apologies. No, no worries. So I just, you know, I'm at the point where, you know, things are going well with the company. But I think it's important that as a, you know, if you want to give me a title, I mean, yeah, I'm, I'm the president of Kailani outdoors. But I think it's important that people that, you know, I don't report to anybody except for my investors, my investor group. And as long as I don't, you know, I don't think I will ever say anything salacious or controversial.

Maybe for some people. and it might be offensive, but I just don't, but that is controversial today. Yeah, nowadays, but I just, I'm at the point where, you know, fuck, I don't give a fuck anymore. Like I, I'm here to build my business and have my family. And I think it's important that other business owners, I've seen so many businesses just completely decimated

with what's happened here in the last number of years. And everybody now is kind of going back into the motions of just living their daily lives and not remembering what happened a couple years ago and what's been happening month over, month, over month, over month for the last number of years. And business owners need to come together and get the courage to speak up so that we, because regular people want those business owners to, you know, it's to be their voice, right? And it's kind of like Ralph Klein used to say, find a parade and get in front of it. And I think in the respect of our provincial government, you know,

I've met Daniel Smith a few times. I've eaten in our cafe. She's served coffee for us. Like she's a pretty down-to-earth lady. She truly is. And I've not agreed with everything that she's done. I was really pissed off when she switched floors from Wild Rose to the conservative party and things. But she knew that there was a potentiality.

It was going to divide the vote, which it did. And then the NDP came up, you know, into power. And we can't afford in this province to have that again. I think we truly, by nature, our conservative province, were workers. We've got the youngest population in the country. And business owners need to start speaking out. Like business owners at a high level as far as the size of their company and rally their workers to support them. So people can all get behind one another because if you're not speaking up, are you going to expect your employees to or the janitor that works at your company to speak up?

You know, like people are afraid. People are truly afraid. And I think that people got to stop being afraid, speak up, come together, and go with what's in your heart. We know what's right or wrong, right? And we have certain things this country. You know, freedom of speech is paramount. And if you're not allowed to freely speak, your mind. And I guess I would say that, you know, I'm a conservative, but I'm really more of a libertarian.

And I learned that term when I first heard it on Daniel Smith's radio show, Premier Smith's radio. show of what a libertarian really is. And I think that a lot of people are really libertarians. We all just want to be left alone. We all just want to work. We just want to provide for a family, take nice vacations, have nice things, and be left alone and not be taxed to death where you have nothing at the end of the day. And so I'm worried about where things are going because I truly see, you know, the federal government encroaching on Alberta, the new capital gains tax on, on, you know, On the wealthy. On the wealthy.

And you're really, and I wouldn't even say the wealthy. I would say nowadays that there's a, that applies to everybody that has, let's say, work their ass off to maybe afford a tiny little cottage somewhere or a tiny little piece of real estate that's actually gone through the roof from a value perspective because they've printed so much money that the money is worthless now. So the property is now five, six, seven, eight times more than what they actually bought it for. Well, that's a capital gain. So how are people going to be able to keep those things?

The government is just going to lose it. You're going to lose it because you can't pay the capital gains on it. And that's not fair. That's not fair because what does that teach everybody? What does that teach people? You work hard, you bust your ass, and the government can just come and take it. You know, and so that's why as a company, I've started to forge relationships, and this is probably going to crucify me with some people, but I just don't care anymore.

Kailani is the official cooler and drinkware of the CCFR. effective as the last week. So Rod Giltaka, Tracy Wilson and I, we spoke up and it was, it really came on the heels of, you know, years ago, Yeti walked away from the NRA. And I'm a, I like guns. I think everybody should have the right to learn how to fire a gun or hunt if you want and be self-sufficient. And so, you know, Kailani is now the official cooler to a number of organizations, which you can find under partners on our website. And pheasants forever as well. because I want to support the firearms owners and the firearms businesses out there that provide a living to tens of thousands of people across this country

and show them that a company is not afraid to stand up and say, I'm going to support you. I'm going to 100% support you, going to support your business, going to support your association, and the right to personal property rights, because that's what it's coming down to. If the police and the federal government can take your firearms, what's next?

grandpa's 62 Chevy that has no emission controls are they going to come for that next because why do you need that? What do you need that 62 Chevy for? It's old technology you know, it takes a lot of gas.

It's a V8. Like why do you need that? Like when does it end in the encroachment of from the government? So that's why I'm speaking up you know, and I like the audience that you have here. You have, you know,

an eclectic mix from sport to politics and everything else in between. and I guess I'm kind of that guess that is someone that's a startup company that has something fun that we manufacture but at the same time you know I also have some things like ethics

and I think I can't be afraid to talk about it and so that's kind of I don't know what the audience will say I have no idea I assume they're they're enjoying what you're laying down is my guess but I think you know um it's almost like not that the winds have changed but it's high time more businesses started doing what you're doing otherwise

it gets darker it doesn't like you know like there's some dark things coming down the road and um you know it's just it's just high time i love uh Chris McGowan's my account she probably does not love working with me I'm you know like I mean that tongue and cheek there, Kristen, you're fantastic. I just mean I hate taxes. I hate everything about it. But like one of the things in her ad read we do is we say she supports this podcast and free speech. And that shouldn't be some like wild statement.

And yet it kind of is. Yeah, it shouldn't be controversial. And I think a lot of people here's, and again, just to give the audience of, you know, insight into who I am, I come from an interracial family. Okay, my, my, my, my, not my biological father, but the father that I always knew when I grew up was, he's, he's black. And my sister's mulatto and my niece and nephew. And, and so I've got, you know, I was, I was surrounded, I was totally entrenched in an interracial family. Um, and growing up, I experienced racism because I was, you know, I had a white mother and a black father and a mulatto sister. Um, and then me, just this, this white kid. and and so I experienced racism a young age,

but I didn't really know what it was. But I do recall an event that happened, and I know it's out there. But at the end of the day, one of the things, like I would, I think back to, I talked to a friend of mine the other day, and I asked him, I've known him since I was probably 13,

and I said, Roger, I said, have you ever experienced racism? And he's, he's a black guy. And he goes, you know, not really. Like, yes, not. but not really because he doesn't look for it on every corner and he's just roger and uh we've stayed in touch all these years you know like i've known ever yeah since i was 14 i'm 51 now and everybody's just got to stop like we're creating their own division you know through this DEI and there was um

if DEI is to work then it should work everywhere would you agree correct okay so then why doesn't it work in basketball and football, right? Why not? And I, and I, again, I, I heard this the other day and I thought, what a great analogy. If DEI is to work. Add more small white men into basketball? Diversity, equity, inclusion. Well, no, like, where's, where's the, where's the person from India?

Where is the person from Arab Emirates? Where is the person from China? Listeners could have a chuckle about Sean trying to play basketball. You know, you know, where are all? these different nationalities, you know, in the NBA and the NFL. And they're not there, you know, for the most part, they're not there because it's a performance driven organization. And at the end of the day, and this resonates me really well, really like in a big way, because just recently I had to, you know, put out an ad to hire an administrative assistant.

And within a week and a half from LinkedIn and indeed, I had 600 plus resumes. and I couldn't believe the overqualified people that were actually applying for this administrative assistant job for Kailani and luckily we were able to find someone fantastic through a referral mind you she saw the she saw the advertisement she was familiar with our brand and you know and and we happen to know some of the same people so I started checking references and so she's joined the team

and so I say welcome aboard Julie and but at the same time, I don't buy into DEI. I buy into best person for the job. I don't care what you look like. And I went through, no word of a lie, I went through 600 resumes in a week and a half, almost two weeks. And I look through every single one of them to find the jewel, to find the, you know, so I didn't, I didn't judge people by their name. And I looked at their experience. And I was, I was looking at people from the Philippines, from India, from, you know, Arab Emirates, from all over the place, South America, Brazil, Canada, like people that were born and raised.

tier two and I'm looking at everybody. I'm looking at their resumes and one thing I did notice is there are a lot of people applying for this job that are way over qualified. I had lawyers and doctors that were living here in Canada and applying for this position. Now I know they're not going to stay around long, especially if they want to get if they get their equal accreditation and they can go into health care or whatever. But I was just shocked at how many people that were, you know, I'm all for immigration, but we have to slow down this massive funnel of people coming to the country because we don't have a place for them to live. And we can't just continually be borrowing money, the federal government or the provincial government, borrowing money to house new, new Canadians

or new immigrants to the country. Let's do it in a checked and balanced approach because I'm all for immigration, but we've got to do it right. We really got to do it right. And so, So that's kind of my hope that everybody starts speaking up against this. And how's that gone in the corporate world? Have people been applauding you? Or has there been backfires? I think, you know, where I go is, you know, as a libertarian, I speak my mind. But at the same time, I'm also trying to remind people that, that, you know, I'm such a libertarian and a freedom of speech.

advocate because it's it's those are the those are the key points of of being a canadian freedom of speech and i'm so much of a libertarian and a devout you know individual about freedom of speech that i'm willing to tolerate not accept but i'm willing to tolerate the most obscene language that someone can espouse against somebody else i don't agree with it i'm offended by it i don't I don't do any of that. But I think it's important that people realize that freedom of speech means you have to accept some of the bad speech as well. Because otherwise if you don't accept the bad speech, then that means you're censoring. You know, when Elon Musk talks about this right now as well, you know, he says we can't have a, if you're going to be a free speech advocate, you have to allow all speech because otherwise who sets the bar?

Who sets the line? Go listen to Ira Glasser on Joe Rogan. I think I have um free speech yeah he's he's uh and I forget the society is part of forgive me folks but he talks about defending a Nazi's right to speak in the middle of like this is back in like in 1960s yeah and when it ends up happening is a whole bunch of things and eventually the Nazis don't get to do what there's do because people showed up and not peacefully just outnumbered them and it was all to do with just free speech I support your ability to speak up until the point you invoke violence and a couple other things. And he's like,

that means there's going to be times where I disagree wholeheartedly with what you're saying. But I do agree with your ability to say it. And right now when we look at, we look at what's happening in the world, you know, the one thing I would, I would, I try to tell everybody as well. It's like, I'm not going to get sucked into the discussion of, you know, who do I pick, Russia or Ukraine? Who do I pick, Israel or Palestine? I won't be sucked into those conversations because I'm not going to pick a side because it, although I think it's appalling what's happening in general, period, because people are losing their lives, I'm not going to pick aside because I don't know the whole story. And I, I'm not a, I'm not a historian going back a thousand years of what's

been happening. But I'm not going to pick a side on that. And I'm not, I'm definitely not going to, you know, we're taught here. You and I are taught it. I think we're close to the same age. But we're taught here that, you know, what's that? What a year are you? What's that? What age are you? I'm 51. Are you younger? I just turned 38. Are you really? Oh, geez. Okay. Well, I feel 38. I always look 51, hey, folks. It's the beard. It's funny. I get, I've been told since I was 18.

I remember this playing junior hockey, girls that came over thought I was the coach at 18. I'm like, come on. I'm not, I don't look that old, but hey, here I am. It's because you're, let's just say, the worldly, worldly outlook. Well, he's going to soften me up. He's going to soften me up. So I, like I said, I'm willing to tolerate, I'm willing to tolerate someone saying something that totally offends me. Because if I don't, I'm hypocrite. Because if I believe that I should have free speech, then so should that individual

that's willing to say something so offensive. Now if he, again, if it starts going into, uh, into, you know, threatening violence and things like, yeah, well, you know what? We have law enforcement and laws to, to deal with that, right? But we, but, but, but it is the, it is. is the one thing that is tantamount to be in a free Canadian, to being a, you know, to being in a free country is you should be able to have the right to free speech. And again, going back, I think I started here, you know, people that espouse racist views.

I totally disagree with it. I, it's appalling. Yeah, you can disagree with that. Totally appalling. And, you know, I'm the type of person that, you know, I don't care what you are, what race. if you're on the side of the highway, you've got a flat tire. My wife has seen me stop numerous times when we're together. Numerous times, I don't care, I'm helping.

If you're stuck in the ditch, I'm pulling my toe strap out, I'm pulling you out, I don't care what nationality you are, I'm going to help that guy. And that's kind of how I measure, you know, who I am as an individual, right? I don't just drive by. Like, I stop and help. And unfortunately, nowadays, you know, you see the accidents on the highway where, and you hear the horror stories in the news where someone, someone stopped to help and next thing you know they got hit by you know in an ice storm or something and they got

killed and it's just tragic so i you know i always say if you're going to ever stop to help someone you got to help yourself first make sure you're you know always you know put your mask on first then help the person next to you with their mask on the plane type thing right um because it's just those stories are sad but we also can't lose our our humanity yeah and that is being kind to one another and looking out for one another and that's what, you know, bred west. Like that's how people got through the harshness of living specifically in this area. I mean, Lloyd Minstrom back in the day wasn't this friendly place with sunny skies and a sandy beach. It was a place that pretty much wanted to kill you eight out of ten or eight out of 12 months.

I mean, and at times right now it's still the same. But the last number of years have taught us that, you know, whoever the powers are, powers that be are, they want to divide people and they were, they're either dividing you, by, you know. A vaccine choice. A vaccine choice. Color your skin. Are you wearing a mask?

Are you not wearing a mask? And it's like, I don't buy into all this stuff in the sense that I know there's someone else trying to tear us apart and put a wedge between everybody, whether you're Russian and Ukraine or Palestinian or Israeli or whatever. And it's like, can't people see what's happening right now? It's tough, though. It is. Because it plays on emotions and it plays on.

Yeah, right? Alex Criner always talks about the ants, right? Red and black ants, you put them in a container, they don't do anything. But if you shake them up, then they go and kill each other, right? Yeah. And he always goes, so who's shaking? Who's shaking? Right.

Someone's doing it. And if you can just take a step back and see that, and start to understand, you know, like, is there emotion tied up? Yeah. Like, are people dying in Russia and Ukraine? Yes. Absolutely. Yeah.

And so that makes it even harder because now you're going to have family who just lost a loved one and like the emotions of it. But who's shaking the jar? Yeah. And why are they shaking the jar? That's the questions we've got to ask because otherwise we will all fall prey to at some point when our jar is shook. And certainly in the middle of COVID, the thing that freaked me out the most was having Jamie Sinclair sit in your seat.

And I've said this now like five times in like two weeks. And him tell me about being a military guy and being over in these different places and being like it always starts with one little divide. It can be tiny. And we just had Martin Armstrong. on here talk about um you know you think he thinks uh if you go back folks and listen to that martin armstrong thinks that canna's going to break up it's going to fall apart that's what the models are predicting and i said that doesn't make any sense you know i'm thinking like logically like it's

going to take a long time and he says ah it could be just something so small that all since sets everybody apart and you go now whether or not that happens i don't know but it comes back to is there divide oh certainly west east right now that's a big divide right right right right right Right? I mean, you can see Danielle warring with the liberals right now. Imagine the liberals get back in somehow. Take conspiracies out of it. Let's just say they do a couple things. The East goes, we still want them back in. And we all know our system. And they get back in. How frustrated Westerners going to be. Yeah, it's, it's at a breaking point. It's at a point where the only thing keeps people sane is they're going, we just got to survive another year. Yeah. Just got to say, they're rubbing their temples and they're like, let's just get to the election. And this will all go away. But here's what I would say, and I, and I, this, this applies to the U.S. too, Canada and the U.S.

I would ask everybody, whether your NDP, Independence Party, PC, whatever party color you wear. Sure. Right. Do you trust the government in any day? No. No. The answer is no. So if, and we look at sport, I'll relate it back to sport.

You have countries around the world, right? Countries around the world, athletes around the world, that are just. simply fighting for a gold medal. And a gold medal can lead to something even greater and even better and financial wins and all the rest of it. You have countries and athletes fighting for gold medals and sponsorships and dollars and this and that and they're willing to cheat. If they're willing to cheat for a gold medal, what would political parties at the highest level, whether leading Canada and the U.S., what would they be capable of doing if it meant them being able to win every election moving forward and how many hundreds of billions of dollars would that mean

in just power that would be put in their hands to be able to dole out at a moment's notice to any of their friends or or their lobby groups or whatever so i i ask people it's like if you don't think that the electoral process is corrupted you know you don't trust the government we don't trust the government in in collecting our taxes and spending it wisely why would we expect that the actual electoral process has not been, has not been subjected in some way or compromised. And it's like, I still tell people, people that I know, I say, you know, you come across as a cynical person, but yet, but yet you still believe that the election results, you know, we know that election results in other countries around the world are corrupt, right?

We've seen it, we've caught it, we know about it, we hear about it all the time. And the Western countries are always talking about restoring. democracy in this country or restoring democracy in that country. But it's like through what means? Are they restoring democracy as they call it through, you know, counting scandals? You know, like, and so I don't believe that an election, because I is going to solve our problem, unless I believe that the election results are in fact exactly what the people are, whoever's doing the counting. And I, so I would encourage everybody. I'm going to volunteer this next. This next election, I've told my wife, I'm probably going to go on for two days or whatever it is.

I'm going to go and volunteer to count to see for myself. And this that goes down to, you know, I don't, you know, I spent a lot of time during the Freedom Convoy. I went down to Coots. And I know you've talked a lot about, I've listened to a number of people on your show recently, people that I want to hear the backstory or hear from them, multiple topics. And I was in Coots and Milk River. and I saw what happened down there and I saw what was blocked

and what wasn't blocked by protesters. I saw protesters completely peaceful, thousands and thousands at Milk River. I was on the front lines there. I basically worked from the road, right? From the back of my truck, I slept five nights at 501 just by Milk River. And I was there the first night there.

It's where I met Jesse Johnson. We got out of the truck. There was probably 20. 30 cars there and yeah spent five days at that at that event and I tell you I I took pictures of it video I saw the horses come through but I saw what happened there and and I would just I tell this to I tell this to people I know that are police officers because I I do respect the police that respect the job that they have to do but also I respect the police that stood up early on and and said no to unlawful

And we know everything was unlawful. We know that people had their rights violated. And I would just say that I want more people to don't believe everything you hear. Go see it for yourself. Right. If you truly want to get that, like you have to dig. You got to go for yourself and be down there and see this for yourself. Because I saw something at Coots and Milk River.

I've listened to your interview with Tony Olenik. I listened to that. You know, he comes across. a, these guys were all offered a small little deal to get out after they've been in jail for like 811 days. And it, it shocks me to the core that you are not innocent until proven guilty in this country because I remember hearing that somewhere. You are innocent until proven guilty and we let murderers out.

And these guys, two of them were actually released on, on some unlawful storage of a firearm, right? And, you know, I'm not going to get into and be a judge and jury on why did they have firearms there in the first place. But you know what? The courts need to let this play out, but they shouldn't even have been incarcerated for more than probably a week. And, you know, and I'll say I'm wrong. If the evidence shows that these guys conspired to kill police officers, they know what, I'm wrong.

But they still deserve to be out. We've let murderers out, child molesters, all these sorts of things until their court date, because in this country, you're innocent until proven guilty and what's happening in the judicial system. And again, listening to another one of your listeners who was, on your show here recently who's a lawyer, you know, our system of justice is so corrupt right now because people are putting ideology ahead of what's right and what our charter rights and freedom says. And I hope that, I hope these guys get their day in court and I hope that government and Trudeau and the rest of the people that are involved in us have to pay some sort of restitution

to these guys because they have lost and they've caught, like there's untold trauma that these guys have gone through. And it's just atrocious. that we have to watch this, but yet everybody, I've been down in Lethbridge, but everybody is, you know, going about their lives again. And I just don't think they're getting enough media play.

I don't think that they're, the mainstream media is still kind of hiding from the story. They just don't play it, right? So we all have to listen to the Sean Newman podcast and various other forms of media. Yeah. But no, I, you know, I like, I like listening to a number of your guests.

And, yeah, it's, people got to speak up and that's you know I'm here to tell my story and do a little self-promotion and stuff but I'm also trying to encourage those business owners out there and I'm going to give you a list of other guys I know that are you know from bigger companies that I'm aware of but also we're starting to speak up because I think they'd be great guests for you and you can reach out to them and hopefully they'll come on your show because I think it'll give more people courage to actually say hey I I agree with that guy with what that guy is saying and I and I think I can say it exactly as eloquently as that guy's saying it.

And when they start seeing more and more people speak up that have positions or hold positions of power. It's contagious. It's like, okay, I got courage now. I know I'm not alone in thinking this, right? It's kind of what they'll say to themselves. And most people are just followers, right? They just want to know that there's a lot of people that, and that's why I think all the rallies

across the country, especially Calgary, you know, we had so many people there because It was at a time where people just wanted to see that there were other people that were hurting like they were, but they were like-minded. You may not break bread with the person. You may not have that much in common, but you saw that people were thinking like you and saw something that just wasn't right and you were coming together on a Saturday. And so, yeah, it's... I don't know what to add to that. I think it's wonderful. I appreciate you coming all the way doing this.

And I don't know. where the future goes, but Sean, now that we know each other, it's going to be hard to forget this chat and paying attention not only to your stuff and just seeing what comes here in Alberta. Either way, appreciate you coming all the way and doing this and sitting across from me.

I appreciate it. If I can leave with one message, and this is to our premier. I know a number of police officers that are good police officers in the RCMP and city police and all the rest of it. And they speak like you and I. They think like you and I,

but they just can't come out and say it and say it. And one thing I want to see the, one thing I, we talk about the Alberta, you know, the Alberta Pension Plan. We talk about the Alberta Provincial Police Force. We talk about all these things that are going to give us sovereignty over Ottawa

and make Alberta stronger as a, as a unified province. And one thing I would say is that Daniel Smith, is me addressing her directly. You need to please show these RCM. members that are working in all these rural attachments in Alberta, you need to give them and show them the pathway at which their Canada pension plan or, sorry, their pension, they're a crude pension through the RCMP will transfer over to an Alberta provincial police force.

And the moment that you do that, because that's one thing I've not seen, and it's, if I'm, if I'm thinking as an RCMP member and I've been in the force for, let's say, 20 years, I want to know that my 20 year accrued pension comes with me, is coming with. me how it's going to come with me at dollar for dollar right and if it's not dollar for dollar is it you know 80 cents on the dollar whatever it is I want to know that you have a mechanism to ensure in writing that my pension is going to come over to the Alberta provincial police force that you're going to create now if that's an extension of the sheriffs and giving them investigative powers and all the rest of it they the RCMP have just show me that because I want all the good

RCMP members in this province who want to stay in Alberta and stay in that small town that they're stationed in and part of the community, I want them to be able to know that, because that's the number one thing that I'm talking about with guys that I know that are on the force, is how does my pension come over? That's all they're waiting for. And I know you've had Daniel Beaufort on here, and I know Brian Dennison personally of the Calgary, formerly Calgary City Police, 24-year veteran, you know, these guys, these guys laughed early before their full pension was up. And I just want, I want every RCMP member that lives in this province to know what the framework is, that it's going to be one for one.

This is how it's going to work. And once you do that, I think you're going to see a massive exodus from the RCMP because I think the RCMP have no position, no place in this province any longer, if they're beholden to Ottawa. and we need to start controlling our own destiny in this province of Alberta. From a oil and gas perspective, environmental perspective, to an energy corridor perspective, to, you know, pipelines east to west, to, you know, pipelines south as well. We need to control because we are the lifeblood of this country.

We're the economic engine of this country. And if you let Trudeau control any more of this, he's going to shut it all down because he's an idiot, complete idiot. And I like what Daniel's doing, but Danielle, please. give these police force members of the RCMP this information. It's the one thing I'm not seeing from anybody, and I've talked to politicians, no one can answer this question.

Is there a mechanism that you can get their pension? Because that's all they want to know. If you can't get it, they will never, ever leave the RCN. No, why would you? 20 years, you got, how many years left and you want your pension? Yeah, you can't.

So that's what I ask of our premier right now. And, yeah, I appreciate you taking the time to have me out here. I'm glad I stumbled on an old LinkedIn message. So if you've messaged me on any social media, you're going, Sean's a dick, and he never responds back. Now you're going to get inundated on LinkedIn. Well, probably.

It's like, well, no, I do go look. I just, I don't look that often. I literally have a phone number where you can text me whenever you want. And I look through that. Sometimes it takes a, you know, a couple days. But for the majority, I'm pretty quick on it. So if you're going to social media, This is my plea to everybody listening.

Go to the text line. That's why it's there. It's why I have it because I don't love going on social media. That's a whole other side note. Thank you so much for driving. It's so much better in person. This has been a really cool couple hours. I appreciate all the things.

I will post the cooler online so people can see that. And thanks again, Sean, for coming all the way. Thank you. Appreciate it.