Stay Tranquilo - Working at Meta (Facebook) vs Life As an Entrepreneur - Stay Tranquilo

Episode Date: August 9, 2022

In this episode of the Stay Tranquilo Podcast, sponsored by Johnny Cuba,  we interview Rene Barasoain, Founder and President of HyperFocus ROI, a media and insights agency based out of Miami, FL.   Rene speaks on his past life working at Facebook (now Meta) and the landscape of working for a large Fortune 500 company and the culture that exist as a startup.  Rene provides a perspective of the true corporate America climate, working for a large tech company and some of the highs and lows that come with it in comparison to starting up your own business.    Make sure to follow the agency for all marketing support: @hyperfocusroi   Follow us @staytranquilo Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What is up, everybody? You're listening to another episode of the State Tranquilo podcast where we're here to help you stress a little bit less and enjoy a whole lot more. The podcast is powered by Johnny Cuba. So if you need to get a Johnny Cuba, you know where to find it. Sedanos, Presidente's Supermarket, and soon to be Win Dixie. But as we get into it, I'm here with Renee Bada Swain, the president and owner of Hyperfocus ROI, the largest agency in the United States. Well, among us. It's definitely top five largest agencies.

Let's not, you know. Okay, I'm sorry. I thought the article that came out to the top one. So is your podcast like just like one like shameless plug? About like Johnny Cuba? Is that why it exists? I mean, I wouldn't say it's a shameless plug, but it's definitely a platform to help promote the beer. So then, you know, all the 32 listeners.

The 36 listeners know that I promote Johnny Cuba and I don't know about now. Got it, got it, got it, got it. Both of those things are known. A functioning alcoholic. That's all you need to be at the end of the day. That's it. So, before we get into it, I wanted to talk a little bit about you, kind of like your background, where you came from, you know, some of the companies that you've worked for. And, yeah, we'll leave it at that.

Yeah, well, man, so I'll just throw my age out there now. I'm 43 years old just so everybody knows. You didn't have to do that. I couldn't let them guess. Yeah, I'm going to. So I went to, a little bit of background on me. Started off, you know, in college, I was a accounting major originally. And then as I was gearing through college, realizing that I didn't want to sit behind a desk all day and push paper all day, which is kind of what I'm doing now, but in a different capacity.

You know, ironically speaking. But as I was going through accounting, I ended up switching my major to international business. and marketing. And then out of college, started off my career at EMI Music, Capital Records Music, based out of Miami Beach. That's, you know, it's an EMI Latin, which is like the Latin acts within the Capitol Records umbrella. And then from there went to Live Nation where I oversaw and booked all their Latin acts, did that for a couple of years and then made my shift, you know, pivot to the world of media. And, you know, I guess here I am, right?

From there, I started at Univision, which everyone here should probably know what Univision is. It's the world's largest Spanish ice cream parlor across Bird Road and Sunday Sagan. It's the ice cream shop. Yeah, it's more like a dessert shop, right? No, but I was there overseeing sales and marketing at Univision for tiny years. And then, man, it's like, you know, when you're in corporate America, and we can talk about this later, we can talk about it now, however you want to kind of go about it. you know, especially at a company like Univision,

which I met some amazing people there, right? And some lifelong friends there. You know, but there's a lot of bureaucracy that comes with working at a large organization like, you know,

Univision. And just a very corporate structured, non-startup type organization, right? Because from there, I went to Facebook. So, you know, Facebook is... When did Univision start?

Man, Univision's been around since 1962. at some capacity, right? But they were mostly affiliate networks in local markets before it became national and it became national more of a national brand in 1978 shit, man. It's like the longest running show

in the history of television, like continuously running show is Sawa do Higante and it was on for 55 years on Univision's Airwaves in one iteration or another. So it's been around. And that's why was a global. That show was a national show at Univision, but it was broadcast globally in other networks around the world. It's historically, it's literally the longest running program in the history of global television.

That's crazy. But, you know, with that, you know, came a lot of, and, you know, it's funny because all of senior management and leadership at Univision is, you know, is white Americans. It's white, you know, good old boy Americans, and it's part of that club and it's part of that cycle. And, you know, a part of that bureaucracy, if I'm speaking transparently, and, you know, this is something that's kind of, you know, it's kind of frowned down upon amongst the ex-univisioners to kind of go off and badmouthed. And it's not necessarily bad-mouthing them. It's just, you know, I was tired of all of the, you know, red tape and all of the, you know, bureaucracy. Again, to use that word, I was kind of just, you know, tired of that, you know, continuous vicious cycle. And I was, man, I'm, and I'm still eight classes or 24 credits short of getting my accounting degree.

So I was going to leave Univision and become a full-time student, do a semester and a half, get my accounting degree. And my uncle has an accounting firm. And I was going to go and work under him and get my CPA and just go through that. Because in Miami, as you probably know, media gigs are not abundant, right? So it's one of those things to where if you want to stay in the industry, and I wasn't sure if I even wanted to. So I got the wheels in motion to get that process started while I was at Univision and then Facebook approached me about an opportunity. This is in 2013. At this point, I had been at Univision for almost 10 years.

Facebook approached me to oversee start, lead their U.S. Hispanic audiences and media and marketing efforts and build a team around it and build the, you know, narrative around it, you know, help the product team build what those audiences would look like within Facebook's walls. So that opportunity came about while I was, you know, on the verge of resigning from Univision anyways. So I took that opportunity and like the rest of his history, it sucked me back into the fucking warped life of a, you know, media executive. And, you know, that's that's kind of, you know, and then from there overseeing the U.S. Hispanic, which eventually became multicultural audiences because we, because we, because we, because we, because we, because we, because we, because we're, because we're, because We released African-American affinity audiences and Asian-American affinity audiences for brands to speak to those consumers, right? Which, assuming all of that's pretty much changed drastically. That's, yeah, that's been deprecated.

Yeah. That's been deprecated completely. Now you can target based off of language, that's it. But those audiences, because, right, because, I mean, imagine, like, once, like, organizations, like, the ACLU and all those, you know, more left-wing, you know, I hate to bring, you know, politics into it. It's the truth, yeah. But, you know, when those organizations and shit, man, I spent, man, I was in front of a board of ACLU members. I was trained by all of our corporate attorneys at Facebook to get in front of them to defend those audiences and the integrity of those audiences, right? And the way that Facebook identifies, like, for a marketer, this is from 2013 to 20, 17 before they became deprecated.

And I went on to do something else at Facebook. Did they already have that in hindsight, though, that they knew that those audiences were kind of a, like at risk of not, like, not existing? Or was that not even like a topic of discussion? It wasn't a topic of discussion at first because the same way, like, why should a Verizon or a McDonald's or a Ford Motor Company, right? Why should they be able to advertise on Univision to reach Hispanic audiences to move their business but not be able to target those same audience members on Facebook?

I do that it's their right to be able to do that. Yeah. Right. And as long as you're not an organization, right, because where it gets a little bit dicey is, when you have an organization like let's just let's say it's it's a chase home loans right

chase home loans or it's caliber mortgages or or it's or it's you know rocket mortgage right like you know one of those loan companies right when you're talking about you know those loan companies for better or for worse they know that

you know a lot of Hispanics because it's in the data a lot of Hispanics are unable to are not qualified for a number of different reasons, right? Just financially, like, you know, credit, right? So what they were doing, and this is kind of like how it became a problem, because you know how you can do exclusion marketing on Facebook, Instagram, and even on Google and other platform.

Like, you can exclude audiences. So they were excluding Hispanics, and that is discriminatory in practice, right? Of course. So it became sensitive within, like, financial services, and within credit and within housing, and certain subcategories and categories, it became discriminatory. So the first step was, okay, within those categories,

if they're registered as an advertiser on Facebook or on Instagram, and they fall within these categories, they are unable to utilize those audiences for any purpose, right? So we kind of took that away from them, but we still have for a couple of years, like our bread and butter advertisers, right? Like, you know, again, you know, Verizon McDonald's, Ford Ford Motor Company, etc. Team Mobile.

So you still had them kind of playing and using those audiences until just it, you know, at Facebook, we were driving a business that was like we did, I think, in our first year, and just to give you perspective, right? You know, Univision has 3,500 employees. I built a team of 12 of us overseeing all these efforts. And we did our first year, $50 million, second year $100 million against these. audiences alone that was 2014 2015 2016 we did 250 million and then our last year 350 million before they deprecated these audiences and I say this because our

team of 18 we were doing 35% of what a team of 3500 people and all of that overhead was was was was doing it was and is still doing I mean they're there's still an empire granted they've they've they've lost a lot of their market share to Telemundo and to other companies like Google, Facebook, now Amazon that they're doing Spanish language. I'm putting a priority on that, which I heard at Facebook that it's kind of coming back in another

iteration. I feel like you can never count Facebook out of the game though. Yeah, you can't. They'll figure away. They will, but here's a thing, for Facebook, a $350 million US Hispanic and multicultural targeting bucket, it's a drop in the fucking bucket. So, you know, Cheryl

and Mark and team, you know, they see that and they say, And $350 million is it really worth a fucking headache? Yeah. Yeah. So they kind of, you know, eliminated that. We'll see if it comes back. I was told by a few of my ex-collegroids at Facebook that, you know, it was coming back.

And then like in the spear of, you know, kind of career path, right? From Facebook, you know, after the first three years of building that team. And I wouldn't say building it for no reason because I learned a ton and I made a ton of contacts. and I got to travel the, you know, country, shit. I was burning, you know, 130,000 miles a year, you know, and I was exhausted. But from there, I went on to lead the streaming team, which is overseeing the business units within the streaming category. And subcategories like Netflix, HBO, Showtime, Spotify, etc. So I was seeing that in, you know, my task.

in large part was driving incremental revenue from those companies. To spend money on Facebook. To spend money on Facebook and on Instagram and figuring out, you know, creative ways to shift dollars from other platforms that they were playing in. Into Facebook. Yeah, Facebook, Instagram, you know, and whatever other, you know, avenues within that platform. So, right. So yeah.

And then from there, you know, ventured into where I met you. Unfortunately. Unfortunately, unfortunately, you know, that's where you kind of, you know, enter into the scene, Andre. Exactly. And yeah. Hyper-focused ROI was born. And hyper-focused ROI was born with a lot of different iterations and a lot of failing along the way and a lot of, listen, man, it's like, you know, at Facebook, it was, it was, you know, it was move fast and don't be afraid of failing. Like, that's like the gist, you know, I think that we kind of a.

adopted that and and we you know we fucking struck out we've we've we've we've struck out a ton of times but I think that we've also made a lot of great strikes yeah no 100% I mean it and just to give a little bit of context hyper focus ROI was the agency that that he started and then I kind of came on board there and that's kind of where where I am now as well but I mean it started with like the the realty thing where we were going to like to different offices and we were doing pitches at those offices trying to sell in realtors to realtors on this idea that we had which I still think I still think has a chance that's that's the thing with you that I that I that I that I that I that I that I that I that I that I that I that I that I love about you know but I mean the the reality is though like going to

kind of like what you what you were touching on was like when you start a business it takes you having to go out there and grind and and kind of just like put yourself out there and because if you put yourself out there you don't you don't give yourself a chance right you don't even have a fighting chance and and that was like the beginning of it i mean we were literally going out there and now i mean it's it's starting to like refine itself in terms of like finding business and making things happen but essentially in the beginning it was like literally us having to like go out there like cold not cold calling but a version of cold calling where you're like literally going out there being like hey is it cool if like we go and do this presentation like we're offering this yeah sure

And then to go in there and not get anything out of it. Listen, sales is the most demeaning and morale-killing occupation that a person can have. But think about it, it applies towards everything, though. Because here you are starting a business and you need to be able to sell your business. Yeah. And your services that you offer. So your component of like being a salesman in another life, it helps when you're selling a product like Facebook

you just close your eyes and be like hey I'm selling this that's the thing with Facebook also it's like when you're selling hyperfocus ROI they're like who the hell is hyperfocus ROI? Well you have to sell it in the lens of like figuring out creative ways of I was at Facebook you know our team is

is you know we have a number of ex-Faceborkers yeah we don't put that's our that's our point of our like you know approach but it's like at Facebook everyone's gonna like man it's like all of my like when I was at Univision I shifted a lot of dollars from Univision to Facebook a lot of dollars

because I had the ammunition I had Facebook the brand name of Facebook to get inside all, you know, to go and open the doors to all these all my previous agencies and advertising clients which were a lot but it opened the doors to the ones that I didn't know because you send an email from Facebook

hey like we're launching all these new audiences we know that you're spending within the Hispanic audience across you know Univision to the Mundo etc. We have done. better solutions. We have higher scale. We can reach more people. We can do it more efficiently. They're going to listen to you every single time. Yeah. So that opened a lot of doors, fortunately, and a lot of the clients that we have at hyperfocus ROI are from my previous life. Yeah,

pretty much, I would say 90% or through connections from a previous life. But I feel like, I mean, everything, everything in life is like the people you know, the connections that you've had, and they at least open the door towards that opportunity. I mean, I, right now, like, I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for like the connections and the network yeah that that's existed so I think and all in all it could be a it could have been a complete shit show right like your past life i'm not saying it was but at the some some some elements of it's for sure right but let's say at the worst it's a complete shit show at the at the least you got connections that you know cat catapulted to you to at least have an opportunity to do what what you're doing today so at the least you can get that

right? Yeah. But, I mean, part of all that, you know, you obviously worked for large companies, like Facebook, Univision, two really large companies. Say that again? Say that univision. That's close. Is that good?

That's possible. Or do you want me to say Univision? No, you can say Urivision. Yeah, but that's how you said at the person. I mean, I'm three beers in, so. Oh, yeah, that's why. But you worked for both of those companies, and then, Now, obviously, you started an agency, you're an entrepreneur.

Like, what are some of the pros and cons of, you know, working in corporate America versus being, you know, I guess an entrepreneur and starting kind of your own thing. Look, man. Because it's not only like you work for corporate America. I mean, you work for one of the largest companies in the United States. Yeah, listen, like, where I started, like, so why don't we do it like this, right? Like, let's do it this way. Instead of pros and cons, like, let's do it with, like, maybe it's like a, it's like a what,

like what have I learned over the last three years? I'm done for that, right? Because that's going to, I think, inherently, organically bring out some pros and cons. And by the way, like when I started at Facebook, and it's all like this is like, this is just me going off on like a small little tangent here because you were talking about Facebook being this huge organization.

I was employed number 2800. And when I left, which now they have what? They have like 65,000 employees, right? So when I left there, that they were at 50, 5,000, right? So I was there like there's a little portal at Facebook as an employee that you can

kind of click on and check it and it tells you you have been at Facebook longer than X percentage of other employees. When I left it was I had been there longer than 98% of other people and I was only there for five years. That's great. Right? Shit man like when I left Univision 10 years everybody's there for

15, 20 man. I know people who are still there have been there for 30 years. So it's you know that's like What I left after 10 years, it's like only 10 years, I, Univision. And when people at Facebook, like the life expectancy of somebody at Facebook is like 4.2 years, like people don't last or longer because, and it's not because it's just, it's a grind. And the bigger a company gets, the more silos, the more politics get involved.

The longer it takes, like, I got there on how to start a feel. Yeah. And you can get shit done and you can be blue collar and you can move the ball forward. But five years, that's pretty fast acceleration, too, of growth. It's fast acceleration. It's acceleration to the point where it's tough to navigate the organization because now it's a lot more vertical teams. It's, you know, it's, you know, a lot more cross-functional collaboration across, you know,

horizontally across the organization, right? So that becomes, you know, extremely challenging. And then it's, you know, you have a company like Facebook, they hire some really smart people. Yeah. Smart people across every industry. qualified across every industry and the people on my team when I left you know you had they were I think you know median age was 23 24 25 I had a team of seven people and they were all young and

they and it's not like I had been there for four years so when I started managing them it was one of those things where they wanted to take over the world and they were running out of at a pace where I just ran out of gas yeah you know I just ran out of gas and I just hit a wall and then you ultimately like they wanted me to move to New York and I wanted to stay here in Miami. Right. So yeah. And then when I started hyperphoid, look, I can tell you this, man, it's like you start off with the, and there are days. And you see these days because you're in the, I'm, I'm with you 50 hours a week and it fucking drives me crazy.

But here we are, right? Well, maybe that's the downfall hyperphobic. So what have I learned? Look, I've learned something, man. And it's like, and it's actually like fitting, right? because I read something from Gary Vaynerchuk today on his LinkedIn, on his LinkedIn status. It said something to the effect of, you know, you have to,

like I've learned that you have to surround yourself with people who are like-minded, surround yourself with people who are not toxic, right? And you have to surround yourself with like, you know, and not take yourself too seriously. And that's something that I've never taken myself very seriously. I try not to. I try to take things and situations seriously, but don't take yourself too seriously

because my opinion of people who do is that they come across as being stiff and unapproachable, right? And, you know, sometimes it's hard to, like, get rid of that baggage, right? When people come in, and Gary Vaynerchek's quote is like, you know, like, if there are people

within your organization who are giving off a, toxic attitude or are toxic like you like like it behooves you even even if they're fucking gangster ballers right even if they're really good at what they do right like distance yourself from them and they and you know and that's you know i've learned that for sure and i i try to surround myself and now you know you know bringing in you know a couple of new people onto the team surround myself with people who are like mind and that's hard to get i mean shit man like like in this last wave of interviews how many people did i interview like 12 11 people yeah and

I found two who were qualified and, you know... Qualified and aligns with kind of like what you envisioned and working with. What I envisioned and working. From a personality standpoint. Yeah. And now we have other, you know, things in the works that are, you know, somewhat confidential that we can't really talk about right now. But, you know, exciting things.

Right. Exactly. It gives it a little bit of like more drive and incentive to be doing what you're doing. Yeah. And, you know, it gives us, but there are days that feel hopeless. and there are days where you're like where you're high-fiving man because you just close something big yeah you know so or ringing the bell or ringing the bell which which we need to do more of that I can tell you that yeah the bell's getting a little bit of dust on it it's getting a little bit of

of dust on it so we need to take care of that um but you know but we have things coming down so it's like I don't know man like you know I've learned that it's that it's that it's that it's really hard. I mean, you find yourself, I'm, you know, I'm the payroll guy. I'm the, right, you wear multiple hats. I'm the operational guy. I'm the new biz guy. And, you know, obviously, like, you know, you guys obviously have done an amazing job of coming in and taking on more of a leadership role and, yeah, and putting on like, you know, our big boy pants because we all, because we all have to. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's completely different, man. And there are days where I just want to either crawl into a rock or just, just give up completely.

And then there are days where I see optimism, man. Like, you know, it's nothing to buck out that we've grown, that we more than doubled first year to second year, went up another 40, 50% year over year, 2021 to 2020. And this year, man, like, I think that we're going to get to a place where we're going to be in a very good place, revenue-wise. For me, it's not, you know, I've also realized something, and this is more like in the last year,

it's like, it's not necessarily, really all about the money. Like, that's not like, listen, money's great. And you see my style, and I think that it doesn't align with other people's vision, I guess, you know? But like, I see, I've worked with some money hungry people that that's all that, that they're in business to do. And again, we're not a non-for-profit charity.

So we have to. Obviously, you got to make money. So we have to make money, and that's great. But if I have a client that's spending, a good amount of money with us, and they come to me for a project that they only have a certain budget for. And we're making a ton of revenue off. I don't mind breaking even on that one project

or taking a small loss on that to help them on certain efforts because I know that it's going to come back and it's going to pay for it later. And like we've had this conversation before where it's like, you know, sometimes I might even, I like to give more than I get. Right, right? And to quote the great Cardo Seria, come,

which I wasn't expecting Carlos Seria's name to be, to be dropped into this podcast, but to quote them, like, coming from a place of, like, abundance, right? And a lot of people look at that and they don't think that that's ROI positive. But it always comes back. I mean, time and time again,

you hear the people, though, like giving, is like the best form of like getting essentially right because the more you give the universe decides to give you twofold because of why the more you give it's going to return so that you can continue to give because if you don't give and you don't get then you can't give yeah so i i think the the concept makes sense when you really think about why giving but but then the people that don't want to give it's stagnant right so yeah they're not they're not getting anything because they're not willing to give anything so it makes sense in my eyes

No, it does. And you're thinking about it the right way because it's, I was what to say that the people who don't think that that's ROI positive, they're not thinking about it the right way. Like the way that you just described it is exactly the way that I kind of think about it. I just, you know, and there are times where you might not see returns for a while on those different, you know, offerings of, you know, givings. And there are times where you might not even see a return period. And that's a chance that, you know, you kind of take. So that's kind of, that's, that's my philosophy and my vision behind it. And there are also times where you say, you know, Renee, like, I think that there's, that you're passing that giving threshold and you keep me honest, right? Like there are times where, yeah, yeah, for sure. Where you think that I'm, you know, pulling my fucking pants down and just letting them rail me, right? But it's like, it's, you know, it's, it's one of those things where I need to be kept on.

It's some, some, sometimes because left, because left to my own devices. Yeah, no, no, sure. Yeah, at that point, you're hurting yourself more than helping yourself. Right, right. I mean, I think you hit a good point, too, because, like, yeah, there is a possibility that, like, you don't hit at all, right? Like, you take that chance and, like, you don't get anything out of it, even though you tried and you tried to make something out of it. You gave your time, you gave your money, you gave your effort, right? All that, you know, it's still a version of giving at the end of day.

It doesn't have to be monetary as a form of giving, right? Your time, your effort, all that counts towards an aspect of giving, right? and sometimes you don't get a return. But one thing that at least I know that I've learned from all of this, right? Because I could have taken a completely different route. You know, I got to say, fuck it, I'm going to just go work a fucking job. You know, I got my degree in something else. And maybe I've taken a route that way.

Right, there's a million other things that I could have done. But something that was always important to me was my time and kind of having flexibility and, you know, building a life more on my terms rather than on someone else's terms. Like to me, I've, I've, since college, that was something that was always important to me. Right. Like, I don't know. My mind and my perspective changed on things because I never thought that way. Um, coming from like a pretty traditional household where it's like, hey, you go to school, you get a job and you can move on.

But, you know, based off of what happened in my life, I've kind of been forced to think a certain way and, and, and had a lot of time to think. And, you know, to me, it was always important to like, delegate life kind of like on my terms, essentially. and having a little bit more flexibility to do those things. But taking that route is not necessarily the easiest route, right? It may sound nice on paper. And one of those things that kind of came from that was... Well, I think that taking that route, first of all, it's liberating and I respect you for it. But it also comes with a...

Like, you have to be a different, like, more responsible breed because that's autonomy that I never got, right? Like I was always at the 9 to 5, you know, at Live Nation, at Univision, at Facebook was you, it's a little bit different in terms of like, you know, I did have a lot more autonomy. Yeah. And I wasn't as micromanaged. But, right, like, you know, I think that you, that, that you do have that kind of autonomy, but you have to be on top of all your shit. Of course. You're going to make your own schedule.

Exactly. I mean, people are. Not everybody can do that. Yeah. I mean, people have the misconception at all. You're an entrepreneur. can go do whatever you want and it's just like flying colors it's a complete opposite you're putting a lot more time and effort there's a lot more pressure on you right because what you put is

what you get you know there's no one else kind of like doing that for you um so but the the biggest thing to me is like the aspect of like the patience right because when you get a taste of it you think it's it's coming and you want it and then it you know it's not getting there as like fast as as you want so you know with multiple different things i i think to me the hardest part is more like the patience more than anything because anybody can put in the time anybody can put in the effort you know the work all that right i mean if you have a solid work ethic i mean you're going to go far anybody can but not everybody does right exactly so um but the one but again anybody can the thing is everyone everyone can do it right and a lot of people will start it but will people

finish it that's the question right it's it's like the consistency portion to me that's the fucking can you withstand and withstand and withstand and withstand and be patient enough to hopefully reap the benefits of doing what you did, right? To me, that's the hardest thing because starting, when you start anything, it's motivating, right? You feel good, it's fresh, it's new, you start a new job, you start a new relationship, whatever it is. Like, you know, everything's always good in the beginning. But then shit's hard. But then shit fucking gets hard.

That chick gets real. Exactly. And the majority of people bail. It's just too hard for them. Exactly. Because people like to take the easiest path. And to me, that's what separates. And that's to me the hardest part.

It's the consistency and withstanding the time. Because there is no, you don't know when the time clock is. It can fucking happen one day to the next. But you're never done. No, you're never done. That's true. That's for sure. I mean, even when you're done, you're not done.

Sure, it creates a new element. So it's like, but are you continuing? Are you pushing the ball forward with those efforts? But sometimes you have to also know one to quit, too. Yeah, exactly. You know, so it's like. It is, it is. You have to know.

Life's a big piece of shit in that way. It really is. I mean, but I think at the end of the day, though, it comes down to like, you got to listen to yourself. And if you're just fucking miserable, just end whatever it is of what you're doing. Yeah. I think our minds and our bodies do a good job of being like, dude. Of informing us. Informing us.

Like, dude. All right. So I mean, that I can just get up and fucking walk away. Is that the time? Yeah, I'm just going to walk out the door. Oh, yeah, I don't know. That's the time. I'm glad we had a little sabbatical.

We did. But obviously another component, like, you know, obviously you mentioned the corporate life versus like kind of like the non-traditional way of starting something of your own. But something that you said was like keeping things light and kind of like, you know, not taking things so seriously, which I think that's something in the work environment that we've done a good job. What are some of the things that you think are like good habits? like I kind of keep things light in the office, like things that, I don't know, that people could do to kind of create a more,

like, you know, balanced and fun work environment. Do you like my socks? I do like your socks. I did say that. It's a little golf ball. A golf flags there. Well, listen, I mean, I think that you know. I know what it is,

but I want you to tell them what you do. That go on. All right. So some of the things, so, I mean, do you want to just like mention some of the things are high level overview. So this, and things are getting a little bit heated

and it's to the point of it being dangerous at the office now. It's creating some turmoil in the office. It's creating a little bit of turmoil there. But, you know, essentially, I walk into the office about, what, like two months ago. And probably more at this point. I feel like this has been going out for a while. Like three months, but things are escalating, right?

So these guys grab a Bluetooth speaker. All right. So, like before I even bring that part up, it's, we had been complaining a couple months prior to that. Yes, good context. About how there are certain noises in the walls. And I still hear them. I still hear them too, but now I don't know if they're real or not. So there are certain noises in the walls.

And it's like a tick, tick, tak, tak, tick, dot. Yeah, it sounds like a little mouse. It sounds like it's a little rat in the roof. Like a little mouse. So then these guys, I get to the office one morning. And this morning, man, like the rat was going off, man. And I was hearing, tick, tick, tick, tick. I'm like, holy shit.

And apparently these guys... It's like similar to this roof. It's like the one you have like the little... You can punch it open and kind of see what's... So these guys put a fucking Bluetooth speaker and connected it to their phone right above my head and they started putting mice noises. And it escalated from mice noises to like little haunted noises.

Yeah, we started with that. But to the point that he called the landlord and was like, I think we have a rat problem. And then she's like, calling an exterminator right now. And me and Lucas, who's the other guy in the office, are here looking at each other. Like, shit, dude, they're calling an exterminator. That's us.

We're making those noises. So that's when they finally told me that it was happening, which I think that they still sent the exterminator just in case. Yeah, there actually might be a mouse in there. But that started, that, that kind of... Yeah, that just started like the whole pranks in the office. Yeah, so that kind of catapulted in the office to where, to where, man, it's like, I was just nowhere.

everybody safe. It's like we all walk around with our, with our, with our, you know, Yeti cups and, um,

yeah, guys put, and this is kind of already like, like, like, like, you guys passed it a little bit on this one because it was,

because it was, yeah, this one, I took a big fat swig and expecting water. And you guys know how there's nothing more fucking annoying

than taking a swig of your cup thinking that it's going to be something and then it turns out to be something else. That's, That element of surprise. Like, like, swimming a cup of water and it's just straight vodka.

That element of surprise, I did it once to my daughter with Sprite and water. This is like when she was four or five years old. It's abuse. She's 10 years old now and she hates Sprite and she doesn't stop and she doesn't stop telling me about it. But I take a big fat swig, man. It was, they put. We got like a. But I'm talking.

I took a really. It's like an aggressive water, like water chug. A thirsty eagle. But it was like a. It was. It was like a weight protein milkshake. It was a banana yogurt. It's protein.

Yeah. A banana yogurt liquid that was fucking expired by a month. All right. And I spit it out. I look like I had semen coming out of my mouth. All right? It was like I realized what happened and I was like, oh, that looks terrible. That looks awful.

And these are things that, I mean, you guys have to record. I was like, you guys. We do. We have to do a better job documenting this. I mean, now, now, what happened? No, we just see, like, like, what's the cool cooler, right? Yeah, it is. Does it work?

I don't know. So, all for sure. I mean, now, yeah, now we do, like, we've put hot sauce in the, in the water. This guy got out toys and put a bunch in my water, and I take a sip, because you don't see him because it's, like, buried on the ice. I take a sip, and it just tastes super minty. A minty sip. And then I was forced to throw all my eyes out and, like, literally clean it because the taste wouldn't

go away. Then he brought an air horn to the office and any opportunity where someone goes to the bathroom where they're hiding behind. We blow the air horn. And that, oh. It's the point. Oh, the Facebook status thing? And then we got into, like, if you leave your computer unattended, changing Facebook

status of others. Do you want to read a couple of different statuses? Read the one that we put to Lucas is the other day. We have a truce. Like, if you're going to go get food for us or you're doing something for the office, then everything's untouched. But, like, if you go to the bathroom, we're going to. you take a phone call downstairs or a meeting,

like, and you left your computer or you left your phone open, like, it's fair game. So yesterday, Lucas went to lunch, but he wasn't getting us lunch, so it wasn't part of the truth.

He just went to, he went to lunch with a, one of the guys here. His status for about two hours on, on Facebook was, life is good, dance a lot, laugh often,

life is too short not to be hashtag blessed. Cheers to the good life. Little sunny emoji. I've done a bunch of emojis. Little cheers. champagne emojis and little dancing woman emojis.

Yeah, and usually, usually, like, we'll go to the bathroom and we'll check to see, like, if someone did something, if we, like, see we fucked up and we left our computer open.

But I don't know, one day these guys got me. I don't know where I went or what I did, but I didn't even cross my mind that they got into my computer. Well, we got you for 24 hours. They caught me for a full 24 hours.

And the way I found, I would have never even known. The way I find out, I'm logging into Facebook to check something. And I get a notification, blah, blah, blah, liked your Facebook status and I'm like oh no dude and I'm thinking I'm like bro I haven't even left my computer today how could they have gotten in there and then I see when it was it was 26 hours

ago and I'm like damn bro I've had this on there for a full day I had like four people like it oh my god damn it was like one of those like generic like two blessed to be stressed or something like that but yeah I mean that definitely keeps keeps uh keeps things light there also we do our sports betting so I wanted to kind of talk about that What is one of the best bets you've made in the betting world in terms of like, you know, winning? Man, I don't, well, first of all, we suck at it. I don't know about you, man. The do-lose did good.

Doodles definitely did good. Man, you know. Came up at top of the end day and won $140, I'll take that all day. Man, I would say it's like, I'm not a really like a gamble. I gamble often. No, yeah, yeah. Right. You know,

I'll put, you know, on a Super Bowl, I'll put 100 bucks every Super Bowl, but that's like my, like, big money tradition.

Right. You know, I think that, man, I think that, like, the biggest bet that I've ever won, and this is not even like,

but I did Tampa Bay under, Tampa Bay Money Line and the under in last year's Super Bowl. And they were six point dogs. Who did they play again? They played the Chiefs. That's right. Damn,

they were six point underdogs in that game? They were six point dogs. Yeah, yeah, and a lot of people when chiefs, everyone thought that, remember that, like, that was the time when Tampa kind of, like, stumbled into the playoffs. Yeah, true. As, true, they didn't even win the division.

As a 9 and 17. Yeah, they didn't even win the division. And then they got hot in the playoffs. And Kansas City was just steamrolling everybody. Yeah. So everyone thought, and I don't know why I even did this, but everyone thought that, so that was, like, my own, like, with the, like, with the Univision pool that I kind of do, like, my ex-univision colleagues, I did KC giving up six.

I'd never had a chance. I mean, Temo-based steamroll. They killed them. So, you know, that was... That was nice.

And that was $100, I think, to win like $350, $400, so... Solid. But, yeah, I mean, it's like, you know, it's,

you know, I dabble in the, in the yard of, of gambling. Not, not very successfully. Yeah, I mean,

when I was never, I was never a gambler, like, at all. I didn't even, you know, like, I always was entertained

by the conversations, but I never put money into it. But when that Hard Rock Sportsbook app opened up, that was dangerous. I caught myself on a Wednesday betting on an NBA game. I was shit. I was fucking parlaying Providence against us. But that was the thing.

I was doing some crazy like 12 game parlayers where it was like those $5 to win like $900,000. And I'm like, you know what? Whatever. What's the worst that happens? I lose five bucks. Like, you know, like it was like, man. But they made it just too easy.

they made it too easy and then it's like after like the you know eight o'clock games on like a Saturday for college football it's like let's see if Hawaii is playing right now and you have to like go back and like you know figure out um oh I would I would just open the app for whatever reason

and I would see like a live back going on and it's like plus 5,000 odds UNC is down by like seven with three minutes like and I'm like they can come back I'll come back from that end up losing by 17 I'm like bro why did I do? Yeah I put it up as big as that biggest plus

7,000 is a fantastic value. Exactly. That's why. So, yeah, I hope it comes back. I don't know where they're netting out in the whole, like, suing the Indians. Yeah, that's something that that's going to be, I mean, that's, that's going to be a process. But I don't understand. Like, it's legal in New York.

It's legal in all these states. Like, why wouldn't Florida just, why don't they just say, let's do it? Because. Is it because of the whole strictly the Indian situation in the game with? The seminal tribe of, right? Because it's a seminal tribe of Florida. They don't want to, like. They don't want to give up that monopoly.

If the Seminole Tribe of Florida wanted to... But do they have complete control of gambling in general in the state of Florida? They have complete control of gambling. Wow. Right now. In Florida, they have... And then when it comes to sports gambling, they have complete control, but it has to happen in the...

Right, in the property. And the thing with that, if the Seminole tribe of Florida wanted to open it up to competition, like Fandual and Draft Kings to be able to place those bets, because right now within Fandual Draft Kings, you can only bet. fantasy games, right? Right.

In Florida. Yeah. If they wanted to open it up, they could, but they don't want to give up, they don't want to risk giving up that monopoly over them, right? It's a billion dollar industry right now. And that's the thing. They have such a head start now with millions of users that I think that they'd be fine with competition, but for them, it's like all or nothing.

Yeah. You know, so. But yeah, listen, it sucks because, you know, I was quite enjoying that. Yeah, no, I was too. That app. But, you know, you know. same bets, like betting on Morikawa while planning on the heat on winning and like, just random combos of the seven different sports going on.

But a part of me, a part of me is happy that I have that like, you know, having a bookie also makes it a little bit more of a mission, a little bit more difficult. Right. It's where you contemplate it. Before you were just throw $10, like it was nothing. It was, it was like becoming a problem. Yeah. It was, it was becoming a problem.

I kind of wanted to come back. I know. I wanted to come back and I don't. But, yeah, it was, you know, because now, you know, it kind of gives you some guardrails, the whole having a bookie thing and not having such easy. You see, ever since that one away, never put away to bed again. That's true.

That's true. Well, you have, but it was through me. Right, through you. Through you. It makes it a little bit more like easier. Like if I had a bookie accessible, then it could be a very different situation. It's not like you, like, I,

I try to keep it clean, you know. All right, cool. So what else do you want to talk about? No, we're going to wrap it up, quick questions before we end. So basically, are you a beach guy or a mountain guy? I already know the answer to this, but. Beach guy?

Yeah, beach guy, but I love the mountain. Right. You know? That's a common theme. Everyone loves the beach, but they love the mountains too. But if I had to choose, beach, if my wife had to choose mountain, My wife hates the sand, hates the beach.

And then now... I don't understand people like that. She's ingrained that into, like, now my daughter hates sand. And hates beach. Wow. Yeah, no, it's not... I mean, sand is not like the most pleasant thing. But, like, it's a pretty fixable situation.

Just jump in the water. Just get in the water. Yeah. But they don't like salt water. Oh, okay. You know what, then... They're definitely not beach people then. Yeah, it's, you know, it's...

It's becoming a problem that I'm going to have to address. Yeah, I agree. At some point. So, you know, Ile, if you're, if you're listening, this is going to be. Yeah, you're crap together. Okay. Favorite movie? A few favorite movies.

All right. So I'm going to give you those now. Groundhog Day for sure. Okay. That's up there. Shashank Redemption. Have you seen Shoshang? Yeah, that's a fucking awesome movie.

I actually watched it the other day. Else. Well, what are your favorite movies? For the Millers, obviously. Love that's fantastic He hasn't seen Where the Miller's Star Wars What else haven't you seen?

I haven't seen Star Wars And I don't intend I'm watching it either It's disappointing I don't know what my favorite movies are And you haven't seen the Big Lobowski I have not Have you guys

Have you guys No What the hell's going on here? I would say dumb and dumber's up there Oh the deal Yes Dumb and Dumb and Dumb and Dumbers out there I would say

Waterboy Yep Adam Sandler guy I like Talladega Knights big Will Ferrell guy as well movies that basically require zero brain cells to watch right are usually the ones right and then I'm I do really like a Shawshank Redemption yeah that's that's up there like Leonardo I mean Leonardo DiCaprio what's the one that he does Sugar Island right that's Leo Leo DiCaprio no I have no idea they're seeing Shutter Island?

Are you making up movies now? No, no, no. Shutter Island is a movie, right? That don't really exist? No, no. Shutter Island, dude, it's very similar to that concept of, like, mind-bending kind of movie. Okay. All right, girl.

I highly recommend. That's a really good movie. So that, yeah, that's pretty much it. Fools Gold is a good movie. I have not seen it. Oh, that's another movie. All right. And what else?

Yeah, no, that's pretty much it. That's all I go for you today. No, TV. programs, do you want to get into like some risque subjects? Like, like, remember how we were ranking countries? No, no, no, no. You don't want to talk about that? No, no, no, no.

Why? I'm not done for that. Okay. You sure? Yeah, yeah, all right. Next one, like, like, can you have one again? Yeah, maybe we know. That needs a segment in itself.

I would go on, like, for 20 minutes on that. So, just so they know. What the context is? The top. Yeah, yeah, go, go, go. So we were, so I'm, I'm, I'm not going to rank them, but we were talking about beautiful women and the countries by rank that we would rank, rank like our top five countries

were the most beautiful women. So we were talking about that and just like controversial, we're not going to talk about it, but maybe that's for like the next one where we can compile. We can do this is how we'll position it. So it's an all-inclusive situation. In 2020, that's a dangerous subject. I get it. We could do

one where it's like top 10 countries for men and we have females ranking and we have one or the males rank the countries for females. Top five. Yeah. Top five. Top five. Top ten, that's excessive. I don't know if I can name ten countries.

No, no, no. It has to be top five. No, no, agreed. I think we could do that. I think, good. So we'll put that on the slate on the docket for the next conversation. Yeah, I'm done for that. And then, obviously, if you want to find Renee on social media,

do you want to share your social media? Sure. It's at Renbada, Instagram. You're not going to get much. I suck at posting things. Yes. You're not going to get much. His content's pretty weak.

My content's weak. But you can follow us. Hyperfocus ROI. You can follow us hyperfocus. Some good content there. LinkedIn, Instagram. We also post some of our practical jokes from there. Yes.

So. You got some dog content on there too. We have some dog content. So yeah, Chloe are our hyperfocus in-house dog. Yeah. Official dog. So, yeah, hyperfocus ROI, Facebook, Instagram. And LinkedIn.

Yeah, solid. And for any new listeners, you can find us at Stay Tranquilo, at Stay Tranquilo.com, and Johnny Cuba atjuba.us. You can find the beer again at Sedanoos, Presidente, and soon-to-be Win Dixie. And Tonino Tuna. Yeah, we can go on.

If you want Tonino Tuna, great tuna products. Formate to shop. Me too shop. If you want to shop some cool Latin-inspired, kind of like products, mugs, T-shirts. your herded stylecraft and gamma. Stylecraft, good razors, manscaped, you know,

you don't want to deal with them. You want to go with gamma. They got a good one, you know. Stay clean. Stay fresh. All right. Any other shameless plugs out there? I'm pretty good now.

Oh, pure formulas. Pure formulas. Pure formulas. If you want to stay healthy, pure formulas. Stay healthy. Get your vitamins on. Get your vitamins on.

Get your vitamins on. Trust me, guys. Yeah, all right. All right. Pretty much it. So we have content for the next podcast. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Cool. Awesome. Thanks guys.

All right, man. Thank you for having me, dude. Yeah, no problem.