The Bossticks - #43: Co-Host Interview Part 1: Michael Bosstick

Episode Date: December 27, 2016

The questions are aimed directly at Michael, as Lauryn hits her co-host extraordinaire with some loaded topics. Michael shares his journey, going from working odd-jobs to turning a little side project called "JetBed," into a flourishing company. Michael also passes on some words of wisdom to young entrepreneurs and shares some tips for couples that work together. To Learn More about JetBed, Inc. click HERE To connect with Lauryn click HERE To connect with Michael click HERE This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential Bombshell Body Guide and Meal plan.  tired of combating inflammation & bloat? Want to feel lighter and sexier? Check out lauryn's latest 7 day meal plan. In this simple & super effective plan you'll find: + tsc grocery list with every ingredient you need for the 7 days. + what the f*ck to do when you love carbs guide. + quick and delicious recipes: breakfast, snacks, lunch, dinner and dessert. You will also find 28 weeks worth of fat burning, muscle toning, 27 minute long, effective workouts you can do at home with no equipment. USE PROMO CODE: HIMANDHER at Checkout for 20% Off

This episode is brought to you by Blue Apron. So if you guys read The Skinny Confidential, you know I love, love, love blue apron. I just feel like it's quick, it's efficient, the box arrives to your door, it's kind of like a present. You open it up, all the ingredients are measured out for you perfectly, and it's fresh. Also, the beef, the chicken, the pork come from responsibly raised animals. It's just very unbrand, you know. What I like is every ingredient is just completely measured out for each. recipe. So they're reducing food waste, which is amazing. Plus, you don't have to go to, like,

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to know where your food comes from. It's affordable. It's got a lot of variety, a lot of flexibility. It's easy. I love everything easy. And it's guaranteed. They probably, promise that every ingredient in your delivery arrives ready to cook or they'll make it right. So check out this week's menu and get your first three meals free. Three meals, guys, with free shipping by going to blue apron.com slash him and her. You'll love how good it feels and tastes to create incredible homecooked meals with Blue Apron, so don't wait. That is blue apron.com slash him and her. Happy cooking.

The following program is a podcast.1.com presentation. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you alone for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

You wanted your turkey hand sandwich, eating. Hi guys. We're back. A holiday madness is over. We still have New Year's Eve. But we're through the gnarliest part. We're done. We're finished.

Yep. We made it through the holidays. And our wedding. And our wedding party. Nope. Done with the wedding. Not even bringing that up anymore. Yeah, we're ready to kick it into gear in 2017.

Our dogs are over us. Wouldn't you say? Yeah, we've been running around too much. We need to be locked down. Stay in the house. Yeah. Not going anywhere. Stay in the office and the house.

I'm not going anywhere. Yeah, so we are ready to kind of just put our heads down and fucking kick ass in 2017. It's time for me to get back on the skinny confidential bombshell body meal plan and in the gym. I have a big fat Christmas gut. I know you were pinching it in the cab last night. Well, it's like, what the hell is this? I never seen it before. You literally were pinching your gut in the cab last night. Well, I couldn't figure out what the hell it was.

I could. I have like a spare tire. A little turkey, little stuffing. Little honey ham. A little honey ham. I'm like a fat baked ham right now. All right. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Lauren Everett's, the creator of the Skinny Confidential, which is the blog and brand.

And we have Michael Bostic, my lovely husband. Entrepreneur, investor, internet marketer, husband of the year. What's debatable? Well, so today we're going to do something kind of different. it was my idea. I'm going to take credit for it. I'm going to interview Michael and then on the next podcast, he's going to interview me. And what we're going to do is we're going to take the questions that you guys have sent us and kind of interview each other. So it's not really my questions or his questions. It's questions that you guys have sent in via ask, what is it, podcast at the skinny

confidential.com. Yep. Or the hashtags. Yeah. So we just, we've compiled all these questions and he doesn't know the questions I'm going to ask him. I'm not going to get too raunchy today. I'll keep it business like, but we'll do another one where I get kind of spicy. But this one's more like business and branding focused. I haven't had any breakfast or coffee, so hopefully I can. Well, you need some cold brew. Hopefully I can knock these out of the park. Yeah. You should have some coffee, honestly. I work well under pressure. Let's go. All right. So we're going to get right into it? We can. Oh, we can also talk a little bit. Last week's episode with Taylor got a lot of traction. That was kind of probably our wildest episode. I mean, I loved it. A little bit out there. I'd like him to come back on and

talk about how he was peacocking across the internet. He literally made a graphic off of some app last night, and I'm going to have Michael read the graphic out loud. I don't know, like, it's not Photoshop. I don't know where he like wrote Happy Holidays from the Bear Naked Cucumber against Kermit the frog, which just makes no sense whatsoever. Poor Taylor. He probably had a couple too many Christmas cocktails and was looking for some attention. I don't think it's poor Taylor. I think he likes it. And then he posted another picture of a guy in a Star Wars Snuggie and said that that was his holiday. So he's, he's loving the attention. I'm looking at it right now. There's only one comment. It's from you. It says, hmm. He did change his bio details too and he doesn't have the four person collage. He

actually has a photo booth pick because he loved himself so much in that photo booth. But yeah, so if you guys want to have Taylor back on for like a round two and you guys maybe can call in and ask him questions, I feel like he would love that. He's on, he's on a break. Why? Well, when we go back in the studio, we can do Collins. I feel like there was even more to the wedding that we like didn't get every nook and cranny. No, I think we got enough.

When you're on the strip pole butt naked, I think that's where we tow the line. He was on the strip pole butt naked. spinning around to dry the piss off himself because he pissed himself before going in. And if you guys have not listened to that episode, for sure, go back and listen. What episode was it? 42. It's the one right before this, 42. Okay, definitely listen to that one because it's gnarly. Don't listen with kids in the car and don't listen at work, but other than that, you're good.

All right, let's get right into the questions. Are you excited? I'm in the hot seat. You're in the hot seat. Okay, so these are questions, again, that you guys kind of have asked us, and I just put them together. I threw one question in here for good measure that I wrote. Okay. Okay.

So a lot of people are wondering what you do. And I feel like you give kind of bits and pieces, but no one really gets the whole thing. So kind of tell your story and tell us exactly what you do on a day-to-day basis. Okay. So my family started in real estate. My dad was a developer for a long time. My uncle is a general contractor. And so I grew up on construction sites working in a business.

working in and out on residential properties, on commercial properties. My whole life, and when I went to school, I studied that, and that's what I thought I was going to be doing. And as you know, when I lived in Tucson, shout out to my wildcats. You were a wildcat in Tucson, were you? I sure was. I sure was. The first project I ever did, I got a loan to do a small remodel on a residential home. And, you know, I had odd jobs before.

In high school, I worked at McDonald's. I worked as a landscaper. car wash. Did all the little like odd job things. Lemonade stands. Maybe not lemonade stands in high school, but... I feel like you didn't do a lemonade stand. All the little... No, I did. All the little odd jobs to make whatever money. But then, so finally

when I got to school, almost I think end of my junior year, beginning of senior, I did a residential remodel. In college, not high school. In college. Yeah. In Tucson. You actually visited that house once. And I was turned off immediately. I really, you know, got a lot of experience

from managing a construction site, how to manage people, really learned that doing a real estate project in 2008 was probably not the best idea. Got my ass kicked. So you learned a lot. So I learned a lot. You learned quickly, too. One thing about Michael is when he learns something, he learns the lesson quickly and swiftly, which I love because the only lesson you haven't learned, though, is the toilet seat. We're still working on that. I'm working on it. You've got to put it down. No, so I learned quickly, obviously, as you know, got my ass kicked there. But I still had not gotten the taste of real estate. out of my mouth. So I came back to San Diego, a beaten, broken person because I just got my ass kicked.

But you had me. This is when we started dating, so you were excited about that. Yeah, but at the time, we weren't working together. So I was still, you know, thinking about what, what am I doing? So I came back and I started actually working on a commercial property here in San Diego in Escondido for a medical building that's still there. And it was a 12,000 square foot medical building. We developed that out. The partner was a tenant. And I just really realized during that time with all the regulations here in California and all the back and forth in the pains of the ass that I really did not like real estate. And at the time, me and my dad had an idea for a side business, which is now one of our main business is called Jetbed. And we started developing.

Okay, what is Jetbed though? Because a lot of people, you say that, like everyone knows what that is, but it's such a niche market. Everybody doesn't know what it is? I know. I'm just kidding. Tell us exactly what it is. Okay, so we make beds for corporate and private aircraft, and we've made beds for some of the largest corporations in the world. We have a patent on it. I'm going to brag for a second about you. He makes jet beds for Oprah.

He makes jet beds for Taylor Swift. Who else do you make jet beds for? I don't like to, like, say, the clients, but we've done, you know... You're so shy. We've done some of the biggest... We've done Exxon, Coca-Cola, Chevron, Apple. These beds are not beds that you can use, commercial aircraft. It's just private. Yeah, I say private and commercial, meaning a lot of these

big corporations, they have their own aircraft, right? So a lot of these executives need to be in places randomly all the time. And sometimes flying private for some of these big companies is much faster. So, yeah, we've done for the U.S. government. We've done for big corporations, celebrities. The company's been around for about 10 years now. But the funny thing is, we started it as a side project. and as you know, it was a niche business. You know, it doesn't serve a lot of people. You had me be the model. I had Lauren be the model.

Actually, we need to redo the video. No, we're not going to have people go look at that. This was like eight years ago when we first started dating, and he had me laying on a jet bed with my eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. Yes. So we developed the product. My dad and I, we manufacture it in Corona, California,

so it's all American made. And we still run that business today. It's a well-oiled machine. You've gotten it in systems everywhere. I've noticed that. Yeah, it's approaching 10 years, so we've learned a lot along the way. I mean, do you know what's funny, though? A lot of people, and that's why I say, patience, when we first started this business,

if I would have known what it took to get it to where it is now, I don't think we would have ever started. So I think starting it and just keeping our head down and kind of grunting through the heart stuff, it took us, we did more business the beginning of the first quarter of our fourth year than we did the whole first three years combined. Okay, but like explain that in normal terms. Meaning we made more money in the beginning of our first quarter of the fourth year of the business than we did for the first three years, meaning we didn't do shit for the first three years. I remember you would call me like when we first started dating and you would be so excited because you sold one jet bed and it was like I think you sold like one in a month.

I would be like jumping up and down and high-fiving anyone around me if we did that. We didn't know anything about the market. Like I said, we went into it as a side project. Your dad flies, though. My dad flew for a long time. You want to get your pilot's license eventually. Yeah, I do. You know, I can, I've done a lot of the courses and stuff, and I've done a lot of less.

I can actually take off and land a plane and do all the radio signs and all that stuff. You flew me before. Yeah. Did you know that? I just, I'm not licensed, so. Well, let's not tell me. But if shit hits the fan and we're up in the air, I could get us down. Really?

Yeah, absolutely. That's hot and turned on. Yep. Okay, so go on. Okay, so we did Jetbed, and we still do Jetbed, and that's one of our businesses. And then from there, while I was doing that, I wanted to go off and do another project. And I started learning how to market on the internet, on Facebook and Google. You need to tell the Morton state and how that started too.

It's getting confidential, like how this, like, it was like intertwined in this. Well, I will. I'll get to that. So I started learning how to market different products and services on the internet for different companies and different brands and different people. And I still do that today. and I started having a lot of success with that and I learned a lot about internet traffic

and sales and sales funnels and product marketing and branding and just working with other people and other brands and then obviously working with you. But just so you guys know, when he started getting into the internet and branding and sales, I started to see you really thrive

because I feel like that's really where you belong. You get off on it. Well, I like sales. Right. So this is obviously a new thing to me being more in the public eye, thanks to you and calling me Susan and putting me on your Snapchat every second. So I'm more, surprisingly, surprisingly. I'm more of a behind the scenes guy. No, I feel like you could go either way. Let's be honest. You're like a Gemini, but you're not. I could go either way, but I didn't know that. But typically until maybe this year, I was always a behind the scenes guy helping other people sell their products, helping other people push their brands, you know, marketing behind the scenes. A lot of the stuff that I've done, it doesn't even have my name on it or my stamp on it, which is fine. was for other businesses that I was paid for. And so, you know, we obviously, we had the conversation at Morton Steakhouse where you were talking

for the last, like, six months about a year. A year for about a, yeah, about this blog that you wanted to do. I didn't want to execute it because we'll get into that, but I just was too much of a perfectionist. Yeah. And so we were going on and on. And I basically told you to pull the fucking trigger. Pull the trigger, obviously. So good thing I did that because you probably wouldn't.

have a blog without me. Oh my God. Are you kidding? Play your violin. I'm just kidding. Okay, so just to let you guys know, Michael was not involved in my blog for like two years. Like you like we taught like we would talk about it.

I was more of an advisor. Yeah. He would like, but again. Actually, you know what? I don't like to call myself an advisor to because that that sounds weird. Like I'm like we're, we're equal. So I would just consult with you and give you whatever.

I would talk out ideas. Yeah. But I wasn't, what's funny is that I wasn't looking for sales. And I'm, that's not really my main, um, focus is sales for me. I'm more of a creator and a content creator. So Michael brings the kind of

a different perspective to what I do. But go ahead. So my biggest thing is after taking as long as we did with Jetbed and seeing how long it took to get to get the business off the ground. And same with marketing and learning all that stuff and figuring out all that. I was completely fine with the approach you took, not that it was my choice, but I was fully supportive of the approach you took of just creating great content and not trying to monitor. anything, not serving ads, not doing the other side of kind of like what I do, because I believe that if you provide value to people, whether it's a valuable product or valuable service or valuable content, that eventually in some way, shape, or form, it becomes valuable and it becomes monetizable.

And I think that's what's happened. So I don't think I would have, if I hadn't done the JEPA and I hadn't taken all the time to learn what I did with marketing and everything, that I probably would have told you how are you going to make money with this? But since I had that patience at the time, I was completely fine with the approach to it. And I think now it's paying off. Patience is so underrated. It's so underrated. Patience is, patience to me is like, everyone's like, when did you have an epiphany? And there's no epiphany. Like, you just work every day and you chip away. And every day I try to lay my head down on the pillow and think, what did I do to build some like towards my goal today.

And I always will think of one thing I did, even if it's the smallest thing ever. Like maybe it's a logo design, something so small that I've done to build towards the bigger goal. And I think that you're a great example of that with Jetbet. Well, yeah, with that and it, well, trust me, it's taken me a long time to, I still think I need to work on it every day. Like, you know, the internet's a very fast-paced place. You see things and you see what other people are doing.

And obviously that, that's very, um, it entices you. to try to do the same thing. But like I say, in former podcasts, I try not to pay attention to other people are doing and just stay in my own lane and focus on what I'm doing. And patience is definitely a daily practice and it's a mindset that I'm starting to become

a lot more comfortable with. What I would say is you don't... Patience is learned too. I feel like I've watched you learn patience. Yeah, patience is learned through getting your ass kicked when you're not patient. And just so everyone out there knows, Michael and I have gotten our ass kicked

and we'll do a whole podcast called How We Got a our ass kicked multiple times, whether it's with family or work, we've both gotten our ass kicked. And we're going to continue to get our ass kicked. That's just the nature of the game. Oh, absolutely. I would say, you know, also, segueing on what I do now is I still, obviously, run Jetbed and I have my media business. You've gotten more involved with the skinny confidential because we're podcasting now. I've gotten involved with the skinny confidential. And then I'm an investor. in probably 10 to 15 different businesses right now. One of them I just launched a Kickstarter campaign for.

It's a boot company called Broken Home. You fucking crushed it. Michael raised... We raised... With the group, you guys raised 100 grand. Yeah, we raised over 100 grand for them in 30 days, all with organic marketing and a little bit of paid. And he really believes in the product.

He wears the product every day. It's called Broken Home Boots. And they're the coolest fucking boots I've ever seen. So it was really cool to see you come behind a product that you actually believe in and you actually wear and raise that money and I think they're going to crush it. Well, as an investor, I've learned too over the years also getting my ass kicked that you have to invest in products or businesses or services or people that you believe in. And in the past, I haven't, I've, you know, wasn't patient and I invested in things that looked good on paper. I thought would be great. And you've lost money.

I've lost a lot of money. Didn't necessarily believe in a lot of this stuff. So, you know, now in 2016, 17, I've really kind of, I'm a lot more picky. I'm a lot more patient with what I choose to invest in. And if I find something I really like, then I try to, I tend to, you know, maybe go all in on it. So that's what I do. I'm an investor, marketer, entrepreneur. Husband. Husband. You're now bringing me coffee in bed with my, what are you getting me? Tell everyone what you're getting me. I got to get you a mug warmer, right? Yeah, there's, because I get up earlier than you. He does get up earlier than me. I stay up later if we're going to tip for tat on that. So now I'm excited because I have Bostic Media, which I've kept private for the last three or four years. And I'm getting ready to be more public with it and take on more clients and help other people grow their businesses and their brands.

And it's kind of like a consulting, marketing, PR-type firm. But I've seen so many agencies over the past three or four years waste people's time and budgets. And the approach that I'm going to take is it's going to be a results-based approach where I will literally fire my own clients if I don't get them results. He also, well, both of us, I think, now that we're married, we want to really kind of make a foundation and create, I mean, we've always been a team, but when you get married, I mean, I felt a shift. Like, you do feel like you're really in this together and you're really a team. So I think with whatever he's doing or whatever I'm doing,

like we are taking that very much teammate approach in an equal way. Well, I think you're going to get involved with what I'm doing. And obviously I'm involved with what you're doing, so. We're also working on... And we haven't killed each other yet. We haven't almost, though. We also should do a podcast called We Almost Killed Each Other. We're also working on a product for the Skinny Confidential,

and then we have a product that Michael and his best friend Weston are working on. So there's a lot of different things happening, but again, it's all about patience. Okay, let's get the next question. Again, Michael does not know these questions. They're not too hard, though. I feel like you can answer these easy. What's your best piece of advice to young entrepreneurs

who are just starting out? This is a question that we get asked all the time, and I feel like this is a great question for you to answer. Okay, I would not just say this to young entrepreneurs, but outside to anybody. First, obviously, patience, which I say all the time, because everybody wants it right now and trust me when I say

getting something right now is definitely not the answer. A right now generation. Anything that I've gotten right now turns out to be shit. I feel like everything that I've waited for. Don't you feel like that? Yes.

And then I would say really find a skill or personality trait and people aren't going to understand this, but personality trait or skill that differentiates you from somebody else. Examples. Example. I believe that I have a skill

and this may sound, this is going to sound egotice. I believe that I have a skill to get in front of people and sell them and develop very close relationships with them. It's not in a manipulative or bad way because I only have relationships that I care about and that I put a lot of compassionate to. But I believe that I have a skill to get around people and to, yeah, and to bring them into my life and to make them a friend. And so what that's done for me in my life is I've made a lot of really good connections.

I have a lot of really good partners. Yeah, you included. But that I would say differentiates me from people that may be smarter than me, may have better technical skills than me. It's important to be well liked and to want people to be around you. So I think that that's my unique thing. I say it's a personality trade. And then I say like a unique skill right where I learned how to sell products for other people

and help people bring their products to market and help brand them. And so when you can do that and you. you can help other people, you become valuable to that person. So you're telling, you're telling the, the audience to find what they're really, really good at, what their strength is, their niche strength. Find something that can bring value to other people, right? Because when you find something that becomes valuable to other people and you can help other people, then they need you, right?

And when they, when someone needs you, you're not replaceable. Is that makes, I don't know if I'm saying you're not. if that right, but I believe that if you have a unique skill set and you have a unique personality trait that is different and is not being, you're not mimicking somebody else, but it's unique to you, then that, that creates a need for you in the market. And be real with yourself. Just because you want to be a fashion blogger, that might not be your strength. Maybe you're a better cook and maybe, maybe you're better behind the scenes.

Like, get really real with yourself. You know, I don't enjoy looking at numbers every single day. you, I feel like you could go either way, but there's things that you don't like to, I feel like you are better out in, out in the wild. Well, I think it comes down to, it comes down to self-awareness, right? Like, I think this, the self-awareness conversation is going to start becoming a very big conversation. People need to start being very, very honest with themselves, being honest with what they want

out of life. Be honest with yourself. Tell you, what are you not good at? If you're not good at, don't waste your time trying to be good at. Focus on your strength. and things that drive you and that bring value to other people and really, you know, work on those skills and those personality traits and that mindset because you're never going to be good at something you don't like ever.

And you're never going to improve on stuff that you're not good at as well as you would, as much as you'd improve on stuff that you are good at. That's good advice. So get real with yourself. Look in the mirror and ask yourself what the fuck your strength is. And I would say focus on that, not your weakness. Well, and here's the thing. Not everybody needs to be an entrepreneur.

either or a solopreneur. There's nothing wrong with working for somebody else and being, you know, the number two, three guys at some of these biggest companies, you know, the Ubers of the world are highly successful. You need a lot of money. Not everybody's cut out to do, to run their own business. I mean, it's not an easy thing. I mean, you have to be willing to get punched in the face every fucking day and smile about it. I think a lot of the conversation where people are saying everyone can do anything they want. That's subscribing to your own delusion. You can do anything you want, but you have to be honest with yourself about what that really is.

If you want to play video games all day long, and that's what you want to do, and that's your thing, the internet has made it possible now. Amazon just bought Twitch. There's kids right now playing video games all day long, making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Maybe you want to play video games all day. That's fine. But don't play video games all day long and then complain that some, Something's not the way you want it to be, right? Your actions have to have to map.

I love it. I think you're 100% right. I think the self-awareness conversation is going to, people are really going to start talking about it. And, you know, you do you. Everyone's different. Hey, everybody. I'm Heather Dubrow. And I'm Dr. Terry Debrough. Every Friday, check out my podcast, Heather Dubrow's World.

We also have a brand new show, The Doctor and Mrs. Guinea Pig Show every Tuesday. So don't forget iTunes and podcast one. Tune in to Dr. Mrs. Gini Pig on Tuesdays and Heather DeBrow's World every Friday. This is the skinny confidential, him and her. All right, next question. When you were first starting out, what did you do wrong? What did I do wrong? Pull out your scroll, because I know you have one.

Dusted off. Okay. And have some coffee. Well, I was maybe a little bit over-optimistic. I didn't watch the numbers as close as I should have. you know, let's take that first real estate deal. I was remodeling and I was not pinching pennies as much as I should have. I was throwing budgets around.

I was buying things that were unnecessary. When I first started out and I first started making some good money, I bought a lot of unnecessary and materialistic things that I didn't need that I thought would make me happy. Let's dig deep into this part before you go to the next. Elaborate. Okay. So as some of you know, I was a, I like watches a lot. I bought a lot of watches.

That you didn't need. What happens is when you're starting out and you think, you know, status symbols or cars or houses or just or clothes or whatever, you think that that's what you do when you become successful, or at least I did. I didn't really have anyone to tell me different. What happens is you start to get these things and you realize that it's never good enough, right? because you're chasing something that's not real. So I started buying things that I didn't need.

I've scaled back on that a lot now. You checked yourself. Again, like I said before, you guys, once he learns a lesson, he learns the lesson. And you learned it quickly and swiftly. I hope that I've brought a little bit of value to you with materialistic things. No. We grew up differently.

We grew up differently. I could care less now about cars and jewelry and, big houses and stuff like that's not what drives me anymore but there was a point in my life when it did um but i was young you know like when i when i first started working when i first started having some success i was 24 25 years old he was spending a lot of money when when you were 21 i feel like you were spending a lot of money on going out no not 21 i didn't have any money at 21 okay i'd say 23 24 25 he was spending money on things that we just didn't need like we would go and get a bottle a champagne in a club like it was just pointless but you know i don't regret any of this because i made a lot

of connections with a lot of people that i'm still partnered with today doing that so that's actually not i actually think there's nothing wrong with buying experiences i would say i would say it's okay a lot of people are scared i spend a lot of money on travel a lot of money going out with friends we go out all the time like that's a big part of our budget right travel and this we've talked about it but i think that's fine because those are experiences and experiences are what help you build bonds with people. They help expand your mind, especially when you're traveling. You'll never be happy buying items, but you will always find happiness with experiences. So I think it's okay. So you don't regret buying like five million bottles of champagne? No, because it's the experiences and

I can laugh about it. No, I don't regret anything in my life. I'm just cautioning people, things I would do differently. And then also, patience, I keep saying that over and over, but I got ahead of myself multiple times and made decisions based on needing something now, as opposed to waiting to get something later. Tell the story of your dad's friend that would put the facts at the bottom. Oh, well, this is more like with problem solving. I think that's a great story, though, for patience. My dad had a friend, very successful guy, and back in the day, when they would send

correspondences, they would send them via fax. They didn't have email. They didn't have text messages. they had a bank or a lawyer or somebody wanted to send you something important. They sent you a fax. And what this guy would do, and I think this is kind of what I apply to my own life with email a little bit, which sometimes gets me in trouble with people, is he would take the facts that would come in,

and he would go to his pile of other faxes, and he would take that one fax, and he would put it at the very bottom of the pile. And he would just go about his day, you know, kind of going through these faxes and answering these different correspondences and responding to the things. And he said, by the time this fax made it back up to the top of the pile, and that could be days, maybe a week, maybe a month, that most of the time that problem had worked itself out or gone away. And he says, when people get in a big rush to solve something right away,

solve this problem today, do it right now. A lot of time you make bad judgment calls and you get yourself in trouble. So I took that lesson to heart and I do it with emails. I do it with. Lauren gets mad at me because I think, figure if it's a really important email or really something important that I need to know about, somehow I'll get the message. A lot of the time, a lot of these, you know, whimsical problems or these things that we think we need to solve right away usually don't need to be. And they just

cause more chaos in our life. So, yeah. All right. Next question. So one of the things that attracts me to you as a person is that you're a huge reader. I find it so endearing. and so cool, especially in this generation. Who are some of the authors that you love? And what are tips and tricks that you've picked up from them? So give us some books that we all have to read. Let's not, don't go too crazy because I know, like, if you're going to say Shogun, like that's a little too gnarly.

No, no. Well, I will. I won't say Shogun, but I'll say the author, James Claveau, who wrote Shogun. He's been telling me to read this book for 10 years. Shogun, Tai Pan, Noble House. It's a little intimidating, though. Let's start easy. Well, so, surprisingly, I,

read a lot more fiction books than nonfiction. And many people think that they can't learn things from nonfiction or from fiction books because they're fiction. But I actually believe that fiction writers are much better writers than nonfiction writers because they actually have to, they have to weave a story. They have to, and I could write a book about my life and it's very easy because it's my life. I don't have to have that big of an imagination. That is such a good point. I've never thought of that in my life. You're right. I could write a story about my life because it's my life. You always say, like, when I'm nervous to go speak in front of people, you say, what do you mean? You're talking about yourself, and you're right. If I had to go up and talk about something I didn't know, that would be more intimidating.

And that's kind of how fiction and nonfiction are. Yes, but also remember that fiction books are always, even, I mean, even science fiction to some degree in fantasy books, they're all based around real events, real life, things that actually occur or have occurred in history. or current events. And so what these authors do is they're able to weave stories and make you care about characters that don't exist and aren't real. And you can actually picture these characters in your mind. And what I like about it is, you know, if I read a biography about George Washington, we all know what George Washington looked like.

So the imagination, you don't need to stretch your imagination that one. But when someone creates a fictional character, we all have a different perspective on what that character looks like, what he thinks, what he feels. And so it gets your mind and your creativity flowing. I like to read fiction, especially historical fiction, because it takes things that have actually happened in real life and facts in life, and they create stories around them. Okay, so if someone isn't a reader, how can they start, where should they start? And what are some tips and tricks that you've picked up from these books that will make people

want to read them to learn more? So I always recommend James Clavel. They're big, intimidating books, but they're, I promise, like, Lauren looking at me weird now, because they're... But go a little easier. Like, that's a very intimidating book. Well, you're asking me what I really recommend. Okay, so, okay, James Clavel, what's the one we should start with?

Shogun. Okay. Or Taipan. But, and you'll see, I mean, it'll teach you. Some of those books taught me so much about business and patience and keeping your mouth shut when you think you need to speak and... What's a tip that they can take away? There's just too many, but I would say, like, there's so much value in those books because,

one, it'll take you through history. and two, it'll take you through. Very smart business minds. Very good writing. It'll expand your vocabulary. Talks a lot about patience. Patience. Planning.

Waiting. Waiting. I like Larry McMurdy a lot. He wrote the Lonesome Dub series. But then also, you know, I've done a lot of book posts on your site on non-fiction. Arnold Schwarzenegger's book is one of the best biographies I've ever read. Why? Because he's a really interesting guy.

And I think when you, when you, when you, tally up his accomplishments. A lot of people don't know that Arnold was a millionaire before he made any money on his movies. Okay, tell us about it. He was really smart in the sense that he saw a lot of actors being put in desperate situations where they had to say yes to roles, had to say yes to contracts. And so he told himself, he said, I never want to be in that situation. So he started creating his own businesses in real estate. He did one of the first mail subscription services for fitness products. He was a bricklayer at one point. And he just, he made it so that he didn't have to negotiate from a point of desperation, which is a lesson that I always try to pass on to you is never

negotiate when you're under the gun. Yeah, I've learned that lesson the hard way. That's, that's, that'll be in the podcast of how our asses got kicked. Or even if you are under the gun, never negotiate from a, from a, from a weak point because people can smell weakness. Art of War's a good book. Art of War is a good book by Sun Su. What about something that's a little more modern? Like, I know that you read this double art of not giving a fuck. That was good. Mark Manson's books good. Mark Manson's coming on our podcast.

We're very excited about that, you guys. If you have not read his book, read it before our podcast, because I think you will love him. You also right now are reading Tim Ferriss, Tools of the Titans, and what you like about that, I feel like is that I don't want to speak for you, but I think that it breaks down a lot of very successful people's tips and tricks. Yeah, well, he was something you've done. really smart, and I give him credit also for the marketing of that book, because not only is Tim Ferriss a trusted person where people go to for advice and for an educated perspective, but he took some of the most successful people in the world, whether it's athletes, actors, entrepreneurs, business people, and he put them all in one book, and he put all of their advice in one book. So now

you're not only going to Tim Ferriss, but he used everyone else to... He's genius. It's very smart. But it's also a very good book. I think the Dale Carnegie books on how to win friends and influence people is important for everybody to read at least once or twice in their life. Very important. Especially you said earlier, it's important to be, you know, likable and warm. And what's the book about compelling people? I forget the author, but the book is called compelling people. Oh, and it talks about how important it is to have strength and warmth, not just warmth, not just strength, right?

Yep. I like Ryan Holiday's books. I've talked about them on your blog before. Ego is the enemy? Yeah, but I like the obstacles the way. better. I think it's important to read Stoicism and learn, you know, how to view and perceive the hardships of life. What else? I'm waiting for one other book that you read. The skinny confidential book is amazing. But yeah, I know. And I read, I read a lot. There's a guy named Connie Golden

who does books on the Roman Empire and Genghis Khan and now the Tudors. Okay, so one book, one book for entrepreneurs out there that are. young entrepreneurs. There's two. There's two that I recommend to everybody. Okay. And tell us why. Okay. First, managing oneself by Peter Drucker. You could read it in 30 minutes, maybe an hour if you're a slower reader. He gave this to all his friends, you guys. And it's a small 50-page manifesto on really learning yourself and managing yourself and understanding really what you're about. And then the one thing by Gary Keller. And I think that's a really important book for focus and starting out. And I recommend those two to everyone.

Perfect. I have one more question for you. And then we are off to go get chips and salsa at Fidel's. Okay. So last question. This one's for me selfishly. Well, I hope it provides value to everyone. But what are some tips for couples that work together? This is a question we've gotten asked a lot. and I feel like I want to constantly be checking myself because we work together so much. How do you think we're doing? What would you rate us? How can we give value to people that are working together? What are some tips?

I think this year 2016 was the biggest year of growing pains, hopefully that we will go through with working together. And that's really, let's talk about that because, If people just watched our Snapchat or saw our Instagram or saw my blog, I feel like they would say, wow, you guys work together perfectly. First of all, nothing's perfect. Elaborate on that. Okay.

I came from my businesses and doing my thing and being the boss in my respective situations. And you came from your blog and you being the boss with your day to day. And when I say the boss, I don't mean the boss of other people necessarily. I mean the boss of how the day was. going to go, right? You, you set the tone of, this is what we're doing today for the skinny confidential, and I set the tone with what I was going to do for what I was doing. And when you come together and you take two type A personalities, which I believe we both are, extremely, that can get chaotic, especially when, in this case, we used your platform. And the reason that I think we're going to

be okay now is that we navigated a lot of the issues and the problems along the way. But what I was say the reason we were able to do that, and this would be the advice for people wanting to work together as a couple, is first, I believe that you and I are both 100% committed to the same common goal. Okay? I'm not doing this for me, and you're not doing this for you. We're doing this for a goal together, and I think that there needs to be an honest conversation between couples of what that goal is and what people are both committed to doing. and our friend Steve, who we had on the show a couple weeks back, helped us do that.

We actually did a 14-hour session that we never showed to anybody about a strategic future for this brand. It's called a charter. We wrote a charter out, and we both got committed to it. We're going to do one also for our relationship. You do them separately. Yeah. You figure out your fixed way of being, meaning like, what is Michael's fixed way of being and what is mine, and how those fixed way of beings can work together,

how you can overcome them. So a fixed way of being could be, you always have to be in control. And that turned out to be my fixed way of being. That was Michael's fixed way of being. And you can't find your fixed way of being by just like thinking about it. You have to talk it out.

Anyways, go on. Two, after deciding what that common goal is and both being committed it, and this is something that you either have and you really believe or you don't is respect for one another. I respect Lauren more than anyone on this earth. Obviously, that's why I married her.

and I consider her an equal, if not above me. Oh, points for you. Do you want to get laid tonight or something? I think a lot of time in a relationship, there's one or the other is taking a stance of their better or their opinion weighs more or they're, um, they're the boss, they're smarter. They have more experience. There's, there's plenty of things that I have experience in that Lauren doesn't and plenty of things that she has experience in that I don't and I think that compliments each other.

Lawrence taught me many, many lessons in life, which we could do a whole podcast on that. So I think respect and really being honest and asking yourself, do you actually really respect your partner? Does your partner really respect you? And then I think the final thing is defining the goals, I mean, not the goals, the roles of each person and understanding, you know,

I never, ever get into the skinny confidential and do any of the creative content, unless it's a piece of content that I'm writing. I don't ever step in her way of the vision she has with that. You did one time try to direct a photo shoot. And I told you to just bow down. And I was out. And, you know, with the way I run the back end of the site,

Lauren gives me control. You know, it was interesting this year because we had Taylor, who's, and some of my employees that have worked for me for a long time, kind of step into the skinny confidential and help. And then Lauren had my sister and some of her employees kind of stepping into my stuff. And it was interesting to blend those two teams together because a lot of the time the teams didn't really know who was in charge and whose voice to listen to. And Lauren and I have different management styles.

Mine's a little bit more blunt, a little bit more to the point. You know, I always tell the guys that work from me, don't ever get offended by anything I say when we're working because my whole goal is just to help all of us and complete the mission that we're trying to complete. Michael's more of a dick. Yeah. So, well, I say things quickly, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, you know, when you step in and you're managing some people, they don't, they don't, they don't get that style. My team has learned to deal with that, United front. There can't... Team player. There can't ever be

divergence. You know, Loen and I try not to contradict ourselves in front of people outside of our team and definitely in front of our team. And so yeah, that's... And we're working on it, you guys. This is such a work in progress. I mean, we're learning... Like, I always say, it's like a dance. Like, you have to learn how to dance. It's practice. It's working every day. It's committed to the same goal. So I feel like people are hard on themselves when they compare themselves to a sought on social media. And it's

really important to remember that everyone is navigating stuff like this every single day. I mean, there's by no means any, like, anything perfect. No, I would say at the end of the day, it comes down to love and respect. And you, it's important to never lose sight of the reason why you're working together in the first place and why you're doing something. It's for, in our case, it's to make a better life for ourselves and our family and our community and our community and the people that we speak to. and if at any point working together detracts from that or takes away from that, then you have to really analyze like, why are we even doing this? So don't forget the reason that you decide to start working together in the first place.

Great advice. I'm having this huge obsession right now with John F. Kennedy and Carolyn Beset because I read the book What Remains. You guys know that if you read my post on death on the skinny confidential. And after reading that, I wanted to know more about this couple that was such a power couple. So I just, I'm reading right now a book by John F. Kennedy's assistant, Rosie. I don't know the name of it. But anyways, I'll put it on the skinny confidential. They, she talks about what made Carolyn Bessette and John F. Kennedy so powerful. And she said at the end of the day, they were equals. So I think that if you're in a relationship or a business partnership where you're not feeling like you're equals, you should sit down and evaluate that because I think that's really important. And I think that's really important. And I think that. think this whole year has been for us navigating that and at the end of the day we are about being equal so listen if we can get through what we went through this year there's been you know starting

businesses together there's been marriages there's been deaths unfortunately there's been a million wedding parties there's been family dynamic there's been christmases and holidays just another year it's called life. There's been, you know, people pissing themselves and getting naked. There's been crazy Thanksgiving stalkers. It's been a year. If we can get through all that, then I think, I think we're set up in a good place for 2017. It's been a ride. Thank you guys so much for your support. Next week, Michael will be interviewing me. Get some good questions. You got to collect. If you guys want to send them in, you can send them to a podcast at the skinny confidential. com. Make sure you're subscribed to our podcast. I'm constantly doing giveaways on Snapchat,

and it's a big plus extra credit if you're subscribed. We appreciate your support. You guys have been fucking amazing in 2016. We're so excited for 2017 because we are going to have some badass guests on that we are very excited about. We're fired up. I think we've gotten to the point. I think what I would say about this podcast and this, and you know what's funny is we've probably worked out a lot of our issues through this podcast, which is interesting. interesting. Both Lauren and I never thought we would be doing this. We started this on a whim. We were literally in a cab in New York and I said, why don't we just do a podcast? Wrong. Wrong again. We were in Cabo drinking ginger margaritas at the bar with Joel blacked out and you said, let's do a podcast. You know what? Now that I think like that's true, but I remember I was listening to a podcast in a cab in New York and I thought of the idea of why don't we just do a podcast. So that's why I thought that. But 43 episodes in, I think we've finally started to get a rhythm. We started to learn how to do this a little bit. We're listening to you guys.

We're taking all your feedback, all your criticism, and we are trying to get better with each one. Yeah. I think we held off on guests. We've had some guests, but we've held off on guests outside of podcasters for a long time because we wanted to get a little better at this style. Have our foundation. Yeah. We've never, you know, definitely both of us never trained for this. So we're training now.

We're training in front of you guys. And here's the thing. This podcast is such a representation of this whole entire interview we just did with Michael because the first podcast was horrendous. The second podcast was horrific. The third podcast was kind of horrific. And so all we've done here is we've practiced patience. We've got a long way to go and we're growing slowly. And at the end of the day, if you're an entrepreneur, you're growing your company, that's all you can do. Start out horrific, grow each day, chip away. Before you know it, you'll realize, Whoa, shit, I've come a fucking long way.

I mean, 43 episodes, so let's call that roughly, 43 hours, a little less, because the shows sometimes aren't there. You know, I will be happy when we get to 52 episodes, which will be one year. I think one year of putting in work on a weekly basis is a good step in the right direction. I'll be happy when we get to 500 just because I love that number. And then I'll feel like we've been together for a long time. How many weeks is that? Do the math. That's 10 years.

Okay. Well, that's when I'll be happy. Okay, everyone knows that the world shops online now. And if you don't, you're weird. People only go to malls to drop the kids off or buy a super pretzel, maybe see a movie. And of course, as you know, Amazon is the biggest online mall in the universe. But did you know that every time you use Amazon, you can be helping us keep this podcast going? That's right.

If you use our Amazon banner when you shop, a small amount of the purchase goes directly to help support this podcast at no extra cost to you. Okay, so here's how you do it. Go to podcast1.com and click on the killer deals link. Click on our show logo and you'll see Amazon and all of our sponsors. Then when you click the link, bookmark it, so it's super easy to use the next time. It's a cool way you can help us keep doing this show every week. All right, you guys, have a great new year. We will see you next week.

Before we go, we want to take a minute to thank all the great sponsors and all the listeners and readers for supporting the skinny confidential, him and her podcast. You guys are what keeps the show growing. We will continue to bring you guys entertainment and value on a weekly basis for free. Thank you guys for downloading, subscribing, and supporting. And remember to sending your questions to Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag Ask Kim and Her. Send us questions to our snaps, Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic, or email us at podcast at the skinnycompetential. Yeah, send us some questions for Michael to ask me.

Get weird. Get really weird. All right, you guys, we will see you next week. Happy holidays. Thanks for listening to The Skinny Confidential. him and her with Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic. Download new episodes every Tuesday at Podcast 1.com or subscribe now on the Podcast 1 app.