The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – How To Be Fan-f*cking-tastic! by Max A. Borges

Episode Date: August 6, 2020

How To Be Fan-f*cking-tastic! by Max A. Borges Fan-fucking-tastic.com How am I doing? I’m fan-fucking-tastic of course! I’ve always been an optimistic person. That optimism has led me to countless opportunities both personal and professional that have given me more success than I had ever dreamed of. Through the years I have accumulated bits of wisdom that serve me each and every day. This simple book contains some of that wisdom in hopes of helping YOU create a more fulfilling and abundant life – a life that is fan-fucking-tastic! Each time you pick up this book, something new may resonate and help you in some area of your life that needs a little something. Be sure and keep it close by for those days you need it.-Max Borges Max Borges is an entrepreneur who in 2002 founded the Max Borges Agency - a tech-focused public relations firm. By studying the habits of business and strategy icons, he built his agency to more than 50 employees and $10 million a year in revenue. Max lives in Miami Beach with his amazing wife and three children. He also hosts a podcast called Unconventional Genius, invests in tech startups and listens to heavy metal

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. The Chris Voss Show.com.

Hey, we're coming to you with another great podcast. We certainly appreciate you guys being here. Oh, my gosh. There's so much going on if you want to watch the video version of this you can go to youtube.com forward slash chris voss that's my name actually it's when they call it the chris voss show you can check on that it's cool uh anyway uh you can see the video versions of all the great interviews we've done of all the wonderful authors uh and we've got some really amazing authors coming up some embargoed books as well they'll be launching so watch for, some of your TV personalities, et cetera, et cetera.

And today we have a most interesting person. Full disclosure, I've actually worked with the Max Borges Agency over the last, I don't know, at least five or six years. And you've probably seen us reviewing some of the products they represent on the Chris Foss Show. Max Borges is an entrepreneur who in 2002 founded the Max Borges Agency, a tech-focused public relations firm. By setting the habits of business and strategy icons, he built his agency to more than 50 employees and a $10 million a year in revenue. Max lives in Miami Beach with his amazing wife and three children, and he hosts a podcast called Unconventional Genius, invests in tech startups and listens to heavy metal, which is the main reason we had him on here.

He wrote a book called How to Be Fan-Fucking-Tastic. Welcome to the show. How are you doing, Max? Thank you, Chris. I am fan-fucking-tastic. Welcome to the show. How are you doing, Max? Thank you, Chris. I am fan-fucking-tastic. I'm excited to be on the Chris Voss Show. Chris Voss Show. It's funny. Everyone loves that stupid thing that we do.

I love that. I love that. I feel like you need to record that with some singers and harmonies and music. You know, we thought about doing that um years ago the reason that that i i did it was i was just bored with saying the chris voss show and i copied you know the msnbc bits that that stern we used to do he'd be like msnbc and i was like i have some you know just sing it and you know whatever and i did that for like a week or something and i stopped doing it and i had people calling me from all over the world going hey man are you not doing

that singing part anymore and i was like yeah it was just it was a stupid weak bit and they're like no that's great and like now everywhere i go people come up to me they sing to me they go it's a chris wash show you know at cs or any b show etc you know sometimes it's a Chris Voss show. You know, it's CS or any B show, et cetera, et cetera. You know, sometimes it's the stuff that you think is the most stupid, ludicrous, embarrassing shit you do that turns out to be like the gold, you know? It's awesome. And we'll have these personalities on now because we're getting like really high-end authors, TV personalities. And they're just like, what the hell is going on like this doesn't ever happen on msnbc um so you know there's that well let's talk about your book here you've got this book that's out yeah and uh it's pretty it's a pretty easy read and it's got

a lot of inspirational stuff in it um so uh do you want to do you want to talk about any background of how you started max borders agency or should we jump right in the book or what do you want to do? Um, yeah, I mean, I can give you a little background on, on the agency so people know where, um, where I'm coming from. So, you know, 18 years ago, 2002, I was unemployed about flat broke, uh, looking for a job. I was 34 years old and I was looking. I'd basically been fired from every job I ever had. Didn't have a college education. Had tried starting a few businesses and they all failed. And I was kind of giving up hope. And then I was looking for a job and

I couldn't get anybody to hire me, but I got one company to give me some consulting work. And so I was doing that from my home and it was just enough to pay my half of the $900 a month rent and some other expenses. And it was pretty good work, pretty easy, didn't take all day. So I decided to look for another client, which I got, and then got myself a little shithole office and then looked for more clients and got myself some part-time help and then made the part-time help full-time help. And after a few years of what I call the AFM stage, the anything for money stage of business, where basically we do any kind of marketing work for any company that we could convince that we could do it, even though we'd probably never done it before, because I didn't have any agency experience or PR experience. But after about four years in, I realized, because we had a number of consumer tech

clients, clients that make cool electronic gadgets. I thought if we just focused on consumer tech and doing media relations, which is basically getting them press coverage, we just focused on that one thing. We could probably become the best in the country at it at some point. We weren't yet, but, but there were some things that we were doing. Like for example, you know, one of my first employees, this guy named Ted Miller, who's still my good buddy. He worked for me for six years and he was really a salesman at heart.

And he was great at doing media relations because he was a sales guy and people that go to communication school, do not go to communication school, dreaming of like banging the phones and calling up media and getting press coverage. Right. And so, so he killed it and it was like so easy for him. And I thought, God, this can't be this easy. So I hired salespeople to do media relations and they killed it. And we were just killing the competition and we were making money doing it. And so we just kept getting more clients based on the success of the existing clients that we were working and just kept growing it and growing it. And, you know, every year was a handful of new employees until, you know, every year was a handful of new employees

until, you know, you fast forward to today where we've got 50 employees, like full-time, they were all in the office, but now everybody's working from home. But, but full-time employees, you know, smart people, great people. And, you know, the business is really just kind of come into its own now. And so, one night I was, you know, writing down, just typing into my phone, some quotes that were popping into my head of things that I had learned over the years from various different mentors and books that I read. I read a lot of books. That's really how I got my education was just reading hundreds of books by various different business people, self-help books, just anything that's going to help me be a better, more successful person. I'm going to read it and learn from it. And so I started

writing down these quotes and after I'd written, I don't know, maybe 20 of them, I put them in a book form in a Word document. I sent them to a friend and had him check them out. And he was like, wow, these are great. You should do this. You should build this out and make it into a book. So I kept writing more and more and more quotes as time went on about various different things that I think are important to have a fan fucking tastic life. And so, um, so finally we put together the,

the, the book and finished it. It's called how to be fan fucking tastic. And it's a hundred plus pages of practical advice on how to stop sucking at life and start being fan fucking tastic. Awesome sauce. Where can people order this book? Oh,

on Amazon. Yeah. Just, uh, probably I don't, where can people order this book? on Amazon probably I think the best way to find it is just search Max Borges B-O-R-G-E-S author I don't know if typing in how to be fan-fucking-tastic will get you that

have a little bit of trouble with the F-bomb there you go well on the Chris Foss show on this video there will be a link to it, so you can go to the Amazon link there and get it and the link to the fan-effing thing. And for a limited time, the book is only $5, Chris. $5?

Wow, that's a good deal. Including shipping if you're an Amazon fan member. Is it a foot long? What's that? Is it a $5 foot long? The book is not a foot long, but I should have made it a little bit longer five dollar foot long um no i mean it's brilliant what you guys have done uh and being in the tech field i mean jesus holy explosion of of the

craziness you know like we were talking about pre-show you and i go to ces and all these big tech shows and the expansion and you know the toy store Like, I just love to go just for the toy store effect. We're just like, oh, my God, look what they're making now. And just a hoot. So let's get into the book. Let's get into some of the quotes maybe that you've got in here and maybe what they mean because I'm sure there's a whole lot of meaning behind some of these things.

Here's a couple that we picked out. If you challenge the status quo, you're going to piss people off. People need to change. That's not your problem. Yeah. Can you give us some background on that? So I think, you know, anytime you're, you know, when one of the people, and actually a book that I'm reading right now is the autobiography by Henry Ford.

And, you know, when he started selling cars, people were pissed because cars made a lot of noise. They smelled like crap when they were going down the road and they thought it was going to be a passing fad. I mean, they, this was challenging the status quo of the horse. Yeah. They were getting away in the horses and stuff. Ford was famous for saying, if you would have asked the people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse. And so there's always people that are going to have a problem with anything that you're going to do that's new. And so it's important that you are mentally prepared for that in life. And, you know, look, another one of the quotes in the book is if you're going to make history,

you've got to do something that's never been done before. And it kind of goes along the same lines where if you want to go big, if you really want to be successful, if you really want to kind of put your stake in the ground in some small or big way, you've got to do something that's never been done before. You got to challenge the status quo and you got to find different ways of approaching things. And that is going to get, cause people to kind of come, come at you and you just got to be ready to say, F that, you know, I'm moving forward. It doesn't matter, you know. Most definitely. I mean, it's one of those things.

A lot of people don't, you know, they just follow along or they just reinvent the thing that happens. But you've really got to make massive changes to something or really invent something new. You look at the unicorns, and we have the podcast Startup Unicorn, but you look at the unicorns like Uber and Lyft, who also be some of the real game changers. Google was a game changer at one time in the Google search industry. There's just so many of these tech unicorns that you can play to that just stood out and just blew it up with reinventing the wheel.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and I'm glad that you brought those up because that brings me to another quote in the book, which is it's never too late to do something great. And you know, I think a lot of times people will look at Mark Zuckerberg or the guys from Google and you think, you know, when you start a business, you start it when you're in college or right out of college, and then it becomes a big success. And that's what you do for the rest of your life. But that's not always the way it works. You know, I had tons of failed businesses in my 20s and jobs that I'd gotten fired from. And it wasn't until I was 34 years old that I finally came across something. And it

was really four years later that I figured out exactly how the business was really going to take off. So, you know, it's never too late. And, you know, there's guys like Ray Kroc, right? Ray Kroc was a 52-year-old salesman who sold milkshake makers and came across the McDonald brothers and what they were doing and was so impressed by them that he got them to license him the idea for McDonald's so that he could open up more McDonald's stores. And like he, he was nothing more than a salesman. Nothing wrong with being a salesman, but that's, that's all he was until he was 52 years old. And then he started, you know, building out McDonald's and became, you know, a multi, multi, multi millionaire, maybe a billionaire. I'm not sure how much money he had when he died,

but, but he was incredibly successful. And Colonel Sanders, same thing. I think he was 70 when it finally happened. Diana Nyad. Do you remember Diana Nyad, the woman that swam from Cuba to Miami? Yeah, I remember hearing about her. Well, a lot of people don't know that she tried doing that when she was like 27. Yeah. A bunch of times she tried, right? And she failed when she was 27. Yeah. And then when she was, I think, 59 or 60, she decided to try again. Chris, you don't try to swim from Cuba to Miami when you're 60 years old, having failed at 27. What the hell makes you think that you can make it? I can't swim that far in my bathtub. She didn't make it. She didn't make it, but she tried again when she was 61. And again, she failed. 62, failed again. She finally made it at 64 years old. She actually swam all the way from cuba to miami when she was 64 years old like it's never

too late to do something great that's crazy man yeah i remember that story because i'm like what is this chick doing man and you know the shark infested waters and you know i mean that's that's a boat ride she's old enough to be your your mom it's about your grandma you You know, it's like your grandmother saying, I'm going to swim from Cuba to Miami. You'd say, Grandma, are you crazy? So what else do we have here? We got figure out what you love, you are great, and what people will pay for. Yeah, I love this. Sweet spot.

So imagine like three concentric circles, right? What you love, what you're great at, what there's a market for. And when you can figure out those three, it's the same thing. There's something that fits in all three of those. That's your sweet spot. That's when life really starts to take off. And if you only get two of them right, then it's just not going to work. And I'll give you an example. Ever watch American Idol? Okay.

You ever see these singers come on and like, they're terrible, but they think they're great. Like in the auditions in the beginning, you know what I'm talking about? And then, and then the judges tell them that like, they have no talent should give it up and they leave like crying and and bitching at the judges and and like saying that they're never going to give up right that's because they were doing what they loved but they weren't doing what they were great at. And they also, there's another quote that I have in the book, which is never believe a compliment. Because when people compliment you, they're usually just being nice to you. But when people give you a criticism, they're usually not being jerks. They're probably being honest. And there's an opportunity to learn there but these singers they were singing and they were

terrible and they were surrounded by people who were lying to them chris they were telling them they sounded great and so they would go on the american idol and they think oh i'm going to do great because all my friends think i'm great and my parents think i'm great and everybody thinks i'm great and they were terrible but they didn't fit all three of those concentric circles so it's important and you know you look at somebody like, think of any, like you're into heavy metal, I'm into heavy metal. So you can think of like the singer of Motley Crue, Vince Neil. How many times has that guy been put in jail, right? But he's still fantastically successful. He should just be a criminal, but he's a multimillionaire because he loves rock music, he's good at it, and there's a market for it.

And so the fact that he's basically a loser in every other part of his life doesn't even matter. He's still super successful. Yeah, and he has a beautiful girlfriend. Holy crap. We're friends on Facebook and Instagram. She's wonderful. But yeah, he's, I gotta remember that. We talked pre-show about some of these old rock albums.

Remember the first Motley Crue album? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I remember the first time I listened to it. Sitting in my buddy's bedroom and pulled that out and told me about the band. And it was the Leather Records version of it. Yeah. And the Shout at the Devil.

I mean, like, I felt like they went commercial after Shout at the Devil. I was kind of like, I don't know. I'm not into that band anymore. But, no, I still love them to this day. We got a little rock aside where all the millions of people are. Yeah, man, I love it. What the hell is he talking about? Actually, I went to go see them when they were on their last tour,

and I paid for front row seats on StubHub or something. Paid an arm and a leg, but it was well worth it because it was just such a great experience. And Tommy Lee did the whole drum set coming up over the top of the stage where it went upside down, and he strapped it. It was just like such a great experience. And Tommy Lee did the whole drum set coming up over the top of the stage where it went upside down and he strapped it. It was amazing. It's insane, those guys. They're just such a great band.

Overpromising, over-effing-deliver. I'll put it that way. So, you know, a lot of people are just like under-promise and over-deliver, and that's nice. But that's kind of weak because you're like holding back, you know? And I think the approach that I've always taken from the very beginning with my business is to over promise and then bust my ass to deliver. So, you know, we had to promise when we started the business,

we had to tell potential clients that we could do things that, frankly, we didn't know if we could do it. We'd never done it before. We didn't have any experience. But if I was going to succeed, I had to get that chance. But one thing I knew is I was going to work harder than anybody out there. And I also knew something else that whatever I didn't know how to do on Friday, I could read a book over the weekend and I'd be an expert on Monday. And I can't tell you how many times I've done that where I've needed to learn something and I just picked up a book and I learned how to do it and then put it into action.

It's really most things in life are not rocket science. You can pick up a book and I learned how to do it and then put it into action. It's really most things in life are not rocket science. You can pick up a book and that's another one of the quotes is it's not rocket science. Just ask Elon. I mean, look, Elon Musk has a fucking rocket company, Chris, and he never went and learned how to be a rocket science. He just bought a bunch of books and talked to a bunch of rocket scientists and now he has a rocket company. He just bought a bunch of books and talked to a bunch of rocket scientists, and now he has a rocket company. So I used to say it ain't rocket science, but now I say it ain't rocket science, and even rocket science ain't rocket science anymore.

And sometimes when you start a business that way, you get an outside perspective that you bring that's fresh because you're not kind of contained by the box or the limit of the box that people get in. Like, why do we do things this way? I don't know. We always did things this way. You know, my boss trained me to do it this way.

This is what I did this way. Absolutely. And so I've always loved being able to be a CEO and walk into situations and go, why do we do it this way? And that's constantly even with my companies where we would ask ourselves, why do we do it this way? And they're like, well, you made it this way, Chris, you designed it. And I'm like, well, let's redesign it because there's got to be a better way. There's always a better way. There's always a better way. Anything. But yeah, I, our first big company was a curry company and we were a startup and we had to go convince everybody to start using us and that we were going to be able to deliver what they wanted.

And literally, we were just selling stuff on my salesmanship and my chutzpah. And they're just like, I don't know, this guy seems to really know what he's doing. And I knew how to cut what we're doing. I think I saved everybody like 25 cents a package. But I showed them how much they would save on an annual basis and like that's a lot of money and uh you know between everything else but really they bought me and so i know what that's like to to go out there and then i i do believe in over delivering um you know we we we over deliver a lot in in the consulting and the things that we do and in our

promotions and ad sales and stuff and we just i just do it as a the other things that we do and in our promotions and ad sales and stuff. And I just do it as a natural form of what we do because that way, if anybody complains, nobody ever complains because they're like, holy crap, we got a bunch of extra stuff. I don't even know if Chris noticed that he gave us a bunch of extra stuff. He's probably not saying anything and not complaining or something like that.

But that's a really important thing, I think, a lot. Well, it's what keeps coming back, right? And that's what got us clients to, what got our early clients to, you know, continue on with us. And then also, you know, when we went and asked those clients and said, hey, look, we're talking with this other company, you know, will you give us a good reference? You know, we got great references because we over delivered. That was the kind of thing that, that created what I call raving fans.

You need raving fans in your business. And if you have raving fans, your business will be successful. And that comes from over promising and then over fucking delivering everything. Yeah. Really important. And I think a lot of people, they just try and, well, they under-deliver, and they don't see any value in it. But, I mean, really to keep your clients for so long, one of the things that we used to do with the courier company, and we had a whole bunch of them at one point, is if we screwed something up, like we bought something for a client,

and they call me, you know, they complain. I'd be like, the whole next month is free. And they'd be like, you screwed up once. You're going to give us a whole month for free. I'm like,

yeah, because your business is that important to us. And they'd be like, wow, you guys really care. And we had, we had original clients from 13 years on that had been with us that, that stay with us loyally and stuff until,

until I shut it down and moved out of the state after our business separated. But it was, it was amazing to me how loyal people were. And it was, you know, and for us, you know, there was this for 13 years, who cares if we lost a month or two here and there, right. It's more expensive to go find a new claim than it is to keep an old one and they were just always impressed we didn't screw up much but when we screwed up it was a mess and and so i would just be like whole month is free what if that makes you happy whatever makes you happy same with our mortgage business people call me up and usually

it was a salesman's fault salesman hadn't hadn't listened to people, what they want. And they'd gone to closing and it wasn't there. Um, and you know, I'd have to take that guy's head off, but you know, I, people call me from the closing and I'd be like, okay, what do we got to do to make you happy? Is it a thousand dollars, $2,000? What does it take? And they're like, you're just going to lose money on this. If, if you do that, I'm like, I don't care. I want you to be happy and you're going to leave happy. And there were some times where I think the worst check I wrote was for five grand to make somebody happy, and I just ate it. I ate the whole profit. I ate the whole salesperson's salary, everything.

I think I still have to pay the salesperson. And I just ate it to make this person happy. And they'd call me telling me what a horrible company we were and a make this person happy, you know, and they were, they'd call me telling me what a horrible company we were and horrible this, that, and the other. And, and our salesman had followed our protocol, which was like, what do you want to accomplish? And you listen to what the client wants and you make sure that that's what you do for them. And he hadn't done that. Um, it was kind of interesting anytime we had those failures because the salesperson hadn't listened to the customer and done what they wanted.

And then by the time it got to closing, they're like, this is the one I ordered. And with mortgages, it's a big deal. And so I think the biggest check I wrote was for five grand, and it was always funny to me. They would be calling me, swearing, and I'd be like, what do I need to make you happy? We're not going to argue about it. What do I need to make you happy? And those people would come back year after year. And what was funny was they would come back and they'd be like, Hey man, I want to do business with you again. You're so great. You were so great to us last year. And, and you're so awesome. And I'd be sitting there going, I remember the phone call with you, man.

I never thought I'd see you again. And I'm not even sure I want to do business again because that phone call was ugly. But I'll take your money. But they would love us. And they come back year after year after that. And I'd make my money back even more so. They were for friends, neighbors, relatives. And so it was, you know, I think most 90% of the time, if I ate it, they'd come back as customers. And they'd be happy. And they'd remember it as being a happy experience.

I'd remember it as a horrible experience. So there's that. It's never too late to do something great. I think definitely some of the stories we talked about earlier, right? Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think one of the things that happens to a lot of people is, you know, they go to college and, you know, they've chosen a career path and then they start making some progress down that career path. And they may or may not love that career path, but it's making them decent money. It's a job. And so it's hard for them to get out of it. And it's hard for them to take a chance. But, you know, you're

really missing out on a huge opportunity because one thing that I realized is, you know, when I started my business and I was 34 years old, some people may go, well, that's old to start a business from scratch. But it was when I was 34 years old that I finally knew everything that I needed to know. I was the smartest that I had ever been up to that point. I knew more than I'd ever known up until that point. And that's what happens'd ever known up until that point. And that's what happens, right? We get smarter, we get older, we get smarter.

So hopefully, some of us. I'm at the age where I think I'm smart, and then I find out all the stuff that I don't know I don't know, and I'm like, oh, man, where have I been all these years? Yeah, that happens to me too. But, you know, you get older you get smarter and and your ability to accomplish something great actually increases your chances of being successful increase and so it's important to um you know to to not give up on that dream and to, you know, go after that side hustle. And it doesn't mean you like, if you're, say you're, you're, you're an attorney, you don't

have to like quit your job to start something new. You can start a side hustle and build that up until you feel like you have enough confidence that that thing is going to take off. I mean, I'm not saying that you should throw it all away around all away and like risk your family and everything to start a new business or to go after your dream, but you can do it as a side hustle. I mean, that's why God invented nights and weekends is for your side hustle, right? So you can do that until you get to a point where you feel like, you know what, this is starting to get enough momentum and enough headway. But please, if you've got a dream, you know, take a step toward it now. Don't just accept or convince yourself, hey, I've got a good job. I'm an attorney or I'm a doctor or I'm an accountant or whatever it is. And I'm just going to accept that

as my destiny. If that's not really what you want, maybe it is, but maybe it's not. And if it's not, you know, go after that dream. Yeah. And right now is a good time. So this is a good advice for people listening that might be laid off or they're, or they're, or they're going through, you know, maybe they're, hopefully they're getting paid by their employers or something for time off or something. And one of the things I started espousing to people during the beginning of this epidemic and the quarantine was, especially if you're being paid, because usually people are still being paid even if they've been laid off.

And I'm like, this is a really good time to maybe go find what you want, start your own business, do your own thing. Our first company that we, you know, I started a lot of companies like you did in my early years and some would kind of click for a bit and some would fail. My first company, 18, was a construction business, which was fun to do until winter hit. And then cement doesn't deal so well with winter. But, uh, and I was like, I need to go do something else. And then, um, but our first business was a side hustle. I was working for, uh, some different companies. My friend was, uh, that was my partner and we started a side hustle and it was hard, but you know, yeah, we were, we were single and young 22. Um, and out of it, we built a lot of different companies.

Um, and then in 2008, everything came crashing down for me, uh, 2008, 2009, just everything just wiped off the slate with the mortgage crash and everything that went on. Like nothing I could do would work for like, I think a year or two, just, just could not get any traction on anything that we had. And so literally I had to reinvent myself and it gave me time to find stuff. And most of the businesses I'd had were investment related. There were, it was nothing that I had loved, nothing that I'd really enjoyed. I like being CEO. I like being the inventor. I like being the guy who had to be the visionary, and I like doing all the innovation, but nothing that I really loved, and I hated having hundreds of employees. That was annoying as crap to me. I mean, I wish I would have written four books back then of all the stories because I could have. I can't even remember most of them now, but I just was not happy with big companies and board of directors and partners from hell. And, you know, all that whole, you know, when you get up to the size where you get more than

a hundred employees, it's a nightmare. Um, and I don't know, that was my perception of that. I'm sure there's people that love it, but you just, you start dealing with a lot of stuff and, but I mean, you get a lot of good stories. You come home every day and you go, you don't believe what happened today at work, honey. i got that right i'm serious i could have written four books for all the employees we had a thousand boys but you still can or not too late i gotta remember all the stories though they're just i maybe i've forgotten them because i just want to put that whole period behind me because now I love what I do. So I reinvented myself in, uh, in through the, after the 2008 thing. And it gave me time to find what I really love to do,

what I really wanted to do. I worked at home since I was, since 2004. So quarantine was pretty easy for me. Um, and now I do what I love and then I don't have to have a million employees and I have happiness now where I was so unhappy during those years. I was miserable. And so now I'm happy. I found what I want. I found the gigs that I can do and the things I like to talk about or work on. And I've been able to do different projects, too, because I'm a project person.

So I go on a little adventures, and four or five years, I'm like, I'm going to be a photographer and go play at this. Well, it sounds like you found your sweet spot, what you love, what you're good at, and what there's a market for, right? There you go, the tie-in, the tie-up. There you go. Yeah, and to me, that was really good.

And so this is a great time for people to do that in what's going on with this thing. It's a great time to reinvent yourself. It's very painful, but sometimes that's a motivator. I remember during the 2008 period, 2009, where I was trying to reinvent myself and find something that works. I was trying everything, like every single business. I mean, we'd start over 27 corporations for a lot of different toys

and stuff we were investing in pre-2008. So once you get that muscle of how to do business, right, it's just the same old, same old. Like you could start a business in your sleep. And I had friends say to me, they go, Chris, you have tried so many things to recover from the 2008 crisis that if it came out that you were an international arms dealer because that's just finally what you found clicked, we would not be out that you were an international arms dealer, because that's

just finally what you found clicked, we would not be surprised because you've tried it. And that's literally what I did. And what's really nice is what's been going on right now has made me sweat a little bit, but I've got that muscle memory of going, hey, I lived through 2008. I can do this again if things get weird. And, you know, we've made some alignments to what we're doing. But this is a great time where a lot of people can, and hopefully they're getting paid because that's really helpful. Hopefully they're getting paid.

And I used to tell people starting in March, I think it was, on the podcast, I'm like, hey, man, don't just start watching Netflix eating popcorn all day long. Start focusing maybe on starting a business. Or even if you plan on going back to your employer, maybe learn some new things, read some new books, get some better education, so that when you go back, you're going to be more valuable, less likely to lay off, and maybe you can get a better job and advance in the company hire or whatever the case may be. Yeah. And what you're talking about here, Chris, is taking an offensive instead of a defensive approach to what's going on and saying, you know what, I'm going to plow forward, you know, lean into this, get myself educated, maybe start my side hustle, maybe learn about the things that I don't know about that I need to learn in order to start my side hustle,

because I've got the time to do it. And it's kind of a no risk proposition. And, you know, I think the other angle to think about too is if you're a business, this is also a time to lean in and not to buckle down because everybody else is on the defensive. Everybody else is buckling down and just trying to cut expenses. But this is the time, and this is what our clients are doing, and this is what we as an agency are doing, to go in and grab market share,

because it's all up for grabs. No matter what kind of business you're in, you can go in and grab market share away from competitors who maybe are not being aggressive in the way that they're approaching what's going on during this pandemic. And this is what we did back in 2008, 2009. In 2009, we've grown every year since we've been in business, but in 2009, we grew 15%. Now, most agencies shrunk 20 or 30%, but we doubled down on our business development department and hired more people there. We did more marketing and we encouraged all of our clients to double down on their PR efforts and their marketing efforts because we knew that they could grab market share away from other companies during that time. And that's exactly what we did. And we came out of 2009,

just singing. I mean, 2010, we grew like 40%, but, but 2009 is one of the years I'm most proud of because most agencies really did shrink because everybody was cutting back. But we went in and we found, you know, I hate looking at averages and I hate looking at what the quote unquote economy is doing because it doesn't have to mean anything to you as an individual. There's always an exception. And I've always wanted to be the exception to the rule. I think I am the exception to the rule. I'm probably the only PR agency owner that doesn't have a college education and never worked at a PR agency and never had PR experience. But I think that that's, I've used that to my advantage. I figured out how to use that to my advantage to build an agency that's different and that's actually better than

what, you know, the typical agency is. And I've had plenty of people, you know, question how I run my business and what I do and tell me that I'm doing it wrong and I'm not doing it the way other agencies doing it. And it's like, yeah, that's right. I'm doing it my own way. And I think it's better. So this is really a time to drive your business forward. And if you're a business who wants to succeed in the long run, it's not about protecting your downside. It's about pushing for that upside right now. And you bring up a good point. It is a great time to capture market share because people are going on the defensive. We talked about this at the pre-show.

You know, I've had a couple of companies that we do reviews for. And they're solid companies are they you know i mean they i always thought they were solid companies they got a huge product or a huge yeah huge product lines and they're like we don't know what we're doing and we're probably falling back and scaling back and you're just like it's like really this is a great time what's been interesting to me is people are actually buying more now because they're at home on Amazon with nothing better to do, and they've actually been buying more. Like sales of whatever we've sold have gone up because people are buying more. Like they're buying like one of the things that are really popular, I guess,

right now is the robot vacuums because they're home a lot you know and the whole family's at home it's getting dirty more and it's driving everybody whoever used to do the vacuuming in the house they're going insane so I guess robot vacs are like huge now there's like a whole

lot of other things we just got a vacuum we're reviewing from a company I think called Raycop recore um they make these special uv vacuums that you know kills all sorts of the uv kills coronavirus and all this stuff and so they make these special vacuums and wands and stuff that they do that people are buying that stuff right because they don't want coronavirus i've got tons of clients that are actually doing better now than they were before the pandemic, especially in the like health and fitness clients that have tech products and basically any kind of tech product that's going to either entertain you or help you do things at home that you couldn't do before. I mean, there's so many that are doing better. I've got a buddy

of mine. He's not a client, but he's been my friend forever. And he's got a company. He just sells yoga supplies, yoga mats and things like that on Amazon. And he tells me his business, it's like Christmas season for him. And it has been for months and it and it doesn't seem to be going away and he's just he's going after it he's putting more money into marketing and he's not just scaling back and going well i don't know if it's going to last this long and i don't want to take any chance you know he's he's going going all in and um and doing a great job yeah they're they're buying stuff that's just like crazy too like i'm like seriously but but people have extra money right you're not spending money on on vacations not spending money going out to dinner so you know i mean i don't know about you but you

know i i have a like a monthly budget that i put into the checking account every month and that's how much money we have to spend. And my checking account is starting to get bigger and bigger and bigger because we're not spending all of the money that used to be just enough to get by. So it's been really great. So now we have extra money to buy little things and not feel bad about buying a robotic vacuum cleaner if that's what you want. And hopefully this stays good for your my business because you know people want those toys those tech toys at home so they

can make their home life better because they're stuck at home all day long yeah you know i'm still running on like the same tank of gas for i think maybe going on two months or something um and then yeah you're right like i i'm single so i eat out like a lot and so yeah once the coronavirus kicked in it's like the eating out stopped for a long time and and then once things got a little you know stable then you know i gotta go do drive-thrus or delivery but even then i just don't go out as much because i'm trying to make sure that we don't pick that where are you located i'm located up in utah right now right in a book in utah yeah normally vegas but uh everything's in the storage unit vegas it's funny i came up here to utah about four months before um the coronavirus hit and i was i came up to write a book you know

go back into the woods you know get a cabin and all that stuff um write your manifesto um and so i came up and my family's up here. My mom's been falling and stuff, and so I'm like, well, okay, I'll go help her. I've got two sisters in care centers. And so I'll take some time off, put everything in storage. And so it worked out perfectly for me because the coronavirus hit, and I'm like, I've already cut all the overhead to write this stupid book.

You know, everything's in storage units. So I guess I'm in quarantine now and, and now I really have to write the book cause I got nothing better to do. So it's been kind of a good motivator that way. But you know, this, this is a great time for people to figure stuff out like this. And, and, and some people may have to i mean they're they're laid off and and and the best way to sometimes get things going is to is recreate things but yeah it's interesting to me how i i really was worried that sales would dry up of of selling products and

stuff like people quit buying them and and it's actually gone up and you're just like seriously and uh but yeah people you know people i i think if you're bored and depressed sometimes buying things helps yeah i mean look everybody you know gets focused on like the unemployment rate and go oh you know whatever it is what is it 10 15 you know but don't forget that means 85 of people are still working and have more money than they've ever had before because they're not spending it on vacations and gas and all these other things. So the total addressable market that has disposable income may have shrunk a little bit, but the existing market has grown in their spending ability. So of course that's going to translate. And, you know,

the statistics are out there that savings has increased. Well, that's, that's not on purpose. That's just because people don't have any place to spend their money, but wait until, you know, first quarter of next year comes along and people are going to be spending a lot of money. People are going on vacations. People are going to be spending money left and right on things because they're going to have the money sitting in the bank. And they want to get the hell out of the house whenever we get this virus inoculation, whenever that comes around. I know I do.

Yeah, people are going to be like, I'm never coming home for like a month, and I'm just going to go spend money on everything. So there's that. One last quote that we have here. If you don't want a robot to take your job, make sure you always are creating something. Yeah. So, so, you know, people are always trying to create this fear that robots are going to take our

jobs, that automated vehicles are going to put all these people out of work. And I think what people forget is that I think it was like 100 years ago, 40% of the American workforce worked in agriculture. 40%. Today, you know how much it is? 2%. 2%. Wow. Okay. So what happened to that 38% of workforce? Did they all just become unemployed? No, they got new jobs. There's always new jobs. There's always progress. And if you can create something, that's something that robots aren't good at. Robots are not good at starting a new business. They're not good at giving good quality service to people. They're not good at creative ideas. They're not good at writing poetry. They're not good at writing books.

You know, there's all kinds of different things that you can do that a robot is not going to take that job. And people go, oh, yeah, but these people don't know how to do it. Like, you know, it's some people. I remember a guy that was running for president. Now I just forget his name. He was actually a guest on my podcast, but the guy that wanted to give $1,000 a month. Oh, Wang. What's that?

Andrew Wang. Yeah. Wang Gang. Yeah, yeah, Andrew. So, you know, he just made it sound like everybody that drives a truck or an Uber is an idiot, and they can't do any job other than drive a truck or an Uber is an idiot and they can't do any job other than drive a truck or an Uber. And if they lose that job, they're screwed because they're never going to be able to work somewhere else. Well, guess what? I talked to my Uber drivers when I

get an Uber and I know that the vast majority of them are very intelligent people that can do a lot more than just drive an Uber or drive a truck. And I believe that those people can find other jobs because what ends up happening is we're, you know, America's greedy. We're always going. And, and, and, and the thing that's keeping America from growing even faster is people, you know, I mean, before this pandemic, the unemployment rate was the lowest it had ever been, you know, and like giving a little bit more history back in the 1950s, the number of people working in the workforce was like between 50 and 60 million people were working in the workforce. Now this was in the 1950s. Now since the 1950s until today, there's been a lot of progress when it comes to computers, machinery,

robots, and a lot of jobs lost to that, right? Yet, right before the pandemic, I'm not sure what the number is today, but right before the pandemic, we had 168 million people employed. Women who didn't work that much back in the 1950s all came into the workforce. You had all these extra jobs that you had to create. Somehow, we were able to create them out of nowhere for all of these women to come to work. And then more people that were just born, just the market just got bigger because population grew, grew to 168 million people and still had the lowest unemployment rate that we've ever had. And so how does that happen? It happens because companies, the limiting point is really getting good people to come and work. And so if people are not able to work as Uber drivers and truck drivers, companies will find other jobs for them to do. They just will. It'll happen. And if you're creative and you look for creative jobs, and creativity can be anything. It doesn't mean painting necessarily or

being an artist, but it could be creating new processes in a business. It could be, you know, creating new machinery. It could be creating a new robot. It could be helping test robots. It could be all kinds of different things that you can do. So, there's so many different jobs out there. And I would just say, if you're worried about robots taking your job, don't. Robots, if anything, all kinds of different things that you can do. So there's so many different jobs out there. And I would just say, if you're worried about robots taking your job, don't. Robots, if anything, are going to create opportunities for us to get and to do even better jobs. I mean, come on. Driving an Uber is not a great job. And if autonomous cars come into play, these people are going to get an opportunity to do an even better job that pays money.

And that pays better money. And that's what's happened because it's the lower level shitty jobs that have been lost throughout history. And people are, as much as the media will tell you that people are not making more money, there are less people in poverty today than ever before. Yes, there are more millionaires and more billionaires, but there's also less people at the poverty level than ever before. Yes, there are more millionaires and more billionaires, but there's also less people at the poverty level than ever before as well. And the good news is that your chances of becoming a millionaire today are way better than ever before. So, you know, all you got to do is stop whining, get off your ass and get to work. You can become a millionaire. It's not that hard. So you can either bitch about the millionaires and billionaires, or you can just become one.

I'd rather become one. So I used to be poor and it sucked. I didn't like it. I didn't complain about it. I just stopped doing it. I like that. There you go. There's a new quote. Is that a quote in the book or is that a new quote? Well, one of the quotes is in the future, there will be more millionaires and billionaires than ever before and your chances of becoming one are better than ever so you know out of out of the tooth sorry yeah go ahead go ahead out of the 2009-2008 thing is what bore this whole technology revolution right the i mean between the iphones and and social media group came out of the crash. There was a whole different entrepreneurial tech thing that came out of this whole Silicon Valley, you know, went to the next level after 2008, 2009.

The apps that were designed, you know, that whole craziness that we've gone through in the last 10 years. You know, what's funny is I've seen Uber drivers, and if I recall rightly, the story, the brain's fading in the old age. The story, there's an Uber driver, I think he's in San Francisco, and he has a love of designing his own jewelry. I think this is the story. And he would display it when he was driving for Uber. And people would be like, hey, man, what's with all the jewelry on there? And he's like, ah, it's designed jewelry, and he would he would try and just soft sell it you know you wouldn't want to push on clients for uber and and he's like all this money like selling what he loved

his jewelry that he makes and you know he's just custom jewelry and and he sells the crap out of it like the basically the uber is a side hustle right yeah and the uber sounds like his marketing his marketing tool for the jewelry because that's how he gets these customers that he could talk to for 5 10 15 minutes yeah ride yeah they spend time you know they play with the jewelry they get hooked on it um you know i i spoke once these are these are not chris these are not the stupid people who are going to be without a job if Uber doesn't provide them a job anymore. These people are smart. They're creative.

And they know how to make it happen. And they did it before. Remember, Uber hasn't been around that long. So all these people had other jobs before. They'll have other jobs again. Yeah. I spoke one time at a trucking conference and it was astounding you know i i didn't know much about truckers trucking i kind of knew the business but you know i didn't know the business at a trucking yeah i spoke at a trucking conference it was somewhere in st louis i don't know you pay me i show up and speak you know they want to know about social media and i was like the big draw because everyone's like social media and they want to know

how to do it make money at it and it was what was interesting was all these truckers were trying to you know figure out how they could make more money using social media but i went there and it was like so many of them that they'd written their own books they were speakers too um they're they uh had their own youtube channels where you know how to fix the brake on a truck and you know and different things i don't i can't remember if any had podcasts back then posca pass fairly new when i did that show but it was astounding to me i was like wow these these these folks just don't want to drive trucks they want to do a lot of other things they can expand their their vision so and So Andrew Yang's probably better he didn't make it as president. I don't know.

So pretty good advice. And this is good advice for people that are out there, maybe sometimes wondering what they're doing, because I know what that desperation feels like. I know what that restart or reset feels like. I know, you know, I grew up poor, so I know what that's like to create something out of nothing. And're right it's a great time to to get a side hustle on uh you know especially if you've got some money laying around uh where you know you you can you can spend some time i mean your boss isn't looking over your shoulder 24 7 like he would be at the office um even if you don't have money lying around, it doesn't cost you almost anything to read a book. This book I'm reading about Henry Ford,

his autobiography is actually available for free on Google Books. There's so many great books and resources out there that are free that will help you get where you need to go. A lot of the little things that trip people up in starting a business, you know, should I get incorporated? Do I need an office? What kind of equipment do I need? You know, it's all just like little BS that's so easy to get past and get over

if you go out there and just look for the information because it's really not about all that stuff. It's just really about figuring out what you can do for people that there's a market for that you're going to enjoy doing every day. Yeah. All right. My first business, well, my first business, I knew how to do because we used to help my father in the stucco construction business as a kid during the summer. So I knew what to do. When I got fired from McDonald's, I'm like, what are you going to do? He goes, why don't you just go do that stucco business? I taught you when a kid, he moved on to other things. So I just did it and went out and sold it. And I knew how to suck. Uh, that was my first business, but the one that really

hit with me and my business partner, our first one, I think we spent $2,000 on it. That was, and, and a lot of that was just to kind of pay me to do it. And within a year and a half, we started a second company with $4,000 for our mortgage company, turned both those into multimillionaire companies. The career company ran for 13 years, the mortgage company almost 20. Then we started a bunch of other different stuff that we got into. But to start multimillionaire companies from $2,000, I mean, this is a great time to lay that foundation. You've got plenty of time to read books on how to, you know, back then I had to read, like, how do you incorporate a business? And this is a great time.

I mean, it's not a, I don't want to put it that way. It's not the greatest time, but this is a good time to maybe start something to change your life. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. So give us a plug where people can look at the book again, check it out and order it up online. Yeah.

So the book said amazon.com it's called how to be fan fucking tastic. I think a fastest way to find it is going to be to search max Borges author. And then you'll see it. It's only five bucks for a limited time. So get it quick. And you can also check out my company website, maxborgesagency.com. That's our PR agency. If you've got a consumer tech company and you need PR, we're the best in the world.

There you go, and I can vouch for that. You guys are doing the most excellent job. In fact, I think you guys might be the biggest PR agency I work with. By far, actually. Most PR agents I have are still fairly small. I don't think anybody's over five units or

something. They're usually always fairly small. That's one of the things that really stood out in your agency is you guys really maximized it. You guys really went for it. So there you go. I think even in California, the agency we did that introduced us to AT&T and gave us the 10-year relationship we've had with AT&T was like five people, four people. Their largest account was AT&T. There's a lot of small agencies in the world, for sure.

Yeah, and you guys just rock it. Anyway, guys, we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in. Be sure to check out Max Borges in his wonderful book and his agency. Be sure to go to YouTube if you want to watch the whole video of this, youtube.com forward slash Chris Voss. Refer to your friends, neighbors, relatives, dogs, cats, pool boys, mistresses. Get them watching your side hustle there. Get them listening to the Chris Foss Show podcast.

So subscribe to iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora, all those great places. And you can listen to Chris Foss Show or, you know, give us a great referral or recommend on iTunes. Thanks, my audience, for tuning in. Stay safe and we'll see you next time. Thanks, Chris.