The Dylan Gemelli Podcast - Episode #168: He Turned Down Shark Tank and Built a $300M Business... But Was It Worth It? Featuring Nick Friedman

Episode Date: September 30, 2026

He built a $300 MILLION business by outworking almost everyone around him. But eventually, the grind started showing up physically... from stress-induced hair loss to sleepless nights and burnout.   He is Nick Friedman, co-founder of College Hunks Hauling Junk & Moving, a company with more than 200 franchise locations and roughly $300 million in annual sales. He appeared on the premiere episode of Shark Tank, is the co-author of Effortless Entrepreneur, and has spent more than two decades building, scaling and leading one of the most recognizable brands in the moving and junk-removal industry. In this episode, we talk about: ■ How College Hunks started with a beat-up cargo van and grew into a $300 million business ■ What happened when Nick appeared on the first-ever episode of Shark Tank ■ Why entrepreneurship can become an emotional rollercoaster ■ How chronic stress caused Nick to lose a patch of his hair ■ How burnout affects your decisions, relationships and leadership ■ The six areas Nick uses to evaluate his life ■ How fitness, faith and recovery affect business performance ■ Why entrepreneurs often sabotage themselves by chasing too many ideas ■ How setting impossible goals can force better decisions ■ Why complacency can become dangerous after you become successful ■ Why the people and information around you shape who you become ■ Nick’s plan to turn College Hunks into a billion-dollar brand Chapters: (00:00) Intro (00:47) Timeline (03:53) How College Hunks Started (05:00) From a Beat-Up Van to a $300M Business (07:33) How to Stand Out in a Crowded Industry (11:13) The Stress Behind Running a Massive Business (21:01) How Shark Tank Changed Entrepreneurship (23:38) How Much Did Shark Tank Actually Help the Business? (27:09) The Hidden Health Cost of Entrepreneurship (29:01) Waking Up at 2AM From Stress (30:36) All Gas, No Brakes (34:13) Burnout Leads to Bad Decisions (36:11) From Ego and Money to Purpose (38:43) The 6 F’s of a Balanced Life (40:37) Stretched, Not Stressed (41:21) Building a Brand People Remember (44:19) The Plan to Build a Billion-Dollar Brand (45:09) The Science of Scaling (46:48) Why Too Many Ideas Can Hold You Back (49:01) The Danger of Complacency (50:48) Your Environment Shapes Who You Become (53:00) Why Successful People Still Want More (54:29) The Effortless Entrepreneur (55:35) Final Thoughts Follow Nick and his work:   College Hunks Hauling Junk & Moving https://www.collegehunkshaulingjunk.com/   Nick Friedman: https://www.nickfriedman.com/   Instagram https://www.instagram.com/nickfriedman1/?hl=en   HUNKS TALKING JUNK Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hunks-talking-junk/id1865713027   —-------------------------------------------------------------------------- TODAY'S EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY Timeline Get your FREE Mitopure Gummies Sample Here: timeline.com/gemelli —-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Get KYZATREX: FDA-approved oral testosterone capsule: http://www.getkyzatrex.com/dylangemelli —-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Get the Apollo Neuro for $99 OFF!! Use Code GEMELLI! https://apolloneuro.com/gemelli —-------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRULY Increase Your NAD LEVELS with WONDERFEEL NMN: https://getwonderfeel.com/?utm_source=DylanGemelli&utm_medium=podcast —-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Where to find Dylan? ◼ Follow Dylan on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/dylangemelli/ ◼ Visit Dylan’s website - https://dylangemelli.com/ ◼ The Dylan Gemelli Podcast Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@thedylangemellipodcast ◼ Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/3In4QlJj4IvHqq0eduKj7m ◼Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/hr/podcast/the-dylan-gemelli-podcast/id1780873400

I call it a 20-year overnight success. We now have roughly 200 franchisees around the country, you know, 300 million annual sales. I lost a patch of my hair in the first year of the business. I think I went away for like my first vacation, but I was so stressed out coming back, trying to pick up the pieces that I missed. I can hustle hard and grind and push forward,

but there's a certain limit that your body will allow you. And then when I was younger, it was even worse because I was trying to burn the candle at both ends of the spectrum. First episode of Shark Tank. I understand you probably felt pressure, but the show was brand new, so maybe not as much pressure as after you've seen it. you're going into that thing blind.

We didn't know these sharks were going to become TV celebrities. We just thought Mr. Wonderful was a jerk. He was kind of poisoning the room by just beating us up and calling us pigs. I want them to bring me on as a guest shark and put me next to Mr. Wonderful because one of the things he said to us is... Here's an interesting question. How much do you actually know about the way your everyday habits are supporting how you age? We hear so much about longevity right now.

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All right, everybody. Welcome back to the Dylan Jameli podcast. So I have a different kind of discussion today that I am really, really excited to because I come from a business background, actually an entrepreneurial side. And I really want to tie in what it's like to run a massive business and company

and how it affects your health and your mental stability. And then just the thoughts, the everyday work that goes into managing family, business and something of this size. And so the conversation today is going to be amazing. And on another level, my guest was on the very first episode of one of my all-time favorite show, Shark Tank.

And he is the co-founder of College Hunks hauling junk and moving. And I'm telling you, man, what he has done with this company is on an entirely different level. And I have the most profound respect for what you have done, the grind, the effort. for where it started, your story. So we're going to have a blast today, my friend. Thank you for coming to see me. And I can't wait to get into everything about you.

So without further ado, Nick Friedman. Appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me here. Awesome, man. Thanks for getting down here and making this happen with me. I know, you know, I am always supremely humbled by people taking the time and value when talking to me and coming to see me. And I was just telling my wife today, I said, you know, some people will say,

I have to today and I say I get to you know I get to interview you today I get to have these awesome conversations and I get to show you to the world yeah so that's a great framework to to think from we got to remind ourselves that all the time yeah especially as a business owner because there's many times where you're like oh I got to do this I got to do that it's like we chose to do this we get to do this yes yes so all right college hunks let's talk about that let's talk about the premise how that even came to fruition and that is is an extremely smart way to go about things. And it's really intriguing.

So where did that come from? Yeah, I mean, it's a really simple story. We were in college, hence the name. We were getting ready for our senior year of college. Me and I, when I say we and my buddy and I from high school, we were best buddies. And we were home for summer vacation. And his mom had a beat up cargo van from her furniture store. And so she said to us, hey, why don't you guys use the van?

You can move people's furniture. You can haul people's junk away. And then she looked at us and she goes, you guys could be college hunks who haul junk. and we just kind of laughed about it at first. And we were like, well, that's kind of catchy. That's not what you typically associate with movers or haulers. So we just made these computer printout flyers, stuck them in mailboxes. People had a need for the service.

They thought the name was catching. That was the first lightball moment for me. It's like, wow, you know, this could be an opportunity here. We went back to school our senior year. We graduated. We got, quote, unquote, regular jobs in the real world for a very brief period of time and said, you know what, this is unfulfilling. Why don't we go try and make that business a year-round venture?

And, of course, you know, most college kids would do that in the summer and then go do something in the real world. and never think about it again. And we decided to make it a year-round venture. I call it a 20-year overnight success. We now have roughly 200 franchisees around the country, you know, 300 million annual sales. So it's been quite a journey starting from that humble beginnings

with the beat-up cargo van. But yeah, it was, you know, a lot of skeptics when we got into it, especially after college. They were like, oh, that was cute what you were doing in school in the summer. But to make it a full-time business, is that really what you're going to do with your career? And we wanted to prove those folks wrong. So we just kind of kept getting after it.

So people follow me because I keep it real. I don't worry about being politically correct. I just say whatever. And let's face it, you don't associate a college hunk or anybody of that stature with a mover. Yeah. I mean, historically, right, and I think moving is elevated as an industry as a whole. I think we've been a part of that elevation. But, you know, people kind of pictured, you know, maybe some less than sophisticated individuals that are pretty grimy or boot stomping or tobacco spitting.

whatever the case that are come, you know, mess up your furniture and track mud all throughout your house. And so we were trying to put, you know, a cleaner, collegiate, friendlier image to sort of unglamarized business. And, you know, of course, it was easy for us to put a funny name on it in bright orange and green colors, but where the challenge came is how we were going to actually be intentional about delivering a, on that service expectation. Yeah. You know, we had to deal with questions of, hey, are they all going to really be in college? Are they all going to really be hunks? So we said, hey, we'll keep the name college. That's part of our heritage. They don't have to be exclusively college students working for us.

And Hunks, we made it into an acronym. We said it stands for honest, uniform, nice, knowledgeable service. So that's become our brand promise, a way to redefine the term Hunks so that we can say, hey, yes, we hire all Hunks that's going to deliver that's going to deliver, we're teaching you that's what you're going to deliver. That's what our clients are expecting. And so it's more than just the physical attributes. But what we found, what I did find is because we had kind of, let's call it a silly or provocative

or gimmicky name, it was a conversation starter. Like people were like, oh, you know, even a fact. they were asking questions and I started getting annoyed with those questions very quickly. I was like, wait, they're asking questions. They're curious about why we called it that or what we actually do. And sometimes they would have sort of false assumptions. You guys only move college students. And I'd be like, no, we move homeowners, we move businesses, we haul junk away, you know,

we clean out people's houses. You know, we started in college. And then I got to tell the story. And so, you know, people connect to the story, as you know. And I think that allowed us to create a, you know, a one-to-one conversation. But we ultimately were able to do it through mainstream media, through branding. and that's, I think, been a key to some of our growth trajectory. What I really like is the acronym and you, you know, having a way of conveying what it really means.

And that was an evolution. Like, we read this book called The Purple Cow by Seth Godin. And the concept is really simple. If you're driving down a country road, you see the field of brown cows, you've seen it before. You're going to keep driving. But if there's a purple cow on the field, you're going to pull over. You're going to take notice. And nowadays, you'll put it on social media.

You'll tell your friends and neighbors about it. And really the premise there is how to stand out in a crowded space. And for us, we didn't invent the next Google or Facebook. we were taking a traditional business, trucks and labor, putting a, you know, creative rapper in the name, you know, bright and shiny image and color contrast. And then we realized, well, the name and the colors is kind of the sizzle, but you're going to eat the cow. You need the steak, too. For, you know, if it tastes bad, you're not going to be telling people about it. So when we realized that our service wasn't really keeping up with the sizzle of the name and the colors that got people to pay attention, that's when we kind of had to dig in and say, okay, how do we train these frontline employees that, you know, maybe haven't had.

had customer service experience before, having gone into the types of homes that we're sending them into to move people's prize possessions, how do we treat them to have compassion and empathy for whatever state that the client is in and whatever life event that they're dealing with to deliver a positive experience. So it is sort of that purple cow differentiator. And so, you know, easier said than done. It's like I said, none of it was a quick switch of the, you know, of a, you know, light switch. It was like evolutionary and continuous intention and, you know, those micro efforts turned into macro results over an extended period of time. I love that.

And so there's negative connotations with anything that you look at, right? I mean, that's just life, fundamental. And people are wired that way. So for you to, one, pick an industry that's already got that, two, take another term that carries something on it. And then to become successful with it, to overcome different polarizing areas that people are going to attack. and then to come up with the acronym, like I said that you did, I think that is so phenomenal because I didn't know beforehand that's what that meant. So do you, in your marketing strategies, do you convey the actual true meaning more now?

We do. I think we can do a better job of it, quite frankly. We actually just produced these TV commercials. And again, here we are 20 years later from having, when we started the business. And the commercial starts out with the operator saying, college hunks, honest uniform, nice, knowledgeable service. And so it kind of like, it has the hunks acronym up on the, screen and then, you know, she's almost like a flow insurance, progressive insurance type character.

And then she's, you know, you know, cute flips to the guys moving the furniture in the house or hauling the junk away. And so, yes, I think as a consumer brand, which is really what we are, we've got to be constantly telling the story, promoting the business, sharing examples of what we do. And then, of course, we've also looked inward and said, how do we build a great culture, you know, purpose-driven, values-based, socially conscious that the team members want to be a part of. and the franchise owners want to be involved with. And so, yeah, a lot of that, you know, was kind of reading through reading in books or going to, you know, mentorship events or masterminds or, you know, creating peer groups

because we didn't have podcasts like this or, you know, other types of resources in those early days or even, you know, AI, you know, chatbots to be able to kind of give us some of the answers. But a lot of it we sort of had to be resourceful and, you know, kind of figure out what was working, what was not working, overcome sort of the, like you said, some of the stigma that people might have about the name or the, you know, or the fact that it's, you know, an industry that's, you know, maybe unglamorous. But for us, it was all about kind of how do we keep elevating that. And it was kind of fun. We made a game out of it. And that's why I think we're still sort of excited and energetic even 20 years later. Yeah. I mean, there has to be reinvention or

something of sizzle like you said throughout time. Otherwise, it does become stale. Let me stay here, but switch gear slightly. I want to talk about stress. But I want to talk about stress, but I want to talk about it in multitudes of ways. Moving especially is one of the most stressful events that anybody goes through in life. Yep. especially if you have a lot of stuff and especially if you're moving long distance. It's very difficult to pack things, move things, things get lost, things get broke. You don't know how to do this. You want to make sure everybody goes in one direction. And it's really everybody going in a thousand directions. Then you get a moving company over who, reality, let's face it, most of the time breaks shit or doesn't handle things with care. And so on your end, how stressful is it to manage all of this?

Because I know that you're going to get people yelling and complaining at you. You're going to get workers saying, oh, they're saying this and we did this. And how do you deal with that amount of stress and how hard was it in the beginning in comparison to as you've gotten older? And then obviously the business has grown. So I know there's going to be more problems. Exactly. You know, so first of all, you're absolutely right. I think moving has been shown as number three next to death and divorce as the most stressful time in somebody's life. And usually if there's a death or divorce, there's also a move involved. So it's a very stressful time. And you think about, you know, if somebody's home, it's their most sacred space and you're letting a complete set of strangers come into your home, handle all your personal belongings, pack them up, load them in a truck, hopefully not break anything, you know, hopefully not smell terrible and, you know, take the items and hopefully not steal anything, God forbid. And then take those items, to a completely new location. So they're disoriented, they're disrupted.

And so the emotional state is high. And then, you know, we can't be perfect. Stuff does get broken. We do show up late. I mean, for all the best intentions and training and systems we can put in place, things can go sideways. And so I have taken it less personally more recently, but it's hard for me to, you know,

sort of disconnect the emotional connection because I'm so passionate about and know how hard we're working in the best. background trying to create a positive experience for our team members, our clients, our franchise owners. And when it's obvious that we dropped the ball in some case, in some form or fashion, of course, I take it personally and feel like, well, what did we, you know, how did we, how could we have done this differently? And as you said, you know, we've got a 4.9 star Google rating. We've got, you know, a 90% net promoter score, but we're doing thousands of moves a month. So that means that there's still that point one, you know, percent or, you know, that's, that's, something's going wrong,

whether we did it on purpose or whether it was an accident. And so then the other piece of it is how do we recover from that negative experience. So it is stressful. We try to train compassion and empathy in our frontline employees because we try to remind them. Every move has a story. Every move matters. We actually created a video. We have it on YouTube called Every Move Matters where, you know, it's talking about, you know,

somebody just got diagnosed with a life-changing illness or, you know, downsizing to an assisted living facility. you know, empty nesters, they're graduating and all those sort of life events are emotional moments. So when we're pulling up to the house to get ready to go in there, you have an opportunity to make a positive impact in that person's day. It's not just moving their stuff for another job to put on the calendar and to, you know, punch the clock on. And so I think being intentional about training, being intentional about the emotional state that our clients are in, and then, you know, as a founder, you're always going to be, and I find myself, I'm always very passionate about what we're doing and believe in what we're doing. So if I do read a negative

review. Sometimes we'll either get defensive or take it personally because, you know, I'm like, man, that's not us or man, we should have done better. Oh, that client doesn't understand. We really tried. And so it's tough to disconnect it. I think for me, what was honestly the most liberating, I guess you could say, is being able to create layers of leadership within the organization to handle most of the noise. And so I hear things that bubble up to me from time to time or if somebody finds my social media or finds my, you know, email and wants to tell me directly how badly we messed something up and then I'll apologize and looping the team to try to make it right. But most of the noise gets absorbed and stamped out by the team in terms of service recovery

or systems before it bubbles out to me. Because if I were sitting there reading every negative review that came through, I'd probably, you know, try myself a little bit bad. Yeah, don't do that. Don't do that, please, for your own sake. Well, I say don't do that. I look at things so I can see. Well, you've got to see trends. Yes, that's it.

You want to see what are the biggest problems people are having right now? Now, just things that people say about you or whatever, it's like you have to, as a social media person, you're brought in a business. So you have to be a little bit different. And that works differently. But you will drive yourself crazy. Yeah, I was going to say, in your case, if you're seeing, you know, what people talk about or hate on, like, and just buy into that.

But, you know, for me, like we had, unfortunately a job that went kind of sideways a couple months ago. And it was a personal friend who we had done it for. And so when I looked at the email afterwards, I was like, man, there were so many opportunities in that. experience where we could have injected management, recovery, fixes. And so we're actually looking at AI solutions now to kind of almost be a concierge throughout the move process, check in with the client, hey, how's everything going? Is there anything we can help you with? And so if something

isn't going to their expectations during the move, we can fix it right then and there instead of waiting until the move's complete. They're upset with how it went. The charge was more than they expected. And so I think there's a lot of systems, and especially with AI solutions nowadays, they can be put in place to, you know, alleviate the friction that occurs. That's a good idea. Because moving's expensive, bro, like it is. It is expensive. And, you know, what's interesting, you know, all the trades are expensive, whether it's plumbing, h-back, you know, roofing. But moving, I always kind of took it personally because I always feel like moving is a skilled labor. If you're getting a professional moving company,

you're not just a random crew off of Craigslist or not just your buddies with pizza and beer. Like there's a certain level of expectation that they're going to be able to do it professionally. And to me, clients should understand that that does in some cases come with a premium price to be able to have that trust and care to depend on. And a lot of times we get, you know, price shopped or, you know, squeeze or, you know, people try to negotiate. And it's, you know, it's hard because you don't want to undercut your value that you're delivering, but you also want to get the business and earn the business. And so I did see that I think it was like 20% of consumers will think you're expensive, no matter of. what you charge, even if you're free. And so the key is to not worry about that 20% that's upset about price, but make sure that

you're delivering the value for the other 80% that are willing to give you a shot. Well, I ran it just the U-Haul van. It was so, I thought, whoa, I thought I was going to save a bunch of money doing this, and it was not that great. And they had the time and the headache and the energy of moving it yourself. And yeah, I mean, and then you think about all the other inherent costs associated when you are moving, whether it's a, you know, security deposit on an apartment. or all the other ancillary closing costs on a home.

And so, yeah, the cost of the move. Actually, we're looking into some move finance solutions as well because, you know, people might not want to have to stroke that $1,000 or $2,000 or $3,000 check right out of their bank account or put it on their credit card with a high interest rate. So those are some things we're trying to do to also kind of meet our clients where they are. I like that. It's hard, too, because there's a lot of places I don't want to name names, but you can Google them and look and find out.

And you'll see it's like they're nightmares. but they're the biggest names. Sure. And they're the most well known. And it's like you're looking at it, hoping to get something professional. And you can see it's kind of getting subletted out. And it's not what you think.

You're actually getting. And I know with you, you're actually getting the brand and the company and what you stand for. So I love that. And I love that you're more heavily involved than I feel like a lot of people in your position would be. Sure. Let me ask you this.

First episode of Shark Tank. I think it, I understand you probably felt pressure, but the show was brand new. So maybe not as much pressure as after you've seen it. Plus, you're going into that thing blind. You have no idea about their kind of habits on what they look for, what they don't. First episode. Yes, it was actually the pilot episode that ended up being the premiere episode.

We responded to an ad in Entrepreneur magazine. They said they were looking for entrepreneurs to pitch a business for a TV show. And actually at the time, we were going to pitch because we weren't really looking for investment in college chunks. We were like, hey, what might they put us on TV for? and we said, hey, what's that, what if we had a sister company call it college foxes packing boxes? And so that was the shark's reaction too. And so they were like, well, that business doesn't exist. Forget about that.

And it probably won't even work. So, you know, we want to invest in college hunks. And, but we didn't know these sharks were going to become TV celebrities. Yeah. You know, we just thought Mr. Wonderful was a jerk. He was kind of poisoning the room by just, you know, beating us up and calling us, you know, pigs. And I didn't intend for it to come out this way. But when he declared himself out, I was trying to clarify the rules.

I was like, that means you get to stop. talking, right? And it was like a kind of a mic drop. Like you could hear the producers being like, oh, he said that. And we ended up getting an offer from Robert Hergebeck, which was probably a fair offer. I think it was like 10% for 250 grand, which would have valued us at roughly 2.5 million. This is back in 0809. We've only had maybe three or four franchises. It's probably a reasonable market offer, but we're worth more than 100 times that today. And so, you know, his investment would have been 100x. And who knows if he would have helped us accelerate our growth or maybe we would have thought he was going to be our savior and we wouldn't have worked as hard.

I don't really know. It's just hard to Monday morning quarterback. But yeah, I have this, like, aspiration. I need to follow up with them again. I want them to bring me on as a guest shark and put me next to Mr. Wonderful. Because one of the words he said to us is, you're never going to get to this side of the table. So I would love for them to, like, show that clip and then kind of pan around and show us next to him on that side of the table. Well deserved, too.

We'll see. They're pretty good about eating their words, though. Yeah, yeah. They're pretty good about that. What I love about that show, what it did do is I think it brought the, the spotlight into the kitchen table and families in particular about entrepreneurship. Like when I was growing up, the concept of entrepreneurship was seen as sort of taboo or risky, you know, four out of five businesses fail, you know, and there was no real sort of like

resources to how to start a business. And so I think that kind of made entrepreneurship conversion, maybe not a little bit over glamorized because you don't want it to look easy. It's still not easy. It's very difficult and stressful as we'll talk about, I'm sure. But it's, it I think makes the concept of taking. the journey into your own hands, more tangible and more real. And being able to see kind of real stories of these different businesses

and how they're trying to get off the ground and look for capital, I think was really good for really kind of the American economy in general. It teaches a certain kind of discipline to be an entrepreneur. It's kind of like online school. It takes a really strong discipline to be there, to do it. And entrepreneurship is like, well, you know, I don't feel like it today. That's right. you know, no, no, no.

Like, when I started to learn it, it's a seven day a week thing. If you really want to do it. Now, that doesn't mean don't take time to rest and whatever, but it is a, you're ready and prepared for anything seven days a week. Yeah, especially at the beginning. I mean, it's a pure grind phase in the early days. And, you know, it's not for everybody. Not everybody's cut out for that type of grind.

Not everybody, you know, is able to sort of execute and navigate the ups and downs of the actual business itself, let alone the emotional roller coaster. of, you know, the ups and downs every day. It's either a breakthrough or break down. And so you've got to be able to kind of like continue to navigate through that, you know, with resilience and persistence. How old were you when you were on Shark Tank? It would have been 26, 26 years old, yeah.

So did you feel like it was, I don't know, daunting? It was intimidating. I mean, we were, you know, we were in like Seinfeld Studios in Los Angeles and in Hollywood. And, you know, we walk out there and there's camera swirling all around you. and it felt like we were out in front of the sharks for what seemed like an hour, and then they chop it down to like a five-minute segment for television. Yeah. And so, you know, I remember afterwards I kind of had to, like, put my hands on my knees.

It felt like I just fought like a heavyweight boxing match because, like, I'm trying to think about, okay, what I'm saying might end up on television. So I'm, like, trying to think about what I say before I say it, but then I'm also trying to react, and then I'm also trying to remember my lines from my pitch that I practiced a bunch of times. So it was definitely a unique experience for us, and, you know, glad we got to do it. And the fact that we're still talking about it this many years later, I think it's kind of become part of our legacy, really. How much of your success would you attribute to being on that show?

Maybe not a ton of our success, but I think what it did do is it opened our mind to mainstream media and the way that we could leverage that. Because after doing that, we probably did another half dozen reality TV shows from, you know, house hunters to undercover boss. And we were still single. We did a dating show called Millionaire Matchmaker on Bravo. where my business partner picked up his date in one of our college hunks trucks and took her to clean out a garage.

So it was like a catastrophe of a date. That would have been a meme had those existed back then. But it was great for branding because they re-ran it on Bravo a bunch of times. And back then, you know, people weren't doom scrolling. They were sitting there watching, you know, binge watching, you know, Bravo TV. And so that, again, kind of elevated our brand into the spotlight. And so I think it showed us, A, the opportunity to leverage mainstream media to promote the brand and be willing to promote our business regularly because I think that's an important. and part of entrepreneurship.

And then, you know, it has rerun on CNBC and things like that. And obviously it's part of kind of my bio in terms of, you know, things I've done that sort of helped mold me who I am as a business leader. So, you know, I definitely think it's every part of the journey helps kind of shape what we're becoming and what we're, you know, learning along the way. And you can't always connect the dots until you look backwards and see how, you know, you ended up where you are. when you got that offer for the 10%,

did you have like a flat line and how high you were going to go and that was it? So what happened was they asked us for us to throw out a number. And we kind of conferred briefly and we were like, okay, a million dollars for 10%. They would have valued us at $10 million. And they all laughed us almost out of the room. A million dollars seemed like a nice big round number,

seemed like more money than I could ever imagine sitting in the bank account. Wouldn't know what to really do with it at that time. but Robert countered with his offer, which was probably a quarter of that. And it was, we didn't really have an alternative counter. You know, we hadn't seen the show, so we didn't know that we could counter or where we were going to go. We just said, hey, we appreciate the offer and we're going to pass.

And I think a lot of times now people that go on and do that, they get accused of just doing it for the publicity. Again, this was episode one, so we didn't know any different. Right. So you didn't go in there with any sort of like, we're only going to go 5% or you didn't have that kind of. No, we really didn't know they were going to kind of turn the tables on us and try to invest in college hunts.

So we were going to like happily sort of say, hey, if you want this fox's idea, great. If not, we'll, you know, just keep it moving. And then we're sort of just tossed that one to the side. It was good television. Who was, do you remember the, which sharks were on there? So it was, uh, Barbara Corcoran, yeah, Damon, John, Robert Hergevick, Kevin O'Leary, Mr. Wonderful.

And Kevin Harrington, who was only on for like two seasons. He was an infomercial guy. And then Mark Cuban came on. And that's what really catapulted to the show, because Mark Cuban came on and started buying million dollar investment, two million dollar investment. And he was already a known celebrity as an NBA owner that, you know, had gotten a lot of publicity before that. Yeah. And then he kind of forced the hands of other people that wanted to get competitive. Exactly.

Yeah, it changed everything. I saw that they're having, I think, Mr. Beast on as a guest shark coming up. I thought I just popped up on my Instagram today. So I thought that's pretty cool. They bring in some different, you know, guest sharks, which is great because it keeps the audience, you know, fresh and, and, and, you know, tapped in and tuned in. I've had a real lack of ability to be able to watch any TV the last few years. It's like I get an hour while I'm on cardio of sports and that's about it.

You know, so okay, well, then I want to switch gears here then to we've established now how crazy the business is and how much it takes out of you and the evolving of it. But let's talk about the physical side, the health side, the mental side, everything that goes into that because there's a lot of people that watch this that I'm sure are not to your level maybe of business, but are doing their own thing and wondering like, how do we stay healthy? How do we take care of ourselves? What do people that are doing so much so often? What do they do?

Yeah. Well, you know, it's interesting. So, like, I've always considered myself health conscious. I played sports growing up. I always kind of ate relatively mindfully, cared about my sleep. I credit the fact that I hit six feet because I slept more than anybody in the middle. school. And my mom, I think, just told me trying to get me to go to sleep on time. She said, you know, you're growing your sleep. If you want to be six feet, you got to go to sleep.

But I think I manifested it because my dad's 5, 7, my mom's 5, 4. Nobody else in my family has reached six feet. So I do think there's truth to sleep in your, you know, adolescence that actually grows. So those that are listening, I would encourage that. But what I didn't pay attention to was sort of the underlying unseen health of stress, for lack of a better word. I kind of dismissed stress is just something that came with the territory. It just sort of came with it. And I kind of consider myself somebody that you just can kind of grind through it. I was telling you before we got started here, I lost a patch of my hair in the first year of the business. I think I went away for like my first vacation, but I was so stressed out coming back trying to pick up the pieces

that I missed that I actually like had the best the doctor could tell me is it was like stress induced alopecia. It was like a patch of my hair fell out. And then even recently within in the past five years, I had like unexpected body rash. They call it like in plainness because that's kind of just a generic term for, for, you know, body rash. There was, again, I think, stress induced. And I still, I'll wake up at two, three in the morning. I don't have trouble falling asleep, but I'll wake up at two, three in the morning and the hamster wheel starts rolling. And I can't fall back asleep for another two or three hours. And so, you know, I wish I could tell you I've found the antidote for that. I know that I should be meditating more, that least

That's what I've, like, heard and read. I'm actually curious to hear your thoughts on that. You know, I've heard that 30 days of consistent, you know, meditation can really change your physiology and how you, you know, handle and react to stressful situations. But I think that while I'm not doing it with consistency, I think I've gotten a little bit more in tune with, like, the signals of stress. And so, you know, being more mindful when I'm eating, trying to, you know, detach from the phone a few hours before bed. bed, you know, not watching the news before bed, you know, it's kind of a guilty pleasure that I used to have to kind of like just numb out. But, you know, that just that stirs you up. And so, um, so yes, I think that that was probably my biggest and continues to quite frankly be my biggest struggle. Uh, but had I not had some of those physical signals, uh, that were like blinking warning lights, like, hey, dude, you're, you're going, you're pushing the gas pedal a little bit too hard, like ease off. You know, I probably, like a lot of you, I probably would have just kind of kept pressing it down and ignore it. And then, you know, who knows. was at least a heart attack or worse.

And so I think I always knew that stress could be a, you know, a concern. But now I'm getting a little bit more effect capable of, you know, like I said, acknowledging triggers and seeing the warning signs before they, you know, met, you know, compounded to something, something worse. I used to always think it was so badass for me to go tell everybody. I'm all gas and no brakes. And, you know, our age, especially, we have that sports mentality. if you played sports of just got to push through it. Push through it. Yeah.

And that, you know, I come back to sports. So, like, growing up, I wasn't the most skilled athlete, but I love sports. And I saw that what got me on the court in basketball, which was my favorite sport, was diving for the loose balls, was taking the charge, was hustling harder than everybody else during the line drills, you know, the sprints. And so I've brought that energy to my business because I don't consider myself the smartest person necessarily in the room or the most, you know, strategic or tactful. But I can, you know, hustle hard and grind and push forward.

forward, but there's a certain limit that your body will allow you. And then when I was younger, it was, it was even worse, because I was trying to burn the candle at both ends of the spectrum. Like, I would, you know, we would go out at night and then wake up in the morning and work. And so it's like, there's only so much that you can do that before the burnout starts to take place. And then you're not in a good headspace. And then you're not making sound decisions. You're not, you know, a good human with your family or your, you know, significant other. You're irritable. It's like, it just, it just creates a negative. downward slope.

There's a reason why God had to rest on the seventh day. 100%. If God can literally do anything, and I mean anything, which we know is true, he even had to rest the seventh day and did that for a purpose to teach us. A thousand percent. Right. So if he had to do it, and he's telling us to do it, how much sense does it make for us to try to outdo him?

Because I had to look at it from that perspective to fully understand. Because I've learned the science and the teaching of how important rest is and just, well, I'm different. Yeah. But then when you break down and you go God first and then you realize that every single answer is written in the Bible somehow, some way, it's not, you have to be able to antiquate and read through things, right? So it's not just going to say in plain English like some people would hope.

You have to be able to gain wisdom and understand what's being purported to you and how it's written. And then you start to break it down and you're like, man, what am I doing here? Am I trying to like act like I can outwork God and then coming to your point? you know how I've finally been able to get through the day and manage because so long it's been this nonstop grind to where I do what you just said. I start to get foggy. I turn into a real dick at home. Don't even like myself.

I can't figure out why I don't have the compassion I want to have. When you spend your mourning on you, and I'm not saying selfishly you, I'm saying improving you. And how do you do that? You take the time to pray and then you take the time to be silent and spend that time. clearing your mind, like really clearing your mind. Getting closer with God will then get you in tune with the reality of life. And then it will impact you in a way that you find more love, more compassion. And then you're able to do more.

But if you don't rest and you don't reset, you're in this never-ending fight-or-flight mode. That's it. And you're stuck in a stress. That's it. That fight-or-flight mode is what, you know, is just, like I said, sort of the silent killer, really. Yes. Stress kills is not just a thing that you say.

say, that's an actual fact. And so I'm, I hope for you that you're able to take time to appreciate everything that you've built and share it with God, your family, others. And then that will bring people closer together around you. And then that will make you happier, which internal allow you to be better with your workers, your job, more productive. Less is more sometimes. Yeah.

You know? A thousand percent. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. I mean, and if I look back and kind of play. the tape of, you know, the journey, the times where I made the worst decisions, whether it was personal decisions or business decisions or, you know, self-sabotaging, you know, decisions. It was because I was, I was, I was pushing the, the revving the engine too hard and not taking

the time to unplug, certainly with consistency, like you just described and outlined, I think is, you know, wherever people are in their journey, whether they're leaders of a company, whether they're managers in a business or work for somebody, I think to your point, taking that time for themselves to get their mind, body, soul kind of in a stasis before they go into, you know, battle. Because that's really what every day, you know, as a leader really is, is, you know, you don't know what you're going to get hit with or surprise with. And you can handle those a lot easier when you're in a, you know, state of peace, really. Here's what I'd like you to do.

And I don't, I'm not going to pretend to be in your head or know everything that you're doing. you were given so many graces and blessings, which you rightfully deserved, you busted your ass for. But remember the responsibility that you have to others is not just to move their stuff and get them into place. You're alleviating stress and giving them actual joy because of how you're doing it and that you're different.

And then you should also be enjoying that yourself, knowing in your heart that you're doing a real service because every single person has a purpose and everybody's is different. Yeah. Everybody's good at something. It's about finding it and doing it, but then having the gratitude and appreciation for, man, I'm good at this. How can I do this to improve other people around me, which in turn is going to make me have more gratitude, more appreciation? And then it resonates in the room, and everybody does well.

Yeah. You know, and I agree. I would love you to do for yourself because you deserve it. Yeah, and I agree. And I think I've been shifting in that direction, really, I think some of its maturity, no doubt, some of it's learning from folks like yourself. Like when I was younger, I was probably, and I'll admit, I was much more ego-driven, right? It was like, how do I get the money so I can get the cool stuff so I can impress my peers? And then, you know, that was like a very empty and sort of shallow and scarcity, like approach

where I was always sort of grasping for what could try to fill this never-ending void. To your point, approaching it from a state of purpose. We actually define our company purpose is move the world, which is not just moving people stuff physically, it's moving people emotionally for all the reasons that you just described. And we've got some phenomenal stories that we constantly share throughout our organization to try to keep that as the North Star. And yeah. And so I think that like now when I think about what energizes me, it's potential maximization, you know, as a leader, as a father, as a husband, as a business platform to be able to do the most good and serve the most people through what we can actually offer them, but also employment, franchise opportunities, and everything else that our business creates. as opposed to like, hey, how do I put more points up on the board, which again, can be a very empty pursuit.

And so I think making that shift for me has been much more rewarding and fulfilling. And it's definitely, as you say, putting myself in a more state of gratitude of how far we've come now. Let's see how much we can elevate the platform for the powers of what we're capable of impacting. Do you take time then because I know what it's like to be on the go all the time? Do you take time to work out for yourself and train? Yeah, I'll admit it's been ad hoc at best. So people ask me, do you work out? I'm like, because I'm like, oh, you're pretty good physique.

And like I've always just been fortunate. I've had a pretty good metabolism. And like I said, I eat pretty generally clean. But I was only working out maybe like once a week if I was lucky. My wife would joke. She was like, I don't think that's like any different than working out not at all. She's like, you like, you don't work out if you're only working out once a week. I was like, okay.

So I finally, just recently actually, it had a mid-year resolution where I was like, okay, I'm going to get on a program where I'm going to work out. I'm going to lift three days a week. I'm going to do a zone two, and I'm going to do a VO2 max, you know, once a week. I'm going to play tennis once a week. And so I'm doing something recreationally athletically. I'm, you know, I'm doing some weights to help my testosterone and my muscle structure. And so I'm a few weeks into that. And it feels great.

I'm sleeping better. Yeah. And, you know, drinking less coffee, drinking less alcohol. And so like all of those things, I think, and I'm doing it in the morning. So I, you know, feel better throughout the day. And I think it's just building habits. As you know, you know, for me, finding balance as an entrepreneur is one of the most difficult things. And I boil down to what I call six Fs, family, faith, friends, fitness, finance, and fun.

And, you know, I kind of do usually a kind of a self-audit of where I am in each of those buckets, how much I'm pouring into each one. If any of them are somewhat neglected, that need to, you know, get more attention, more energy. probably I've neglected my fitness and my faith more than anything because those are somewhat easy to sort of cast aside. But arguably, and I know that those are probably two of your most important that you put at the forefront, those help put you in a position to be most effective with the others. You know, be a better friend, be a better, you know, family man, you know, have fun or find ways where fun actually intersects with all the other Fs. And it's not one, you know, fun is not just going out and, you know, having a bender with the boys in Vegas, which is, you know, know, going to put you, you know, behind the eight ball on everything else. And so, so that's the way I've kind of looked at the landscape and tried to think of it. And so as I

looked at, you asked, you know, do I have a routine? Now I do. And I'm going to try to stick to that. And then, you know, we started going to church when we had kids. And, you know, I'll admit, we don't go every Sunday. So it's kind of like, you know, it's one of those things where, like, I look at the six-fs. I got, you know, 24 hours in a day. I got, you know, so much energy I can pour into each one and I try to, you know, just kind of be mindful and do an assessment of kind of where I am with each. Yeah. I love that. I love that you have like the mental acuity to know what's important. Yeah. And then it's, look, anytime you set a goal, getting the goal is actually the easy part is the consistency in the maintenance that is where everybody falls off or can't do it.

Yeah. A lot. Go ahead. Well, life requires constant like maintenance and realizing and accountability basically is what I'm trying to say. So it sounds like you have it. It's just balance. Yeah. Yeah. And so people are always asking me like, hey, how are you doing? I'm like, what's new?

I'm like, you know what? I'm stretched, but I'm not stressed. Yeah. And that's what I'm trying to like maintain. It's like I'm stretched in the six directions of my, you know, wife and kids, my businesses, trying to, you know, my health, trying to, you know, have some faith in, and, you know, trying to maintain my relationship with my friends, you know, old and new. And that's a lot of stretching.

Yeah. Those are good things. Like, stretching is good, but you don't want to pull a muscle, right? When you're stretching. You don't want to pop a tendon when you're stretching. So there's only so much you can stretch before something pops. And so, like, that's kind of another mantra of mine is that stretched, not stressed approach. It's like, you know, it's good to be stretched, but, you know, you don't want to be stressed like we talked about earlier.

I like that. I like that a lot. How did you come up with the color combination? So I thought you were going to ask that earlier. So Omar's mom had a furniture store, and there was like a designer sitting. in the store. And we were, you know, up in the D.C. area. So we were looking at college sports teams, professional sports teams, color combinations. And then we asked the designer randomly, we were like, hey, what are two colors that really pop and stand out that you see in the

design space? And he was like, actually orange and green really contrasts well. And it was like somebody smacked us in the face with a pillow because my business partner went to University of Miami. And they were orange and green. If you think about that school, it's a small school. They only have like 10,000 students, but everybody knows the U and the Miami hurricane. that brand is bigger than that school itself. And so we're like, okay, you know, he went to the school. We actually wrote a business plan in an entrepreneurship class our senior year. And so like, you know, we had some affiliation with that.

And so then, and actually more recently, I did some research that the only other real big service company that's out there that's orange green, if you've heard of serve pro, it's a multi-billion dollar disaster restoration company. You'll notice it now that I mentioned it. And apparently back in the 80s, when that founder started the business, he was going door to door with like a couple. color page, like with a bunch of different colors on it. And he was knocking on the door. He's like, hey, I'm going to show you these colors. Tell me which two stand out that you see. And apparently they said orange and green, like more times out of any others when he was showing it to them. So validated what we decided to go with. Now we tell people that our orange represent our playful brand, our fun culture. The green represents our environmentally friendly hauling and just donation

practices because not everybody likes the you. You know, like we're in a lot of markets. Like we have a franchise in Columbus, Ohio State hates Miami, right? We have a franchise in Tallahassee, Florida. The Seminoles hate the hurricane. So, you know, we've tried to distance ourselves from the hurricane roots there, and I'm sure there probably are some diehard fans that won't use us because of the colors, but, you know, it can't please everybody. Nah, that they're being honest. There's always something about certain colors that just draw you in, and it just, it does make you think of Miami right away, but when I see it, I'm like, okay, that's sweet. I'm at least look. Yeah. You know? And

it's like green and yellow, green and orange, purple and gold, red and gold. Those combinations in my head stick out constantly. And I think that's important to think about too. Like if you're branding yourself, you know, whether it's, you know, a consumer brand is a little bit more important to stand out because you're standing out amongst a lot of other people that are competing for your attention. If your business brand, you might want something a little bit more, you know, buttoned up or, you know, sort of soft spoken, if you will from a color scheme. But, you know, ours, we're like, hey, we want to stand out. We need people to know who we are, you know, know that the orange and green trucks are, you know, affiliated, you know, associated with positivity and making a positive impact. And so that's really what we've been trying to build from a branding standpoint. It's not too loud, but it's still, it's still demands attention.

That's right. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's like pro, but cool. Yeah. That's how I look at it. Yeah. I think it's a good way to put it.

Yeah, I like that, dude. I think that I think everything that you do and stand for is really strong. what are we looking at now because, you know, I talked to you about staying innovative and staying ahead. Because, you know, I mean, over time, things do get dry. And you have to reinvent personalities, your mission, your goals, your markets based upon economical things like we were talking about earlier with interest rates being ridiculous. So what is your, do you have a vision moving forward? Anything that's going to change? I've gotten pretty turbocharged recently.

I read a book called The Science of Scaling. Dr. Ben Hardy, and he's written some other books, 10x is easier than 2x, who, not how. So this science of scaling concept is really simple. I'd recommend it. It's an easy book. It's like, you know, you can listen to it in four hours on Spotify. But the concept is frame, floor, focus.

So the frame is setting what he calls impossible goals with an unrealistic timeline. Because what that does is it becomes a force constraint with time as a constraint to only choose one or two or three paths that could actually make that reality. I like that. because otherwise if you're doing incremental growth, there's 200 options, and all 200 will probably get you to the outcome. And so you end up sort of chasing all 200 directions. So the frame forces you to focus, or the frame kind of focused you to limit your decisions. The floor is what you limit from a standards standpoint. So as a leader, it's kind of doing a self-audit of what are,

what are you saying yes to, or more importantly, what should you be saying no to that is actually holding you back from hitting that vision in that shorter time frame that you just said is unrealistic. And so, you know, whether it's doom scrolling or Netflix binge watching or not going to the gym every morning, it's like, or, you know, saying yes to this business opportunity or this trip or or this, you know, whatever. And so it's doing a self-assessment, but also in my case, as a business, what are the, what are the standards that we're no longer going to accept from a maturity and accountability standpoint in our organization because they no longer represent us becoming a billion dollar brand, which is our impossible vision, right? And so,

it's really taking the future and then behaving today and holding everybody else accountable to that standard today as if we were already at that level in the future. And then it sort of forces you. And then the focus piece is, you know, the execution, the, you know, kind of maniacal focus on just the few things that are going to actually move you to that goal more quickly. So, you know, to your point, like, I've suffered and been guilty of having a lot of, like, you know, entrepreneurial ADD, want to change. chase the next shiny idea. You know, every opportunity or idea sounds like a good one. I want to try to force all of those ideas onto my team to try to do all of them. And so I've been, as I'm being honest about raising the floor, I've been somebody that's

sort of holding the organization back because I'm coming up with too many ideas and I'm forcing them on the organization. So I've had to realize, okay, you know, I've got to do less of that, right? And then if I'm doing less of that, what can I ask my team do to level up themselves from an accountability and performance standpoint that might be holding them back from, you know, operating at a billion dollar business level instead of, instead of, you know, where we are today.

So that's got me juiced up because it fits with all the things we talked about as far as making impact, as far as, you know, optimizing potential. And, you know, I think I've, you know, pursued some fun, you know, creative side quests, I'll call them. But then I also realize any energy I put into anything outside of my core business, like any other business venture, is going to pale in comparison into the compounding effect that I have, like, I've got a $300 million business that, you know, in terms of annual sales. So if we grow that business 10%, that's $30 million

growth. Like, you know how hard it would be to get a business to go from zero to $30 million, you know, starting from the starting blocks? So, you know, that's something I had to, you know, revisit. So I've kind of come back full circle back to the mothership. And I'm saying, okay, college hunks is the business. That's the big, the big gorilla, you know, that we've developed. that's the sun anything else needs to kind of orbit around it but we got to focus on you know that that main the main thing yeah that was what i was actually leaning into and you covered it was for me i think the there's two big problems that i've run into with people that i've worked with and that i've either done business with or at least thought of doing with and it's always

trying to do way too many things at once and never actually getting one thing done it starts okay we're going to do this. Oh, but this idea came up. Oh, but we got this opportunity. Oh, but this. And then before you know it, you're trying to do 75 things. And you never do anything. Yeah. You actually go backwards. That's right. And then the other issue, which I was wondering on your end, if you've ever dealt with between you, your partners or your employees is complacency. Yeah. Oh, we did so good. We don't have to do anything else. Yeah. For me, when I was doing sales and when I got out of prison, especially, I was at a job where it was like, okay, you have to hit these quotas. Right. You have to do this. And then,

It's like, oh, a lot of people coast. And I'm like, man, this is where you make your multiples. I'm trying to hit that quota in the first two weeks. So that that's where we make our money. Yeah. That's where we go. But a lot of people operate under that, oh, well, I don't have to do shit now. I already hit it.

I'm like, let's go. Do you run into that? Absolutely. And, you know, it's funny. When I was younger, I used to think, oh, I just want to build a business to a certain size. And then I just want to chill out on the beach and relax. And that was like kind of what I thought was going to be my definition of success. And then as I got things got bigger and the goalposts,

kind of kept moving and I started looking around and talking to mentors and people had built things bigger than than I had. I finally realized and I would like study these like really successful people that just didn't just coast off into the sunset and, you know, let their talents kind of dissipate. And one of my favorite examples was Nick Sabin, the head coach from college football. He's won seven national championships. You think he could win one or two and just be like, okay, I'm good. Yeah.

And he had a quote, I'll never forget. He said complacency leads to bad decisions. Bad decisions lead to bad outcomes. And when I thought about that, I was like, man, yeah, if I had money and time and complacency, I would definitely make bad decisions. Like, I'm not that disciplined to not make bad decisions with giving that sort of those circumstances. And it's like, I have talent. I've got this platform that does good.

Like, I need to be doing that. And I won't veer off the road if I'm doing that. And then the other thing that it brought me back to, when I was talking about the science of scaling, the other concept is, you know, if the frame or the vision becomes your identity, that's who you become, you know, today instead of like in the future, the floor becomes your character, meaning like what you say yes to, what you say no to as a company, that becomes your culture. And your culture determines the behavior, behavior determines, you know, the outcome or the results. So you can look at that in the framework as a business. You can look at that, you know, from the perspective of an individual trying to get better themselves or hit certain goals. and so yes I think that's kind of what's brought me back and then you know you are who you surround

yourself with you know and I believe in that too you know it's not you know you know you know this from nutrition right you are what you eat but you also are what you listen to what you look at what you pay attention to yeah and I think about some of the stuff that I would listen to and pay attention to as a kid that probably gave me bad you know helped me make bad cause me to make bad decisions you know like like my parents used to tell me like you know you listen to that gangster rap, you're going to do stuff thinking you're a gangster rapper. And like, I know that's like an extreme example because like not everybody listens gangster. I was going to go out and like try to be a gangster.

But like I did some bonehead stuff in high school that was not necessarily influenced by it or I was hanging out with people like surrounding yourself by people that are aspirational and like minded that, you know, also have, have, you know, high moral compass, you know, listening to podcasts or music that's not going to just kind of brain rot you. and, you know, paying attention to stuff, whether it's TV or social media, that's not just going to, like, take your focus off of, you know, the important things. And a lot of that takes attention. Like, it's not easy to eat healthy all the time, right? Like the bag of Doritos and the bowl ice cream tastes good, you know, in the moment. And there's, you know, music and visuals and other things that look good or sound good. But then what does it ultimately do from a, you know, consistency habit standpoint?

So I've tried to become more aware of all of those things as well. as I've gotten older. I tell people that tell me, oh, you're smart, you're brilliant. I said because of who I surround myself with, because who I learn from, because who I listen to. Yeah. And you gain wisdom. That's right. To touch on one thing before we wrap up what you said, for me, anytime I've set a goal and I've achieved something, I am starving for more.

Like, I just want that felt so good. Yeah. Give me some more. Give me something else. Yeah. You know, and that's the mentality I think that a lot of people lack that they, I'm not saying be greedy with it or let it dominate your whole life. But man, it's, you know, like you said, do you, people that want more Doritos or ice cream, man, I want more success. Yeah.

I want more accomplishment. Yes. You know, and more purpose. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think there's sometimes a tendency to do that from a point of scarcity. And then you feel, at least I've felt empty when I want more and just feel like, well, if I could just get this, then I'll feel good. But if you do it from a place of abundance where you say, hey, look at where I started.

Look at how far I've come and kind of let yourself, as you said earlier, feel the grace and the gratitude of that journey from where you've been to where you are. That should pump you up and get you excited to see let's go climb this next hill and get jazz about that achievement as well. It's having a challenge and overcoming is what it really comes down to. I think it was Tony Robbins said progress is fulfillment. And I believe that. Yes. I believe that. If you take it with virtues, like temperance, and then you look at it, and there's endurance, and there's overcoming and perseverance.

These all were gifts, but you have to understand how to use them as a gift because people will misuse them for greed and selfishness. And, you know, that's not, I'm saying, use them for the right reasons, and it will come in abundance. Use it like a dick, and guess what happens? That's right. You know? Yeah. Nothing good. That's right.

So show people your book here that you brought me in. Yeah. So this is the effortless entrepreneur, kind of an oxymoron, because there's nothing very ever. about being an entrepreneur. We were at a conference and one of the speakers said, anybody who's ever written a book, this was 15 years ago. He said anybody who's written a book says they wish they did it 10 years earlier. So start writing.

And I guess we used to take things to heart and we'd go to these conferences. We went to the bar, we were like, I guess we got to write a book. And it's like, oh, what should we write about? And we were in our 20s at the time. And this was right around the time of the four-hour work we came out by Tim Ferriss. And so we said, well, let's write what we wish we had known in high school and college that we've learned kind of being in the fire as entrepreneurs and the first five years of our 20. and, you know, write it from that perspective.

I reread it recently. I'll say 90% of it's still relevant. The other 10% I would probably, you know, toned down because we wrote it with a bit of an edge. We were, you know, thought we were going to sell more copies that way, and we were single basters at the time. But nevertheless, it's kind of a, you know, a good handbook for early stage entrepreneurs or anybody that's, you know, pursuing a goal. And it kind of actually starts with the Shark Tank story. I think we wrote it right after that. Well, I got to tell you, man, when I first.

out the email intro to you. I was like, well, I don't know how this fits into my show. And I was like, I'd love to have them on, but I don't know how. And then I talked to you and I thought about it. And I was like, this could be really fun. And man, it really over exceeded expectations for me. And I'm really thrilled. I had a feeling. And when I have a feeling, I just do it because I know. And I'm really glad that I did. Because I think your story's amazing. I think you're amazing. And I just enjoyed the hell out of this conversation. And I really think you're doing great work. I appreciate that. Thank you for what you're doing as well. You got it, man. Thanks for the time to come see me. I will link, you know, where to find you in the description below and

get people to come on and try you out when they move and just check you out and follow you in general. Awesome. So I appreciate it, brother. So all right, everybody, that wraps up another one. Stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan Jameli, signing off.