The Iced Coffee Hour - Beast Games Winner Breaks Silence on $10,000,000 Prize, MrBeast, and Getting Fired

Episode Date: March 9, 2025

ExpressVPN: Secure your online data TODAY at https://expressvpn.com/iced Upside: Download the FREE Upside App today at https://Upside.com and use promo code ICED to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas Indeed: Get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to get your jobs more visibility at https://indeed.com/ich MagicMind: They have a limited offer you can use now, getting you up to 48% off your first subscription or 20% off one-time purchases with code ICEDCOFFEE20 at checkout. You can claim it at: https://www.magicmind.com/icedcoffee Follow and Subscribe To Jeffrey Allen On YouTube:  @legacy831official  DONATE TO HIS CAUSE HERE: https://tiltify.com/@legacy831/ruck4rare Add us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jlsselby https://www.instagram.com/gpstephan TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - Intro 01:09 - How Much You Pay In Taxes 02:13 - Why Not Leave California? 04:10 - How To Apply To Beast Games 08:46 - Do People Quit Their Jobs? 09:58 - Going Without Your Phone On Beast Games 13:18 - First Impressions Of Las Vegas Round 1 14:50 - Why Was There Controversy? 16:58 - What MrBeast Was Like 21:00 - Sponsor Express VPN 22:24 - Do They Have Psychologists On Set? 24:50 - Getting Paid $10,000,000 28:25 - The Winning Beast Games Strategy 34:37 - Magic Mind Sponsor 36:44 - How Much Is Luck vs Skill? 41:08 - The Most Mentally Challenging Episode 52:00 - What This Says About Human Nature 1:00:00 - Did He See Episodes Before They Aired? 1:01:20 - Indeed Sponsor 1:04:14 - What Wasn’t Shown? 1:08:05 - Flipping Coin For $10,000,000 1:13:50 - When Jeff Realized He Was Going To Win 1:16:08 - Picking The Winning Briefcase 1:23:43 - Who Do You Call After Winning? 1:28:20 - Does Anyone Treat You Differently? 1:30:30 - Paying $5,000,000 Taxes 1:34:35 - How It Feels Winning $10,000,000 1:44:07 - Creatine Transport Deficiency Syndrome 1:50:19 - How He’s Investing $10,000,000 2:01:15 - Why Jeremy Turned Down $10,000,000 Official Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeBQ24VfikOriqSdKtomh0w For sponsorships or business inquiries reach out to: [e-mail] For Podcast Inquiries, please DM @icedcoffeehour on Instagram! *Some of the links and other products that appear on this video are from companies which Graham Stephan will earn an affiliate commission or referral bonus. Graham Stephan is part of an affiliate network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. The content in this video is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's something else here now. Something new. From. Exclusively on Paramount Plus. It's the series Stephen King calls Scary as Hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real. Sci-fi Vision calls it the best show streaming right now. We're running out of time and we still don't know the rules.

Don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch. Saving those children is how we all go home. From binge all episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. So let me get this straight. You won the largest cash prize in entertainment history. This is about to be the most important decision of all of your lives. I looked at my phone and all of a sudden there's $10 million wired in. One in ten chance. What's it like winning $10 million?

Beast games. Beast games. Beast games. What prompted you to sign up? The whole purpose of me getting on the show was to have a platform for my son to talk about his rare disease. Did you have a strategy going in? It's a very social game where you need to make friends. You need to earn trust. What challenge was the most difficult?

Here's what we're going to do. We're in a stick them in a queue for five hours and they can ask for anything. Could you actually get anything? So there was a horse ready. There were puppies. There was a fortune teller. Pizza's, and this is what the Beast team writers probably do. When I had looked out the window and saw the horse, I'm like going,

What world am I in? One of the most memorable moments for me was the coin flip. Yeah, Mr. Beast literally lost $5 million of his own money. because of a coin flip. What was your first impression in Mr. Beast? I never shared this before, but when... Jeffrey, winner of the largest cash prize in entertainment history, $10 million from Beast Games. Thank you so much for coming on the ice coffee hour.

Oh, my pleasure. So everyone's dying to know. How much is your tax payment? Great question. I'm working on it. So I think it all depends on what I do with the money this year. I think the crazy thing about Mr. Beast, you know, he doesn't withhold taxes when he kind of gives the distribution. So I literally got $10 million wired to me. So it's up to me to do

state taxes, other withholdings, federal taxes. And it just depends on kind of how I invest the money when it comes to my son's research and nonprofits. So it's a TBD. We'll tune in about a year. What percent do you think you're going to end up paying? Because you're in California. Yeah. And people online have been saying that you're going to have to give half, like a $5 million tax bill. If you didn't do anything with the dollars, and obviously you can correct me if I'm wrong, I would have guessed that my taxes will be over $5 million if I didn't donate to charity or if I didn't tie or if I didn't give anything into a DAF or a CRT. Now, why not move out of California? Because I would be thinking, okay, I know I have $5 million

come in. Let's go and move to Las Vegas. Let's get out of California. I thought about it. And I thought about it before. So I've worked in startups my whole life. And, you know, you have these pipe dreams like, oh, my gosh, this is going to be the next. Uber or Google. And what happens if you have a distribution of $5 million or $10 million? And my wife and I have talked about it, but we just have a great support system for our son and for our family. We live directly close to my wife's sister and their two kids.

Lucas has a caretaker who's amazing. And to take them out of their schools and move them away, it was just like, yes, it'd be great to save $1.3 or $1.4 million. But it's like, is it worth it to disrupt our kids' lives? And what about your job? Do you quit your job after winning that amount of money? If I did have a job at the time, I would have. But, you know, fortunately, I got laid off last April. So I was leading a sales team for a kind of startup healthcare company. And they went through some restructuring. I lost my job, which started doing some more entrepreneurial stuff, small business stuff, which included kind of applying to Beast Games. So put it this way. I don't think I'll be going back to a W-2 anytime soon. How did you find out about the show in the first place?

What prompted you to sign up? Early 2024, I wanted to do more creative stuff. And, you know, I've done musical theater, you know, once every five years or so. And I'm like, okay, what else is out there? So I looked at some casting billboards. And I saw Mr. Beast Beast games. I'm like, oh, but my oldest son, Jack has introduced me to Mr. Beast. We've watched a bunch of videos.

I see that he's kind of philanthropic. I'm like, I like, I like, I like, I like, I like, I like, if I can apply for this and get on, I can be like the cool dad for Jack, my nine-year-old, but also I could have a platform to talk about my son Lucas's rare disease. He's got a rare disease called creatine transport deficiency. It's super rare. And if I can get on there,

I can spread awareness to the world about it. So where was it posted exactly? Because I didn't see anything of like, hey, guys, you know, apply for Beast games. So I saw it on like a casting billboard, you know, a website. It's called a casting billboard that kind of says, you know,

we're looking for an extra in this movie or we're looking for an actor for this commercial. So I saw it there. But I have friends who literally applied by seeing an ad on LinkedIn. He also posted it on X. So it wasn't widely advertised. And I think that's probably part of it. He probably wants people who are looking for it, who are trying to, who are really into it.

So on the casting websites, is that like a normal place that you go on peruse? Me? No, no. So it's, again, in the beginning of 2024, I was kind of like this midlife crisis for me. And I was like, I want to do more creative stuff. So I cold emailed like this modeling agency in San Francisco. I'm like, I'm trying to, I want to get into commercials or like I want to just do something where I can express more, do more artistic stuff. And so after I signed up for that, I signed up for this website to just to see if I can self-source any gigs.

And literally within weeks, I saw Mr. Beast Beast Games. It's kind of funny. You look exactly like the type of guy I would see in a commercial. And I mean that in a very complimentary way. Oh, thank you. It's like I could see you in a teeth whitening commercial. Oh, I could see that. That was like my number one thing.

It's skincare, teeth whitening, like staying looking youthful, even though you're not old. Yeah, like a just for men commercial. You could be a fake 55 year old. And everyone's just like, how's this guy look 35? Hey, any brands out there who are listening, please listen to this again and reach you out to me. So what is the vetting process like to get on Beast games? The application was you have to complete a video that's like 60 seconds or less that says, you know, why do you want to be on Beast games and what would you do if you won a million dollars? and I wrote it on my whiteboard and I put an alarm on my phone like the deadline date. I think it was May 31st. And guess what? May 31st came. I haven't done it yet. And I'm going, oh, my gosh, how am I going to do this? It's Mr. Beast. It's got to be edited well. It's got to be fun and exciting. And I just used my webcam and recorded. The background in my office was kind of messy. But my son was in there, Lucas. It was just a super simple message or a super simple video. And I'm like, I press send. I'm like, there's no way they're going to choose me. Like, this is a

so boring. And two weeks later, I got a call from a gal named Danielle. And she said, hey, we watched your video. We liked it. We have some more questions. But okay, I made it past the first step. Then I did do like a social media background check, a kind of health and wellness background check, had to do another video and then another phone call. And I'd say, you know, fast forward a month, I finally got the call that says you're in beast games. So they check your social media to make sure that you haven't posted any like reprehensible content. That's my guess. And, The other check, the health and wellness check, is to make sure that you wouldn't, like, fall down and, like.

Yeah, I think it's a little bit of how is your, you know, cardiovascular health. Like, if you, you know, go through some challenging things, how are you going to respond? I think it's also probably a little bit more psychological, too. It's like there's some questions in there to really see how you would respond to stressful, emotional, and psychological situation. What does some of the questions they ask you? I don't know.

I can't remember offhand, but they ask the same question, many different ways, many different times. Try to get you to, like, slip up? Yeah, so I think that's part of it. They're trying to make sure people are being honest and not gaming the system. Did they do, like, a criminal background check or anything? Do you know?

I think they did. Because I remember, like, you can request a copy of your background check. You know, fortunately, there's nothing on mine, but I'd imagine that Amazon and Mr. Beast would 100% do that. Yeah, I watched your video. I thought it was really,

It was memorable because you were with your son, and your son goes as you're in the middle of a sentence to play the piano behind. And you're pulling back and be like, oh, that was great. I thought that was really sweet to include your son in that. What did your wife think at the time? She didn't know I was applying.

So I didn't tell her I applied until I got in. Why? My wife is like the most amazing wife around. She's like the best planner. And I know that once I tell her I'm going to do something, in her mind she's going to she's going to think about all the logistics that have to take place in order for it to go well so it's okay how long you're going to be gone okay what do we need to do what days are you taking the kid to school what who's going to do this for practice okay um who's going to go to the grocery store what like she just will start thinking about solutions to all the challenges this brings um and i just didn't want to do her to like for sure knew i was in um but she loved the video once she saw it um but yeah it was like a month later yeah i was curious what people do when they go on a show like this do they quit their jobs do they do they do they do Do they have jobs? They could be like, hey, guys, I'm going to be gone.

You know, the contestants in Beast games were awesome. And it's just such a wide variety of people. But there was, you know, I met at least a couple dozen people who quit their jobs. And I'm sure there was dozens more. There's other people who were kind of either small business owners or more kind of in the industry, you know, in the arts or, you know, actors or influencers or content creators. So people had a little bit more flexibility. But I think most people would kind of go, I can go. I can go take two weeks off.

If I go further than that, I'm going to have to get creative with my job. Yeah, so, yeah, I was always wondering what people did in those situations or, like, for money to, like, not have income for potentially a month. I remember one, a friend of mine kind of took two weeks off. And she's like, if it goes past this date, I have to call my boss and she works for an airline. And I have to get super creative on how I'm going to stay.

And she went super far. So, like, I still don't know what her conversation went, But I know she's still employed. But it's, I think a lot of people took the leap of faith and took the risk. So when you're in there in the city just competing in beast games, do you have access to technology, a phone? No. So the moment you kind of check in, you check in your laptop and your phone. And they kind of, they seal it.

So it's only in like a bag that's assigned to you. And they put it in a kind of a locked room. And I didn't have my phone from early August until the middle of September. So it was like five weeks where I went out with my phone without any internet. How do people contact you if there's an emergency? Is there a person that someone could reach? Yeah. So the Beast team did an awesome job of kind of letting your emergency contact know what's the status in the game.

So after every challenge, my wife would get a text and go, hey, by the way, Jeffrey made it to the top 500. Jeffrey made it to the top 250. And then it was like, Jeffrey made it and is traveling to Panama for the island. So it's like kind of cool that she can take it. this and show my son Jack, like, hey, guess what? Here's what dad's doing. So they keep them in the loop. And yeah, there's obviously emergency contacts that the Beast team can reach out to and vice versa. If I were your wife, I'd get so excited to be like, oh my gosh, top 250, oh my gosh, top 100 and like receive those texts. It was like, you know, I don't know. I heard it was like a last minute thing that

they were going to do to the contestants. And I'm like, that's like brilliant. It's like just a great way to keep the families engaged. But yeah, it was, when I, when I first chatted with my wife and son, Jack, they're like, it was awesome because it's just like, hey, any updates? How's he doing? What's going on? Yeah, it's just a brilliant way. I think that Beast could keep people involved. To me, it's shocking that it was like five weeks for Beast games because as a viewer of Beast games, I thought it was like maybe like a week or 10 days, you know? But five weeks is like way longer. How was it being disconnected from society, like reality for that long? Oh, I mean, the first three days are hard. First three days, like, I'm like, like, you're just like,

everybody's phantom reaching for their phone. Yeah. And then, you know, I'd say probably day four, day five, you kind of go, oh my gosh, this is awesome. Like, I feel like I'm in the 90s again. I'm a, I'm a child of the 90s. I think I had the best time to grow up. I was born in 80. So, I got to live, like six, seventh grade, ride my bikes. No one knew where I was. And then I get the internet in high school. Like, it was perfect. So it was awesome to be disconnected and it just forced people to chat with others and get to know others. It's funny you mentioned when you were born because we were doing research on you. And Wikipedia said 1980 or 1981.

And so now they could put us as the source for 1980. We got it. Exactly. You pulled it out. Aside from your family and friends, what did you miss most about being aware of what's going on? I love to take in information. And, you know, it's just nice to know kind of what's going on or, you know, I think one thing that like really stuck out to me was like, hey, what's the price of Bitcoin?

Like, so it was just an interesting time to not have constant information coming in. But I kind of got my fix. You know, I was able to get it like by asking questions to people and getting to know people. I got weirdly obsessed with numbers while I was there, like memorizing people's numbers. because we were known by our jersey numbers. But family and friends, the most, you know, I talk to my, even my mom and dad often. And it's just like not having those connections is tough.

What are your first impressions during the Las Vegas round? This was the first round where 2,000 people competed down to a thousand. Yeah, I questioned signing up at the time. I was like, what am I doing here? Like, I am a fish out of water, silver-haired, I don't know a single soul. I treat it like a networking event. I was going around, sitting in different tables.

You know, some people are like, why are you sitting here? Other people are like, oh, hey, you know. And I think I got over kind of being an introvert. And I'm like, okay, I feel good. But I look around. I'm like, there's so many people here. Like, what are we doing in the Legion Stadium? In my mind, I thought we were going to the Mirage 100%.

I don't know if you remember being in Vegas. The Mirage just closed down in mid-July. And so I was like, oh, what a perfect place for Mr. Beast to have it. You have 3,000 rooms. So I was looking at the Mirage. map and memorizing where stairwells are. Like I was so geeked out on this stuff. And even in my hotel, I was like memorizing serial numbers underneath the lamps.

Like I thought the games had already started. Again, I've never done any of this before. So I was just totally in my head. But once I kind of met other friends in the stadium, Patrick 930 stopped me in the hallway and started asking me a question. Just like you said, he was like, he's like, who do you model for? He goes, do you water from Willamaya or do you know, Patrician Milan? I'm like, I have no clue you're talking about.

Like, I have zero clue what you're talking about. And just him and I hit it off like that. And once I felt like I had friends, I'm like, okay, I don't know what I'm doing, but at least I'm doing it with people who I could be friends with. And that's how it all started in Vegas. And Vegas was a trip. Why do you think there's so much controversy around the whole Vegas thing? Because I've seen, like, right after that happened, there was a whole bunch of just people

talking about the poor conditions or that they were being, Yeah, I think when anytime you're doing something for the first time, it's hard. Then you factor in. It's 2,000 people in the middle of the night. So I think the logistics were challenging. But I also think there's, you know, for me, my experience was if I'm going to go compete for $5 million, I don't expect it to be the Ritz-Carlton. I don't expect it to be kind of the most lush betting. I thought, like I thought we were going to rough it a little bit.

And so, yeah, we all got sleeping bags. We slept on the floor. We got three meals a day. Like, I ate every single bit of my meals. Some people didn't like the meals. So I think it was a little bit of, you know, some people might have been disgruntled, but my experience was exactly what I signed up for.

So at that time, what were the meals? Chicken, starch, rice, or quinoa, some vegetables. You know, we had oatmeal. We had hard-boiled eggs. You know, he had three meals a day. But it was kind of weird because most of the filming was at night. So we would kind of eat breakfast. at night. So we'd have breakfast and then we'd have lunch while we're filming and then like

dinner afterward on filming. And sometimes we'd have dinner, um, you know, like five o'clock in the morning. So it was just, it was, it was a ton of fun. I mean, it was, it was one of those things where it was only four days, but it felt like I was there for weeks. But it was one of these things where anytime there was an issue, especially in Vegas, um, they were attentive to it. I mean, they kind of got after it. And then once we got to the beast games on prime, oh my gosh. Like it was like the best accommodations, best food. The betting like in the city was fantastic. So I have no complaints for Vegas or Toronto,

but I can definitely see where some people might go, gosh, you know, I wasn't used to the conditions, but for me it was exactly what I expected. They push you every single way, emotionally, psychologically, even physically, but like you kind of leave there smiling. Like, that was great. I wouldn't change a thing. What was your first impression of Mr. Beast?

very first impression. I remember in Vegas and he walked out. I'm like, oh my gosh, there he is. He's in person. I was kind of like fanboying out over him. But he was pretty honest with everybody. He sent a video before Vegas guys and go, hey, I'm so glad you guys are here.

There's 2,000 you, just letting you know. I'm not going to be able to talk to most of you guys. I probably won't be able to talk to most of you guys until we get down to kind of the top 20, but I really want to spend time with you then. But he always talked to people between challenges, but you don't really get to know them. But once I got to know him,

It was great. Was there anything that surprised you about him? You know, being the number one YouTuber in the world at his age and, you know, watching his content, you can just tell he is committed to his craft. He's a perfectionist. I didn't realize outside of that how competitive he was. So like when we got to the top 10, we kind of had a night with him and his fiancé and some other people from the team. And there's some people playing Catan. and he was so competitive.

Like, there was no chance he was going to let anybody beat him. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, how is he this competitive with just contestants? So it's just like he never turns it off. But he's super compassionate, really thoughtful. Like, I have some really thoughtful questions to me. He's a, he just seems like a stand-up guy. What were some of the questions he asked? Well, once he kind of found out, because the whole purpose of me getting on the show

was to have a platform for my son to talk about his rare disease. And so there's a couple of times where he interviewed me and I would talk about it. So off camera, he'd say, you know, what is, what's the condition? Oh, I'm sorry. Like, what does it mean? Like, what does the future look like? And again, he's got, he's getting pulled in a thousand different directions. You know, he could easily give me lip service, but he didn't.

And it was like, man, this guy. Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or but the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon

and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero, more like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. This guy cares too, which I think is just, I don't want to say it's hard to find

in the space, but it's like, I just didn't expect him to be that thought. thoughtful this young. And what about on set? Did he seem present or was he distracted? Because like you said, I imagine he's getting pulled in a thousand different directions at once.

So it would be kind of hard for him to be present and just having a good time. It surprised me that he allocated time to like play Caton. I mean, on set when we're filming, he is, you won't find anybody more committed to what they're doing. I mean, he has dialed in, like even in the final episode, the final episode, we filmed for 10 hours. and you can just tell he was tired in between shoots and then once the camera's on, it's a different person. So he just is so committed to his craft

that he's always kind of stepping up when the cameras are on. And when the cameras they're not on, he loved going around and talking to the contestants. He likes to get a feel for what they're thinking, what they're interested in, what strategies do they have? Like, he loves the game.

So people who are strategist, he would kind of take a shine to and want to hear what they're saying. saying or what they're thinking. Yeah, I saw in Colin and Samir, they were doing a behind the scenes of, I believe it was Vegas, and he went to talk to everybody in groups of 20. Yeah. And what was remarkable is that you think, okay, that can't take that long. He's like, okay, well, if I talk to 20 people at a time for 10 minutes each, it's going to take me like the whole day. Yeah. To get through everybody. And he just did it. He talked, yeah, I think he talked to over half of the people. And then after Vegas, he and his team personally called people to hear about their experience. Because it's not like, it's, you know, you kind of mentioned the Vegas challenge. It's like it's one thing to kind of have people kind of, you know, grimace or, you know, kind of complain.

And the Beast team doesn't do anything about it. No, they said, we want to hear what you're thinking. Because obviously, this is season one. You better believe they're going to do a season two and three and four. They want to learn and get better. just I thought they were very kind of thoughtful how responsive they were. Do they ever have like psychologists on set for people that have like a breakdown for losing? Going online without ExpressVPN is like going to the bathroom at a coffee shop and leaving your laptop unattended.

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for people that have, like, a breakdown for losing? Yeah. Yeah, there's a psychologist on set 24-7. And everybody who gets eliminated, it's kind of a, you have to go through and get processed out through a psychologist. And even me, even after I won, I had to go and sit down with the psychologist.

It was a great conversation. Can you share, like, what you guys talk about? Of course. I mean, so for me, it's different because I didn't get eliminated. And I remember, like, he's patting you on the back. You're like, good job, fist bump it.

Well, it was, I mean, it was just, it was interesting. And I'm sure it was interesting for her, too. It's like, how often you get to debrief with someone 30 minutes after they just won $10 million. And, you know, it was, I told my wife and my son, like, hey, I'll be right back. I got to go in here. And she's like, so how do you feel? I'm like, awesome. Like, I feel great. But then she had to go through. Like, well, I'm sure there were times that were psychologically challenging or emotionally kind of pressing. Like, how do you feel about that? You feel like you processed it. Um, obviously, I felt great. But like, there was a, they gave me access to a psychologist. Like, by the way, even though you want $10 million, here's probably what's going to happen. You're going to go home. You're going to be elated. You realize you're not going to be able to talk to anybody.

For some weird reason, you're probably going to get depressed. Then you're going to forget about it for a little bit. And then the show is going to air and you're going to start feeling all these feelings again. And they were spot on. And they're like, please call us. So the Beast team made available a psychologist to anybody to chat with who are struggling with us. And this psychologist is like, his thing is reality competition shows. Wow.

How long until the like depression is. set in and why do you think that happened? I don't know. You're asking the wrong guy why it happened, but I would say probably three weeks. You know, and depression was just like, it's like you planted a seed, but you can't tell anybody about it.

It hasn't kind of bloomed yet. And it's like, you want to start making changes in your life, but like, it's like, but I don't, I didn't get paid yet. I didn't, it hasn't got announced yet. It's just a weird feeling. So you didn't get paid until when? Yeah, so the finale aired February 13th, 25, and I got paid the very next day. So that was just recently that you got paid?

Just recently. That you just saw like a $10 million wire. Yeah, no big deal. Just $10 million. Just another day. Does Jesus ever call you and be like, hey, Jeff, we notice your normal account balances a few hundred dollars. And now it's $10 million.

What happened? And this was a checking account that I literally opened up for Beast games. Well, that's not suspicious at all. Well, no, but it's a brand new checking you. No, but I opened up after Vegas. Because after Vegas, everybody who went to Vegas got $2,000. So I had, I just said, hey, I want to open up another checking account. I put that in.

And so it's like I have this one checking account that was specifically for that. And I see it pop up. But yeah, to your question, nobody from my bank called me, which was like. Seems like a major oversight. maybe this is like all of a $10 million wire. Especially considering it's a brokerage house too, it's like, hey, let us help you put that to work. I'm sure they, you know who you are if you're listening. They can put some alerts in there because it would have been a great thing to have, you know, private bank or call you and go, hey, here's what happened.

What just happened? How can we help you put this to use? What are you thinking about? But yeah, no call, no nothing. You would think that just any wire over $5 million should deserve a phone call. if not even just like, hey, congratulations on this. Nice job. How did you do this?

Well done. Granted, I live in Silicon Valley and this is the startup capital of the world. And distributions like this, even though I've never experienced anything close to it, happen often. So I don't know if it's just part for the course in Silicon Valley to have $10 million wires, but certainly not for me. So how much did you actually win in Beast games? So the total sum, including the 2000 from Vegas, the $10 million from the grand prize, plus 4,242, 4,242 from the phone bribe, or the million-dard bribe. So at $10,000, $2,242. Now, going back, winning that amount of money and speaking with a psychologist, was there ever an amount of guilt that you felt getting this money knowing that

someone else had to lose. Yeah, I mean, of course. And, you know, I also think about all the friends and people who helped me get there. And it's like, oh, like, how do I, how do I pay them back? How do I pay it forward? Why was it me and not them? You know, I don't know if they called Survivor's guilt or, um, but yeah, I, I felt that. And it's, it's not fun.

Could you split any money at all? Were you allowed to be like, hey, you really helped me out. Here's like 20 grand. It was in our contract that we weren't allowed. to and then you know in certain challenges they'd kind of reiterate that it's like by the way like you can't make any deals you can't say hey if i you help me get to this i will give you 10% if i went see that's what i was thinking when it was down to the three of you with a 10 million dollar prize like you could have each walked away with you know 3.333 million dollars which is nearly

five million dollars i was getting up there and everyone could have left happy but you're saying you couldn't have negotiated out some sort of split yeah there was no negotiation and i i think I mean, if we could have, we probably would have, you know, with those three people. I don't think there was anybody there who's like, no, no, no, I have to get this. But yeah, there was no ability to negotiate a split. And I think there's some pretty severe clawbacks, too, in the kind of the agreement we signed if they find that someone is splitting after the fact. So for Beast games, did you have a strategy going in? If someone's competing in Beast game season two, what do you think of the things that they should be practicing?

Yeah, I think you've got to figure out what kind of game you want to play. Do you want to stay true to your values or do you want to play to win? I think you can do both. I think I did both. But I would just get crystal clear on how you want to play. Two, you got to step up your social game. It's a very social game where you need to make friends. You need to earn trust.

People need to be able to trust you. And the more genuine, obviously, the better. and have a number in mind. Like if there's a number, like, because you're going to get opportunities to bribe. And you think about this, like so many people turn down $100,000 in that first episode.

And you see four people turn down a million dollars. So there's going to be opportunities where you can take money to either eliminate people or not eliminate people. I'd figure out what that number is and how important it is to you. What was your number?

My number was $1.5 million. How did you come to that number? My wife and I were talking about it. And to be honest, I think it was a number that we figured would know, never get presented to us. So it's kind of like this thing that, yeah, we have a number, but we're never going to have to worry about it. Because like we just, I wanted to go all the way.

And, you know, when I signed up and I told my wife, hey, I want to be in beast games. Like, it's going to be an awesome platform to talk about Lucas's disease. And she looks at me, she goes, if you're going to be gone for a handful of weeks, you better win this damn thing. And like, that totally shifted my mindset. Like, oh my gosh, like, I can talk about Lucas and win this thing. But winning, having the thought of winning when there's a thousand people is just so, hard. It's just for me, it was like, okay, I just got to survive. I'm on the platforms. I need to get the city. I'm in the city. I need to get to the island. I need to get to the top 10. And once you kind of got there, it's like, okay, I got a shot. So it was at the top 10

when you first realized, okay, like I can actually win Beast games. It was probably right before the top 10 on the elimination train when it was the top 21. And once I learned the rule set of the elimination train, I kind of go, I feel pretty safe. Like, I feel like there's an 80% chance I'm going get through. And so I was able to see myself in the top 10 where I kind of go, man, if I get to the top 10, I have a one in 10 chance of winning. And I think I've built very good social capital and good relationships. And I think I could do a great job. Like, I can win this thing. Do you think it's more effective to be a leader or a follower? Great question. I think you need to be able to be both. I think there's times where you need to step up and lead. I did that more in kind of private settings.

Like, you know, on our, you know, episode six on the fiscal challenge, you know, I was, would step up as a leader, a vocal leader for a small group. There's other times where I think blending in is better. Like on the elimination train, like to be a leader there was like the last thing I wanted to do. I thought there was no upside. I feel like I'd have to eliminate myself or like my buddy Patrick. I didn't want to do that. So I think it's kind of circumstantial. It seems like the people that all rejected $1 million, they ended up making it pretty far in the game.

and they were looked pretty favorably amongst the other competitors. The only thing that was weird is that as soon as it went 5149 as though it was advantageous for them to flip on them, like sharks, like piranus, they would just be like, oh yeah, and then you did this and that was a jerk move. We can't believe this. And everyone's like showing that they're better than the other person. It's weird. In the games, there's really fresh memories. Like, people remember what happened yesterday in the last challenge.

And there's also like this unspoken reciprocity. So think about the million dollar bribes, you know, three out of the four that made it out of the cubes. Dino, Tijuana, and Jeremy. Then the next thing is the helicopter rides. Tijuana gets selected for the first helicopter. Dino gets selected for the second helicopter. So there's one captain left. And now we have the 110 coins.

Jeremy gets 103 of the 110 coins. So like people are always wanting to give back to these people who step up. But then, again, in the helicopter, you see that that reciprocity didn't last long where people were stabbing Jeremy in the back in a matter of minutes because he didn't do what they wanted him to do. I felt so bad for him in that moment because he was one of my favorite players, same with Dino. Just turning down a million dollars like that in front of all of these people takes so much control. And then to see people now look at that negatively is like, oh, but yeah, he did that, but this. I was shocked. I was shocked too.

It was one of those things where I, during that episode, I was going around and trying to tell people to math. Like, hey, we have to give the coins to somebody because if we don't, our odds of getting on a helicopter decrease because this helicopter is going to go way empty. So that was my mindset. I wasn't trying to go around and say, hey, give these coins to Jeremy. Because obviously I knew that would also put a target on my back. So, like, I didn't hear all these kind of talk about, you got to bring a woman on or this, that, and the other until we got into the helicopter. And I kind of, like, I'm, like, happy. And, like, Jeremy looks at me as like, no, this is not good.

Like, this did not end well. And he kind of sat there and he kind of led a prayer. And it was like, one of these things where I'm like, oh, I didn't realize how badly people were coming at you. And so it was, the first couple days on the island were interesting because there were, there was some bad. blood, especially to Jeremy, but also to me because I was involved with it. And that's because Jeremy would not select a woman to join him on the helicopter. Yeah, and he did. I mean, he selected Daphne 976, but it was one of these things where he chose two people first.

He chose Gage 974 and myself, and then he asked us to choose people. And I didn't choose a woman. Why didn't you choose a woman? I don't know. Well, I chose my best friend of the time, Patrick 930. And he's the guy who brought me in. He's the guy who stopped me in the hallway in Vegas. And I was like, hey, like, he chose me.

It's my time to choose him. Yeah, and in retrospect, you know, I would have taken a lot off of Jeremy if I would have. I would have chosen Maddie 852, a dear friend of mine. But at least, you know, I made that episode exciting, I guess. And what's this little bottle? Oh, my God, these are so good. So this is called Magic Mind. And they started sending us this a few months ago.

Absolutely love it. And we actually reached out. to see if they would sponsor our podcast because we like it that much. And they've agreed to sponsor our podcast, which is so cool. But basically, it's an energy focus shot, like for a little bit more mental clarity. And no joke, I have these every single podcast, just to, like, dial it in a little bit more. There's a little caffeine in this, so it's not like so much that you're going to be wired afterwards. But it's just enough to give you a bit of an extra boost.

And I take these with us, no joke, everywhere we go, because you could take them through TSA. Oh, beautiful. And it was actually a bit of an. accident, I just packed these in my backpack, went through TSA, and then on the other side, I was like, oh, wow, they never confiscated it. Like, this is really good because it's under the liquid limit. And now I've just been taking them everywhere. And then Jack and I now trade. I bring these. He brings protein bars. And we'll trade. I'll be like, I'll give you a magic mine for a protein bar because I bring extras. They taste great. It's not too much to where you start

feeling jittery. And it's perfect because you can also drink these later. So if we have a podcast at like 8 p.m. You're not going to drink a coffee at 7 p.m. in preparation for the podcast, because then you're going to be up until 2 a.m. But this right here, I've had success drinking it later in the day. And it's great. Yeah, just tones your focus. Still get to sleep. Yeah, it's not a lot of caffeine. It's just a little bit. Yeah. So we have a link down below in the description. If you want to try this out, it's really good. It tastes like a bit of a matcha flavor. It's delicious. So again, the link is down below in the description. We got an exclusive offer with the iced coffee hour. They were kind enough to say yes to sponsoring us

just because we genuinely like their product. So the link is down below in the description for anyone who's interested. This is super good. I told you. I thought it was going to be more like vegetable-y. Like that's how- It tastes like probiotic-y, huh?

Yeah, such a unique flavor. Yeah, but it's like the ones you go to the grocery store and it's like $8 for like a little, you know, health and wellness shot, except they're not, you know, $8. I can taste the passion fruit like enough to like make it sweet. We might be able to get them to send you something. Yeah, we'll actually give you a few on the road. I'll just like them.

Yeah, really great for the rock. Yeah. Yes. Perfect. How much was luck versus skill in the game? Season one in Beast games had a lot of luck and a lot of chance. But I think less than most people think. So are you guys kind of familiar with how we got our jersey numbers?

Could you explain it? So I was number 831 and it wasn't randomly assigned. It was back in Vegas in episode zero. On the third challenge, we had to go get our flags. And whatever flag you go get and are able to kind of successfully capture is your jersey number. And so there was there was actually 1,100 flags. So the people who went and got flags one through a couple hundred were the ones, hey, I got to go out there first.

I got to get this flag. It's mine to get. Oh, I'm going to beat you. And in the first episode in Beast Games on Prime, you had to have someone self-eliminate your row. There was three rows that did not have anybody self-eliminate. It was the first row, the second row, and the fourth row. And these were the numbers kind of won through,

like let's call it one through 170 like these were all these type a aggressive people to go go geters where the rows that kind of got up to the 800s 900s and thousands were the helpers who help people get their flags and the more kind of altruistic people who needed support which you'd think those are the people who would eventually self-sacrifice so i think i think there's a little bit more nuance to the chance but yeah when you really think about i think through all the things that had to happened for me to get to episode 10. Oh my gosh. So much, so much life. What challenge was the most difficult? Like physically and then emotionally. Yeah. Physically, hands down was the monster truck pull. I mean, we had eight people pulling a 12,000 pound monster truck. I did not expect that.

You know, in B City, we have this giant billboard that would kind of give us like clues to what these challenges would be. And there was a, it was like, it was 19, I felt like it was 1950s kind of art, art themed. And it had a big monster truck and it said, you know, our red light is your green light. And we're like, oh, my gosh. So we get out there and I see this monster truck. And I'm like, oh, they're going to put on the brakes, which is a red light. That means that's when we're going to walk green light. That means, so we're practicing doing red light green light, like how to stop. And then they kind of turn us on. I got to go, nope, you're going to pull this monster truck. And we, we pulled it for like 25 minutes. I live.

Literally, when I got done, like, they almost called a medic for me. Like, I was in, like, tunnel vision. I just, I had never done anything that strenuous in years. And it was, uh, it was wild. See, it didn't look that bad. Oh, Jack. Oh, yeah. As you're laying in bed watching this show.

I can do that. That's easy. I'm just saying, when I was watching it, I was like, okay, these guys, you know, they're falling over a little bit, like they're stumbling. They look fit. And so it was surprising to me because it also didn't seem like it was going on for 25. minutes. And so, and like, if you push a car in neutral, it's not that hard, but I can understand, I didn't know it was 12,000 pounds of a monster truck. So yes, that does sound very challenging,

but as a viewer, you know, I'm sure some people, they know what I'm thinking right now. Jack's an armchair critic. But I didn't think it was going to be that hard either, to your point, Jack, you know, it's like, but once they said go and we started pulling, it's like, this thing is hardly moving. And then you see the other team who's like 20 feet ahead of us and they're like, they're huge. These are all like, you have a ex-collar. Division 1 college football player, you have an ex-college rugby player, like you have some just hosses over there. And I'm like, how are we going to do this? Unfortunately, we had a lot of good teamwork.

We never gave up. We had a lot of brains. It was like it was physics that actually helped us win, is getting over that hump with both wheels. But that was like, that was so fun. That whole episode was aired and we're filmed in one night. So we did that. We waited an hour. We filmed kind of the flags.

We waited an hour and then we did the dead hang. And it was like, It was one of my favorite nights. How late did that go? I think we probably wrapped around, you know, 5 a.m. Wow. So the guy's hanging on the thing at 5 o'clock in the morning. Oh, yeah.

And, you know, once you get into the games, like, we film a lot at night. So you're sleeping in, you know, we're always getting eight hours of sleep if you want it. But it is so fun to film a night because just knowing, and I think about, like, everybody's sleeping. And here we are doing things that you can never imagine a grown man doing. It was like, it was so fun. So what was the most mentally challenging? I would say episode three, the cubes, was super challenging. And part of it is, like, it was kind of early on and, you know, starting to miss my kids a lot.

And we kind of got a little rugpole here. Like, the night before, we had this awesome steak dinner, like, the best meal we've had. We had a dance party around the money. Like, they played music and everybody was having fun. And then the next morning, like, hey, we're just going to have a game day. You know, we're going to do a potato sack race. And people are like, oh my gosh, like, this is going to be fun. And then they handcuff us to each other.

They take us into a cube. They tell us that we're going to be here in five hours and that at least one of you will get eliminated out of your group of three. And my group of three was me 808 and 204. And 204, Chris, a great friend of mine, we're like, oh my gosh, how is this going to work? What are we going to do? And so we get into the cube and like at the first, none of us wanted to be. to play a game like hey let's just see how this goes and maybe somebody will get something of value that will make them want to cuff and just just to kind of tell the viewers is there's a red phone in there

and it said ask for anything and we could ask for anything that would help us make a decision on who would cuff themselves and you could ask for anything but you couldn't take it out of the room so yes you could ask for a million dollars they might bring it in but you can't take it out you can't take it with you and so for me i was kind of going gosh what could i ask for that would help me make a decision to handcuff myself. And I asked for a phone call with Elon Musk. Why Elon Musk? Well, in my mind, I kind of go, Elon, you know, obviously our generation's Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, just brilliant. But between Tesla, which is like, what really made Tesla go is the energy side of it. And the neuralink brain, I go, my son's condition is creatine transport

deficiency. Creatine is the energy that kind of supports ATP in the brain. If there's one person who can kind of spend some cycles to try to figure out how to get creanteed into the brain. It's Elon. So I said, gosh, if I can get a phone call with him for a minute, if I can ask him to dinner, I'll fly anywhere in the world to take him to dinner and bend his ear for an hour. Like, maybe, just maybe we can make some progress on this condition. And so, like, I was like, I was super naive. I was so hopeful.

I'm like, oh, yeah. Jimmy gives away Tesla's all the time. Him and Elon are on, like, text basis, like, they're friends. And then a couple hours later, like, a producer looks at me, like, through the window. like hey Jeff like you might want to ask for something different um I'm like what do you mean he goes like it's Elon Musk like you're not going to get a hold of him so I was then I was like to just dejected and I was like oh my gosh like I'm going to go home like not going to get a chance to like make an impact for my son and it was just it was the room was tiny and it was like so sterilely white bright lights

it was just I did not want to be there any longer and there was like I felt like there was no end inside. So you almost just kind of wanted to self-eliminate? I wouldn't say that. I kind of felt like I was going to get eliminated. I felt like I just had lost this hope because no one else was asking for anything of value that would force them to handcuff themselves. So I realized, oh, I'm playing a different game. I'm thinking of this differently. And my friend Chris asked for a tattoo artist. So he had a tattoo artist come in. He got a Mr. Beast tattoo on his bicep. This guy's, I mean, And this is my friend Chris, he's jacked. And he's like in his 50s.

And he has this huge bicep and now has this big Mr. Beast logo on it. It's sweet. How would that help him win the game, though? So what helped him is it helped him pass the time. He could calculate the time, how much time we had left. Because we only had five hours to do this. And we had no guarantee that we would know how much time was left. We didn't have clocks.

So he's like, if I can get a tattoo artist in here, I know how long the stuff takes. He'll have a phone that. that he has to like take pictures of, we'll be able to see what time it is. So he was strategically thinking of why he had a tattoo artist come in. The other person asked for steak and lobster. Did they get it?

They got it. Did you not want any steak and lobster? Like why didn't you ask for a time or a clock? I would ask for some in and out at least. Yeah. I don't know if they have in and out in Toronto. But yeah, no, I just, I was at this point where I'm like, I wanted something that would help.

And I just didn't think like a pizza or steak and lobster would. But we just, and then we finally realized that, hey, there's no chance that anybody's going to eliminate themselves on their own. We need to play a game. Like a game of chance. Like flip a coin, pick cards, whatever, maybe. But one of the, one of the, one of the, out of the group did not want to play a game and said, even if we did play a game, like, I'm not going to eliminate myself. So I go, oh my gosh, like, how are we going to do this? So I picked up the phone, and I asked for a clinical psychologist to come into our room.

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Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IGPrivatewealth.com. Because I'm like, we're part of an alliance. Like, we're friends. Like, can we get past this impasse? So the clinical psychologist sat down with us. I mean, it was so bizarre. She's sitting in a chair.

All of us are sitting in Indian style on the floor. And after 25 minutes, she kind of looks at us and go, hey, you know, I try to help you guys. I don't think there's anything further I can do. I think you guys need to figure it out because we couldn't get past the impasse of not all of us choosing into play a game. So long story short, my friend Chris, 2, O'4 and I looked at each other, who were we were super, close and said, hey, one of us is going to have to go home. Let's just flip a coin. And we get the coin. I call tails. We flip it. I don't look at it. He looks at the ground at it and gives me a hug and says, best of luck. And then he went over to the wall. He cuffed himself and I walked out. Was that not

frustrating to have someone in that room? Because I feel like, to me, out of felt like, like we're all making sacrifices here and yet you won all of the upside and none of the downside and therefore pushing the burden on us. At the time, 100%. That's how I felt. I mean, like I literally walked out of the room,

saw one of the production assistants and I looked at her and said, can I have a hug? Like I was like so, like I just felt sick. But watching the episode, I realized it's good gameplay. You know, she knew that Chris and I were super, super close.

She also knew that we aren't stubborn enough to kind of go, oh, screw that. All of us, because if someone doesn't handcuff themselves, they all get eliminated. So I think she, you know, in retrospect, I think it was good gameplay, not the way I would want to play. But, um, did that ever come back to bite her, though? Because I feel like if someone does something so bad, like the Habibi brothers. Yeah. Oh, that was awful.

When they were in the box, like how they got that girl who was like crying and they like faked the game so they could each win. Which, yes, it was awful, but it was also strategic. That stuff gets out. And then they got eliminated because of what they did. did that get out i'm i'm pretty sure so early in the games when you get eliminated you have like this like little tote in in your bunks with all your kind of personal items and you have to go in there and pack it up and carry it out and i think in that process you know she spoke to people in her bunk like hey here's what happened and then it just gets around like the telephone game but then does that come

back to bite them though if you do something like that in the boxes did you go and you share that information like hey this person they just withdrew and they didn't want to yeah i mean i it didn't I don't think it helped her, you know, but it was like, you know, people always ask, because, like, this was the first psychologically, like, really challenging game. People were like, hey, what happened in your cube? And for me, I was just like, yeah, you know, one person didn't want to play, you know, and kind of left it at that. She eventually took a bribe on kind of episode four.

And so she got money from it. And, you know, I think it worked out well for her. And for me, it's like I look back at every single thing and I have to thank it. Because if I don't, I'm not grateful for the. ultimate outcome. Yeah. Now that episode for me was quite memorable because on that phone, like you said, you could ask for anything you want. What are some of the requests that people were asking for? And could you actually get anything? Because I saw someone bring in a horse. Yeah. How do they have a horse? How do they have a clinical psychologist that they could just call

be like, you got to get here right now? Well, I mean, I think for you guys is like if you sat here for hours and kind of like said, okay, what are the craziest things that people might do with her finances or people might want to buy, from an insurance perspective, you could have the craziest things listed. And this is what the Beast Team writers probably do is they sit around and take it go, here's what we're going to do. We're in a stick in a queue for five hours and they can ask for what are the craziest things that people might ask for that we can deliver. So there was a horse ready. There were puppies ready. There was a fortune teller, a psychic, a clinical psychologist. I mean, pizzas, people got their haircuts, people got massages. People got massages.

Like it was like Like when I looked out the window And saw the horse And again, after I just told you Like I was in a really bad spot I was like thinking of my kids And I look out and I see a horse I'm like going,

What world am I in? But you couldn't ask for a vape Or Elon Musk. You can ask for it. You can ask for anything But you might not get it. Was there anything that they said no to? Or was there besides like the phone call

With Elon Musk, Did you hear any stories of like, Oh, I asked for this? I didn't get that. Well, I feel like I mean, if you look at the episode, It's like Nolan, Mac, Tarek, Chandler, answering the phone. I think there was like a little delay on some, like, so some people ask for stuff,

but just they asked too late so they didn't get it delivered. But a lot of people like ask for kind of pizza or sushi. Because most people decided, hey, we're going to play a game and we're going to play at the end. In the meantime, let's have some fun. But then there's cubes like ours, where it was more of, hey, like we've got to figure out how we're going to get out of this thing. It'd be interesting to see what all they had on standby. Like what was in that big room, you know? That's why I would look.

I was about to say it had a clown. I was about to say it's like. See, look, if we just sat down for a couple hours, we could come up with that. Yeah, but I would never guess a horse. Never. Me neither. They probably had every animal. Oh, and they had multiple dogs.

Like, many people asked for puppies. One, one, um, Landry asked for, she, she said, hey, I'm going to eliminate, but I just wouldn't have a princess party. And like, they brought all the princess. And Princess and Prince gear. Like, how did you have that? So it's a, I would love to see the BTS on that room. My guess is they have to have someone at, like, a Walmart and the Target nearby.

And they call in, you know, we need five monopolies sets. I think it's got to be that. There's no way they have it already ready to go in a room. And they just return it massively. I mean, like an Amazon warehouse. I'm going to have to ask Jimmy and see. Because there's sizes, too. Like, you know, do you have like a princess outfit in every size?

Like, would you have it in Graham size as well? Or jack size. the plus size. But it was so quick. Like that's the thing that it's like, like, I think a lot of it was there because they got this stuff so quickly. So seeing so many people behave in so many different ways. You have Landry who's willing to self-eliminate as long as she has her princess party. You have other people that are unwilling to play the game and by any means necessary continue advancing. Other people take bribes. Other people don't take bribes. What did you learn about human nature participating in beast games? I'd say overall, very optimistic.

about the future of humanity. I mean, I think I did not expect to connect with that many people and I did not expect like four people to turn down a million dollars because 60 people chose them to represent them. I did not expect people to kind of play hard but play with integrity.

And I just didn't expect to forge these friendships. It's one thing to like, you're in the games. You forge these friendships and it's like, oh my gosh, this is great. This works for now. but after the games I'm still friends with these people we still keep in contact so it's kind of like you know

you think back to some of your jobs you gotta go oh yeah I was really good friends with this person while I worked with them and then you guys go to separate jobs and now you hardly talk it's interesting because I feel like through talking with you

and as well as watching you on Beast games one thing that I feel like helped you out a lot is that your actions are very divorced from your emotions in fact as a viewer it was even hard to tell your emotions at times like sometimes you know there was a little sympathy, sometimes a little bit of this, sometimes a little bit of that.

But it was never too far deviated from just like a cool and collected state of being. Do you think that that was one of the main contributors to your success? I noticed that too. Do you play poker? I do not. Don't play poker. You had a good poker face. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, don't ride the high is too high or the low is too low. You kind of like, you know, Rudyard Kipling's if.

And also, I think being a father of a rare disease special needs kid, definitely teaches me how to listen better because I really need to figure out what he's telling me and what he's feeling and also try to feel with him. So like, you know, being a dad of Lucas, you kind of go, gosh, do I try to fix him or do I try to connect with them? And the more I connect with people, I think it really benefited me in the games. Was there ever a moment where you lost your cool or you fought with other competitors? Oh, yeah. I mean it didn't get too heated but in episode eight when we there was a million dollars we each had an opportunity to kind of go to the pyramid and take as much money as we could my friend J.C. 566 took 650,000 and it was just from my experience with him. He was a friend. I just, I didn't expect it from him. And so I, you know, I kind of called him out or at least shared my experience with him, you know, that night and the next day. And, you know, it was two grown men having a heated conversation. Again, like I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, true, I believe that maximum growth comes between the pinnacle between support and challenge. And this was kind of a poke in the chest to a friend. And it was a good dialogue, but it wasn't like, you know, no fists were going to be thrown. At the time, I was heated. Once you watch it,

you realize, again, it's a game. He had an opportunity to not eliminate anybody and to take the money. And again, whether he pays down his entire mortgage or he pays down some of it, or he gets rid of all of his debt and now he can put money into kind of a 529 plan for his kids like good on him good on him and then afterward he kind of threw the alliance under the bus and i think that's what kind of was like man come on what are you doing you just got your money and now now you're taking out on us like what's this about it was interesting to see a little bit of a switch though in his behavior like you said before and after he got his rewards yeah so it but i have to look back at it it's a game and i think in season two, you'll see a lot more play like that.

But see, it's interesting you say here it's a game. But then also I see Jeremy not taking, and Dino, the million dollars, to which your point, it is a game, taking a million dollars at that point, turning it down in episode two. I saw Ben Shapiro's reaction to it. He got very heated. Did you see his video? He got very upset that no one took the million dollars because he says at that point, it's a positive, expected value.

When you look at your chance of winning across all these people and you're offered one fifth of the prize pool, it would be dumb not to take that money. It was the expected value was like a million dollars for anyone rejecting a million dollars in that moment. But then if you did the math in terms of the amount of contestants left over and the prize pool at the end, if you evenly distribute that, it was like $5,000. So it's $5,000 per chance or a million dollars in your pocket. And everyone rejected that, which is insane. I look at that as like, hey, it's a game. You're on a game show and you have a chance to win. But then again, Graham would have, like, taken the first bribe opportunity.

Like, he's standing on that. I mean, it would be over the big 10 grand. No, it would have been, you know, the first round, eliminate everybody in your row and take, like, 10 bucks. He's like, well, it's a couple of coffees, you know. I mean, I think it all depends on your intention and going to the games. Like, I think, like, there's one reason to do anything. And it's as a sign to the universe of who you are, you know?

And, like, it's like, if you went into the game, with people you love, if you told your wife, hey, here's what I'm going to do. Here's my number. And guess what? If it means I'm going to have to sacrifice people to do it, I'm going to do it. If you haven't had those conversations and you want to show the world or you want to do, you want to show the world through your actions who you are, whether people are looking or people aren't, I think that's what we experienced with Dino, Tawana, Harrison, and Jeremy is this is who they are. Like, if they got chosen to represent them, they've got to go, I'm not going to let you down. Granted, that costs them a million dollars, but I truly don't think.

I think any of those people regret it. I've talked to them all, which is just wild to think about. I think more of a testimony of who they are as a person versus kind of what they wanted to do in that situation. Do you think a lot of players weaponized sympathy in the game? For example, they kind of acted as though they were feeling sympathetic towards other people's plights. But in actuality, their mind was set on the $10 million or the $5 million goal. I didn't think so at the time. Like, I just, like, I, maybe I'm naive or maybe I'm too trusting, but I didn't think people

had ulterior motives with sympathy. But like, after the show, it was so fun, like, have friends call me like, hey, asking me different questions about every episode. And I have a neighbor who's a psychologist who I'm good friends with, and she would ask me these questions. And she goes, you know, crying definitely is a tactic for narcissist or so-and-so to induce sympathy, like, especially in situations where you're trying to get something, maybe that's not yours or you want to get something from someone else. It's like, it made me kind of like look back

and the episode's going to go, wow, wait, did this person deliberately do this in order to get sympathy to keep moving on? I'm not sure. See, that's the thing. It's like when a lot of people got eliminated, a lot of people would cry that they got eliminated. But at the same point, that's the objective of the game is to continue on. And so I was wondering, it's like, okay, if I was in a game with other people, and it's like, sure, we had a little bit of an alliance and everything like that. When you get out, like, I'm like, oh, no, no, no. So everyone feels sad for me. And they're like, okay, well, this guy's been through a lot.

Let's, you know, keep them around. We'll talk to them, get to know them. But in actuality, I'm just making it farther in the game. Yeah, it's, you know, and even in my alliance, you know, in the top 10, we had four people in our alliance. It was me, Patrick 930, gauge 974 and J.C. 566. And the ultimate aim is we all want to win, but it would be awesome for all four of us to get there and then battle it out. So it's like, we understand that people are going to get eliminated and it's going to suck. And like, for example, Patrick 930, my closest friend of the games, he gets eliminated and we're like, I'm like, bittersweet.

Like, I'm sorry to see you go, but like, okay, I'm in the top six. I got to keep moving on. And how was the experience different as a competitor versus as a viewer? Were there certain things that maybe you didn't notice when you were competing? And then you got, you know, some secret drama or something maybe or people were in cahoots that you didn't. know about until you actually watched the video. I'm curious, too, did you see any of the episodes before they air? So episode one and two, we got to see in a premiere.

So we got to see a day before they aired. But all the other episodes, we saw it just when you did. You know, when it drops at kind of midnight on Thursday was when I would watch it. Are you watching it right when it drops? I would try. Sometimes. Yeah. So sometimes my wife and I would like either try to stay awake or like, I'd wake up at all night.

Like, do you want to? to watch it. But yeah, there was times I'd watch it at midnight. Sometimes I'd watch it the morning. Sometimes I'd watch it during the day. What was the most surprising thing watching it? Just to see other people's perspectives. You know, for me, it's I experienced the game through my lens and through kind of my values. But to see other people's experiences was awesome. And I think the biggest takeaway, again, was seeing it as a game and kind of going, I respected, or I understood the Habibi brothers moves much differently. watching it than I did,

kind of living it. I understood Akira's moves much different than I did, living it. But it was, yeah, it was fun to see people who I got to know really well. Like, once you get to the island, those top 50 people, we got to know super well, and to see their journey and how they played the game

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Was there anything that wasn't shown that you think should have been shown? I think there was a lot of character development and a lot of the game being played between the challenges. So at the meals while people are hanging out, like I think a lot of this game is social. So it doesn't show how people are building their friendships, their alliances. And it would be really,

it would have been really neat to see some of the alliances, how they were formed. Because there was more than were shown. I thought it was really interesting when they introduced your secret alliance. I thought that was something that they could have leaned in a little bit more because that introduced a whole different,

dynamic as a viewer to to pay attention to to be mindful of and it just gave a lot better perspective it was a lot more enjoyable i liked it a lot oh yeah no and i think and i think when i think four to season two and again i'm no writer but i think i think you'll see those those alliances of those characters get developed earlier because yeah it is it was so juicy like that was like that was my favorite episode one of my favorite episodes to watch is you have the family reunion which was like literally one of the top five moments of my life And then you have this money grab and this like the first kind of tension of the game. And I think seeing more of that will allow people to understand characters much better. What I find interesting is I feel like you have to.

Like if you were an employer, you could look at Beast Games and take the final 20 competitors and put them on some sort of a curve of personalities, skills, intelligence, and they would be outliers in terms of a positive way. I feel like you have to be in terms of social skills, intelligence, everything. And I'm curious because of the amount of self-elimination games that they had, if that could somehow throw a rock in that distribution. If instead they had more competitions, like I loved the intelligence one, the chance one was interesting as well as the physical skills one.

If more of the stuff were like that, more of the competitions were like that, by the end, if you'd have an even more refined group of people that, you know, one could argue would be good to. employer, just overall, like an exceptional being. Jack, you're spot on. Like, like, um, one of the guys who got eliminated in episode one, John 312, brilliant guy, great social game, really strong leadership got eliminated because nobody in his row self-eliminated. He would have been kind of formidable at the end. Um, some other great competitors who were like very loyal, always helping each other, a friend Justin, 66 didn't get got eliminated in the first episode too. So yeah,

It's, I envision a world, and this is some of the feedback I've seen online, too, is like, I want to see more skill-based. And social development as well. Like, that's why I liked the alliances. Like, a little bit of drama. Who can you be in cahoots with? Who could you be in secret of cahoots with? The thing I think was Patrick or the person that took the fifth or the sixth slot in the tower. Yeah. Like, that for me was one of the most exciting things, how he was able to outsmart everyone else and get voted in. And it surprised everybody. I'm like, that was such a low percentage chance for him to continue to, for him to advance. But he was able to pull it off. Yeah, Patrick was the one. He's the puppet master Patrick who took $0. So he took a big risk and going, I think there's going to be upside to zero. He took a big risk and it didn't work out for him. Gage 974 is the one who did this kind of miraculous move on the towers where he's like,

I'm going to tell this person that I'm going to vote for them. I'm going to ask for their vote and vice versa. Then he had this beautiful throwaway vote for Mikey, 453 because he knew no one would vote for him. And when I was sitting there, I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is like brilliant. Yeah. And Gage, like, it was neat to see someone like Gage step up. Yesy had brilliant moves in the ninth and tenth episode. So it's neat to see these characters kind of seize the moment they're in and crush it.

One of the most memorable moments for me was the coin flip, when you know the prize is going to be $5 million. And then he brings out another $5 million if you flip the coin and guessed correctly. I hope you know, like, those are real U.S. dollars. This isn't fake money. Like, like, so he wheeled in another literally $10 million in cash sitting there. And kind of when he opened the coin, you know, there was zero chance I was going to do it. Like, I'm like, it's just not worth it to get this far and lose over a coin flip.

I was never the best kind of in Vegas, you know, betting plain blackjack or roulette. And I'm like, I'm not going to come out of retirement and flip a coin. But I look over at Gage and Gage became a good friend of mine. He's got these kind of beautiful blue eyes and like you see them sparkling. you see this grin that I've never seen. I'm like, Gage wants to do this. Like, Gage really wants to do this. And Gage is so talented and kind of stepping into his own. I'm like, if he wants to do this, I want to make sure he does it. So I go over there and kind of chat with him, and I feel it. He wants to do it. And after kind of a little back and forth with him, Tijuana, he reaches out, puts his hand on it. And what Jimmy said is the first person to touch this has to flip it. So there's no takebacks. And you can just see it. And you can just see it. in his eyes he was feeling it and he uh back in the cubes he flipped to stay in the game tails and so he holds

it up and goes i'm feeling tails again and one of my favorite edits of the whole entire show is the coin flip you know and you see the kind of the sand going through it and then they pan back and they show emma's face and tawana's face and they're like in total game mode like focused and then i'm sitting here with my eyes half open with a little smirk because i'm just feeling so good for gage and yeah he He flips it and you hear the coin rattling and my eyes are still closed and I hear Jimmy kind of like sounding devastated like, ah. And I'm going, oh no, we didn't get it. And then it hits me. This is Jimmy's money.

He has pissed because he just lost $5 million. I look at it. And I'm like, and I got goosebumps thinking about it. It was tails. Like we literally in a split second went from $5 million to $10 million. And my buddy flipped a coin for this. I was like, I mean, it was like the most surreal moment. Like one of my favorite moments of the entire games.

So Jimmy was actually upset that he had to fork over $5 million. Oh my gosh. Like 100%. But also, like, he gets over it quickly because he realizes this is going to be awesome content. But he can't use it in the title. Yeah, I got so upset when he said that because I'm like, that's true. Imagine putting that in the title winning $10 million. Oh, yeah.

Like how more intense the game would have been with that from the beginning. I doubt they'll do that for Beast Game season, too. No, I think that was a one and done. I mean, maybe. Hey, well, it's one of these things where Johnny Shea was interviewing Jimmy on the BTS and it's like, how do you top this? And Jimmy's like, oh, we'll do it for sure. Like, so this is the thing about Jimmy is he's always going to up it one way or the other. I mean, it might not be the dollar amount.

It might be something unique. But I have no doubt that season two will be better than season one. Yeah, I was surprised that this is his money. This isn't like he's getting, you know, a sponsor to come in and say, hey, T-Mobile's putting up an extra $5 million. This is out of his own pocket. And so to put $5 million on a coin flip, to me is just like, that's insane. There was no T-Mobile logo on the coin. There needed to be like something on that coin is like a sponsor to help.

But no, this is like his own money that he's putting up. It's how committed to his crafty is. Like I want to create the biggest spectacle ever with the simplest thing, a coin flip. I mean, people have been flipping coins for thousands of years. And he makes it amazing. Did he think that someone was actually going to flip the coin? I've heard that he did not. I assumed that no one would.

That's what I thought, too. I thought, there's no way. But this is what's beautiful. It's like you look back to the million dollar bribe. He and Mac were beside themselves. They could not believe that no one took the million dollar bribe. And know what he did. And the flip side, they thought that no one flipped the coin.

And we did. So it's like, I love the fact that when we can surprise someone like Jimmy, man, you know, we're making great content. So I'm curious, how did $10 million? change the game. For me, I just, in my mind, I kind of go, you know, I've thought about this, like, okay, I need to put money aside for my family, and I need to have money to kind of invest into research

for my son's condition. And $5 million, don't be wrong, certainly helps. $10 million is totally different. Because it's like, okay, I can put money aside to make sure that my son Lucas is taking care of. I can make sure that Jack doesn't have to take care of Lucas and our parents as we get age. Like, there's just a lot of things we can do, but we can really make a dent in research.

Like, we can really, invest in some research that can really hopefully speed up this kind of quest for a cure, a quest for a treatment by years. And what about in terms of gameplay? Did people all of a sudden take it like way more seriously? I know I did. You know, going into the top six, I kind of felt like I was going into a big football game. Like I was, I was nervous going into it.

Like we take the bus over from the city. And I remember like sitting out in front of our van and like the production teams are now looking at us. Like they're starting to treat us differently. And I had my thermals on. I go to the bathroom. I take my thermals off. I come out like, oh, it's cold. Let me put my thermals back on. I'll see, I have this nervous energy. But once I got in there, I'm like, okay, this is it. Like, I can play the game fair and I can also play the game hard. And so like that was my mindset is like, be calm, kind of be focused, but play to win. When did you realize that you were going to win? Or when did you have that feeling that's like, hey, I got this?

I felt really good after I made that first shot in the first challenge. And we had the red balls. I knew that if I made the first shot, people would think twice about shooting at me because they'd go, oh gosh, he's good. You know, if I shoot at him, he can shoot me and get me out. So after that, I felt like, okay, I made the shot. I'm going to get to the top four.

And I look around to the top four, TESE, Gage, myself, and Tijuana. I felt pretty darn good, too. I didn't feel I was going to win until like once we got into the top two and we had a little break, they had to strike the set and build it and I'm off kind of in this warehouse,

you know, in the middle bice of pallets, it's dark, I'm kind of trying to eat a snack it's five o'clock in the morning. And I go, I think I got this, you know? And it was just more of like, it wasn't kind of arrogance, it was more of like, hey, I think I'm in a great spot to win this. Yeah. Even the top three,

you had the opportunity to pick a million dollars, guaranteed. and you didn't take it. Was there a part of you that thought, man, maybe I should just take the guarantee million dollars right now and self-eliminate? Based on the game, no.

The game was kind of everybody in the top 50 voted kind of who they thought was most deserving to win or least deserving to win. And I felt like I made great relationships and great inroads. But I'll be honest,

I didn't think it was Tijuana's number in that. I thought it was Gages. You know, Jimmy probably hates Gage. Because Gage is single-handedly, it's his fault. Jimmy's lost $6 million. I mean, it's crazy. $5 million from the coin flip, a million dollars from taking the bribe. It's, I mean, or he loves him.

It's the most expensive, you know, employee or person that Jimmy's ever had. It's unbelievable. Yeah, and I love when, like, Jimmy was interviewing Gage. Like, hey, what are you going to do with $10 million? He goes, I'm probably going to get a conversion van and play music. He's like, well, what are you going to do with the other $9,900,000? 90,000 bucks. It's hysterical.

Just a Lambo. I know. That was a good. I mean, that threw some people off in the last week. People definitely took the hook and thought he won. Interesting. So what I'm most curious about, the final episode, you're supposed to pick the winning briefcase.

And you picked it on the first try. Yeah. And Jimmy said, wow, we've done tests like this in the past. It takes like 18 times on average to pick that briefcase. You did it your first try. How did you do that? I was remarkably calm. and I don't know how.

I mean, it was six o'clock in the morning. I had like five cups of coffee all throughout the night. But the number six kept appearing to me in the days ahead. So you think back to the million dollar kind of money grab. You know, Patrick got number five and he gave me key number six, which put me into bunk number six. And then the next day, I get into top six. And we're spending a lot of time by ourselves.

So I'm in my room. You know, I have kind of a prayer book. And I'm saying a prayer that has six words in it. Um, what was the prayer? The prayer is called the shma. Um, and just the number six, it was actually the, um, that day before the night was the sixth day of the six Hebrew month. Um, so the number six just kept popping up to me. And so when I got up to the top of the pillars and we looked down at the kind of the lazy Susan with the briefcases and they're numbered, it just came to me and said, it's six.

Six is it. And so I just kind of. felt remarkably calm, going down there. And then Jimmy's team up the game and they kind of come out and kind of give us the rules. Jimmy spends it twice, or actually three times. One of the times he spends it, he puts his hand down on it. It's on the number six. Another time he spends it, it lets it go.

And right in front of me is the number six. And I'm like, I mean, do I? So you went in thinking six. I went in thinking six. And when the game started, you know, if I saw a briefcase on number six, That was my starting point. And the only way I'd get off it is if she shared something that would dissuade me from picking that. So I was calm and I wanted to kind of pressure test.

You know, is there anything that she could tell me to make me choose otherwise? And ultimately there wasn't. How did she pick six? I want to know that. I wish I would have asked her. I wish she would get on a podcast. Yeah, maybe. Is she not speaking about it?

Yeah, no one's asked her. But I would love to know. Like I know in my mind, I thought there's no chance she's going to choose one. She loves that number. And three, she has three daughters. Five, she has five people in her family. Like, I just think these would be unique numbers to choose. Like, part of me thought, like, one of the reasons why six could be it for her because it wasn't special to her.

You know, but it was special to me. So I'm like, you know, it was just one of these weird, weird moments where my certainty levels were nearly 100, if not 100. See, I would think to myself, if you have a number one through 10, what would most people pick? And I think a lot of people would just pick one, seven, eight. I was thinking two is it perfect? Like, no one thinks too. Yeah, I would never think two or four. Yeah, four is good.

And I would just place it in that, just knowing statistically people are more likely to pick certain numbers. If I were in her shoes, if I had to hide it, I think I would do it in a way where I would lose track of where I put it. Because you don't want a signal. Yeah. Because, I mean, or she could have turned around. She could have not answered any questions. But for me,

it's kind of like, can I mix up the briefcases enough where I don't know where it's at? Because, you know, you can either make it a total chance game, but like the way we played, it was a chance and bluffing game. She knew where it was.

Did the briefcases have numbers only on one side or both sides? So the briefcase, the numbers were just on the lazy Susan. So you could have taken all the briefcases and stacked them up 10 high right in the middle. And I would have to choose, like, point to one that I wanted. So you could, you could have put the briefcases anywhere.

She could have stacked multiple ones on number six, which would have really thrown me off. But yeah, it was, the rules weren't fully explained during the show, but you could have put the briefcases anywhere as long as they were on that kind of lazy susan. How long did it take for her to create that assortment? I want to say it was like three minutes or so. That's not that long. Yeah, I mean, and I was just, I was eyes closed, calm, you know, not really trying to listen to anything. I'm like, I don't want to, like, what am I really going to hear? Some people, like, online are like, oh, you saw the fingerprints.

I didn't see anything kind of out of the ordinary. But, yeah, it was three minutes, and I took it off, and I got to go, gosh, if it's, if there's something on six, that's where I'm starting. What was your first impression winning $10 million, and you opened it? It was, like, shock. I mean, I was, I was staring at her when I opened it. And I saw, because we did a test run before, because they, they, they, they, wanted us to know what it looked like or felt like when we opened it. So each of us opened it before the episode or before the challenge started. So we knew that a light opens up. So for me, I was going,

if I see a light, I know I won. And so I opened it up. The light shines. And I like, I pause for a second. Like, is this real? And then you hear Jimmy, oh, like, and then you hear the cannons go off. I'm like, oh my gosh. Like, I just won 10 million dollars. And so I just took off and I subconsciously did this like Elvis move. I'm a big Elvis fan. And then I jump and run up to the pyramid. And I'm sure the kind of stunt and safety is going, oh my gosh, please do not hurt yourself.

Like I could have ran over the other side. Good content. Yeah. And then I fell and I kind of just slid down, kind of like the Joker. And it was just, it was just the surreal moment. I just wanted to hug people and thank them. And I just picked up Carl and Chandler and it was just, it was so fun. What was her reaction?

Uh, I saw it. on the show and I did get a chance to talk to her so it's kind of like this out of body experience where you kind of like you know you get in the zone and you kind of black out a little bit it's like when I got home I remember kind of talked to my wife kind of going I can't believe I didn't say and go you know thank Tijuana or shake her hand um she used to go so I think you might have you know I'm like no I don't think I did because I forgot I did you know but I'm so glad I got to over and talk to her because I just respect her so much. She was like she literally was who I wanted to compete against at the end and she was kind of gracious and defeat and she said she was

happy for me but I could only imagine how hard it must be especially for a competitor like her not to even be able to play. Like she really didn't even get a chance at bat. She was only in the field. That's where I feel like the psychologist would really come in to help because if I if I put myself in that position, that would be really tough. I mean, I bet over time you could work through it, but just thinking I was like that close and having a regret of I should have picked five. I should have picked 10. I could have done all these other things that in that moment, I can't change anymore.

And at the moment, like, I told a joke earlier in that episode. I don't know if it was before it started or during that I was like, oh, yeah, when I used to be a professional poker player, so she, the joke fell flat. And apparently she thought I was telling the truth. So she thought I was a professional poker player. So in her mind, after that, she's going, this guy read me. I gave him some type of tell. And so even more so, I would think, gosh, going home and thinking,

I shouldn't have answered that. I should have turned around. I should have said something different. But there was nothing in her that I kind of go, gosh, I was going to choose five, but she said this on six, so I was going to choose six because of it. But yeah, I could only imagine what must have been like to have that on the first try. After winning, who was the first person that you called? Because you hear a lot of lottery winners that go broke and blow through all the money.

How did you make sure you weren't going to do that? Yeah. So the first person, you know, I called the Beast team and said, hey, can I get some NDA signed for some people? And they're like, of course. So got a few NDA signed and, you know, talk to an estate planner because we just wanted to talk about the special needs trust and making sure that that was set up correctly. talk to some tax people and then also talk to just kind of some investment advisors

because this is something that we need to make the money work for us not only for our family but also for other families like ours who have kids with CTD what was it like not being able to tell anybody like who could you tell like your wife obviously super blessed that my wife and my oldest son were there

so they got to experience it and feel it but I signed an Indie So I couldn't tell anybody that I didn't sign an NDA. So I never told my mom. I never told my dad. I have four sisters. And my oldest sister, Stacey, is like, became the biggest Beast Games fan ever and like asked me a thousand questions. I know you won.

I know you won. Did you win? Would you win? If you told me you won, would you tell me? Like, she'd ask all this stuff. And then, like, I would just lead them on kind of rabbit trails to them thinking I did not win. But once we got closer to the end, like they thought I was going to get eliminated every episode. but I made sure that they all watched it together at the end

because like their reaction videos, oh my gosh, absolutely priceless. And how was that first talking to them once they realized you had won? Oh, they were so proud and so happy, you know, and again, they know how much Jen and I, and we live far away. They live in Ohio, we live in California, and they know how much that Jen and I care about Lucas and trying to find a cure. And so they were just so happy that we actually had resources to, kind of put our money where our mouth was.

And they were just, I can't believe you didn't tell me. I, you know, like, just all these little things that, um, so much banter back and forth. And even today, we're two weeks out. They still love asking questions. Wait, wait, when I talk to you about this, did you mean this? How did you not tell me? So it's a ton of fun. It's interesting that none of the other contestants knew that you had won as well, because I was

messaging other contestants to try to get some information for this podcast. And they were like, yeah, I mean, I was talking to Jeffrey all the way up until the finale. I had no idea that he had won. Yeah, so one of my best friends from the game, Patrick 930. Like I literally talked to him probably every day. And he is the ultimate sleuter. To give him credit, he never asked me where I finished. He goes, I don't want to know, I want to watch it.

But I led him on some kind of rabbit trails to think somebody else might have won. But other people, like other people in the top six, you know, kind of, or not top six, but other people thought I had won. But it was like it was all hearsay. No one was 100% certain. As long as people aren't 100% certain, it was awesome. But it was so neat seeing because I watched the finale in L.A. with my family in the top 10. And Patrick was right in front of me. And this is so great. I get goosebumps thinking about it. And when he saw it at the end, he looked at me and just as like, USOB. And he loved it. He loved the fact that I did not rob that from him. Because that's one thing in the games, we get down there. Yes, we have an NDA. We can't. tell people. But we get down to the top six. And I remember Clitz, who's one of the show producers, who's awesome. And it's like, hey, think about all the things you've experienced so far. How fun has it been? How great has it been? How life changing it's been? We're like, oh my God, yes, yes, yes. And he's like, believe it or not, people who watch this at home will feel the same feelings.

And we'll have the same thoughts. If you tell them when you got eliminated, how you got eliminated, if you won, you're going to rob that from them. Please don't do that. That can be a bit. That mine with the NDA was enough for me to kind of go yes they're like and our lawyers by the way would love to speak with you about this exactly but it but it is like like for me like i i am a big fan of allowing people to have their own experience and just because i want to tell somebody like i wanted to tell my mom so bad like because she would have been so proud it would have been fun for to watch but like to see how she responded after was so worth it did anyone ask you for money after you won yeah um Fortunately, nobody who I know personally.

So it's a lot of just people DM in me or on comments on YouTube or Instagram. But yeah, anybody who knows me personally understands kind of my cause, my mission. And so they're probably know better than to ask for anything. Is anyone treating you differently? No.

You know, and I was actually in Costco here in Vegas a couple days ago and like four or five people stopped me or just said hi to me like, hey, congrats, great game. I'm happy for you. But no one is like, doing anything kind of out of the ordinary.

Are you getting recognized, just like left and right? I feel like you'd be a celebrity. I think people, there's a lot of double takes. They kind of pointed me, like, it was neat. I had a pilot at the airport kind of come up because, Jeff? I'm like, yeah. He goes, oh, I love the show.

So, I mean, I've definitely been stopped and it's interesting because this has never happened before. But everybody's been friendly. You know, I think it helps at, you know, the way I played the game and the way the games, what the games kind of represent, that everybody who's watching this, is pretty excited for me. You should just say you're Ryan Surhan. I think I'm going to start doing that 100%.

Yeah, do you want me to list your home? Terrific. It was so funny. As soon as we watched the first episode and you came on screen, immediately, I'm like, yo, it's Ryan Surahe. Yeah, I've gotten that so many times. It's crazy.

When did you start to go gray? Probably my 20s. My dad, ever since I've known him, his had salt and pepper. His dad had a kind of bright white hair. So I started going gray in my 20s. I tried to kind of kind of camouflaged a little bit.

I wasn't ready to fully grow up. And then once I got married, I said, let it go. And every year just gets silver and whiter. I think it's a good look. Yeah, no, it helps that like this has been in the last five years. Like people will dye their hair this color. So yeah, I think I'm right in the wave at the right time. So when are you going to meet Ryan Surhant?

I feel like this has to happen. There's got to be a collab. I got to figure out how to make it happen. You know, and, you know, fortunately, someone on his team is a big fan of Beast game so I've been messaging him so hopefully I can get out to New York

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Start your free travel. today. There you go. The collab has got to be coming soon. So in terms of the money, I'm curious, what's it like paying or potentially paying $5 million in taxes? Yeah, it sucks. It's not fun.

Well, especially like in today's day and age where you kind of see where some of our tax dollars are being spent, it's like, oh, man, I can put it to better use. But it's the nature of the beast, you know, and I think for me it's kind of going, how can I minimize my tax burden, you know, whether it's through kind of charitable, um, you know, deductions or setting up a donor advice fund to be able to continue to fund research in the years ahead. But I'm sure there's better ways for me to figure it out. So it's so funny, I was thinking about this because there was a post that went super viral on X. And the title was, winner of these games is going to pay $5 million in taxes to the state of California and the IRS.

And my response, I was like right on it, I responded back. And I'm like, well, actually, if your wife becomes a real estate professional, you're able to deduct real estate paper losses against your active income. So hypothetically, because it's early enough in the year, she could be a real estate professional, spend 750 hours on that this year, you go and use some of that money as a down payment on a commercial property. You then do what's called the cost segregation analysis to be able to take paper losses against that property to your income. So let's just say, as an example, you put $2 million down on a $10 million building. You're able to depreciate $8 million of that building.

Now, all of a sudden, you've just saved $2.5 million in taxes that you could then have working for you and not pay, you know. It's funny because I've been on real estate Twitter, real estate X for like five years. And so like cost segregation analysis has gotten super hot. And I felt like I've never had a reason to do it. and my wife has always been interested in real estate. So, like, you might have planted a seed.

I'll have to let you know. This would be so easy for you to do now, especially because you're getting a lot of eyeballs on you and just say, hey, is anyone looking to buy or sell a house? My wife would love to help you out. She just got her license. She's giving it 100%. She's working with another agent who's been doing it for 20 years.

We'd love to help you. By the way, she'd be awesome at it. Like, my wife, like, anything I see, I'm like, oh, gosh, Jen, you'd be an awesome figure skater. You'd be a great chef. Like anything she touches, she's gold at. So like, Jen, I think we need to get your license soon. Yeah, the other option, see, I don't know if you could do this,

because California might want to call this like California sourced income. I really don't know. They can be strict about this. But potentially looking into setting up a corporation in another state with no state income tax. Delaware, I think, is pretty popular. Nevada's pretty popular, too. Setting up a corporation so that. that the money goes to the corporation. The corporation pays, I think it's a flat, like 20%

income tax on that. But then the corporation could then disperse the money as needed. And that way you're not taking the money personally. It belongs to the corporation, but perhaps that could be used to fund research or certain things. So now you're only paying 20%, $2 million in tax, which is a lot versus five. Graham, you're hired. No, I mean, no, no. My fee is, by the way, only a million dollars. Exactly. Yes. So that's it. Great deal for you. It's just 25% of all the savings. No, these are awesome ideas.

And one thing that's just happened recently is once this got out, and I've been introduced to some more people through some great connections. So connections I trust. I've had some awesome conversations with tax attorneys that totally open my eyes to, obviously legal structures to be able to kind of preserve and grow your wealth. And it's like, these are things I would never have had access to. Like these tools of the Uber wealthy, man, it is. crazy how much I didn't know.

Did you get any bad advice? Like someone's telling you like, yo, I got this new like roller skating rink. It's going to be the next big thing or this new meme coin. No one's pushing, no, no, no one's been pushing too hard at things. But like I definitely have felt some people planting seeds like, oh yeah, yeah. Like, you know, I might have this opportunity coming up, you know, let me know if you're interested.

It hasn't come to fruition, but I imagine I'll be getting a lot of phone calls. People say money doesn't buy happiness. But how did it feel to win? $10 million. Winning $10 million was awesome. Did it bring me happiness? I'd say at the time it kind of brought me like stress. But ultimately after it kind of fizzled out,

like I think peace of mind is the ultimate gift of the $10 million. Everything my wife and I ever dreamed about has kind of, we have line of sight to it because of winning beast game season one. Now, besides buying the Lamborghini, is there anything that you spent money on? joking, by the way. I mean, it's so funny because so many people have said that to me, I picture myself in a Lamborghini and I just feel so out of place. It's the top down. Oh, my gosh.

See, I always think you won $10 million, but what about 20 if you just put it on black? Because I think black is a lock today. That's what I think. Or just on the coin flip, tails. That's what I'm saying. I would love to do that. I mean, how fun would that be? But we'd have to get Jimmy here because it's good content. We need to get this thing filmed. The first thing we spent, on and we spent this actually before we got the money was we just went on a nice really nice family vacation to Maui my kids have never been on a beach vacation even though we live in California and we brought um the in-law so my sister-in-law her husband and their kids and we just

had an awesome trip but other than that you know you'll still see me cruising around town in my Honda Odyssey minivan maybe I'll upgrade it to a Tesla model Y someday um Elon at dinner maybe you can get me a nice deal on that too. Are you getting any other opportunities because of the show? Like, appearances, like people pay you to show up at the club. I mean, what? That's the one thing you choose out of all of the other opportunities? I have to say it. It's an example. Like, who's reached out to you? Who's slid in your DMs? Yeah, no, um, what was really interesting was like a couple days, like, it might have been a day after, like Logan Paul slides in my DMs. And he's like, yo, bro, like, dude, that was awesome. I love you. I love how you played. I'm so proud of you. I'm

happy for your family. I'm like in in Logan I'm actually we're both from Ohio and we actually went to the same college I'm just way older than he is but it's just like Logan Paul just DM me like how cool is this yeah and I've had some opportunities I mean to be here on your podcast is like crazy like like I mean I've seen your so cool yeah yeah yeah yeah you're showing up here I know and I got to get be on Good Morning America and my wife's like what are you going to do next dance with the stars I'm like maybe like I got rhythm um but it's just yeah It's the doors have opened and I get to tell Lucas's story and I get to share my story. And it's been awesome.

I mean, I hope more doors open up and I'll definitely let you know. Do you miss competing in Beast games? Like, was there a part of you afterwards where you're like really sad it's over? Oh, like that is, that's one of the things, one of the reasons why people don't take bribes is playing the games is so fun. Like the fear of missing out and not playing anymore is real. And so the challenges are fun Thinking about the challenges are fun strategizing on what you think it's going to be

And how you're going to respond So when it's over it's kind of like Now what So I I wish I had something To fill that kind of competitive Strategic void So you received the $10 million wire

Only recently Could you show us that screenshot? No So that's what it looks like Isn't that crazy? That is nuts There's a lot of zeros there Wow. How many people have seen that? Like, do you just show it to people?

Yeah, everywhere he walks in. No, I mean, obviously I don't want to do that. You know, it puts a target on my back. But I, I posted it. So Jimmy posted it on Twitter, like, you know, just wired $10 million to the winner. And I, like, post my receiving side of it and say, like, no takebacks. And it's just surreal. Like, to see, again, to win $500,000 is amazing. A million dollars, $2 million. $5 million. Are you kidding me? $10 million is ridiculous. I mean, it really is absolutely ridiculous because I signed up on a little webcam video with my son. You should have messed with Mr. Beast and just said, I never received it.

I should have. I don't know what happened to do it. It would have been hilarious. It never hit my account. Can you send it to go? Send it again. I'll do that after I win season two. Perfect.

Do you think you're going to be able to compete in season two? I think if I did, I would be a target. You think about how people want to take Mia out, she won the island, oh, I would be target number one. Walk us through the first day after receiving $10 million. What did you do?

So I received it Friday the Friday after. The next day, I actually, I was in L.A. And I drove back to San Francisco area by myself. And I just called family and hung out. I mean, it was, it was nothing changed. It was really odd. You know, it was like, okay, like this one in my bank account, I get this ultimate kind of sense of peace of mind, but I'm like, what do I do now? Like, like, what am I supposed to do with this?

Like, and then I, and then my mind kind of goes, oh, gosh, I need to figure out how to make it work. Like, I've had five months to prepare for this, but now it's go time. Was there like a test payment? Did you get like a dollar sent to you first? And then Jimmy's like, okay, yeah, you got the dollar. Okay, cool. Let me send the 10. No, it was just $10 million.

He just sent the $10 million. $10 million. I mean, it was just, it was just. I didn't, like, I remember the Beast team kind of said, hey, by the way, the wire is going to get sent out today. Like, it might take a couple of days. Within an hour or two, like, I think my wife said, like, hey, check and see if it's there. And I opened up my account. I'm like, oh, my gosh, just $10 million is sitting, like, a $10 million input into my checking account.

I'm like, this is ridiculous. If I'm sending, like, $150 to a contractor, like, I'm sending a dollar to make sure that they received it for 100%. And seriously, he like, so part of my friend, like, raw dogged a $10 million payment to you. Just sent it. Totally raw dog. Insane. Yeah. No.

And there was no like, hey, did you get it? Because of me, I'm, I'm the same way like, hey, if I wire someone to money or send ACH, like, hey, did you get it? Like, are you sure? You got it? But there was nothing. I was like, just sent. That's horrifying. That's crazy.

I would at least follow up. Like, yeah. You got this, right? Yeah. It was, I mean, it was hysterical. I mean, obviously, we verified my, you know, bank routing number and, you know, bank routing number in account numbers like three or four times. I had to sign a paper and all that stuff.

So I feel like they kind of go, oh, it's on you. We put the numbers in. It's on you. Yeah. But here's the crazy thing about the Beast team is like, just because just as I couldn't tell my parents about this, inside Mr. Beast, not everybody knew that it was actually 10 million and not five. Most people didn't know who the winner was.

So it's like it kind of like when they had to tell accounting, hey, by the way, we need to wire the winner the money. and it's 10 million. Like, like they had to like say, hey, by the way, you can't tell anybody.

Because like, they want, they, they were so committed to their content that they, even in the last challenge, they kind of struck the set. It was like bare bones,

staff and crew because they wanted to reduce any, any kind of, um, opportunity for leaks. So you're saying, Jimmy didn't even check with accounting to see if he could spend five more million dollars.

Oh no. I mean, he knew he could, but accounting did not know that the winner was 10 million. Oh my God. Yeah, so it's like, it means like this is one of the things that I love so much about them. And I'm a big fan of kind of discernment and sharing, you know, knowing who to share what with. And I just love how they kept the secret. I love how no one knew how the game ended until it aired. And you're saying that there wasn't anything that maybe you've wanted for a couple years, but it's like, ah, you know, these headphones are like $400. I have like a pair of $20 Cheapos that I can continue using. It's fine. There wasn't anything. anything like that that you like splurge the first day you got the 10 million bucks um i think i bought a pair shoes like running shoes like dad are they pricey i mean they're leetis no no yeah louis vitton yes totally um i mean there's always been a like a watch i've wanted but like i mean i literally have not

had a watch since i was 19 it was a fossil watch um and i got and i can tell the time on my phone so like there's nothing kind of crazy out of the ordinary that i want um you kind of for me still my focus is my family and trying to fund research. So it's like, I'm sure I will splurge and get something. And I think I have to. I think like anytime you have, like whether you have an exit from, you know, a company or you have an awesome year, a big bonus. Like I think it's worth celebrating. Because if not, like, why the heck are you doing it?

It's just numbers and zeros on a screen. Do you still keep in touch with Jimmy? Yeah. I mean, it's not like him and I were like buddies on the show. Like we knew each other. We would talk to each other. But since like him and I have DM'd, uh, a handful of times and like literally I'll message him and he'll respond like it's like oh my

how does he have the time to do it but he um you know since he's gotten engaged to thea who's i got to meet on the show and she is just brilliant and smart and beautiful like i just am super excited to see what those two do together like like so young like power couple like i'm like man i can't wait to be your biggest fan yeah going for your reason why uh throughout the entire show you're talking about your son what is his condition how does that how does that how does that how does that even come to be like how are you diagnosed with it yeah what causes it so my son Lucas has a rare disease called creatine transported deficiency or CTD do you guys take creatine yeah um you know creatine's great for kind of bodybuilders performance athletes but it's also just great for normal brain health

so his body makes it naturally it gets into the blood and the travels for the blood to the final destination which is like your your muscles and your brain but there's a transporter that takes it there and his transporter is defective so his brain doesn't get the creatine, the energy it needs to function, develop, and thrive. And it presented when he was super young. Like about eight months old, he started, we noticed he starts missing milestones. He's not able to kind of sit up. He's not able to crawl. He's not very verbal, like doesn't cry a ton. And we hooked him up to every machine, did every test, saw every specialist for like 18 to 24 months. And there was no answer until finally we called in one favor. And like, hey, yeah, like,

maybe you should try to get an MRS in addition to an MRI. And that showed that the creatine was stopping at the blood-brain barrier. And he got diagnosed with CTD. And, you know, Jen and I are kind of like, and I was the optimist. Like, maybe he's development delayed. And Jen's, like, more pragmatic. Like, we need to take the steps to make sure it's not any unique condition. And once we get the diagnosis, we realize, okay, great, we know what he has.

But then we soon realize there's no therapy. Like, there's no treatment. There's zero cure for what he has. And so now we're kind of in this no man's land where, we know what we have, but there's nothing we can do about it. So I join this nonprofit called the Association for Creating Deficiencies, become a board member and realize, hey, I need to get out there and spread awareness. So I'd start doing funky things to try to raise awareness. I walk 68 miles for the gene, SLC 68. I wrote a Christmas song to try to raise money. My son, Jack and I did this

kind of rendition on Home Alone 2 to try to raise money. And we're just trying to do all we can to kind of raise more awareness and raise money to try to ultimately find a treatment. But Lucas is a sweet boy. He's a happy boy. How difficult is it to raise money? It's hard. You know, it's more difficult than you think. These people who are super philanthropic who have big pockets,

they also want to change the world. And for creatine transport deficiency, there's less than 400 kids diagnosed. So there's certainly bigger ends that you can impact. So, and then also academia, you know, it's tough to get them. interested in something so small big pharma obviously it's you know and i don't blame them you know they're in a for profit business they want to make money it's hard for them to invest in the stuff that

is really hard to recoup your investment so a lot of the fundraising depends on parent advocates and there's a lot of people who are kind of repeat donors who are awesome um but to fund and cure rare disease cost upwards like 50 million dollars what do you think is the best solution to finding a cure for something like that cure and treatment are kind of synonymous. I mean, technically a cure is like something that like, hey, it's never going to happen again. Sure. But kids will be born with this. And the ultimate goal is to have a kid diagnosed at birth and receive a treatment within a week that will ultimately allow them to have a normal life. And that's the kind of the sumum bonum. That's where we want to get. That's like the highest good. But to get there,

like there's different kind of ways you can get there. It could be gene editing, gene therapy. It could be drug repurposing. Like finding drugs that are already proven safe and affected by the FDA, repurposing them and realizing they can get created in the brain or like Stanford's working on small molecule like how can we make something so small that it can get through the blood brain barrier to help either induce creatine creation of the brain or bring creativity to the brain so like we have researchers at Stanford and Italy and British Columbia and Toronto who are doing awesome stuff and I think eventually we'll crack the code but boosting this with an injection of money is you know fingers cross going to help it get there quicker how can viewers help if they want to yeah they can go to um you know actually right in hell um me and my friend jeremy from the show are rucking across california so we're carrying the weight of lucas between us and we're rucking 365 miles across california to raise awareness and raise funds for the 365 days a year that lucas suffers with this condition um so you can go to rock ferrer dot com right now and see ways to contribute uh but you can also go to my website legacy a31.com there's a ton of information on ctd and other ways you

get involved, but spreading the word and even contributing, just even a little bit, really helps us go a long way. Yeah, I've been watching your videos. I really enjoy it. Good. Yeah. So I'll link to your channel down below in the description. All of that stuff will be linked down.

I highly recommend you guys go and subscribe and support because the videos are really interesting. And like sharing some of the behind the scenes from your perspective is really cool. Awesome. No, I'm glad to enjoy him. How did his condition change your life? In a ton of ways, it changed my life. you know, it immediately kind of forces you to change your priorities and change your perspective. So Lucas brought faith back into my life.

And he also allowed me to kind of see the beauties and the bumps. Like this is a challenge that is lifelong. Like Lucas, as of today, will live with mom and dad forever. And eventually there will be a time where mom and dad are gone? And where does Lucas live? Like, will people take care of them? Will he be treated well? And so for me, it just forced me to look at things differently and see the things that are important.

Like, Lucas has given me so many blessings in life. Like my outlook, how I treat others, how I value my family is so different because of what he gave to me. So, you know, like one of the reasons why I'm out rucking across California and one of the reasons why I set up for Beast games is going, if I can ever repay all the blessings he's given me, man, I will be a happy man. I'll be a happy dad. So until, you know, I don't think that's ever going to end because he keeps giving me blessings. And so does his older brother Jack. So he's changed my life. He's changed my perspective and allowed me to have a ton more empathy for families like ours.

It's a different journey. And it can be hard, but it doesn't have to suck. You know, if you really search hard, I think you'll find the blessings in these bumps. So winning 10 million bucks, you can stretch that pretty far. How are you planning on investing it? Yeah, and I think that's the ultimate goal is how do I make it work for my family and how do I make it work so I can continue to invest into research? Kind of first things first, like, just as you, like, Jimmy wired me 10 million,

I wired a great chunk of that over to a financial institution to kind of get it to work. And right now it's kind of sitting in some treasury ETFs as I figure out kind of where I'm going to put it. But it's like, this opens up a whole new world for me because I'm now qualified purchaser. it's like structured products, different private investments I would never have had access to. So there's different things I want to do to make sure my family's taken care of or long term. We've got to look at kind of PPL. We have to look at long term care insurance, like making sure we do things so our kids don't have to care for us.

But also, like, how do I make sure that we're funding the research we need to? How do we stretch those dollars? So making donations this year, setting up a donor advised fund to continue to invest. over the years and hopefully integrate investments. So those dollars grow. It's a great problem to have, but it's a little overwhelming. So I have a great team of people who I know and trust who are helping me. And the ultimate goal is to stretch these dollars to continue to make an impact of my family

and other families like ours. Yeah, it seems like all the fancy stuff like if people try to pitch you like, oh, I got this great fund and this and that. It's just distractions. It usually is. It's usually the really simple approach. approach of like, hey, 70% U.S. equities, 20% international, 10% treasuries slash cash, tends to be the safest and long term does really well.

Yeah, and my wife is more conservative. You know, I'm more when it comes to investing, I'd all specialize. Like, you know, when I look at my IRAs, it's like my Roth and my traditional, I own three stocks in it. And that's it. You probably would, what stocks? Tesla. I own micro strategy and I own Coinbase.

very risky. How long have you owned those? A while. So I've had a good run. Those are insane stocks to own recently. Yeah, so I've had a good run on those. And for me, especially being in my IRA, it's like I can be a little more risky, at least how I do it.

And then so this other stuff, I'll be a little bit more conservative and take my wife's approach and kind of your approach and just make sure these dollars stretch. Wow. Don't tell Jack whatever you're investing in because as soon as he buys it, it's going to go down. No way. Every single time. It's bad. It's recently too.

Oh. Do you remember how I was like, I have way too big of a cash position right now. Like I need to buy stocks. So I created a whole new. I use M1 finance, at least right now. I won't forever. I created this new account within my M1 account. And it was called my VUG account.

That's my growth stock. It's like an index fund basically. Put a bunch in there. I was averaging into that. I've been doing that now for like probably about a year. and then I realized my cash position's too big, so I started really putting money into it. I remember you telling me about this.

Dumping money into it. At the end of the year when the market was at the end of the year. And I really, and I'm overall down so much in that account, and it's an index fund because I just bought it the wrong time. And I've had it for over a year. I just like, and I did small investments while like, you know, it was obviously just skyrocketing. And then right at the peak is when I just like unloaded into it and I'm down so much.

Isn't it crazy how it works out? I mean, like, it's not working out. But this is not working. This isn't a one-time thing. It's crazy how it all works out. Well, hey, but it's doing the exact opposite. But you got to hold it. Oh, well, yeah.

I mean, that's, I don't let it keep me up at night. And every day that the market's down, I'm like, well, you know, like, you know, my averaging in because I don't even have enough money now to, like, continue bulk investing like I was. So. That's the worst. But I'm still averaging for years. I mean, this has been like since 2020 or 2021 are everything he buys. And you know what's crazy?

Are you your generation's Jim Kramer? I think I am because also I built up this Robin Hood account and I've talked about it on this podcast before and I built it from like, I think it was like 22 grand all the way to 75. The best investment that I made was Dogecoin and I turned $100 into just shy of $17,000. And then I parlayed that into basically everything was call options on Robin Hood and Palantir. And then that was when they started plummeting. And so I got margin called and I was forced to sell my call options on these. So I couldn't hold on to them anymore.

And that's like leveraged positions. And guess what's happened to Robin Hood and Palantir recently? Crushing it. They're crushing it. But guess what happened to me? I had to give away my shares because I got margin called on that account. So it's short-term calls? It was long.

So I was like, I was like, I maxed it out in terms of the time. So I think it was like a year and a half. Marching. And so I don't know what it is, but especially with the recent purchases of the index funds, it's crazy. As soon as I start loaded it in. Because I've had it for over a year, but I'm still down. So you're a big Tesla fan. Yes.

Are you getting long options on Tesla? Yeah. But the thing is, it's like the heavier I go into something, usually the worse it performs. And I haven't gone incredibly heavy into Tesla. So it's one of my smaller positions. It's still, okay. I was pissed on Robin Hood because I was investing. in Robin Hood and Jack saw me buy Robin Hood stock and he's like oh I'm gonna buy some

that too like immediately the next day I'm not I would have hundreds of thousands of dollars right now in my Robin Hood account because of Robin Hood stock and Palantir because they've just been going like hundreds of thousands of here but here's how bad it is there was a day where Robin Hood just kept going down it was down like 80% and I go to Jack I'm like I'll pay you to sell your stock and he's really stubborn he's no like come on there's got to be a price I could pay you guess what we come on with a price he sells his Robinhood stock the next day it's up 10 percent so so when I when you read those financial questionnaires to kind of figure out your risk profiles like if you lost more than X

percent do you buy more do you hold you sell you're the one who sells no no like like I do the right thing now at least after that whole you know Palantier and Robin Hood fiasco I now do the right thing I'm dollar cost averaging into index funds that's everything that's all I've ever done now since that incident but still it doesn't matter there was another one that was really funny a buddy was talking about what he was invested in jack's like we're not i'm gonna go into that too he buys into it and this person is always like didn't know that i bought into a but but he's always right on the money but very smart and he's got into like certain things before they've taken off like his track record is fantastic

so jack knows this is like well if his track record's like basically 100% i'm gonna i'm pretty safe buying into this how was that doing uh i had to sell because it i bought bought calls on it. So, you know, just leverage positions and basically lost everything. But it wasn't, I mean, I love how so conservative you are to dollar cost average into index funds, but you're doing leverage calls. Well, the thing is, like, I did that with like an account with $2,000 in it, but I do have like my daily auto invest, which is more, like, not more than, but it's a substantial amount that I'm investing every day into. I love that you DCA every day. That's great. Yeah. A lot of people do it every week. I prefer to do it

every day. Graham's a weirdo and he likes to manually do it every day. But I recommend it to a lot of my friends. We also, we have a few friends who we know when they buy into something, it's the peak. And so with Bitcoin, we have one friend in particular that's like, no, I'm not going near that. And we know, okay, when that person buys in, we sell. Yeah. We have to because that's the peak. Yeah. Like, I was always a little bit skeptical. Graham is very, what do you call that word, that thing, that word? Optimistic. No, it's not optimistic. mystic. It's when you don't want to walk under a ladder. Superstitious. Yeah, Graham's very superstitious. So he starts connecting the dots with a lot of things. And I am exactly the opposite. And he brought this to me, this whole Jack trading, you know, Jack inverse trading thing. And I'm like, I don't believe it. I don't believe it. Recently, it's, it's really hard to ignore with the index fund thing. Well, it's so funny. I forget who, uh, who you had on the show, but he talks about like knowledge parody. Where it's, oh, Chris Camillo. Which I loved. And it's like, it's like, it's like, you like, it's like, your friend, like, once he starts

about it. Okay, it's time to get out. Like, yeah, if he's getting in, we get out. So we got a good group of friends diverse enough where I know if this person buys this, sell. If this person sells that, buy. I love it. Just between them, I think we got the markets covered. That's so good. But Jack is like the ultimate bellwether. Yeah. Of like buyer's sell. Like the greed, fear indexes. I think it's the jack of the past. I think 2025 and beyond is going to be. I think I just need to make more doge coin investments. No, honestly, you could make a lot of money. Just, uh, people pay you you just to know how much you're investing in the market and what you're buying so they could do the opposite to that. Yeah, but if they're paying me for it, then like, like the universe would want to

minimize the amount of gain that I possibly have. So if they're paying me for it, then like the first couple trades I would do would be successful, but to a very small degree to where everyone's like refunding their to me. And then I would start, yeah, that's what I think. But no. No, index funds, they've been, overall, I'm positive, but way less than probably should be. Well, and especially your age, your timeline is so, you got a long timeline. Yeah. So good to know that you have some plans to mitigate your tax implications. That's going to be pretty brutal when you end up paying that. Yeah, and we'll have to report back whether, you know, we have this amazing new realtor in Northern California who's got, and we got a great commercial property.

So I had to see if that comes to. Yeah, keep posting videos. I think that would be really important. and do more appearances. I think the more awareness you raise, especially now because you have, I think, a few months right now where you could really maximize everything before people are like,

oh, I've seen the show already. I don't either watch it again. Old news, season two is coming out. Exactly. I think you got three months where you could really make the most of it. And so I would. Do you have any regrets from the show?

No. Obviously, you look at the ultimate outcome. You know, I won season one of Beast games. I won $10 million. dollars like for me to have regrets i think is like super selfish um so no you know regrets per se but there are times where i wish i could have maybe helped a friend more like uh like one is on the telephone voting game like could i have done something different to have helped patrick get to the final six um granted he could have beat me in the top six he thinks he could have

have, but he wouldn't have. But those are the types of things, like, could I have done something different to help a friend get further? Well, speaking of a friend, I would love to have Jeremy on here, who turned down a million dollars. All right, Jeremy, how did it feel

to reject a million dollars for the sake of your team? And then it seems like shortly afterwards, everyone forgot about that. And it seems like there was an uprising against you. Man, I feel like that's more of the editing. You know, you look back at episode four, and there was definitely a lot of drama

for sure, but I was able to receive the majority of the coins and still make it to the city and to be able to bring really good people through. So it's interesting how loud a few people can make a room. Why did you turn down a million dollars, though? Ben Shapiro got very upset at you for turning down. Apparently, I've got to watch that. I haven't seen it yet. You should. Yeah. He gets very frustrated. Not that frustrated, but he was not thrilled. Yeah. Well, and I get it. If you're, if you're looking at it from just the financial point of view, if you're looking at it from a game as well, again, it is a game where they're to win money,

but it's also this experience, and it's this massive social experiment of that line of who you are in the real world and who you are in this game. Well, this game is still the real world. How are you perceived? What does your word mean? And in this situation, you know, we've been voted in as a leader with 60 amazing people that every battle you go into is this $5 million battle. And we lost and got resurrected and it was incredible.

And then they put their trust in me. So I wasn't going to break that. And I looked down. I've got really good friends there. We've got Jordan. We've got Jeff is down there. We've got Daphne. We've got Dallin.

There's Tim. There's so many incredible people that have these dreams and these visions and these visions. and these things that they would like to receive from this. And these people have all turned down bribes to be here. Episode one, they could have hit a buzzard and could have taken anything from $10,000 all the way to $100,000. You know, again, looking down, Jeff is a dear friend of mine.

I care for his family and want to help his son and their condition to see if we can spread this awareness. And everyone's like, well, then if you really cared, you should have hit the button and just giving him some money. But it's like, oh, no, there's so much more to the journey. then that and to turn down $100,000 and then have it be ripped away from you, literally almost the next day. That's brutal. Was it easy, an easy decision?

To not take the million? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So you knew from the start. Yep. And again, I've got four kids at home. And I want to set an example for them of, you know, if we're going to get ahead in life, it's not because we're lying to people.

It's not because we're being deceitful. You know, if there was an opportunity to take that million dollars, and eliminate myself, oh, man, I would have taken it and I would have been home in a minute. But again, I want my kids to have that level of integrity and understanding that. The decisions that we make have massive impact. Hypothetically, let's just say it didn't stop at a million. It kept going. Is there a point where you would have hit it?

It gets a $5 million, $10 million, $15 million. I don't know. We're going to have to find out. You know, playback. Talk to Jimmy. Talk to your dad, Elon. And let's just see. You know, because right now I'd like to say that, you know, I still wouldn't hit it.

For the record, he mentioned my dad, Elon because we had previously discussed that, like, there's a rumor going around apparently that my dad's Elon Musk or that, like, my wealth and my dad's alleged wealth is directly tied to Elon Musk's. And some, like, mineral mine. It had a lot of likes. Yeah, so someone commented. That's what we've heard all through Death Valley on this rug. Yeah, that's what I... Hearing the rumors of this. The idea is apparently somehow that I'm like, I have a trust fund.

And these people are commenting, and they get hundreds of likes on these comments of people like saying I have all of this wealth. And then other people are commenting back. They're like, really, I've been watching the show for years. I had no idea that Jack's dad was Elon Mother. Jack's dad's wealth is directly tidy. And Jack has this trust fund. He's like, oh, yeah, you didn't know about that.

There's clear evidence. And I'm like, just reading through this comment there to this one guy and they're getting so many likes. So it's show me some evidence. I would love to know where my trust fund is. Don't know where it is. But I think it's because I figured it out. Because there was the PayPal Mafia,

which is like all of these super, super intelligent investors. They're all incredibly wealthy. Elon Musk was one of them. One of the mafia members' names is Jack Selby. Not me, you know. Unfortunately, it's not me. But we share the same name. So that's pretty cool.

I remember. Okay, so at least it can be rooted in some grain of like... Find one picture of... me next to him. Like, see if we're even following each other on Instagram, at least before you say, oh, yeah. Like, this guy's, there's no evidence. People don't do research. When they read a comment like that, they just take it at face value, like, oh, wow.

Yeah, that must be true because this guy said it. It had 200 likes, so 200 other people agreed. Yeah. And if Jack Selby, if anyone knows that Jack Selby, tell him to reach out. I'd love to have a conversation with him. I think having him on the podcast would actually, like, we could have the best title of all time. Jack Selby is.

Now worth $100 million, not clickbait. It'd be amazing. See, there you go. Approved to the world once in front. But what about rumors for you that you're a cult leader? Oh, man, that was so funny because definitely not a cult leader. I'm just sitting there praying because literally every situation is a $5 million choice. And the pressure and the stress from the coins, you know, I'm dropping to my knees praying because I don't want to hear from anybody else.

It's like, Lord, just help leading guide me through this. I need your opinion. I need to calm down. I need to think through this. And instead of taking what everyone else is throwing my way. I know who I am. I'm very confident who I am and the amazing life that I've been blessed with. And I'm not going to let other people's opinion change that.

I find it funny. The main criticism is that you weren't going to give away a ticket to join the island to a girl. Is that true? Like, how did that rumor get started? Yeah, that was one of the rumors. And it wasn't a rumor. That was something that I said. I had a lady come up and say, well, if you win, please take me.

And I said, well, to be honest with you, I probably won't. I'm going to respect my wife. And I don't want her to watch this show and see me, you know, filling a helicopter full of women and flying off to a tropical vacation. That's what a jack would do. Like, that would be a jack-mover? Would your wife question that, though, if it's like 50-50, like, you know, two women to know you well enough to-

She does. but what do we just talk about? We just talked about the internet and how one comment of some person that has no understanding or research can change the things. You became wealthy, and your dad is Elon Musk

it got 200 comments. It just takes one comment on the internet to say, oh, Jeremy has this behind-the-scenes relation, and it's just foolishness. And how would that impact your life if someone were to say, yeah, he picked her because they were having romance behind the porta-pani.

I feel like they'd be so disrespectful. to my home and my personal life and my wife. So I'd much rather be called a cult leader than an adulter. Yeah, because you're friends with Jeff, and you technically gave up a million dollars so he could win 10, how does it work if you guys are out at a restaurant? Like, who pays the bill? You know, if I had enough money to pay the bill,

maybe, maybe I'd take it, but most days, as much as I eat when we go out, he has to take care of it. Do you pick expensive, you pick expensive, You pick expensive spots. Oh, not expensive. I just like a lot. Like the first time I think we went out to eat even before the winning of the game. I ordered 20 chicken wings.

He's like, no, we all got food already. He's like, no, those are for me. He's like, oh. There's nothing like it. That is a great feeling. I just realized we have Ryan Sarant and Brandon Turner. Oh, my gosh. That is hilarious.

That is hilarious. The real estate guru. So Brandon Turner, what's the best way to invest in multifamily real estate? Now, listen, a lot of people are still into the real estate game, but we're actually going more into agricultural, but mostly into chickens. The price of eggs is going to be what's going to deter the market. So everything that I've put into real estate is done. Chicken farming, everything we've got. How much does that cost? I think we're taking out a $35 million loan, 18% interest. growth rate of the chicken chicken eggs pretty good huh can i can i throw you some money are you raising

could jack buy in we're raising our own sounds like a good deal thank you so much for coming on the ice coffee hour seriously it means a lot that you took the time out of your day i'm sure you're a very busy man congratulations and i can confidently say i feel like the right person won beast games watching you on the show and also meeting you in person you're like the nicest Really, you are. It's so enjoyable to spend time with you. Thanks for coming on the show. We're also going to be making a donation,

and anyone else who wants to follow along do that as well. The link is down below in the description. Oh, amazing. Thanks so much. Hope to see you guys soon. Shout out Jeremy, Brandon Turner. Shout out. Shout out.

Thank you guys for watching. Until next time.