The Pomp Podcast - 335: Former Professional Skateboarder Mikey Taylor On Winning In Business

Episode Date: July 14, 2020

Mikey Taylor is a former professional skateboarder who now spends his time investing in real estate across the United States at Commune Capital. He previously was also the co-founder of Saint Archer Brewery before they were acquired by MillerCoors. In this conversation, we discuss Mikey's epic run as a pro skateboarder, learning to be an entrepreneur, how he used self-evaluation to pursue self-improvement, how the Saint Archer acquisition happened, what he is seeing happen in the real estate market, and why market cycles are essential to understand. =============================== The BTSE exchange allows you to trade confidently. They are the leader in futures, which means they are pioneering Futures 2.0. With BTSE, you can trade next-level futures: freely choose and combine your margin and settlement assets and trade with up to 100x leverage. You can also sign up for a BTSE Elite membership that gives you unbeatable discounts and bonuses across the BTSE Exchange, OTC platform, and more. Go to BTSE.com/pomp to get a 10% discount on your BTSE Elite membership. =============================== The Helium Hotspot is a new product that enables the people, not the telcos, to own and operate a wireless network in their city for Internet of Things devices. You can literally earn crypto for helping to build the network and providing connectivity to Internet of Things devices sending small bits of data. Join the movement and get your Helium Hotspot today with $50 off using the code POMP at helium.com.  =============================== Pomp writes a daily letter to over 50,000 investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy to understand language, while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at https://www.pompletter.com

What's up, everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Let's kick this thing off. Mikey Taylor is a former professional skateboarder who now spends his time investing in real estate across the United States at Commune Capital. He previously was also the co-founder of St. Archer Brewery before they were acquired by Miller Coors. In this conversation, we discuss Mikey's epic run as a pro skateboarder, learning to be an entrepreneur, how he used self-evaluation to pursue self-improvement, how the St. Archer acquisition happened, what he is seeing happen in the real estate market, and why market cycles are essential

to understand. I really enjoyed this conversation with Mikey, and I hope you do as well. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to quickly tell you about our sponsors. The first is Bitsy. The Bitsy Exchange allows you to trade confidently. They are the leader in futures, which means they are pioneering Futures 2.0. With Bitsy, you can trade next-level futures, freely choose and combine your margin and settlement assets, and trade with up to 100x leverage. You can also sign up for a Bitsy Elite Membership that gives you unbeatable discounts and bonuses across the Bitsy Exchange, OTC platform, and more. go to bitsy.com slash pomp to get a 10 discount on your bitsy elite membership that's right you can get 10 off if you go to bitsy btsc spelled btsc.com slash pomp it's pronounced bitsy but

it's spelled btsc.com slash pomp go check out the leader in crypto futures the second sponsor is helium the helium hotspot is a new product that enables the people not the telcos to own and operate a wireless network in the city for Internet of Things devices. Historically, the telcos have had a monopoly on owning wireless networks. Helium's changing that. They are breaking it up and democratizing ownership and access. You can earn crypto for helping to build the network and providing connectivity to Internet of Things devices by sending small bits of data. Join the movement today and get your Helium Hotspot with $50 off using the code POMP at Helium.com. I've got one set up and it's cranking away.

I'm doing my part. So join us, Helium.com, and use the code POMP for $50 off a Helium Hotspot and let's take the power back from the telcos. Lastly, don't forget that I write a daily letter to over 50,000 investors about business technology and finance. I break down complex topics into easy-to-understand language while sharing my opinion on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at Pompletter.com, Pompletter.com. All right, let's get into this episode with Mikey. I hope you guys enjoy it.

Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only. All right, guys. Bang, bang. Super excited to have Mike on today. A little bit different in that I have no clue if he knows anything about crypto, but he's had a fascinating life and a mutual friend, Grant. Grant now is two for two

with me one he convinced me to switch to zoom so we are now using zoom and can hear each other and see each other and you guys can listen to us and also uh he connected with mike so uh thanks for doing this man i'm stoked to be here awesome um all right let's just go through your background kind of what you did and how the hell do you become uh a prolific skater so yeah it was you know it felt a little random because my intentions as a kid was never to become a pro skateboarder uh, I just started skateboarding and fell in love with it. And it quickly became an obsession of mine. And I just didn't want to stop. It was like that simple. I just didn't want to let it go. And when I, you know, right around 16, my parents really started pushing me to get a job. And I

took that as taking away from time that I wanted to skate. So I had to figure out a hack around it, which ended up being, you know, convinced companies to give me free products. And then I don't need money because I get it all for free and and then that prolonged or gave me an extra two years until I was going to graduate high school and then you know my parents hit me with where are you going to college and you know I wasn't quite ready yet to give up skating so I had to figure out a new plan figure out how to get these companies to pay me and then that ended up turning into a career was all out of you know desperation of not wanting to stop doing what I love doing. So one of the things I always think is fascinating, especially in sports like

skateboarding, how much of it is you were good and then you found sponsors versus you were able to find sponsors who gave you gear, which gave you the opportunity to practice more. And like that led to you being good, right? Like, how do you think about that kind of balance? Oh man, you know what? I think I've seen it all at this point. Truthfully, there's definitely like people who are just God given, just spewing talent and they are just naturally good. You have those people, right? I was not one of them. I was the person who became so obsessed that I wasn't willing to not be good and I wasn't willing to hear no. I was more like the workhorse guy. And that's just what I had to do to create success because for me, it was a little harder. I was the kid in my crew that

took the longest to do tricks. I was the one that everyone was waiting for. I just wasn't willing to give up. And, you know, I had other friends who it was just, it was as natural as walking. It was just, it was like art watching them do it. And so I think it depends. You usually land, you know, if not on opposite ends, somewhere in the middle. And I just ended up leaning towards, I've got to work harder than the people around me. Yeah. I love that. And then what did you do in terms of if you're a 16 year old kid and you say, Hey, I got to go convince these brands. So I give me gear. What was that process? Like, do you just start cold calling people or what do you do? Yeah, it was a little harder back then than it is now. Uh, there's no social media. So basically

I convinced, uh, that we had a filmer, like a neighborhood filmer, the guy who just like filmed all of us. And I convinced him to help me make a video kind of like a sponsor me tape. and it took about, I don't know, four or five months to make it. It was about three minutes long. It was VHS style. And I just went through the magazines and every once in a while, when a company ran an ad, they would leave their address. And so I didn't care the company. I would just, I took the address on any company that left it and then packaged my VHS tape up, wrote attention team manager, because I didn't even know people in the industry. And I sent like 40 of these things out just at will uh and no one called me back it was just completely dry and so i convinced

the the guy who filmed uh steve ireland to make me another tape took another four or five months i sent another 40 out and on the second batch i got two companies to call me okay and when you're sending these out is there like a letter in there that's basically like sponsor me or like what goes with the tape there should have been there definitely should have been but my limited experience uh no man it was a tape on the tape i put a sticker that said mikey taylor with my phone number under it and then you know a package that said attention team manager that was it it was all i had it worked it worked it worked it was like you know the grace of god like you guys snuck in there somehow i love it i love it and so i'm assuming that at some point like

once you uh get sponsors does it kind of compound and now oh you've got that sponsor so somebody else wants to sponsor you or do you still kind of have to hustle for uh more sponsors after those first two you know what there's okay so in skateboarding there's a thing called flow which means companies just give you free product but they're not advertising you and then from the point of them advertising you is when you become amateur and then pro is beyond that so think of it as like three ranks, right? The flow, uh, scenario was awesome because you're getting free product, but no other company knows who you are. You haven't made a splash yet. So I didn't have a lot of companies calling me at that point. It wasn't until I started getting in magazines

videos where then people started paying attention to me and then other companies started reaching out. But from the point of me getting my first sponsor, man, it was probably three years, uh, from that point. All right. So every skateboarder I know has incredibly crazy stories of things that they tried to do. What's the craziest thing you can tell us that you're comfortable being on the internet that you and your friends try to do skating? Like reckless stuff, like places that we've tried to skate that we weren't allowed to. Sure. That's a good, that even sounds better. oh man um you know what's funny man when we were kids like you know like being where we weren't supposed to be was such a regular everyday occurrence and like running from the cops was like

so normal for us i'm trying to think of like a point where it all went wrong you're basically saying that everywhere you went you weren't supposed to be my truthfully my job was an a legal job i was never supposed to be doing what i was supposed to do i mean think about it man schools you're not allowed to skate at schools you're not allowed to skate at business like the amount of fi cards that have been written on me are i mean dude it's books by now you know it's just like a normal thing like the cops in our area knew us uh by name it was just part of the gig i you know i'm trying i mean there were times where you know we got tickets there was times gosh there was one time and it wasn't even us trying to like do anything out of the ordinary

but we were skating in San Bernardino uh we were skating at the school and it was probably maybe 11 at night we used to go at schools at at night light stuff up because no one was around and the cops came right which is like totally normal for us but like where we were was a little bit hood and so the cops come in like guns blazing right where there's like 10 of us we're on the ground and we're from like Thousand Oaks. We're like suburb kids. We're on the ground, hands right. And as they're running our info, they take me aside and they go, do you have something to tell us? And I was like, no. And they're like, are you sure? Because we just ran your name. And I was like, no. And he goes, well, put, you know, put the handcuff me. And he's like,

we're gonna arrest you and I was like for what and I guess some guy out there just got popped for armed robbery had my same name same age like freakishly aligned right and so they thought I was a fugitive on the run and like I'm sitting here I'm 18 years old I'm basically in tears right I'm like you guys don't understand I'm from the suburbs like I live in this neighborhood it's like the movies like you know just totally green and and they're looking at me like something doesn't add up. And I'm just like, Oh my God. And my brothers, I'm like, Matt, call mom and dad. Like they got to get me out of here. I've never been arrested at that point. So, uh, so basically as they're getting ready to walk me out, I was like, you know, begging him, please, can you please just

run my name one more time? This is not me. And he runs it one more time. And for some reason, the, uh, the person on the, the, the operator or whatever was like, said something like, how tall is he? And they were like, Oh, he's like six, two. And I guess the guy would happen to be like small. He was like five, seven. Like, uh, we have, I don't know if this is him. And then they ended up, you know, figuring out it wasn't me. And then they let me go. But even when they let me go, they didn't even give me a, sorry. They were like, you guys should have not known better. So I was going to ask, like, as you're leaving, are you cordial with them? Or is this like, I told you, you know, you had the wrong guy the whole time. I was silent and just

thankfully get me the hell out of here i love it i love it um all right and so as you guys are kind of growing up like my understanding is uh as you're talking about those tears right kind of the flow and then even into the amateurs like a lot of this is just you're doing it because you love doing it at what point does it become kind of a job right not in the negative sense of a job but just like you start realizing like oh wait i can like make a living doing this and it's not just to get free gear but like they're gonna pay me money so two point two parts to it uh one you you start making some money when you turn amateur it's not a time but it's a little bit then you turn pro and you make a little bit more and the challenge is like you love doing it so

like any type of money is like oh my gosh i'm getting paid for my craft you're not making that much at that point. Uh, there, there was a time in which I got my own signature shoe and that's where like kind of more significant money came in. And so from a monetary standpoint, it was right around, Oh gosh, I was probably 23, 22, 23. I was like, okay, here we go. Uh, on the other end though, you know, when you have a passion, you just do it because you love doing it, right? There's no one telling you how to do it, when to do it, why to do it. When you get sponsored, you all of a sudden have to show up to demos, contests, you have magazines, et cetera.

And it changes. It definitely does. There's an adjustment and you almost have to like reinvent your passion for it, if that makes sense. And then you have expectations because now you have people watching you and criticizing you. So it kind of, for me, all aligned at one time where when I started making okay money and started feeling the pressure was right around that 23, 22, 23, uh, time. And then I was like,

okay, this is a job and this isn't as fun anymore. You know, I had to like find a new, a new love. It almost feels like to some degree they're like, Oh, Hey, by the way, we're giving you money because you have to do things for us. Right. That's right. That's right. That was a very valuable learning experiences. Uh, they're not just giving me money because I love skateboarding. they're giving me money because they see some type of value in which I can then make them money and so it it you know I had to learn that and then and then through that I had to learn a new way to like it you know it's like that was just what was what we were up against so that was like I don't know three years in about okay and in terms of like the competitions versus just skating more

for fun like obviously you're kind of always especially in a sport like skateboarding it seems like always kind of competing with yourself hey can I do this trick can we do this whatever but then you go into an environment where there is the cameras there is fans like all of that like how did that change in terms of uh not the the money side of it but actually like what you're actually doing on a day-to-day basis so so for me i didn't speak contest until i was older i was pro for probably 10 years before i skated the contest and that's because of what you just touched on i was drawn to skating because it was me against me i wasn't looking at the other person trying to be better than them it was like how can i improve it was such a i mean it was selfish but it was

incredible how it was just about me and so with skating even when i became pro and other people pro it was all about how i could shoot the best photo in this magazine for myself once contest came into the picture and this was gosh i was probably 27 at this point which is super late for a pro skate contest that was the first time where i actually had to like train and like practice and like get my mind in the in the game in a sense and there's parts I liked about it there's parts I didn't like one I'm naturally a competitive person so there was an element that I liked that side of it the other challenge I had was I didn't pick skateboarding because I wanted to compete with the person next to me so it was a there was a balance behind it I guess pros and

cons to both but when I skated contests like truthfully I would try to do the best I could do and if that meant sixth place and it was the best I skated I was stoked if I skated like crap and got third wasn't that happy got it and so after your skate career you obviously want to do other things but while you were skating were you doing other things kind of on the side or were you just 100% all of your time and effort and mental energy focused on skate so there was two parts of it. The first half of my career was 100% focused on skateboarding, but I was investing a lot when I was young. So I had somebody come into my life that started teaching me about money, but I wasn't managing anything other than my focus on skateboarding. But then

he kind of taught me how to be disciplined with how I spent. And then he kind of educated me on where I could put money. And that was ultimately my backup plan. Like I'm going to focus on skateboarding. I'm going to make as much as I can here. And I'm going to put as much of that to work so that when my career ends, that'll be my exit. It wasn't until, gosh, how old was I? 28. So this is, I'm a little past halfway through. I started wanting to start my own companies and this kind of entrepreneurial spirit came in. And that's when I kind of started this hybrid approach where I was still a pro skateboarder, but I was trying to start companies while I was still pro and relevant and influential. And then I did that for, oh gosh, maybe six years. And then at

six year point is when I stepped away completely from skateboarding and then went 100% into business. And what were some of the early business, either ideas or actual things that you started in terms of why you were skating, you were trying to start these businesses and work on them? Okay. So I had this like original idea that like anything that I was going to market, I could own that was like my first first idea and so you know it started with like a backpack company a skateboard brand a clothing brand uh we started a craft brewery which uh ended up being a huge blessing because I didn't have a drink sponsor so it was like okay cool like I don't have a drink sponsor like that'll be a good like whatever accessory brand almost and then uh gosh

also we did we did a design company we did a i tried to do a a platform one time like an artistic platform a lot of those didn't work um and then what i do now okay and and so when you go to start like it makes sense right a lot of uh not necessarily professional athletes but a lot of like content creators and stuff now are realizing wait a second if the advertising is valuable to the advertiser like it's probably valuable to me too right like i should probably build this stuff um how are you going about you know this is a couple years ago so it's not like you know the internet and kind of all the tools we have today but when you go to start that backpack company or that skateboard company or whatever like are you literally doing it by yourself are you building

teams are you trying to use other tools like just walk through kind of like operationally how you were trying to do it such a good good question so i i learned through experience the importance of building a team. And that was because I was still skateboarding, right? Like I said, I had a point where I was still skateboarding. I was trying to start businesses and each one demands so much time. So the only way you're able to do two things at once is if you have people come together and help you achieve both together. And so the first company I started, it's not even the first, the first few, I had to find people to help me operate them from a day-to-day standpoint, point because I wasn't able to dedicate that much time. So how I would do it in the beginning was

I would spend a lot of time creating the company, helping create the team and launching it. And then once the point of launching it, then I was able to free up some time to then put towards skateboarding and then participate heavily on the marketing side and then any of like the bigger picture decisions and conversation and then that led to which is awesome when I started my next company when it was a hundred percent business and no longer skateboarding I was already trained that I need people to help me create this vision I am it's not possible for me to do it alone and so that was a huge learning lesson that I was fortunate to learn through this hybrid model of me still skating and did you were you one of the first skaters to kind of say hey wait a second

rather than advertise somebody else's stuff i'll just create my own or did you learn that from somebody learned it uh so there was a skateboarder called jamie thomas and he was he was so influential to me because one i saw him in a video one time like he was filming one of the skaters and he was like one of the gnarliest best pro skateboarders of all time and i saw him in a video filming another skater i was like whoa this guy films also and then i found out that he owned the company he rode for which was zero and then he ended up starting a shoe company called fallen and he was the first example where i went oh my gosh skaters can be more than skaters they could own the things they're doing and so he was i think the first example that i saw uh and then there

were a handful of others but truthfully not that many yeah it's so fascinating and then in terms of uh walking away from skating you pretty much had spent sounds like almost 20 years of your life doing this uh maybe even more why stop like what was kind of the impetus for saying all right maybe uh maybe i shouldn't do this anymore so uh okay remember i told you when skateboarding became a job for me i had to find a new love in it so so there was a point where like whatever i love skateboarding and then all of a sudden you know the pressure and the requirements there was a time where I didn't like it anymore. And I ended up falling in love with the business side of my skate career. And that happened around the same time of me getting a shoe. And I started

experiencing, you know, everything that goes into selling products, sales, marketing, you know, design. It was, I was fascinated by it. And once I got a first shoe, then I started looking at, okay, I can do tricks, but how can I reach more people? What platforms can I get on to grow my audience and how can I connect with them that is then in turn going to help me sell more product and I started loving that process and then even when I started my first company it just started reinforcing this new passion that I enjoy building something and so with with my skateboarding and why it ended up ending I had my sponsors I had two sponsors that were my main income ended up letting me go. And it was at a point where I had just had surgery. And so I was laying on the couch,

got a call, all of my income went away. And I was probably, I don't know, 12 months, maybe 11 months away from being 100%, being recovered 100%. And so I kind of had to make a decision. It was like, okay, I'm 34 years old. I have passion for, for the business side. I can't skateboard for another year. I have no income coming in. What are my options? And I looked at it as my options were, I can heal, try to get more sponsors. And maybe I'm two years out possibly from making money again as a pro skateboarder, or I use this time as, as the time to truly step away. And I looked at it as there was, even if I tried to get sponsored again, I was only trying to delay the inevitable because there's only a, so there's only long, I only have so much time for

sponsors to pay me. And so I ended up stepping away and, uh, it was brutal. It wasn't easy. It was, it was, it was such a hard decision because I expected my career to end a certain way and it ended such a different way. And I think all of us naturally want to, we want things happen on our terms and it didn't. And there was a point where I had to wrestle with that and then ultimately accept it. But that's ultimately why, because it no longer became a career. And then I lost the new purpose I had in skateboarding because now the business element wasn't there either. Yeah. And before we get into what you did after your skate career, do you still skate and how often? Uh, I still skate. Not like I use, I mean, I, when I say I was obsessed, even as a pro,

I would skate five hours a day, every single day for probably 20 something years, like thousands and thousands and thousands of hours. Now, uh, I don't know, once a week, maybe once every two weeks. That's still, that's still a lot. I mean, for the average person, that's definitely a lot, right? For the average, I would say for the average 36 year old, uh, who has three kids and uh a business that he's doing full-time that's a pretty good amount i love it i love it and uh you mentioned the uh the craft brewery so uh i have on good order uh from grant that uh you are gluten uh intolerant yet you started a craft brewery so we're gonna have to unpack this a little bit what was going on there so when we started it i didn't know i

was gluten intolerant and you know me and my two partners when we started it we were like you know there was an element like dude we're gonna have free beer forever like our you know our fridge is gonna be stocked and three months before we opened doors i found out i was gluten intolerant and it was like the lights went dark i'm like are you kidding me what this whole thing you know so basically for three years we owned it for a little over three years uh you know when we would do like we would do events at the brewery and we would pour beer i'd have to like take a same actual beer empty it and fill it with something else it was like it sucked that part sucked and then we end up we ended up selling it and then uh about a year and a half two years later

they they did a gluten-free beer i was like we really should have been on that trend when we had it you know i i love just the idea of uh you know you hear all these people's like oh follow your passion and i've literally heard people say if you tell that to too many young guys they'll literally go create beer companies and like all this stuff right like oh i like to drink i'll just create a beer company but uh you gotta be careful with passions but it worked right yeah yeah it did it worked out so there's tons of people who've created breweries especially the last couple of years why do you guys end up being successful and you also may sell it to uh miller cores i believe right it's like how do you end up building a successful brewery where many are just not as

successful or end up not making it work? Okay. I'll tell you why I think it was successful. When, when we, uh, started doing our, let's call it due diligence of trying to figure out how to take this idea and create it into a reality. Uh, it was two things were happening. One craft beer was starting to become mainstream. It wasn't popping like it is now, but you know, if there was a party, you'd see two people come up with a craft beer and then it was still predominantly, you know coronas and miller and budweiser so we saw the trend happening so there was timing on our side uh also what we saw when we looked at at the shelves there was no brand there was no vibe there was no feeling there was no there was nothing done from a marketing standpoint to

connect with an audience to make the audience feel like they were a part of this company this this company represented who they were and that in skateboarding is what we're built on it's like when you look at vans or adidas or nike there's no difference in the shoes at all right it's all the image and vibe and emotion that they connect to their audience with that gets somebody to be a diehard nike fan or a diehard adidas fan same thing goes for chevy ford right and so we saw that as an absence to the craft beer industry that wasn't happening so you take an industry that knows all about marketing and having to differentiate product with with content in an industry that is up and coming it doesn't have any of it so we were like dude what if we

market the way we know how to market in our world right like let's let's let's let's sell this california lifestyle surf skate snow music this culture that we're a part of in an industry where doesn't exist and and it was right at the time where uh social media really started popping like you started to have this is before influencer marketing but it was right when like instagram was like kind of cracking and so when we started the company we had to raise money for it and so we hit up a lot of our friends it was like mainly a friends and family round and that was pro surfers pro skaters pro snowboarders and so when we were about to launch you know we looked at it went dude a lot of us have a following on instagram like what if we just post about saint archer on

instagram and so you take this perfect combination right craft beer expanding not really any marketing or brand building and craft beer and instagram and influencer marketing ahead of its time and the thing just you know it was it just it was the right thing at the right time uh and that's what i think did well and so the original aspiration sounds like hey we're gonna start a beer company let's raise some money and we'll kind of a brewery it'll be cool whatever and then like at what point is there this inflection point where it's like oh shit like a big beer company is going to come buy this thing and maybe they're calling inbound or what like at what point does it almost become real that like this isn't just like me and my friends have a brewery this is

actually like a company that's going to get acquired. Okay. So when we went out to raise money at that time, uh, me, Paul and Josh, uh, the three co-founders, uh, we didn't know how to raise money. And in that process, remember I told you, I had somebody come into my life that taught me about money. When we had this idea, we brought it to him and we're like, what do we need to do? We didn't know what a business plan was. We didn't know anything. And so one, he helped us build a business plan, but two, he taught us basically how to raise money. And in that process, that was actually when it switched and we had to figure out what is the game plan here, right? And when you raise money, the first thing an investor asks you, or they should ask you is,

how do I get paid back? How do I make money? And not only do you have to tell them, you have to paint the picture in which they think it's actually possible that it's going to happen. so we had to accept when we were pitching this thing that we had to sell it like this thing had to be successful for you for anyone else to make money so so we understood that that was there then when we opened doors it was really apparent right when we started that we had something special i mean it was you know with other companies i've done it didn't work like saint archer it was like we're gonna break through we're gonna break through we're gonna break through. And then like year three, it's like, Oh, we've got some traction here with St. Archer.

The second we opened doors, we couldn't keep up. We could not keep up. It was, it was, we are falling short of demand over and over and over. And our challenge for three and a half years was how do we grow fast enough to meet demand? So it was, it was different than the other ones I've done. Yeah. But you had the experience to kind of fall back and compare it to, and then how does the Miller Coors deal come together? Do they call you guys, you guys call them? Like, how does that uh we had a uh call it like a broker or an investment banker uh reach out to us that represented uh big brands or big big companies that were looking to acquire smaller brands and uh they reached out to us and asked if we were interested and uh uh and then basically

you know we were like hey we'll listen and then that turned into multiple offers and then it was like, holy crap, this actually could be something. And then it was like, you know, throughout the process, like even after we signed the documents, we didn't think it was real. And then all of a sudden the wire comes through like, oh, it happened. So normally I ask, uh, whatever a billionaire comes on, I go, what did you do when you became a billionaire? Like the day, the second you became and realized you were a billionaire, what did you do? Uh, for you guys selling a business is a very similar kind of euphoric moment, right? Where it's not just personal net worth it's like oh we built something together as a team and we just sold it wire hits what's the

first thing you do um so yeah so for me i didn't become a billionaire but i became a millionaire and uh it scared me it was such a different experience than i thought it was going to be and paul one of my closest friends who i grew up skating with one of the greatest skaters of all time was one of the co-founders as well and we both got the wire we saw each other the next day and we both had the same feeling it was like oh my gosh like we really can't blow this now like we have to like really be smart and it was like it was so different like we thought it was gonna be like you know partying and toast and dude not the case so basically my wife and I uh this was months after we sold it my wife was like hey you know what we don't ever celebrate much uh we

should celebrate I think that we you know we sold the company and so her and I went to Mastro's and had dinner like that was that was it you know I just different man it's totally different well listen I know you're telling the truth because literally every single person thinks oh when I sell my company literally you know we're gonna go pop bottles at the club and it's gonna be this amazing thing and instead you're sitting there like oh shit like we can't mess this up dude and you know what we couldn't and I was still skateboarding when it happened so it was like there was a part of me that was like shit everyone knows and like dude I you know I went to a demo I remember going to this demo and this this guy was uh like on the mic or whatever and I skate in he's

like Mikey Taylor newest millionaire sold and I'm just like oh my gosh like skaters don't talk about this stuff they don't talk about money I remember being so embarrassed so there was a point that was like, it was just, I felt I was embarrassed. I was quiet about it. I was uncomfortable. It took me a while to like, be okay with like what we did and actually be proud of it. Yeah. And another thing is you had money from family and friends. What's their reaction? I think a lot of people talk about like, what was your reaction when you finally say to them, Hey, we're selling this thing. Here's the price. And for everyone who get, you know, for every $1 you gave us here's how many you're getting back what's that uh conversation like so that was where the

joy was it was so much more fun that experience than personal and not saying like i we weren't blessed by it we were blessed by it but like dude my dad my father-in-law like dude my dad paid off his house because of this it was like my father-in-law was like these are guys who like like my dad and my father-in-law they gave me money because it was me like they i think they expected it to not pan out and gave me what they could afford to lose you know and like to see that like bless them was like I mean dude it was like dude that was crying like that was insane my uncle was an investor like this is my family right and then it was like dude there were 10 pro skateboarders that were invested these are like my friends and like to see them like that was the best part of

the whole thing you know and a lot of these guys like you know I was fortunate enough to have somebody helped me uh learn about investing prior to that moment so i had experience with investing i had never had a a game like that but i had experience with it a lot of the skateboards this is the first time they invested in anything so it was like it was just to see the light bulb go off like holy this is i need to be here you know the only downside is then they think everyone's gonna do that right like they're saying oh what's the next one up so that's the problem with your first time that bat hit in a grand slam you think you're gonna hit them every time after and then you start hitting you know field balls and then outs it's a challenge well so i don't

know if you know who pat mcafee is pat uh was a nfl player he was a punter in the nfl for a number of years and uh he recently kind of left at really the height of his career turned down millions of dollars and goes and starts doing content on the internet everyone's you know literally yelling and screaming like what are you doing you're an idiot right and uh long story short is he goes through a couple iterations, but he just signed this massive deal with FanDuel. So they're going to sponsor him and all this crazy stuff. But he's got a group of 10 guys, I think it was nine or 10 guys who are like his team, right? So they help him with production, to guests, all this stuff. And he just put a video up on the internet where he takes $500,000 and he goes to the bank and he

gets it in cash. And he's got backpacks and he puts 50K in each backpack. And then he goes at night, he's literally in like a sleeveless shirt and like some stupid like jean shorts and a real short and he goes to every single person's house and he's like on the phone he's like yo dude come outside yeah yeah where are you and like guys are coming to the door and like they're boxers and stuff you know all this crazy stuff and he hands them the backpack and they open it and they reach in and they're like dude 50k like what are you talking you know and they're and you see the reaction and they're just like because i bet on this guy i bet on my friend i've been working with them like like game on right and these dudes are hype and so it's like that's just for investing

your time when you take the financial risk right and then you get the reward it's like that on steroids yeah oh yeah yeah that's amazing that's that's such a cool story yeah i think too it's like it it shows too like where where we get joy from it's like we we focus so much on ourself but like the true joy comes when you do things for other people like giving i mean you know money is just one of those things like i don't think you should worship money but people get really stoked on money so seeing that is for it is cool you know what's the saying uh money doesn't solve all your problems but it solves all your money problems right that's a great way to look at it um all right so so another thing is uh you today have a very positive mindset but i also heard that

you were a little bit of a head case back in the day in terms of every skateboarder pretty much when they're young super frustrated can't land a trick like all this stuff like how do you uh over the years mature kind of shift that into a more positive mindset and like really start to believe hey i can build companies i can you know invest capital and start to trust yourself really okay uh there's going to be two answers to that because they happen in two different ways uh the point about my temper and being frustrated and uh that was that got bad for a point there there was a there was a moment this is when i knew it got really bad i ran out of boards so typically like your sponsor sends you like i don't know 10 skateboards a month and i ran out of them

and so i went to a skate shop and i was like hey i need to get a couple boards i'll bring you back the board when you know i get them and i get this board i set it up i look down and it wasn't the right shape i put my foot through the board focused a brand new board at the skate shop right you know go pick out another board set it up do the same thing foot through the board right set up my third board so you can imagine this guy goes into a skate shop sets up two brand new boards puts his foot through them third one put my foot through it walked out of the storm so heated right and blake who's grant's brother who connected us you know he gets in the car and he's silent i'm pissed off and he looks at me he goes a little upset there huh buddy i'm like blake you have no

idea and he was like kind of the first one i was like dude you know i think you kind of need to check yourself and then it was like not long after that i i had a night basically where i was at one of my sponsors christmas parties and i was walking back to the hotel it's like two in the morning and i just had this moment where i started thinking about myself about my life and it was it was this really trippy experience but basically like i started thinking about who i was and i remember the feeling I had was disappointment. It was like, I don't like who I am. And this isn't who I'm supposed to be. I'm not supposed to be this pissed off guy who's complaining about everything, who takes all of this for granted. Like that's not who I'm supposed to be. And there was this

moment I had where it was like, I have to change. Like if I don't change, I'm going to be miserable forever. And so that night became the beginning of a transformation with myself, of just working on being more positive, working on being thankful. And that was a slow process. Then to answer the other question about how did I get confidence to be able to do companies or invest, that all came from skateboarding. With skateboarding, I think it's the hardest thing you could do on this planet. It takes so much time and dedication to learn it, but it builds so much confidence once you do because you you see the blessing of you dedicating all of this time and energy delaying gratification for sometimes months until you get to experience it one time and so I think that just

built this confidence in myself where I felt like I could do anything and and and it was like yeah if I became a pro skateboarder like why can't I start a business like I just be willing to put in the time and so I would say both experiences came from skateboarding yeah that's an awesome answer And one of the things you said that was interesting was this idea of like, I'm not supposed to be this way, right? Or this is not who I'm supposed to be. It's almost like it feels like you have like a self-evaluation, but from outside of your body. And there's other people who have talked about, you know, Jeff Bezos is famous for saying, when I go to make a decision, I basically go to me at 80 and I look back and I say, which decision should I have made? Right? And that's kind of the one I go with. Like, what was it that drove you to kind of almost have this image of like who you were supposed to be? that's a good question um at the moment uh at the moment it felt like god truthfully it felt like it it felt like he was looking down at me going i didn't create you for this and it was like i was sitting alongside looking at the conversation happening it was the weirdest thing and and that's the first time i've experienced

something like that. And, and so I think it was just seeing this idea that like, I was created to be something I was created for this purpose. And I wasn't living up to that purpose. And it was like, I guess you could use the basis example. It's almost like I got this vision of what I was going to be at 60 if I stayed on this path. And then I got this vision of what I was supposed to be. And I was not heading in the direction of where I was supposed to be, you know, and it scared me it was and how do you change right so it's one thing to say like hey i'm going down a path i don't want to go down uh but that's only like the analysis part then you actually have to like change and so that's not very easy for a lot of people like what did you do or how did you

figure that out that's so i started with one thing it was very small in the beginning but i had i was having this problem complaining about everything so i told myself in the beginning every single day, I'm going to find one positivity in something that feels bad. Something that happens that I'm angry about, I'm going to find one positivity in it. And it became a game in the beginning. And like, you know, look, you don't change overnight. This is, I mean, truthfully, from that point of me deciding that, that was pretty much 2007-ish. I'm still working on it today. So remember, there's going to be grace to this. But my first thing was just, I need to start finding the positive and bad situations. And so when something would happen that I'd be pissed

about, I would stop and go, what's good in here? What could be good in this situation? And dude, sometimes I had to reach. Sometimes I had to find something that wasn't very positive. I just had to ghost anywhere to make a good thing out of it. And then what ends up happening is it starts becoming your routine to think this way. All of a sudden, you don't fight having to find the positivity, positivity, sooner than later, all you see is the positivity. And even when bad things happen, like for example, prior to me working on this, something bad would happen and initially pissed off, initially fired up. Right. And then I'd have to like fight for the good in it. Then after I started working on it, bad things would happen. And I wouldn't even have

that original anger feeling. It was like, okay, that didn't work out like I wanted it to. What's good out of this? What could I learn out of it? And then it just became normal. So I would say that's where it started. And then from there, I spent a lot of time working on not being selfish. That was a big thing for me. I was always thinking about myself and not others. And I found that once i started thinking about others first that brought more joy into my life so it's funny man it's a lot of the things that i think we're supposed to learn as kids and uh i just forgot about from being i think in an environment like pro skateboarding that was all about myself yeah no that's a fantastic answer um and then how do you eventually get to what you're doing today with commune

capital and kind of the investing side like where does that come from so when my career ended uh and again, like I was, I just had surgery, right? And for anyone who has had surgery before, that's an athlete. Uh, it's a mental battle. It's like being in war and gear. You know what? I take that back. Basically what the whole world is dealing with right now because of COVID that's what surgery feels like. It's like your mind is slipping away and you're trying as hard as you can to bring your mind back to where it's supposed to be. That's what, that's what surgery is like for an athlete. You, you, you go through this process of your mind telling you you're never going to skate again. Everything's over. You suck, blah, blah, blah. And so I was already dealing

with that. And then my career ends and now it's on top of it. Like, oh my gosh, now what? And in that moment of me trying to figure out what I was going to do next, which was about a six or seven month process, I was trying to find out, I was trying to find my identity and I was trying to find my purpose. And I was wrapping that into a company. I had this idea that if I started the company, the company and me being the business owner of the company was going to be my identity and my purpose. And I was failing miserably. Every idea I had was not the right idea. And in that process, I had one of my friends, another pro skateboarder call me and kind of just check in on me. Dude, I haven't seen you in months. Like what's your deal? And I was just like

really kind of beat down and open with them and just told them like, dude, I'm struggling. Like I don't know who I am. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Like this is the first time in my life I felt depressed and it's felt dark and you know he was like dude I don't know why you're tripping like you don't have to work dude like what are you talking about you're like one of three pro skateboarders that like doesn't have to like call his sponsor up and say can I please work in the warehouse and move straight to survival mode what are you talking about and it was like that conversation that like you know really made me feel like shit and so I sat down on the couch and just had this moment of like, you know, like looking back in my life and going,

why am I in this position? Like, why am I one of three? And why was my friend like so impressed that I was able to achieve that? But the majority of us can't. And it all went back to Randy, who I met when I was younger, that helped me structure my finance, that helped me and Josh and Paul start St. Archer. And so my idea was, you know what? I need to do what he did for me to all of my friends that are still skateboarding. Like I want all of my friends to be in this scenario that I'm in, because this is something that wouldn't have been taught to me if it wasn't for him. And I would be in the same scenario as everyone else, basically out of money and scrambling to find a job after my career, he wouldn't have come into my life. And so it started

as how can I give back? And as I went through the last 15 years, he started off with the foundation of finance. He taught me the very first steps of how to manage my money. And then he taught me about investing. And then he had opportunities for me to invest with him, which were in real estate. And so I basically tried to replicate that model. I created a company that is a real estate fund. So that's the opportunity. And then all of our content is geared around educating the way he educated me so it was all this give back from what he did in my life when i was 20 21 years old yeah it's it's so cool too to see i think uh athletes across all sports um really starting to understand wait a second like we've always relied on financial advisors and all these other

people who uh you know sometimes have good intentions sometimes don't uh and we hear the horror stories all the time but it just seems like whether it's nba players sounds like professional skaters whoever they're just taking more kind of personal responsibility and realizing like hey I got to, I got to understand this stuff, right? I got to invest capital for myself because if I just trust everybody else and I don't know what's going on, like odds are, I'm going to get screwed somehow. Right. That's right. 100%. And that goes beyond athletes. That's most people. Most people that have advisors don't pay attention to any of their money ever. They just, this isn't my thing. There you go. And we shouldn't do that. Even if, even if money isn't our strong point,

we still need to be educated on what our money's doing because we work so hard for it. How are we going to spend our entire lives building up money and then not knowing where it's going it's we just can't do that anymore you know yeah and why focus on real estate what was that just something that you felt like you knew and had an advantage with or what so so I had experience investing in a lot of things now right it was like I was investing in real estate it was on the commercial side storage units multi-family I had experience in stocks bonds and from a total portfolio, investing in startups, the whole nine, right? And if you looked at my portfolio and what I felt the most comfortable in, as far as risk, real estate was always that I feel good with this.

Like, I feel like I can put the majority of my capital to use. And I don't know if it was it being a tangible asset. My dad had rental properties growing up. I don't know if I just had a liking towards real estate because of what I saw, but I always felt more comfortable with it. And it never felt like, like the stock market, for example, right? The stock market, like I could never wrap my head around why it was doing the things it was doing, but real estate felt like I could, it didn't have these crazy swings. So I felt good with that. With startups, and while I'll go to St. Archer, when we did St. Archer, and I think most startups,

you have to be prepared to lose everything. It's a different type of risk, right? So we're either losing your money or we're going to make a big profit. And so when you have that much risk, you can only invest, or you only should invest an amount that you're okay losing. You have to make sure you have the capacity to lose that investment, right? And so when I thought about how I was going to help athletes prepare for the future, it wasn't these crazy high risk scenarios. It was how can I create an opportunity for them that is actually going to give them cashflow and appreciation and something they could live off of. And I felt like

out of all of the investments real estate was the thing that I felt the most comfortable with and so now that I'm going out raising money I wanted to do the same thing that I was I wanted to put my mouth where my money was and my money was in real estate and so that's really why I focused on real estate yeah it makes a ton of sense and what was like the initial reaction from skaters or the people that you kind of went to that were in your friend circle when you're like hey look this is what I'm going to go do and and you got to get educated about this did they kind to fight you on it? Or was it just, Hey, that's the guy who really understands this stuff. So I, so I trust them. So, uh, from my initial circle, it, it was actually kind of natural. Most of my

friends kind of understood it. And that's because for my circle, like I was kind of the guy who, uh, like for example, me and the guy who called me, uh, asking if I was okay, right. His name was Sean. Uh, we went and, uh, basically we're a part of this rebuild for the shoe company called etnies. And it was me, all of our friends. I was like the skater that all of them looked up to and went, okay, you helped them build this thing. We're just going to skate. So I already created this relationship where they were like, you understand what's going on. You're interested in it. We trust you that you can kind of speak for us. And then with St. Archer, a lot of my friends were involved in that. And so the next thing it was like, dude, you're like, you're a

friend, but like, dude, you've kind of been this guy for us the whole time. Like we trust you uh and were in it it was the rest of the industry that was a little bit uh how would i say this they didn't catch on as quick i guess and you know what causes them to eventually catch on so they just see that it's working and people are getting kind of uh those monthly checks or like what kind of is the tipping point where people say hey you know what actually like i may have laughed at that or ignored it in the beginning but like i actually should be paying attention to this maybe i should be participating I think because I had like I had such a big transition like we talked in the beginning

about reinventing yourself I had such a big reinvention right that in the beginning I think a lot of people just go the hell is he talking about and is this going to fade right and I think athletes because like we're we had one thing as our identity and then that goes away a lot of times we grab really quickly onto the next thing it's like when you hear about relationships and if you're a guy and you know girl breaks up via you jump into another one really quick right and so I think a lot of the people are like what's he doing now what is this and is this just a phase and is what he's saying even true and then after a while I think you hit a point where they go oh wait a minute like this isn't just a phase like this is he actually is doing this and how does

he know these things and then you get to a point where they start doing your their due diligence on you they start paying attention and then after a while it's like we're here man how do we do this how do we get started and and so dude it just took it took time it's still taking time there's still a lot of skaters that uh do not approve what i'm doing for sure but there's a group that's like starting to like be pretty encouraging now yeah and do you see um kind of non-skaters kind of more of the traditional investors wanting to be in and around and associated uh with the skaters and the skaters also like they're like hey i'm a skater but like i kind of want to know what the rich people are doing so that i can learn what they're doing and you kind of want to get those two groups

coming together okay so yes believe it or not like if you look at our investors uh dude it's an eclectic group now like they are diversified right it's like we have skaters football players like we have the athletes and then we have entrepreneurs that like kind of i connected with through like what i do now and dude we have lawyers a lot of sales guys business owners like advisors like it's a it's like traditional and you know my kind of past life combined and i think you have two sides of it right like on the more traditional and like dude we have investors that are a little older now too right it's like yeah they want to like be in this like cool hip like skater thing, but like, they don't want to put their dollars at risk either. Right. They're not

just going to hand me, you know, 300 grand and go, I'm just going to give you this because I want to be cool. Right. So there has to be a balance between, oh, what are these guys doing? And this sounds cool. And they know what they're doing and I trust them with it, with my money. So there is that balance. Right. And then from the skaters, uh, or the athletes, uh, I don't know if they're so concerned about being involved with like uh traditional and I don't know if I I don't see that I think they're more how do I learn about this and does this work you know and then as it starts working then it's like holy crap like you weren't lying what else do I need to know about this you know do you ever bring the whole group together like is there like Christmas parties

where you've got the skaters and like the lawyers hanging out together so we do like I have we haven't got the whole group together yet um we do like uh we do do like uh like for our content for example um we build these videos uh kind of highlighting individuals that are investors with us we'll do these conversation pieces with athletes talking about money and then unfortunately and what we talked about with your wedding we had it planned to do this event like for all of us and then covid hit and now we're gonna wait until sometime next year so yes that that has been part of our, uh, plan. It's just, it's taken time and then now it's been delayed. I love it. Uh, one of the last things I want to talk about is just the real estate market in

general. Like how do you see that changing, um, given kind of COVID and the economic shock and all of that? Um, it's going to change. I mean, for sure. The thing about real estate is there's a lot of different assets in real estate. There's not just one thing, right? So you have hospitality, you have single family, you have multifamily, you have retail, you have storage, you have office. All of these things are going to be affected differently because of this, right? And so, you know, I think we saw what happened to hotels. That was like the one that got the biggest blow early on. What happens from that? I personally think it's more of a short-term problem as far as hotels go. Again, everybody's kind of speculating at this point. Retail, as far as

stores go. I feel like this was, you know, the last e-com boom that, that was like a massive blow to retail. I think this is, this could be like the, the knockout. And so I think retail could change significantly, but even if you don't have a physical store and you're selling everything online, you got to be able to place this product somewhere. So, you know, will warehouse or industrial do well through this? I could see it doing well. Office space. If you would have asked me six weeks ago, I would have said office space is going to get shit on. I don't know now, actually. Part of me is, and I'm basing this off of personal experience. It was cool working at home the first six weeks. I was like, yeah, I'm doing this thing. I am sick of it now. I want to

get back in the office. It's like, that's just me. So I'm wondering if that changes. We'll see. As far as multifamily, multifamily, single family, there will be an effect at some point. Uh, we're not seeing it the way we initially thought. And I think that's one of two things, but right now government is involved. They're involved with our business. They're involved in real estate. And so I think the bigger effect is going to be because of that, right? It's like, we'll see how that shakes out. I like multifamily, uh, through this. I like storage through this. Uh, but we will see what's interesting right now. What's happening like at the moment is there's invest, investors are eager to invest, right? As far as like dollars coming in, like

they know that there's, there's action to be had. I think everybody's kind of feeling like this is going to be a big wealth building opportunity. They're eager to invest. Deal flow is very challenging right now. And basically what you're having is you have sellers that look at uncertainty and they want to let go, but they don't want to accept the fact that there's a post COVID price correction. Right. And so then you have buyers like us and we're going, no, that price has to come down. Like, this is our time now. Like, right. This is a buyer's market. Like, you know, you're not going to drop below 10%. What are you talking about? No. And so you have this sellers haven't adjusted yet and buyers aren't moving forward. And so, you know, it's eventually

going to do something like this, but dude, there's not a lot of deals penciling out right now. So I've heard that from a lot of real estate investors where they're basically saying that sellers are still holding on to pre-pandemic prices and buyers are like chomping at the bit. But buyers are also being somewhat disciplined, understanding that the world is different now. But I was talking to one guy and he actually had a really interesting thesis. He said, I'm going after grocery anchored real estate and warehouses. Right. And he was just like, look, e-commerce boom. Like we're not going back. people realize that when they press the button on the internet like the package does show up and

it's awesome so like that's you know going to accelerate and then he's like and look around like literally in a pandemic when you talk about pandemic resistant type businesses he's like what's the one business on every block that didn't get shut down by the government it's grocery stores right and he was just like that's going to you know be a huge focus for him moving forward and i was like it's pretty interesting to start thinking about like that the strategies change as well right so it's not just asset allocation hey should i be in real estate should i not but also like the types of people of real estate that people are looking for has seemed to shift it as well a hundred percent and one thing about like even though like this pandemic was kind of

a black swan that caught everybody kind of blindsided us in a sense this naturally happens through corrections right risk appetite changes strategies change and people tend to be less opportunistic right it's like dude january came around people wanted huge returns right they were willing to take on crazy risk and wanted you know double digit irr etc now it's like where can i get six percent cash flow that's we're yield starved now right so investor appetite change yes like as far as what's going to happen moving forward you of course you have to change i mean investing is still especially something like multi-family it still operates like a business right where do the trends end? Where do the trends head? What's going to happen? Are people going to want more

space? Is some of these tiny homes going to be less valuable because we all experience what it feels like to be locked in our house for three months, possibly, right? What's the outcome from it? But it's like, I'm a big believer in people need a place to live. They'll always need a place to live. And as long as you're buying correctly to withstand corrections, you'll be fine. And so that's what you're seeing now. It's like, you have buyers that are going, I'm not catching the knife. I know what's about to happen. I know where we're headed. I don't care if you don't know. I know. And I can be patient. Right? So it's, it's just a patience game at this point. But what is cool is in January, when, when we put offers in on, uh, apartments, uh, did there

be seven, eight buyers? Like trying to get a deal below asking was incredibly hard. It's people were jacking at the price. Now, when we're losing offers, dude, we're like the only offer in maybe another group and it's well below asking so it's just a matter of time is my belief yeah uh last question on that topic is just when does it happen is this are you talking six months until sellers realize three months a year like what do you think kind of gut and obviously the future's hard to predict well so uncertainty is everything right and you see it even happening like in our lives. Like when it looked like the economy was opening up, things were kind of starting to get better. It was like, okay, we've hit the bottom and now we can adjust for it and move forward

until that happens. There's still going to be uncertainty. Right. And so the question I think becomes at what point can people no longer hold distress assets? At what point are they going to be forced to take or exit a deal that they don't want to exit? And that is when I think you're going to start seeing a price correction. And look, if people, if there's a rent, if there's an eviction moratorium, you can't evict, right? If lenders are giving you forbearance on not paying your debt, no one's going to be selling anything right now. They don't need to. What happens when that dries up? What happens when the bank goes, that was 10 months, dog. You got to start paying. Things are going to start hitting the market, I think. And when things start

hitting the market, I think that's when you start seeing price correction, supply and demand, right? There's a shortage still. That's why we haven't, I think a lot of the sellers haven't accepted a price correction because there's still a shortage. So what happens when everything hits the market? Possible price correction. Now, none of that could happen. This is a full-blown speculation, right? But at least how we're planning for and we underwrite, dude, we look for deals that what happens if everything everything goes wrong can we still hold this asset and if the answer answer is yes then we move forward on it and that's always been our strategy so truthfully it's easier environments for like this for us than it was last year like last year

everybody looks at us and goes everybody else is getting higher returns than you like why would i want to invest with you and then now they're like wait you didn't lose investors money and you guys are still okay now i want to be with you so that's you know it always works that way right is uh is everything looks great until you realize that they're taking so much risk that it actually may not be the smart risk that you're actually taking everything looks great when the market is moving up it makes everybody look like they know what they're doing this is what leads everybody out dude this is where the pros survive and the amateurs go away and then it happens all over again this is cycles yeah i i love that uh to wrap up i always ask the same two questions first

one is uh what is the most important book that you've ever read the most important book i've ever read is the bible i believe uh why the i think well i think there's three questions that we all have to answer to to have joy and that's identity purpose and destiny and the bible answers all three. So that was the point in my life where I went, I know who I am. I know why I'm here and I know where I'm going after this. And so that's why I think it's the most important. And another thing that's real interesting, the Bible talks of, as far as the topic goes, talks about money more than anything. It is such a, it's such a good way on how to live a life of joy. And also So people think like, I don't know, I think people have an idea that the Bible is like

Santa Claus. It's like a made up story. Historically, historically, it is a great documentation of what happened, right? The argument then becomes about God or not. But I mean, dude, there is full of value in that. So that I would say is the most valuable book, most important book. It's a great answer. On going on that, I once had somebody come on the podcast.

he's an ancient alien researcher and he basically said uh there's two questions that everyone asks which is what happens when we die right which is the bible addresses uh and then are we here alone so my second question is uh more fun which is aliens believer or non-believer you ask everybody this question i've asked over 330 people yeah oh man um the answer is i don't know i'm not sure uh i think you're the first person to answer that way so explain the reason i say that is okay so because of my first answer right bible doesn't talk about aliens and so and i believe the bible to be true and so that you can either take that one or two ways there either isn't aliens or i'm not supposed to know about them and so i don't know there could be there couldn't

be uh i've never seen one so as far as what my eyes can tell me the answer would be no uh i hear about some crazy stuff that makes it pretty uh what would you say convincing that there could be but i don't know i don't have an answer to you i think it's fascinating though yeah oh yeah trust me there's some people who got some wacky theories for sure especially with this new one you saw this me one that came up that was like a week ago this it's like it's like okay it's there but you see some of these videos it's like and you just don't know if it's true or not right you're just like i don't know if that's like a manipulated video or not but like what the hell was that look i'll be the first to tell you if i ever seen one i will agree with you they're real until then though i'm

not gonna take a stance that's awesome uh you get to ask me one question to finish this up what is the one question you have for me so you focus on crypto yeah what do you know why do you let i okay this might extend our convo for another 10 minutes but that's fine it would be great so what i know from crypto i would say uh i'm not completely in the dark but i am the furthest thing from a beginner uh i understand the concept of it i i believe that it's the future uh i don't believe it i believe it's going to have to become regulated in some sense for it to actually become a true currency that you can invest in but the concept of it i like uh to add to that you know i saw this whole thing with was it doji coin or something like that dogecoin and then i go oh god

tiktok and and crypto combined is dangerous people can lose a lot of money on this so So I would say where I'm at right now, there's a lack of experience in education. So my answer, this might not be a qualified answer, but for how I invest, which is more of a value-based investing, I'm not there yet with crypto to consider it as that yet, but I think it's the future. And I believe crypto becomes a one-world currency that we all follow by. So here's what's really interesting, right, is what you just articulated, I actually think is one of the most popular perspectives of Bitcoin slash crypto, right? Some people call it crypto, some people say just Bitcoin by itself, but it's basically-

But Bitcoin is a coin of crypto, correct? Yes. So this is where it gets a little bit more controversial in the crypto community. but basically think about, there's three types of coins, right? So there's currencies, things that actually want to operate like digital money. There are digital securities, right? So imagine a stock being more of like a coin type thing. So it'd be equity and competition, something like that. And then in the middle, there's kind of these utility tokens. So a very overgeneralized example would be when you used to go to Chuck E. Cheese, you had a coin, you could like play games, you got entertainment value and maybe you got some tokens and you could go like redeem it for a

gift or something so it give you access to something right uh same thing would be like an amazon gift card could be access to the amazon network or whatever um and so bitcoin is basically the winner when it comes to the currencies right it's either bitcoin's going to be the winner or nothing in terms of replacing the u.s dollar or anything like that all these other tokens can replace certain stocks they may give you access to networks all that kind of stuff but to me it's like those other things are less binary bitcoin is very binary either the dollar gets unseated and bitcoin is the winner or we were you know continue on with like fiat currency type system um but what you said of like hey i know there's something going on basically like i don't really

understand it but like it just feels like the momentum and energy and like that is the future i actually think that's what a lot of people think right because they're just like i haven't spent the time i don't feel like i'm qualified to understand all the nuances and even like teach other people about it whatever but it just feels like there's like too many smart people and too much energy and money and just like the direction it's heading seems very similar to like what the internet was in the mid 90s right it just people being like yeah like i kind of like i get it but i don't really use it yet and like it feels like that's going to be important but like other people will figure it out and so i actually think that's like a really good thing for crypto in some weird

way, right? Because it's kind of like people don't have to understand the nuances, but they're buying into this idea of like decentralization and all of that. And so when it eventually becomes very user-friendly and all that, I think eventually then people are just like, oh, of course this was going to be a thing. I just didn't know how or when, but like now I'm ready to use it, right? Yeah. And to add to that, I mean, think about the lack of understanding when it comes to investments in period, in general. Most people don't understand the nuances of the stock market they don't understand the nuances of real estate even investing in currencies but they still do right so but look i'll tell you what man i like going back to the bible and like

revelations last chapter talks about what happens at the end of this world right and they are very clear about one world government one world currency so you look at this time and you know i believe it to be true i go okay if there ends up being one world currency what is the currency it has to be a digital form right that's what i think so yeah i'm with you there i i i tend to think that uh everything points to we end up in a situation where there's a global currency like jack dorsey from twitter and square basically says like look there's a native currency for every country but basically the internet is its own country like you and i are citizens of the internet right and so like it needs its own currency so that one world currency ends up he

he believes Bitcoin. I believe that, right. Other people might think it's something else. But also when you go to like the geopolitical stuff, like you're telling me that China, Russia, the United States, India, and like, you know, 150 other countries are all going to keep using their own currency and doing trade with each other and trying to guess who's manipulating whose currency. Like.

I agree. Totally agree. Totally agree. Where, where, where can people find you on the internet and, and find more about the investing stuff? Okay. So if you want to find me on the internet, Instagram is probably like the hub. It's just my name, Mikey Taylor. You could pretty much find me from there, but all of my other handles are the same. If you're in on the TikTok trend before they remove it, Mikey Taylor. I have a number on my Instagram that you could text me. And then the investment stuff is Commune Capital. So you can go to communecapital.com, Commune Capital on Instagram, or you could find it all from my

Instagram. Awesome. Well, listen, man, I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. I'm super excited for you guys and all the real estate investing you're doing and send people over there. Thanks, Ian. I appreciate it, brother.