The School of Greatness - 1086 Building & Monetizing a Mass Social Media Audience w/Josh Richards

Episode Date: March 19, 2021

“Your goal can’t just be, I want to make money and be famous.”Today's guest is Josh Richards, a social media influencer, entrepreneur, musician, writer, actor, and podcast host, who has also accumulated over 30 million followers across platforms. He’s the founder of TalentX, the largest TikTok management and production company, as well as the co-founder of the energy drink Ani Energy. Josh is also an angel investor in dozens of companies and was called a “mogul in the making” by Newsweek.In this episode Lewis and Josh discuss how Josh became one of the top social media influencers, how you can build a massive audience, and how to overcome insecurities and put yourself out there.For more go to: www.lewishowes.com/1086Check out Josh’s YouTube channel: Josh RichardsKobe Bryant on Mamba Mentality, NBA Titles, and Oscars: https://link.chtbl.com/691-podKevin Hart Breaks Down His Secrets to Success: https://link.chtbl.com/956-podKatherine Schwarzenegger Pratt on the Power of Forgiveness: https://link.chtbl.com/925-pod

This is episode number 1086 with social media sensation Josh Richards. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Philosopher Albert Hubbard said, the greatest mistake you could make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. And Michelle Obama said, the only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work for them. My guest today is Josh Richards.

With over 30 million followers, Josh is a social media sensation, entrepreneur, musician, writer, actor, and podcast host. He is the founder of TalentX, the largest TikTok management and production company, as well as the co-founder of the energy drink, Annie Energy. Josh is also an angel investor in dozens of companies and was called a mogul in the making by Newsweek. I'm excited to bring him on as he's one of the younger guests we've had on talking about his rise to success in his teens. And in this episode, we discuss how Josh became one of the top social media influencers today,

how you can build mass audience no matter what industry you're in, how to know when it's time to go all in on that dream, how Josh is able to manage his content creation and multiple businesses at the same time at such a young age, and how to overcome insecurities and put yourself out there. If you're inspired by this, make sure to share this with someone that you think would be inspired as well. And a quick reminder to click the subscribe button over on Apple podcast for the School of Greatness, as well as leave us a rating and review and let us know what you enjoyed about this episode the most. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only Josh Richards. Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got the young icon, Josh Richards in the house. Good to see you, man. Hey, good to see you as well, man. Glad you're here.

I've heard about your stuff for a while. I've watched your content. You're a social media sensation. What do you have, 30 million followers now? Cross platforms, probably around 30 million. 30 million. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you've transitioned from being a young teen heartthrob into an entrepreneurial, successful

leader now, investing in many different platforms, platforms products and also working with triller and a lot of different stuff right yeah yeah i mean of course i definitely tried to expand the entrepreneurial portfolio take that a lot more serious in 2021 when did you most teenagers i didn't know how to make money until i was like 27 right i didn't make any money yeah how did you learn the idea of actually making money in entrepreneurship? I think it was when you were 13. But how did that concept actually come to you of like, I want to make money, not just get an allowance from my parents. Right.

Or like do a paper route in Canada. But were your parents teaching this stuff? Were you just learning it? I was always a kid that wanted to, when I bought something, I wanted it to be a bigger item. Like a lot of kids were always like, get the $10 going right to the store, buying a pack of cards, like spending all their money right away, right? If they have leftover, they'll buy gum, they'll buy whatever. Like I was always a kid that wouldn't spend any money. I was like, I'm putting it in a jar.

I want to save up for like a sports ticket event, or I want to save up for a PS4 or something. But it was always like, I was trying to make a lot of money for a certain project. And then as that kind of developed, it became more of a passion, I think, of just like making money in general than it really became saving up for something. And then my jars, I would have like Buffalo Bills game, save up to go to a Bills game or save up to go to Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game. And I would just end up never spending the money because I was like, I just want to make more and more and see that jar grow. money because I was like I just want to make more and more and see that jar grow and eventually like that turned into creating like passion like hockey was turned into a berserk hockey apparel line where I was putting slogans on shirts and then my lacrosse uh like when I was playing lacrosse I turned that into a company it was dyeing mesh and putting in team designs and logos and finding wax

formulas so it was waterproof and the pocket wouldn't change its formation so I was just always hungry to grind and make some money did your parents not want to buy you taste the games or were they teaching you this or how was that um I think that there was a part of it that was like they wanted me to learn like how to make my own money to work a little bit and they were proud of me too for always like trying to find ways to make money but at the same time we weren't a family that was like able to just go to games left and right.

Or like if I was going to a game, my family was like, that's a big deal. We're getting nosebleeds and it's for my birthday. Like that's how it was with my family. Interesting. So what's it been like now since, that was what, when you were 12, 13, you were kind of developing this jar money mentality?

Yeah. Now five, six years later you're i think on ford a couple years ago one of the top five biggest earners on tiktok a couple years ago personalities what is that like now a few years later being able to buy whatever you want essentially go to games buy clothes you know buy cars how does that feel right i mean the craziest thing is i've kind of kept the same mentality like i'm still the kid that doesn't buy things so like like my car like people will say like i've said this before on podcast like i don't spend money and then people will see a picture of my car and it's like a mercedes it's brand new mercedes right and they're like well that's a

dumb investment i didn't pay for my car like my car was gifted to me right it's like everything i wear like everything i have on right now these shoes i got made by just a shoe account on instagram they made them for me for free right this hoodie i got for free from a store because they i went into the store and they're like just pick out some things like so my outfits are usually like 20 bucks and it's from my underwear like that's it right so i've always kept that mentality but to know that i'm able to support like my family or to be like my sister will be like, I really want these shoes. Like we're just randomly texting. And I think she's caught on that.

I start just like buying it for them. My brother as well. But they'll be like, oh, this skin and Fortnite. Like I've really been looking forward to it. And then I'll be like, oh, really? And I'll just start like buying little things for my family all the time. So that's been so cool to be able to do that. Yeah.

When did you learn really about not saving but investing? Because you started to invest in startups. You started to learn more about financial literacy over the last few years as a teen. Not many teens study this. They don't teach us this in school. So how did you learn? Did you have mentors that were teaching you this about investing? Yeah, I would say my biggest mentor would have been Michael Gruen. He put me on the path of really using my social media to turn it into business and turn it into the entrepreneurial spirit. Not just sponsorship deals, brand deals where it's a good pay, but then you have nothing else. Right. Yeah. And I was always trying to like find more creative ways to make money.

So I think Michael saw that and saw the drive and the passion that I had and was like, OK, we can create something cool together. So we kind of formed like this business partnership and we do pretty much everything we do together. And I started asking him like, what are ways I can utilize my money? Because at first what we were doing is instead of doing the traditional brand deal, we were taking an equity.

Where you take a fee and then you do a bunch of promotion and then they get all the rest of it. Right, right. So like when, yeah, the original brand deal, right? Every creator does it. It's just paid to post. It's very easy very easy it's usually one-off deals it's like 10k for a story what we were trying to focus on is the equity behind it so i also talked with ashton kutcher another mentor of mine and he said i'd be a billionaire by now if i had taken equity and all my deals over cash so now when we start doing these brand deals we either work in a little half

and half part cash cash, part equity, or if I really love the company and I'm super passionate about it, I wanna do just all equity. And I go in and just, I'll do the posting for essentially free at the start, but the goal is three, four, five, six, seven years down the line, company goes public,

I either have stock or it gets purchased, like the company does that position. What's been the best investment you've made so far? Where maybe it hasn't paid off yet, but you can see the potential for it really paying off long term. I think that Lentable is a huge one. Lentable? Yeah, it's a 401k matchup.

So that's a huge startup that I'm really invested in. And then as well, I think that there's one for, actually, Breaker's a massive one it's it connects independent artists to musicians and it's actually more of an arbitrage play for tick tockers it allows content creators to have a steady stream of revenue which is really hard when you're first starting off on tick tock or just social media in general it's kind of like the the rich get richer mentality it's like the big creators keep getting bigger and bigger right people that are

yeah exactly and it's like you big creators keep getting bigger and bigger. There's like 20 people that are the top, yeah. Exactly. And it's like you get a little new rotation every three years, but it's like, it's kind of the same top dog. So there's been these creators that are making like $1,000 a week or four or $5,000 a month, and they have only 500,000 followers.

So they're creating a steady revenue stream off this app by using independent artists music and independent artists paying them so it's called breakers breaker breaker breaker yeah so that's a great one and then as well versus game is another great company for the influencer i mean myself personally i've done like probably four or five games on the app. And as just a creator, I've made tens of thousands, if not $100,000 just off using the app a couple of times, probably taking an hour of my time. But it's just another great monetization tool for a creator. Yeah. Wow, man. And what about something like Triller? Did you get equity in that as well?

Yeah. So I came in there as chief strategy officer. We put in an investment then as well, like equity. So go in and I focus a lot on the monetization side. They were very creator forward thinking company. They were always asking us about how we felt comfortable. And it kind of lined up with my journey. And I guess you could say story. When I first moved to LA, co-founded TalonX management company, signed like 110 of the top TikTokers.

I wanted to do that because I'd just gone on a tour that summer, made the tour probably a million dollars gross. And I got paid. A speaking tour or like a? It was a meet and greet tour. Just simply. That's it?

That's it. Just like you sign anything? Yeah, signing posters or merch. Like they buy merch. Take photos. Yeah, take photos. But very just meet and greet. Almost like a book or podcast tour, right?

But with no book to sell. Did you sell anything? We sold merch. It would be like a hoodie with my name Richards on it or something. Like very simple back then. And then. When was this? A couple years ago?

2019 summer. So. You did a million dollars in sales from the merch or the tickets or whatever. Yeah, the whole tour. It was like me and probably five other influencers, six, seven other main influencers. What would you guys do? Just to like sell out malls or something

and just have Mad Russia 12-year-olds? It was like we would do these small, either like bars that had like a little stage, right? Or we would do like Marriott's. We did a lot of those. Like so hotels, like the conference rooms and you're selling like a thousand to 2000 tickets. And it's usually the big, like our audience then was younger it was probably like 12 to 16 16

like you get like some 18 year olds in there right it's like the weirdos are over 18 sometimes sometimes yeah sometimes a little strange but no we uh we went on that tour and i got paid 750 dollars like cash like that was it like you got paid 750 yeah not like 750 750 like to do the tour yeah whole tour why we sold tickets like it did amazing like i told you the tour it was just the social media space is so shady at the start like it was the most like underprotected industry i've ever seen no creators are being taken seriously. These like fake managers that say they know people, or maybe they were like a distant relative of someone,

whatever. And they would like use that to try to sign these young kids that don't know anything. So like I was 15, not knowing anything in social media, thought thinking I needed a manager to succeed. And it got into a two year contract. That was like, that was like I

felt like I was stuck in because I didn't know anything in the industry so you did the tour and you actually didn't make any money no money the tour ripped us all off Wow like completely yeah merch sales everything so at the end of the day they sold all the merch they did all the tickets but they said what all our expenses were this yeah they tried to pull the whole like expenses or they try to pull like oh you didn't actually do as many tickets as you think. And then it's like we would sell these tickets called like date night and it was $100 tickets per girl had to spend $100 just for this bonus piece. Right. Where they would go on this dinner with us and we would just have like our dinner eating food at a restaurant. Right. And we would be sitting at these tables. One person would have like a hour dinner eating food at a restaurant right and we would be sitting at these tables one

person would have like 30 girls so that's like right there three grand right there yeah you're already talking three grand so it's like if we do eight to 16 shows and we have that at every like that alone we already know we're making more right so there's a few shady things talk to met michael gruen started talent x That was like the whole journey kind of behind that was protecting the creator. So that's why trailer fits so well too.

That's interesting, man. Yeah. What do you think, you seem like a very confident guy as a 19 year old. When I was 19, I had a lot of false confidence. I was very,

I was very talented as an athlete. You know, I was a star there or whatever, but it was like a, I also didn't believe in myself in other ways. Is there a part of your life where you feel you lack confidence you've got 30 million plus followers every woman under 12 wants you

there's a crush on you you're making money now you're out in LA you're doing your thing is there part of your life where you lack confidence um I would say I think that there's still a part of, I don't know if it's so much of a lack of confidence or like in the business world, I know that I don't know things, right? Like I know I'm still new to it. So I'm not going to come in and act like the guy on an investment meeting or a founder's call that's like raised seven different companies and exited four and like, right. I'm not going to be that guy that like says I know it all. But I think that's, what's actually like a strength is knowing what I don't know, like coming into the meetings and like knowing I'm, I'm also having a learning hat

as the same time as like the, the investor hat. Yeah. Yeah. What would you say is your biggest fear right now as a 19 year old thriving star? I would say my biggest fear is probably that I don't work hard. Like, I don't succeed. Like, failing would be my biggest fear. If I came out here and did all this, like, if I didn't work hard enough or if I literally just slacked one day in that college, like, that's my biggest fear. Like, I need to succeed. What does success look like? To me, success looks like I'm wealthy enough to be able to buy my parents a home. I'm able to support my entire family if I need to. I'm able to live like

a life with a wife, my kids, support them, give them what they need, like put them through sports, put them through school. Really, I just want to be comfortable. Like that's, that's the biggest thing. And like, I have aspirations, of course, to be like the richest social media creator ever to do social media, right? Like I would love to be the first social media billionaire and like, I'm striving to do that. But at the end of the day, like what I want more than anything is the, the peace knowing I was just successful entrepreneur. sold a company i exited one and then was able to support the people i love yeah why is that uh desire to be the first social media billionaire what where does that come from i just like being the first i'm competitive i was an athlete as a kid like i played sports so it's

like getting breaking records or anything like that it's like i need to do it right so i mean like i remember like going through just even like my my middle school uh track and field and cross country record book like we had like one in the hallway or whatever it was like behind this glass thing and i asked them to take it out so i could see all the records and i went to the track and all i would do is just like time myself make sure i could be every single record in the middle school for for track and field and i was like able to do some but that's just how my mindset always is it's like try to be or be the best what was your best sport or what is your best i would say my best sport was probably actually cross country like running i was just a really good long distance runner. So I was always- What was your best 5K?

Actually, I would do more like, I was doing like 1500 meters. Okay, gotcha. So we were doing like, I guess that's not like super long distance. That's more like, but cross country when we're doing like two or three kilometers and everything like that. But I would say-

What was your 1500? 1500? Do you remember? I might say a number that's gonna just make me sound like an idiot but i think i was in eighth grade running like a four minute if i'm not wrong four four four twenty four twenty that's that's fast yeah like fast like it was i was i was pretty quick that's fast i think it was 420 because i remember racing in like third grade and we weren't even supposed to do cross country or track. And then they brought me up just with the eighth graders when I was in third grade and I was winning events. Like I won the 800 and came second

in 50 or I won the 1500 and came second in 800 third grade going up against eighth graders type thing. So that was like my, my mentality, but hockey and lacrosse were the sports for sure too. Did you stop, um, track in high school? Yeah. Because of social media. Really? Yeah. Did you stop all sports? Slowly.

Like track. The thing was is like track was probably like the sport I was just naturally the most skilled at like that and swimming actually. But I just didn't enjoy them. Like I liked the team sports a little bit more. Like so hockey and lacrosse were like the last to go. Like I held on to those sports as long as I could just because like, I care so much about them. So what happened? What was, what was the turning point? Social media just was picking up or you were seeing some brand deals come in and you're like, Oh, I can make money. I can fill up my,

my jar. Yeah. I can go to a lot more Buffalo Bills games. Um, no, it was like, I started to notice how much money I was able to create off of social media. And I was, I was like making more money than my parents. Right. So at this point, I knew that I was either going to have to go a hundred percent in because I was on an app that was like, musically at the time, wasn't very trending. Like it was like still, so you started out musically at the time wasn't very trending like it was like still so you started on musically yeah i started before tiktok like people often think like my bloat was like this but it's that like i put in four years of work and then yeah and then it will two years of three years of the work would have been on musically tiktok purchased by like or bite dance came in and purchased musically grinded for another year

and then that summer 2019 that tour is what absolutely just shot me up yeah yeah that's interesting man i'm curious uh so what was the what was the moment where you're like okay this is my last game my last practice because i just made 10 grand on a post and now i'm gonna yeah in here or it was summer um i remember all i was doing at this summer was pretty much like playing lacrosse and going live every single night and on tiktok yeah so i would i would go and play lacrosse right and then i would come home after my lacrosse games and instantly just go live on tiktok like that's all i was doing i would do streams from 10 p.m till 2 a.m every night so I was streaming for four hours straight. What would you do on these?

I would just think of different games. Like I was like, that is how I got made pretty much was by my livestream audience. I built such a engaged audience because they always came on the live. I was like memorizing people's names. I got like that really like personal connection with them. And then that's kind of what gave me

the audience to boost up. But that started escalating into like, or I guess that grew into starting making like $400 a night. And then all of a sudden. From just live. Just live streams alone. And then all of a sudden I had one live stream. I remember I was with my friends and we went live for 30 minutes. And I got donated two grand on this live stream.

Like one person or all the people? It was like a few different people, but there was probably like five big donations, right? Wow. And you were like, you were what, 17 at the time? At this point, I think I'm like 16. I think I'm like pretty young. You make two grand in 30 minutes?

Yeah, yeah. You're rich. Yeah, exactly. In my head, I'm like, holy shit. All my friends, I'm with my friends, like I'm at a sleepover at their house, my two boys. And they're like freaking out. They're like, how the at a sleepover at their house, my two boys. And they're, like, freaking out. They're like, how the f*** is Josh making $2,000 in 30 minutes?

So, like, obviously we had to order, like, 100 wings after that and, like, muck out. But it was that point started kind of, like, I slowly had to stop playing, like, on two different hockey teams. And so then it gets cut down, right? And then, like, instead of playing on the spring lacrosse, summer lacrosse and indoor lacrosse team, it's like, oh, well now I got to lose the summer lacrosse and I only can play in the winter. And it's like, it just like slowly started cutting out like that.

Little by little. Yeah. That's fascinating, man. Are you still doing lives every night? I'm doing live still, but not as much as I used to. You're not able to make as much money anymore with that? It's still crazy. Like it's definitely still pretty lucrative.

Like, I'll go live for 15 minutes and make $1,000. So it's, like, pretty much the same exact thing. But I feel like I just like to put my time into different content now than live streams. Like, if that's doing the podcast now or if I'm creating YouTube videos or any other form of content. So it's $30 million across platforms. YouTube videos or any other form of content. So it's 30 million across platforms. For the over 25 crowd who's listening right now, which have a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of small business owners who are listening and watch the content here, and their biggest

challenge is building audience, building platform. Something I heard you talk about before on another podcast of yours is about thinking of your followers as friends and not as fans or followers. How does someone who's in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s start thinking of creating content to attract a friend base, a following base, a larger audience when they have something smaller niche related? And maybe they're not a 19 year old heartthrob. Yeah, yeah. No, no of course i think the thing that people miss about like niche audiences is that they think i can never grow to be 20

million followers and it's like yeah you're probably right you're going after a niche type audience but the benefit of that is massive in the fact where you will have such strategic marketing for certain companies that those brands are going to pay you more than they pay me and i have a larger following than you so like for example let's say you're you're a cook or you really love uh food and you create a tiktok account where you're posting like yourself cooking these recipes or whatever you you love with the food products like if a company like i don't know a dijon mustard company like they want to go and get their product out on tiktok they want to do some marketing like what's

that mustard cup french's or something like that right yeah it's like why would they come to me and make me do a youtube promo and it's like yeah i might get four times the views you get possible but you're gonna be such a more like such a strategic person to go the views you get possible, but you're going to be such a more, like such a strategic person to go to. If you get 250,000 people watching your videos that all love to cook and are buying cooking products and you, so the thing that people miss, I think is that like, you need to have this massive following, but I know people with a million followers that make more money on brand deals than I do on brand deals. Really? Of course. Like it's, it's that like niche. Because they're specific.

They're in the beauty space. Exactly. They're in a specific space. Exactly. I'm more broad, right? It's like people just kind of put me as an influencer or an entertainer or a TikToker. There's no- You're not talking about one subject.

Exactly. You're not talking about sports or food or beauty or fashion. I'm all around. And I'm definitely trying to get more niche. And that's the other thing that I've started to focus on like people that have niche audiences should be happy

that they have a niche audience like you can sell way more I'm trying to develop that more I'm trying to move more into the sports world just because like the Barstool podcast like I said

like that's my passion growing up with sports like so I just want to keep developing that has Gary gotten you into card investing yet? I was just about to say yeah he's definitely been on me.

He wants me to get very involved in like the card world, sports. And so I've been looking into it. Especially like the hockey side of things probably. I feel like hockey's not getting as much love as basketball and football. Not at all. And Pokemon right now. Yeah, a Gretzky card went for like 1.2 million.

I know, I know. It's crazy. So you haven't done any content around it yet? No content, I bought a few cards. Yeah, yeah. But I bought a few cards. But I got a Shaq rookie card and a Kevin Durant one. And I believe I'm looking at a Kobe Bryant one and then a LeBron James one right now. Yeah. He got me into it about a year ago.

He was telling me about it two years ago. After a year of him telling me about it, I was like, man, this thing went like 20x. I finally jumped in a year ago and I started investing. I wouldn't say pretty heavily ago and I started investing. I wouldn't say pretty heavily, but I spent a good amount investing in it. And it's probably, I don't know, four or five X, at least kind of my whole collection. That's sick. A few cards have really exploded.

But it's just fun to be a part of. But I could see you getting into sports more and making that as one part of it. Yeah, yeah. And it's kind of like a nostalgia thing as well. I mean, nostalgia for you is like four years ago. Yeah. These guys are like 30 years ago. You're like, hey, four years ago I was at the card shop, you know? Yeah.

True. That's funny, man. I'm curious about, do you think anyone could build a mass following? Or if you're focused on a niche, it's going to be really hard to grow wide. Because you're ready to grow wide. Do you think anyone can get a million followers or is it? I think that TikTok allows anyone to be able to get a million followers or, or, you know,

how social media platforms are moving forward with the short form content and the focusing so much on like user generated content, just going viral, right? TikTok's whole For You page, it allows the common person to, yeah, I've seen videos of someone in jail go viral on TikTok. It's like, how do they have a phone in their jail cell, post it, they get more likes than me on that video. It's like, what?

Anyone can post on TikTok and go viral. Anybody can build a following. You just gotta find, people that go at it to become famous probably aren't going to succeed. Like if you're going at TikTok and you want money, like it just doesn't work. Like you need to have a passion for it or you need to have this general want to create. Because what does happen sometimes is you see these kids that blow up in two weeks, right? And you're like, why can't I be them?

Why can't I be them? And they blow off maybe just off looks or whatever one trendy video but they also fall quicker than anyone like they become irrelevant quick it's like that it's like they fall quicker than they even grew like you see them on your for you page for two three weeks and you're like oh this person's like blowing up right now and then all of a sudden three weeks later you see another video of them you're like wait a sec I haven't seen a video from this guy in three weeks who I forgot about him. And it's like, just like that. So it's like, it's a long process. I feel like you really do have to work on it. You need a natural passion for it. You can't just, your goal can't just be like, I want to make money or I want to be famous. You need a little bit more than that.

It's interesting. I was listening to Mr. Beast last night on Clubhouse actually. He was doing a room and he said, I just was so excited about the obsession of YouTube. I didn't care about making money. Exactly. I just wanted to make the coolest video possible that would be fun for people. And just obsessed over the process. And after years it finally started to work. And now he's able to monetize it obviously in a big way.

But he just loved the process. And it sounded like for you going live every night you just loved going live and like yeah hey we're playing games we're having fun exactly and like i was a very analytical guy my dad's a calculus teacher at a high school so he actually was the teacher at my high school but i was always trying to find ways to like growth hack on tiktok and i was all like i had my sister hired on a 15% commission based salary. Like she was going in and going direct to the consumer. We had, there was like a live leaderboard back on Musical.ly back when I was doing these four hour live streams. And they actually had a like one to 250 of the top contributors on the app. So the people that

spent the most money, bought the most gifts and donated the most so you're on there i'm assuming at the top that's not like who received the most it's who the fans that actually paid the most right so like who actually went into streams and you spent the most money on the top so what i wanted i i wasn't on the top because i didn't spend money you wanted to find the top two i wanted to find the top 250. so hey exactly so what i did was i would be live and then for my four hours while I'm live at the start of my live I would have my sister in the room beside me exactly she was logged into my account she would go through and follow and unfollow all these people in like like 10 of their videos so then there's 11 notifications from this Josh Richards guy you've never seen before

a lot of these fans that send money they're're not famous. They have like 30, 40, 200 followers, right? So they notice when someone follows them. So even if I get 5% of the 250 people every night that come over into my live and they spend money, they were spending the top 250 people. The bottom person is probably spending like 200 bucks a live stream right so crazy exactly so i'm acquiring these customers with no followers probably 40 000 to 90 000 followers you only had 40 000 yourself that's it and so that's another thing they felt way more connected to me because i was able to talk and remember names and i followed them so they would join my live and have a red like border around their names because t ticked or musically just let you know who you followed so i knew who to pay more attention to so i was always just like very strategic behind it but my passion was with the numbers and the growth hacking so it's like

you just need something a little more to get i think famous than just i want to be famous because it looks fun and cool right what was the most you made in one live? One time I did, I did like a 12 hour live stream day. Like probably more. It was probably 16 hours of just live stream straight. And I think that day, this was when I was smaller too. Like this is when I had maybe 120K followers on the app. And I probably made 12 grand in that day. 12 grand.

Yeah. And like I was 16 at that time. 15, yeah. I was younger. So that was cool. That was awesome. I love doing the leaderboard stuff. Like so cool

because I was a small creator getting like number one likes on the app because I would just stream so long. But it was a grind to get to where. Sure. It didn't happen overnight.

It was just showing up every day. Yeah. What about the, why did you guys decide to launch an energy drink? What was the reason behind this in a sea of millions of energy drinks? Yeah, yeah. So.

Why create it? How did the process work? How many partners do you have? We ran into this situation where Sway wasn't very brandable, right? Sway is a house, for those who don't know Sway is a content house where there's what five or six of you guys there? Yeah it's like six seven eight

it's weird because people kind of rotate out. You're all influencers and you're creating content together you live there. Yeah it's a content house yeah so it's a house of creators that all live together and the main goal is just create as much content as you can together and boost each other's platforms exactly everyone grows so within that house we weren't the most brand safe group we were we were a little bit controversial you were yeah a lot of it yeah yeah so at the beginning i would say at least and then uh what happened is we weren't getting that those brand deals there were other houses getting all the the brand money so we were only making money off our adsense our tick tock lives and our merch so we were like how do we create another form of revenue

or what do we do so we're getting a lot of brand deals exactly because we weren't kid friendly exactly so we wanted to own every single thing we touched bryce and i a big part of our content is youtube and we would shotgun red bulls before in our videos just to like establish we were high energy kind of say like if you want high energy like the us right and it started this trend on tick tock where people were shotgunning red bulls terrible trend to start like so bad for your heart so don't do it but um we we started this trend people were tagging us it was getting millions of views and likes a bunch of videos were going viral on tick tock about it so bryce and i are sitting there giving all this free promotion to red bull right just marketing mark like we they haven't they haven't paid us they

just get millions of views from us we were like we need our own energy drink we don't want to sell out and do a brand deal we want to like own it as a long-term project so started talking with michael we got introduced to evan burns who does long drink with miles teller he was already obviously experienced in the drink space so teamed up with him and got any and probably it was like a seven month back end process before we had the drink ready and then did d2c wow. Yeah. So it's not in stores, just online direct consumer. Distribution is coming very, very soon. That's great. How long has it been out now? It's been out, we released, I believe in August. So like five months, four or five months. Yeah. Yeah. And how's that been working? Are you guys seeing the sales you'd love to see? Is it taking time to ramp up?

What's been that process? So like right when we released it, huge spike obviously, cause Bryce and I are very good at doing the marketing, social media guys, like we know how to create viral videos. We know how to make sure that there's millions and millions of views on this site, right? Like anti-energy. And then what we had to learn was how to continuously,

naturally implement anti-energy into our videos. So you kind of saw this big spike and then it obviously went down a little bit and then it kind of just had this maintaining upwards graph. So it's actually been super successful within the last like four months of Bryce and I just grinding on it. What's the biggest challenge you see a product or a company like that continue to sustain? And I see stuff like Bang Energy or whatever, Red Bull or any brand.

It's like they have now thousands of influencers constantly posting them. They've got ad spend. How do you guys compete with stuff like that with all the other energy drinks? The Rock's got an energy drink coming out. It's like, how do you compete and stay competitive? So I think one thing that Bryce and I did that was very strategic is the branding of the drink. It's not branded so much as this hard energy drink that's going to give you 300 milligrams of caffeine and you're going to be jittering and shaking out of your chair right like it's more of a lifestyle drink and that's how it's it's it looks like it it is a lifestyle

drink it when you drink it you feel like it's only 75 milligrams of caffeine right you don't get that insane bang energy boost where like you feel like you're about to have a heart attack sure so that's the thing about our drink is the marketing. When you look at the can, it's a little bit more on the feminine side. But Bryce and I and our videos are very bro-y. And that's because we know we want to sell to both demographics. Our fans are more on the female demographics. So we have the can look a certain way.

But at the same time, when Bryce and I are doing the marketing, we give it that more bro-y feel. So it can be like the next white claw, but instead of in alcohol, it's in the energy drink space, right? White claws, at the start, were only accepted by women. Guys made fun of it. Or guys were like, oh, that's a girl's drink. That's a girl. And now every guy at every frat is drinking white claws at the frat parties. It's just that kind of strategic marketing that's interesting will keep us above that's cool how do you stay excited about something like that when you have a million opportunities come your way podcast projects YouTube all these things you're working on you've got all these ideas

investments how do you sustain passion and focus for each brand like anti energy yeah of course I think a big thing is michael and i actually talk about just what are my passions a lot like we definitely are trying to stay focused on not doing too much because there's there's just a point where you overstretch right like you overwork yourself but um or you're in too you're in too many pots at the same time, right? So it's gotta be something that I care heavily about. Annie Energy, for example, was my first ever, I would say, founding company that I took. It's a product you launched.

Yeah, it was like a product I launched. I took a lot more of initiative in it. With the TalentX side, there was, I was more of a recruiter. I was like a special advisor to someone. So this co-founding it and doing more, it was more of a recruiter. I was like a special advisor to someone. So this co-founding it and like doing more, it was just awesome. It was a great feeling. And it's like, I know I'll always be connected to that, but when we do different parts, like dog for dog, for example,

that's a company with Snoop Dogg where a bag of dog food gets donated to a shelter every time one's purchased. Right. And I know I'm going to be passionate about that because i'm a i'm a dog guy like my family had one at home i always have loved dogs i got one as soon as i came to la my house is full of six dogs because everyone decided to get one after me it was awesome it was so awesome but so there's like seven dogs running around my house all the time that's crazy but yeah i mean like that's something that i'm very passionate about and then continuing that trend like on hide with ellen like i purchased part of her company and and that's something that I'm very passionate about and then continuing that trend like on hide with Ellen like I purchased part Of her company in and that's a faux fur so trying to stop the the shearing of animals a lot of people think like oh They're just sharing the sheep. It doesn't kill them

It doesn't hurt them what they don't know is the amount of factions that could cause by sharing and the deaths like they end up dying From the infections actually a lot of the times after in the conditions. They're kept in while they're doing the shearing It's it's kind of pretty scary like you don't feel great when after watching those like the clothes you have on so or or the blankets you're buying or the fur you're buying so yeah it's it's definitely like finding those passions and executing on that's cool man michael's been pretty strategic with you it sounds like yeah for sure good guy yeah great i met him many years ago he's been been helpful with a lot of things. So it's cool, man. I'm curious about the mental health side of social media

because I see a lot of young creators who gain a lot of audience. They get pretty well known. And then I see their numbers drop at some point. Or maybe followers, like they start getting, it's not growing as fast, the follower count. It's like even dips for a while. I see this a lot. Or they were getting 20 million views a video.

Now it's 1 million views where it's still a lot of views and a lot of followers and a lot of attention. But how are you personally managing that as numbers fluctuate? And it seems like at certain points it's like this rapid growth and kind of a peak and it's harder to grow. I'm not sure if you've reached that yet, but how are you handling this? And also with friends who are in this space, what are you seeing the biggest challenge they're faced with and how do you think you're going to be able to handle it moving forward? Yeah, I think that the thing that happens to creators is they start to see a dip in their followers.

So they start to see it slows down and then they get really scared, right? So they start either trying to do things that are like too crazy or just like are gonna get them in trouble because they're just trying to get views, right? They're trying to maintain their views. And like, that's not a great way to go. Or they just give up.

They're like, oh, I'm irrelevant now. Like I can't do anything. So they get really negative and you'll start to see them post less and you start to see them like think they're too big for, or like, they'll be like, they'll start using the shadow band excuses. Like I'm shadow band. The algorithm doesn't like me.

TikTok doesn't like, it's like, bro, they don't know who you are. They don't not like you. Like TikTok isn't like blocked. Like maybe on occasion there's like people like Donald Trump that gets kicked off social media. Right. Maybe on occasion there's people like Donald Trump that gets kicked off social media, right? But you, random social media creator,

and you just stopped posting so your likes went down, they're not blocking you, right? It's just people get so just like, they're not encouraged to keep going. And it makes sense, but you just got pushed through. I mean, look at these big names in social media like Logan Paul and Jake Paul. There's a reason they're still big names in social media

because they just never gave up. Like there were so many times when everyone thought they were done or they were irrelevant or they were off like social media. They should have been, right? They didn't give up. And then they just kept reinventing.

Yeah, they just reinvented themselves or they're finding new ways to stay in the press. And like, obviously it's working. So like you can maintain relevancy as long as you just don't get scared when you see a drop a little bit you just can't get can't get afraid of it what have you done when you've seen dips or video views or yeah I mean I think what I try to do is just continue to give people something to be excited about like I'm always thinking of like

the next big thing right so if that's when we did Sway, it's like, all right, Sway starts. And then all of a sudden Bryce and Josh are both starting YouTube, which is like the first TikTokers to go to YouTube. And then it's now they're the first TikTokers to drop a product. It's like now we're doing Any Energy. And then it's now we're angel investing in Sway. And now I'm at Barstool. And like, you know what I mean?

It's just big thing, big announcement. So we're always trying to do these like crazy partnerships or these, create these what the f*** moments so that people stay interested. That's good, man. Yeah. Where do you see yourself by 25? I think that I'll take a bigger step into for the entertainment side I think you'll see a lot more of I would say like barstool type content or getting more involved in the sports

world like I I just started a radio show with Craig Carton um where I'm going on every Friday and we just talked 15- 20 minutes about sports, right? And so I think you'll see that on the entertainment side. And then on the business side, definitely stepping more and more into angel. I love angel investing. And then as well, probably being a GP at a fund. And then I would say hopefully either scaling Annie into something huge or have exited because that will be six years down the road. So that would be like seven years of doing Annie. So hopefully, yeah. That's cool, man.

What got you into Barstool and the partnership with Dave and everything there? It was actually – I didn't know who he was until about a year ago. Okay. And I've been loving everything about the way he's been. Yeah. Well, first off, he's just, I love the pizza reviews. I'm just like, okay, this is entertaining.

But then to see what he's doing with small businesses, I'm just like, dude, mad props to him for stepping up in that way and really serving people. Yeah, no, yeah. I was blessed enough to where actually with one of the investments we made pear pop they came in with us and helped out the barstool fund we were able to do just off twitter and pear pop we were able to do 200 000 in 48 hours for the the fund at barstool which was amazing but the dave thing all came from actually drama that happened in social media it was like the biggest social media tiktok drama that has ever occurred like what was it it was beef with the hype house and sway house and essentially my girlfriend and a guy over there um so so anyways who's that hype house who's there

who are the big people at hype house um well at the time like charlie and dixie were involved with hype house like they they pretty much like gave hype house the name i would say like and addison was there for a little bit um this was a house in la yeah yeah and then like there's avani chase thomas alex warren there's a bunch of them but it's same as sway like there's a big group sure um so there was some there was some beef between houses yeah there's some beef going on and uh they decided to just break the internet like you couldn't go on tiktok without a video being made about it my like we would go live on instagram and if any of us involved in the like beef went live on instagram it would get a hundred thousand viewers on instagram crazy like trending on

twitter number one for like two days it was everywhere you went like youtube videos are trending about it it's just you couldn't stop tmz it's like hollywood fix paparazzi everyone so dave tweets out and is like why the fuck am i seeing wiggle dickers all over my feet so me and michael are at a dinner and someone that's at the dinner with us was like yo Dave just tweeted about you guys and and the situation going on and Michael's like holy fuck we need to get we need to get like in contact with Dave so he starts going through his rolodex and like who knows Dave yeah who knows Dave who knows Dave and eventually after like 30 minutes we find someone that knows Dave we get in contact with. And we talk about doing an Instagram live.

So me and Dave go live together. I go live and then guest him and we start talking about the beef. And there's like, whatever, 50,000 people on the live stream watching. And it's just kind of like us going back and forth. We're like shooting shit. We're roasting people, whatever. It's all in fun and games. And then Snapchat hits us up and is like, yo, we saw the live stream with dave and josh we want

to create a show with them would on snapchat yeah would they be interested so we get a 30 minute scheduled like time slot with dave to go and pitch this idea to him or one minute in we're like they want to do a show with us on snapchat what do you think no he's like no i'm not doing anything with snapchat like one minute into the call we got 29 minutes left and he's already shut down the idea. I don't like it. He's like, no, I don't like it. We're not doing it. And so we're all sitting there on the call with like 29 minutes left trying to figure out what to do.

Like, what are we, like, what are we going to say the rest of the call? Like, do we keep going? Do we just say like, peace? All right. Like, so Michael starts like spitballing and then just kind of throws up the idea. He's like, let's do a podcast. Like, why don't you and josh do a podcast and dave's like yeah i'm not opposed to that so we just started talking more

and more and like probably was three or four months of negotiations then we got the podcast and it's been like super successful ever since that's great man how does that partnership work do you have equity and barstool as you just you guys You have a split of things? Yeah, yeah. It's more of a split thing on the actual podcast itself. But it's... And you're promoting on your side, he's promoting on his side, and you're just doing a split somehow. Yeah, and it's great because the demographics, right? For Dave, he's reaching into a whole new demo that he hasn't reached into, that younger audience. As Barstool fans get older and older.

And then for me, it gives me that older audience that I'm looking for and more of the male demographic that I'm lacking on. So. Cause you got 90% 12 year old girls. Yeah, yeah. No, but the podcast, it's like, I think we have more guys subscribed

to the podcast than girls. It's like a 54% guys and then 40 something percent girls. And then like slowly but surely you start to see also like my other socials like go up. Like my YouTube now is like, I think past, like around 30% male audience. And then it's like, you see my Instagram go up and my TikTok.

So like that's, that's the, yeah. That's cool. Yeah, I've been pretty consistent 50, 50 male to female audience for a long time. And I think, cause I'm interviewing a lot of men and women and it's just split audiences, I guess. That's wicked though. Like when you have that split, it's awesome. Well, my girlfriend is more like 80% of guys that follow her, you know, it's like 13 million guys. Okay. But, uh, and she's trying to build that female audience as well. She's building other

accounts for just like all female content. Right. Okay. So, um, I think you guys are both doing a smart thing there. That's cool that you're doing that. It was that once a week or how does that work? Yeah. The podcast we do once a week. It's called BFF, right? BFFs. Yeah. I've seen a couple episodes. It's good. Yeah. Yeah. You got good clips on there as well. How do you think you're going to handle emotionally all this success, the money, the opportunities, the fame, the everyone wanting a piece of you now and in the future? How do you, how are you personally dealing with emotional wellness, emotional health and not allowing it to consume you? Yeah. I think that, I think I was already consumed.

I think that like the first six months when we came out to Sway was like when I fell into the traps of LA and like the success and the money and everything. Like, like I said, I was never like a spender, but I love, like, I love creating moments and memories and like being around people and being like center of attention or just like having a blast all the time. Right. So when we first came to LA and there was no COVID, right. And it's like, we are these rising stars. The party seems crazy. Right. So it's like, we are these rising stars. The party seems crazy, right? So it's like every single night, like I was 17 when I first came out here.

So for a 17 year old high school kid, they're like, I'm in heaven right now. Like I get to do whatever I want, party and make money. Like this is sweet. So I did that for like six months and then kind of just like realized after a few big mistakes, like, all right, I got lightning in the bottle and I'm throwing it away.

Like the opportunity I have is way too important to waste. And it's like I was just like slowly but surely like also kind of justifying decisions I used to never justify. Like what? Like, I think just like slacking off, like not doing as much work if it was like deciding to drink and party or do whatever we're doing at these parties instead of like prioritizing the meetings I have the next day. Right. It's like it didn't matter what day it was. It could be a Tuesday at like seven and someone would come down and be like, we're drinking. And it would just happen, right? So on that side of things, like, I'm very glad we kind of did that at the very beginning and then kind of just got out of our system and moved on. Yeah.

Because now it's like we're work focused and people in COVID are always like, oh, it sucks so much. Like, we don't get to party. I miss partying. And it's like, yeah, I miss partying a little bit, but I kind of got partied out. So it's like, at least now I've been able to use COVID to just focus on my work and becoming kind of morally back to where I should be. I was like the good Canadian kid. Yeah, that good Canadian kid that I was like raised and how I was raised. So yeah.

Who are three creators that you look up to or you're inspired by? Like social media creators? Yeah. Maybe they're in your space or maybe they're in marketing or fashion or music or whatever. Maybe they're in a different space. But who are just three creators that you think, man, they're doing a great job. I admire what they're creating. Yeah.

Maybe they got 100 million followers. Maybe they got 100,000 followers. Right, right, right. But who's doing a good job? I would say Mr. Beast is one of them. He's absolutely crushing it. His whole team. I talk to people on his team.

I haven't got to talk to... I talking with jimmy actually soon i believe we're scheduling call but like the amount of respect i have for for them and how hard he works like i know how hard content is to film and this guy's a machine like the videos he's doing his schedule and like how well orchestrated his team is is just phenomenal. So props to him. And then I would say there's definitely a part of me that looks up to Dave. I think that what he's been able to do with Barstool and growing it into a social media conglomerate. It's a machine, right? It can boost anything. it can absolutely push views

sell product so i i really respect what he's done on that front and then i gotta interview him someday i think he'd be great on here yeah and then another influencer that i would say i have respect for um i would say that Logan and Jake like the Paul brothers like they're definitely like I always feel like I kind of have to give respect to those guys because they were they were like pioneers in a sense in this this industry and I think that just how they looked at it and and the things that they pioneered changed the game like they've done so many like bringing the boxing in it's just they've done so many, like bringing the boxing in.

It's crazy. It's just, they've opened doors. The music video and everything else. The diss track, like they've opened doors for other content creators to, to make a lot of money. And they,

that would have never thought that way. Right. Like were you watching them when you were 12, 13? 100%. Really? Yeah. I was watching Jake a lot when I was younger,

like probably 14. I was watching him. And then, uh, Logan, like pretty soon after probably like a couple months but uh i was always like i was always just studying like i almost used that studying like it was i wouldn't just watch the videos to like slack off and watch videos like i did that as well but i was like writing notes i was like okay this is what they did like look

at their thumbnail look because i've always like since was young, just wanted to be an entertainer. Like, I wanted to do social media. Wow. Yeah. Have they inspired you to get into, like, boxing or doing certain things like that? I tried to do a boxing match, like, four months ago, but the kid said no. Oh, really? Yeah.

So, I mean, it's fine. Like, it would have been fun. And, like, it was kind of like, I don't know. I understand why, like, it wasn't done. And I think that, like, fighting is intense. Like, you got to really put a lot of work. It's intense, man. You can't just, like, say you're a fighter.

No, you got to train for hours. And if you don't and you go and box, you just look, you get embarrassed. Like, you look like a fool when you go out there and you can't throw a punch. Or you start, like, just, like, going left. Or, like, you can't throw a punch or you start like just like going left and like you can't even like control your body movements so your cardio is shit nate robinson for example like he he kind of looked like a fool like he went out there against jake and like no disrespect to him on the athlete side because guy's like one of the best athletes of all time probably but jake trained and put his absolute like full effort into it. And then that's why.

You got that result. Yeah. That's crazy, man. What advice would you have for the fans of yours, the followers, the 30 million friends of yours that are going through a lot of insecurities, who are in their teens right now, who are just faced with changing in their body,

breakups in relationships, people ghosting them, just all the confusion of social media and real world relationship dynamics and comparison mode. You grew up in this generation more than me. I got into social media when I was 25. You got into it early. What advice do you have the kids?

Biggest advice, and it's something like i took me a while to figure out but definitely learned it in la like keep your circle small like find an inner circle that you like you can you can be friends with everyone i think you should show respect to everyone and be nice to everyone even if they don't treat you great all the time but you've got to find your circle and like stick to it like in high school i probably had for the first like two years i probably had like two kids that i could have called my best friends and then the last two years i gained like another three more and it was like so i had like that was it though like everyone else i couldn't really trust like kids would make fun of me all the time at school like for the social media things i got bullied for it whatever

so it's like same with when i came out to LA, there were so many kids that I trusted, like, and people I call my best friends and they would go and do these like crazy things behind my back or like talk absolute shit. Yeah. LA is, I mean, LA is the worst for that.

So I would say like, that's the biggest thing is just like keeping, keeping it small. Keep it small. Yeah. There you go. Well, um,

I want to acknowledge you, Josh, for the risk takingtaking you take because you came from a small town in Canada, you started taking action out there, you moved out here, you made some mistakes, you're still learning to make mistakes, but you're constantly evolving and constantly innovating in your space right now. And I think it's really inspiring to see what you can create as a 16-year-old, 19-year-old, and where you're going in the future. So I acknowledge you

for trying to learn and really optimizing these things and taking these risks and investing and learning financial literacy and just expanding your empire. I think it's really cool to see that someone your age can do this. And I know you're going to learn a lot and you're going to fail and you're going to make a lot of success as well. But the fact that you're here now and you're committed to growth, I think is really inspiring to see. So I acknowledge you for all you're doing, man. Thank you. I'm excited for your growth. I want to watch and see what you're up to over the next few years. So if I can help, let me know with anything. For sure.

And also, I want to ask you a question I ask everyone at the end called three truths. I think you're the second youngest person I've had on here. I think I had Jake on when he was 19 as well. Maybe he was 18 or 19. So you're the youngest person I've had on here. I think I had Jake on when he was 19 as well. Maybe he was 18 or 19. So you're the youngest person I've had on or the second youngest. So this is a question that may not resonate with you right now. Okay. It's called the three truths. Yeah.

And I'd like you to imagine for a moment it's your last day on earth. And you're as old as you want to be. You're 100, you're 200, whatever. Maybe science allows you to be 200 years old by then, right? But it's the last day. And you've actually accomplished everything. All your dreams, all the businesses. You're the first billionaire social media influencer.

Whatever you want to do, you've done it all. You've got the family, kids, everything. I know it's a long way to think. Yeah. But just imagine for a second, it's your last day. But for whatever reason, everything you've created, you have to take with you. So no one has access to your content right now, which is YouTube, TikTok, podcast, products. Everything has to go with you.

But you get to leave behind three things you know to be true from all your experiences in life. And I know you've only got 19 years on this planet right now, but, and this is all they would have. They got a piece of paper and a pen. You get to write down your three biggest lessons you've learned as a human being. And this is all you could share with the world. What would you say are those three truths for you? Are they just like lessons or things I've done

that I leave behind? Lessons you would leave behind. Lessons? The three things you know to be true that you would want to share to the world. All right, number one. Lessons to the world, yeah. With power comes responsibility

um i got a tattoo to my arm for a reason quote my dad always said to me also watch spider-man obviously but uh it's just i've no i've realized so many times where i've had such an influence or such a power and utilized it maybe in the wrong way or just made mistakes where it's been uh and utilized it maybe in the wrong way or just made mistakes where it's been, uh, utilized wrong. So just when you have that power and it can be as small as like power over one friend or, or, or like a kind of, kind of going back a little bit to what I said with the, with the tight circle thing actually. But I think that me personally, there's just been so many times in my life where I've been backstabbed or I've been like, I've put my heart out and trusted someone multiple times

or like they've even done things or shown me where I should have cut the ties off or been like, all right, we can't work in business anymore, whatever. There's been so many times where situations like that have happened and I just try to make it work. I'm always like, oh no, I'll give you another chance, another chance. It's like the circle that is small, like in that you can trust, like is so important because when everything's crumbling, like you need to be able to go to someone and just like tell them like, look, I only can go to you with this. Like this is, you're all I got here. So I think that's super important.

And then. What would that lesson be? Like keep a good tight. Keep a tight circle. Yeah. Keep a good tight circle. Yeah. And then the last one is, I'm trying to think the best way to say this, but I think that there's a false notion where people say like save your money.

I think the biggest lesson is spend your money, but spend it wisely. And that's like utilizing your, your investment. Like there's so many times where you could put like $10 away into an account that's giving you like 6% back. Right. Or, or whatever it is, acorns, et cetera. Like you just don't go buy the Starbucks coffee. Instead you go somewhere else where the coffee is going to be $1. Right. Like, and then every day you're saving $3 and putting it in. Little things like that. Learn to spend your money, but spend it wisely. Those would be my three lessons. That's good stuff, man.

I've got one final question for you. Before I ask it, what is a question you wish more people would ask you? What is a question I wish more people would ask? I think, actually something got to talk about today which i usually don't is the analytical or i guess like how focused i am on the numbers of things like when i talked about my story of like growth hacking my social media i think a lot of people think i just came out of social media like this and like i've been on interviews or podcasts where they're like josh

so you blew up overnight like how does that feel that feel? And I'm like, well, you obviously didn't even do research on me. Like, you don't know my story then. Like, that's not even what happened. Right. So like people almost like I've put words in my mouth before. They think that like, I just blew off, blew up off like a pretty face. And I mean like, sure, probably didn't help that. Like whatever, like girls think I'm cute but it's like there there was three and a half four years of me like doing tedious work like following and unfollowing accounts and commenting on videos and like I was so strategic about my blow up and studying the for you page knowing what worked like trying out different video styles like it was it was a grind for me it wasn't this. I got views for being good looking.

Yeah, you studied, you worked hard. I also was like a weird looking kid. I like puberty helped me out. I was a weird looking guy. 14 was weird. Oh my God, it's like I had an awkward phase from I think like 14 until three months ago. Like I just a little bit got out of it.

Until now. You're still the weird face. Yeah. Still a low key in. Yeah. And what's the thing you're most proud of that maybe people don't see or they don't know about? It's something smaller maybe, or maybe not as well known about your bio and about your, your content. Um, I think that one thing I'm really proud of is probably, I would say, I would say like this, I think people don't realize the work that the boys, but also like myself put behind Sway. Like, I think people think Sway was more of this, like management came in and picked us all out, but the actual work, like all the boys put in and picked us all out but the actual work like all

the boys put in and in the brotherhood that was made like i just want people to i think people don't realize like how true that was people think like it's like a boy band right people think oh you went we went out and we selected like five six hundred people like we were best friends going into that and it's like that accomplishment of all of us truly just caring about each other and then being able to create an entire like movement with sway and be able to change kind of even how like people view social media creators because before you couldn't do the things we did as a social media creator you got canceled for it like there there were stigmas uh for tiktokers they were right like we broke those so i think like that's one thing that I'm just so proud of

because I was able to do with my friends. And that was always a dream of mine is being successful with people I care about. That's cool, man. Yeah. That's good stuff. Well, we can follow you. Where's the main place you're posting content now? Where should we support?

Where should we follow? I would say my Instagram or YouTube. They're both just Josh Richards. Yeah. It's, like, my name. Are't take talk as much anymore i definitely am but i think that just like i'm trying to expand my portfolio and content so trying to push them to other platforms i think everyone like knows about my like people like know i do tick tock i want them to know i do like youtube and i want you right so i and and the content I tend to post on like my Instagram, I'm able to be more like sports involved

or I'm able to be more like there's trends on TikToks. There's like, there's audio. So like, I'll try to put my spin on it or whatever, but it's like, you're a little bit restricted on TikTok unless you want to spend a ton of time on it. And it's like, I want to use that time for YouTube and TikTok or Instagram. Yeah, of course.

It's good, man. Yeah. Okay. Well okay well final question for you what's your definition of greatness definition of greatness um i would say someone that's putting 110 like it i would call myself the greatest or I've achieved greatness if I know I've left everything out on that field. And like, I always go back to kind of like that sports analogy thing, but it was just like, that's how I was trying. My dad was my coach my whole life, right? Like, or at least a majority of it. And like the other coaches I had, it was always the same thing. We were always getting run run back and forth, back and forth. My teams were always huge on that.

And it's just like, you are leaving everything you got out on this field. My dad would be mad at me if I could go and walk to the car without struggling after a game. He was like, why do you have energy? I should drag you off the ice. Yeah, yeah. I should have to drag you off the ice after every hockey game because you should be giving 110%. You should be leaving it all out there, right? so that's what i define as greatness is leaving everything you have on the field my man josh thanks for being here man thank you for having me man thank you

thank you good times thank you so much for listening to this episode i hope you enjoyed it and if you did make sure to share it with a friend text a few friends post it on social media copy and paste the link wherever you're listening to this, or just use the link lewishouse.com slash 1086 and share it out online. If you enjoyed it, make sure to click the subscribe button over on Apple Podcasts right now, as well as leave us a rating and review, as that really helps us spread the message of greatness to more people in that ecosystem. So if you enjoyed this and you got value, then make sure to subscribe, leave a review and share this with a friend. And if you want inspirational messages sent to your phone every single week from me, then text the word podcast right now to 614-350-3960 to get on my secret texting list. And I want to leave you with a quote from The Rock who said, success isn't always about greatness. It's about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success.

Greatness will come. I hope you enjoyed this. And if no one's told you lately, you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. I'm so grateful for you. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.