The School of Greatness - 898 Change Yourself in Order to Change the World with Dhar Mann

Episode Date: January 6, 2020

CHANGE STARTS WITH YOU.Most of us have faced one big failure so far in our lives. A huge rock bottom. A super hard time. But Dhar Mann has faced 3 massive failures and he's only in his mid-30s. I knew... about Dhar years ago, when he was a mega-successful Instagram influencer living the life. Or so it seemed. Dhar Mann is a serial entrepreneur who has experienced the highs and lows of success. From funding millions of dollars in real estate loans at 19, to his time in the medical marijuana industry, to scaling an eight-figure cosmetics business, he has a proven ability to build companies. Most recently he has become the fastest growing viral video creator in less than one year with over 3 billion views across Facebook, IGTV, and YouTube.Recently, I became friends with Dhar in real life and was blown away by his story of shallow success, failure, rock bottom, reinvention, and true success today. After disappearing from social media for 4 years, losing everything, including his reputation, and getting into legal trouble, Dhar has reappeared as a new man. I loved hearing him tell his full story, for the first time publicly, and the wisdom he has learned from losing everything to building it back the right way. I'm excited for you to hear this story yourself in Episode 898 with Dhar Mann.What was the final thing that made you pull away from social media for 4 years? (8:26)Why did you feel like you had to be an early success story? (44:05)What’s been your biggest lesson on creating viral content? (1:02:34)What should someone focus on when creating content for social media? (1:05:22)The story Dhar hasn’t shared publicly yet about his biggest failures (13:20)Why your reputation is worth more than money (30:05)What happens when you accept that you are the problem (31:54)Why you must be in the right mindset to take advantage of opportunities (36:12)Why Dhar waited so long to come back on social media (54:00)How to stay positive while building your brand and content when no one is watching (56:30)Plus much more...If you enjoyed this episode, check out the video, show notes and more at http://www.lewishowes.com/898 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is episode number 898 with Dar Mann. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, 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. Jim Carrey said something interesting.
Starting point is 00:00:35 I hope that everybody could get rich and famous and will have everything they ever dreamed of so they will know that it's not the answer. ever dreamed of so they will know that it's not the answer. Man, it's so crazy how on social media we can get caught up in this need and desire to be liked, to be shared, to be viewed, to have people follow us. And we sometimes can attach our worth to the amount of attention we get on social media. Isn't it interesting how we can get caught up in this? I'm not saying everyone does this, but I'm saying that there are people that do this and it definitely causes a lot of anxiety
Starting point is 00:01:11 and stress and overwhelm for people. Well, Dar Mann has had an interesting experience as an entrepreneur in businesses, on social media specifically, and had lots of ups and downs. If you don't know who Dar is, he's starting to take over the world with his content. He's a serial entrepreneur who's experienced lots of highs and lows from success, from funding millions of dollars in real estate loans at 19 to his time in the medical marijuana industry to scaling an eight-figure cosmetics
Starting point is 00:01:43 business. He has a proven ability to build companies. Most recently, he's become the fastest growing viral video creator in less than a year with over 3 billion views across Facebook, IGTV, and YouTube. He is growing so fast, it's crazy what he's been able to build. And in this interview, we talk about Dar's success and failure through multiple business ventures. He's had a lot of highs and a lot of lows. His struggles to keep up a lifestyle and appearance of success with friends, family, and on social media. His lowest point financially and how he built himself up mentally
Starting point is 00:02:20 and emotionally to change his habits. He talks about a story where he was really shunned and shamed with his friends, social media, the press, his family, and how some people could stay in this dark hole, but he built himself back up from the ashes in a big way. Why and how he's become the most successful viral video creator on Facebook in less than a year. That and so much more. I'm super excited about this. Make sure to share it with your friends, lewishouse.com slash 898
Starting point is 00:02:48 and get this message out there. I think you're going to learn a lot from his lessons of failure and success and so much about what he's been doing to build his businesses lately. Also, we have a big announcement to make. We have a documentary we are launching. That's right.
Starting point is 00:03:05 A documentary called Chasing Greatness. If you go to greatness.com right now, you can watch this documentary for free. There is a week-long period where it will be open for free. All you have to do is opt in and you'll be able to have access to this incredibly beautiful documentary. We had Hollywood film crew work on this. We spent about a year and a half, and it's finally ready for you to watch it. Some of the world's biggest experts are in there.
Starting point is 00:03:34 I think of it as kind of like the secret on steroids in a new modern era. So if you're really looking to take your greatness to the next level, your life to the next level, then go to greatness.com and opt in to be notified of when we're launching this coming out very soon. We're also doing a one night only premiere in Los Angeles. want to come and watch the documentary live with me and some other big celebrities and influencers who are featured in the documentary, then make sure to go to greatness.com, get your ticket, because tickets will be limited. They'll go out very quickly and sign up there to either come, watch it live, and we'll do a Q&A afterwards with me, and also opt in to get access to the documentary for that week afterwards. So check it out right now at greatness.com. And without further ado, let's dive into this interview with the one and only Dar Man.
Starting point is 00:04:34 Welcome back to the School of Greatness, everyone. We've got my friend Dar Man in the house. Good pop right there. It's going to be a great interview. We got connected. I actually found out about you, I don't know, five, six years ago probably, when you were this Jet Set Life master on Instagram. Right. Traveling the world with your beautiful girlfriend slash fiance slash cars, mansions, champagne bottles. And I was always like, something about this guy, it seems a little bit off with this portrayal.
Starting point is 00:05:07 Yeah. Right? I was like, I don't know how he's making his money. I don't know if it's true or if it's not true. And then you kind of went silent. You went cold for like four years. Yeah. You didn't post anything for four years on social media.
Starting point is 00:05:21 I deleted everything. And I kind of forgot about you until I saw you come back again. And then I started seeing your content on Facebook and I was like, wow, this person's really thoughtful, really philosophical, even spiritual minded and intentional about how he creates content. And it's really helpful for so many people. I was like, who is this guy and what's his story so we've started hanging out the last what I don't know three to four months yeah and you started to tell me your story and blew
Starting point is 00:05:53 me away about everything they've been through so first off let me start the context for people you have the fastest growing page on Facebook right now over 2.7 billion views in a year 2.9 2.9 call it 3 billion when this comes out. Might hit 3 by the end of this podcast. 3 billion video views on your Facebook page which is crazy in a year's time between Facebook YouTube IG TV gotcha okay gotcha and I don't know I think you might have over 10 million fans, certain followers across all social media in a year's time, about a year and a half's time. Yes, about a year. Right.
Starting point is 00:06:33 It just keeps growing, man. You were dark for four years. You came back with this massive platform from nothing. You have an interesting story about how you got here. So I want to learn about so many things, but I want you to first try to share the story of how you had this lifestyle before to where you're at now, the businesses you've been a part of. I know you have some criminal history.
Starting point is 00:07:00 So I want to hear and let people know your story. Yeah. Because I don't think you've told it publicly at all. I was waiting for you, man. I was like, I'm going to go dark for four years to reach out to me and tell it all. Yeah. So, so tell me what was life like before when you were this kind of Instagram influencer back in the heydays of Instagram. For sure. So I just moved to LA and at the time, you know, this was four or five years ago,
Starting point is 00:07:27 I had some money and was just sort of living this Hollywood bachelor lifestyle with all the crazy cars and the fancy house, you know, everything you can imagine as to what that lifestyle looks like. I was going to the club, you know, four nights a week with $5,000 bar tabs, like every single night living this high life. Uh, but you know, like a lot of people, I was
Starting point is 00:07:52 spending a lot more than I was actually bringing in. And at the time, you know, my mentality was just like, okay, it's okay. I can fake it until I make it. And if I just keep this up, you know, okay. I can fake it until I make it. And if I just keep this up, you know, maybe I could start monetizing or somehow the money will follow. Um, but it didn't, it didn't, it didn't. And credit cards you were using or how are you spending on these things? So, yeah, I mean, I've always been an entrepreneur and, you know, I've had some successes, but I've had way more failures. Um, and so when I moved to LA, I did have some money. So I was able to, you know, I had more money than like a lot of people did, but not nearly as to how lavish I was making this lifestyle scene. And where were you, where did you come from before
Starting point is 00:08:37 LA and what was the business or the work you were doing before that brought you here? Yeah, definitely. So I grew up in Northern California. I grew up in like this conservative Indian household. So Oakland, Oakland area. And then I went to UC Davis and then I've been involved in a lot of different industries. I'm just a guy who was sort of always just looking for different ways of making money. Like what can I do? What's the best way? The quickest way? Exactly. So what are some of the industries? Yeah, it's all across the board. You did real estate. You did- Real estate. I did medical marijuana. I did limousines. I did exotic car rentals.
Starting point is 00:09:12 I did construction. I'm now in makeup. I've created content. I've been probably in about a dozen or so industries. And it was just always like pretty much my entire life just chasing the dollar wherever i could make a quick buck that's the direction that i would go so you'd see a guy who was like oh making a ton of money in real estate exactly you go chase that you see someone who's crushing construction right let me go chase that exactly i thought the way to success was to have like i'm going to start seven different businesses. And the more businesses you had or the more opportunities you were chasing, the more successful you'd be. But it's sort of like that quote by Confucius that says like the man who chases two rabbits catches neither one. And it took me a while to realize that, but I was always a guy who had a lot of speed.
Starting point is 00:10:00 Like whatever I set my mind to, I could get there quickly, but my aim was always off. And so what I realized is if you're going the wrong direction at a hundred miles an hour, it's a lot worse than if you're going the right direction at one mile an hour. But it took me to have a lot of experience with failure in order to finally get the direction right. Got it. But yeah, so involved in a lot of different industries until I finally got to where I am today. Okay. So you moved to LA, you had some money and what was the business you're in when you're in LA? Well, it turns out it wasn't a business at all. I was investing in something that ended up not being a real investment. So, I mean, it's sort of a long story. I'm sure we'll
Starting point is 00:10:42 get into it at some point. But I just sold my medical marijuana company. It wasn't, I know that sounds major because everyone's into medical marijuana right now and it's this big, hot industry, but I wasn't one of those massive success stories that had some huge exits. I sold with basically just enough to kind of start a life here in LA. And then I had a bunch of time on my hands and I had some money. And so with a lot of people, a lot of young people with time and some money, I was like, okay, you know what? I'm going to be a full-time Instagrammer. And so literally every day I would just wake up thinking, how am I going to post like the
Starting point is 00:11:18 most baller image possible? And so that's what my page became. It was all just about sort of the flash and the superficial lifestyle and you know in the beginning like yeah it was fun and it was exciting but very quickly it started feeling real empty and I definitely started feeling like a lack of purpose and then also just felt inauthentic like I wasn't't being real, but when you're in that, it's so hard to actually see it and especially take yourself out of it because now you've got all these people that are sort of expecting that from you. So I try to maintain it as long as I could until I literally
Starting point is 00:11:58 couldn't maintain it anymore. Cause you had like, I think you got a million followers. You were one of the few people at a million followers five, six years ago when it was hard to get an audience. Yeah, there wasn't a lot of people that had a lot of followers on Instagram at that time. So at my peak, I got to about 800K and then I just cold turkey went off Instagram and for like four or five years,
Starting point is 00:12:19 just watched that following decline. And it is so painful. I know that sounds like so silly to say but if anybody has a social media following that's listening to this podcast they know that it's stressful when you're losing followers or you know you're not sort of at the at your peak that you used to be yeah so it's definitely like a painful process just being off the grid and sort of seeing my following slow like just dropping off and then you know everybody's speculating as to what happened to me a lot of people thought I went to jail or they thought that I thought the craziest things but in
Starting point is 00:12:53 reality I was just trying to discover the new me hmm so you didn't post for four years of social media exactly what was the what was the the final thing that made you say okay I got us pull away from social media Yeah, so I've had three major failures in my life three big one three big ones. I've had thousands Yeah, but you know a lot of people say that they you know experience success and failure and it's very common for a lot of especially entrepreneurs But my failures are the kind of failures that were like Knock you off your feet and put you on your back. And a lot of people don't recover from.
Starting point is 00:13:29 But I've always been this resilient guy as well. And I would say like if I've got one skill set, it's being able to bounce back. But every time I failed, I always had an excuse. I always had a reason, you know, like the first time, oh, it was the industry, the whole industry collapsed. That was the real estate, you know, the mortgage crisis that hit 2008, 2009. I was like, oh, it was the industry's fault. It wasn't my fault, right? But people were still making money in the industry that time. Exactly. I wasn't taking accountability. And then so the second time, which I ended up getting my criminal charges, I got embroiled into like a lot of different legal issues. My business like wasn't doing well and I ended up sort of selling it like at the bottom.
Starting point is 00:14:14 So that was like my second experience with failure. And it gets even worse. It was worse and worse and worse. So what was the criminal charges? Yeah. So it's a crazy story. I'll get into that whole story in a second. And then the third one, which was even bigger, is I got one of my actually friends who was running this investment company. Turns out he was running a Ponzi scheme, and I had no clue. And you were investing in it? And I was investing in it, and all of my income was coming from that. So when you asked me where was my income coming from? It wasn't even coming from a real business, but I didn't know that because I was getting
Starting point is 00:14:51 all of my money from this investment fund. And so, of course, when that didn't work out, then I was blaming, you know, I was just blaming everyone else for why I wasn't succeeding in life. everyone else for why I wasn't succeeding in life. But after my third major failure, that's when I really stopped and realized I'm the common denominator here. I am the one person that is consistent in all three of these massive failures. And unless I'm going to take that really serious to change the person that I am, then my outcome is never going to change. I'm going to take that really serious to change the person that I am, then my outcome is never going to change. I'm going to keep going through this same cycle of succeeding, making it really big and then just falling flat on my face. And so I realized that in order to become the person that
Starting point is 00:15:40 I needed to be, I had to just go dark off social media, start all over and basically begin my life as new. Wow. And how old were you at that time? So it was, I was about 30 years old. So I celebrated my 30th birthday with literally not even enough money to buy the drinks I ordered at the bar. Wow. And everybody was thinking, cause I was just getting off social media at that time. Everybody was thinking of me as like this huge baller guy, but I couldn't even afford my own birthday cocktail. So I had hit like super rock bottom. I was on the verge of like moving in with my parents. I thought I wasn't going to be able to even pay my rent. Yeah. I was, I was about 30 years old when I turned my life around. And a lot of young people, especially think like, oh man, I'm 22 and I
Starting point is 00:16:29 haven't made it yet. I'm a failure or I'm 27 or whatever else. Like I was 30 years old and completely broke and starting over with my life. So. And you weren't only broke, but you're also, I guess, socially shamed for things too absolutely you went through a very public breakup absolutely a semi you know famous tv star right and that and she was saying things and the news were saying things and friends were saying things like people were also publicly shaming you or whatever they were doing exactly and that And that kind of pressure, there's even more to the story that nobody knows. You don't even know, but happy to share it today. Yeah, but no, I was like,
Starting point is 00:17:10 we talked about the darkest time in your life. Like that's definitely where I was. Like I thought I was gonna get diabetes, put it that way. I was having health issues. I was so stressed. Like I literally thought that it was the end of the road for me and that this is all I would ever become known for in my life. I was just this failure that would never get back on my feet.
Starting point is 00:17:34 I certainly could never have imagined a few years later that I'd be on the School of Greatness podcast sitting across from Louie's house. That's for sure. But it just goes to show that whatever state that you're in is definitely not your permanent state as long as you believe in yourself. Yeah, you can change it for sure. So what's the story that you haven't told me or anyone? Yeah. So, I mean, so I guess I got to kind of spell it all out. Yeah. So, I mean, I've, you know, I've been an entrepreneur my whole life, as I mentioned, lots of, some success, a lot more failures, but I grew up and when my parents life, as I mentioned. Lots of, some success, a lot more failures.
Starting point is 00:18:05 But I grew up, and when my parents came to this country, they were completely broke. Like they came, I think, with seven or $8 in their pocket. I said $7 in their pocket, like in a YouTube video. And then my mom texted me and she said, you gotta tell the truth, we had $8. And she was like offended by that. But so my parents came, they were completely
Starting point is 00:18:25 broke and trying to figure out, you know, how to make it in America. They immigrated from India. We were living in this small apartment that we shared with three, two or three other families. So really struggling, but my parents were really ambitious and very hardworking. And so even though I grew up in this like poor household, I saw how hard they were working and they started their own business that started becoming really successful. So I sort of had the entrepreneurship in my blood. So when I was like four, when I was 10 years old, I started my first unofficial business. I was selling baseball cards with a little stand set up wherever there was heavy foot traffic. At 14, I was the first
Starting point is 00:19:06 person in high school to buy a CD burner. I'm sure especially the young audience is probably like, what is a CD burner? But basically I was buying CDs and then making copies of them and then selling them to my friends. Five bucks or whatever. Exactly. 10 bucks. But if you had a cover, then you can get a couple more bucks. Print off a piece of the cover. Yeah, exactly. And then so, um, so I always had this entrepreneurial mindset, but I always had this sort of make money fast. And even if you have to cut corners, it's okay. I had a broken moral compass. And so when I was 19 at UC Davis, I was studying economics and it was just hard for me to focus in school. So I knew that, you know, I wanted to
Starting point is 00:19:45 get into business. I didn't want to wait to graduate. I also didn't want my parents paying my tuition. I wanted to be financially independent. So I started a real estate mortgage company. And if you've ever watched in college at 19. And so I rented an office, a property manager looked at me like I was crazy. He's like, are your parents going to co-sign? And I was like, no, they have no idea what I'm even doing and for whatever reason he believed in me so I rented an office with whatever little money I had it was a tiny space as time went on I got up to about like 25 employees or so and maybe have you ever seen the movie boiler room yeah so when
Starting point is 00:20:20 you walk into a room you just see people like dialing for dollars that's what it was where people were calling people trying to get them to refinance their homes because interest rates were so low and everyone was taking cash out at that time of their properties. So they call, get people to try to refinance their homes, fill out a college, fill out a loan application. And then I was the guy that would take those applications and then go to people's houses and try to close those deals. And I was doing super well. What gave you the courage to do this? Yeah. I'm going to be a loan officer. Yeah. You know what's crazy? I was dealing with a really bad breakup at the time. And at that time I was just like, I'm going to show this person,
Starting point is 00:21:00 I'm going to go out and become super successful and she's going to regret, you know, breaking up or however that relationship ended. Um, so I was sort of motivated by this breakup and then also sort of the family background. My brother was in real estate. Um, so, you know, I had sort of like the, the entrepreneurial background before I was 21 years old, even legally able to drink. I had three houses. And I bought a Lamborghini. And so I'm in this small college town making more money. Yeah, UC Davis. Yeah, there's like hardly anyone that,
Starting point is 00:21:32 not a lot of people live in Davis. So here I am, this college student driving this orange Lamborghini. You know, I was being funny. Yeah, UC Davis. Yeah, there's like hardly anyone that, not a lot of people live in Davis. So here I am, this college student
Starting point is 00:21:44 driving this orange Lamborghini. You you know I was being super flashy and I was spending a lot of money I was making great money but I was spending it super fast as well and what I didn't anticipate is that the 2008-2009 mortgage crisis hit and completely wiped me out I was spending money faster than I could make it at that point. And as soon as my income dropped, I could no longer keep up with that expensive lifestyle. So I go in and now I'm like, how can I even make this? How can I even afford my car payment? That was my first like massive failure. So I'm like, how can I even afford this car payment? I can't
Starting point is 00:22:22 afford this lifestyle. And so I've always been pretty good about fast thinking and then coming up with solutions, but often that might help me in the short run, but that thinking hurts me in the long run. I didn't realize it at the time. So I decided to start an exotic car rental company. I just created a website. It took a bunch of pictures of my car.
Starting point is 00:22:41 Rent it out. Exactly. I started renting it out and that's how I was making my car payment. So I was able to barely by like the hair of my chin, keep the expensive car. Exactly. So that was sort of my first experience with failure. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do after that. And so I knew like I was passionate about real estate.
Starting point is 00:23:01 I still thought I was going to stay in real estate. So now I've got this exotic car rental company that I'm renting out my car. And then I go into rehabbing construct commercial properties and real estate in Oakland. And so I found out about this government grant program where for every dollar you spend on rehabilitating your properties, they will give you $1 back if you do it in areas that need improvement. So I was super excited about this. And I was like, hey, I can take on all these projects at once because I'm going to get all this money coming back in for the government. And I, you know, again, trying to go 100 miles an hour. I think I was 22, 23 years old.
Starting point is 00:23:40 And I was like, I got to make it. I got to do something big with my life. And I want to make a name for myself. So I gotta go super fast. So I got myself into all of these construction projects and what I didn't anticipate is that the city took about a year to give a reimbursement for that grant. Oh my gosh.
Starting point is 00:23:58 So I found myself once again, sort of in all this debt with contractors to pay, but I didn't have enough money to pay everybody because the grant money didn't come in. Could you take out a loan at the bank or no? Well, I ended up taking some shortcuts on my grant application paperwork, but that wouldn't actually come to bite me. Are we allowed to cuss in this or no? Okay. That wouldn't come to bite me in the ass until I made headlines. I made international headlines in the medical marijuana industry.
Starting point is 00:24:28 What happened? What happened? It gets crazier. I know. It just keeps getting crazier. So one of my commercial tenants walks in, you know, I was doing property management slash rehabilitating properties, uh, slash exotic car rents. I had a toy in my hand and a lot of things.
Starting point is 00:24:43 One of my commercial tenants comes to me and says that they had a break-in inside of one of their units. And on the application, he said that they were running a catering company. So I was like, okay, no problem. You know, let's call the police. Let's report this break-in. And so as I pick up the phone to call, the tenant's like, no, no, no, don't call the police. Before before you call I just want to let you know I'm not actually running a catering business I'm running a medical marijuana grow operation in the unit in the unit and he's like but it's all legal and this and that this is back in 2010 2011 and you know not a lot of people knew about medical marijuana or anything like that and I'm like are you kidding you're growing weed and you're telling me that is legal like you're
Starting point is 00:25:24 crazy you're out of your mind. You know, I've got to evict you. So we go through the whole legal process. And then right before we go in front of a judge, my attorney comes to me and goes, hey, Dar, just so you know, you're probably gonna lose this case because I looked at his paperwork
Starting point is 00:25:38 and he's running a legit operation. And I was like, you're telling me it's legal to grow weed in California? And he says, yes. And then there's a big light bulb went out. Exactly. That's when the opportunities to me sort of kicks in and says, you know what, this is going to be my path. Like there's a huge opportunity here. So I started what CNN dubbed the Walmart of weed, which was basically like the largest hydroponic store, which sells you all of the equipment that you need to grow. Yeah. To, to grow medical marijuana. So I didn't
Starting point is 00:26:13 actually ever sell medical marijuana itself. It was just all the equipment that you needed to grow it. So I started scaling that up. I started franchising the concept and I built like this crazy name for myself. I was on all these documentaries, all these international news. You know, I definitely became like this high profile guy, and people thought of me as sort of like the weed king, right? Or the ganja of guru. The guru of ganja.
Starting point is 00:26:37 Yeah, that's what they would call me. And so as I'm becoming super high profile, I found out that the city of Oakland was issuing these medical marijuana cultivation licenses to four people that would allow them to grow weed for the entire state. And I was one of the four people that was selected for that opportunity. New York Times runs a front page story on it and says, you know, Darman gets selected for one of these four permits. I was living high. I was like, yeah, pun intended. You're like, I control the market. Exactly. I was like, this is massive. I've made it. This is going to be my lane. I was probably like 24, 25 or so at this time. And then, um, and so I'm drawing so much attention. And as you know, attention can be a good thing or a bad thing. I'm drawing so much attention. And as you know, attention can be a good thing
Starting point is 00:27:25 or a bad thing. I'm drawing so much attention that somebody in the district attorney's office is like, hey, let me look into this guy. You know, let me see if everything checks out. They start going through my paperwork for when I was submitting all of those real estate grant applications.
Starting point is 00:27:40 And they started seeing that I was taking shortcuts on that paperwork. It wasn't that I didn't pay anyone or I didn't complete all my projects. I did all the work. I paid everyone. I just made it seem like it happened a little bit sooner than it actually did. But that was enough for them to file criminal charges against me. Wow. So I had been selected as sort of the winner as one of these four people that could grow medical marijuana for the entire state of California. I'm at the highest like state that you can imagine in my career. I'm well known. I'm super excited. And then boom, Darman, you know, the ganja, the guru of ganja gets hit with felony charges. felony charges. Everything crashed and went downhill like instantly for me. Not only was I now dealing with this legal issue, but also the city of Oakland decided to revoke my permit that I had just won simply off the charges. So now I've lost everything. People are distancing themselves
Starting point is 00:28:41 from me. This is the first time that I'm going through like negative press. I never dealt with any sort of like, you know, negative reputation or anything like that. It is one of the most difficult things to deal with. If you know, you guys listening, I've never been with something like that. And now I'm going to spend the next few years fighting this criminal case. So I fight this criminal case and then ultimately, so that was a second massive failure. So I fight, I'm fighting this criminal case and then ultimately, so that was a second massive failure. So I fight, I'm fighting this criminal case and it's about two years in or so I ended up winning. All my charges get dropped, but in Alameda County, they can refile against you a second time.
Starting point is 00:29:19 And especially I was so high profile, everything they were doing was making headlines. They decide that they decide to file a second time. So now I'm like three years in fighting this case and, you know, I'm running out of money. I don't have much because attorney fees are super expensive. I'm sort of, you know, down to my final dollars. And I go in front of a judge and he says, look, if you're willing to accept probation, this isn't like a jail time type of thing. If you accept probation for five years, you know, do good for five years and then you can go ahead and clean your record after we can just, you know, get rid of this whole case kind of a thing. So I accepted it. I accepted, you know, the criminal charges and I got on probation for five years. I just a couple months ago, actually,
Starting point is 00:30:00 I had all my charges removed. So yeah, I know my record. Congrats, man. I know. It was kind of crazy. And they actually talked about how I'm an example of how somebody can turn their life around and sort of go from felon to fortune, to good fortune. So that was the second massive failure. And then after that, I decided to sell my medical marijuana company. And it wasn't for a lot of money or anything like that. And I met a guy who was doing these investments into affiliate marketing and you know, he
Starting point is 00:30:31 was driving like a Ferrari and he was a young guy. He like spoke the language. He was also half Indian. So I was like, man, this guy seems super trustworthy. Ended up becoming like super good friends with him. I'm investing the money that I made from selling my company to him and he's paying me monthly, you know, interest payments. Yeah, exactly. And these checks are like pretty large. Like he's giving me like a crazy percentage.
Starting point is 00:30:57 And so I'm all stoked. I'm telling my family about it. I'm telling my best friends. I moved to LA and now I've just got all this income coming in from this guy and I'm not working. So I've got all this time on my hands. So I'm like, all right, I'm going to start going buying expensive cars. And I rented like a, you know, a four story house in the Hollywood Hills with like six or seven bedrooms. I was living this super fast Hollywood life. And once again, I'm back on top, right? I'm like, I got this money now. And everybody see, everybody thought that I had fallen, but see, I can do this. I'm back on top and was being super flamboyant and superficial once again,
Starting point is 00:31:40 thinking that I didn't need to change who I was. I finally figured out my lane. Again, thinking that I didn't need to change who I was. I finally figured out my lane. And then, you know, sure enough, one month it happens like, and my friend tells me like, "'Hey, by the way, I'm gonna be a little late "'on my payments to you.'" And I'm like, okay, no problem, not a big deal. One month passes, two months pass, three months pass.
Starting point is 00:31:59 And keep in mind, I had taken all this money from my friends and family. So I'm paying them all out from my pocket, even though I have no income coming in from him. And then about three months into it or so, I find out he completely disappears. He just goes off the face of the earth. And this was somebody who I thought was like my best friend. And so that's when I realized like, holy crap, something's wrong. So all of a sudden my money stopped coming in.
Starting point is 00:32:26 So once again, I'm like now in this financial pinch, I'm spending way more money than I've got coming in. But now I've got this reputation on Instagram as this guy who's sort of just printing money and has so much money that he's, you know, flying high. And I'm in this high-profile relationship, this guy disappears on me, so I have zero income coming in overnight with all this overhead that I'm trying to maintain,
Starting point is 00:32:54 plus my friends and family relying on me for these monthly payments. Long story short, I'm sure everybody sort of, it seems so obvious in hindsight always, you know? Long story short, turns out he was running a Ponzi scheme. Yeah he's in jail now and everything crazy story, but Since I was the high profile one a lot of people thought that it was my scheme That I was running and so all of a sudden my money stopped. And then as soon as my money stopped, I was in a very superficial relationship, which I was sort of leading on the whole money
Starting point is 00:33:33 aspect. So when you're in that kind of a relationship, as soon as your money stops, exactly. So very quickly, you know, my girl at the time left. And then not only that, basically broadcast to the world that I was like this broke person. You know, just she basically kicked me while I was already down. So I'm dealing with financial headaches. And then, you know, dealing with like all this pressure from this relationship. Then I've got this high profile falling out. Then I've got all these friends and family like looking at me like where's my money? Can you imagine how awkward that Thanksgiving was? Where I'm completely broke and literally everybody
Starting point is 00:34:13 at the table I owe money to, it was so bad. How'd you get through that holiday? Oh my God, it was so, like talk about rock bottom, you know, and that was right when I turned 30 years old. I am literally going through the most difficult time in my life. And then I came to the realization that- Before you say the realization,
Starting point is 00:34:36 how do you explain yourself to people, your friends and family? Yeah. Like, what did you say? Well, you know what? Did you try to make an excuse again? No, I was very upfront about it. But that's when I came to realize is that your reputation is worth more than money.
Starting point is 00:34:51 And because I had sort of always had these successes and failures and was always living this high profile lifestyle. That was your reputation. My reputation was in question. I couldn't say that, hey, take my word for it kind of a thing because people didn't know. Am I legit? Was it, was I the one who was like, I always had a good heart, but I, you know, I always had good intentions and was trying to do things well, but I just had that broken moral compass. And so I would tell them that here's what's happening, you know, so just hang in there. But certain people sort of believe me, certain people weren't sure. But eventually after sort of it all came out that this guy was running the Ponzi
Starting point is 00:35:31 scheme and he got arrested and all those things, they believe me, but they were still out of pocket, right? They were still out of money. And I take my debts very seriously. So, you know, I'm going through literally right. It was my 30th birthday i'm at this bar i can't even afford the drinks i was down to about six hundred dollars in my bank account and um you know just i've got rent due like in in a couple weeks or so not sure how i'm going to even make that rent payment i call my parents and especially in indian, like a 30 year old man moving in with your parents, especially when you owe them money as it is. It is so embarrassing. And so, you know, I was going through massive depression, like on a on a different scale where literally every single day I would just wake up and I would just walk around my block all day because I couldn't sit still.
Starting point is 00:36:24 I lost all my friends. Nobody wanted to associate with me. My reputation was downhill. Again, no money. And I'm just like, okay, how am I going to turn my life around? And then that was the first time in my life that I said, I am the problem. I am the reason that I am in this situation. It's not because of the real estate economy crashing or this district attorney's office targeting me or my ex-girlfriend or exactly
Starting point is 00:36:55 or this best friend of mine that was running this scheme that took advantage. It is my fault because you know what? Even if these other people did screw me over, I attracted them into my life. You made the decision to be with them or to do business with them. Exactly. And people are attracted to flash, but the wrong kind of people come into your life as well. And so, you know,
Starting point is 00:37:18 I was bringing all this negative attention to myself. So that's when I came to realize that the only way my life is going to change is if I change. And so at that time I started reading books, listening to audio books, listening to podcasts, meditating, like starting, I came to the realization that external success starts with internal success. And that the only way I was going to change my life around is if I change my thinking process. But that seems like such a slow solution and slow turnaround when you've got all these massive problems on you. So yeah, I could talk about my turnaround, but I'll stop there. So your parents, what did they say? They said, okay, you can live with us. They give you
Starting point is 00:38:01 conditions or was it just, yeah yeah come and live and you're fine and we love you no matter what yeah so you know it was it was hard um i definitely took it upon myself and especially like with indian households like it's tough love you know like they weren't like no you're on your own they were like hey yeah definitely will take you in but you screwed up you know and like you got to take responsibility for that and so it was sort of at my bottom but i never ended up moving in with them because i got a lifeline in a very unexpected place that ended up turning my life around tell me that lifeline so i was you know once again trying to figure out how how i was even going
Starting point is 00:38:42 to pay rent and at this point you know i was off social media because I realized that if I was going to be able to really create change, that I could no longer be that guy anymore. And so we had to kill that identity that everyone knew about. I had to kill jet set life, which was my Instagram, but it's sort of my alter ego as well. And I was like, I have to kill it. And can you imagine, well, I mean, can you imagine having like almost a million followers and everyone thinks that you're this major baller and then all of a sudden going off the grid. So literally I would go to places and people were just like, oh, you're that guy. And they look at me like negatively, like I was this, you know, scammer guy or that I was broke or I fell from grace. I was this scammer guy or that I was broke or I fell from grace.
Starting point is 00:39:26 And it was so hard. But when I was out to dinner one night, I'm with a group of people. And one of those people at the table was a makeup artist. And she was going around the world teaching these makeup seminars. And they were selling out all across the world. And she was charging $300, $400 a pop for this. She's telling me the story. I'm blown away. I know nothing about makeup at that time. Obviously, you know, like most guys, I didn't know anything about it. And I'm just asking her, I just sort of blurted out like, Hey, have you ever thought about taking that concept online? And she goes, no, I, you know, that's actually a good idea. I would love to, but I don't know how.
Starting point is 00:40:06 And, you know, sort of like- I do. Exactly. I blurred out. I never built a website before. I never, I knew nothing about makeup. I was like, I can do it. And I was literally, you know, on my last dollars with very little time to make rent.
Starting point is 00:40:19 And she looks at me and for whatever reason, she goes, okay, let's do it. Does she know about your reputation and about everything that it went down? She didn't know the full extent about it, but for whatever reason she just sort of, you know, I don't know. You had charm. Maybe it's fate.
Starting point is 00:40:34 You charmed her, yeah. Maybe it's, you know, God, however you want to look at it. Right? She needed to take her business to another level. Exactly. She couldn't do it herself. Exactly. You were there at the right time.
Starting point is 00:40:44 Right time, right place. Exactly. And you were there at the right time right time right place exactly and you know most of the time a lot of people could just let that opportunity pass up yeah but that's the thing about opportunities is they're all around us but if you're not in that right mindset where you're ready for that opportunity you'll miss it but i was in that mindset like i need an opportunity i will take anything make up i So I'm like, I can do it. So boom, I've only got a couple of weeks left until rent is due. I've got 600 bucks to my name. I went out and I bought some softbox lights and a little, the cheapest webcam you could get. I spent 400 bucks on that. I've got 200 bucks left. I put an ad on Craigslist and I'm like, Hey, can somebody build a website for 200 bucks for an
Starting point is 00:41:24 online makeup school? All these people tell me you're crazy, go to hell. And then one person says, Hey, I can't do it for 200, but you know what? I believe in you. If you, if it works, pay me. Um, he's like, give me 200. And if it works, you know, pay me a few hundred extra bucks if it's successful. And I'm like, perfect golden. So I launched the whole website. She starts promoting it. And thank God it hit right away. You know, she had about a million followers on Instagram as well at that time. So she starts promoting this website that, hey, you can do online makeup classes.
Starting point is 00:41:57 And so it ends up hitting right away, like our very first month. I think we made like a few hundred thousand dollars in revenue. And so now, once right away i'm like cool i'm back in the money right so all right do i want to get a lamborghini do i want to get a ferrari yeah exactly that's where my mindset's going and then i realize and i'm like no wait my mindset's going. And then I realized, and I'm like, no, wait, this time I'm going to do things differently. And so I was living in this tiny studio apartment that, you know, probably about 300 square feet or so. There wasn't even enough room for a bed and a couch. So I had a turn, I had the couch that I use as the bed and I had a roommate so we took turns sleeping
Starting point is 00:42:45 on I would sleep on the floor one night he would sleep on the bed one night we would take turns away and I was running the business from there as well so I'm in this tiny space and so right away I'm like I'm gonna go back to the hills and this and that but I'm like no you know what I'm gonna make myself stay in this studio apartment until not only do I have like a nice savings, but until I pay every single person back that I owed money to. So I forced myself to stay there. I was carless. I had zero cars. I went from nine exotic cars at my peak to zero cars. And I stayed at zero cars, even though I had a great business, I was bringing in a lot of money. So within a matter of a few months, thank God,
Starting point is 00:43:28 I paid off all my friends, I paid off all my family. They had so much respect for me because they knew it came out of my own personal pocket. It was hard. Exactly. And then, you know, I'm starting, now I'm starting to grow a business again. And then during one of those,
Starting point is 00:43:43 one of these online makeup classes i i start scaling it up i'm working with different makeup artists now i'm starting to build different online makeup schools i'm scaling up the business and during one of these online makeup classes one of the models happens to be my now fiancee slash baby mama yeah who I talk about quite often and you also know. And she came into my life sort of at that perfect time because, you know, it's interesting when you meet people during your high, you never really know, like those were, it's much easier to meet somebody at your, at your low and build up together. But if you meet somebody at your high and fall down those relationships are very difficult to keep intact and don't last so whereas my previous relationship I started at my high and then went down
Starting point is 00:44:33 and that quickly exploded Laura I met her at my low and then she for and I decided to be honest with her from the beginning Wow and I was like hey I just want to let you know I don't have. And I was like, hey, I just wanna let you know, I don't have a car, I live in this tiny studio apartment, like, you know, I'm not doing too well financially, but I've got these big dreams, and you know, if you can believe in me, and this and that, and right from the beginning,
Starting point is 00:44:57 she just believed in me. She would always buy dinners wherever we'd go, and was carrying all, like, was fronting all the bills and everything which in LA like I'm not sure how much you know but LA that does not happen but she's just a really good person and then ultimately you know I was sort of becoming in the right mindset but mindset changes take a long time so even though I was trying to be this better person I was definitely still having like some relapses where I wanted to go back to that old lifestyle. But she sort of helped like me.
Starting point is 00:45:31 She helped guide me and fix my broken compass. And so with her and I together, now I had the aim and the speed. That's good. And so basically I scaled up. I went from online makeup classes to partnering with, you know, Laura. We created our own makeup products. We started an online beauty box subscription, scaled that company up, started it with $600. Within two years, took it to eight figures in revenue.
Starting point is 00:45:57 We just hired our 100th employee. So, you know, it's just crazy as to how much that scaled up. I continue to stay off Instagram. I continue to stay dark. And I was just like, I am not going to go back in social media. I do not want to go back to my old ways. So for about four to five years, even though I was making great money and was certainly able to go back to that previous lifestyle, I still just stay very conservative in order
Starting point is 00:46:22 to make sure that that mindset shift that I needed to make to be successful was a permanent one. Wow. Where do you think, and what's the story you haven't told? Yeah. So what's crazy is that while, so as bad as it was about like when I lost all my money and celebrating my 30th birthday as well, you know, while I was going through the, the relationship falling out while I was going through owing all the friends and family money, while I was going through all that reputation damage, the FBI was also, and they thought that I was running that scheme because the person, my friend at that time, um, he was off social media.
Starting point is 00:47:05 And so he was sort of using me as the front runner. So I was the ambassador. Exactly. I didn't even know this, but I was sort of this front guy. So I was also being investigated. And I was already on probation. And I was on probation. So I literally thought that I was just going to be from the weed business.
Starting point is 00:47:25 And I've got the feds investigating me. And so if you can imagine how dark of a cloud was over my head, I was literally like, I'm going to spend the rest of my life in a prison. Wow. I thought that I was never going to get out of that. Holy cow, that's dark. And that was going to be, that was my life. That was your legacy.
Starting point is 00:47:45 And, you know, thankfully the truth always comes out and, you know, I firmly believe that that if you do good and you're an honest person that eventually comes out and it didn't take them too long to realize what, who the real culprit was and then so I was vindicated from the whole thing. I'm curious, where do you think the broken moral compass came from? Yeah, you know, I mean, it was definitely part of my upbringing. I think a lot of young people suffer from this where they see people doing well in life. And especially you see the success stories of like LeBron James, like, you know, just takes off the NBA at such a young age.
Starting point is 00:48:26 just takes off the NBA at such a young age or Mark Zuckerberg co-found like found Facebook, you know, in his early twenties and becomes a billionaire or Kylie Jenner. Like I was obsessed with success and money. And it really got to me that there were so many young people that were massively successful. So I was chasing money because I felt like I had to be one of those early success stories. Why did you feel like you had to be? Okay. So why can't you just, you know, at this point in my life, I'm definitely looking back and realizing that so much of our traits today stem from things that happened to us during our childhood right my parents were never around because they were always building a business so since they weren't around the only way to keep me busy is they would give me money right at a young age i'm not talking about a ton of money but like
Starting point is 00:49:16 100 bucks when you're 10 years old it's a lot of money a lot of money i'm getting like five bucks so i always sort of associated money with love. And looking back, you know, I was the only Indian high school. I was the only Indian student in my high school or my entire city besides my brother. But he was older than me and went off to college by the time I went to high school. And in high school, it was sort of very cliquish where all the people, all the Asians sat together, all the black kids sat together, all the white kids sat together. And I'm this Indian kid like trying to fit in. And the weirdest thing, man, is like my darkest memories and what I come to
Starting point is 00:49:56 realize now, my darkest memories was trying to find who I was gonna eat lunch with every single day. And I know that sounds so sad and pathetic, but every time that lunch bell would ring, I would just be like, which group of kids can I sit with today? And I always felt like the outcast. And so I used to go and have lunch with my teachers. And it was this constant battle of just feeling rejected, feeling like the loner, feeling like the outcast. And I wanted people to accept me so bad. And so what I thought was that
Starting point is 00:50:35 the only way people would accept me or love me was if I had a lot of money to offer, because I thought money and love was the same thing. And so I was like, I'm going to become so successful and have so much money where everyone's going to want to be my friend. And so even every relationship I started, I'd always go into it with like, hey, you know, I can help you make money and I can do this and that. And I thought that would be the right way to build relationships with people. And once again, that was what was attracting all these people into my life that essentially were not good influences on me. Wow, that's crazy.
Starting point is 00:51:16 I think a lot of us are shaped by those things. I remember a number of instances, but a couple ones that come to mind. One that I don't think I've ever talked about on my show, but just came to me when you told that story. When I was a young kid in my town, I didn't have any friends either. And I think I've told you this. And I remember there was a couple kids who were like playing outside and I went to go try to play with them. And they wouldn't let me play with them. They said, we have like a special club.
Starting point is 00:51:47 This is like a club. And you have to, there's only two ways you can get in the club. OK. And this is one of my earliest memories. There's only two ways you can get in the club. One is you have to be smart enough to answer a set of questions. Yeah. And if you get the questions right, you join the club.
Starting point is 00:52:05 And if not, you have to pay money to be in the club. Wow. And I think it was like six or seven. OK. And so school was not my thing. I didn't have any money. Oh, you didn't have any money. I didn't have any money, so I go, what's the questions?
Starting point is 00:52:17 Yeah. And then one of the questions was like, name someone who's been on the moon. Right? And I didn't know the answer. And then I can't remember the other questions, but I didn't get any of the questions right. Okay, gotcha. Not even close.
Starting point is 00:52:31 I didn't even make up something that was close. Yeah. And they said, sorry, you're not smart enough to be in our club. Yeah. And they said, but if you have $5, you can give us the money and then you can be in the club.
Starting point is 00:52:41 So I went home and I begged my mom for $5. She got out a shoebox. This is when we didn't have any money, right? She got a little shoebox, found all the change she could get to give me so I could have a couple of friends. Wow. And I remember going to their house, handing them this box, and hanging out with them for
Starting point is 00:52:59 the next hour feeling so miserable. Oh, wow. Feeling like, I gave them this money, now I'm in the club. Yeah. But they didn't want to hang out with me. You know what I mean? I was there because I did the act, but I was just like, I didn't feel good. I wasn't having fun.
Starting point is 00:53:16 And I was just like, man, I need to be someone. I need to be interesting enough for people to want to hang out with me because I'm never going to be smart enough. Yeah. So I got to do interesting enough for people to want to hang out with me because I'm never going to be smart enough. Yeah. So I got to do something. Right. And that was one of those early stories that shaped me into needing to prove people wrong or needing to do something differently to get attention. Right.
Starting point is 00:53:35 And the second one was when I was picked last in recess for a dodgeball game. Gotcha. And you're a big guy too. Big guy. I was in third or fourth grade. Okay. My teacher, he wasn't intentionally trying to do anything wrong. He picked two of the popular kids and
Starting point is 00:53:50 said, okay, you guys be the captains. Pick your team. And you pick one at a time. And I think there's probably 30 or 40 of us in the class. And so the two popular kids are picking all the guys one at a time, like the cool guys. And it gets down to me and like the last three guys and I'm like they gotta pick me I'm an athlete I'm like yeah yeah pretty athletic at this point yeah and they don't pick me I'm the last guy available and they they skip me and they start picking girls and then they start picking one girl at a time yeah you know and when you're eight nine years old that's a big deal yeah to have a girl picked over you exactly at that time it was like
Starting point is 00:54:30 they were just all laughing at me oh my god making fun of me and so i wasn't even i was the last one picked over all the girls as well wow and i remember just saying to myself f everyone yeah f the world right i going to show these kids. I'm going to destroy them. Wow. And I was just like a dodgeball machine. Just like boom, boom, catch everybody. Just give you all the anger out.
Starting point is 00:54:54 And those moments, I'm telling the story with so much passion still just like you did. Right. Because they shaped us. Absolutely. And I remember saying after that moment, I was like, I'm never going to be picked last again for a sport or a life. Yeah. Right? Wow.
Starting point is 00:55:08 What's it going to have to take for me to be the best athlete I can be? Yeah. And sports and winning became the association for love for me. Gotcha. If I lost, then I wasn't going to have friends. Wow. Because when I started to be so good, they couldn't ignore me. I became picked first.
Starting point is 00:55:24 I was MVP on every team. I was captain. All-American. Everything, right? It was like I was driven by winning. Yeah. And so anything I lost in anything in life, I would take it personally and feel like no one's going to love me. Wow. And it shaped until I had a breakdown at 30 years old. Okay. At the same time. Same time. When I started to go through my transition in life, that made me realize, wow, my whole life has been shaped around winning. Yeah. And needing to be right.
Starting point is 00:55:50 Gotcha. And needing to look good. And when I kind of had that death of that identity, that's when everything started to turn around for me. Gotcha. Wow. We have a similar story in the sense of timeline of killing an ego, an identity, and being driven by something to help us achieve that wasn't ultimately fulfilling us.
Starting point is 00:56:09 Exactly. So it's crazy to have a similar story in that space. So you realize about your moral compass from this. I think that's the most powerful thing. When we come to a place in our life where we realize this is why we are the way we are. These are some of the situations, some of the stories, the memories we have that have shaped us. Right. And you start to do the work.
Starting point is 00:56:34 Laura starts to recorrect you as you go off. Exactly. Your path. She brings you back. You guys are staying connected. You build this up. You decide, I'm not going to post anything. I'm not going to buy the fancy car right now. I'm are staying connected. You build this up. You decide I'm not going to post anything. I'm not going to buy the fancy car right now. I'm going to wait. And when did you realize,
Starting point is 00:56:52 okay, now's the time I can come back? Yeah, for sure. So it wasn't until last year. Yeah. Yeah. It was about, was it my 35th birthday? No, I didn't even get back on Instagram until after that. That's when I got on Facebook. Okay. It was on my 35th birthday. Just what day is that? So May 29th, last year, 2018. Gotcha. So I am doing, so now I've got this successful beauty box business that I'm building out with Laura.
Starting point is 00:57:19 And I keep asking her, like every year that went by, I was like, you know, is this the year? Is this the year? Laura's like the most amazing supportive person is the year for what for me to get back on social media really yeah for and you know she would say whenever you feel that you're ready it's totally up to you because you're working with social media influencers you're seeing what they're doing you're seeing all the opportunities yeah exactly and I know like you know I've got the ability to now, like I've got a great
Starting point is 00:57:45 business that's doing super well. Stable relationship. Exactly. I've got more money in the bank account. And people still looked at me as sort of like, here's this mysterious guy. Like, is he real? Is he not real? Because he's been off of Instagram for years. And when, you know, you're sort of high profile, then go off the grid. Everybody sort of assumes that there's something shady about that. And there was, but not at that time. And so I really did want to clean up my name and my reputation and show people that, Hey, I'm this new guy now, but I held myself back. And I was like, no, I am not going to come back until I'm a hundred percent ready. But when I come back, I'm going to come back with a vengeance. So I continue to stay off.
Starting point is 00:58:31 And then it wasn't until last year. So, you know, I've always, here's the crazy part of it all, right? Is that now I create a lot of videos that inspire people and motivate people. videos that inspire people and motivate people. But I had to go through every one of those massive failures in order to become the person that I needed to be in order to learn the lessons that I needed to learn. And most importantly, in order to empathize with the pain and struggle people go with every day, other people were going through in order to create content that really connects with people yeah so because I went through that because I was always a guy that for whatever reason I just I wasn't emotional I wasn't sensitive and so you know I five or hurt anyone's
Starting point is 00:59:17 feelings or anything whatever it wouldn't really bother me right and it wasn't until that I went through so much pain and hardship that I became so much more empathetic towards others that I could speak to people and relate with them and connect with them in a way that I never would have been able to in the past. Yeah. So I was sort of at this like new mindset. It was like this dark 2.0 guy. When I finally decided to start creating content. You know, there's this quote that I love by a Dalai Lama who says, it's the depth of your suffering defines the height of your joy. And it was because I suffered so much, it was able to
Starting point is 00:59:58 take me to this new place in life, this new level of happiness that I never experienced before. And that's not possible until you really start caring, until you open up your heart and you really start having love for people. And so, you know, I continue to stay off the grid. And then I came to realize last year that, look, you know, now through Live Glam, my beauty subscription box, I've got a team of people. I've got, you know, all these, I've got, I know how to create video. Like I've got a team of people I've got you know all these I've got I know how to create video like I've got all the skills necessary to start creating content I'm gonna start putting out
Starting point is 01:00:33 inspirational videos to help transform lives the same way that I was able to transform my own so on May 29th on my birthday last year, 2019, I put out my first video and it took me 200 takes of me sitting in front of a camera saying the same scripted stuff over and over again. I literally thought that my videographer was just going to leave because it was so redundant. But after 200 takes, I finally posted my first video. I was super excited, like, man, it's going to go viral. Like, I don't know how virality works. And, you know, I kept refreshing, kept refreshing after I posted it, thinking, like, it's going to get millions of views. And I think I got like 100 views or 200 views or something like that.
Starting point is 01:01:19 And so I definitely felt defeated, but I kept going during that whole content journey. So my first video was just me talking in front of a camera. And at this point, I'm at the place in my life where I'm disciplined enough where if I commit to something, I'm going to see it through. Figure it out, yeah. Whereas the old me was like, if I'm not making money right away, I'm hopping on to the next thing. But now the new me just says, hey, if something's not working out right away, it's okay. Keep going. Everybody starts somewhere. And I didn't have a money motive going into it. Just wanted to help people. All I want to do is help people. So I had no pressure. And luckily
Starting point is 01:01:53 I had a successful business as well. So I continued to put out videos for the next three or four months or so. And every time, same thing, I'd take a whole bunch of takes in front of a camera. I would talk about, you know, whatever my lesson was that I was trying to convey. I'd take a whole bunch of takes in front of a camera. I would talk about, you know, whatever my lesson was that I was trying to convey. I'd post a video, get super excited, thinking it's going to go viral, complete flop. I don't think any one of my videos even broke a thousand views for the first three months.
Starting point is 01:02:18 Then I was like, maybe I'm doing something wrong. Like maybe I shouldn't just be in front of a camera telling people how to think or feel. People's attention span is so short, you know, it's hard to absorb information that way. So I was like, what if I instead told a story? So I started experimenting with stories and then I would have cartoons and I would tell stories. And then I realized that those would start to get between one to 5,000 views if I did it that way. And I was like, all right, storytelling, right? So it was me in front of a camera telling the story and that started working a little bit better, but still
Starting point is 01:02:56 nobody, you know, 5,000 views is not big numbers. Right. And, um, and then I realized, like, OK, what if instead of me telling the story, I showed people the story? And so that's when I decided to hire actors to actually act out whatever the message that I was trying to convey was. And so these actors would go on and act scenes out. And then I would come on at the end of that and say, here's the lesson that can come from this story that you just saw. So those videos now took me from one to 5,000 views from about five to 10,000 views. And I was like, all right, I'm onto something. So I'm about four months in now it's September, 2019. Um, and as I'm going, you know, I'm continuing to have these videos that are getting between one to 10,000 views. And I'm still like, you know what, like, this is not really worth my
Starting point is 01:03:52 time. So much energy, so much energy, like every night, I was pretty much up late nights, like working editing this content. I wasn't coming home, you know, I wasn't with Laura every night, which was pretty much our only time because I was always working and I was stressing myself out and I was on there. I was just ready to give up. So this one night I tell Laura and I said, you know what? I tried at least I tried for four solid months and it's not working out, you know, the way that I had hoped. So the next video I'm going to post is in the morning. I had already recorded it. out, you know, the way that I had hoped. So the next video I'm going to post is in the morning. I had already recorded it. I, I public, I uploaded it onto Facebook, scheduled it to post at 6am the following day. And I told Laura, I said, this is the last video
Starting point is 01:04:36 that I'm going to post. And, you know, I'm sorry. Thanks for hanging in there with me, you know, supporting me through all this. I really appreciate it. And she saw how hard it was for me, you know, to not have this thing work. So she said, Hey, you know what, if that's your decision, you know, I support you. I understand. So I went to bed that night thinking I'll never make another video. The next morning, Laura's shaking me like, wake up, wake up. It's like 6 30 AM or something. And I wake up and she goes, Dar, Dar, that video, that video is going viral. And I'm like, what, what are you talking about?
Starting point is 01:05:11 She goes, that video that you scheduled to post this morning. She goes, look at it. I open my phone, my eyes are still like blurry. I'm like trying to focus and I look at it and it had gotten like over a hundred thousand views in like an hour or something like that. That video today now is over 100 million views.
Starting point is 01:05:29 And so what's crazy is I was on the verge of giving up. Literally the night before, I had told myself I was done making videos. And then the very next morning, I had my first viral video. Wow, that's crazy. And it was on relationships. Amazing. And so that was like, I was like, oh my Wow, it's crazy. It was on relationships amazing And so that was like I was like, oh my god a bag You know like I got this a big light bulb went off and then I realized like okay
Starting point is 01:05:53 I finally figured out a formula that works Yeah, and then I continued to sort of optimize and like the next few videos, you know, we're also flops But then every like 10 videos, one would take off. And now my videos were getting like between a hundred thousand to like some, a few million views. And you know, this is like October, 2018. And then, you know, for every 10 videos, I'd have one that hit, you know, in the millions. And then I kept getting better. I'm a, I'm a guy who likes to analyze things as as you know, and I would just be like, why did this video work
Starting point is 01:06:27 and these nine didn't? And I would come up with different theories and I would test them, go back to the drawing board, and I kept trying to optimize my whole content strategy. And then as time went on, every five videos, I would get one that goes viral. Then every three, then every two. And now, I mean, almost every video I put out
Starting point is 01:06:47 ends up with in the tens of millions of views now. It's amazing, man. So yeah, all within probably about like 13, 14 months or so, it went from publishing that first video on my birthday to getting 100 views to now being at just shy of three billion views all within about a year. My man. What's the biggest lesson in the last year since that first one went viral on content in general?
Starting point is 01:07:13 Of creating viral content for people that want to grow their message out there? Yeah, absolutely. So I would say the number one thing is you have to move people emotionally, right? And you have to make people feel something because what my success metric, the only this, the key to my success for my viral videos is, is one thing. It's a share button right on Facebook. Facebook has this share button where if you like something, you can click that share button and now it's going to your audience. And if they like it, they're going to hit that share button and it just continues to snowball like that. And so what I come to realize is that the only way you're going to
Starting point is 01:07:56 get somebody to share something is you have to touch them emotionally. And there's different types of emotions, but the key ones for me like sadness Happiness or you can make them laugh. I'm not very funny So I'm good on the sadness and happiness because I've experienced that a lot of my life So as long as you can really figure out what hits that emotion That's gonna move people to hit that share button And so the number one comment that I look for to know that my videos are really resonating
Starting point is 01:08:29 is that video made me cry. That is what I look for. If you look at the comments on my videos, that video made me cry. That is like the number one thing that I go for. Number two, relatability. So many people look at my videos and say, that reminds me of when I grew up or that reminds me of my dad who I miss so much,
Starting point is 01:08:55 or that reminds me of my last relationship. And thank God I'm not with that guy anymore or whatever else. So if you can just create relatable content, I was trying to have all these like nice, fancy productions and having all these fancy locations, but the videos that would do the best are the ones that were shot in my own kitchen or a bedroom or my own living room. If people can see something and just be able to connect with it, relate to your story, they're moved emotionally. That's what's going to cause them to share that video. Love it, man. We've only got a few minutes left, because I'm going to expect your time to lower it downstairs.
Starting point is 01:09:34 But we'll have to come back and do a whole other masterclass on content creation another time. I'm curious, almost 3 billion views, what's the vision moving forward for the next year or two? We're starting a new year and a new decade. Absolutely. Where do you see this type of content going forward for yourself and for creators?
Starting point is 01:09:54 If people want to be successful on social media and on content creation, what do they need to do? Is it focusing on these emotional triggers? Is it scripted content? Is it... what is it? Exactly. That's a great question. So, you know, one thing I decided early on
Starting point is 01:10:10 that really helped establish my vision is that the only content that I'm going to create is content that matters, that makes a positive impact in people's lives. So the saying that we've got at Darman Studios is, we're not just telling stories, we're changing lives. So that really helped narrow my focus. And now that I know that we're only gonna create content
Starting point is 01:10:35 that impacts lives, the next step of this is to go towards children, to target really like the younger audience who doesn't have the same attention span. Because all the content I create, you know, is between five to 10 minutes or so. And it's made for the shorter attention span generation. So lessons that are a little bit more aimed towards kids, that's the new division. And then going international. That's the other goal for next year. So doing videos in Hindi, in Spanish, you know, in Mandarin and all the different types of languages. And also using set, like using sets and locations and visuals that are relatable for them. So we might even open up like locations in other countries so that when they see things, they can really
Starting point is 01:11:25 resonate. That's cool. But the future of content creation, like, you know, a lot of people get hung up on the algorithms changed or, you know, there's all these other influencers now or whatever else, as long as you can be those two things, you can be relatable, right. And, and be someone that others can really connect with. And then also move people emotionally where your content makes them feel something, then you're really going to succeed in the long run, no matter how much the algorithm changes or no matter how many other influencers are out there. That's great, man. How can we connect to you? Where can we find your stuff? Yeah, pretty much anywhere now. If you just search Darman is D-H-A-R,
Starting point is 01:12:06 man with two N's. That's how you can find all my socials. And Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. Back on Instagram. Back on Instagram. Back on Instagram as of a few months ago. I just got back this year. Yeah, exactly. So you're on those three main platforms and you have a website too? Yeah, Darman.com. Darman.com. Okay, cool. And the beauty subscription box is liveglam.com. L-I-V-E. Yeah, G-L-A-M.
Starting point is 01:12:32 Dot com. Exactly. To learn more about that business and what you guys are doing there. This question is called the three truths, and I'm curious what yours are. I don't know if you know this question, but it's imagine you live another 100 plus years and you achieve everything that you want to achieve. Yeah. All your dreams, they come true.
Starting point is 01:12:54 But for whatever reason, you've got to take all your content and creations with you. All your videos, the lessons, you've got trillions of views at this point and a billion videos you've made. And you've created a Walt Disney studio of your own, but you've got to take it with you. No one else has access to any of the lessons or the principles that you've shared anymore through your content. But you get to leave behind a piece of paper, and you can write down the three things you know to be true about everything in your life.
Starting point is 01:13:24 The three lessons that you've learned the most that have impacted you that you would share with the world. They don't have any of the other content, but they give these three lessons that you could share with them. What would be your three truths? Yeah, it'd be very short, but it would basically be keep going,
Starting point is 01:13:40 because if my life is any example, then you know that you can bounce back from failure and you can turn your life around no matter how low of a point that you're at. Two, stay laser focused. I try to only focus on one thing at a time, as you know. So really go 100% all into whatever that goal is. And number three, think long term. Don't make short term decisions. I was doing that all my life. It feels good in the moment, but in the long run it really hurts you.
Starting point is 01:14:15 Taking the long run route is harder to get to, but once you get there, it's the most rewarding feeling ever. Wow. I love it, man. Well, I appreciate you for the challenges you've overcome because I think it's easy to continue to make excuses for bad behavior, bad moral compass, bad actions, whatever it may be. And it's not easy to bounce back from that. Right. It's challenging to come back after a third time and not continue to repeat that pattern.
Starting point is 01:14:47 So I want to acknowledge you for showing up in a different way over the last few years and doing the hard work to show up in a different way when no one wanted to be your friend. No one wanted to hang out with you. No one maybe trusted you. No one wanted to do business with you. Right. Exactly. And so I acknowledge you for making that conscious decision to say, you know what?
Starting point is 01:15:06 I want to look at myself as a problem. What do I need to change? Right. Because I think some people think they need to be perfect all the time, but we make mistakes. Right. But it's when you are consciously deciding to be different, that's when it's really inspiring. Exactly. It's really inspiring when you get to that point.
Starting point is 01:15:25 Some of us take longer than others. Yeah. It took me a lot longer than most. But I acknowledge you for showing up and for finding your lane of purpose, helping people, service. Now, you still like nice things and you still like all this different stuff. But I think having a mission of purpose is powerful. So I acknowledge you for that, man.
Starting point is 01:15:45 And I'm really grateful for our friendship and for connecting and for you sharing the story openly. So my final question is, what's your definition of greatness? What's my definition of greatness? Doing what you love every single day. Yeah, I would say that. I mean, if I could change anything right now about my life,
Starting point is 01:16:03 it would be anything. I would literally just keep doing the same thing that I am today. So just being fulfilled with who you are and happy where you are. That's good. Yeah. Dhar Mann, appreciate you, brother. Good stuff, man. This was amazing.
Starting point is 01:16:13 Thanks, man. Really appreciate it. Appreciate it, man. There you have it, my friend. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Dhar Mann. A powerful story about how he overcame so many different challenges, man powerful story about how he overcame so many different challenges from the the poor decisions he made to how he didn't let those decisions define him make sure to share this with your friends lewishouse.com slash 898 and if this is your first time here welcome to the school of
Starting point is 01:16:37 greatness community we've got over 150 million audio downloads in almost seven years we're about to hit the seven-year mark. So make sure to click the subscribe button on Apple Podcasts, over on Spotify, anywhere you like to listen to podcasts, and share this with a friend. If you know one friend who's maybe gone through some challenging times lately, share this with them as a reminder to inspire them on what's possible in their life. Be a hero in someone's life today by sharing this with them. lewishouse.com slash 897.
Starting point is 01:17:08 Also, you can text me right now if you want to get inspirational and motivational text messages from me. I send out little micro audios and motivational messages every single week. Just text me at 614-350-3960. Just text the word podcast so I know where you came from. And I'll send you messages every week, little two, three minute audio messages for me that I don't put out
Starting point is 01:17:32 anywhere else. So shoot me a text right now, 614-350-3960. And also go to greatness.com right now. Opt in for our documentary. You can watch it for free. It's coming out in a few weeks. So make sure to go to greatness.com. Opt in to be notified of when we're launching. And also we're doing a one night only premiere here in Los Angeles where you can come watch it live. Tickets will be limited. So make sure to get on that notification list at greatness.com right now when we launch the announcement. Again, I love this quote from Jim Carrey. He said, I hope everybody could get rich and famous and will have everything they ever
Starting point is 01:18:13 dreamed of so they will know that it's not the answer. You've got to find the answer that means well for you. What is the truth for you of what you're seeking in your life? The reason we do these episodes and interviews is to truth for you of what you're seeking in your life? The reason we do these episodes and interviews is to help bring you that fulfillment, bring you those tools, bring you the strategy to create and cultivate that inner peace, that inner drive to make greatness for your life. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Big thanks to Darman who is crushing it and doing some amazing things. Make sure to follow him and check him out on social media.
Starting point is 01:18:46 Watch his videos. Share them as well. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.

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