The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - How To Find A Supportive Partner & Master The Art Of Resilience With Leyla & Manny Khoshbin
Episode Date: October 18, 2019#222: On this episode we sit down with a powerhouse couple! Leyla Milani-Khoshbin & Manny Khoshbin. We discuss how to start from the bottom and rise to the top, how to find a supportive intimate partn...er, and what it takes to run a business together as a couple. We also discuss resilience and how to find continuous drive when the path is not always so clear. This episode covers a lot of ground. Buckle up and enjoy! To connect with Leyla Milani-Khoshbin click HERE To connect with Manny Khoshbin click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by BETABRAND and their Betabrand dress pant yoga pants. To try these pants go to betabrand.com/skinny and receive 20% off your order. Millions of women agree these are the most comfortable pants you’ll ever wear to work. This Episode is brought to you by Ulta Beauty. Ulta Beauty is dedicated to bringing its guests the most exciting new brands, which is why they’ve just launched an entire platform built to help beauty lovers discover more. Introducing SPARKED at Ulta Beauty™, the new destination for curated need-to-know brands—many exclusive to Ulta Beauty—which each have authentic stories and products. Produced by Dear Media
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The following podcast is a Dear Media production.
She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire.
Fantastic.
And he's a serial entrepreneur.
A very smart cookie.
And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride.
Get ready for some major realness.
Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.
But real estate is all about timing.
You know, if you bought any real estate in 2007,
you would have had to wait 10 years
to get your equity back.
But if you threw a dart up in 2011,
it landed on any property,
you would have doubled your money, right?
So it's all about 99% is timing,
1% is preparation.
So be prepared, make sure you qualify,
save your money money get all your
ducks in a row and then wait for recession you know when you see foreclosures left and right
hello hello and welcome back to the skinny confidential him and her show happy friday
that clip was from our guest of the show today manny and leila we are going to get into it with
them you guys it's a him and her perspective.
For the hosts, you have me, Lauren Everett's Bostick, depending on the day.
Oh, it's a good day because you actually added Bostick to it. And I'm Michael Bostick.
Guys, welcome back.
You're getting a little hard on over my Instagram photo over there.
At first, I don't know if that should be out to the world, but listen, it's like an art piece.
Our friend Khalil, Lauren, I don't know if you've seen this text yet,
our friend Khalil, Khalil Rafati,
who's been on this show,
one of my favorite episodes we've ever done.
If you guys haven't checked that episode out,
you got to check it out.
He is the best, guys. He just sent me a screenshot
saying that he has a new phone background
and it is you, butt naked, pregnant.
And I was like, all right, Khalil,
listen, I can't hate him for doing it.
I would do the same.
I did a professional photo shoot, naked and with on and there was lights and makeup and hair and the whole
shebang and it was like a whole entire shoot. And so, yeah, you know, you throw a filter on that
and it's going to look like a magazine situation, but I had a lot of help. You are a vision,
but it is a little strange when my actual friends are putting you on the backgrounds
of their phone. I'm not sure how I feel about that yet. Well, Michael, your background of your phone
is your chihuahuas. Yeah, that's true. But you'll never change. It's like literally like the
Nashville filter from 1992. It was the day. It was like the day Instagram came out. You have this
weird attachment to your chihuahuas that no one knows about. Like, I feel like you need to talk
about that. I also like to just fuck with you because it's kind of like you are like, what
kind of photo do you need to do to displace that photo? And you haven't done it yet. Even with this
one, which I love, I mean, it's a beautiful photo of you. I mean, I might do another photo shot,
shot like bent over, like in doggy style. I'm sure that my friends would have that on their
backgrounds. I'm going to text all your friends that please do not. Okay. So we have decided that we're going to do a question of the week. And if you have any catchy names for
this segment, we'd love to know your opinion. We want to do something catchy, um, just to brand it.
But in the meantime, what it is, it's basically answering one of you guys' questions. It can be
a question on anything, literally ask us anything. I don't
know if we'll be able to answer anything, but we'll give you our best shot. So the first question
of the week is one that I've seen over and over and over again. It's not from a specific person,
but in the future, when you guys do ask questions, we will shout out your Instagram handle. So this
is just a question, Michael, that I've seen everywhere. And I think that you will be able to add some wisdom here.
And I also think Taylor, who's Mike, let's hope is on.
It's hot as that photo you posted.
We'll be able to answer this.
So this is the question I keep seeing.
How do you manipulate your significant other
into a skincare routine?
Are you saying that I was manipulated into a skincare routine?
I've answered this before on the show.
Here's the problem.
All right, Lauren, I'm assuming that you're thinking that like there's a girl and she's
got a boyfriend and she's trying to get him to do skincare.
That's how I'm framing the answer to this question.
So maybe if I'm wrong, then I'm wrong.
Go ahead, Mr. Dewey.
Well, here's the problem is that I feel that i have an unfair advantage over most of the men because i have got to sit on this show with you and interview
literally some of the top skincare experts in the world disagree because if you're if you are in
your bathroom right now doing your makeup turn it up on the skincare expert podcast and make sure
that your significant other is listening in the background okay but listen so listen i get that
but what i'm saying is i have actually physically been part of the conversations you got you know dr
dennis dr diamond dr barbara stern like i've got it like the drunk elephant i've got to have
conversations with the glow i've had conversations with every skincare expert georgia louise like all
these people that are just like shooting to my mind and so i've actually firsthand got to sit
down and like understand understood the benefits of skincare. Um, and then also, fortunately these brands are giving me some
products. So, you know, I'd have to be a real dumb shit to, to not do something with my skin.
That being said, the best way, in my opinion, to get just an average, everyday average Joe,
uh, onto some skincare routine is to not overwhelm them. Pick one brand. Um, it could be any brand.
I would suggest
not picking one that's super pink and fluffy in the beginning because men, you know, they have
their reservations. They want to feel manly. Maybe start with like Dr. Dennis or Drunk Elephant.
Start with Big Dick Skincare. Yeah, whatever it is. And I would do a simple three steps. Same
brand, three steps. Here's what you do. Face wash, so they can use in the shower. Don't make them
reinvent the wheel here.
Then a serum.
Simple, simple serum.
Maybe a vitamin C serum.
And then a moisturizer.
And you say, listen, guy, you put this, you wash your face in the shower.
Can we throw in a sunscreen for good measure?
No, no, no.
I wouldn't do it in the beginning.
All right.
I'm telling you, this is how you do it.
Get a sunscreen with moisturizer.
What happens is you get in this and they realize how easy it is.
Okay.
Like maybe you put this one on before you brush your teeth and then after you're done brush your
teeth, put this one on. So it's only three things. It takes them 30 seconds. Can we throw in a tongue
scraper? Yeah, but that's not skincare. Now we're going on tangents. Yeah, we always do. Okay. So
no, that's really good advice. But what I'm saying is what'll happen is they'll realize how easy it
is and then they'll start to add other things. You just got to slowly put them in like, Hey,
like what you did to me. Like, Hey, by the way, I the way i have this like eye cream like and then i was like oh okay
i'm already doing it so it's easy that's the best way and then you have to give some positive
reinforcement saying man your skin looks better you're looking and then you have your friends say
oh like that looks better you know and then you like do a mist in front of them and you're like
oh this mist feels so good this is the best feeling ever and. And they're like, oh, can I use some of
that? Can I be honest with you though? This is the problem with a lot of women giving other women
advice about men. That just annoys me. No, it works. You did a mist the other day. No,
it annoys me when you're doing that and you're spraying it around. This is the problem. I'm
telling you, women think that they know how to give men advice just the same way men think they
know how to give women. I don't try to do that. That's a lie. I'm telling you the way to do it is to just say like, hey, you can use this in the shower.
You can use this when you get out and this after you're done brushing. It's just as simple as that.
I have a hot tip. So this is my latest. I'm really into facial massage and I know all the
benefits of lymphatic drainage. So I've been thinking for the last hundred years how I'm
going to get Michael into lymphatic drainage. And I think I finally hooked him.
Here's what I did.
I got a really great oil.
There's this oil from Floral Farms.
It's super random in Cabo.
I found this little like it's like an argan oil.
And I've told him at night that I will massage his face.
Okay.
And so at night, turn the salt rock lamp on, maybe put some housewives on, perhaps some
bossa nova music, maybe some ocean sounds, white noise machine.
I don't know, some lavender on the pillow.
And then I let him lay on my lap and I massage his face with this argan oil.
This is not a listen.
I love we're going really specific here, but let me just bear with me.
You have been bringing me the oil to bed every night.
Yes, but this is different. So this how how so? Because the man doesn't have to do anything.
I literally just hand you oil and lay there and get massaged. That's still skincare. That's great.
But now you're giving, seeing, learning. Now there's a lot of women be like, I don't want to
do that work. Maybe some do maybe like you, but you know, this is creating work for you. No,
it's not. Cause I have to look at your face every day. So it's actually just, it's, it's working for
both of us. It's benefits. It's win-wins. Well, listen, I mean, you get an A plus because I love the massages and you got me on
skincare. And Taylor, what's your opinion? Cause you have a whole, whole new Mary Poppins bag full
of drunk elephant. She's also got to listen to every conversation. That's why he's into it. Yeah.
I agree. I actually was, believe it or not, I was just using a facial, a facial mister the other
day, the Ole Henriksenksen what is it called let me
see i just opened it up i thought you were gonna say i i actually just blew a load in my face
but i do like facials though not from not not receiving yeah okay okay ole henriksen was pure
natural facial water feels nice okay so back i agree with michael completely i think the biggest
thing you always agree with michael completely that was smart motherfucker. Because we're both men in this in the sense of there's so many products and it can be
very overwhelming to be given so much.
And a lot of the things don't make sense at first.
Clear that frog in your throat.
Yeah, I know.
Hold on.
You all right back there?
You got it.
So what I was saying is there's so many types of products that it's not only overwhelming,
but a lot of them as a man didn't make sense to me. I didn't know what a serum was. I didn't know what a, you know,
like the facial oil did. I just, it didn't make sense to me and learning like baby stepping from
a facial cleanser, which is something that most people usually use to putting on a serum and then
maybe a moisturizer. That's a simple thing that everybody can really get behind.
And also, I think the other hurdle is that so many of the products are branded towards females with very, very beautiful, beautiful colors.
Yeah, you got to get over that.
That's being stereotypical.
No, no, but it's true.
Are you kidding me?
Look at a lot of the products.
There's still a lot of men that are out there.
They're still a little bit insecure with using a bright pink serum like so you know that'll
change over time they'll get comfortable there is nothing hotter than a guy that uses a serum yes
but listen this is what happens it's like you you gotta baby step them into it like don't just throw
them in like scotty tuna's like like nearing his ball sack we're not going that far yeah i mean
listen i've been living in the world of pink for a long time now with you here with your brand and
so i'm like okay whatever it's just like one shade now for me but all my guy friends have skincare routines um i gave weston elemis you're
on drunk elephant i want everyone to try all the products to tell me their feedback taylor is
literally grinning from ear to ear because he got a whole thing of drunk elephant how happy are you
taylor i basically got it looks like it's made made for in like intense influencers because it's
the whole line yeah you're peacocking it around the office and all the girls are like, can I get some of that?
Could I try baby facial?
And you're like, no.
Well, yeah.
So the reason being is there was also a bunch of Sunday Riley stuff that got sent to the office and I didn't get any of that.
So now they're like, oh, what did we get?
Now you have the whole drunk elephant thing.
So Lauren, I didn't even get to tell you this, but then we got to get into the show.
So this office gets sent a lot of stuff by different brands for people to try out.
And a lot of the ladies in the office go and they grab all the stuff and like we give it out and anyway the
other day this brand that sent the skincare stuff it got taken in like three seconds everybody in
the office grabbed it and he was left alone he was so pissed off and the only thing that was left in
the office was the gift of beef broth cubes that's a hard word just a lot of stuff to say so i went
to his desk and he just had all this these broth cubes really weird only guy in the office i wanted
but listen i'm sure it's good beef broth.
Beef broth cubes, Taylor.
What are you going to do with that?
Here's how it went down.
So I went into the break room and there were all these little things.
It's like bouillon, beef, gravy cubes.
It's like turkey, mushroom.
And there's four of them.
And I thought, oh, wow, cool.
These are great.
I'm finding something I like.
So I took him back to the desk.
And as I was walking back, I see everybody with these like Sunday Riley gift bags.
And I asked him, where did all those Sunday Riley bags come from?
Like, oh, there was a bunch.
There was like 30 of them in the break room and we all took them.
So I didn't see the Sunday Riley.
All I saw were the beef cubes.
Then I was pissed.
I was mad because at first I was excited about the beef cubes, but now I was a little bit bitter because I didn't miss that on the real life.
That's enough about beef cubes.
Let's get into the show.
Let's welcome Layla and Manny. They are a powerhouse duo. They are both major entrepreneurs.
I mean, guys, you're not even going to believe their story. Manny has completely worked his way
up. So has Layla. They came together. They have two kids. You should know that Layla is a wife, a mom of two,
a philanthropist, a go-getter. She's the founder of Layla Malani Hair, and she has Hairdaman, okay?
We're going to do a huge giveaway with her company at the end of this episode, so make sure you are
tuning in. And then Manny is a husband, a father, an entrepreneur, a car influencer, and he is living
the American dream. He also has a
book, guys. So they are major. So excited to have them on the Skinny Confidential, him and her show.
And before we hop into that, let's talk about Ulta Beauty. Ulta Beauty. Who doesn't love Ulta
Beauty? So as we all know, a spark is the start of something new, exciting, fresh, alive. And
that's what Ulta Beauty sees in these emerging brands.
You know, I'm obsessed with branding. I love a new brand and I feel like they're very much on the pulse when it comes to stories and products and brands to ignite your curiosity.
You can expect the collections to include cosmetic, skin, and hair products. I'm very
much about the skin. The Spark Collection will continuously refresh throughout the year. So
they're very much, like I said, on the pulse. And the first assortment includes Oma. This is Oma Beauty,
and it was started by Nigerian-born innovator. They also have a cool brand called LC Cosmetics.
This is founded by a makeup expert on a mission to make beauty products more user-friendly
and then love wellness. So Ulta Beauty has a long history of growing brands,
and now they're taking it to the next level with Spark. This is seriously designed to select and
ignite the brightest emerging brands. I really like how they're really showcasing women entrepreneurs.
I think that's awesome. And you can discover a bunch of new brands, ignite your curiosity
with Sparked at select Ulta Beauty stores. So all Skinny Confidential him and her listeners can explore the virtual world of Sparked on ulta.com slash sparked. It's a very unique interactive experience
where you can learn more about these exciting brands and founders and their authentic stories
and products. I know I'll be definitely stalking the site. This is the Skinny Confidential, him and her.
Manny and Layla Coshman, two powerhouses on the show.
Powerhouses in your own right.
Power couple and individual powerhouses.
Guys, welcome to the show.
Thank you.
Thank you.
It's good to be here.
So we want to get both of your backgrounds.
I guess, who should we start with?
Which one of you wants to go first?
Should we toss a coin, honey?
Yeah.
Ladies first?
Ladies always first.
Who wants to go in the hot seat first?
Okay, I'll go first.
So I guess I'll take it back.
I'm from Iran originally.
My mother was always a strong female force.
She definitely knew what she wanted in life. And unfortunately, my father was just not very kind to her.
And he was just abusive. And so she decided one day that she
was going to leave and not just leave him, she was going to leave the country. And so she decided to
take me and my six month old younger sister. I was nine at the time and she wanted to move us to
Canada. She really wanted to move to US, but it wasn't, it's not very easy to migrate here, especially from Iran, even back then. And so she took us to Canada, which was
very more open. And she's a nurse, she's a registered nurse. And so she was able to
practice as a nurse again. She had to take a lot of tests. She had to, her English was great,
which was a good thing. She had that, but she didn't have very much money. She just had two little girls that she had to support. And she moved us to Toronto. She worked long hours and I became sort
of her helper, almost like a dad figure to my younger sister. I took care of her. I raised her.
And, you know, fast forward 10 years later, her dream was always to move to Los Angeles. And
I think more than anything, it wasn't really the glitz and glam. It was really the weather. We're both very weather dependent. I'm always cold.
And so is she. So she wanted beautiful, sunny California. And so she moved us out here.
And, you know, I really owe everything that I have, even obviously meeting my husband to her,
because if it wasn't for her strength to leave Iran and my dad and even leave Canada, even though
we had a pretty cushy life there, just took a lot of balls.
And I was really proud of her.
She stood on her two feet.
She still does.
She's not remarried or anything.
She still works and takes care of herself.
And so I think that really is what has driven me throughout my life.
And it's made me the person I am today. It's made me not get into a lot
of, you know, bad situations that you can get as a teenager, as a young adult, as a woman without a
father, you know, all those things. And because of that, that strength. Such a courageous woman. I
mean, that's obviously it's rubbed off. Thank you. Yeah, it really has. What was your first job?
My first job, I was a telemarketer and I was really good at it. I did that in the summer.
I was like 15, 16 and I loved it. I was really hustling and trying to make my quotas. And I did that for
two summers. And then I started working in nightclubs as a shooter girl. I don't know if
you guys know what that is, but do you remember back in the day? I don't know if you do, but
for me, I always said, I go to clubs anyway with my my friends i might as well make money while i'm there like i always wanted to make money and stand on my own two feet so i became a shooter girl
which is these girls that walk around and they have these shot um like test tubes oh yes i
definitely know what the shooter girls are i know what the girls are too i was gonna be a bartender
but i realized you have to share your tips with people. I'm like, this is not for me. I want to make my own money within the club. I was self-employed within the club.
I did not know there was a term for that, but now that you describe what it is,
I know exactly what it is. It's got me in a lot of trouble.
I don't think I do that anymore, but that was like my second job. And yeah, it was good. I
was able to save some good money. And when I came to Canada, I had that cushion.
And then I went to FITM for fashion.
I thought fashion is my destiny.
I love clothes.
It's my passion.
I'm going to have my own clothing line.
And I did.
At 19, I had my own denim line.
Wow.
So I was working in downtown LA in the garment district,
carrying out patterns and samples,
going to laundry houses because denim business is so difficult.
Don't ever get into denim. You have to. There's so many steps to getting it right. And you lose so much money
with fabric and laundry houses and pattern makers and cutters and sewers and all that good stuff.
Anyway, I got out of that. I realized it wasn't my passion. And I was like 21, 22. I'm in Los
Angeles. And, you know, you're young, you're going out, you're meeting people, you sort of
fall into the entertainment industry, I guess.
I met an agent, I met a manager, and I started working on music videos.
I think the first one was...
50 Cents?
50 Cents. It wasn't the first one. That was one of the more notable ones.
Which song?
Candy Shop.
Okay. Yeah.
I was blonde. I have maybe like three seconds.
So you'll see me. I'm on the couch, I think, with Lloyd Banks.
They refer to me as the Hispanic blonde girl. Anyway, so I did that. I was on Entourage. I
worked as an extra for several episodes, which got me my SAG card. So the show actually got me
my SAG card. I was very proud of myself. And then I started going out on other auditions. And
one thing led to another. I got on WWE. I competed in that. I
came second place out of 8,000 girls worldwide, which was my first taste of competition. I've
never been in like sororities or beauty pageants or anything of that nature. So for me, that was
like my sorority and my group of girls. It was really a lot of fun. And then I got Deal or No
Deal right after with Howie Mandel and that sort of kind of propelled
Meghan Markle? Yes. Was she there?
Of course she was there and she stood next to me
for several episodes so she was
not a regular girl I was a regular
model meaning I had a contract
that's where I think initially
yeah a long time ago before
social media. I looked very different I had
curly blonde brown hair
big massive I look like a lioness. We need a throwback on ago before social media? I looked very different. I had curly, blonde, brown hair, big, massive.
I looked like a lioness. We need a
throwback on Instagram. Yes, God,
please. You gotta do one.
I'll send you one. Don't Google it.
I was gonna have Taylor pull it up
on Google.
Okay, so Manny, give us a little bit of your
background. Oh, man. Do you have
all day? We got a while.
Well, we have a similar, pretty similar
stories. You know, she had an abusive father and had an abusive government. I'm just kidding.
No, my dad has a big family. You know, he has seven brothers and four of them got crippled or
actually two died and two got crippled from going to the war, Iran and Iraq war back in the early
80s. So I was his favorite.
And in Iran, when you reach age of 14,
you're illegal to exit the country.
You have to draft to the army.
And he witnessed his brothers being crippled and getting killed.
And two weeks before my 14th birthday,
he just decided, I don't know,
he just decided he's gonna pack and leave.
He gave the keys to his store.
He had a small hardware store
and also his house and cars and give it to his older brothers to his store. He had a small hardware store and also his house
and cars and give it to his older brothers to sell everything, sell us the money, which
unfortunately never happened. Whatever. That's another story for another episode. But long story
short, with a little over $2,000, we left. My sister was six months old, just like Leila's
sister was six months old. And we went to Turkey, got a visa after two weeks, and came to Costa Mesa, California,
because my dad knew a guy that owned a bunch of gas stations, and he had promised him a
job pumping gas, full service.
So we arrived.
We took a taxi from LAX to Newport Beach, this guy's house.
And then second night, they're fighting big time.
We can hear him from the kitchen.
We're all in the room.
Your dad and the guy that you came to stay with?
The husband and wife are fighting. Oh, the husband and wife. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I
guess he hadn't told the wife that, hey, there's six people moving in. Oh, he's fucked. I'm sure
that went over well. He walked into the room and he told us, I'm so sorry in Farsi. You know,
he's telling us you have to leave. You know, he's like, my wife, you know, wasn't under impression.
You guys are moving in, blah, blah, blah. So we moved to a motel in Costa Mesa.
And after a week or so, my dad said, hey, we're running out of money.
He called him back.
He goes, it's not right.
You know, you hung me dry.
I brought my kids here, you know, in your support of giving me a job.
So we met him at his gas station, one of his gas station.
He was selling cars, used cars.
And he sold us a 1972 Datsun station wagon, 510 station wagon, whatever it's called.
So for a few hundred bucks, and that became our house.
Wow.
For like several weeks until my dad got a job.
So he was educated.
You know, he had his like CPA.
He was a senior cost accountant for the oil company.
But when the regime changed, he didn't want to work with the new Ayatollahs,
whatever. And he moved us to a small town and opened a little hardware store to get away from all that new regime. So long story short, he got his first job after a couple of weeks,
his first paycheck. We were able to move to a one bedroom apartment in Costa Mesa.
What's going through your mind as a young man at this point, coming to a new country,
leaving your home country, you know, and in this situation like what do you and you obviously
you have your siblings like what are you thinking at the time well you know witnessing all everyone's
suffering you know it kind of forced me to grow up pretty quickly you know i turned a 14 year old
into a man pretty quick you know so all that guilt trip you know i think that was my drive and
motivation so i wanted to reach financial freedom by any means get my parents out of, you know, I think that was my drive and motivation. So I wanted to reach financial freedom by any means, get my parents out of that, you know, suffering, financial suffering.
So it was pretty tough because I could also not communicate.
I didn't speak a word of English, you know.
Yeah.
What was the first thing you did to kind of make ends meet as a young man?
So I was looking for opportunities, right?
Since I can't speak, you know, I was just observing, you know, with my eyes, you know, what's around me. So every time I took the trash out, I realized people leaving stuff by the dumpster, like patio set, you know, dining set, toaster, radios, old TVs. And I couldn't understand why it's by dumpster. So I would haul it back to my patio, apartment patio. And then I would test it, see if it works. If it worked, I would put it there. If it didn't work, I took it back to the dumpster. But after several months, I ended up
with a bunch of working appliances, furniture. And then we lived across from Orange Coast College,
which they used to have swap meets on the weekends. And that's where actually me and my mom
used to walk over there, buy some used household goods for the kitchenware. So I'm like, hey,
we got all this stuff I've been piling up, collecting.
Why don't we just sell it across the street?
So after six months of moving into the apartment,
I went into business for myself,
selling used goods across the street.
Both of you are so entrepreneurial.
You're doing shots with Shot Girl.
Yeah, I'm selling shots.
I mean, jeez.
We were talking about this yesterday.
There's some people in this life
that you can look at and you know, you put them in any situation and they're going to thrive and i think that both
of you are examples of that like thank you some people have that and some people don't but just
being able to recognize opportunity i think that's like a lot of people just can't recognize
opportunity you'll be right in front of them they just can't see it no matter what yeah they just
can't see like hey that's an angle or that's something different like they're unwilling to
look or they're just unable to look for it. I think it's interesting to talk to people
like yourselves that can see those opportunities.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I tell everybody, you know,
don't try to figure out life all in once.
Just do what's in front of you and do it better
and know that that's a stepping stone
to the next higher ground.
And for me, I take the trash out.
I see there is some valuable stuff there
that's in front of me, right?
I take that.
I got good at it.
After a couple of months, we had two spaces instead of one. I was making like a hundred bucks a week. You's in front of me, right? I think that I got good at it. After a couple of months,
we had two spaces instead of one.
I was making like a hundred bucks a week.
You know, cost of goods is zero.
It's all profit.
Yeah, it's all profit.
Yeah, it was like seven bucks
or eight bucks per rental for per space.
So it's like nothing, right?
So I didn't need a car either.
We just haul it over the shopping carts, you know?
But like homeless people.
I was making a couple of hundred a night
in my little fanny pack back then it was she's a smarter hustler
i feel like gary v would really appreciate your story because he always talks about flipping
flipping things like even if it's like a five dollar puzzle flipping it for seven dollars yeah
well they're saying there's people that are struggling financially right now and they're
living in a in a nice home he's like look around your house and just look at some of the stuff
that you're not using that you can flip i, we have during your time, you didn't have services like eBay and trades.
Like there's so many tools that are disposed of.
People are just willing to look for the opportunity.
That's what I tell people.
People keep saying, oh, it's not as easy as you think.
Back then it was easy to make millions.
I'm like, no, it's not.
Now with technology.
Are you kidding me?
So much easier to have access to people.
Right.
And access like
network you know i mean to even to do what we're doing right now on this podcast years ago to go
you'd have to go on a radio station about all this equipment you have to broadcast you have to get
i mean literally we could do this we record it and we could put it up yeah now it doesn't cause
much yeah and you can use profanities yeah and you can use profanities and you don't have anyone
micromanaging you, which I love.
So you want me to fast forward?
No, keep going.
We want to hear the whole story.
All right.
So I did that until I turned 16.
Legally, I could get a job.
So my first job was Kmart.
I applied to a bunch of places, but Kmart hired me as a...
He took me to that Kmart, by the way.
Yeah.
And one of the employees was there and she recognized you.
Wow.
It was crazy.
He went to buy me
like some old lady
water pack heater
for my stomach.
I was having stomach issues.
He's like,
that Kmart would happen.
He's like,
I know exactly what aisle
that's in.
Well,
things had moved around
a lot,
quite a bit.
We got to slow things down,
take a little moment
to appreciate my wife's
sweet, sweet ass
in that dress pant,
yoga pant by Beta Brand.
It's not that
sweet right now with pregnancy, but this pant is certainly helping it stay up. You know what I mean?
I need all the help I can get. I need my ass to be flattered, which is why I'm constantly going
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That's what I'm talking about.
But long story short, my first job was cleaning the floors, arranging the stock room, collecting
shopping carts.
Basically, they call it regular clerk.
I was clerk 407.
I did that for six months.
I became employee of the month.
And then after a year, they promoted me to assistant sporting goods manager.
And I was always showing up on time.
I mean, actually, before I'm supposed to show up, I was 10, 15 minutes early.
And I always stayed after I clock out.
I would still collect shopping carts while I was waiting for the bus.
You think that's because you just appreciated the opportunity?
I just wanted to give 120%.
We're habitually on time,
and I think that's one of the biggest
things that we have that is
responsible for the success of our relationship,
is that we're both always, we're just so
about being on time.
Do you want to teach me lessons on that?
Yeah. Are you late?
I need help. First of all, where do you guys live, by the way?
We live in San Diego.
We're here in West Hollywood now because we're out of this office now.
Do you guys do this drive?
No, no, no.
We don't do the drive.
I wish I could say that, but I need some tips on that.
You can give me some tips.
We'll get into it.
I work out of here every day.
No way.
This is the company.
Oh, very cool.
Awesome.
So that was my first job, but I knew even Kmart is just another stepping stone, right?
So every Sunday I was getting a newspaper looking for better opportunities.
So one day I see this company advertising, make 500 bucks a week.
And at the time I was making a little over a hundred bucks a week.
It was $3.15 an hour.
So I called them.
I went for an interview.
I got hired and it was door-to-door sales, multi-level marketing.
They were sending nuts back then.
You know, pistachios, candies, nuts.
Yeah.
So I got hired.
But before that, I want to tell you guys a story.
I wanted to buy a car.
So every week I took my page.
Kmart used to pay me cash back then in envelopes.
Every Friday you line up at the HR office and they give you cash.
That's amazing.
Yeah, no checks.
I don't think you get away with that now.
No. So I used to take the change and leave the $100 literally under my mattress. So after one
year, I had $5,200. I went to auction and bought a 1983 Honda Accord, which back then was 1986. So
it was only three years old. My car was better than my dad. And so I want to tell people about
sacrifice, right? So I could have gone out and buy new jeans,
new pants, go dine out, but I made my own sandwiches, took the bus. I was saving every penny,
right? So anyhow, I got the second job. It was WBI, Worldwide Industries. After three months,
I was their top salesman. One night I'm at Price Club. Back then, you know, it was Price Club,
not Costco. And then I did a quick mat in the nut aisle when I was with my dad and mom buying stuff for the house.
And I'm like, wow, this company is selling this stuff for three bucks a pound.
It's $1.50 a pound here.
And I already have my customers.
So why don't I just buy the nuts and packages instead of myself?
So I went home that day when my dad opened the Yellow Pages, looked for polyester bags.
You know where they sell bags?
And I found a place in Santana, California. I called them, went ahead, bought all the eight inch polyester
bags and a sealant. And I opened my own business. I was 18. And then I had four employees working
for me making four or 5,000 a month. Six months later, health department was one of the guys I
was selling nuts to while I was eating my sandwich. He shows up and he goes, hey, we don't see you on our file.
I'm like, what file?
I didn't know you need health permit
every time you repackage food, right?
Oh, shit.
For resale.
I don't know.
I have no idea.
So anyway, he gave me a huge binder with regulations
and you can sell.
He basically red tagged me and shot me down
until I bring the premises up to code.
And then my dad looked at it
and we read through the whole thing.
We're like, it's impossible.
This building doesn't even meet the criteria.
So that was my first failure.
You know, I had to close it.
It just completely shuts the business down?
Yeah.
Yeah, I had to go get basically a commercial kitchen,
you know, to repackage food.
I'm like, forget it, it doesn't make sense.
So I had 20 some thousand dollars saved,
this time 19 years old.
My dad's friend says, hey, I sell gas stations
and you could get
sba loan 90 financing and you have 20 grand so you could buy something for 200 grand i was shocked
i'm like wow this is like you know a few years you know prior my dad was supposed to work at a
gas station now i'm buying my own gas station i was like i felt like you know so amazing right
so we opened escrow on a gas station off of Crenshaw on 405. It was a mobile gas station.
And I went to Rancho Cucamonga to become certified.
I went through the mobile school.
I paid a $3,500 franchise fee, all this stuff.
I still have my plaque.
But the guy that was doing my loan turned out to be a loan fraud.
Oh, shit.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
He charged me all this processing fee, appraisal.
He never ordered anything.
And I found out he was doing it to a lot of people.
He ended up going to jail a few years after. Long story short, that was my second
failure. And then I'm like, okay, what am I going to do now? My money's gone. I don't have any
money. So I called one of the customers that used to buy a lot of nuts from me. It was a Winston
Tire manager in Montebello. So I used to drive everywhere, all the auto centers from San Diego
all the way to Los Angeles to sell nuts.
That's where my customers were.
So he gave me a job.
I was assistant manager of a tire shop.
So that was another stepping.
So I'm like, hey, now this is in front of me.
This is what I'm going to do.
So I became really good at it to a point after a year they were moving me to underperforming stores to get their sales up because I used to really oversell.
They're coming for oil change.
I gave them new brake pads, you know, bumper to bumper service.
Give them shit they didn't even know they needed.
Yeah.
No, that's not my character.
I would find something they need.
Well, you know, I'm just kidding.
So during this whole process while you're building, when did you two meet each other?
Oh my God.
That's like 20 years.
20 years. Okay.
So there's a lot of stuff.
So I went through about 18, 19 different businesses. I failed, you know, a couple of think it's in your shoes it's more of a learning experience because you kept
going right yeah so for somebody that's struggling and on the brink of a like say a failure what
would your piece of advice be for that person i would say what did you learn you know what did
you learn and just improve your game and get get out there you know i think so many people they
get like you know they get one bump in the road and it's like wheels come off.
It's over.
And they don't know what to do.
They don't want to recover.
Yeah, it's true.
It's very hard, especially the first one.
You get knocked out.
It's good, though.
It's important.
But it's all about mindset.
And each failure makes your mindset stronger.
So you went through 10 more failures.
Not so much failures, but not really making progress.
Setbacks. Yeah. I mean, but not really making progress. Setbacks.
Yeah.
I mean, the worst one was my supermarket.
I opened a supermarket in Santa Ana, California.
And Food for Less opened right next to me like a few months later.
Yeah.
So my sales went down 50% on their grand opening weekend.
And I was shocked.
I'm like, it's impossible.
I mean, I was like, I couldn't believe it.
And then I had a partner at the time. My partner gave, it's impossible. I mean, I was like, I couldn't believe it. And then I had a
partner at the time. My partner gave up after six months. He goes, I'm not, you know, if it's not
making money, I'm not coming in, blah, blah, blah. So I ended up buying him out for 15 grand,
which I had to go borrow. So I owned 100% at that time. But I fired four employees. I had my parents
come in, become cashiers, you know, and then do what you got to do. And then I'm like, I'm losing
money anyway. Why don't I just go borrow money and advertise,
you know, in newspaper, which was Low Opinion newspaper,
the Mexican newspaper, locally there.
And I used to run full page ads
and brought a bunch of teaser products
like VO5 shampoo, sell it for 20 cents.
Everybody sells it for buck 50.
It's like teasers, you know, to bring people in.
I brought Mexican bands from Santa Ana,
Give Free Taco, Taqueria, this, that,
to bring, and I pumped the sales up
within a year, double the sales.
And then I listed that solo to two Korean brothers
for 185,000, you know, plus inventory.
You know what I think is so interesting?
People that have had to struggle,
like both of you have,
I think it's almost a piece of armor to understand.
You've been at the bottom.
You understand what it's like down there.
And so I feel like in some ways it protects you because you're able to
understand, okay, like that's the worst it can get. I mean, it's only up. I think a lot of people,
they start privileged, which sounds like a lot of times being privileged sounds like it's a good
thing, but I actually think in a lot of ways it's, it's a weakness because you don't, you know,
if you fall behind just where, you know, where you came from, you don't know how to, you don't
know how to handle it. There's so many young people that grew up privileged. They don't know how to recover from a setback because they just never been there
before. You guys, can you speak on that a little bit? Absolutely. It's very, very true. Yeah. I
mean, when you have hardship in life, especially early on, when you're 10, 11, 12, 13, 14,
it's traumatic, right? It's trauma. But in some ways you want to avoid that trauma in the future
so you work harder, right? So you don't just relax it back. But you also if you do have trauma, again,
you've been there, right? So it's kind of, you know, it's a blessing. I hate to say it, you know,
the earliest struggles in my life, it's I look at as a blessing now, because it pushed me harder.
And I'm comfortable being at the bottom sometimes, you know,
were you doing deal or no Deal when you guys met?
No, so the Deal or No Deal actually ended right when we met.
We met in May 2009.
Okay.
And the show had ended after five seasons.
It ended right at the top.
Like, we were the number one show.
We were competing with American Idol.
We were, like, going toe-to-toe.
And so we met.
Do you want to talk about how we met?
Sure.
We met on Facebook.
It was love at first poke.
I was going to laugh if you said that you met him in the club, giving him a shot.
That was in Toronto.
That was in Canada.
No, no, I didn't do that here.
That was like 18, 19.
No.
So we met on Facebook.
The whole story is we were both going to the Playboy Mansion for one of their Halloween
parties.
I was there with my girlfriends.
He was there with his girlfriend.
Yeah.
And he saw me in the line.
I don't know, why take Sam to the beach?
Seems like a little bit of a dicey move.
I know.
He saw me in the line.
This is what he tells me
because he told me later, obviously.
He said, when I saw you in the line,
I said to myself, she's going to be my wife.
Maybe you should be telling this story, not me.
I was dressed as like a belly dancer or something.
Anyway, so fast forward, I think it was a few years later.
He sees me on Facebook at the time I was on Deal or No Deal.
So I was somewhat recognizable.
And I was single by then.
He was single at this time.
I could poke her.
He reached out to me.
Oh, I remember the pokes.
Do they still have the pokes?
I don't know.
I got on Facebook early.
I have no idea. I forgot remember the pokes do they still have the pokes i don't know i got on facebook really i have no idea i forgot about i forgot about the pokes yeah so back then that was like
a dating site in a way for us um i mean not that i dated really anybody from facebook pokes you know
what's interesting now that i think that facebook was kind of creepy back then with a poke right
yeah i don't know if you can get away with that now especially when the guys disabled that like
i wasn't really like getting the notifications for that
because there were so many creeps doing that.
But he was smart.
He approached me in a really nice way.
He wasn't being creepy about anything.
I don't even think he was really hitting on me.
I think he was just looking for a friend.
So we started talking.
We both love cars.
Yeah, she commented on my yellow Ferrari.
I commented on his Ferrari.
I'm sure he was just looking for a friend.
This Ferrari had the most disgusting yellow wheels.
It wasn't that bad.
Like those wheels do not belong with that car.
Please change them.
Put black, put carbon fiber, anything but that yellow dish.
I agree.
It was a little too much.
The whole car was dipped in yellow.
You guys are all a little too much before we step in.
Let's be honest.
I mean, you should have seen Michael's teeth before me.
His what? His teeth.
I had to get the front more, yeah, for sure.
No, listen, we don't know what we're doing until we get a...
You know, we don't know.
We have to make some tweaks. Okay, so go on.
So go back to the car.
So the yellow car. We were talking about the car.
No, we just started talking about cars because we both love cars.
And he's in Orange County.
I'm in LA.
So we're living far apart.
And so we decided to meet after like a month and a half of talking on Facebook.
And we met at this club lounge in Orange County.
And really, we just hit it off immediately.
We were talking for an hour straight.
We left all of our friends that we were there with.
They all got upset.
My friends, there were some guy friends.
They thought that I'm actually ditching them for the owner of the club.
They thought he's the owner of the club.
Because I don't know, he just had that presence or whatever.
But they knew he was at the club.
It's better to be thought of as the owner than the busboy.
Yeah.
So they got mad at me.
They left.
Hey, I don't sell nuts anymore.
And they're from LA.
And I'm from, so I came with them.
So it was kind of awkward.
But anyway, we started talking for an hour. We just had so much in common. It was just instant
chemistry, instant attraction. And, um, the conversation just like, you know, sometimes
when you talk to people online or over the phone and then when you meet in person, it could be
completely different, but it wasn't, it was like just perfect. And then we had our first date at
the Lakers game and it was just, we, we, I took him to my condo in downtown LA
because it was right there by the Staples Center and
we had fun. Not like that
kind of fun. Hey, we did too.
I didn't sleep with you that night.
No, you didn't but... Stop.
Stop. Cut this out.
This is a safe space. We were in the jacuzzi, okay?
God. Hey, no one's listening.
This is a safe space. My building was new so there wasn't a lot of. We were in the jacuzzi, okay? God. Hey, no one's listening. This is a safe space. My building was new. My building was new.
So there wasn't a lot of people that lived in the units yet.
So I took him to my jacuzzi upstairs.
A beautiful view of the downtown.
I'm sure he liked that.
He liked that.
Yeah.
She takes me up there.
She said, drop your pants.
Just kidding.
So at this point, do you have your car business?
And do you have your product line?
Or is this not even happening yet?
No, no.
It's not happening.
So I just finished Deal or No Deal. I was one of the, you know, contract models. I was
coming off of this high. I was making really good money. You know, I had saved up some money. And so
when I met him, you know, we started talking and I told him about my idea for a line of hair
extensions. So my hair is all real. And on the show, I know nobody believes we have to talk about
that later. You'll have to talk about that
later you'll have to like go through it's a good head of hair it's a good hair thank you thank you
it comes with a lot of neck pain it does i actually have really bad neck pain anyway so i told him
about my idea for extensions because at the time there was only the jessica simpson line i don't
know if you remember and it was synthetic hair looked like doll hair and some of the models were
using it because there wasn't any extension,
like do-it-yourself clip-ins back then.
And so I wanted to create really good quality human hair extensions
that you could do yourself.
And you don't have to go to the salon and get the glue and the tape
and all that crazy stuff at the time.
And so I told him about my idea.
I'm like, look, I'm really known on this show for my hair.
I'm getting so much fan mail.
Back then, people were like literally sending fan mail.
And I'm like, everybody wants to know, like, what's my secret like how do i get my hair like this so i told him about the
extension line and he's like okay i'll invest with you and i was like oh cool yeah i was a shark tank
yeah and i really didn't need the money so much i just needed the support of just somebody else
who believed in it and wanted to do it with me and so we did it and it took off. I think I paid him his initial investment within a few months, like less than a year, definitely.
And then I expanded.
We did hot tools and styling products.
Bullshit!
I'm just kidding.
See, listen.
So mean.
I'm just kidding.
My husband will say the same.
What are you going to say?
The move is like, I think Lauren's like, take the investment and just never give it back no matter what.
And even if she can, she just doesn't.
Biologists have the thing. It's like, my money's her money,
her money's her money.
He should be, and we are.
Business is business.
And if you have an investor, you need to pay that investor back
before you do anything else.
So anyway.
I learned from you, honey.
I told you, we never
talk during business hours.
And then, what happened after that and then he's he doesn't have his car business his it wasn't business he was always a car collector
he never had a business per se but now it's more of a business now it's more of a business so were
you doing real estate and stuff oh yeah always been really okay yeah i got my real estate license
you never got into that you didn't get into the real estate aspect of it.
So when I had the supermarket, back to supermarket.
Yeah.
So my landlord told me, he was an older guy, you know, very wealthy in real estate.
And he said, what are you doing?
Like, slaving away seven days a week and balancing your rent check to me.
So why don't you get into real estate?
I'm like, I have no money.
He goes, well, you got your place for sale. When he sells, you know, come see me. So why don't you get into real estate? I'm like, I have no money. It goes when you got your place for sale. When it sells, you know, come see me. So when I sold the supermarket,
I owed 185,000 on my credit cards and I sold for like 180,000. So I didn't pay my credit cards.
I'm like, I'm going to be negative net worth still. So I saw my friends making money,
they trading stocks. And this was December, 1998. So I opened the E-Trade account and I
started trading AOL,
CMGI, Brocade, everything my friends were buying, selling. So I tripled the money by September 1999.
Then I called my landlord. I said, I got some money. So he sent his broker. I ended up buying
a shopping center in La Habra, or actually Whittier, and then two REO homes. So that's
when I started really investing in real estate, using my cash to my benefit, to negotiate better prices. And I grew that up to like $250
million worth of real estate. Yeah, as of recent. And it's been a blessing in the sky, you know?
And that's what I'm saying. There's stepping stones. You keep going up and up on the mountain
until you see what, you know, converts the best for you in life, you know, for me it was realistic. How have you guys sort of bounced off each other
to expand and evolve your businesses? Because, I mean, you both have separate businesses that
are taking off. And I was saying earlier, you have these separate Instagram accounts that are
so strong, but how have you utilized each other? I think we really, first of all, respect each other's opinion.
And for me, I come to him with many different,
you know, concerns and questions
in regards to the business.
And when it comes to hiring, for sure,
she's got sharp antennas.
Oh, for him, yes.
So he is not, he doesn't have a good read on people,
especially employees when he's hiring.
And so I have to go through that process
for all his businesses, whether it's Cubano Room, his Cigar Lounge or
Coshman Company, his real estate side or anybody really.
Mentorship.
Mentorship. Like everybody.
So you meet the people.
I meet everybody. Yeah.
Do you want to come do that for me?
Yeah.
Yes. Well, it's important who you bring around you. And, you know, a lot of times these people,
they're hearing, you know, really personal stuff about your life, your business, and they're in there. And no matter how many NDAs you sign,
you just can't be too careful. And I think more than anything, it's the character of the person.
And I have a pretty good read on people. And so I don't want that sort of energy and that kind of,
you know, influence around us. We have little kids too. And, you know, obviously we've been
married 10, we've been together 10 years, married eight, and like, I'm very protective of him. And not that
he can't handle himself, but you know, men, like they're not as intuitive as us. And so we see
things that they don't. We see things that they don't. So, you know, I think it's our job.
What do you guys think the secret to marriage is?
So many things. Oh my God. I think having- Respect. Having the same goals, values.
Those are like, I think the biggest things.
Like we're both habitually on time.
We're both super honest.
Goal oriented.
Super goal oriented.
Family oriented.
Like the things that are important to us is the same things.
What else?
That's really it.
I would say separate bathrooms.
We definitely have that.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
We definitely have that in this new house.
Thank God.
You got to have separate bathrooms.
It makes such a difference.
Like, don't touch my pink brush.
Yes.
I will not touch the pink brush.
Don't be touching my pink brush.
Separate toilets.
Separate.
Yeah.
Separate.
Just keep it separate.
If I could have it on the other end of the earth, I would want it on the other end of
the earth.
I think we'll always have it.
As long as you're the one that has to walk there.
Separate closets.
That's important. Well, he has more stuff than i have which is really more clothes don't
even lie right now i probably have more she she does this thing where she buys clothes and she
wears it once and then like gets rid of it but i don't get rid of it i have a different problem i
don't get rid of it so i'm like i gotta yeah or i put it on tradesy or poshmark yeah i gotta find a
way to declutter here.
You have a hoarding problem.
Well, not a hoarding.
No, just maybe with clothes.
I got to get rid of some stuff.
I saw stuff.
I was like, what the hell is that still doing here?
Start having it autographed.
You autograph it.
You guys still live in Maine.
Send it off.
Lots of money.
There's some creeps that would love your shirt.
I will sell his underwear.
Unwashed shirt.
I'll sell his unwashed underwear.
I used to get those kinds of emails.
Yeah.
No deal in WWE.
They're like, can i please buy your
your socks even like anything your bikini you're like i'll do it for a hundred thousand minimum
there was a few girls that did that listen if this whole thing doesn't work out i'll sell my
underwear if this doesn't work out my clothes now but michael you're sitting on a fortune
don't wash your stuff anymore you see who knew. Opportunity was not just in front of me.
It's beneath me.
It's I'm sitting on it this whole time.
Taylor, set up my account.
Taylor's back there like buying underwear right now.
Who knows what he's doing?
Buy different brands.
Yeah.
We don't know what Taylor's doing back there.
So there's a lot of young entrepreneurs that are listening that are millennials or hustlers.
What would you guys' top tip, and I would love to hear your separate top tip, be to them?
I would say don't give up.
I know that sounds so cliche, but just don't give up.
That's my line.
Don't listen to naysayers.
Don't listen to pretty much no one.
If you really believe in your idea and you have the ability to follow through and you're disciplined, that's all you really need.
If it's a good idea and you're passionate about it,
just do your research,
surround yourself with like-minded people,
get rid of the negative people
that are trying to bring you down or trying to sway you,
and don't go for the comfort zone.
Like, I never, nothing ever grows there.
I know that's like a quote, but it's so true.
Like, I always try to make myself uncomfortable,
put myself in uncomfortable situations.
Like, I could easily be sitting, you know, in my house in Orange County overlooking
the view and not coming to do this. But like, there's so many benefits of me just being out
here and meeting you guys and meeting all these great people here and just being in this environment.
I mean, I'm from LA originally from here. Orange County is very boring, but like, just get out
there, be in front of people and just immerse yourself in whatever it is that, that your,
your idea is.
And your idea has been a lot.
This hasn't been like something that happened overnight for you.
I mean, I've like, how long have you had this like whole brand?
Leila Maloney Hair has been around for almost 10 years now.
Yeah, I know.
You've put the work in.
I've put the work in and I really believe in the product.
We've expanded, you know, the market is super saturated and things are so different now.
But I have another brand, Hairdomin, which is the hair supplement that i've been taking the
one for moms good it's do you like it yeah i love it it's just one a day i just want my hair to look
like yours it's good well actually it is gonna look like my ears because you're gonna do the
extensions you brought me your extensions that are beautiful they're 24 inch perfect like i wanted
you to go just super long if you do some sexy like mermaid down to my ass that's what you need okay yeah i'm gonna definitely try yeah in a
lot of ways i mean i couldn't agree with you more of what you said about kind of blocking out the
naysayers and not listening when i think about our career and i think probably this is in line
every time there's been an idea where i was like yeah that's a good one keep going it's always been
the most short-lived it's not been the things that people have said no don't do that i don't
get that you shouldn't be pursuing that those have been so different those have been the most short-lived it's not been the things that people have said no don't do that i don't get that you shouldn't be pursuing that those have been so different those have been
the most successful yeah and it's hard though because you're if you're a young guy young girl
and you're starting your parents are saying hey don't do that or your friends or other success i
mean listen to them yeah and you listen you say okay i mean lauren when she was bartending she
she always tells the story i'll tell it for you honey but she basically was telling this guy while
she was bartending hey i'm going to start this blog that's going to this brand. And it's going to launch these other things. And the guy's
like, how are you going to make money doing that? That's a bad idea. I don't get that.
Back then who was doing blogs?
And he was the inventor of the airbag. So he was extremely successful guy. So you look at someone
like that and you're like, Oh, he must under, he must have a good idea of what success looks like.
If she would have listened to him, there's so many things that wouldn't have happened
because of that. Right. And I think it's so important to be able to block that out and stick to your path.
I always say if people get what you're doing, you're not doing something right.
I want to be a disruptor.
I want to disrupt the industry.
So what would your piece of advice be to entrepreneurs?
Well, first things first, write your vision board where you want to be five, ten years from now.
That's so important.
I always did that.
Because otherwise you're just going to idle through life.
You're going to get comfortable.
The first business you open,
it's going to start making you money.
You're going to buy that Mercedes or BMW,
get a nicer home.
And then you just go on cruise control mode
and then you don't grow, right?
So write your vision board,
make sure it's really big, you know, dream big.
Super detailed.
Yeah.
And then, you know, just go out there
and count your blessings.
A lot of people don't realize just by having the freedom of waking up and being free to go out and go jog or go exercise or go-
Or to create or launch a business.
Yeah.
Go to a Starbucks and meet new people.
That's a blessing.
You don't get that in many countries.
We couldn't do that in Iran.
Yeah.
That's why we left.
So count your blessings.
Always exercise. Exercise is the best antidepressant drug. We couldn't do that in Iran. Yeah. That's why we left. So, you know, always exercise.
You know, exercise is the best antidepressant
drug. People don't know. They just started
doing that. Yeah. So I work out five
days a week. Even if it's 10 minutes, it doesn't
matter. If you don't have weights or equipment,
roll out of bed and start
doing push-ups and set-ups.
Yeah. Use your body weight.
You gotta do something. You gotta move.
Yeah. So be productive, you know. It's impossible to be depressed when you're struggling like that. When your body weight. You got to do something. You got to move. Yeah. So be productive, you know.
It's impossible to be depressed when you're struggling like that.
When your body's struggling and you're sweating and you're burning through.
Just keep yourself busy.
Yeah, you literally don't have the time to think about suffering because you're physically suffering.
Yeah, your focus shifts to something else, you know.
And exercising for me is not building my body.
It's more of building my mindset.
You know, it helps you focus more.
And while I'm in sauna after working out every morning, I do a lot of my day planning, you know.
Even though I've written it a day before, but I go out there and modify it and add extra stuff, you know.
So I'm in a work mode, you know, even though I was working out.
Life is amazing.
Just go out there, be productive, do something, you know, leave your mark.
And people in the U.S. don't know how good they have it.
I mean, I've obviously lived in many different countries.
And for me, I think that's what's driven me and given me that hustler mentality.
And I always say hustler, but like, you know, that go-getter mentality.
It's like you go out there and you don't know just how much opportunity there is.
As long as you're willing to work for it and just go for it.
There's so many ways that you can be successful and make money
that you just, it's almost laughable to me sometimes that people complain, like even my
own younger sister, she's, you know, she's 10 years younger than me. And in a way she's been
sort of sheltered because she grew up in Beverly Hills. She went to Beverly Hills High School. You
know, my mom was able to buy her a nice car when she was able to, you know, I didn't have any of
that stuff. And, you know, I don't want to say, you know, she's gotten, you know, lazy or anything, but she definitely doesn't have the same drive and
motivation as I do because I suffered to get everything that I wanted to get. You're so right.
You know, I mean, it's funny because I get in trouble for this because I have very little
sympathy for anybody living in the U.S. that's feeling sorry for themselves. They have so much
opportunity. I mean, even during those protests were like protesting the one percent they don't realize if you're in the one if you if you're
protesting one percent if you're living in the u.s you are in the one percent of the entire world
people just don't have the ability to think about it to think globally in another country it's not
it's not the same thing to go vacation in another country go live there and then you'll see how much
opportunities you have here versus there yeah they're complaining on their iphone and their
pickets you know as they're drinking their starbucks and it's like listen there's
going to be people that ride in and give me flack for this but it's true it's statistically it's true
if you're in the united states and you and you're living here you have so much opportunity of so
much freedom and you are in the one percent of the entire world you can literally do anything
you can be anything i mean if you're listening to this show whether it's in your car or on your
phone or on your computer.
What's a day in the life for each of you?
I want to know what time you guys wake up.
I get obsessed with how successful people start their day.
We never sleep.
You don't sleep?
You look like you sleep. Thank you.
I try.
But when you have two kids, it kicks your ass.
Oh, shit.
When we had one, one was manageable.
Two is like 50.
I swear to God. Well, let's be your first. Yeah, let's be our first. Two is like 50. I swear to God.
Well, let's be your first.
Yeah, let's be our first.
You're in for a treat.
So I wake up super early.
I wake up probably like 6, 6.30 in the morning.
If my son wakes up at the same time, I go, you know, grab him out of the crib.
My daughter sleeps with my husband right now.
She's going through this phase.
And then I get her ready.
I get her ready in the morning,
which is a whole show on its own.
Every morning,
she's got a lot of personality and she's just very sassy
and drama queen.
So getting her ready,
getting her downstairs.
I wonder who she took after.
Brushes her teeth,
get her dressed,
bring her down,
feed her just to make sure she eats
because she just likes to play games with me.
And then one of us usually takes her to school
and then I get in the shower, I get ready and then I go to my office. because she just likes to play games with me. And then one of us usually takes her to school.
And then I get in the shower, I get ready.
And then I go to my office.
In between that, I'm checking emails.
And then I go to my office.
We work in the same building.
And we sometimes do lunch.
But lately, we don't anymore because he's just so,
just doesn't have a good attitude lately.
His business, he's just so busy
and like has a lot on his plate.
So it's like, we're both on our phones anyway.
So I'm like, let's not do that.
You got to take her to lunch.
I know.
Do you guys, I have,
this is a quick side note tangent,
just selfishly.
Michael and I eventually want to get a building
and work in the same building together.
Did you guys buy a building and work together?
Yeah, have like an easy West Wing or UBS.
Yes, wings, wings.
Yes, that's what I want.
That's the goal i want yeah don't
be in each other's face because honestly you want to miss each other you want to go home and like
feel like oh my god i've missed you where have you been i haven't seen your face yeah i don't think
we know like you've been mean to me at lunch we're self-aware enough to know we couldn't work
together in the same space for for too long we could do the show this is why we like the show
because we can come on and have these conversations how long long is the show in the day? It's only a couple of times a week and we
only, we just, six of these a month. That's it. So we have time. So, okay. So go on. So you guys
are working together, but separately, separately, we may do lunch. We may not. And then I come home
usually earlier than him. I either pick up one of the kids or I run a few errands and then I come
home. I figure out what we're going to eat, eat which is usually postmates i wish i could cook in the next life hopefully yeah i'm basically
starving to death over here fucking figure it out you know i do other things bitch exactly
that's fine as long as those things are taking place i'll figure out the food you do other
things too we're busy exactly exactly i'm not sitting at home going to my pilates class you
know shopping and then just being at home so i'm not doing that i'm doing a lot of stuff anyway
i come home and i spend time with the kids um we figure out what we're gonna eat and then we just
wait for him to get home usually or if we have date night we try to do date night like once or
twice a week that's good that's super important when you have kids. And if you ever do like couples dates, which we do that
too, we always try to go, again
because we love being on time, we always go a little bit earlier
so we can have a little bit of us time.
We'll have a cocktail or something and
then the other couple will join us. So we have that like a little
bit of time together. I like that idea. That's a very good
idea. Yeah. Okay. And what's your
morning? Yeah. My morning starts
around 3, 4 a.m.
Yeah. I get up early. I don't sleep much. Yeah, he doesn't. 3-4 a.m. Yeah. I don't sleep much.
3 or 4 a.m.
And that's after me taking a bunch of melatonin, CBD oil, all kinds of stuff.
What time is bedtime?
My bedtime is about 10-10.30.
So I get about 4-5 hours of sleep.
You think that's going to be sustainable?
It is.
I've been like that all my life.
Holy shit.
Yeah.
You know, my mind doesn't stop. And that's the struggle, you it is I've been like that all my life holy shit yeah you know
my mind doesn't stop
and I have to
that's the struggle
you know
I mean
I'm so motivated
I suffer from
too much motivation
he emails me
in the middle
and then I
like
he sends me an article
and I try to
offload it
on social media
you know
inspiring others
and write codes
when did you
start posting on social
so my sister
yeah
her sister got us
terrible things about her but
she's the one that got us on instagram she's the one years ago or six no i was longer i don't know
i mean when instagram really started she got us on instagram and she's like you guys need to get
on this we're on facebook and myspace on facebook back then and she's like this is like the hot new
thing you guys need to get on it so she got us an account and i mean how do we even start i think we
just started posting like our kids.
No, we didn't have kids.
When did we start posting?
I posted my Bugatti.
No, you didn't have a Bugatti backpack.
I did.
I bought my Bugatti in 2011.
Really?
Is that when Instagram really started?
I think so.
Well, that's when we got it.
So what was the initial goal?
You just were posting for fun and now it's to inspire?
Yeah, just share your story.
You know, my success story, my struggles. And I realized so many immigrants are in this country and are going through the same journey I was going through, you know, when I was 16, 17, 18.
And so they really connected, you know, with my story.
And, you know, I've been in several, I mean, I've written two books on real estate and also shared my biography in those books.
So a lot of people, you know, probably so 100,000
plus copies. So, you know, I did have a little bit of fan base when I started my Instagram,
my book came out in 2011. So long story short, my day starts at 3, 4 a.m. I get on social media,
respond to some people. And then I do have a private Facebook group, which is my mentorship
platform. So I respond and engage my members. A lot of them have real estate questions. And then by about 5.36 AM, I'll go
down, get my first cup of coffee, you know, watch the news, see what's going on. Because I mean,
real estate and real estate is driven by economy. So you got to be, you know, semi-economist,
you know, to be successful at timing the real estate, when to buy, when to sell.
So I mean, there's a series of channels and sites
I watch religiously for the past 25 years.
When's LA market going to soften up?
It already has.
It's starting to, I think a little bit.
Yeah.
So I do that.
And then by 7 a.m., my personal trainer shows up.
So we do a quick circuit training workout,
30 to 40 minutes.
And then I hit the sauna.
And then I usually take my daughter to a school and then get to office by about 9, 10.
And then at 9, 10, I already have two or three meetings set up.
From 9, 10 to 11, I have meetings.
And then I break for lunch, 11, 30.
And then do a couple of more meetings after lunch.
And then I usually end up at my cigar lounge.
I was going to say, then you go to Cabana.
At 2.30, I go to Cigar Lounge,
which is a gorgeous place I built
on my marina right on the water.
We've got to come next time we're in Newport Beach.
I want to see it. It's in Newport? Yeah.
It's got 21 boats, lifts,
amazing restaurants. You can't be around smoke.
When I'm not pregnant. Yeah.
I don't want to leave the house until I'm done
being pregnant so I can have wine.
In January. Oh, Capricorn? No way. I think Aquarius or Capricorn. We don't want to leave the house until I'm done being pregnant so I can have wine. In January.
Oh, Capricorn?
No way.
I think Aquarius or Capricorn.
We don't know.
He's a Capricorn.
Yeah.
Capricorn's rule.
They're good with numbers.
Yeah.
I'm not kidding you.
Clearly.
So that's about my day.
Okay.
Yeah.
I mean, I do record record and then we have events
you know different things
philanthropy
or just events
that we need to go to
sometimes we come to LA
for different things
so those get added
what's easier
a girl or a boy
boy
god everyone says that
yeah
everyone says that
at least our boy
our daughter is a riot
she's just
yeah she just started
her own YouTube channel
okay so every day
that he would take him
to work
to her school I guess she found day that he would take him to her
school, I guess she found out that
he has this whole YouTube thing going on now.
And so she's like, I want to
have a YouTube channel. I want to open
my toys. I want to do this.
I want to make money. And she said she wants to make
money. What do you guys expect
though when you two breed together?
That's all we talk about.
She said something crazy the other day. I'm like, why don't you want to go to school? Because every day she argues talk about. She said something crazy the other day.
I'm like,
why don't you want to go to school?
Because every day
she argues with me.
She says something like,
because I can't make money there.
Like something to that effect,
she told me.
The teacher doesn't like
make me make money.
So she goes to the office
with him on Saturday.
It took me about 20 years
to figure that out.
Wait, let me ask you this.
What's the ruling now?
Because, you know,
we're going to have to
navigate this at some point.
What's the ruling
with social media and kids?
Like, how do you...
We don't have our, like, on our...
Specific...
No, I mean, like, her specific...
Like, is she allowed to go on Instagram or YouTube?
No, no, no.
She doesn't even know how to.
No, no, no.
We record it.
It's just for YouTube.
It's not on Instagram.
Okay.
Yeah.
And how old?
What do you think?
Do you think you'll let...
She's seven.
Seven.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I mean, we just literally launched it today.
Like, he put the video up today.
Yeah.
So...
I mean, I think if she wants to do it, and you guys are monitoring it.
Right.
I mean, I was recorded.
He's with her in the CEO.
It's entrepreneurial.
It's enormous amount of potential.
I mean, there's Kid Ryan's world.
I heard he's made like 55 million bucks last year.
The toy kid.
He's got toys, Colgate toothpaste.
Yeah, but now the FTC is after them.
Uh-oh.
For not disclosing that they're like paid.
The FTC is always. Yeah. Why don't they see people making money? It doesn't matter. Look, first make the FTC is after them for not disclosing that they were paid. The FTC is always...
Why don't they see people making money? It doesn't matter. Look,
first make the money, then worry about it.
Do it and apologize later.
He'll settle that deal for about 10%
and keep moving. I want to talk about your beauty tips.
Okay. First of all,
you got to tell us how you look like this after
two kids. Thanks so much. Because you look like a
21-year-old. Oh my god, I love you.
I don't always feel that way. Thank you for saying that Because you look like a 21-year-old. Oh my God, I love you. I don't always feel that way.
Thank you for saying that.
I think for me,
it's just,
I really try to follow
a healthy lifestyle.
Like, I don't really drink.
I don't smoke and other drugs.
I don't drink sodas.
I don't go to Starbucks
or anything.
Like, I'm really healthy
in that regard.
I drink a lot of tea,
as you can see.
Yeah, you just put something
in your tea.
What was that?
It's honey.
It's Manuka honey.
Yeah, she carries her own stash. I want to take a picture. Yeah, it's from. You just put something in your tea. What was that? It's Manuka honey. I want to take a picture.
It's from Whole Foods.
So you do your tea. She does her camomile.
How do you say it? Camomile?
I do decaf after like 10 a.m.
Before 10 a.m. it's all caffeinated.
And you do it with Manuka honey.
I drink a lot of tea.
I'm taking a picture of this. You guys, I'll put it on Instagram.
But the real secret is she orders hot water with lemon.
Yeah, like tea and just hot water. I drink a lot of hot beverages.
So one thing you should not do is
drink a lot of cold beverages because it just
like freezes everything. And that's what the restaurants serve
you. I have like five cold beverages in front of me.
Guys, okay. For us girls.
I'm fucked. I'm drinking
like an iced coffee. Yeah, I know it's
hot, but I'm always cold. So for me, I like
warm beverages. I would say just like not eating too late. And I don't like eat fast coffee. Yeah, I know it's hot, but I'm always cold. So for me, I like warm beverages.
I would say just like not eating too late.
And I don't like eat fast food.
I don't, you know, I don't have like a sugar craving or anything.
Do you have any cravings, by the way?
I'm craving cereal, like healthy version of life cereal.
It's Barbara's life cereal.
And then peaches.
Do you mean right now when she's pregnant or just in general?
I'm not going to have any issues with gaining too much weight.
You're fine.
You're going to be fine.
When I left the hospital, I lost like 10 pounds immediately
because it was the baby, the placenta and all that.
So for me, honestly, I just stayed really active.
I was working nonstop.
And I was very mindful of what I was eating,
what I was putting in my body.
And what's a typical breakfast
for you? Oatmeal with lots of chia seeds, hemp milk, lots of fruits, whatever fruit I have at
the time, cinnamon. I eat a lot of spices like turmeric, black pepper, cinnamon, things like
that. I just discovered tahini, which is like heaven. I put that shit on everything now. I
discovered it in Mexico. Anyway, lunch is, I mean, I always eat out.
I wish I could cook.
I make eggs really well.
She does.
It's actually on my highlight story.
I think I've seen
your highlight story of eggs.
It's like a Persian style.
Her omelette's my favorite.
It's like the best.
Nobody can beat me in that.
But you can make a couple,
like three or four good dishes.
That's all you need.
I mean, that's all you need.
Yeah, seriously.
And then you just,
like for me, eggs is easy
because you can literally
throw anything in it and it's good. I eat a lot of eggs. That's my other secret. Okay. I they just like for me, eggs is easy because you can literally throw anything in it and it's
good.
I eat a lot of eggs.
That's my other secret.
OK, I eat like three
eggs a day and not a lot
of alcohol.
You said you're not a
big like once or twice a
week.
I'll have a cocktail or
a wine or something.
I don't like alcohol.
I don't like how I feel
like while I'm drinking
or the next day.
I just don't like, you
know, well, if Manny's
waking up at three a.m.,
I mean, you can't be
drinking alcohol.
We can't.
And we have kids like no matter what, they're going to wake our asses up. So it's not going at 3 a.m., I mean, you can't be drinking alcohol waking up at 3 a.m. And we have kids.
No matter what, they're going to wake our asses up.
So it's not going to be fun the next day.
Yeah, I'm cutting back on alcohol, too, because every time I go to smoke a cigar, I have a
little scotch, sometimes red wine, and it adds up, right?
Yeah, sure.
It just slows you down.
I don't like anything that slows me down.
I want to be on my A-game all the time.
What are some of your beauty tips, like your skin secrets?
Or I know everyone's going to want to know what lashes you're wearing.
I'm wearing Lily lashes.
Okay, that's what I thought.
Not just because she's my favorite.
Really pretty lashes.
They're amazing.
Her lashes are just so glam.
I love Skin Better now.
My esthetician, Kat, she turned me on to it.
And it's amazing.
It's by the same founders of Allergan.
And it's just really medical grade good stuff.
I use that right now.
I use charcoal toothpaste.
I don't know.
Mary, what are your beauty routines?
Wait, wait, wait.
Wait, we gotta talk.
Don't fuck with the hair.
I need to talk about that.
I was gonna ask you.
He has a beauty routine.
Yeah.
Whatever my life gives me.
He has good hair.
He should be a model for hair to get man hair.
Yeah.
I can't stop staring at you.
I got some hair. Your hair be a model for Hair to Man. Yeah. I can't stop staring at you.
I got some hair.
Your hair takes 45 minutes to do every morning in your separate bathroom.
No way.
So Hair to Man is a natural supplement, and it helps grow your hair longer and thicker.
It doesn't look like you need it.
I used to have hair down here.
It was really strange, though. That's what I've been taking, and my hair is just growing like crazy right now.
I had this hair.
That's the one I've been taking the mom one.
So there's Hairderman Mom, which is a prenatal, postnatal and hair vitamin.
Okay.
When you, I mean, I don't know if you've experienced hair shedding yet, but you may.
Not yet.
Is it going to shed?
I did with my son, with my second pregnancy.
And your hair is just naturally like that.
It's just, I mean, my hair has always been good, but it's never been like this.
And people don't believe that it is all my hair because it just looks like a big like crazy set of extensions
but
and also I have a hair extension line
so I understand
like why people could get confused
people assume
but I do multiple videos
I show like basically my scalp
I'm like
and somebody will say
I see some tracks in there
I'm like I swear
like what else do I need to do
in the background behind there
there's this one thing that I saw.
I'm like, here's a full video
unedited. You gotta show your skull.
I have a confession. I'm wearing extensions.
I knew it.
He looks like you're wearing a toupee today.
You have good hair. Thank you.
Like I said, I had it down here. And the reason I cut it
is Lauren and I were eating at a bar
one time and I was behind. And the guy walked up to me
and he's like, here's your pizza, ladies.
And I saw his fucking hair
and I had to cut it right off.
So that's it.
That's a good reason.
Yeah, I had to cut it off.
But one time we were at a restaurant
and a girl walked up to you
and pulled your hair, right?
No, no, no.
To see if it was for real.
So I've had like, you know,
girls sometimes like, you know,
pretend like they're being
like fake nice
and they'll be like,
hey babe, how are you?
And they'll put their hand
behind your head
to like say hello
to bring you close.
But meanwhile,
she's like feeling my scalp.
Yeah.
Could you imagine?
I have nothing to hide
but my follicles.
Fuck.
Nothing shocks me.
That's so bad.
Nothing shocks me in this town.
That's aggressive.
Yeah.
Do you guys like living
in Orange County?
I love it.
Like this,
it's the best place
to raise a family
in my opinion.
We live in the best part
of California in my opinion. It's the best part of california in
my opinion it's just so beautiful so serene it's like resort living and there's no traffic there's
no crazy drivers there's no potholes you don't get a ticket for jaywalking like i used to here
or parking you're turning your wheels the wrong way like you don't get any of that crap in orange
county and people are just more relaxed yeah i feel like we need to go look down there so many
people are buying second homes down there.
Yeah, maybe, Michael.
You know, because we grew up in San Diego,
which there's some pockets of San Diego
that are also kind of calm and quiet.
But coming up here, I always felt I wanted to get out
because it was too slow.
And now I'm here, I'm like, oh shit,
now I kind of want to reverse.
It's like, oh, it's grass, it's greener.
But I think next like two, three years here,
and then we'll probably start figuring out
where we want to end up.
I think if you're single or you don't have kids,
you need to be in LA if you're an entrepreneur
and you're going after all that.
But once you're settled down,
Orange County is the place.
Life's too short.
You want to get to a point in your life
where you want to enjoy life too, right?
I mean, hustling is good,
but not all your life.
What are some health and wellness things
that each of you guys do on a daily basis
or once a week or just stuff that you do for yourself for self-care? I get a lot of massages
because I suffer from neck and shoulder pain. So that for me is really helpful. And I just started
working out twice a week. Yeah. I go to my chiropractor usually once a week, if not at
least once every two weeks, get adjustment. They have a masseuse there that must relax your body.
And then I work out five days a week.
And you said sauna.
Yeah, sauna every day.
We need to get a sauna.
Is it in the house?
Yeah.
Yeah, we built it.
It was a third closet.
He was supposed to turn that into his mini closet.
Because I wanted both closets.
She wanted to take the entire closet.
Well, now my stuff is falling out. He wants to take the entire closet. Well, now my stuff is falling out.
He wants to take the entire closet from me.
No, we don't need that.
I would rather, if you want to put it in a sauna, I'm down for the sauna.
Okay, well.
Try to do an infrared.
We didn't do the infrared.
We wish you did.
Infrared is overrated.
I don't know.
But you know, the other thing is too, every morning when I turn the shower on, I get right on it.
You know, it's cold.
It's a cold shower in the morning.
That first 30 seconds, it really wakes you up.
You know, it's kind of like doing a mini cold plunge, if you want to call it.
That's a good tip.
So I do that every day.
Every day I do that.
And try it.
At first, you're going to cuss, you know.
I think people should seek out discomfort every day.
I think like actively seek out discomfort.
I think it's such a...
Like people, when I get up, I get up at five and I'll go and run outside and be cold.
Like the problem is people, everyone's working for comfort they want to be comfortable
and i think like human beings are meant to struggle it's what keeps you sharp it's what
keeps you on point there's so many people's growth it kills it and so i think like even
little things like that jumping in a cold shower or going outside when it's cold or getting up when
it's dark or like moving your phone across the room so you're forced to get out of bed when you
don't want to like so many things are important when i go to a store i always park my car further so i can get that
get the extra steps in and my house now we have stairs to our master bedroom and i'm constantly
going back up and down and i love it and we have an elevator obviously i don't use the elevator
but that really helps so just i'd love an elevator and a sauna okay we use that for our luggage
manny what is your book about? Your books.
Two books.
So my books.
My first book,
Contrarian Playbook,
How to Build Your $100 Million
Real Estate Portfolio
is mainly about real estate,
how I built my,
you know,
wealth through real estate investing.
And then the second one
is more about biography.
Driven is really my mindset.
You know,
I'm a very driven guy.
You know,
throw me in any situation,
I'll figure it out
one way or another.
Of course, I share-
There's some family pictures in there too.
Yeah, I share Layla, my kids.
For young people starting out right now,
if they're thinking about real estate,
I mean, the landscape's changed.
It's obviously a little bit,
it's different than when you started.
Where would you suggest they look?
Residential, commercial?
Is it a single family home?
Definitely multifamily,
like complex,
five-place, four-place. But real estate is all about timing. If you bought any real estate in
2007, you would have had to wait 10 years to get your equity back. But if you threw a dart up in
2011, it landed on any property, you would have doubled your money, right? So it's all about 99%
is timing, 1% is preparation. So be prepared, make sure you qualify, save your money, get all your ducks in a row,
and then wait for recession when you see foreclosures left and right.
I actually invested with him too.
I left that part out.
So I took some of my deal or no deal money and invested in a commercial property with him in Texas.
Smart.
You guys are a smart, sharp couple.
I like it.
Thank you.
I mean, you don't see a lot like you guys.
This is a power couple.
Thank you.
What is a book, a resource, or a podcast that you guys would recommend to our audience that's brought you a lot of value?
It could be even a Netflix show.
I mean, it could be anything.
Well, early on, I mean, I read Trump's book, you know, The Art of the Deal.
And I loved how to negotiate.
You know, you make your money on the buy in real estate. And I loved all these tactics, negotiation,
you know, went after properties that were now loved and attractive and then add value and boom,
made a killing on him. So that to me, like, you know, always, you know, I always go back to that
when I want to negotiate or find a property. When I was younger, I was just obsessed with
reading successful people's story. I think one of my favorite books was about Larry Ellison,
the founder of Oracle. I read his book, Martha Stewart's book before she went to jail. And
like The Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I read all of that. Think and Grow Rich, like that was one of the
first books. Napoleon Hill. Yeah. Now I'm more just online sources. There's a really great indie
beauty news site called Beauty Independent.
I think they have really great articles for indie beauty brands.
And so I read that a lot.
What's next for both of you guys?
We want to travel more.
Where do you want to go?
Everywhere.
You guys were in Greece.
Yes.
Yeah, but she wants to travel.
Like, literally, she wants to move to Monaco for two years.
I don't like to stay still anywhere.
That's where Ingrid lives.
That's why I want you to meet Ingrid.
Yeah, that's why she has the same energy as you. Next year, we'll all go. that's where ingrid lives that's why i want you to meet yeah that's
why she has the same energy as you next year we'll grow that's where she lives yes does she have kids
she has three kids oh my god i'll connect you guys on instagram um monaco's amazing to live
yeah we went for formula one we went to even i mean it doesn't have to be permanent like i would
love to live there the whole coast for like three years two years whatever like learn french i mean i have some french background being in canada but like
imagine just being in a place like that and just everything that you can be exposed to and just a
different life and it's it's amazing i mean you can't you can't beat it and every time i go there
too i say to michael like why i don't understand why we don't live here half the year and yeah i
don't understand and when most of my work is the year. And yeah, I don't understand.
And when most of my work is on the phone and the computer, you can do it anywhere.
And also, I think it shows movement to nowadays, like people are so into experience and movement.
And it's not, you know, about all the stuff, but it's more about getting out there and experiencing different new situations.
Opens your eyes, too, because you see things you don't see here.
Right.
So how about when you guys move to monaco we move too because i would like you know i'm
still i've actually proposed that to you i'm still in that phase where i can go somewhere for like
three weeks and then i get the itch i'm like i gotta get back to the house i gotta get going
the same way i can't i can't so lauren and i will hang out we'll wait for you guys
you could think of it from a business perspective
like you can go over there so here she's got the hard sale no it's you know what i love about it
is that you are so close to so many different countries there like here if i want to travel
with my kids it's a pain in the ass like we don't take our kids over to europe we go to cabo because
it's so close yeah it's a pain to travel with little children yeah we went to dubai we paid
for it for a year. Our daughter never slept
the same ever since then.
Why?
Because the time difference
is such a bitch.
It's 16 hours
and for some reason
that you don't get back to normal.
Like for us,
it took us like over a week
to get back to normal.
Imagine kids.
That's interesting.
I never thought about that.
Anyway, if you live somewhere
like Monaco,
you're so close to
all these other
incredible countries
that you can go see
and don't you want your kid to know french so you got the hard she's got the hard sale going now
you don't want the kid to be bilingual hello or trilingual yeah trilingual i think well now that
you say it so mandarin like go live in japan even or china or wherever what's the big deal we can
podcast there we can vlog there i was saying if i was smart we would just go we would go to a place like that we would just do this podcast
chill relax i don't have it in me i gotta keep i gotta keep pushing we can keep pushing there
we'll talk about it well start taking vacations there and just extend your vacation a little bit
at a time and just get a feel for it yeah you are right though about the taxes you could go there
and maybe work half as hard and still make just as much more of your money yeah especially here
in california exactly i think it's good what's next for you manny for me well i want to inspire You could go there and maybe work half as hard and still make just as much. Yeah. More of your money. Yeah. Especially here in California.
Exactly.
I think it's good.
What's next for you, Manny?
For me?
Well, I want to inspire millions of people.
And already I get for past like two, three years, I've been kind of mentoring people by DM.
But now I just started my platform in May this year.
So I have 800 plus people on the platform.
And I love it.
You know, it's like giving back and really, you know, when I was doing my real estate
investing 25 years ago, I didn't have anybody to tell me, hey, don't get a hard money on
this property.
You know, the interest is going to kill you and the economy is not the right time to buy
it.
And I've made so many mistakes, right?
So I love giving back and seeing people's response.
A year later, they sent me a gift, box of cigars.
Say, hey, I just flipped my fourplex.
Thanks to you.
I was going to buy a single family.
You told me to buy a fourplex that's got rents below market.
Put a new landscape.
And I bumped up the rents and I flipped it.
I made 180 grand, blah, blah, blah.
So I love hearing that stuff, you know.
So I guess just giving back more, you know.
We just pledged a million dollars to Chalk Hospital at their autism center.
Wow.
So we're doing more and more philanthropy.
That's cool, you guys.
We don't talk about some of this stuff, but yeah.
But everybody keeps hating on us.
Like every time I buy a new, like I got a fourth Bugatti coming
or a third Bugatti coming.
That's your business though.
They're like, oh, you're buying all these cars.
You know how many people you could feed.
But we do, we give back so much to charities.
But if you post it, they're going to say you're, you know,
nobody cares about charity, but few that do.
I think we really need to start posting more about that.
I mean, it's not my personality to like, you know,
go overboard with things like that.
I mean, you do it from your heart.
I'm on the board for the Chalk Children's Hospital as well.
And we meet monthly and there's different events that we do for the hospital.
And we just did this million dollar pledge. But it's like, you know, people do like seeing that. So in a way you are inspiring
people by doing that. So it's not like you're showing off what you're doing. It's really,
you're trying to inspire. And so if we're posting our vacation, I think we need to also post some
of our philanthropic efforts. But the main thing though, is that you can do both. And I think the
people that sit there and judge, you know, it's like, what are you doing? What are you contributing?
Like, come on. And it's usually people that are not doing
anything and they're just passing judgment. Yeah. Yeah. I mostly just hit block. And so I don't
even care. Are you doubling down on hair extensions for your business? I'm actually doubling down on
supplements and wellness. I think that's definitely a more growing sector. I think, you know, right
now it's all about beauty from the inside out. Extensions are great, but again, they're a commodity and it's not something you can control. And right
now with China and tariffs and all that. Prices have like. Unknown that's going to happen. You
just never know. So I think really just wellness and beauty. You guys are amazing. You're inspiring.
Thank you so much for coming on. You can come back anytime. Pimp yourself out, your Instagrams,
your websites, everything. At Leila Malani on Instagram and then leilamalani.com or hereteman.com.
And what's your business's Instagram? At Leila Malani here and at Hereteman.
Mine's easy. At Manny Kosh, Ben.
Follow both of them because I'm telling you, if you're a hustler or an entrepreneur,
like you want your want inspo to be a power couple they're it yep we're gonna link everything
out too thank you guys for coming on this is awesome thank you for my evil eye flowers
you and that baby yeah i have evil eyes everywhere and it matches your
my vibe but the only problem is i gifted myself this evil eye on my brain maybe for your push
present but ingrid gives gave me my necklace so yeah and we got the flowers and the necklace michael needs an evil eye penis ring
i already have one of those
you guys are too funny guys if you want to win some major leila malani products and some hair
to win uh both her products awesome. She also has this
pink hairbrush that is so good and extensions. We are going to give away a basket full of her
goodies. All you have to do is tell us your favorite part of this show on my latest Instagram
at The Skinny Confidential and follow Leila Malani on Instagram. That's L-E-Y-L-A-M-I-L-A-N-I, and then follow her company, Hairdaman. That's H-A-I-R-T-A-M-I-N. You will
love both these accounts. They're major, and the goodies that someone's going to win is like
heaven. Thank you guys so much for tuning in to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. We will
see you on Tuesday. Make sure you've rated and reviewed the podcast on iTunes. See you next week.