Trading Secrets - 274. Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino: From Hustling & Jersey Shore Fame to Prison, Sobriety, and Building a Legacy, BTS of Authenticity, Financial Highs & Lows, and his Superpower

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

Trading Secrets Podcast – 1/19/25 – Mike “The Situation” SorrentinoThis week, Jason is joined by reality TV icon, entrepreneur, and one of the most recognizable TV personalities of the past decade, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino!Mike rose to global fame as an original cast member of MTV’s Jersey Shore and continues to star on Jersey Shore Family Vacation with over 15 years of television. Beyond reality TV, he’s a bestselling author of Reality Check: Making the Best of The Situation. He’s a successful entrepreneur, investor, and a leading voice in addiction recovery now with his own addiction centers, Archangel Centers, inspiring millions with his platform.  Now he is also known as St. Michael, he lives and dies by comeback is greater than the setback, and also now it’s cookies and comeback with Bang Cookies. Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino shares his unfiltered journey from life before Jersey Shore to reality TV fame, prison, and redemption. He breaks down how authenticity shaped “The Situation” persona, the street principles that carried into business, and how curiosity led him down the path of addiction. Mike opens up about cast royalties, changing earnings over time, his tax evasion case, and the lessons learned during incarceration. Now sober, he explains why sobriety is his greatest superpower, how he rebuilt his life, and the businesses he’s built since—including seven-figure book sales, addiction recovery centers, and new ventures. He also shares his perspective on love, money, and what finally changed everything.Mike reveals all this and so much more in another episode you can’t afford to miss!Host: Jason TartickCo-Host: David ArduinAudio: John GurneyGuest: Mike “The Situation” SorrentinoStay connected with the Trading Secrets Podcast! Instagram: @tradingsecretspodcast Youtube: Trading SecretsFacebook: Join the Group All Access: Free 30-Day Trial Trading Secrets Steals & Deals!Boll & Branch:Boll & Branch's Signature Sheets and Waffle Bed Blanket are a must-have bedding combination.Discover a softness beyond your wildest dreams with Boll & Branch. Get 15% off your first order plus free shipping at BollAndBranch.com/tradingsecrets with code tradingsecrets.Northwest Registered Agent:Northwest Registered Agent has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. Don't wait, protect your privacy, build your brand and get your complete business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes! Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/tradingsecretsfree and start building something amazing!Wayfair:The new year is HERE. Get back into an at-home routine you LOVE and elevate your space with Wayfair. From bedding and mattresses to storage solutions for every room in the house, Wayfair is your one-stop shop. Get organized, refreshed, and back on track this new year for WAY less. Head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home.

Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. Today we are joined by a reality television icon, entrepreneur, and one of the most recognizable TV personalities of the past decade. Mike, the situation, Sorrentino. Mike rose to global fame as an original cast of MTV's Jersey Shore and continues to star on Jersey Shore Family Vacation with over 15 years of television. Beyond reality TV, he's a best-selling author of Reality Channel. make the best of the situation. He's a successful entrepreneur, investor, in a leading voice in addiction recovery, now with his own addiction centers, Archangel centers, inspiring millions with his platform. Now he's also known as St. Michael. He lives and dies by comeback is greater than this setback,

but also now it's cookies and comeback with bang cookies. They're on the desk if you're watching on YouTube. We'll talk about that too. But Mike, so much action. What a story. I'll be honest with you. That intro was fire. Let's go. You deserve, your life has been fire. Your life has been fire. I'm very grateful to be here. Yeah. And I'm very excited to have a very interesting and intriguing conversation. I love it. And we're excited to have you. And I want to let everyone

know, go give us five stars in a review and put your email address in the review because we have a signed copy of Mike's book that we are giving away. If you're watching on YouTube, it's right here. And a lot of the stories we're going to talk about are in your book. So we'll, we'll, this is a big promotion for the book and everything that's going on. But let's start with where it all started. And that's before Jersey Shore. Yes. I mean, you have, I was digging through things online.

I saw all kinds of stuff. I saw that you might have been a stripper. Yes. You might have been a drug dealer. Yes. You were a personal trainer. Talk to you about, like, what was the professional life of Mike the situation before? Well, I had quite, well, I wore many hats, okay?

And you are correct. I was a stripper. I was a drug dealer. I was in a spying lot. And I'll be honest with you, around that time, I didn't really make that much money, and I didn't even have to file taxes. Wow. Yeah.

Of all those areas, where was, like, where were you making the most? Probably off the books. Yeah. Yeah. Drug dealing? Yeah. I was pretty good at that. Yeah.

Yeah. So, like, that actually starts from the onset. Were you ever taught anything about taxes or finance from your... No, no. I'm very glad you brought that out. No, in school, they don't teach you any of that. You know, they might teach you. you the pletheglarium theorem. But I don't think we use that today. But I do think that they should

teach the kids about taxes filing quarterly, that Uncle Sam is your partner, whether you like it or not. And if you don't file taxes, Uncle Sam will come knocking on your door three years later, teach you about statute of limitations. There's so many things that you just don't learn. And I eventually learned the hard way. Yeah. And we'll talk a little bit about the indictment of tax evasion and all the takeaways that you can bring to the audience that listens here today. In those careers, you know, I always, we have so many different professionals on from so many different backgrounds.

And we haven't had anyone that's been or has any experience in like in drug dealing or stripping or anything. But let's take away some like potential interesting learning lessons. Yeah. What are some things you learned in those careers that like maybe you actually still bring to other areas of your life that are doing such impact? Where are some things you might have learned in those? I guess that's a very.

Very good question. No one has ever asked. I'll take it. Well, I mean, listen, to be a good drug dealer, you have to be a people person. Interesting. Okay, you have to be a people person. And I have taken that through my whole life into reality TV and into business as well. Also, when it comes to drug dealing, you also need to learn how to pivot very quickly. Because problems arise, fire drills happen, and you need to know what to do and act very quickly.

You need to make alliances just like in regular business, right? You need to be loyal or else you won't have a customer base or anyone that works underneath you as well. And so a lot of the principles in drug dealing can be easily carried over to any business. And that's why you hear a lot of times, I think they said Jay-Z and certain people also used to be drug dealers are super successful billionaires today.

Yeah. I mean, you're clearly a very successful entrepreneur. If you and you run Addiction Center, so I'm sure you interact with previous drug dealers, right? Yes. Do you, what do you think the biggest disconnect is between drug dealers taking that path of their career and actually becoming big business leaders in America? Is it education? Like, is there anything that you think of change? It could be it could be the cards that they were dealt. Yeah. And, and that was the hand that they were. they were playing, right? Yeah. But it's a very risky hand that you play.

Yeah. Because if you play the hand of becoming a drug dealer, it's a very risky occupation, which those risks sometimes outweigh the positives. Yeah. And also, I think the shelf life on being a drug dealer is, you know, minimum. Yeah. Did you ever get in trouble when you were caught dealing? Oh yeah.

In my book all the time, I mentioned a number of close calls. Yeah, I was writing scripts. You know, we had a number of capers that probably aren't the best to try to pull off. But thankfully, I got out of drug dealing and then into TV and then this is the result. I have a trading secret for you if you're starting a business. Here's what you got to know. You could build your business in just 10 clicks and in 10 minutes. Start your business.

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And that's a great transition. We're going into some of the dollars and cents behind Jersey Shore. Before we do, you name a reality show we've had someone on from one of those shows. And a lot of times we'll have those guests come on and they'll tell us that they intentionally go on TV with a strategy for branding. I think either unintentionally or intentionally, you've created one of the strongest brands. for anyone that's ever been on reality TV. When you first went on the show, did you have a strategy like, I'm going to be outlying with my personality? I'm going to be loud.

I'm going to create this brand. Or were you just so unintentionally you that it was just created? I think my strong suit was my authenticity. I feel that authenticity is the most powerful vibe that you can emit in any area of business, in any industry. But how I evaluated reality,

TV at the time was that there was no larger-than-life personality in reality TV at the time, almost like the rock was for WWE. And I looked up to The Rock at the time, and I was like, I just thought the way that he branded himself was amazing. So my idea was to bring a larger-than-life personality that was based on my own, but was just a little bit amped up. And that was the situation. So everything was based on my life experience, but just turned up a notch. Wow. I like that. And then once I introduced it to America, it just exploded. You know, nobody has ever seen characters named the situation,

characters named Snooki, characters named Jow, and the world just fell in love with it. It's so interesting to hear about you connecting like the WWU branding because they've done You think about the geniuses, right? The Hulk Cogans, the Rick Flares, and then you referenced The Rock. And that you kind of had that attitude. And so did you, like, all the characters of the show. Like, did you ever get the chance to meet The Rock?

Yes. I had met him around 2011, and I had just been named GQ Man of the Year, which was amazing. I was on Dancing with the Stars, and I ran into the Rock at the airport. And he didn't know that I had looked up to him. He didn't know that I had essentially modeled my reality TV personality after him.

And he saw me in the airport and he stopped me. And he was like, situation, America loves you. You branded yourself and nobody taught you how congratulations. Shook my hand and he left. And I was like, oh, my God, that is amazing. And it was just such a really like pinched me moment that I just, you know, obviously I keep with me to this day. Yeah, I love it.

And it's also genius because you're like three steps ahead. And in your three steps ahead goes in your book you talk about 2009, the first season. You guys are slinging t-shirts and you're making, I think, $25 an hour. 25 bucks an hour, yeah. But the interesting thing that you said, when season six, though, you guys had, I'm looking right now, 13 episodes. So season six at 179K an episode, that's going to be, that's like 2.3 million bucks. Plus add in a half a million dollar ratings bonus as well.

We hit the rating bonuses every year. Jersey Show was the biggest show in the country. The biggest show. So you're talking about $2.8 million bucks. Plus an extra $500. So, yeah, so the $2.3. extra 500, you're talking about 2.8. This was in 2009 to 13. So if you take in just in that's around like three and a half million, that's why, that's a huge change. It was. The checks

were coming in. They were like $675,000 per check. I had never in my life seen checks like that. You're talking to an ex-stripper, an ex-drug dealer who didn't have to file his taxes the year before and then you start making upwards of $5 million per year with brand deals. We got vitamin water. We got Reebok. You got extra shows like Dancing with the Stars and other things like that. You are not prepared for superstardom that happens like that. You're just not. If you think about those years, the first six seasons, if you had to guess in total, like high level, how much you made from your power of being on the show. So being on the show and all the endorsements, Like how much in total if you had to guess how much you made in those years?

I mean, I never even thought about that. That's a very good idea. But we were making upwards of $5 million a year, you know, for a few years straight. So at least from 09 to 12, you know, just quickly like that. It was probably like 20 plus million probably. 20 plus million. With that earnings, you know, going from drug dealing and stripping. What are some, talk to you.

I know right now you're an active investor. At that time, did you make any investments that sort? Or flop. No, no, I didn't. I was trying to hold on for Dear Life on the roller coaster. That was Jersey Shore, the brand deals, Super Bowl appearances. I was on Jay Leno probably 10 plus times. I remember counting. It was on his show 10 plus times when he was at the helm. You get paid when you're on those shows? You actually do. You do get paid probably like 500 bucks. Okay, I only get a beer and shot. Yeah, you get like 500 bucks on some of the talk shows. you know so it was just at that particular time period you're so busy um on flights going from

this you know Donald Trump roast you know that was the first time in my career I ever got booze right and I got booze because I didn't look at the material I thought who I was I drank my own Kool-Aid thought I was Mike the situation biggest reality star in the country they gave me the script I got this, went up to my hotel room at the Trump Tower, took about six percissettes, and then came down when I was ready. Wow. And sure enough, if you don't prep, if you don't do tone, you don't do delivery, you don't practice, if you don't, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. And I had to learn the hard way. And that was the first time my career, I got booze.

Wow. With the percissets you just referred to in the opioid addiction, was there any connection to the hardships, the mental wear with all that reality TV brought to your life that had you disassociating in that way? You asked some good questions. Ah, I appreciate it. Yes, yes.

I thought I had it under control. But when you are torn and being pulled in every which way, no one's saying no to you. You're walking into a mall. You need to leave because you're being chased. Okay. you're pulling in so much money you don't even know what to do with. And then you're just also questioning yourself in your life,

how did I get to this point? And why do people love me so much? What is so special about me? And I write that in my book. And it's just something that you sort of try to reconcile with yourself. And all while, you know, you're also trying to, you're really just trying to hang on on a roller coaster that's just going way too fast.

It's like this. It's like getting the keys to an F1 car. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And it's the first time you're driving in. Someone says, hey, take it for a spin. You're most likely going to crash around your first corner.

For sure. That makes sense. Actually, it's an unbelievable analogy. When you take the six perkinsettes you take before the Donald Trump roast. I'm just trying to. There were six, there were six 30 milligram rock as sets. Okay. So essentially, if a percocet could be a five or a 10, but a rocket set is a 30-millimeter.

milligram oxycodone so it's like three percocet tens and one and the that is a that's a that's a fucking guy yes yes yes yes that's a lot of action when you take that though are you taking it because you're getting nervous for it does it help numb you does it cool you out like what was the thought before it started out as just experimentation yeah I was always the leader of of bad decisions you know no one had to tell me to do anything I was just wild I was curious and as you know curiosity killed the cat. Yeah. Right?

So I started out as experimentation turned into a dependency. So now you're one of the biggest reality stars in the country. You have all these brand deals, millions of dollars coming in, but you have this debilitating addiction that you're hiding beneath the scenes. You're hiding it from production. You're hiding it from family, friends, your team. And when you're wearing many masks or multiple masks in life, I'm here to tell you you're going to lose.

The best way to win in life is to wear one mask and to be authentic in every area of life to every single person. Transparency, accountability, integrity, strength, and honor. Deep. Those are trading secrets in itself. I think it's so cool, even from where we started with you talking about your stripper drug dealing days, to this conversation now, to now owning and having a huge impact with Archangels, centers, impacting so many people. like without going through that path today you aren't impacting the people that you are and helping inspire people and i think it's it's really just a testament to growth learning and everything that you just said

one quick follow up to that though i think you clearly live in a state of authenticity i think you have since day one honestly i just think you've grown it feels like you've grown so much as a human so your current state of authenticity is helping so many people today a lot of people overused the word like raw and unfiltered and authentic. You actually do it though. You do it in your life. You've done it for decades. You do it in your job. You do it in your and your marriage. You do it as a father. People that are struggling to find their authentic self. What advice would you give them to find their authentic self? That is a very good question. I would have to say you, the first thing to do is be honest. Be honest with yourself. Totally honest with the man or woman in the mirror.

And be honest with everyone. To this day, I don't drink. I don't drink. I don't drug, I don't tell a lie. I try not to even speed. I mean, I can't afford any mistakes these days. Yeah. You know, the reason why I have a successful marriage, honesty, transparency, accountability. All these things that I'm mentioning to you are characteristics of a successful anything, a successful business, a successful marriage. And essentially, marriage is probably the most important business of them all. Yeah, that's true. We'll talk about that, love and money in just a minute. before we do, I kind of want to wrap up the earnings of Jersey Short. I want to wrap it up with your strategy of negotiation. I believe that Jersey Shore contracts were most favored nation,

right? The second one, not the first one. The second one was. Okay. So with your negotiation strategy and your branding, what are things you did within a four-year period to go from $25 an hour, $5K a season to $2.5 million in a season? Yeah, the first one, which was Jersey Shore franchise. That one was not favored nations. That one was a tiered contract. Certain people got paid certain amount and others got paid a certain amount. And then also there was royalties attached to that as well. I read something that said the organization in your house is a dictation of the organization in your life. When we think about self-care, I want you to think about something you could do to improve your self-care and I have it for you. The change is upgrading your sleep. Now you can do that with the

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That's bullenbranch.com slash trading secrets to get 15% off, B-O-L-L-A-N-D branch.com slash trading secrets. Exclusions apply, see sites for detail. So one of the only other reality people that we've had on that talks about royalties was Rob Deerdeck, of course, big host of MTV. He was able to negotiate. It's very, very hard to do that. So it's pretty much impossible.

Yeah, it's very hard. And you were able to do that. The only reason I was able to do that is because they gave me an ultimatum and they said, we're going to replace you. And I said, good luck. So when we came to the deal table, we said, ah, we told you we're not replaceable. And then we got the royalties. And so how do royalties still pay out today?

How does it look? 100%. How much do you get for that? You get them quarterly. Okay. Probably every year it amounts to six figures, over six figures. Wow. That's unbelievable.

That's like a pension right there. It is. You get it for the rest of your life. That is a beautiful thing. All right. Moving a little bit from Jersey Shore, we talked a little bit about your financial education. You are indicted for tax evasion. Yes.

It felt like I remember, I'll never forget when I saw that. It felt like they were making a little bit of an example of you. Do you feel that they were? They did. Even though I handled my sentencing with Grayson class. Yeah. I never complained. I did my bid.

I did my community service, my probation. I even did my jail time, paid my restitution. I did everything right. But, facts is facts. I held out up until about a week before the trial for my tax evasion case. And I held out on purpose because I was holding out to get the best plea bargain. So the reason why you do that is because you want to get in the zone where the judge can afford to give you probation or community service without a variance.

A variance means to go from one level to another. So I held out to the last week and they gave me the zone, which was zone 11, which afforded me, probation community service, and then at worst case, some jail time. When they gave me that information, I was in my apartment, in New Jersey with my fiance at the time, who's now my wife. And we were so happy because we're like, oh my God, we're going to survive this thing, you know. and I took a picture, I believe it's in my book, and with me signed my plea bargain, because essentially you thought, along with being a first-time offender,

no one ever in the state of New Jersey has gotten jail time in that zone 11, right, and has been a first-time offender. So I was all but guaranteed. Wow. So when it came time for sentencing, I sat there with my suit, like, oh my God, I held out the whole time.

you know, I'm going to survive this thing. And the judge just laid down the hammer. And she gave me a combination of all the above. Probation, community service, 500 hours, jail time, and a million dollar fine. And it was eight months, right? And it was eight months in prison, yeah. And I'll be honest with you, I handled it like it was, I'll be honest, which I handled it like it was just another show I had to go do. Wow.

I was so used to being sent to this show, being sent to that show, a big brother across to England. And I used to call myself the air support. I was just flying over and earn. I was a great earner, making good money, flying here to that show, this endorsement. And when I had to go do prison, I was like, this is just another job I got to do. And I held my head high with grace in class. And I completed every single thing that I had to do.

I actually have my probation officer reach out to me recently and tell me how proud of, how proud she is of me and my story and my progress and my centers. It's a really beautiful moment for me. Given where you are today and you think about 2010, your GQ sensation of the year, you're making $5 million plus. I think your brothers, your manager at that time comes to you and be like, Mike, should we file? That was my fault.

That was right. And you were just like, no. My question is, knowing what you know now, what, like, verbatim, What would you tell that, Mike? What would you tell him? I mean, listen, if you've ever watched like time travel movies, if you change something in the past, you change something in the future.

That's a good point. Right? So, it's a good point. I wouldn't be the man I am today, right, if I didn't learn from my mistakes, right? Right now, I'm the hardest worker in the room. I'm an amazing husband. I'm an amazing father.

I'm an amazing employee. I'm an amazing, I try to be amazing at everything that I do. When I was younger, I was like a C student. I was like half-assing everything and I just thought everybody loved me. You know? Jeez, it's a good point. Because if you told that mic to do something differently, that mic then wouldn't be this mic today.

Yeah. Yeah. Listen, I've turned my struggles into my strengths. I love it. I wouldn't have the center, right, where I'm helping millions of people now. I wouldn't have 10 years sober now, which that is my superpower. Right. I have seven years of marriage.

in a happy, healthy marriage. I have things that money can't buy, and that's when you're rich. To have things that money can't buy. My sobriety's earned. My body, my six-pack, earned. My family, my kids, my wife, my story, earned. That book is bestselling.

It's my legacy. It's my life. It's earned. So I actually just got tingle saying it all this. It's true. It is true. It's the reality and it's all earned. I love the idea that you would tell that person

to do nothing because of you wouldn't be who you are today. How much, if you had to analyze that entire process, how much between attorney fees and everything, how much of that cost you? Yes, over seven figures for attorney figures. And they eventually came up to me and said, Mike, the world loves you, but you can't pay for us any longer. And they shook my hand and they had to leave me.

And I had no attorney going into this case, this giant case, United States versus Mike's situation. That's unprinci. And the stress is and anxiety is, it's unimaginable when your fate lie in the balance, your freedom lie in the balance, and you're on reality TV, which you know, your employment doesn't have the most sturdy foundational longevity. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. So when you're making $20 plus million dollars, we talked about that, you're spending this on attorneys. By the time you actually go to prison, have you depleted most of that money? Yes. The accountants and the lawyers went through my funds and they said that you spent upwards of $600,000 on drugs in a short period of time. And my eyes just widened like, oh, wow, you know. And you're just wondering if that mistake is going to bury you, right?

But you've got to have that warrior spirit inside to just never give up and just, you're like, you know what? I know I'm going to find a way somehow. And long story short, I just never. gave up and I eventually found a way out of out of that and now I'm like the poster child for the comeback is greater than the setback. A comeback is greater than saying and we got bang cookies on the side of it. Yeah. While I have someone very close to me in my life that went to prison for roughly around a year and he has talked very openly about what he learned in prison and how it shaped him. We talked a little bit about each of your chapter. Yeah, you got to know how to move. Yeah. You got to know how to

move. What in prison is something maybe behind the scenes or a trading secret that you learned that like you might still carry today or you think about. You're like, I wouldn't have to learn that if I didn't have that experience. Well, it all comes down to knowing how to move in prison. And if you're a people person, you'll be fine. And the same thing in business. And it just, if you say the wrong thing in prison, you're going to get smacked, you know? Did you ever have to fight in prison? No, no, I never did. I was very well liked in prison. You know, they, you know, I was afforded certain amenities because people just liked me. Yeah, they respected me because of my celebrity, but also they realized that it was a bad boy trying to turn good. And that was respected in prison.

Interesting. Yeah. And they looked out for me. I got, you know, certain amenities and certain TV rights, certain extra food. And nobody, nobody messed with me. How does this is a money show and career show? How does money work in prison? Like, do you have access to your money? How does that work? Yes, it's the money system in prison is like commissary. So people are exchanging, you know, cans of tuna, cans of mackerel, food, nuts, snacks. How are you getting those goods? There is essentially like a store in prison and you get a certain amount of money per week and you can go to the store and get stuff. Can wealthier people put more money on like their card? Yes, yes, you can, but I'm sure there's a cap. So you could buy like more goods to trade? Yeah, there's, and then people would be...

Like, that's business, right? Like, those are more business less. People would be trading things and making food, trading other things, and trading TV rights, you know, like that TV's mine. I want to watch my 9 o'clock show. And if somebody didn't put that show on, there could be a fight, you know. Interesting. Yeah.

Yeah, if you didn't move correctly in prison, your stay is going to be a very long stay. It's going to be very uncomfortable. Unbelievable. It's so interesting to learn this stuff. Ding, ding, ding. We are at Denver Airport. It is Zone 3. Actually boarding my plane right now. So we're going to have a five-minute recap because it is mayhem coming from Denver, Colorado.

Heading to Miami in partnership with Dell for the National Championship. One of the best episodes I think we've ever had on Trading Secrets. Of course, this is a part one, part two coming next week. Remember to give us a five-star review because we have a signed book to give away from Mike the situation from Jersey Shore. David, what do you think? I love that it's a part one. I love that it's a quick recap because we only got five minutes. and I don't want to share all my thoughts.

I need the anticipation to build until next week because Jason, I'll say this really short and sweet. This is my favorite episode of Trading Secrets we've ever recorded. Wow. That is crazy. I mean, for a little tease, this might even be a tease recap. In the next episode, you get tears, you get chills,

you get laughs, you get such intense emotion. That's the part two. Even the part one's intense. I mean, David, what, from the top, Like you think the beginning of this episode, when he comes out fire and talking about stripper, being a stripper, being a drug dealer, being that, you know, a personal trainer. Like, I mean, just the precipitate, like, yeah, it's great. He's everything we've ever wanted out of a guess in terms of transparency. Okay.

That's one of his four core values to his being transparent. So everything we've ever wanted to guess is transparency. He goes and honestly, like, he's so just confident in where he is. He is self-reflective. He is, his self-assessment is bang on. He doesn't hide. He doesn't run. Trading secrets is trading secrets.

At the end of the day, our podcast is a self-help podcast. We try and give secrets of no, of institutions, of industries, of people's behavior, people's successes to take into our lives to better us. Here is someone who's did that in his own life and he's so transparent about it and it's so beautiful and it'll bleed all the way until part two. But yeah, he come out swing and he had my attention early and man, I just, I just respect the hell out of them. and the, it just captivated me.

Like, I am fired up to go into a deep dive about this after part two. And it's even crazy how, like, each part of his story connects, right? Like, his time as a drug dealer, connects to his negotiation tactics when he was negotiating for how much they got paid episodically to how that, you know, served his skill set in prison to his full turnaround, recovery and growth to where he is today. and a lot of that you see in part two.

It was crazy to see, you know, from the early standpoint, they go from making, you know, $25 an hour, $5,000 a season to upwards of $179,000 per episode, what he stated, some of the seasons, going 30 episodes. I mean, this is, I mean, it's unbelievable. It's royalty and reality TV. We see, you know, Dance with the Stars. We've had people come on talk about, you know,

they make around $250,000 plus incentives, right? We've had special forces come on and talk about how much they make. I mean, this is next level. This guy's resume is insane. GQ man of the year. He's casually drops. He's been on Dancing with the Stars. He's making, you know,

five million a year in his prime. He's got 35 episodes. He's getting 100 K in royalties. He's so open about, you know, tax and how unprepared he was for tax. And he was so open about his, you know, his failures. The first time I was booed, go, you know, on percocets or rock sets or whatever the hell he called him. know those existed. Listen, at the end of the day, I think it was a masterclass of a guest. And I will also say it's a masterclass for you as an interviewer. Here is someone who has been on a

press tour his entire life. His entire life, he's been sitting there and he's been selling himself and talking about his experience and he's got this award-winning book that's coming out. He's working on a documentary and all these things. I've never heard a guest say, good question, good question, good question. Here's a guy who's at a point in his life where he is just craving to be asked these questions. He doesn't want to be asked about the questions when he had butted the wall in Italy on Jersey Shore season four. I remember that one. It was crazy. It was nuts, right? Like, he doesn't want to be,

he's past that. He wants to be asked about these questions because it showcases where he's at in life. Kudos to you. Kudos to him. This episode fired me up, man. Fired me up. This recap feels like a lot of teases, so I'll tease some more. David, I appreciate that compliment. It was really cool because after the episode, he said, he said, I feel like goofy saying this, but this is what he said.

It's reality. He's like, listen, I go on a lot of podcasts, and he kind of talked to his, like, PR person. He's like, usually I'm like, fuck, that podcast sucked. He's like, this was literally one of the top 10 interviews I've ever had, and I've had thousands. Like, I've had thousands. He's like, like, the way you're prepared, the questions you ask, he's like, you're really good at this and I don't say that lightly. And like, to me, like, I haven't walked away. I was like, dude, that meant a lot to me. Like, that meant a lot. Like, that really did. You could tell he was complimentary of your questions. You could tell he commented that he'd done your research a couple times, and he appreciated that. a man where he says he's the hardest working man in the room right now. So it was all good. Listen, I'm going to end this by this.

All right, yeah. You end with your thought. I'll end with mine. I'm going to catch this plane to get out of what is a great city, Denver, Colorado. But right now makes me want to puke, giving me a bit of a Bill's fan. David, last thought. Having Mike the situation on, I was the biggest Jersey Shore fan in the history of Jersey Shore when it came out. I, listening to this interview took me back to the days, the good old days, where you had to sit in front of your TV at MTV at 8 o'clock and watch the episode live. there was no streaming, there was no recording, there was no, I'll see the clips on TikTok.

It was good old fashioned 2010 in Geneseo in college, sitting in my coach, waiting for Jersey short to hit the team, and then we go to the bars and fist pump our nights away. This brought me back. I thought you guys crushed it. Can't wait for part two. Great job on part one. Can't wait for part two. The recap will be much more intense, much, much longer.

And I will say to a little tease, when I wrapped up, and he told me that, right? He said those compliments. I said, you know, there was something I was going to bring up on this episode, but I didn't want to. And he's like, what? He goes, you and I have one thing. I go, you and I have one thing in common. He goes what? I go, I have been on an episode of Jersey Shorts very unintentionally.

I was suckered into it, coerced into signing a contract. They didn't know I was signing. We'll talk about that in part two. But, David, anything else before we wrap and I catch this plane? Go catch that plane. Get out of Denver. Our season, next season. Go bills.

Ref screwed us. We screwed ourselves. is what it is. Great episode. I love where we're at 2026. We're moving on. We're moving on. We're moving on. We're moving up. Just like Mike the situation did. We're growing. We're growing. The bills will get theirs. We screwed ourselves. The ref screwed us. We're going on national championship here with Dell. And we got Jesse Solomon I'm interviewing next week. Amanda Batula I'm interviewing next week. And so many more coming on the docket. David, we had the Federal Reserve CEO in president of Chicago. That was a fascinating episode. Trading Secrets is ripping and roll.

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