Trading Secrets - 294. Jon Bouffard: From $15/Hour Jobs to 6-Figure Brand Deals & Building a Creator Business

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

This week, Jason is joined by Jon Bouffard — creator, entrepreneur, and one half of one of the most recognizable couples brands on the internet — for a conversation on what it really takes to build a business from nothing and scale it into a multi-six-figure operation.Jon shares the unconventional path that led him here — from making $15/hour across a series of jobs, including teaching, working at Wells Fargo under a fake name, and serving as a vocational counselor, to eventually pivoting into occupational therapy where he capped out financially and began searching for something more.Everything changed when he partnered with his now wife, Alex, stepping into the world of wedding videography. What started as a creative side hustle quickly grew into a full-time business, scaling from $3K to $10K per wedding — but also came with burnout, long hours, and limited upside.Jon breaks down the turning point — when brand deals began replacing wedding income, allowing them to shift fully into content creation. He explains how their business evolved into a six-figure-per-deal model, what brands are really paying for, and why consistency and relatability have been the foundation of their success.He also opens up about the realities behind the scenes — the pressure to constantly create, the mental toll of staying relevant, and the discipline required to keep showing up even when you don’t feel like it.Beyond the business, Jon shares insight into how he and Alex divide responsibilities, manage finances, and maintain a strong partnership while building together — including why they prioritize simplicity, avoid unnecessary spending, and focus on long-term stability over short-term flash.The conversation also dives into bigger-picture topics — from the future of the creator economy to the challenges of transitioning into traditional media, and the importance of protecting your personal life in an increasingly public world.From $15/hour jobs to building a scalable digital business, Jon gives a raw and honest look at what it takes to bet on yourself, stay consistent, and turn creativity into a career.Jon reveals all this and so much more in another episode you can’t afford to miss!Subscribe to the Trading Secrets podcast!Host: Jason Tartick
Co-Host: David Arduin
Audio: John Gurney
Video: Marc Colcer
Guest: Jon BouffardUpwork Scaling a business takes the right expertise at the right time. Upwork helps growing teams quickly bring in specialized freelancers—so you can move faster and take the business to the next levelUpwork.comOne Skin Founded by an all-woman team of longevity scientists, with PhDs in stem cell biology, skin regeneration, and tissue engineering – OneSkin is rooted in real science and expert researchOneSkin with 15% off oneskin.co with code TRADINGSECRETSBooking.com If your vacation rental isn’t listed on Booking.com, it could be invisible to millions of travelers searching the platform. Don’t miss out on consistent bookings and global reach. Head over to Booking.com and start your listing today. Get Seen. Get Booked on Booking.com

secrets. We're off to a hot star. Kobe just left. We got the guy who used to be wiping people's butts making 15 bucks an hour. Actually had a gun pulled out at him. We'll talk about that to now one of the biggest content creators on the internet. Wow. The big question is, how much does he actually bring to the table in his unbelievable quest with Alex online from making 15 an hour to what I'm going to say is millions and millions. John Bufard, it is an honor to have you on trading secrets. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. You keep bringing up $15 an hour. You can keep that down. That's probably where we should start, right? 15 bucks an hour, John. I mean, all right, first and foremost, let's start with this.

You guys are, you know, I'm going to beat you up a little bit in this interview. I assume I'm going to get beat up back. But you guys are seriously two of the best on the internet. No one does content like you guys do. It's unbelievable what you do and how you do it. And it's an unbelievable touch of creativity, real vulnerability and relatability. So congratulations on everything you've accomplished. This is so uncomfortable. This is so uncomfortable hearing Jason give me a compliment. That's the last time you're going to get it. You know what I was thinking. First, thank you so much. Honestly, I couldn't really pay attention because it made me so uncomfortable. But I was also thinking in my head, I'm like, am I going to start with compliments to Jason or just go right into fucking

destroying him? Why don't we? start with compliments. Okay. I just went, felt weird. I'm not used to it. I will say, I don't have a lot of friends

in this space and you're one of the most genuine people, you know? I think that means, that means a lot. This is uncomfortable. I don't really like a lot of people. Why don't you have a lot of friends

in this space? I probably need to get out more. I don't know if you've noticed. I recently had a child, so you even coming here is like the first person coming to, do you know what's we're in my fucking house right now? I had to come to you.

That's true. Well, you have to come to me. I had to put the whole podcast together for this guy. It's true. That's the first time you've actually ever used these cameras because we know Alex does everything in your content creating partnership. That was really nice to you though. I appreciate it.

I also will say before the beautiful Lucy Gray came, just got to meet her. She's so adorable. You also, you are like an 80-year-old man trapped in a 38-year-old body. You don't really get out much. That was before having Lucy, right? I mean, is that fair? I wait for you to invite me to things, you know?

Okay. All right. So that is fair. But we're going to talk a little bit about this space. I think you do make an interesting point about the content side, the creative side, the relationship side, and just there's a lot of positivity in this space. There's also some toxicity and negativity in the space. We're going to get to that.

Before we do, I am really interested. And the first time I heard the story, honestly, it is quite inspiring. What you guys have built and how you've built it and what you've done for your life. You used to live in, was it was it your grandmother or Alex's grandmother's basement? You worked in there in the basement. Before that, though, if you went to your college self and you said to your college self, at 38, you're going to walk down the street,

you're going to a restaurant, you're going to airport, and majority of people are going to recognize you, and you're going to have a very famous personality, an extremely successful career, creating videos and doing film in some capacity, what would that college, John, have said? You wouldn't have believed it. Was it ever on your trajectory of,

Like, yeah, one day this is going to happen for me. No, no. I mean, I've had shitty jobs my whole life, literally. I never expected any of this to come to fruition. I never even thought that, you know, to even learn how to use a camera, which was all through Alex, then being in front of the camera, no, never in a million years. My family's like health care. I assumed at some point I was going to file suit in that.

So complete different direction. All right. So let's talk about you graduate college. What do you start doing first? What did I start doing first? Couldn't get a job, 2009 was like, wasn't that the highest unemployment and the highest amount of college graduates?

Yeah, it was mortgage crisis. It was a disaster. Yeah. So I had a business degree. Yeah, I don't know if you knew that. I did not know that. That's right. I'm surprising.

What do you know about business? Fucking nothing. Nothing. Do you, we're going to get into this to a second side quest. Do you run the financials? Yeah. You do. Which is scary.

That is terrified. Well, she's the creative. I know you're going to get into that too. We know. Okay. Yeah. So I'm the talent. She's the creative.

Wow. That's a, that's a, okay. You're the talent. There it is. I just got to tell myself that. Yeah, you keep telling yourself that. Yeah, business degree. I couldn't find a job.

And then a friend of my parents was a superintendent of schools. He got me a job as a teacher's aide. Okay. That was brutal. It lasted six months. How much tree making is a teacher's aid? 23,000 a year. I only lasted six months.

Wow. Then I went and worked for Wells Fargo. Okay. How long? I was a financial advisor. That's news to me. Home mortgages. What did you make in that? I think that was also like $15 an hour. Fun fact, there was already a John in office.

So my name was Dave. They called you Dave? Yeah. I was like, hey, this is Dave from Wells Fargo Financial. I heard your FICO scores above whatever. I was trying to do like mortgages. Okay, like mortgage sales. And credit cards.

Selling refinances. You were slinging credit cards. Yeah, you know what happened? That was when Wells Fargo, remember they got near the financial. They got crushed. With the credit cards. Well, there was credit cards and bank accounts. And so what they were doing is they were selling people more accounts and more credit cards that they needed because they were getting credited for that.

So they could report it up through their earnings reports. We have more accounts. We have more credit cards. They got caught doing it and got crushed. So you were part of that. You are the Wells Fargo fraudulent. Dave was not me. Dave.

Okay. So you were Dave working at Wells Fargo. Lasted three months. Last of three months. How much are you making there? I think it was like $15 an hour. Okay. And then where'd you go from there?

And then I went to my sister's friend, helped me get a job as a vocational counselor. Excuse me? Are you going to... What the fuck is wrong with you? I'm just learning things by you. I never know. Okay.

It gets dark. Okay. Okay. Keep it. You tell me more. This explains so much. What's your middle name? I never knew your middle.

Oh, wait, don't tell me. Don't tell you. I was thinking it was like Brad or Chad, but if I was like really... If I was really good at guess, I think the middle name would be a William. William Michael. It's Michael.

Oh, okay. Wait. It's close. It's Michael. Oh, you're like, William Michael. Oh, that's actually a good middle name too. I see the correlation. Jason William Michael Tardick.

Okay. D. All right. So you worked in mental health. Kind of, yeah. What I did, sorry. Just tell me what you did. So what I did, I would, I work with, I work with people with the broad diagnoses. What did you do? What did you do to help? Like, what did you do to help? Like, what did you do? What did Dave do? No, what I did. What would happen is there would be my clients

and I would try to find them a job. Oh, that's great. So whatever it was, it would be like dishwasher, cleaning floor, whatever it is. But the employer would get a tax write-off basically. Oh, interesting. I don't remember what it was. This sounds so fucked. It's legal.

It's a legal job that helps people get jobs. Your career checks, unbelievable. Okay. All right. So you work that place where people were doing with challenges. The company worked for got tax credits for placing these jobs. All right. From there, where's your career go? When did you get into occupational therapy? Amazing. All right. I can't wait. There will be a segment here where I compare his resume to Alex's and we're to see how they negotiated for equity. So stay tuned for that. But until we get to,

What was your job title at this role? Like, what did you live? I don't know if I even made it all the way to vocational council. Vocational concert, okay. Vocational, like, technicians. I don't think I fully qualified. What do you get paid in this? I think, like, about $15.

Unbelievable. A lot of lateral moves. This guy was killing it before Alex came into the picture. All right. So then from there. First of all, we got to get a huge disclaimer. or we are not making fun of people with any sort of disabilities at all or anything like that. We've just been drinking and Jason can't keep this shit together.

No, it's, yeah. And well, I didn't know a lot of these things. It's just like, phone you, curveball, baby. I think the thing is, I'm seriously, it's making me laugh so hard.

It's like when you know John's personality, like I said, an 80 year old, and at this point, a 20 year old's body, doing all these like random jobs. They won't even call you by your name. You have a fake name.

You're part of the Wells Forgo fraudulent case. You're working in placement of like vocational technician. These are just things I as your friend for years, I had no idea. So this is, this is interesting. Well, that's where I got the gun pulled on me. Seriously. That was the vocational concert. No way.

What was the story about that? I went to pick up this other guy's. Jason, bro, we're going to be here all night. We're going to be here all night. I'm not an actor like you. I can't go into character. Okay, tell me the story. En scene.

Yeah, NC. Cut. All right. I had to, I had to, you good? Yeah. I had to pick up another counselor's client. Did you almost get killed? Did you almost get killed?

Yes. Let's open that. That'll help. Okay. All right. We didn't take an edible either. All right. Be serious.

Come on, we got to be serious. We got to be serious for a second. I'm not driving you later. Yeah. All right. All Uber. Or stay. We stay.

Okay. Um, all right, serious note. So you get, a gun gets pulled on you. Where were you in the gun? This is different. So we got a mix. We got finishes. No, this.

This is different than that. All right. This will be a good laughing break segment. We'll take a pause. Things that have never happened in 300 episodes on trading secrets. Of course, with John B, they happen. Look at this. Take it down.

The gargoyle. Where did you get that? A gift. That was like the cherry on top. Remember, I'm like, I think it was a gift. we could just move on we could just move on all this stuff happened at work

tell me about what happened what happened when a gun was pulled out on you I didn't think it was real what does that have to do with anything I went to pick up this guy's client and knew nothing about him I pulled up to the house

so you're going to laugh so a house number that I was given You're doing this intentionally What was the house number? 16. Okay. But the six fell down. Okay.

Six fell down. So it was a nine. So I wasn't sure. So you were going to the wrong house. No, no. I was at the right house. Okay. When I was looking at.

You were what? I was looking at the numbers because I couldn't tell. Is that a six or a nine? You're also dyslexic. I am. You are dyslexic. That has no to do with this, though, because it never fell down. The number fell down.

It wasn't reading. Relevant. Okay. what you're talking about. So you're at the front door. Paint the picture. Yeah, but he's on the front steps. Now, this guy's late for work.

I'm going to pick him up. And this guy's in all red, and he's doing this. And I'm in a pretty rough area of Richmond, Virginia. I parked the car, and he's like, you can't park there. I'm like, uh, no, I just got to pick something up. Are you Billy or whatever? I'm making a name up. And he's like, I don't know, no, Billy.

And I keep walking towards the door because I'm like, I've got to pick this guy up. And then he just, he didn't point out my face. He took his shirt off and pulled his gun out. I'm picking up somebody from work. This is a halfway house. It's multiple other there. And so they teach us to not knock on the door straight on.

So I'm leaning watching him as he's brandishing his gun. Dumb question. Why are they teaching you to do that? I'm going to fucking tell you if you wait a second. You got to knock on the frame of the door. So if someone blasts through the door, it's not standing in front of it. this is a real job

did you leave the job after this happened no were you actually scared you're gonna get that I don't know oh yeah that was a rough area yeah yeah but I was more scared that I wasn't getting this guy to work on time because I finally because you have to find these people jobs yeah and so it took me six months to find anyone a job and I finally landed this barbecue place you do you get paid will you actually get serious though no no no no no no I just get a flat fee this is okay don't look too much

Yeah, it's like, don't go into this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. So how long after did you quit this job after you got a gun pulled out? A few months. I was talking to my mom. I was like, I got to do something different. I was lost.

I didn't know what to do. Were you single at this point? Yeah, oh, yeah. So if you think about this, at this point in your life, money situation, like, what did your money situation look like? Nothing. Okay. But I came, my family's great.

I'm privileged enough to know I can go and make, you know, mistakes or try new things. I said, no, I can always go back and live with my parents. So I'm not going to be like I have hardship. I didn't have any fucking money, but I knew that. So I was talking to my parents about it. My mom was like, what about going into health care? And that's kind of when, but I had a business degree. So for I, I laid in on occupational therapy

because it wasn't as long as physical therapy at the time. It was a master's degree versus a doctorate. Okay. And so I had to take prereg recs. I live with my parents for like it. She went back to school. Yeah. Wow.

When you went back to school, did you have to take out student debt? Half. My parents helped me with half. Okay. It was nice. So you go back to occupational therapy school. You have to get a master's. How long was a master's?

Two and a half years. You come out of that. How much you make in an occupational therapy? 33 an hour. And then I did that for five years. And I want to say I max out of like 45. And when you maxed out of 45, are you living in New York? Or are you living in Virginia at the time?

North Carolina. North Carolina. That's right. Is that when you met out? Yes. So you're swiping away on Tinder? Swiping away on Tinder. Yep.

But so with therapy, how therapy works, you have to fight for what you want up front on the initial interview process. Because it's a 2% increase. Every year. Yeah. It's not shit. So I know a guy who's still the same place. Great guy.

And he's been there since we first started. I don't even know, 2015. Okay. And he maybe is at first. 45 an hour where I got that from jumping around because I did travel therapy. And then at what point did you end up? So you were still working occupation therapy when you met Alex. Yeah.

And then how long were you and Alex together before you started moving into the career? So Alex's background, right? She's in filmography, videography. She's doing documentaries in Africa. She's doing documentaries on pesticides. She knew her whole life. She wanted to be in video and film behind the camera. She then works for other wedding companies.

and then you come into the picture, right? And so she ends up training you while you're still working in occupational therapy, correct? And so at what point did you say, like, okay, I'm going to actually take a shot at working with her as opposed to working in occupational therapy? So we swiped on Tinder, we dated for like, hi, she's, her timeline is probably better than mine,

nine to 10 months, something like that, dating, that we moved to New York. The tri-state area, in Jersey, is like the wedding mecca. Like that's where you make money for weddings Interesting Yeah versus like the south When you're

When you started to work with her If you shoot a wedding You're doing video and photography What do you What is charged We never did photography You always did video Yeah

Okay What is video What are videographers In the tri-state Area of New York Go for range wise Now I don't even know We started at three

We ended at like 10 10 grand Yeah Wow And is that that's like market rate Here That's not market rate We were

We were doing well under Alex's leadership. Yeah. What did you contribute to? I just little fucking nudges. What did I contribute? I was just the donkey. I just lugged all the shit around.

Yeah. No, but on the actual serious note, you decided to leave occupational therapy. Why? Was it a financial decision or was it a support decision? The company was growing to a point where we either had to hire somebody or I came on full time.

But it actually wasn't really, I don't even think it was really that. I think that's when TikTok kind of came into play. We were doing all three. Podcasts content, weddings. Oh, and I was still doing therapy. So you're still working while doing this. Yeah.

You know, when we first started, I remember doing an ad for like KFC or something. It was like 10 videos for 10 grand. Okay. But it was, that was more than, because one wedding would take 50 hours to edit for both of us. 50 hours. Because Alex will do the creative cinematic edit,

and I would edit the long form wedding. So when you have a wedding, Jason, you have a wedding, what you normally get is this creative edit, the cinematic edit that you show people. It could be like four minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes,

whatever you want. It's more expensive the more you want. But you also usually get the full coverage of the day that's like clean cut edit. It's chopped up. But it's clean. It's more like long form, like a YouTube almost, if you will.

So I do that, the basic edit. Okay, gotcha. But one film, one wedding would take 50 hours. So the minute we did, two weddings at the weekend, we're already behind. So you might make $10,000 for the whole video, but then you're putting 50 hours in.

But there's no cost, right? Well, your overhead's like all of our gear, and you have to update that gear. You know, your cameras, your tripods, your batteries, all that kind of stuff. But once you're like initial overhead, you're pretty much good. So I'm trying to imagine you and Alex at weddings,

shooting and doing all the stuff. And there just had to be, because weddings are such a high pressure situation. I feel like there has to be at least one horror story from that career. Also, I'm naive. I didn't know you get one chance. You get one chance to get that. Because if you miss it, right?

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First look, first kiss, first dance, walking down the aisle. I mean, the horser we had is just like some crazy brides. We had one bride. We watched, I watched this chick. It was, let me paint a picture. Sun's coming down. Light leaks. They're in front of the sun. Perfect shot. Slow-mo. Alex is pushing in the camera.

I got another angle. They go to do their kiss. Some words were exchanged because it's kind of in the distance. I don't know, but we're zoomed in. I see this shit go, foo, and hoxalugi, slow-mo hits the guy in the face. Shut. It was fucking wild.

They only lasted like three to six months. Later that night. Wait, hang out. Unintentionally, right? No. Unintentionally. How can you wind back and spit in their face? How is that unintentional?

The bride spit in the gross space? Oh, yeah. At what point in the wedding was this? Not at the end, but during like the party. All the formalities are over. It's like a golden hour, like kiss at the end. A nice shot. It was just to be a really nice cinematic romantic shot.

Do you still have that video? Yeah, well, we'll show you. I don't want to see it, honestly. And then also later that night, she was like dancing. And her tits fell out. It was fucking wild. Wait, actually? Oh, yeah, it was crazy.

She was a mess. Holy smokes. Okay, before we go on your next career stop, now you got me curious. Did you guys, were you able to actually get a vision for, like, making bets if the bride and groom would last based on how the experience that day was? I don't think we had the energy to even want. We were, dad. We're like, this is exhaust. We're just trying to get through the day.

Okay. Think about your video career is a wedding videography group. in that time for when you weren't doing content. What do you think, like, the most annually you made doing that was? Like, at your highest point. I think the first year we did 15 weddings. I think we, at the max, we did, like, 33 weddings. But then, like, that's when we gave, like, 10 away

because that's when we started doing content. And when I finally convinced Alex, like, we can't do all this. Either we do content or we not. The 10 was, like, our – we had three packages. The 10 grand was, like, our max package. I don't know. I would say, like, I don't know. My math is wrong.

I don't know, 180 to something. Nothing crazy. Yeah. And then at what point are you living at Alex's grandma's basement and why? And were you paying Alex's grandma to live there? No, that's why we owe her everything. We were in Raleigh, dated for nine months, and then decided to make the company, make a go at it,

move to New York. Fucking wild on my part. Like, move, I don't know a soul. I moved on Christmas. Christmas Day, got there at midnight. They're having like a party at Grandma's house. You moved in with Alex on Christmas Day? Yeah.

So my last day at work was like the day before. And my mom was like, when you're just going out? I'm like, all right. Did you know this like day one when you met her? Did you know? About getting married now. That wasn't even a thought. Because when you think of wedding films, you think,

Uncle over the shoulder, I mean, back in the day. Yeah. So when she showed me one of her wedding films, is the first time I've ever seen one. I was like, holy shit, this is a movie. Like, she was amazing. And I was just, like, drawn to her talent. I mean, that's awesome.

Besides, like, how much I love her and all that. Yeah. You're like, you're special. Like, there's something so special about it. Yeah. I know people, this is off top, but like, I know people who don't want to be with people that are better than them. And it's the most wild concept to me.

Like, don't you want to be with somebody that's going to make you grow and do better? And I saw spending time with Alex, it was so motivating and made me want it. a better person and do more than I was doing. Also a shot from being an OT. The burnout rate of an OT is like five years. It's like, girl, I'll do whatever fucking takes. I've wiped asses. I've gotten guns pulled out on me.

Part of the Wells Fargo fraudulent cases, Dave. Enough. I mean, you did it all. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. All right. So then your full-time content creating, you guys move out of the, you don't do any type of video,

videography in any capacity. Never. Touch the camera. Okay, because I did hear on the morning toast that you guys still have that LLC set up, though. Well, our company is, it's a S-Corp. So you just took that S-Corp, and now it's what you're doing today. Yeah, it's the same.

How long did you start creating content before you started to realize this is going to be larger and much larger than any type of videography company? Was it COVID? Was it 2021? I think when we started making more than wedding. And how long did that take? From day one of creating content until that moment.

I can't fucking remember. No, the guess? Two years. Okay. So some of the years, I'm just hammering it out. Yeah. Now, at that time, especially in TikTok, was launching, creator funds, there was more being paid out from creator funds than actual ads. So do you remember any of like the, like we had Katie Feeney on it?

We didn't make shit from that. Really? She made a million bucks in five weeks from Snapchat. We were slow burning. And I think that's also a benefit. fit to us too. It's like, you're not like an overnight success. We've just steadily grown through the years.

So we're consistent in that. But it was never like overnight. I mean, we were grinding. No, I think we got some money from deals. It's when we met our Cam McNeil's, our managers. It's when like, we're like, oh, you can make good money. And once I noticed like a deal was just as much as a wedding, I'm like, okay, I could do this in like

one day for 50 hours. It's a no brainer. I think a lot people get stuck on health insurance and stepping outside of their comfort zone because you don't know content you don't know are you going to make it are you not but like when we start seeing consistency that's when we made the transition okay and so how long did you do content in new york before you guys because you just talked about being surrounded by people that are better than you and like learning from all these people and so you guys make the move from l.a why did you make the move and how long were you

in content creation before you made the move we moved like three different times before then why do we make to move to L.A. We were doing decent, but I think we always were like, is moving to L.A. going to be the next step? And we didn't have kids then, and we were like,

why, we should give this a chance now? Why do we move there? When, I honestly don't remember, we were in Richmond for like a year, and then we were like, fuck it, let's just give us a shot,

sold the house or townhouse, and then moved to L.A. What was the question? So you guys do? What was the rest of the question? The question was, how long in content were you, before you end up going to L.A.

to try and take that next step. I don't know. Two, three years. Two, three years. That next step for you has changed a lot. But you guys, if everyone hasn't seen John Alex's content, it's all script-based. And it's all technically acting as that role. But you're being yourself.

It's relatable. It's couples content. It's marriage content. It was dink content. And now it's mom and dad content. And one of the things about that, though, is your next step was traditional. It was, right? Like you guys were looking to get into traditional.

And what has happened since then? Have you been in any shows? Are you still chasing traditional? What does that career navigation look like? I think we always like to try new things and flex new muscles. So it would never be about money because I would just want to do it, just do it for fun. So we were on one episode of Lopez versus Lopez. You know, really cool opportunity.

I had like two lines. We were there a week, though. I sat in a trailer for a week for two lines. That's what's tough. I was talking to our team that we have. They're like, do whatever you want, but it always comes back to digital because I own everything.

I own my own IP. I own all that. Brands come to us. We're traditional. There's just like so many cooks in the kitchen when it comes to that. But I wouldn't mind doing more traditional work. I did a progressive commercial.

I thought that was really cool. Yeah. So we've had a lot of reality stars unscripted scars, creators come on saying that they want to go to traditional, but it's extremely hard to make that gap. We've had a lot of actors on come on saying, what's their why? The why to make that gap is that they're known in the public for literally playing themselves and that is their brand as a creator and someone an unscripted. And the idea that you have to go from the whole world knowing you playing yourself to the whole world going to see you in the light

of an actual true character is a really hard transition. Also, some of the why of why traditional wouldn't go to digital creator unscripted is because the traditional said it's like four steps back. It's tough to get casted again. What's interesting, though, from my standpoint, is the shift is so material in where money is being deployed that now people in traditional are trying to get into, they want the community you have.

They want the creative that you have. But my understanding is people that were in this space trying to go into traditional, we're told, one, good luck, and two, if you come here, you've got to stay here and kind of leave that behind.

Did you ever battle any of that as you tried to move into traditional? Well, first, my why, me asking you the why was, why did they want to go to traditional? What was their reasoning? I think more ego, right? I think it sounds better for identity.

I get that. You know, I just think traditional looks at digital like we're beneath them. And I do think digital, Digital's the future, man. There's no way of stopping it. But I respect traditional. I would love to do traditional.

Your question about, did I see any friction? When SAG had their strike, that was a big moment where was it Fran Drescher? Whoever was the, I want to say it was her, the nanny from the show. She said, I want to say it's her. Don't fool me or whatever. She said something like, if you want to get into traditional, like talking to digital talent. you're not allowed to work with any traditional, like, for anything during our SAG. Okay.

During our SAG strike. And so we weren't allowed to, like, work with any brands at all during that time. Yeah. What? You're saying friction, right? Like, was there something between like traditional, like trying to cross over to it? Like, I think that was the main thing where, like, I had to not take deals that were offered to me because we want to respect SAG at the time because we're like, oh, we're going to do.

join that in the future. In the next five years, you're going to be an actor? Well, you know, maybe, yeah. Are you an actor right now? No, I'll never. I won't call myself an actor. What do you call yourself? My wife's muse. Okay, let's talk about that.

On a serious note, though, week to week, you guys have some of the best content in the internet. It's well produced. It's well thought out. It's well scripted. It's well edited. Pre-production to post-production. It's some of the best on the internet.

Talk to what a week in the life looks like. Like when are you guys filming? When are you scripting? How far in advance are you planning? Tell us about that. Alex is all script. I think I came up with two, three ideas in the years we've been doing this.

So Alex is like the creative genius. Yeah, Alex is the creative. And is it like every day she's just going and going and bringing it out? And do you guys have sessions where you sit down and just chop it up? No, we have an editor, Sean, and they'll talk back and forth. But even before him, she was doing this. And we'll, she'll come on concepts. And then we'll, it's so different.

out because we're navigating our daughter Lucy. So we have her mom helping out. Alex will come with like scripts the night before. We'll shoot it. And then she'll send some of like the regular edits to our editor and then like the more complex one she'll do or like the ads that we shoot. We get to a point out like we used to grow. We used to do post every day.

You know, every day. And now it's like we're just trying to like get three like really good scripts out like a week. Three or four. So she'll write the scripts. You'll sit down and you guys review the scripts. You'll do table reads? No. Okay.

I mean, it feels like a, okay, so you don't do any of that. I do, honestly, I'm like a pair. I'll just do exactly what you tell me to do. I'm not going to like analyze something. I'm like, what do you want? Do you want me to be happy? Do you want me to be sad? Tell me the emotion you want and I'll do it to the best of my abilities.

You film it and then she'll do all the editing? She will or our editor will do it. Okay. Depends. If someone had to ask you, John, You know, Jason, I have some questions for you. What is it that you bring to this dynamic tool? How would you summarize?

You know, without me, there would not be any content. Okay, all right, so you're the talent. All right, on a serious note, I want to talk to you about, you guys have made a very active choice to not put Lucy in your content. Correct. You played the baby. Now, in California law, there's something called the Coogan Law. This is where California recently just expanded to cover.

kids that are appearing in social media content, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram. And the last I read was at least 15% of the child's gross earnings must be put in a trust. It's called the Coogan account until they are 18 if they appear in any type of monetized online content. This is a law that would just put in place in California. It does not exist in other states. As a result of that, those entertainers that are doing social media only on digital are leaving California. So this is a big topic, finance regulation in the space that connects to kind of this podcast. When you guys make the decision to not have Lucy in the content, does it have connection into Kugin-law or like tell me a little bit about what the thought process is there?

Oh, I didn't think that would affect her at all because she's not in it. No one knows what she looks like. It shouldn't affect her. It won't. It won't because she's not in your content. That's not why we did it. That's what I was asking. I think children, first off, I'm so anti putting your kids online.

I mean, the horrible shit that's out there, you know, Tim Tebow. Yeah. Do you see the stuff he was posting about like within the last six months, the amount of child predators looking up like children porn. I mean, the shit, it's fucking absurd. It's crazy. It's scary.

And like, we should be protecting our children. And then the families, I mean, I'll die on the hill. The families that are moving out of California because they don't want to pay the money to their kids, that is fucking crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy. So it's just greed. That's such greed.

You're exploiting your child. Your child's not even asking to be online. They don't have the decision. They don't have the decision. Or the mental wherewith. What are they going to be like when they're older? When people know who they are, they didn't choose that. Whatever.

I mean, that's how I feel. No, that us not putting her in the content, it wasn't about the law. We just wanted to keep her safe. Yeah. I think that's, I'm glad. I want to talk about that because there's a financial aspect. And clearly to you, it's a moral safety. And it makes so much sense.

I think bringing attention to that in this space. is really important because we're seeing it having California, but as the digital space continues to increase, you're going to see things like this happen everywhere, all different types of regulation and the business is changing. Everyone's plate is getting more and more full, and that's why you might need some help. Well, hiring help shouldn't be such a headache or a drain on your budget. Upwork makes it easy to hire specialized freelancers quickly so you can get the expertise you need and you need it now.

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Launch projects faster and scale and support up or down without committing to that full-time headache of more headcount. So here's what you got to do. Just visit upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That is upwork.com to get connected with top talent, ready to help your business grow. Just go to UPWORK.com. That's upwork.com. What would you say is one thing most people listening this podcast would not know about the space that you're operating in that you feel comfortable sharing? It's exhausting.

I don't know. It's tiring doing the same thing every fucking day. It's just like any other job. We've been doing it for years. So like put a face on every day, whether you're fighting with your partner or, you know, you just don't want to be creative. or like show emotion on screen. I mean, I'm not going to say it's like every other job. You know, our job's really easy and we're very fortunate.

Do you think there's anything out there, anyone that misunderstands you or what you guys do on a day-to-day basis? Or do you think it's all pretty consistent this career? I think people, when I hear people say, like, get a real job, like, I get it's, you know, this is, I'm not a health care worker anymore. I'm not a police officer or a teacher. like these very important jobs. But like if you're not in it, you don't understand like how consuming.

Like you have to be consistent in this space. You have to, you want to stay relevant. You want to, this is a job. So you want to make money. You have to constantly put content out. Like your vacation,

you're still putting content out. It doesn't matter. It's filming. What is, what was one time, one payday that you remember, you'll always remember and it changed your life? My first one.

What was it? Shark. Okay. Five grand. Why? Why was that it? I don't remember how many videos it was, but it was like one of our first deals with our managers. Because based off of the amount of work we had with weddings, I'm like, we can shoot this one ad or whatever, a couple of videos. It's half the time of a wedding film.

And that's really where the seed was planted in our head about, can we, let's make a go at this. Do you have a goal as far as when it comes to earnings in it? in an annual year, earnings and one deal that you want to one day, like we want to hit this number? I would love to make a seven-figure deal. That'd be cool. Do you have, Jim Carrey, I think the number was $10 million. He wrote a checkout to himself for $10 million

when he went to Hollywood. And he's like, in five years, I'm going to hit it. And it was a year four and a half dumb and dumber hit, and he hit the $10 million mark. No shit. If you had a check, you'd put in your wallet right now, what number would you write? 37 million.

37 million. And how long? 10 years. 10 years. No, I'll be dead. Five years. Why will you be dead? Like you said,

80-year-old man and 20-year-old body. You know, we do talk often about our back issues, cholesterol issues, all those moving parts. But you didn't know this. The Rhino from Ace Ventura is up for sale for $3,000. Would you buy it? I don't have enough space.

Would you? You're a gamer, huh? That's another thing you might know about, John. Do you ever stream or do any like that stuff? No. No? No, because I'm not good. Maybe that's why.

Just like my cooking. Yeah. enough about me Jason this show is called Trading Places Jason what's your FICO score

My FICO scores 812 John What's your social I'm sick You are sick Can I get your company EIN number Five years from now

What are you going to be doing What's the dream That's a good question Hopefully acting In one of my wife's movies That'd be cool Is that a direction She wants to go

Oh yeah She should be director. She started on that. Yeah, I mean, we had two short films and they got into film festivals, which is crazy to be able to do that off the rip two seasons in a row. She's working on like a full-length feature film now. I don't know when she's going to finish that, but yeah, we'll see. You write the film, you shoot the film, you have to pay for all that. Do you get any type of sponsorship for it, or is it automatically a deficit? We'll probably just do it out of, I don't, we'd have to look at like budget-wise, like, how much we think

it would actually happen. For the two you've done, I'm saying, you paid out of pocket for those? No, Airbnb, because we have all the equipment from filming weddings. So we shot a lot of the, we were fine. It's a lot of work. I mean, we'll definitely hire. So if we want to shoot another short film, which we're talking about, we have some, we know who we want to hire for lighting.

We know who we want to hire for production and shooting. We'll do it differently this time because it was too much just the two of us. Okay. Going back to Shark, Shark was the paycheck. You'll never forget that your members started to change the trajectory. of what you're going to do, what would you say is your Grammy as far as a brand deal you've done? You look in, you're like, okay, that's the Grammy. Well, what do you want to look at?

Do you want to look at how much money you made off a brand deal? It's up to me. For me, it was Capital One. It was close to a half a half million bucks. So that's one. And then two, it was that I couldn't get a sponsor or anyone to help me support the book. And not only did it pay me that well, but they put a full production to you. behind an eight book tour, eight city book tour.

And so for me, it was like, that was something I always dreamed of, but I couldn't do it out of pocket or justify the time and effort of money. So they kind of made a dream come true that never expected to come true. And I got a life-changing amount of money to help with things. That's great. Working with like a brand that supports you and like wants your creative to shine. And I see that push that's happening now. It's like I think brands are starting to realize you have to go off of like,

what is this creator's skill? Why are people following them? Let them shoot the ad or whatever we want from their direction. Because that's what's going to sell. It's not like how they want it. Exactly. All right. So when you think about the best deal you ever did,

it doesn't even have to be the biggest dollar amount, but a deal that you won't forget. We're not going to name the brand because I know you've got to sign certain contracts and I want to bring brands up. But I want to hear like a deal you'll always remember, the dollar amount and the deliverables. don't say the brand but the reason why I wanted to work with them

the dollar amount the literal I'm not telling you how much fucking I made off of it this fucking guy is so invasive it was a good amount of money you fuck and the reason I liked working with them it was because they let us do it how we want to do it because we know it would perform well

if I'm gonna how much was it it was six figures and it was a good amount okay I never hit the seven figure mark what's the most you've ever been paid out of a deal I'm not fucking, this fucking guy. Hey, I got questions for you. How about this?

I actually do have a good question for you. Okay, go. This fucking guys. Where are we going for your bachelor party? Wow. Thanks, John. Where do you want to go? Where should we go?

Oh. Well, Lucy, I only get a certain amount of time, so let me know. It's like two days. Two days back. No, I got a real question. All right. And then I'm going to wrap with one area I want to talk about where you haven't talked about.

Since you won't tell me any. Okay. How about this? Literally, can you give me one dollar amount of something? What's like a year? I can tell you, when's the first year you made a million bucks?

Give me something. I can tell you, like average, average. Worst trading secrets guest ever. I pissed myself. I cried myself. I'm always scared.

I'm going to say something. Alex is going to yell at me. I don't know. Most of our deals are, I'm 100 or more. Like I, you know, we're not going to.

You've earned it. Yeah. I mean, it's been years. So then when I ask the number, I don't ask the number to just put the number. what is the number one contributing factor to the fact that you guys wouldn't look at a deal

time time time we have Lucy we just have so much shit going on so to make it worth it and is that sad though like I remember the shark deal that I made and we were through the roof and now you're almost numb

to certain numbers and that's what a wild concept that is and like you have to stay like I'm so appreciative and so where we're at in life. I'm like, dude, thank God. But isn't that fucked up? It's such a weird like mindset. It's a good, that's the dream to be at that place, right?

It is. Here's what I want. This is a serious question because I think you could really help people. I'm serious. There are people out there right now that are trying to brand themselves in their company. They're trying to brand their own social. They're trying to brand their company social, whatever it is. You have gotten to a point, though, where brands want to work with you at six, your

goals to get paid seven figure from a brand. That's literally the dream for. probably majority of kids right now. You know they want to be creators and influence. What is the reason? If you had to attribute one thing to why you've been this successful, to why people are willing to pay you this amount of money for what you do, what is the one branding thing that you guys have done to differentiate yourself.

It's not one, but it's consistency, reliability. That's it. Why are you making content? Are you making content for yourself? You need to make content for your followers. Why are they following you? Like, I'm not going to be doing shirtless photos of myself like Jason does for my own vanity with my slick back hair.

I'm making videos where I'm wearing a fucking bow acting like a child. That's what I'm doing. So there's that. I'm glad I'm winning at the end. Coming in hot with a couple punches. Yeah, relatability, I think, is the main thing. Are people going to share it? Because I'm going to, I think we make the best ads, hands down.

100%. Like the best ads that you, because they're just relatable, you don't know it's an ad until the end when we have to put the hashtag ad or whatever. You know, it's telling a story in a relatable way that people will share because it's stuff that happens in their daily life. I know that Alex does do everything. She scripts that she writes it. But I'm actually being serious.

When she comes up with the concept, And sometimes you will give feedback or insight. Where do you think it is that she's like, damn, John, that was good? What is it? Is it the dark humor? Is it the twist? Is it the close?

Like, what is John's thing? You're closing. What is John's thing? Your closing has to be huge. Honestly, most of the stuff she writes out, I think is great. I'll just switch some words up. Because it's coming from my voice. I'm like, this doesn't sound right.

Like, I have to act it out first. I'm like, we've got to reward this. But you have to get to the point and get to the point quick. So sometimes if the script's too long, I'll try to like, let's cut this down a bit. When you work with other creators, you network with other creators,

you network with anyone, not even creators, just people that literally just put content out on a public forum. What is the number one thing that irritates you about like this space in those people? I just think how fake people are.

I think I've seen that a lot. L.A. specifically. Again, I said you were my only friend. Yeah. You know, it's tough to, no, like, seriously, no, it's very tough to find. I'm also older. That's the issue. You're old as fuck, too, which you don't want to admit it.

But, like, we're old heads. I just do more bowtops. Give me your guy. I don't dye my hair, though. You see, I have great. I mean, you just get spray tans. But we, um, this guy goes, I was just in Buffalo. I'm like, was there a lot of fucking sun there?

But, but. Blow me. Yeah, I mean, again, I think the difference is like, And this is amazing all the new generations coming in and doing stuff like I don't relate to. I'm just, we are in the older end of like creation. I don't think there's anything to do with it. I think there's anything to do with it. You don't, no, no, you're talking about like what I don't like about.

Yeah, that's fair. Hang out younger people. But I think not having friends in this space, it's tough to find loyal people. It's tough to find people that are the same way that they are in front of the camera as they are behind the camera. That's true. It's tough to find people that can put 10 toes down and just to have a healthy conversation. The egos in this space are disgusting.

It's disgusting. You go to way more stuff than I do. That's what I'm saying? So what's your thoughts? Yeah, I mean seriously, like this space, it's very hard to find good people. It's mostly Alex, but you and Alex are two of the best humans that I've ever met in the space. Like through all your success and it just keeps going up and up and up financially and professionally and fucking personally, which is beautiful.

You guys are just the best of the best. And it is so hard to find that. It is so hard to find that in that space. Thanks, man. I mean that. One thing I wanted to ask you, there's something called the four burner theory. Have you heard about this? No.

Of course you haven't. Did you read? No. Did you shit your pants? Sometimes. How often a year would you say you shake your pants? How many times I throw underwear out? I was thinking more than that.

Four burner theory. There's your health. Oh, wait. Yes. I have. And you got to shut one of them off, which one is going to shut off? Yeah, bitch. That's right, bitch.

Family? What are the friends? Okay. Health work. Family friends, health, work. Which of those are shut off the most right now? Oh, right now. I was like if I had to shut one off forever.

No, I'm just saying like which one in your life? Family friends, health work. Which one would I shut off? No, which one is shut off? You know what I think people could take away in this episode? I don't care. You're a great guy, but thank God for Alex. Thank God.

Oh, I wouldn't last long. I already told Alex. So we get divorced. I'm like, give me a one-bedroom apartment, somewhere warm. I hope she got a pre-nup. No. I have some question. She didn't make you sign one.

I'm going to roll into that once I finish your question. What's probably gone right now? Probably friends because we moved from L.A. to New York. You know, we're just in the trenches right now. Lucy's almost six months old. So not trying to navigate that. So socially we're kind of like not doing a whole lot. Do you think you'll stay in New York?

I don't know. Actually, so what we're thinking about is maybe, maybe trying to get like something in the city to be able to go. Because there's a lot of events, a lot of things going on. And we just want to be around better, like people better than us that are creative that we can like just, you know. All right. So city, Long Island. Yeah. This episode of Trading Secrets is brought to you by booking.com. I've got to say, if you're looking to grow your vacation rental business, this is the. the place to be. Booking.com is one of the most downloaded travel apps in the world and for good reason. Since 2010, they have helped over 1.8 billion vacation rental guests find a place to say. And I've been one of those guests. I've gone to booking.com and looked for places and vacation rentals to stay and have had incredible experiences. But here's the thing. Most vacation rental hosts

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Just head to booking.com and start your listing today. Get seen, get booked on booking.com. Before you and I met, what did you think of me? Oh, I was like, fuck this guy. Wait, why? You just looked like such a bitch. A bitch? I looked like a bitch.

Slicked in his hair back. Like, you're fucking Fabio. You thought you'd hate me. Yeah. I remember you were pissed that you liked me. Yeah. You got me like literally, you looked in the mirror like, fuck it. be better job.

I know. It's like... Good. Yeah, I defend you. Okay, so you were talking about pre-up. Did I win you in the divorce? No comment. So,

I saw your episode, you don't know, watch any of your fucking podcast episodes, but I saw one like Blake was on, your buddy Blake. And I got to meet him, though, he's,

him and his wife. It's great. This was a while ago, and I was probably drinking when I wrote this. But the question I had was talking about, like, you're talking to Blake and his wife,

And I was starting to think, how hard is it in this space, what you're doing, what we're all doing? Like, I met Alex before any of this. I met Alex, neither one of us were successful. I think Alex is making 30 grand a year. And that's when I was a therapist. You know, so we started together. And I mean, I'm just glad because it makes everything so much easier for us. Like, yeah, we don't have a pre-no.

We have not. Like, everything is 50-50. And we're a team. And I don't know what that's like in the space of when you're meeting someone, when you're already successful or like already doing what we're doing. So what, I understand the topic.

The question is what, how hard is it? Yeah, like what are you, what's your, what's your suggestion if you're going to get married if you're, you know, I think you're asking me.

I think what you're asking me is, I think what you're asking me is hard hitting questions, Jason. But I still don't understand the question. You haven't asked the question. You're going to, get married.

If you get married, like, what's financially looking like? What's your suggesting? You're the financial guru. Well, if, is what, okay, that was, if you're getting married, if I'm getting married, we're going to do a bachelor party. And if I'm getting married, well, I'm not with someone that's, like, really in this space right now, right? So I don't know really what your question is.

I guess it doesn't have to be, but you are saying it's hard. You're already at, like, a place in, like, you're at the, yeah, not. and say you're at the pinnacle buddy, but you're like up there, I guess. You know, so like I think I would be guarded. Oh,

fuck yeah. My guarded? Okay. Yeah, I'm guard. Are you kidding me? After the things I've been through, I am beyond guarded.

You know, with Catherine and I, we, I met the first time I ever met her was when I went to go rescue Teddy. And we were friends for a while and then like romantically got involved. And then,

Until I could get myself to be like lock into a relationship, she would be like, how do you have this many walls up? She's like, I feel like I just want you to see me. Did she watch The Bachelor? And I was like, well, I see you for you, but I've also seen other people for them. And that didn't work out. And my guard is so high from that.

I mean, it's the highest. But I think one of the questions, too, is like, if you're in this space and you're with another person who is a creator, Yeah, let's leave about that. Let's leave about that. The support is important too, right? Okay. From podcaster to podcaster,

do you enjoy it? Do you find it worth it? What's your motivation? Well, you took my question because I was going to ask you about the podcast and what you're doing and how I'm doing it. Okay. Why do I do the podcast?

I do it for branding. I do it because we're in the business category, the entrepreneur category. As far as your rates go, in those spaces, rates are always going to be higher. If I look at my past five largest deals, It's going to be insurance deal. It's going to be a bank deal.

It's going to be an investment company. It's going to be a credit card company. Those are the highest premium. So this also helps brand. I also enjoy it. It allows us to also build relationships to possibly give people to work with our agency. But as far as the monetization from it, it's harder, right? Because I've done the calculations of CPM, right?

You get paid per thousand views. Usually it's around 30, 35, 40 bucks per thousand. And if less you're pumping out podcast every single day or you have an insane amount of downloads, it's hard to justify because digital pays way more. The premiums are way higher. So it's a lot of work. I love it, though. What do you think? That's what's so tough motivation-wise. It's so hard when you skip a step. Like when you started doing digital, making brand deals, and then you go to do a podcast. I'm like, I see the money from brand deals for a podcast that podcast takes up. We did like a pie chart at the end of the year. I mean, it was a

sliver of our income. Your podcast revenue Yes. How much do you make a podcast? Oh, I don't even know. Do you make less than 300,000? Yeah, yeah. Okay. And so as a result of that, is that why you're going to get rid of it? Are you going to keep with it? You might redo it. No, no. We love the podcast and we'll eventually come back to it. It's just the time of life we're in right now. It was too much with Lucy. Would you ever do anything unscripted? Like, I feel like Alex could be called for maybe Real House. I don't think she wants to be, like, embarrassed. She doesn't want to

Would you ever do unscripted? Yeah, but she'd be like, you're going to embarrass me. Why would you embarrass her? I don't know. Say something stupid, do something stupid. What's one show you'd be on? Oh my God, you know what the show I used to watch?

Full metal jousting. Oh, wow. You don't even know what that is. No. If you had to guess what it was. It's when you're doing the horses and you joust each other. But real.

You're a nightmare. That's what you want to do? Fuck no. I thought it was cool. Are you athletic? You're way more athletic than you. You are. What do you do?

What did you play growing up? Russell. Yeah. Did you play volleyball? I love volleyball. I know. I would destroy you in college. That's your game.

Volleyball, soccer, swam. What are your passions? Gaming. My family. Volleyball. If you had to give a lecture to a Harvard business. If you had to give a lecture, what would your lecture topic be? Make sure you're going to.

Why are you, what are you going to, why are you going to what you're going into? That's insane. All right. Last topic. And then we can wrap you, unless you have any more questions. Love and money. It's a big part of life. How do you and Alex manage finances?

Do you have any hard rules? Do you have any certain communication styles with what does happen? I hope she negotiated like 95% equity based on what she brings the table. Like, do you have a 50-50 split? How does it work? You know, we talk about like how easy our relationship is. It's because we're very similar. We're not like, yeah, I got like a nice car, but we're not like material.

We don't buy designers. We don't buy stuff. You know, if you were to rob my house, what are you going to add my TV on the wall? I don't have shit in here. That's nice. You know, we're not frugal, though, but we like to spend stuff on trips and whatnot. So no one's like outspending the other. What was the question?

Do you have ADHD? Maybe. You know that this is my first podcast by myself? I can tell. I get to help by myself. I usually just let Alex talk. I'm like, uh-huh. Let's go back to the question.

Do you have, do you and Alex have any hard rules as far as like spending, investing, managing the money, talking about money? Do you guys connect about it annually, biannually? Like, do you know where you stand financially? Do you have someone do it? Like any type of love and money things that have worked or don't work? No, we just have split roles, right? She's the creative. She does, you know, everything on the end that you see.

I do the finances. And that's not even by choice. I don't even really want to do it. But she knows nothing about it. She has no interest in it. And I try to do whatever to take off her place so she could stay creative, right? No, that's never been an issue for us ever.

But we always had this conversation before we even got married. Do you want kids financially where you're at? Those are like the big topics you need to have beforehand. And we're on the same page. Have you ever had a big financial mishap? or like some type of fraud that happened or anything like that. Fuck yeah. You have?

Well, when I got, well, who was it? A fucking Comcast. What happened? Got my, Was it Comcast? If you say, fuck yeah, like I'm supposed to know. What happened? Yeah, I mean, I always get scammed.

Scammed? How'd you get scammed? My credit score. I was buying the, when I went to buy this house. Here we go. We're going to buy this fucking house. And they check my credit. How much is, hey.

How much is the house? house you buy it. You owe seven, you seven grand of Verizon and you, they got like 10 cell phones that you bought. I'm like, there's two of us. Why would I buy 10 cell phones? Somebody got my information and I got hacked and my credit score got fucked and then I went to fix it and I got I thought then someone McAfee called me and it wasn't McAfee. It was another guy. I got scammed twice within a week. Did you give them credit card information? You did. I give them my information. So when you talk about roles, yeah, I'm no longer allowed to answer my phone.

When you wake up, what do you do? I throw my phone out the window. Are we done here? Last question that I'm going to wrap. I'm going to wrap. And it's actually, it's very serious. So serious. It is.

No, no. It is. There are people that are going through tough times now. You have gone through very tough times over the last few years. years, when you're in the darkest point that you've ever been in, what are some things you've done to just overcome that? It's really hard to dig yourself out of that. And you were in it.

I mean, I remember calling you and just talking to you. You were down and out. What are things that you did to kind of get back on track? And I think there's a lot of people listening. They look up to you. They watch your content. They laugh with you. But they don't also hear this side of you.

And there's obviously a lot of learning and growing you've had to do through those chapters. and why do you laugh? What's wrong with you? Because I'm fucked up. Yeah, but no, like, I actually, you know what? Honestly, I'm going to tell you my takeaway and then I want your two. No, you asked me.

I don't care about your takeaway. This guy, his pocket, he's just been chirping this whole fucking time. Lean on your partner. That's the biggest thing. Lean on your partner. I think, you know someone told me not to my, someone came to me and they're like,

It's refreshing about me is I don't keep anything. I'll say whatever. Yeah. And I think no filter. I think that's no filter, but also like I don't keep anything inside. So I guess Alex calls it trauma dumping on other people. It makes me feel better.

But like I never keep anything inside. That's great. And when you do that, I mean, you're just like eating yourself from the inside out. Well, they say like name your feelings to drain them. So it sounds like you just automatically do that.

Yeah. But like, not to everyone. It's like, you know, with Alex and when the time was right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You got to communicate. It's like the biggest thing. I think, too, what people have seen is in your worst times in life. You still, and even when I asked the question, you kind of laughed a little bit. And I think you've done this. And so, Alex, it's so unbelievably well, is saying, okay, it's all right that we can use humor as a scapegoat to the worst moments in our life.

And find ways to also build a community and have people support us and root for us through laughing. Like, honestly, I think that is a training. that I've learned from you guys because it's very, it's not intuitive. It's very almost like contradictory. But it's real and it works and it's worked for you guys. It's a coping mechanism that worked for us. It won't work for everyone. But, you know, it's funny not I'm thinking about because laughing right now with you.

Like it's because I'm also deflecting those feelings. Yeah. Like when we were on Tameran Hall, she had this, she had this like montage video. she popped up, I didn't know they were what it was. I mean, I'm in front of this whole crowd and I didn't see it coming and it got check. I was like whole, I mean, I couldn't really keep it in all the way. And I didn't have the opportunity to, you know, like our dark humor, community, to create laughing and like that.

So knowing that like the type of people that we are, it's like, damn, I mean, everyone's different. Yeah. So I don't know where I was going with that, but. Yeah, lean on your partner. lean on your friends, lean on your family, if you want, whatever makes you feel better. But I think the main thing is don't keep shit inside. Yeah, let it out.

Yeah. And pain with waves. Everything's in waves. I think that's what the therapist that we paid $150 for told me. I was like, everything she was fucking telling me, I'm like, this is a shit I already know. But she was like, you know, trauma, pain, everything. Everything comes in waves and it slowly will hitch you less or something like that.

I took that to heart. I love it. It's beautiful. All right. Before we wrap with the trading secret, any other questions you got from me?

When are you leaving? I'm leaving soon. Very soon. Any other questions? My brother. Cheers. Guys, make sure you tune in to trading places

with John and Jason Tardick. It's an honor. Trading places. Salute. In 2025, how much you make? More than you bitch. That's true.

Wait, you got a wrap with your trading secret. Fuck face. Oh, we're not done? Yeah, we're not done. All right, John. guess that's come on almost 300 episodes here that you got to wrap with a trade secret you can't learn from professor can't learn from a TikTok tutorial or in a textbook only through

your life advice it could be life advice financial advice career advice one trading secret with john Pufar that's specific to him what do you got this guy with the questions I thought we were just having a conversation actually have a partner that's better than you find a partner that's better than you for sure are you just going to dump it all over the fucking table Like fuck you're so annoying Give me a training secret This is mahogany Wayfair

Wayfair Okay John Give us a trading secret My training secret is honestly Is finding a partner That's better than you Why would you ever find

You want to grow You want to succeed Surround yourself with people better than yourself. Good. And acknowledge that. I want to be the dumbest person in the room. It's not that complicated.

But, you know, unfortunately right now, that's not the case. But, like, soon, we'll mix that up. We go upstairs. Yeah, soon. It will be. All right, John. I'm going to say this.

The trading, see, what is this one thing I've learned from? My mother's calling me. Oh, my God, Face Tiver. All right, answer the phone. Mrs. Bufard? This is Bufart. How are you?

Mom, let me call you. We're doing a podcast. I got to ask you a question. One question. One question. What is one thing about John as a child? We wouldn't know, but we could only know from you. When he was, he had to know exactly everything ahead of time.

So you couldn't just say we're going here. It was like where, why, how. And then if we were going somewhere like the next day, John would have all of his clothes laid out like a crime scene on the floor. Did that worry you at all or no? No. No, you loved it. That was him.

All right. That was it. All right. Great. No, we're good. We're good. Thanks. We'll call you later.

Great to see you. Bye. Bye. Wow. What a way to end it. All right. Here's a training secret I learned from you, John. Let me dig it.

You always stay in your lane. You're so authentic no matter who's around you. And in all situations, you know how to laugh and make the best of it. And honestly, you're such a piece of shit. I can't believe I've continued to say friends with you one of the biggest pieces

of shit I met I'm so glad that I won you in the divorce so thank you you guys heard it here first folks where can people find

everything you got going on John J-O-N I got to figure out a better username maybe we should do a poll John. dot boof I'm like was that the best

thing I can come up. That's tough. J-O-N-B-O-U-F-F. You feel like I see you as like the real John Booth. To be honest, guys, you don't want to follow him. You can follow Alex. Alexandria, Madison. I don't even know our thing.

Don't worry about it. Thank you for tuning in to another episode. Scrap this podcast episode. One you couldn't afford to miss.