Trading Secrets - 47: Josh Peck: Nickelodeon $tar to Blockbuster Actor…a story like no other

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

Check out The Restart Roadmap: Rewire and Reset Your Career now!   In this week’s episode, Josh Peck opens up about all of the money associated with being a child star. Was he truly financially set for life after making it on Nickelodeon’s hit series Drake & Josh? Josh shares behind-the-scenes insight into cutthroat movie industry negotiations, and the impact his mom’s support and resourcefulness had on the trajectory of his career. Josh managed to leverage his successful childhood acting career to ride the growth of social media and stay relevant…but how exactly? He also happens to be a huge Shark Tank fan. Find out who his favorite shark is along with endless brilliant life and career advice in another episode that you cannot afford to miss.   Sponsors: Shopify.com/secrets for a free 14-day trial Wanderingbear.com code SECRETS for 20% off   Host: Jason Tartick Voice of Viewer: David Arduin Executive Producer: Evan Sahr   Produced by Dear Media.

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. Happy Monday. You can probably tell my voice is a little hoarse. That's because we are on day eight of an eight city tour all in a row in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This is where we're ended at Mall of America for the restart roadmap book tour. This has been amazing to connect with each and every one of you. And if I didn't get to your city, hopefully here in the future, we will get there.

But we were in Nashville, Buffalo, New York City, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, and now Minneapolis. If you guys haven't grabbed a copy of the restart roadmap, please do. You can get on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, books a million. It would really mean the world to me. And if you do get it, I'm looking at those reviews, throw in five stars and give me your feedback. Literally, this has been one of the most rewarding weeks of my life. Thank you so much for giving me a shot. Thank you so much for giving this a read.

And without further ado, I wanted to bring on a guest today that truly, truly inspires me. This is a podcast you can't afford to miss with the one, the only. We got to ring in the bell first. Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. Today we are in the presence of former Nickelodeon. Oh, God, I love just saying Nickelodeon. Child star and now living icon Josh Peck. Josh's big break came when he landed a role on Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show.

I remember that. That's me. A sketch comedy show starring Amanda Binds. The Amanda show ran from 1999 to 2002 in just two years after the series ended. Josh and his fellow cast member on the Amanda show, Drake Bell. landed their own sitcom, Drake and Josh. Their mega hit shows ran for four seasons between 2004 and 2007, spawning two TV movies.

A lot happened in the several years post show between social media stardom, overcoming addiction, entrepreneurial projects, and more acting gigs. He's still very active in the world of television, more recently starring in a 2021 continuation of Turner and Hooch, Disney Plus. He is in Hulu's New How I Met Your Father's Show with Hillary Duff and also is featured in the I-Carley reboot with Miranda Cosgrove. Josh already has plans for the future in 2023. He will co-star in Christopher Nolan's new movie Oppenheimer. In addition to acting,

he has amassed to social media following of about 33 million fans across various platforms and recently just launched an awesome book called Happy People. are annoying that became available in all bookstores just last week. So guys, check it out. Oh, my God, Josh. I am out of breath from reading that resume. You dirty dog, congratulations on all your success. And thank you for being with us today. Oh, man, I'm out of embarrassment for having to sit here and listen to that. I'm so sorry that you have to say it all. You know, some people always say, I'll do the intros after. I'm like, no, I'm going to pump your tires and you're going to hear it.

Lord, that, oh, man. You know, sometimes I do these college games. And it's kind of like a half-moderated Q&A, half-stand-up thing. And a lovely publicist, like the one I have, you know, they'll send that to the school. And it'll be like a lovely 19-year-old kid who'll be looking it over. And they'll be like, uh, and I'll be like, just say my name. Don't you don't, you know, you don't say anything. Don't go through it all. Don't go through it.

I love that. Or you'll bring a bit, because I'm your age. So we're in this together. But I'm sure some of these college kids are like, so what is SNIC and who's Amanda Binds? How does that work, right? Isn't that crazy? You're not wrong. It's crazy.

Life, man. It just has gone by so fast. And I want to start that off with the first question I have because in your book, Happy People Are Knowing, I know I've heard you in interviews talk about, like, you weren't given this manuscript. You weren't given this manual of what to do, but you'd see the big quarterbacks for the wealthy families. And they were just happy.

And so my question to you is, I know you talk a lot about this in your book about happiness and the whole theory of it. But in general, we talk a lot about money on trading secrets. Do you think that financial well-being is what defines happiness or just what's your overall take on the relationship between finances and happiness in general? I think that money allows you to focus on the things that will truly make you happy. How about that? That the barrier of entry for the, look, it's a nice, you know, it's a nice thought that we could all be quite Buddhist.

and have no possession and just like meditate and be one with God or the universe or whatever it is you choose to believe in and truly like just be about the things that are fundamentally good and true and right and produce happiness on this earth. That's a great thought. Most of us are living somewhere in the middle, right? And where it's like maybe we're not insane captains of industry or people who are trying to become like these these titans, but we're trying to have a nice life and make a living and take care of our families.

And yeah, I think finance plays a huge role in that. Look, I've lived on both sides of having no money and having, you know, a nice amount to feel, you know, thankfully comfortable. And again, I go back to what I said first, which is like having a little bit of money allows you to focus on the things that will truly make you happy. Yeah, I love that. And your story is, it's amazing because it's like a wild roller coaster of these high highs and low lows and big changes and detours that launched other changes.

And it's so cool to see it all come together and you to be able to voice the story and also put lessons forth. But I always think about, like, think about your childhood, right? So I know that you were raised by a single mother. When you think about your childhood, is there anything about like a chip on your shoulder type thing that keeps you going? Because what's crazy about your resume is it. just doesn't stop from 1999 to 2022 and now we're already looking at a 2023 at new projects

that's like almost unheard of to keep this up at that rate what do you think like what do you test it to is like a chip on your shoulder from when you didn't have it or what is your motivator it's a great it's a great question i you know i i don't know if i could like do the forensics on my life and to know like this specific like one thing except that i talk about this moment in the book which was, I hated being powerless as a kid. I was an only child, single mom. My mom's older, you know, I'm 35, she's 77. So a lot of my time was spent at the behest of her kind of,

and totally, I mean, she did more than probably what two parents could do together. I mean, she's a pretty spectacular human, and yet I constantly felt like when we would go through financial insecurity, which isn't something new for a single parent doing it on their, own and especially a woman like my mom who was a self-made business woman in the 60s and 70s and 80s I'm sure navigating misogyny and all the weird workplace stuff she had to deal with and so I just hated that feeling and I can still feel it to this day when my mom would turn to me because I could feel it coming you know for weeks prior to this I'd see my mom get a little manic

She'd get a little crazed about, you know, because I could see that her business, for whatever reason, things weren't going right, and we were starting to tighten up financially. And even at our best, we were probably lower middle class, but suddenly things were starting, a tide was turning. And you'd feel the forces, the weather, you know, the storm clouds coming. And then finally, she would just look at me and say, we're going to move in two weeks. And I don't know where we're going, but we're going to figure it out because we always figure it out. And to her credit, we always did figure it out like she always took care of us but i hated it just made this the you know it put the stake in the ground it planted this flag of like i hate this feeling of not knowing where we're going to sleep or what we're going to do and i'm going to do everything in my power to make sure we don't have to do that anymore oh my god i love that honestly gave me goosebumps just hearing that because you're taking me back to like i'm feeling it i'm seeing the image of that one thing I often wonder about, we talk a lot about on this podcast and in my restart consulting group is financial literacy and just the things we're just not taught the shit that we have to know

in the school system. And some of this just comes from experiences like you pad or some of it comes from falling on our face or some of us are still living in this naive world of just not knowing the things that we need to know when it comes to the money. So when you felt that, were there ever Are those, like, did your mom ever have these, like, open discussions about, like, financial management or, like, what the money meant? Or did you learn any of these, any of these, like, instilled lessons from her? Or for your standpoint, was it that you could just sense, like, you could kind of put the pieces together and the learning lesson was in what you were visualizing? Yeah, it's a great, it's a great thought. I mean, there was this duality, right? Because my mom is

this incredibly hard worker. I would remember just watching her jump out. out of bed and you know because she got a call at nine o'clock at night for something i mean she's always been a self-made i'm sure if i have any entrepreneurship it's it's from my mom because she's never been great working for anybody it's always been like self-made do or die on her own shoulders and she always even in moments of huge challenge and trial she somehow always got her head above the surface and sometimes she was riding the jet ski above that surface like with the pinie collada in her hand. Another time she was caught up in the lip-tide,

but that's the life of an entrepreneur in many cases. And so I learned that industriousness from her that never stopped because there were so many instances where she could have just said, you know, what the hell with it, this isn't fair. But she never gave up. So it was that part. And look, my mom, you know, when we would have a good year, my mom would make a hundred grand in the 90s.

And this is, that was a lot of money for two, for two people but she also like she also sort of balanced that with like i don't i can live cheaper in jersey where she was from you know we could live a smaller life and maybe be putting away an extra five or ten grand a year and have a little bit more of a cushion or i could have my kid live in new york city the greatest city in the world and be you know and sneaking in the Broadway shows during the second act when, you know, the, the play would let out for the second acts where people could smoke and we would sneak in and get a free seat. Like, I want him to be able to go to the greatest museums and the greatest cabarets and

have all this experience. And I know that's going to cost us more. But what's the value that you can't, you know, you can't assign a physical monetary value to? So I think, like, for me, it's just always been, I've always lived well below my means. and yeah that's that's it's a great lesson it's cool to also talk about those like those experiences and the value of those and how those could be even greater than like monetary dollars and living below your means is super important and i know there's a lot of misconceptions in all industries and so that's what we do on this podcast sharks from shark tank gary v a rod i mean you name these industries we got people from all different industries you've touched a lot of industries

but one of the cool things I love that you said this and I want to dig a little deeper but it was in the CNBC interview when you said there's this misconception about child stars like we think that they're set for life so can you give me some some idea of what those misconceptions are and like a big child star like how how like what do they make like is it life changing money is it you know 10 year chill like what is that what is the reality of the money in that world I can only speak to my experience, but I think it's quite public that if you were on a show like two and a half men or a modern family and you were the kid on a massive network syndicated show like that, the case could be made that you'd have enough money to last you for the rest of your life if you lived in a smart way. I talk about the money on Drake and Josh specifically and starting on Nickelodeon because to your point, I believe it was this misnomer. And I think people always felt like they look at people like me and go, well, if you're still working or if you're still trying, you messed up somehow because you got given a golden parachute and you should just be like out on a yacht in Monaco, you know, living it up, hanging out with Burrell.

But the reality is that, you know, when we were making the show, we did 60 episodes and we made about $15,000 an episode. So when all is said and done, we were sort of left after agents and managers and taxes, you're up with about $450,000 over five years, which breaks down a little less than $100,000 a year. Now, certainly a great amount of money, but not enough to set you up for life. And a lot of it we lived on. And, you know, I'm not going to, I don't mean to brag. My mom and I had a used BMW 5 series. Let's go. We lived in a two-bedroom apartment with amenities. Let's go.

We were, you know, like, could we have gotten to use Honda? Yes. Like, could we have been in a one-bedroom? Yes. But we lived a very middle-class life, and a lot of that money went to our lifestyle so that when the show was over, oh, and there's no residuals on kids' television, it was like we had 18 months of runway. You know, it's as though someone had.

their job who was, you know, a dentist and how much savings would a normal person have where they couldn't work, maybe a year, maybe 18 months if they're lucky. We know from data that most people don't have enough money to incur a $400 emergency if we're honest. Right, right. Well, yeah, more than 150%. You're right. Yeah. It's crazy. What a wild dichotomy, though, of you being in this position growing up and then being in the position where like you're providing for your family how old were you at this point and in like mentally what's that like because i could think now right when i get to buy my dad a cool gift or something or take him somewhere it's the most satisfying thing in the world but i can't even imagine if it was like at a younger age what that's like

and what conversations are had can you tell me a little bit about that it it kind of is is like you can't you can't grow the rose without its thorns if that makes sense like I totally subscribe to that being able to provide from my mom and now for my wife and my kid like is the great honor of my life it's a privilege I would do it no matter what and I believe that I'm so overpaid emotionally and like I'm so supported and taken care of by my family and my wife and my kid like that my job in this sort of a if a marriage is really what the government says it is which is it's a business you opened a business with someone right right

then my job in this sort of corporation is to bring in the money and then her job is to like basically do everything else and like and the argument could be that it's of more value so I love it and yet the thorn part of that is that there are surely moments where my wife is saying to me like you know we're okay like you know you don't need to sweat it as hard as you do and I do and I'm neurotic and I'm overly nervous and I'm overly careful about money because there's still that 10 year old inside of me that doesn't ever want to be where I was. Wow yeah that's wild a question about now being on the other side of this parenting like that's the full transition

and so it's interesting and some of the interviews I've got to watch you do when you do talk about like I grew up not knowing this manual and some of the things you've shared here. Now it's like full circle where you are everything that as a kid you're like, how do you get there? How is a parent do you kind of teach and parent and guide your kid who is seeing a father with such financial and popularity and success like that to still have that exact thing that's got you to where you are. How do you do that? What does that look like? Well, I think it's important to, it's a bad comparison because, you know, Jerry Seinfeld is rich, rich. But I think he said, you know, Seinfeld did have residuals. Um, good for them. Like, I, I don't know, I, I might be

misquoting him, but I thought I had heard something to the effect of like, we remind our kids that, like, our kids aren't rich, their parents are rich, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And while I can never be even spoken about in the same breath, like, I think it's really important to instill in my son who's not going to have to go through the same financial hardship set. Like, we are incredibly lucky. We are 1% of the population that to be born into a first world country, having a you know as normal as you can of a traditional family system my wife's beautiful family my mom like he's just got a army behind him and that's that's the lottery right he was born he was born lucky and the way he pays back that debt it's by paying it forward to other people and how

important that is for him to do for others who aren't born as lucky and and you know I was on gabby Reese's podcast and I really look up to her and her husband there at Hamilton and they're like these credible athletes and fitness experts and podcasts and so many different things and I said what do I do because I think so much of the reason why I'm like cool or tolerable at all is because of these hardships yeah and I worry in trying to insulate my son from that he's just going to be an entitled jerk and she's like well you can certainly do the work that you're doing as of now, sending a good example, but just like, remember, like, your challenges will be different than his, but his will be just as real and valid. He's like, so you didn't have a dad, so no one

compared you against him, but now people might say to your kid, like, oh, your father's so funny, or your father's so this, or your mother's so this, like, are you going to be this way? and that'll be his own, you know, weird emotional battlefield. He'll have to work through and I'm sure I have some issues from. It's like, I don't want to be compared to my dad. Who cares? He's not that cool. I'm with them all the time, you know?

Right. Exactly. And that reminds me, I'm very pro therapy. I love that advice that she gave because I think that's true. But like the therapist said it doesn't matter what life you live, whether you are on the financial, professional, personal spectrum. you've lived in this world, you've experienced some form of trauma that will influence your emotions and digging into yourself, to know yourself better is only going to help you address

those and navigate accordingly, which makes a lot of sense. Josh, one thing we talk a lot about on this podcast is kind of shattering these walls with money conversations because we think that the more we know about certain industries and the more we know about our market, the better we can negotiate ourselves. you could be an accountant in Pennsylvania or a nurse in Ohio, wherever it is, the more you know about the market, the better you can negotiate. As a child actor and now an actor and social media star and podcaster and author, you're operating in all these different markets. Do you ever or have you ever met with other people, whether it was in your child days or

your acting days now or other authors to say like, hey, this was my advance, what was yours? or this is what I'm getting per ad or this was my TV deal. Does that happen in the worlds that you live in? So that was, it's a great, great question. That was what was so cool about social media, especially in the early days, but even now,

is that anything you made in traditional TV or movies was like this heavily guarded secret. Because also sometimes they would say to you, like, and I'll use this, this is actually more than money, this is things we fight about when making deals for a movie or TV show a movie will say

you're shooting a movie in New Mexico and your agent and manager will be like well he could use a rental car because he can't get around a lot of New Mexico not exactly walkable

can you get him a rental car and they'll go we can't because then we got to get the next aid actors rental cars because as soon as they see you with one. So there's always this fear of like, keep your deal guarded because it's going

to blow up other people's deals and they're going to cross compare and suddenly. Interesting. It's like the reverse of what we advocate for, but I get what I make sense. But you're right to advocate against it because the only person this benefits is the people with the money. It's the suits. except if you really want that rental car and you're like I'd rather have it just me than the other seven guys maybe I'll just be quiet and say I rented it myself

but when we started social media it was so new it was the Wild West and here I am a real rarity because I'm coming from traditional movies and TV most of these people are Logan Paul who you know a month before was on the wrestling team at Ohio State

you know or like you know mr bese is from north carolina all these kind of like titans were just normal people so to them they're like hey i'm getting x from Pepsi like how much are you going to get or i've been you know what around what are you making per video now because we have a similar reach we have a similar audience i want to make sure that i'm sort of like keeping up with the standard so we all were pretty open with each other and there was so much work that it was like, it never felt like, oh, by me giving you an industry secret, I'm shooting myself in the foot. It was just good transparency. Yeah, that's fascinating the process of even going to like the newer age people and saying like what are your rates. And I think like

where that can be applicable to anyone out there is we're now, if you do the studies, you're seeing people come out of college now, making six figures, getting six figure offers right out of school of 21. When I came out of 21, it was right after the mortgage crisis. And I was like, I was throwing champagne around because I got a $40,000 base salary. I mean, so I like that idea of making sure that you are still in touch with not only your market and your peers, but the people that are like new to the game and the rates that they're getting to make sure you're still on par with that. That's a great thought. With social media, I got to, that's a thought I have for. I mean, your social media following is just wild. And it's interesting to see there are a lot of, I still

can't connect the dots because there are some actors and musicians and podcasters and authors who are like really successful in their fields but they can't grow on social media or you have people that have these massive social media growth but they can't find like what's next and if they're going to stay in the scene when you came into social media was it just instant growth for you and what do you attribute that to i think it was because i leaned in and i wasn't afraid, you know, I was in this unique position, but I also knew, I think I say something in the book of like, people saw my career, they saw my life and they saw a car that was running, but I knew under the hood was an engine that was about to smoke and that I needed to make a change.

I needed to pivot because I just wasn't sort of hitting the goals that I had set for myself at the speed I was hoping. So when social media came and I saw this connection with my audience, was lucky enough to have an apostle and my friend Rami who worked for an early social media company and so when I really started getting this following I got a call for my agent and manager

and they said what are you doing like haven't we been working to sort of make you not the goofy you know kid star guy and now you're kind of being a weirdo in your car like making these videos like it's this

good for us so I called Rami and I said this seems like an inflection point like I could stop and people won't forget I ever did it or I could keep leaning in and I'm not going to be able to go back and he said don't let anyone tell you what this is because I work in social media and even I don't know it's too early but having direct access to your friends being able to create for them

being able to hear from hundreds of thousands of people what they like what they don't like And everything in between, that's powerful. So do this. In fact, do it every day, like lean into it. And I leaned in. And what I will say is it was at this renaissance of social media. I mean, Vine, Twitter, Instagram, and then inevitably YouTube, TikTok, like these things had been around.

I mean, maybe YouTube was the oldest, you know, maybe in 2006, 2007. and it appeared. So I think I benefited from the algorithm from being on early. I'm not sure if I entered social media today, would I have the same amount of followers? But it wouldn't matter because even if I had less followers, I would have the same engagement.

Because I feed it and I make it a priority. And my buddy, you know, I don't think this is any trade secret. it. But I have a buddy who works in social media at one of the major, you know, Instagram, Facebook. And he basically said like, we only win if you post, right? So we're always, the algorithm is always going to reward consistency. And I see that in people where they let a couple bad posts, a couple of stinkers, you know, turn them off from it for like five months. And I'm like, oh, I am not above a stinker. I'm bad in a 50-50 record.

But what's different about me is I keep going. And the algorithm rewards me for being consistent. Do you have one of those forums that you enjoy the most? And how often are you posts? You talk about consistency. How often are you posting? I mean, I guess I'm a hypocrite because my favorite is TikTok. And I'm not as, you know, I'll sometimes take a month off.

I've been busy with good stuff lately. So I've been sort of prioritizing that. but after this book stuff's done, I will kind of have like a runway of the next couple weeks off or maybe even a few months and I want to get into a more consistent cadence. Like when I was when I was sort of at my my apex

or at the height of social media sort of involvement, it was something on Twitter every day, Instagram posts every other day, something on YouTube once a week. And that was like, yeah, that was kind of where I was at. how do you do you have a massive team do you divide and conquer do you just have diligence with your schedule how do you do all of that doesn't feel like that much uh i don't it's just me but i could be better i mean look i look at people like mr bison i'm like what is that

secret sauce and it's that like in my opinion besides the fact of natural ability and talent it's like he's taking really big swings. And sometimes ambition and risk taking, you know, measured risk taking is a superpower because many of us aren't just, we're not willing to disrupt our life enough to be like, I'm going to buy a Lamborghini at 250 grand and have, see, you know,

who can hold their hand on it the longest and whoever gets to keep it. I'm going to invest a quarter million dollars in the video hoping that, you know, You know, my margin will be 20 grand, 50 grand. Like, to me, I go, it seems pretty simple, but you got to have the guts to buy the Lambeau. Sure.

And that might be his superpower. It's like he has the guts to take that swing. So I think, you know, Robert Green has, I think it's sort of like one of his 40 laws and I'm probably butchering it, but it's this idea of like, if there's anything that anyone else can do for you, like if there's something you can truly doubt. delegate, do it, just take credit. Yeah. So I could certainly delegate a lot of this to an assistant to certain people and

then just focus on the one or two things that are of like my superpower that I'm very capable at, but I just, I'm too lazy or I don't want to hire someone or whatever. But if I did that, I'd probably be even more, you know, productive. Yeah. And as you're even saying this, like the big swings, you know, someone might be listening, be like, I can't even relate to that Lamborghini that the one guy is that he hammers out. But the one thing I think everyone can relate to is having the shitty boast and then feeling like, I'm out. I can't do it. And so sometimes the amount of time that can deter you from

actually just doing and doing and doing, that could be someone's biggest inhibitor. And I love the attitude of you. Like, I just go, I just go. I'm going to take the swings. I'm going to keep, I'll hit a single and a double. I'll strike out. I'll have a single. It's a great attitude. And just like any startup, like I don't have that luxury because I have a wife and a kid and like, I can't reinvest every piece of profit, right? I need to save it and be smart for if a rainy day comes. But if you listen to Mr. B. Sanjo Rogan, like any good startup, he reinvested every dime. Like it didn't start with a Lambo. It started with like, I think he said something to the effect of like, I didn't have, you know, I didn't have money for a camera.

And then, you know, when I got enough money on YouTube, to having this crappy camera, I was able to sort of finally replace it. And then I made enough money to buy an editing computer. And this is over a year or two. But it was like at each step, he was like, I'm not going to hoard this money and then go,

you know, do this thing. And listen, God bless, you know, I think at the time he was 18 or 19. God bless a 19 year old who can take swings like that. Like we can't,

we certainly can't all do that. But I think it's pretty, it's a pretty inspiring story. Mr. Beast is a for sure beast. When you think about the swings that you've taken Josh, and you talked about some of the money that you made as a child actor in that amount per episode and the 60 episodes, think about acting, whether it's television or movies,

social media, podcasting, any of those, which when you look back of your career has been the most lucrative for you? I would say, I mean, social, I think I've gotten my biggest check from movies and television, from traditional movies and television, but over time, the thing that's been most lucrative has certainly been social media, brand deals, and ad sets. That's amazing. And for anyone listening, like, you know, obviously Josh has an incredible resume, but today is like,

now more than ever, you can build these platforms and you can monetize them. And I think, you know, that's a testament. You've heard the movies and shows Josh's been on, and still social media over the long haul has been the best way to monetize. I could ask you a trillion questions. I know we're pretty limited on time. Josh, your book has just come out, and it's on shelf selling everywhere. I love the title. I love the cover. I just came out with a book myself. So I'm going out with a lot of these author interviews. And one thing, I don't think I've been asked, but I kind of wish I was asked, is not when you're thinking about like selling the book or the thing that you've got to say that will summarize it well. But when you think about all the different chapters and the things that you put into it and the stories you told, what is like one memory or moment or something? something that's in this book, your book, that you are just so proud of. And like, if a family

member comes in, you're like, I got to show you this part. What's that one thing about your book? Well, man, there's certainly so many moments. But, you know, like, again, and this is kind of telling you on myself. So the book ends with me kind of telling me where I'm at now. And it was at this real inflection point of like, I had a wife and a kid and I'd had this really successful social media business I was so lucky to have in my podcast, male models about just, you know, guys who are attractive, no big deal. And Jason would be perfect for it. But I was feeling like I had somehow left my traditional TV and film work and that career, that part of me had sort of expired. I just didn't have any goodwill anymore. And it had been over two years where I just went

without working in that space. And I really had to face this idea of my life was okay. My rent was paper. I had a family. And yet I was like, do I have to let go of this thing that I've spent 20 years doing to be okay, to not be haunted by it? Because my life on paper is really, really good. And it was only by letting it go and saying, I can't be defined by this thing.

I can't allow my, you know, for many of us, I had a really weird childhood, but many of us were haunted by our teen years or our 20s. It was so great then. Why now in my early 30s or whenever am I so lost? Shouldn't I have it figured out now? I had so much momentum. Everyone said I had so much potential. But now, God, now what?

But it's like we have to accept that our past is an anomaly. It happened once in time and it can't influence the rest of our life. and that if you're sitting in a moment and being ruthlessly human and you're not exactly sure what's about to come next, that you just have to put one foot in front of the other and allow a good life to be the result of good living. And just a million small good deeds is what amounts to a good life. So try not to judge yourself in moments of frustration or not knowing.

And I think that was sort of the biggest thing that came out of the book for me. Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, I was going to follow up and ask the question of, like, you didn't have the manual growing up. What would you say to those people that look up to you saying, like, I don't have the manual. He grows up, grew up and has and where he is. But I think your answer right there just said it all. I think it's set it off. The stops, the restarts, the making impact and not letting the past kind of define who you are today and live in today. That was yesterday. I love it. There's two questions. There's two things we've got to wrap up with. One, is a quick question. We'll let you think about it. And the other one's your trading secret. The one I got to think about it's going to have to do a shark tank. So get the, get the brain flowing. It's a shark tank question. And then we'll get your trading secret. So the trading secret is something that someone can't find in a textbook. They can't Google. It's a lesson through career navigation or financial literacy, whatever you could leave people with. But the last question I got for you is you, I know, at least I've heard, I've heard you say that you are a fan of shark tank.

So you bring a deal to the table and you got all the sharks. front of you. You know them all. Which shark would you want to partner with on your new venture? Whatever that may be. Who's going to be your shark a choice? Oh, that's easy. I do a 50-50 between Lori Greeneer and Mark Cuban.

I love it. And why though? Why? Lori's got QVC down. I think, I mean, listen, everyone everyone on that show, actually you know what? I'm being greedy now because I actually, because I totally forgot that I know and so deeply respect Damon John. And I think he's like totally brilliant.

And I think, I think like Mark and Lori just casts the widest nets. And so if you can somehow get them to partner up because Mark's so brilliant with what he does in tech, but also like now like that he's doing affordable pharmaceuticals and whatnot, like there's such a virtuous side to the things he does. and once I was promoting a movie and the Dallas Mavericks had me to a game and I got to sit with him courtside for five minutes and he couldn't have been nicer and he was wearing dad he was wearing dad sneakers which I thought was even better I'm like wow a billion bucks and you're wearing dad sneakers so shout out mark what a beauty I love that even like the crypto even like bitcoin he's very careful of where it's mine from and doesn't want like blood coins I mean like he is so proactive and ahead of the curb with that stuff. Two great partners.

Did you get to sell your book on QVC? No, I didn't. I should. That would be amazing. That's the next stop. Next stop for you. You go sell that book on QVC. Trust me, I tried.

They turned me down. They said I need a product. But you got a lot more going on than me. So I think you'll be able to pull it off. Come on. No, dude. I'll try, man. Lori, what do you want?

You want a $3 big? A $3 big on each book, whatever you need. Let's go, Lori. Pump that book out. It will put money in your pocket, too. All right, Josh, I could talk to you for hours and hours on your career because it honestly is so fascinating. And the dollars and time and logistics behind it, I could, you could, I could, you'd have my attention forever. But I know you got to get going. Yeah, that would be, that would be a pleasure.

And, but you got to leave us with a trading secret. One trading secret that our listeners couldn't find in a textbook, Google, or learn in a classroom that they could take from the one and only, Josh Pack. Do people favors. I, look, the secret to life in. my experiences to be of service to others, right? So by being of service to others, by figuring out ways to inconvenience yourself in order to, you know, help someone in a small way or, you know, when you help someone in a big way, like help them find a job or, you know, introduce to people who eventually start dating and maybe get married, but like there are so many different levels of helping people and doing favors. Now, you're immediately rewarded just on a karmic level that

it just feels good to get out of yourself, to do stuff for others. So at its base, if you are just doing it because it just seems to be the secret equation to life to actually feel good and not be a self-centered mess the way I can be sometimes, do stuff for other people. In addition, it can really set you up to win in ways you'll never expect. Because when you're generous, when you're benevolent with people, when you have some success when you're able to share with them when they find those moments when they incur those moments in their life they're going to remember that and they're going to say like we've got some business here and like you know what josh or jason they were always solid they always did right by me like

and they can really knock this out of the park let's float you know when it comes down to someone who's got like they can float business to three different perspective you know suppliers or vendors your clients. They're going to go with the person. All three guys could do the job. But like, who do they have a relationship with? Who's solid? Who do they owe one to?

So you can accrue a lot of that goodwill. I love it. Do things for others. And I think the thing about it, too, is like conversely, if you look at the opposite side of that, if you're someone or we all know someone, that's the take, take, take person. And how badly do you not want to at all give to that person? And I think it's obvious as that person is to you, if you're looking at, or Josh, you're thinking about your person. I'm thinking about a person to take take

person. It's just as obvious the person that's give, give, give. And when you do stuff for others, I couldn't agree more, the return usually becomes greater than what you do, especially when you do it with like authentic and genuine disposition, which is awesome. Josh, it's been such a pleasure having you. Your new book, Happy People Are Annoying. Where can people find it? Oh, you can find it at Diesel Bookstore. It's Amazon and check out my podcast, MailMiles. MailMouse, and that's everywhere you can get podcasts? Yeah, exactly. Mal models, there it is.

And is it just Josh Peck at social media for all social medias? No, I'm a mess when it comes to like I'm Ed Schupec on Instagram. There's a real Josh Peck civilian in the world and he's been taking all my handles for the last decade. And God bless him. You know who am I? What I think I'm so special? All right. The good thing is, Josh, you don't have to have one of those real Josh Peck.

Everyone knows who you are. So just type in Josh Beck. Check out his book. Check out in his podcast. Josh, thank you so much for being here and shend some light on your story and what we can take away from it. Oh, this was great, Maine. You're awesome at this. I love chatting with you. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you, Josh. Ding, ding, ding. We are closing the bell with the one and only the curious Canadian. We are on day eight of the book tour. In Mall of America, that is today, Monday. And this is our last day. and it has been such a great ride. And thank you guys for listening to another episode of Trading Secrets.

And thank you for tuning into a recap with The Curious Canadian. I will say, there are a lot of people out there through our tour that knew the Curious Canadian, that loved the Curious Canadian, and that want more of the Curious Canadian. David, how's that feel? Shocking. Absolutely shocking. I came here to help you and help the tour. And it's been so awesome to see all the people come out from Bachelor Nation, from fans of the podcast,

from fans of restart, fans of the book. It's been an incredible experience of planes, trains, and automobiles and almost missing shows, but all seven locations have been amazing and excited for you to cap it off on day eight today. So congratulations. Really quick, what's been your favorite part? Favorite part has honestly been at the end of it to connect with people and then hear their stories. The second favorite part is when you got the people that are open, like they'll do the open Q&A or they participate, and they have told things that are so inspirational that they've taken away

from what we're doing. that touches me at the car, it's unreal. Absolute rock stars in our crowds and the fans that have come out. So thank you, everybody, for that. Another absolute rock star is Mr. Peck. I mean, Jesus, the guy. The guy was such an entertaining and informative interview. I got to tell the people at home about this and give you a little chirp here.

So I was like, man, I grew up in Canada. We had YTV. We didn't have Nickelodeon. I had no clue who Drake and Josh was. I've never seen the show. to know who Josh was. And I go, I say that to Tarnick. And Jay goes, man, he's huge.

He did a show with Drake. And tell him what you thought by Drake. Okay. First of all, Josh Peck is huge, regardless of what Drake he did a show with. But I actually thought it was. DeGrassey. Dragrassy, Drake. Like, I mean, dude, I do so much research on these guests and I knew everything about

them. The fact I didn't know that, it's such a joke. It also shows you the power of just Drake's brand. you just say his name, I just assume that it's Drake. You instinctly think it, yeah. Whether it's the one who sells out Madison Square Garden or the one who's... Bonehead played by Jay.

Yeah, or the one who's in a wheelchair on DeGrassey. But one thing he probably did more of than Drake on DeGrassey was with Drake and Josh, a huge, huge show. I'm going to end in the numbers a little bit, get your take on this. He said he made 15K an episode. It did 60 episodes, so he made 450K over the five years. Now, I think the interesting part about that is it jumps off as like, you know, mind-blowing money. I think these child stars sometimes we think that they're, like he said, set for life.

But I have a question just, you know, first off, your overall opinion on the amount that he was making for the show. But he mentioned residuals. And A, just give the quick, like, curious Canadian voice of the viewer one-on-one on what a residual is. And then he said, almost matter of fact, like, yeah, children's shows, you don't get residuals, but like Seinfeld swimming in them. So I just kind of want you to wrap that up a little bit.

Gotcha. So most residual payments from what I know are usually paid to. people that are like above the talent line. So it would be like the principles, the executives, etc. Think about it like royalties. Like if a show gets syndicated or a show reruns, right? Like think about friends. How many time it's rerun? But then what happens in certain shows where the talent is such a priority and such a big part of the episodes, like friends, they start to get those. And so when you're getting those type of residuals, every day there's a rerun. There's money coming in your pocket. I think his point was kind of like, we,

You see pro-athlet contracts, and yes, it sounds like monopoly money, and it is monopoly money. But he's saying, like, it doesn't set you up for life. It's not like, even though this is real money, especially for a kid and it's a huge advantage, it's not like Josh never had to work again. I think that was his big point. I would love to know how much like a Jennifer Aniston gets paid when the Friends rerun is playing on TBS at like 11 p.m. on a Tuesday night. The money behind Friends is insane.

We will do a full episode on that. I would love that. We'll dissect it and break it down. Yeah, obviously I get totally. I looked like Ross Geller every five seconds. That really hit home for me. You kind of do, though. Yeah, well, okay.

Moving on, I got told I looked like M&M last night. No, you did not. Shut up. I swear to God. Wait, what? I don't know. I was like the first time. I have a lot of lookalikes.

Eminem, definitely not one I was expecting. Add to the list. Yeah. A couple other things he mentioned that stuck out that I want your take on. His just take on a parenting. I think his value of experience of cost of living, his approach to just an overall societal class person. breakdown in how he spends, how he lives, how he values money. He talked about being really

neurotic about his money because he never wants to experience what he did as a youth. I just wanted your take on kind of that like, I don't know, psychoanalysis of the behavior that he approaches from his experience. There's a whole breakdown we could do with this. We'll keep it shorter and sweeter just because this is a recap. But what a wild turn of events to go from seeing your family struggle a little bit with just your mother raising you. to within like a decade, like a 10-year period, at a young age, like 15, 16, you're actually like contributing to the entire bills to the house and taking care of the family. Like the burden, the transition there is massive.

I like his style and what has thought on the whole parenting. Like, yes, we're well off now. And our kid will be well off for a while, but he too will have his own set of struggles, right? He'll have a set of struggles of creating his own identity, making sure that it's not his whole life. Oh, you're just Josh Peck's son. And I think that's really important to know that like at any level, people deal with stuff that they have to overcome to like create their own in any relationship that happens at all different levels. It was interesting the way that like he spun it though.

Speaking of relationships, he had a comment that I wrote down here that I've never really thought of it this way. He said marriage is opening a business with someone. You know, you're obviously very close to cross the finish line and having your wedding whenever you want to announce a date to the world. I'm two years into mine and, you know, I, you know, just get your takes on how you see that actually being a very, very true statement. I mean, think about it. Like, yes, of course, there's so much like history behind marriage and the meaning and loyalty

and different religions have different emphasis on it. But at the end of the day, like, really the true difference is you are entering a business contract. It's like you're signing an operating agreement with a business partner. and there are like kind of, you know, code of laws that happen if that contract gets null and void it. And then I think even taking a step further, David, something you've gone through when you talk about contracts and relationships, you are a citizen of another country and you have married a citizen of another country. The things that you have told me that it's taken to prove your true, like genuine relationship, I mean, you have a full binder, don't you? Oh, multiple.

So, like, when you look at that binder, I mean, isn't that why? If you guys didn't get married, would you have to do any of that? No. See? No. It's crazy. And how many things are in that binder would you say? For the two green card interviews I've had to do, I would say there's over 500 pages in each.

So you're right. It is almost like a business planner, like a proposal. Crazy. Like, you're pitching the government. You're literally doing a business pitch to the government that you guys are really in love. All right. So if marriage is like opening a business, what is your business title in your marriage? marriage. Oh, that is such a great question. Do you want me to answer first and give you some time

to think about it? Yeah, because I'm so bad on the spot. I'm definitely going to say I'm the CEO of our relationship. I do all the planning. I pay all the bills. I do all the facilities, like the accountant side of things. And then now she's the CEO because she's the boss and she just tells me, you know, what to do. Oh, I like that. That's how we make it happen. If I had to say anything, I'd be like the CFO. Yes. And Caitlin would be like, she would be, she would have two hats. she would be like CEO and creative director. Oh, I like that. I like that.

And then it would be like Batman and Robin, where 90% of the time she's Batman, but sometimes I switch into her place. There you go. I just came up. A little role play. Okay, two more things I want to get to and then we're going to wrap up here

because we're getting tight for our last flight to Minneapolis here. He said something that these two things I've seen actually happen on the tour. And I just kind of want to put them out there and talk about them because they mean more to me now than they did when I first heard this interview. He says, when you post on social in the position that you're in, everybody wins.

And I just thought that that was a really, like, powerful statement that I haven't really thought of before. And I think probably when you're posting on social, sometimes you're probably like, why the hell am I doing this? Like, does anyone care? Does anyone want to see this? I can't tell you how many people came up to us on the tour in the meet and greets and just thanked Jason so much for this that he posted or sharing this or sharing this with him and

Caitlin and how much it just means to them to be a part or see you vulnerable and things like that. So a long-winded question, just what does that mean to you? How does that resonate with you when you hear Josh say when you post on social, everybody wins? Yeah, I think what it, like, to me it means, like the more you overthink things and you don't know what's going to work and what's not going to work and what people hate or what people don't like. But I think what he's saying is if you're feeling it and you're thinking it and you're seeing it and you believe in it, stop overthinking to paralyze yourself, just do it. You'll have no idea the impact that you'll reach. To me, it reminds me like the amount of times, David, I went back and forth with Chapter 1 when I talk about

this whole Xanax thing in the Listerine case. I'm like, why am I doing this? Why am I telling this? This is such a joke. But the amount of people, and I was like, I think that's such a far-fetched story, like no one's experience this, the amount of people that have come up to me and told me I was doing the same thing. I had this going on. I had this going on. And when you least expect it. I just think it comes down to vulnerability, creates connection, and vulnerability is being honest with not only yourself, but all the closest people around you. And our listeners aren't all influencers. So I don't want that to resonate with just like, hey, if you're an influencer, post more because, you know, everybody wins. I think if at the end of the day,

if you're on social and you have people who are following you, they're doing it for a reason, if you want to post something, if you like, you want to express yourself, if you want to be vulnerable, if you want to highlight, like posts. I think that that everybody wins when you do that and you can stay connected like Jason said. Yeah, I want to quickly touch on that. Like you said, not everyone's an influencer, but that whole ideology that Josh brought up, you can definitely take that and make it transferable to just communicating, if you're thinking something, communicating with your partner, communicating with your boss, communicating with your client. You'd be so surprised at how it could change things. 100%. And then to cap this off,

I'm going to cap it off the way he did with his trading secret. Again, something that we've seen a lot on our book tour so far. He just said, and I love this. He said, do people favors. He said, do people favor favors and serve others. And I just, when that happens in the world, you just feel so good about it. If it's done for you, if you're doing for someone, if you see something, someone doing for someone else, I just think it's like the most simple and powerful thing back to basically our roots. It was a hell of a trading secret.

I also think about that. And don't be the person that's doing a favor. That's like a calculated reason looking for it to come back. I think his idea too with this was like just continue to be yourself and do for others and the return you get will actually be greater but I think so many people look for that like hit for tat. They're like, I did this for you

what are you doing back for me and that that is not what he's saying. You agree with that right? Yeah, 100%. And I think just from my perspective like in New York City we were at the Barstow office, chicks in the office, we did the CNN, we did that and there's just so many people in those experiences that at the end of the day some of them are doing their job but a lot of them are doing

favors and they get so excited and we appreciate it and you appreciate it and at the end of they appreciate it and then you look back at it six months a year later you might be doing something more with them something else like digging up that contact like building off that relationship appreciating that favor i just think that like you said the sum of what can happen when you're just a genuine approach to things um is pretty incredible so i thought that was a great trading secret for a really great guest and and and josh was awesome josh was great David, thank you for joining me on this tour. It has been such a pleasure having you. Maybe won't be our last. We'll see what's coming.

Guys, thank you for tuning to another episode of Trading Secrets. If you didn't buy the book, check it out the restart roadmap. Please go to Amazon, give me five stars, and just write any type of comment. And don't forget, please to rate our podcast. We are literally watching everything. Five stars, reviews, topics you want us to cover, how we want to do it. I just saw a review this morning saying they want us to cover to maybe even do one episode where it's strictly just finance

and what's going on in the market and money play. So that's something we're thinking about. That was on the last review. So keep reviewing. You got anything else, David? No, two episodes a week. That sounds like a dream come true to me. There we go.

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