Trading Secrets - The money behind Netflix show “The Circle”! Past contestants, John Franklin & Alyssa Ljub reveal the true circle to neutralizing life: jokes, money and sex? The $ and secrets to careers in sex coaching, comedy and everything in between

Episode Date: August 28, 2023

This week, Jason is joined by fan favorites of Netflix’s The Circle. John Franklin and Alyssa Ljub! John and Alyssa were participants on season four of the hit reality TV show The Circle. As contestants, they maneuvered their way through a game in which they can only communicate with other contestants via texts on a specialized social media platform. Although neither of them were crowned the champion of their season, they have each been able to generate strong social media followings after their season wrapped up in May 2022. In addition to their social media influencing, both John and Alyssa have started to carve their own ways into separate specific careers, John being in stand up comedy and Alyssa being in sex relationship coaching.  John and Alyssa give insight to how they ended up on The Circle, why John ended up going on as a Catfish, where they are currently living and what they pay, what Alyssa’s advice is when it comes to improving your credit score, how they talk about money to each other, the connection between conversations of sex and money, and how they feel about the whole influencing career path after being on reality TV.  John and Alyssa also reveal the details to their respective careers, the distinction between sex coach and sex therapist, the behind the scenes of the sex coaching industry, the importance of sex ed and financial literacy, the reality behind starting a comedy career, what John’s first tight five was, how TikTok has changed the comedy industry, his best advice for getting through a rough patch during a presentation, and the importance of pivoting. Who was Alyssa working for when she was casted on The Circle? Who made more on the show? What is a tight five?  John Franklin & Alyssa Jlub reveal all that and so much more in another episode you can’t afford to miss!  Host: Jason Tartick Co-Host: David Arduin Audio: Declan O’Connell Guests: John Franklin & Alyssa Jlub Stay connected with the Trading Secrets Podcast!  Instagram: @tradingsecretspodcast  Youtube: Trading Secrets Facebook: Join the Group All Access: Free 30-Day Trial 

Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. I'm your host, Jason Tardick, and this is the pre-market trading segment. I'm actually doing this here from Beaver Creek, Colorado, took a trip with some friends, sparked and led by Worth Campbell, and we are doing some hiking out. here, some golfing, and it's just a beautiful place to be. So put Beaver Creek, Colorado, on your bucket list of places to visit, because let me tell you, it is so worth it. I'd put it in my top five happy places as it relates to locations around the world. Okay, now let's get into this episode. It's going to be, this is a really, really good one. So the circle, I'm not sure if you've ever heard of the show from Netflix, but the new series, a new season comes out this week on

Netflix, but it's a game show. It's a reality TV game show. We have two. contestants from a previous season, John and Alyssa, who did not win, but they did gain the hearts of one another. They're now dating. But it's interesting because, yes, do we talk about reality TV in this episode? Sure. Most of this episode gets way deeper than that. The episode title is going to be related to jokes, money, and sex. And you'll understand why. And trust me, it still aligns with what we do here on Trading Secrets. And I'll tell you this, too, about this episode. It's like every, you know, when you have a piece of food and every bite gets better,

that's how this episode goes. We get into how they, you know, early on, how do they get seen to go on the show? What was it like being on? Then we start getting the money of the show. Then we start getting the afterlife of the show. Then we start getting in the weeds. So the longer this episode ticks, the better it gets. And the recap is just fire.

I mean, we talk about things in the recap. We've never talked about before. But let's talk about what the circle is. So a number of players move into separate apartments within the same area. Each player are isolated from one another. So they cannot see each other and they cannot talk to each other as far as audio goes. What they can do is communicate to each other with a social media app. The app allows them to send emojis, text, pictures, things like that.

the idea is that you are building enough relationships via a social media app to have the most influence on the others in the game and then every week you have to rate who you like the most and whoever has the highest rating the two people at the highest rating they stay for the next week everyone else is up for elimination so it's kind of like big brother kind of like catfish now where's the catfish part well you do not have to be who you are and in fact on this episode john Franklin pretends to be his 60-year-old mother. And the person he's dating now, Alyssa, who was in the show, is in sex education, and she was herself. So at one point, John was literally connecting with Alyssa, and Alyssa was thinking John was a 60-year-old mother, and they're talking about sex.

It gets really, really, really funny. But that's how the game works. We talk about the prizes. We talk about what they're paid. You'll hear us talk a lot about cost of living adjustments. We talk about the cost of New York City percentages compared to the national average. And there's even more data I share in the recap. We talk about credit and credit usage ratio and how that impacted Alyssa's credit journey and all other things. So this episode is going to be really, really good because it's not your standard reality TV episode on trading secrets. And in fact, you're going to learn that when it comes to the big bucks after being on reality TV, it's not necessarily there for them. And they open up about it. So that is going to be a really

good one. Now, things you got to know going into this week. There was some big news last week, and that came from Powell. Powell said that the Fed will proceed carefully on furthering rate rises. And that came from the Federal Reserve Chair, Jerome Powell. Now, Mr. Powell is pretty much in charge and speaks for the entire Fed's decision thought and strategy as it relates to interest, rate hikes. And so essentially what he's saying is they will be proceeding carefully, but that rate hikes could still be in the future if the economy is still moving at the speed it is. Now, when he says stuff like that, that's going to negatively impact the market, because when we see the stock market, the stock market prices today are based on the expectation of what the future

will be. And if they're saying that rates may still rise, and it's very likely they will, well, the future expectations of what will be changes. And that's when the market takes an adjustment. Now, as you know, mortgage rates are now running at a 22-year high. That, of course, is cripping the housing market. It's already been squeezed by these high rates because people that are in lower interest rates for their mortgages right now don't want to break them in an 8% mortgage, but then also the cost of what you can afford has decreased significantly. What once was a $500,000 house at a 3% mortgage can now only get you around a $300,000 house at an 8% mortgage. So that is some massive changes. But if you're looking to make money on

your money, now is a good time to do so because the mortgage rates follow the 10-year treasury. It's very correlated that when the interest rates go up, the 10-year treasury, the bond market goes up with interest rates. So you can invest in a treasury right now, which is known to be one of the safest investments you can make, and you can be getting paid 4 to 5 plus percent on that. So if you have money just sitting in a cash account, you need to do something and you need to do something now. If you have questions, go to our Facebook group, and I can answer your questions.

but the time is now to make a decision and the time is now to also educate yourself and that is a huge topic of this episode. And I say that because there is just an article today that came out at the Wall Street Journal that the prime years for making smart financial decisions are on average 53 and 54. 53 and 54 are when we as Americans are making the best financial decisions for ourselves. That's eye opening. But if we're educated, if we have the things that are in front of us, we can make these decisions better because this whole study pretty much showcases that, right? The whole idea of if I knew then, what I know now, is connected to this study. So when it comes to auto loans, we're making the best decisions at 49.6 years old.

Credit card 50.3 years old. Credit card late fees, 51.9 years old. Home equity lines, 53.3 years old. Home equity loans, 55.9 years old. Mortgages, 56 years old. Small business credit cards, 61.8 years old. We are learning this stuff too late. It's time to wake up, and that's what this episode is about.

And that same type of theory that I'm communicating as it relates to money is also a discussion that we have on this episode related to sex. So you'll see how that flows. John and Alyssa are a great guest to have on. And just a little update from my life. Again, I'm in Beaver Creek right now. Then this week I'll be in Denver, Colorado. We actually have the one and only Ben Higgins coming on a podcast.

So if you have questions, I should ask Ben Higgins, go to our Facebook group, Trading Secrets Podcasts, let me know what you want from him. And then we have a laundry list, 10 plus people in New York that will be coming on the show that I'll be interviewing from September 3rd to September 10th. I'll be there. So day by day, things are a little bit more clarity. Things are slowly getting better. There's still a lot going on between my two years.

But, you know, the healing journey is in full force right now. And I'm doing everything in my power I can to be healing. Again, I say this over and over and over. Therapy, therapy, therapy. There was one time in the last week at 11 p.m. Thank God. My therapist is just the best. I texted her.

I said, listen, I'm not expecting to respond right now, but I have to get this off my chest. Here's what I have to get off my chest. Can you find 15 minutes? And she's like, she called me right then because her and her husband were packing. So that has been an absolute, absolute lifesaver. And then from a personal standpoint, I was in like super short-term housing. Now I am renting a house. So I have a six-month lease on a house.

I'm moving in mid-September. So I'm excited about that and I'll continue to share what my journey looks like from buying residential real estate to renting the pros and cons and all the things in between. But I'll tell you this, if you are looking to rent the house, There's a great app that's called Trulia. Trulia is a really good way to rent a house. And if you're also looking to rent a house, another good thing is get in with the real estate agents, because the real estate agents will know who's moving when they're moving,

and you'll get to see all this stuff that is off market. So the house that I'm actually renting wasn't even on the market for rent. They were representing those owners to sell the home. As a result of that, that's what allowed me to get into that home. So use your real estate agents, use Trulia. There's another website called FurnishedFinder.com that was also helpful in finding homes that are furnished that you can rent. But I'll tell you the worst place to go is Airbnb. I mean, those prices and fees were a joke compared to other areas.

So that's a little bit about me. That's a little bit about what you can expect from this episode. Get locked up, ready to learn, laugh, and have fun. Jokes, Money, and Sex. That's the name of this episode. Let's ringing the bell with John and Alyssa from The Circle. Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. Today, I am joined by two of the recent fan favorites from Netflix, The Circle,

John Franklin, and Alyssa Lou. The Circle, by the way, the first people we've ever had on, just so you know. Oh, utter. I'm breaking that right here right now. John and Alyssa were participants on season four of the hit reality TV show, which contestants maneuver their way through a game in which they can only communicate with other contestants via text. on a specialized social media platform.

Although neither of them were crown champion of their season, they have each been able to generate strong social media followings after their season wrapped up in May of 2022. In addition to their social media influencing, both John and Alyssa have started to carve their own ways into separate specific careers. I love that, wrote the restart roadmap, different careers, especially from a reality TV show,

is right up the alley of this podcast. John being in stand-up comedy and Alyssa being in sex relationships, coaching between the circle and each other's unique career paths. We're going to hit it all. And I said right before the show started, we could take this interview eight different directions. We got sex relationship coaching. We got comedian. We got circle. We got all things. Thank you guys for being here on Training Secrets. Thanks for having us. Yeah, definitely. I'm super stoked about it. I love it. Well, let's jump into the circle. First and foremost. I always am curious because everyone's got a different story. How did you get discovered? How did they find you to be on this?

I had just applied. But the reason I applied is because I enjoyed the show. and I was living in LA and I was working for Lance Bass at the time and his assistant was on the show and catfished as Lance and so she had such a great experience and I was like you know what it felt like it was like so close I could see it have you ever replied for any other show no no you had to desire to go on any other reality show I would do like a big brother thing now that I've done the circle I feel like I would dominate my dream I could give a crap about like who wins in sports I watch it for like the camaraderie for like a nice beer, but I don't really care who wins. Sure. When I was on that show, I was an actual psychopath. I had like a wall of notes that were notated with different, like, tics for facts that I thought were relevant, so much so that a producer came into my room the day after I got blocked and was like, so I got to be honest, what you did on the show was not what we thought

you were going to do. Wow. And I was like, I'm sorry. And he actually told me that they had cast me to be a thirst trap. Wow. Did you have to do personality test before the show? Did we do a personality test? did. I don't remember. Because you do that on The Bachelor.

My theory on that is precisely this. My theory is that they know, for the most part, kind of like what role you'll play. It's like a game of chess, and they have to find each single player. But then life happens and people go out of their realm, which is probably what happened with you. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Lance Bass, when you tell him that you're going to go on the show, does he support that? Does he think, like, oh, great. Like, this is going to be a stepping stone. I'm in a loser. Like, how'd that go? No, I was just helping him do his social media stuff. So it was low enough lift that he was so excited when I got on. That's cool. And funny enough, the day that I got back from

the show was the day that his kids were born. Oh my God. And so that was like a very, it was a weird like overlap in the timelines of significance for the both of us, but he was super supportive. Pretty cool. John, how'd you give fun? My sister was like, you'd be great at this because like my whole college life was social media. I was always doing like different kinds of content creation, this, that, and the other thing. And I applied in like November of 2020. And I never thought about it ever again because I got a full-time job. And then in May of 2021, I got a phone call. Like, we loved your audition.

I was like, cool, for what? Like, I had no idea what you were talking about. And I can't even find the audition tape to this day. I have no idea where it is. I just sent it in, forgot about it. And we did, like, the whole personality testing. It was, like, six auditions, I think. Okay.

And, like, similar to Alyssa, they cast me, and everything they did was around, like, my Italian background. Okay. And I am super Italian from, like, New Jersey. But they were like, oh, like, you got to. to put on the voice. They wanted like the whole of it. Yeah, the pizza, that by, exactly.

And I was like, yeah, I mean, I'll do it to go. But then once I got to the show, it's like, now we're playing a game. And conversely to her, I'm a super competitive guy, huge sports fan. I didn't take a note the entire time I was there. I was like, I'm going to, I'm pretending to be my mom. So their guess is as good as mine. Now, you disguised yourself to be your mother. Did they tell you to do that?

Or did that come up on yourself? Yeah. So the way that it worked out was I was auditioning. to be myself through like the first four auditions. Okay. And then like the one before they told me I was going, they were like, pivot, you're going to have to catfish if you want to make it on the show. Interesting.

And they said, who would you catfish as? And I said my mom, I panicked and said it. I was more like, I said a very calm. There was more like a, my mom. Like that. And they were like, all right, go on. Let's do it. So I called my mom.

Shout out Carol Franklin, uh, who that day, I called her and I said, I need 15 photos of you, no questions asked. And she did it. She had no idea I was auditioning for this show. I didn't want to tell her in case I didn't get it. My dad takes her around the house and she's taking pictures in the same blouse, just doing different house activities.

And a few of them make it in the show. My favorite one is she's cooking, but there's nothing in the pot and the flames off. And she's just got a wooden spoon in a pot. And they loved it. They loved her and she was super stoked about it. And we end up getting on a TV show and the rest is history.

The rest is history. That's awesome. Hindsight when she watched a back. Was she like mortified? Was she like you nailed it? What'd she say? My mom is supportive to a fault. Yeah. Like she like I had the conversation in the show about like tips for sex advice for a woman in her 60s and Alyssa gives this conversation and I'm mortified. I'm just thinking my mom's going to watch this episode and be like, what are you doing? She called me and she said, you didn't do anything I wouldn't do. Oh. And that was even worse. She got you actually. You thought you got her. She got you.

All right. So you guys decided to go on the show. You play your mother. You go into a whole different realm that you didn't expect to go into. Let me ask you about this. You had to take a little leave from your jobs. Each of you had totally different jobs. But when you got off the show,

did you return right back to work? Well, so I was doing work with Lance and I was an assistant to a sex coach. And so for both of them, it was all kind of social media related. And they were both very supportive. When you fly out, they give you two weeks notice and then they fly you out to the UK

and then you're in a holding apartment until they drop you into the show and you have no guarantee you're going to get on until they literally say you're getting dropped in tomorrow or whatever. So it's so stressful. And they actually, they shoot two seasons back to back

and they carried me over from one. So I was in England in a holding apartment with like three phone numbers in like a shitty 2017 galaxy. Yeah, it's like a burner. It was so bad. And I was completely,

look, you're isolated. You have a chaperone and that terrible phone for two months. And I was like, oh my God. Two months. Two months. Yeah, she had a worse experience than me.

I went in, I did my promo stuff, and I was on the show. Like I was all in one go. Okay, so let's, so, so two months, how long were you there? I was there total a month. A month, okay, so two months from work. So when that was all over, I was living in LA and I was kind of done with it, I'm just

an East Coast girlie. I did not enjoy the environment very much. So I knew I was going to move back to New York anyway. So I wrapped up all my loose ends and then came back to New York and then I got a corporate job so that I just had like stable income, lived with my parents, saved a bunch of money, and now I can like freelance and do like what I actually want to do. All right, so you tell BetMGM, John, that you're going to go on the show. What do they say?

I'll never forget it. I got the call that I was going. And I said, I got to tell my boss. And I FaceTime my boss, who doesn't work for BetMGM anymore. And he said, why are you FaceTiming me? It's like a Friday night. And I'm like, Zach, this is the craziest request I'm ever going to put in. You could say no.

But I said, I got asked to go do a television show in the UK and I'm going to be gone for a month. And you won't be able to contact me. And he said, are you joking or is this serious? Because at the time, like now I'm a comedian at the Sure. So he thinks I'm just like, you know, messing with him. Yeah, exactly, like a big jokester guy. Yeah, exactly, like a big jokester.

He's going to mess with everybody. This Italian MediGon. Typical Johnny Frank. Yeah, whatever. But I end up, like, calling him and he calls my boss who lives in Ireland, like his boss who lives in Ireland. The next day, they put me in a meeting and said,

you better win. So the winner gets 100K, right? Our season was 150. They like, up to the pot while we were there. That's right. My boss was like, we've never dealt with this situation before. don't know if we'll ever deal with it again.

So, like, this is just going to set a precedent. So, like, in, like, the bylaws of BETMGM, there's, like, the Franklin compromise. Like, if, like, you go. The one and only. Yeah, like, I have one of those at KeyBank. Yes, see, there you go. And then when I got those, ironically enough,

it was about a year later, KeyBank acquired this company, and a kid at the company ended up going on to Batcher, and then Bachelor period. So he was calling me how to do it? I go, dude, I carved this out in H.R. I've dealt with it all. All right.

So how about the show? So 150K to win. And who won your season again? Frank. Frank. Frank, that's right. I thought I saw Frank on a Netflix show recently. Yeah, he did another one.

He was. There was a wealth management show. Yes, that's it. It was how to be rich. Yeah. The host of that show is going to be here at about an hour and a half. Oh, no way.

That's how I know. He had 150Ks. Like, how do I deal with it? Yeah. They help them out. It's a lot money real quick. And once you're in the Netflix family, obviously they must take people

from different shows. You hope. You're like, all right, give me the next show. Yeah. Funny enough, I just had a meeting with them this week like unscripted and they were like you know what's going on what's new i'm going to do edinburgh fringe like the festival in scotland in august okay nine show run i'm just doing like nine shows of stand-up okay and they're like they just happen to have people going out there so they're

going to come check out the show so they have like eyes everywhere interesting like they want to know what you're up to and if like you're keeping busy because if you're doing well they're going to take yeah they'll put you somewhere else i like that all right well on the first show that you did with them you said they pay you a little bit do they get paid per episode per week you were there for two months. Did you make more than job? Did you actually be, have we talked about that? Yeah, I made more, but I was like freelancing when I lived in LA, so I was making zero dollars and zero cents from any job, which was a large reason why I was leaving LA. I'd worked in corporate since I graduated college. Yeah. And I could not find a role like that in LA. It was a lot of like bits and pieces

of jobs and it was like so stressful. So I wasn't getting paid from anyone else aside from the show. And I think it was like $100 a day or something. So I was there two months. I think it ended up being about $5,000. Okay. And they give you half when you, two weeks after you get back from the show, and then the other half when the final episode of the show airs. Got it. So about $5,000.

Is that about what you got too? No, I got a little less than that. Oh, because you were there for less time. Yeah, I think I got about like $3,000. Okay. I remember correctly. But yeah, split in half. Yeah, it's like nothing.

You're just such a discrepancy from like the winner. If you didn't save up money and you have a, and you have rent, how do you do that? Because you're going to get only a portion of it while, like two weeks after you get back. So it's fair to say if someone took your net worth and did it all, within that period of time, your net worth probably went down. Just in that period of time. While you're filming the show, no doubt. Because your expenses are greater than what you're making. Yeah, unless you win that 150K. It's interesting. It's always a wild predicament when you are losing money to go on reality TV, but it can pay huge dividends. One thing that I got to touch on, because people are always curious

and not a lot of listeners are from New York, New York rent around how much you have to pay for New York rent. Luckily, I'm paying New Jersey. I'm in Hoboken. Oh, that's right. You're in Hoboken. So, Hoboken saves you some money. Hoboken's a little less. At this point, it's kind of starting to creep up there because more people, it's not a hidden gem anymore. We're paying for a two-bedroom. I pay 1425. And so a two-bedroom, you have a roommate around how many square feet?

That's your guess is as good as mine, man. You're talking about journalism. I know that there's four doors total in the apartment and a living space that coincides with the kitchen. Perfect. Enough to shoot some contact. get to New York listen I can put a full green screen up in that there you know that's all you need that's all you need Alyssa are you in New York or you in Hobel? I lived in New York City for like eight years and then I moved to LA came back and now I live with my parents

because I wanted to stock pile money yeah I wanted like especially after COVID my credit score she was looking sad I had a lot of things that I just wanted to catch up on and that was the easiest way to do it so I live with my parents now in Bedford and Westchester County Bedford saving a couple bucks yeah yeah I worked a corporate job for a little over a saved most of that money and paid off a bunch of stuff. So my credit score is cute now. And then I could leave and pursue like everything else, like really go full-fledged into sex coaching

and like a little bit of the influencing stuff. Okay, we're going to get into both those things. Guys, we will also address the cost of New York City. It's now the most expensive city in the world. I got a cocktail last night. It's $30. I was at a hotel today. I was at a hotel today.

And for a fruit plate, they charged me $25 for a fruit plate. I was like, this is just, They get the fruit. That's what I'm saying. Literally. Like, where did this come from? Did they hunt the fruit? Was it live fruit?

Did they have legs? I don't know what it had, but it was bullshit. But your credit score, can you give someone the number one tip that you use to increase that to make it cute, if you will? Yes. That's a good question. I had a friend tell me once to be cash poor and credit rich. Okay.

And that's implanted in my brain forever. And I don't think that it was really ever explained to me in that way. So I think just in general credit literacy is really important. to understand if you can, even if you're putting everything on your card and you know you have the cash to pay it off, that'll, for me, it was a lot of like paying down a card that I'd used all throughout COVID while things were like terrible. And opening up a credit line, once my credit score got better, that had a much, much higher limit so that my usage rate went down to like 5%. There's a tip. Usage rate, got to decrease it. While we're on the topic, I have a manuscript

for my second book. It's actually all about love and money. Like talking, money with your partner. You're here talking about your credit score being worse and now getting better. And John, you're like, that's great. Let's talk about it. Do you two as a couple? Talk about this stuff. Do you know what each other makes? Do you know your debt? Do you know your credit? What's your take on it all? We are pretty open about like the money that we make. Yeah. Like as we make it for sure. We were doing similar jobs. And so we would talk about what our salaries were like, especially when it came to negotiating on my end because he's a lot better at asking and i love to open the conversation yeah like i'm not like i love to talk about about money

and stuff like well not even just with less i mean like at my job and like make sure i'm at least giving myself a chance to succeed and make the money that i should properly be making i try to make sure that i know what's going on in the market for like social media management social media content creation see what i'm making versus like maybe some people who are doing similar jobs to me okay but i used to tell this all the time like it never hurts to just ask your boss or your direct report and being like, I want to see what steps I have to take to get a raise

or to move to that next level. I do that very frequently and aggressively. Yeah, pretty regularly. Yeah, and Alyssa, that's not your forte. I was just working at a company that was kind of small and so I was asking pretty much the duration of the time I was there

and I just kept getting like at the end of the year and pushing it and pushing it. And then when it finally came down to the year end conversation, And we're like, you're so great, you're so valuable. We're going to give you $3,000 raise. So that was sort of where I drew the line. And he had gotten like several raises last year that were more than what I had gotten in a year.

So we talk about money in the sense that like it's a good barometer because our roles are similar. Yeah. Let me ask you this for people back at home. John, you're comfortable talking about it. Yeah. Alyssa, you'll talk about it. But you're just like, you're probably not going to go start the conversation with that. So let me ask you this, John.

If someone's out there and they want to start the conversation with their partner or family member or a friend, whatever it might be. What is the best way to start the conversation? What have you found to be most successful? I mean, I genuinely believe, like, from the jump, honesty, like it's just saying you want to have this conversation, but not in a confrontational way. Money's a weird topic. Like, we know that. Like, human natures, you don't want to talk about your finances with other human beings because, like, you don't want to think you're making less money or, like, you know, like there's a lot of stigma around it. But isn't it weird that, like, today, in today's world, we'll talk openly about all things sex.

Relationship stuff, trauma, but money still is a weird topic. It's strange. People attach a lot of, like, moral value to the money that you make and the money that you save and, like, how skilled you are at doing that. And all of that is really based on the opportunities that you've had. That's true. So it's also skewed, but everyone attaches this really weird moral value to it. And when you strip that away and, like, realize it's, ultimately, it's numbers.

there's so much of it that you control, but there's a whole lot of it that you don't. And it's better to be open. And one of the other things that I suggest all the time is if you're having a conversation that feels serious and feels heavy, for the love of God, don't say we need to have a talk. Don't do that. And also don't.

That's just relationship advice. That's good relationship. Don't do the we have to have a talk later. Oh my God. Like never. Exactly. Always like just, if we're going to talk about something, we'll just bring it up right there.

But yeah, like going back to your point. too, about the how to bring up that conversation. I'm sure you get this all the time, too. Like, I have it with my parents who are older than me. They've been in, like, their industries, respectively longer. And we make a lot, like, different money, things like that. Yeah. You just have to remember you're all people.

Yeah. And you're all doing the same thing. Just trying to live your life. So just be honest. Yeah, I like that. I like that. Let me ask you this, Alyssa. You made the comment about, like, the moral connection to money.

Mm-hmm. And there's also a moral connection, I think, to sex, right? Yeah, totally. And so you're a sex coach. And I always talk about people, let's say I'm having a beer and talking about the trading seekers. Like, why do you think it's doing so well? It's hard in the podcast space. I'm like, well, if you think about Caller Daddy, like everything in Caller Daddy, it's the sex that sells.

That's what sold it. Then her brand and everything else escalated it. And this show, the only thing that has really done it is like the transparency of money. And I'm like, that's interesting because there's kind of this weird dotted line to the sex discussions and the money discussions. Do you think, like, based on the way that you coach towards sex and it's held very high morally for some others or they're judged based on what they do. Do you see any type of connection between these conversations of sex and money at all? Totally. I think a lot of it is when you neutralize the approach and you talk about it in a way where like if it's easy for me, it'll be way

easier for you too. Like if I can just talk about sex and sexuality and it rolls off the tongue, it's so much easier for people to be open with me. And that's kind of like how I got started and all of it because I would have really open and frank conversations with all of my friends in their sex lives. So it was always easy for me to have those kinds of conversations and people would come to me to have them. So your takeaway is if you neutralize it, it will open up a forum and a stage for honesty. And I think you could do this with sex, money, or anything. But the way to neutralize it then is to be the first person of the table to talk openly about it. You have to give trust to receive it. And so if you're going to be trusting and act

trusting and like put that vulnerability on the table, whether it's money or sex, like it's the same thing they say with like religion and politics too. Like if you are if you are vulnerable and you put the trust on the table, then people are a lot more likely to give it back to you and show that vulnerability. Interesting. I like it. I think that's a good piece of advice for anyone out there that's looking to just have any type of conversation, money, sex or anything above or beneath. Let me ask you this. So you guys make the career transition. You're out of the circle. You're now on a relationship. You're working full time. You have your side hustle with the influencing and now you're doing stand-up comedy, you're doing tours. So just your overall take, we've had so many people from

reality shows that have come on this show. And we've had people say they've lost tons of money after the show because of like reputation and impact and haven't made a penny. We have some people that have made millions and millions and millions of dollars. Like where within that barometer do you guys fit and how do you just feel about the whole influencing career path after being on a show. Yeah, I mean, I would, I'm nowhere close to millions and millions and millions of dollars. I'm not Dr. Evil. I feel comfortable in the money that I make and like not all of it is like influencing or comedy based. It's mostly my regular job. But it's because like I enjoy my job that I stick with it. I really love the people that I work with and the thing that I do. But you know,

you got to remember with comedy like it's not a moneymaker unless you get to that next level right away. You know, like, I didn't think I was coming off the show and I was going to be like Burt Kreischer or like Thompson. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I had been doing stand up for a couple of years and I was kind of ready to just get back to the grind with a little bit more credit. Yeah. That worked out. So like money wise, like, it's good. Like, brand deals come in here and there and like different things happen. I just started a podcast myself. Like, you hope that works out. You just keep grinding at it because, you know, I'm 26. You put the money into it so you could get out of it. And like, hopefully you get to that next

level of making millions of millions and millions of dollars. It's a good take. It's a good take. And we'll come back to the comedy career because I do have questions about that. What's your take on? I go back and forth with the influencing stuff because there's so much garbage that's just like cycled through social media. And I want to be able to be valuable to anybody who follows me. I really would like to contribute to the betterment of the people who follow me.

So I try really hard not to take like any sort of brand deal that it doesn't align with what I'm doing. For now, that's sustaining me enough until I'm fully certified as a sex coach, because I also don't really feel comfortable practicing and taking private clients until I have that certification. It just kind of feels unethical, and it feels sort of like using my name to take advantage of people. I'm so cautious of that, and I just, I don't want to sell people things they don't need. Like, it just, that feels really icky and weird. That's like why I left marketing, and I didn't want to get back into that same cycle again. So, I'm able to make, I would say, comparable to what I made at my corporate job.

Okay. So it's not like crazy money, but it's enough to sustain myself, especially living at home, that helps tremendously. I think what's cool about both of your professions, at least as being a comedian and a sex therapist, sex coach, is that social media is going to help magnify both of those, right? Like once you are booking the one-on-ones and possibly master classes, and they'll help you continue to sell tickets and do all that. So the more you put into that, it'll not only.

help you get brand deals but also it will fuel what you're doing yeah I want to get into both of your careers now let's talk about like just the sex coach angle of it so as a sex coach what is like I just don't know anything about that industry what does someone pay like a licensed sex therapist for a session how does that work so to make the quick distinction a therapist would be a regular therapist who has a master's degree or a PhD and then they do this like further education and you get certified by ASEC, the American Association of Sexuality, Educators, Counselors, and Therapists. And that certification process is the same one that I will do to be a coach, but I don't have the clinical background. So I will never call myself a therapist because I don't have that training yet.

I would like to do that sometime in the future. But for the coaching certification, you have to do this coursework. It's a lot of like reading journals and textbooks. It's like a regular coursework type of thing. Then you test out of that whatever your program is. And then you have to do a thousand supervised hours. And then you're certified by ASECD. When you do all of that, then you can, like, you're a coach.

So you can really, you can decide however much you want to get paid. My boss was getting paid thousands of dollars from her clients, plural thousands from her clients. So like what would you say an average sex coach? Because you would be then a sex coach. Once you're fully, do all your work, you'll be a sex coach. What would an average coaching session be? So I think it depends on if you're going to sell in a set or you're going to sell individually. So she would sell in a set.

So she would get like, you know, at least $1,400 from each person that she like had signed on. Okay. So for me, I think I would probably do something more individual and align closer to like similar to a therapist, but less. So like out of pocket therapists are usually like 150 to 200. $100 an hour. So I would probably do like the lower end like a hundred bucks a session or 75 a session. It depends on deciding if I want to specialize in anything. Like you can specialize in like kink or whatever polyamorous relationships. If I specialize it'll be a little different. If I do sort of the general thing, it'll probably be like $75 a session, $100 a session. If you look at medicine, there's specialties where you can make way more. Is there a specialty where you can make more? Yeah, totally. If you specialize in things like kinks, you would absolutely make more because those are things that also it's a specialty so the knowledge alone is valuable but you're also dealing with things that could potentially be dangerous

and risky behaviors so there's a little bit more of like the security in being like properly educated on how to go about those things wild okay I have just one more question on this industry I'm a big takeaway guy like I always like to take all your experiences and then give it to the listeners in like one bit. That would be a kink. What's it? That's a kick. That's a kick. We should probably talk about it. How much are you an hour? So let's talk about that kink about it. What do you think? What would you say are the biggest either misconceptions or takeaways that people that have never done any type of sex coaching or

sex therapy in the past get from usually going on board and meeting with a sex coach or therapist? It's a lot less scary than you think it is because the people who are having those conversations will neutralize them for you. Yeah. What are most people taking away from those? It can really be whatever you want, like in any other therapy situation. You set your own goals. But I would say, like, the biggest overarching takeaways would be improving your communication, reducing any shame that you might have, and we all have related to sexuality, and, like, really big boosts in confidence because you'll feel more confident in yourself and also

the things that you do with your partner because you have all of this information to back up everything that you are interested in and you'll feel confident in wanting to try new things and sexuality is such a big part of our lives people sort of disregard it as being like a small part of your relationship it doesn't have to be that way there's there's a ton of things that you can do to work on your sex life and your own sexuality even independently and it's not impossible it's very, it's very doable and it improves so much of your self-esteem and the entirety of your relationships. Yeah. I mean, of course, this is like a business finance podcast, but I still think the link to sex, physical health, mental health, this whole foundation personally, one million

percent connects to professional success. Absolutely. How are you taking yourself in the workplace? What are you manifesting? Are you dreaming bigger because you are more confident? Are you feeling more secure about yourself because you're so secure in your relationship, you're taking bigger shots at work or whatever it might be. So I think there actually is a lot of time. And there's a lot of studies that show that people who are critical of themselves are more likely to be less successful, lonelier, have really unsatisfying sex lives. So putting a lot of pressure on yourself, the way that we do even in our finances, in our sexuality, in our relationships, negatively affects our performance. And so if you can find ways to

build confidence in yourself, it carries over into all of these other choices that you make. Like if you can imagine if you can be so confident in the bedroom that you can, you can request literally anything from your partner. And even if they say no, you are able to verbalize that, how successful you would be in a situation where like you have to negotiate for your salary. Like if you can do that, you can absolutely do the other things. And that's got to be like a correlated theme, the more critical you are in yourself, whatever it might be. It might be sex.

Maybe it's interviewing. Maybe it's friendships. Maybe it's finances. You're critical on yourself. You probably have more shame around it, less confidence, and it's probably impacting you. Yeah, it's been studied. Like, that's a true correlation. Tell me if this is a fair takeaway.

My therapist had told me, I had never had someone. Or attempt to convince me that everything in their life was perfect. And the last thing they needed was me. Great parents, they're married. I really don't have trauma. My brother and I are great. You know, no big issues growing up. And one of the biggest takeaways I've had from therapy.

of the years and years I've done it now, is that every single person in the world, no matter who you are, you have trauma. Do you want to step into it or not? It sounds like when you meet with a sex coach or therapist, one of the big takeaways is, in some capacity, we all have some type of fear or shame around sex. And we should just address that and know that everyone does. Our parents and our education system are not equipped to teach us any of, any of sex education

the appropriate way. We're not taught. Yeah. 100%. We're not told. And it's so weird. because those are things that are literally the fundamentals of life, like sex and relationships and money, like how, how are we going through all of this education and not, it still shocks

me that we did not get any sort of like credit literacy. I think it's because people genuinely get nervous to talk about it. Like they find a taboo. Yeah, both of them. So, yeah. But the thing about school is like now if you petition that, you get somebody like politics involved. Yeah. And then people will be like, well, our kids don't need to learn about that. And it's like, yeah. Oh, because we all grow up saying what the fuck you should have taught us do you remember like there was all there's a moment in all of our lives where you open your first credit card or like yeah like the first time like you have sex in your life yes and you're like I have like no base knowledge of either I might as well be having sex with my credit card like I don't know what I'm doing so I might as well make my

life easy and the ramifications of both obviously like team moms and stuff you have sex yeah yeah you don't know what you're doing you might have a kid and then they make a TV show Or like rack up credit card debt and then you got an other Netflix show. And they make a TV show out. We're figuring out the entire world in about 10 years. We can have a TV show ourselves. Sex Ed solves everything is what I'm here. Yeah, sex ed and money and financial literacy and the world goes around.

I love it. All right, John, before we wrap up, I got to get into the whole comedy space. You said it's tough to make money early on. How does a comedian make money early on? You get big. You try to make a following and you try to go on tour and you try to sell tickets. tickets. Being a comedian is, especially in New York City, just a grind. I'll be the first to tell you, like, it's, I could do better at it. Anybody can probably do better at it. You have to be doing

shows every single night to make it in New York City. How much do you make if you do a show? You probably don't get paid. Oh, a lot of bars and stuff won't pay you. A lot of clubs don't pay you. Like, they'll pay a headliner. They'll pay a headliner, but they won't pay like a third guy up in the lineup type of a comedian i've only ever been paid when i've headlined i've done a college or if i've like like when i shot and filmed my own special um you don't make money regularly because the time to those in the industry is so valuable seven minutes on stage in new york you might get discovered and you might go on late night and then like hypothetically you make your money it's crazy back in the day the way comedy worked was you do your five minutes you get your tight five

hopefully you get your tight five on stage your what tight five what's like five minutes five minutes of just five minutes of good strong comedy that makes you laugh throughout the entire thing how many hours does it take to get five tight minutes that's a great what do you call five tight minutes tight five a tight five a tight five i mean i thought i felt comfortable doing my five minutes about a year into comedy that first year you don't know what your style is you don't know what you're going to be like and I found that I was a storyteller so like my first type five was based around being like a theater kid in high school and how like by being like the only straight guy in theater there were a lot of assumptions made about me and it was just a lot of the stories that

I could tell but the regular lineage of that was you would get your tight five minutes and you would end up on late night from late night you'd go to just for laughs in Montreal then you'd hopefully get an HBO special and get on Netflix different stuff now it's so different with the I mean, you see people who have a million followers on TikTok that might have done 10 minutes of stand-up in their life, but they're funny to a platform. Yeah. And they can sell tickets. I'll never forget.

I did a show where the headliner was a girl who had like four million followers on TikTok and I had never heard of her. And her whole thing on TikTok that people thought was hilarious was she would like talk, talk, talk and shut herself off by shoving her fist in her mouth. And when she went on stage to do her time, she was bombing and then just, you know, did that and people went ballistic. It's a different space now, man. It's so different than what it was

back in the day. But I love it. My goal is to get into more hosting and writing. I'm also trying to create parallels to someone who like fucks up a presentation. You're sitting there in front of, I don't know, let's say 50, 100, how many people? And they're looking at you, blank-eyed and you're just sucking. What do you? What do you do? The worst

moment in your life is when you tell a joke that you think it's so funny. You think it's like, you're like, this is like Seinfeld, this is so funny. And you hit the punchline and you're like yeah and everyone is like it's crickets and then you're like it's awkward too it's like make i'm thinking about like my heart's racing yeah and the only thing that the advice or like the thought that i could have paralleling it to a presentation or different things of that sort is you got to get to the end like you finish the show goes out yeah you cannot

you cannot you cannot look at that first joke or that first moment where you know this is over and think i can just walk off stage because you can't like you're up there for 5, 7, 10, however many minutes, and you gotta get to the rest because there's a whole show around you. In New York, there's maybe eight comics on one show. And if you screw the pooch on like your timing, you could ruin the show. So like, if you're presenting something, let's say you work for a company and you're like trying to pitch something to some group of people and your one section of that pitch goes awful from the jump, that's the chain weakest link parallel all day. You better get it to the end.

because the next person might be able to pick you up and you might be fine but if you falter right there you'll ruin it for everybody not just yourself yeah to me it's like the draw i'm taking from this is like if the plane's crashing don't let it go up in flames like find a way to bring it down minimize liability absolutely even though it crashes and you can still save that plane you could save your passengers you could save a lot of things that's why like you said if someone else comes on and rips it no one's gonna remember like the okay well like you're fine right like you're fine next one you crush and that's why crowdwork is like so valuable now especially on social media it's like gold because like when you bomb like if you could find two really good minutes of crowd work the crowd will only remember that time

because they were a part of it and good crowd work to me I'd rather go see someone that's just like brilliant I don't know if you take offense to this but like brilliant at crowdwork than like stand up it's so funny yeah and they can quickly just rip someone and everyone could laugh but even just like that I think is also a testament to knowing your audience like you're good at that too like if one joke is like not really landing well, you're good at like adjusting to find. And I think that that also applies even in like in presentation settings. Yeah. Like know your audience enough to know what they're going to look for from you because that's going to change. You got to be able to pivot on the fly. I go on stage and I don't think like I got 10 minutes here. My 10 minutes here are the jokes that I'm doing. These are

10 minutes of jokes. But in the back of my mind, I'm like if these aren't going to work for this audience, I have five or six more that I could just plug and play into this lineup. Yeah. So like you got to get up there and like if you're if they're just not catering to the jokes you're doing you got to be like I'm not going to power through exactly what I wrote here yeah I'm going to just go back to the drawing board I have hours of material that just exist I love it and you know like you just got to be able to take from it and plug it and use it pivot I like the idea of the pivot right you pivot if you're struggling with your sex light you might have to pivot if your credit's struggling and you want to get improved I think we figured out that jokes money and sex that's the name of this

podcast and that's what makes the world go around. All right. Jokes, money, and sex, here we go. But we got to wrap up with a trading secret. One secret that nobody can read the textbook, they can't get it online, they can't Google it. They can only get it from your stories based on what you do, who you know, what you've gone through. So I need a trading secret from each of you. My whole journey professionally has been doing what I wanted and having the money follow. And people say that all the time. but honestly being able to pivot and knowing that you can restart your life anytime if you really hate what you're doing and it's making it impossible to move forward in whatever path you're currently in you absolutely 100% can find a way to change course of that and that is

within your own power you can do that I remember once my brother said pain is inevitable but suffering is optional and I feel like that applies to a lot of the time like you like not work is not always going to be fun but you can absolutely take control of parts of it to make it something that you enjoy and you'll be way more likely to push yourself and want to commit yourself to it in a different way when it's something that you love I did like a hard reset and now I've like I'm doing all of this stuff now and I think your career journey speaks to that working from Lance Bass to marketing and beauty to going on a reality TV show to yeah working towards being a coming a sex coach like yeah totally take care of your path take control of eggs if you

don't someone else will all right john trading secret yeah i got mine so one of my favorite sayings ever is at the end of the game the king and the pawn end up in the same box so live your life the way you want to live it we're all going to live it and end it like at some point the same way and in that time try everything there's nothing that you can't try that's going to hurt you you have to put yourself out there and do those things especially valuing the relationships of people around you in the same box that also connects oh look at those are your tats yeah oh my god so you've lived your life by this set yeah I love this thing I this is a weird thing but low has come up people everyone knows low who listens the show he's come on

the show the other day he was working out in a cemetery I was like dude what are you doing but he like justified it by saying it's a big Hollywood cemetery so it's in Hollywood there's like all these huge stars all people come to like see certain people and like all these things and then he's like showing me some of the massive, massive names that are there. And it got me thinking, I'm like, how crazy is it? Like, some of the people who were showing at one point took over the world, like owned the world.

The entire planet was theirs. And now it's just like a stone with a picture. And for some reason, that whole story with Lowe and I made me just realize, man, life is quick. And once you're gone, leave a legacy and stuff. But like, it's done. On to the next. Nobody's going to remember the most embarrassing moment of your life besides you.

Exactly. So do a lot of embarrassing things. Because one of them's going to turn out to be the rest of your life in a really good way. Yeah, exactly, and it goes quick. I love it. Those are two great trading secrets. John and Alyssa, where can everyone find you and your socials and all your work?

Yeah, you can find me on Instagram at underscore John Franklin underscore underscore. I'm never going to be the first one. She says, like, I got, I got it. It's a lot of, it changes like an ad or something. A lot of different, a lot of different tricks there. TikTok is at John Franklin comedy. That was easy to find. So that's really, really good one.

I'm working on a new character on there. I'm really excited about. And I am dropping my first comedy special. came out on YouTube and it is actually going to come out on Tooby this summer. So look out for that. And then if you're in Scotland, you want to go catch me at my nine show run at Fringe, come say what's up? So excited.

I'll be there too. You can find me on Instagram. I'm not so hot on TikTok, but on Instagram at Alyssa Loub, A-L-Y-S-S-A-L-J-U-B. And I also have a podcast that comes out with episodes every Tuesday. It's called Alyssa Explains It All. We have sex educators. We have, I don't know, just like people from all walks of life on there to talk about sexuality and we learn a lot on that podcast so join me there every Tuesday find me on

Instagram I think that's it and I have one more we just dropped the podcast my roommate I called honor related note we marketed as the escape room of podcasts different guests coming on every week we got shade Dorina coming on we got a bunch of different cool people you go in it's a game show catered towards the guest oh wow and they try to figure out what the overarching theme of the episode is by the end on a related note pod on all social platforms all right both podcasts seem great the career directions are awesome you guys have the sex figured out and the jokes and it sounds like you got the money so that's the name of this episode sex jokes and money and it sounds like you guys have it all going for you so thank you for being on this episode of training secrets thank you so much

for having us ding ding ding we are closing in the bell to the john and elissa podcast from the circle and david this is a very very relevant time for this episode because right now on netflix the circle new season just came out what i loved about this episode is yes we got to see reality TV stars. Yes, we talked money behind what they got paid, but majority of this conversation was the actual reality behind people on reality TV and had nothing to do with reality TV. And for some reason, my natural gut and intuition was saying you would have gravitated towards this episode. You probably enjoyed that more than even the circle talk. Curious Canadian, David Ardwin, the one the only, what do you got? I think you hit the nail on the head there, Jay.

two very relatable people great energy east coast italians right up our alley but what i what i did love is like you mentioned the reality of their lives coming off of reality tv we can go a bunch of different ways with it so a couple things that we're going to hit on number one i just think like they talked about how their net worth went down for being on the show the expenses outweighed the incomes made on the opportunity and they're not coming off with you know the bachelor scale influencer deals and things like that, they kind of had to sink into the reality, their situation. And to me, what I loved is how they kind of glamorized the opportunities. I've never heard someone say, I moved in with my parents and got to save so much money. It's been amazing,

like glamorizing that those things are possible. So though it really resonated with me, that's why I really loved the episode. So many people that come off reality TV shows, instant life changing, you know, making the millions. Just like you said, what am I, Dr. Evil? this was a very relatable episode of people that went on a show. The show is up and coming. It's not this biggest show in the world. They're making a couple bucks, but you could also hear how they've navigated their lives. They went back to their jobs. She went to move in with her parents to save a couple bucks, still lives with her parents. She had credit issues and has worked through them. And just the overarching theme of, I took a risk. And that risk didn't change my life for the good

or bad. It played a couple adjustments and I'm just living. I thought that was. was cool. The net worth aspect too, David, one that's really big to touch on because I would say, especially for people's first reality show, this is a huge topic because most people aren't getting paid. They made $5,000 and $3,000, but that's in two months of work while all their expenses are loading up. So at the end of the day, net worth is your total assets cash to come in, think about what you have and own versus liabilities, what goes out. And they were definitely cash flowing negative where what they were paying for things was likely less than what they received after taxes. So that's a big discussion and that changes a lot. That's Bethany

Franco right now is leading the charge on a lot of these discussions with reality TV. And it makes perfect sense. Now she was all gung ho about her cash poor, credit rich mentality. Is that something that you agree with? Are you on board with being cash poor and credit rich? It's a great, great place to start with people that are struggling to build their credit or they have a lower credit score. I also liked how she made finance not so intense. my credit was a little ugly. I made it cute, right? Like, I think there's something to it. If you are cash poor and you are credit rich, it is much better than being cash rich and credit poor. So I subscribe to that. It's a great 101 lesson. And she talked about her credit utilization rate.

So it could be called your utilization ratio, your utilization rate, lowering your usage. Essentially, what it is is the amount of total credit you're currently using, divide, by the total amount of credit that you have available. Essentially what that means is when she got the credit line, it increased what she had available. So the amount she was using as a percentage of what's available was less. And that's why her credit went up. How do credit companies look at this as they say, wait a second, if David has $5,000 available and he's spending $4,000, oh man, that's scary. He's got 80% usage. But wait, if David has $20,000 available and he only uses $4,000, well, he's not maxing it all out. He knows how to manage it. He's only using 20%. Ding, ding, ding,

your credit goes up. Okay. That's very interesting. I didn't know that. And like you said, kind of made a little fun saying that her credit was ugly. Now it's cute. And you know, it is ugly. And you mentioned this and you wanted me to reference it. The cost of living in New York City. There's nothing cute about that. I did some research on this because I know that. the Curious Canadian doesn't miss a detail when he listens to these episodes. And I went to Rentcafe.com and they have a cost of living calculator and they have some information. This is directly from them. How much higher is living in New York City than the state average? So not even other states, just the state average. It's got to be 75%. It's 38% higher than the state average,

but it's 80% higher than the national average. Now, these numbers are going to blow you away. a little bit. The cost of living in New York City, the housing, buying or renting is 230% greater than the national average. Utilities monthly, 5% higher. Food, 25% higher. Healthcare, 7% higher. Transportation, 12% higher. Goods and services, 28% higher. So when you factor all this, especially housing being 230% higher, the cost of living is just so much materially larger than anywhere in the country and 80% higher than the national average. So when you go to New York City outside of the housing, what are some things that jump out to you that are just astronomically higher in your day to day?

And then my second question to that is how much, really, does salary inflation really need to come into play for you to justify upping and if you were to move there i talked about this in my book the restart roadmap when i went from rochester new york to seattle the cost of living adjustment was over 50 percent i took that information with the calculator and used that in my negotiating right so if i'm making a hundred thousand dollars here i need to based on all the calculators out there i'm just pulling this off from thin air need 150 000 in seattle so that's my benchmarked even having this discussion. And anyone should really think through that. Now, to the first question of it, the two things I'm always blown away by when I go to New York City when it comes to price points

is, you know, the transportation always is an added dollar amount you don't plan for. You land in one of those airports, 50 to 100 bucks just to get in the city both ways. So boom, 200. Then the other thing I think that really gets me is the price of alcohol and the price of entertainment. If you want to go to a show, if you want to go to a sporting event, if you want to go for cocktails, that's to me where the price really has the sticker shock. And I mentioned in the podcast, but a $25 plate of fruit is just ridiculous. Last time I did that in order that to the room. Well, the willpower too when you're in a city of bright lights and a lot of people and a lot of things to do is like there's a lot of opportunity to spend money there. So you better be

disciplined if you're going to go to New York City on a budget. One thing that you did mention is negotiation talking about Rochester, Seattle. I loved the parallels in the relationship between their two negotiation styles. Obviously, John, a lot more forthcoming up front and her just kind of doing the best that she can, getting the 3% raise at the end of the year, which doesn't even match inflation these days and her feeling a little subdued about it and seeing her partner who talks about it, it seems like almost on a monthly basis, getting, you know, raises continually throughout the year. I really like that perspective that they shared with us as well, going back to the reality

of it all. And I want to share this trading secret from my end. We work with Alyssa and John from the talent management company trying to get them deals when we can. And I could tell you of the 200 plus people that we've done deals with, I'm going to go out and say this. John is the best, number one at checking into schedule update calls. So he will reach out to our agents more than anybody and say, hey, I want to do a touch-based call. Hey, like, what's the market looking like? What are you seeing?

What type of deal flow? What could I be doing better? What are the brands attracted to? Right? So we don't have one person that does it more than him. So it totally connected to me when he said he does this with his boss and look at the result of that, him getting all these raises. if he's reaching out to our agents who are working 100 miles an hour

on 100 different deals, they're going to keep him top of mind more and he's going to get the information they're getting every day from the different companies they're working with. So he practices what he preaches, and I think it's a really good tool when you're going in to have these discussions. Well, it's like the whole knowledge is power conversation. He's educating himself and taking advantage of it. And one area in the podcast that education was brought up was the fact,

you know, Alyssa brought it up time and time, like the fact that we are so miseducated and growing up and the two things that are really driven in our society or sex and money obviously she's going back to school and getting her certification to be a sex coach it was just such like a ding ding moment of my head being like how are we at this place how are the two things in our lives sex and money that are really put on a pedestal and you know for better or for worse make the world go around how are they not touched on in school other than rolling a condom over a banana and uh maybe taking a they may be taking a...

Is that what they do in Canada? Because we didn't get that in the States. Oh, yeah. Fourth grade, you got a banana with like a lubricated condom and you got to put it over the banana. You never did that? Dude, no. That was our entire sex ed class. What the shit?

I remember in fifth grade, they started doing sex ed. And it was like a 45 minute class and you had the option for your parents to opt you in or out. And I mean, it was like the most basic, the most basic thing in the world. There was no details. There were no bananas. There were no condoms. It was like, this is how a child is made. Let me ask you this, David. I'm going to get personal here. We train secrets here. If you don't want to answer it, just say pass. You ready? Yeah. It's a big question. We've never gone here on the podcast. Feed me. What year did you lose your virginity? How old were you? Wow. We are getting the week. I was six. I was 16. Okay. So you're a sophomore in high school.

I was a junior in high school. Your head, big brain, no big deal. Okay. When I lost my virginity, I believe this summer going into junior year, so around the same time. So, you know, everyone out there, think about it. When did you lose your virginity? And there is no right or wrong answer, no matter when it was. But the reason I say that is because I'd be curious with the national averages of when people

lose their virginity. And the reason I say that is because I don't know why we turn a blind. blind eye to these things that we know are likely happening anyway and not get ahead of it when it comes to education. I totally understand why parents wouldn't want, you know, all this sex education, you know, at the forefront of their children when they're developing their brains and maturity. But it feels like by junior, maybe, let's even say senior year, like you're going to college the next year. You're in the 17 to 18 range at senior year in high school. Why isn't there some type of education around this?

I don't know why, but there isn't. I also think, too, it's not just the physical education. It's the mental education because you just see when, since it is such a priority and it's put on a pedestal by our society, you see all the mental challenges people face from either, you know, putting it, chasing it and destroying their lives or also not having the confidence behind it, which probably comes from an education piece to it. So I think the physical piece is one part.

I think the mental and emotional piece is such another part, and I just don't think that people are equipped to handle it because it's not a taboo talk. Like she said, neutralized. It's just not neutralized. So now you're on the polarizing side of it, either good or bad. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure.

I think now that we're talking through it, I think it's fair to say, you know, we don't need, in the school system, we don't need to be talking about like, I don't know, like sex, maybe therapy, tips and tricks, but maybe more about just like the education of understanding the ins and outs of what comes with it mentally, you know, physically, deeper education about STIs and just everything A to Z touching the landscape of it with just the basics of the things you need to know and tying that also in a different class to the money discussion because, you know, just like, I don't know, maybe the basic example of putting

a condom on to understanding what a credit card is. Like when he's, when I was dying, he's like, we might as well just have sex with our credit card. The fundamentals of these things are critical for us to know because if we're not taught them, we are going to have to learn the hard way. And sometimes that's for good or bad. I don't know. If you have any other opinions, I had to tell you. This is way down the rabbit hole of sex that I thought we were get into so but hey good we're bringing it up we're talking the list is brought up we're talking about it's great i'm going to end just like they ended with their trading secrets i did love hers where she says you know what works not always fun but you can adjust and change aspects of your job to make it more

fulfilling and also gain control of aspects of that i thought that was great but at the end of the day when he said it did he have a tattoo of this because it was almost like i could have read it on a t-shirt at the end of the game, the king and the pawn end up in the same box. I just love that mentality from like, do everything, but more importantly value the relationships of the people around you. I know in my life and what I do for my job, the relationships that are gained and valued in my life, they just become more fulfilling and more rewarding

and open more doors here over years. Relationships are just the key to life. And David, for contacts on his arms, he had a tattoo of a king pawn and a queen pawn. actual chess piece. So I was like, that's and I was like, oh my God, you like literally practice what you preach. He's like, I always remind myself and he like put his arms out. So I love that. It's great perspective. It's great perspective, especially when you're going through tough times and you're trying to think about what's next and purpose and you're fearful of what's tomorrow.

The fact they're here is a blessing. And we know for all of us, they're limited. That's one thing we know coming in this world. When we're born into it, we know we will die. And I think, think sometimes, not taking it to a morbid level, but taking it to a level that says, hey, we have a short period of time. It doesn't matter how big or small you are, enjoy it, make the most of it. Someone said to me, I've had a lot of deep conversations, as you can imagine, in the last few weeks with friends and family. And someone said to me, think about who are some of the most influential people in the entire planet that have ever touched the planet. And what they said was the presence of the United States. Okay. So tell me right now, if I

I put, you know, pen to paper right now, 60 seconds, how many of those people can you write down? They answered for me, it's like I would guess max 20. So of the people in the entire United States that were the presidents, the most influential people walking in the free world, you could only probably remember around 20 of them. So what are we getting worried about with everything? Why are we so worried about our egos? Because we're all going to end up dead and no, most people aren't going to remember. And it was a little tough. year but it's like just live your life just do what makes you happy ignore the noise follow your path anything any thoughts on that before we're back i didn't think two contestants from the circle

we're going to touch on the things that they said make the world go around jokes money and sex so i thought it was a great podcast yeah was was awesome it was great to have them on i'll be i'll be tuning into the circle this year i will be all right we'll tune into the circle and i almost forgot the money mafia how dare me forget the money mafia we have a winner every time you put a five-star review and you give us some comments or you give us individuals you want to see coming on the show, we enter you to win something from the influencer closet. The value of things in that influencer closet ranges from literally $1 to $2 to $2,000. Obviously, the big prizes are a lot more limited. But our winner today, it came from April Headman. I always love Jason for the Bachelorette to following

him on Instagram. And now this podcast, with almost 20 years in the finance industry, I love this podcast and still learn new things every week. How does someone make finance fun? I don't know, but Jason, the Curious Canadian and his guests do just that. I am excited to hear next week, April Headman. Make sure you give us your address. Trading Secrets at Jason Tark.com. We will send something to you. Thank you for that review.

And I will say this past week, but someone went off on the Curious Canadian in the best way possible. MVP, I'm obsessed. David sent it in our group chat. He's like, yeah, I'm going to frame this one. I go, did you have one of your players send this in? No, that's how good the Curious Canadian. is. It was a glowing review. I'm unfortunate that that person didn't win. But how it works is you put a review, we take your name, we throw it in a wheel, we hit spin online, and then we

pick the winner. Thank you for tuning into another episode of Trading Secrets 1. Hopefully you couldn't afford to miss. Living the dream