0:00
At the beginning of the show, we do this thing where we're like, put your like raise your hand if you're an entrepreneur.
Search this video
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And most of the hands go go up. It's okay.
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Keep your hand up if you've launched your business.
0:09
All right, like 15% of the hands go down.
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Okay, keep your hands up if you have more than $100,000 in revenue. Okay, so hands go down.
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A million dollars in revenue. 10 million in revenue. 30 million in revenue.
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We just keep going up to see kind of like who is who who who wins the No Small Stuff competition of that of the crowd.
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Because we're like, there's the people who are there, they already kind of know our story and they know our bits. We don't know them.
0:37
And so that might be actually more interesting.
0:38
And there was a guy who was one of the people who's got like who was at the kind of like 30, 40, 50 million level.
0:45
He's like um Yeah, I I sell gear to fire departments around the country.
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And he's like, you know, like we're like like hoses.
0:51
He's like like hoses and uniforms and you know, nozzles and and like, you know, just stuff for the fire department.
0:59
And he say that he did 57 million in revenue of that? Is that what he said?
1:05
I don't remember the exact number, but it was something like that. All right, we're live. What's going on? I'm back home. The live pod is over.
1:20
The show the show is over.
1:24
Let's talk about your time in Austin.
1:26
The live pod we should talk about a little bit.
1:27
We might be airing that that episode.
1:29
We we got to go back and listen to it to make sure that there's nothing that we have to bleep out.
1:33
But what did you think about Austin?
1:35
Seems like you had a great time. Had a great time.
1:38
Dude, I know more people in Austin than in San Francisco somehow.
1:39
So I think I don't know if that's about Austin or that's about me.
1:44
I think it's more about me not leaving the house here in San Francisco.
1:47
But when I left my house and went to Austin, I saw tons of old friends, you and a bunch of the crew. Had a great time.
1:54
Stayed started off in a haunted hotel and then moved to a better hotel and then yeah, it was a good time.
2:01
You came in on something like a Wednesday, you left on a Sunday or a Thursday and Sunday or something like that. Tuesday. Five days. Tuesday. Tuesday to Sunday.
2:10
You had you spoke at two conferences.
2:14
You were on the Chris Williamson show which was that guy's interesting.
2:17
But what what was cool having you here was I felt I felt um I missed our times in San Francisco.
2:26
The 2012 to 2018 era where it was like it felt like all of us were doing the same stuff.
2:33
Then when you came in town, we had everyone we we we had like three or four dinners of like eight friends.
2:38
And it felt like, oh wow, this is it feels like it's happening again.
2:43
And actually it feels like it's not happening to the extent of what we experienced then, but there are a lot of really special people here and it felt really cool like to to appreciate that. Yeah, you're right.
2:53
I think people should do whatever we did in our kind of like 20s, which was move to the city where there's a bunch of other people that are chasing the same dream as you.
3:06
I think that's like a that's an amazing like you could pick a city based on weather, based on location, you could pick it based on cost.
3:14
Those are some factors, but if you're in your 20s and you're the type of person who listens to this podcast, you're sort of entrepreneurial, you're ambitious.
3:21
I think the move is move to a city where move to a place I don't even not even say city.
3:27
Move to a place this could just be a house in the town you're in where you will be around other people who are chasing the same dream as you.
3:35
It is massively underrated like you will not only get smarter faster, but also uh you bond with people and it's like those bonds don't go away.
3:43
Uh you will always kind of remember when you were all at the very upstart phase of what you're doing.
3:52
And we did this live pod and this live podcast and the so it was me, Shawn, and Andrew.
3:57
The content was fine enough, whatever.
3:58
But what we we we'll talk about that later or we'll just air the episode.
4:02
But what was cool was I met people I think we had 550 or 600 people. It was sold out.
4:06
And I met and so we stayed out.
4:09
Shawn and I and Andrew stayed afterwards and like did like a meet and greet with everyone.
4:12
And you always talk to these people and I'm amazed that these people would fly in from all over the place.
4:18
I met a guy from Malaysia.
4:21
I met people from all over Mexico, America, North America who came and they were like, I came here because in my town I'm a weirdo and it feels nice to be around non-weirdos.
4:31
And I was like, what do you mean?
4:32
And I looked at Twitter afterwards and I saw pictures of like So like basically we didn't let people into the venue until right before it started.
4:40
And in the line, I don't know if you saw this, there was people interviewing each other like for their own content channels.
4:44
There's like people are like, oh I met this person who's doing this.
4:48
I met this person who did this. I met this lady.
4:49
Did you meet this Mexican lady who moved to from like Mexico City to Ann Arbor and she flew down from Michigan.
4:59
It was her and her 12-year-old daughter.
5:01
Did you meet those people? I love that.
5:04
That they were she was like, hey, love the pod. This is my daughter. She listens as well. We listen together.
5:10
And I was like, oh amazing, you know, what do you I asked the daughter.
5:14
I was like, what do you what do you like about the show?
5:17
Cuz she was she was quite shy in the moment.
5:18
And she was like, I just I like that it's fun.
5:21
It just gets me laughing and then you know, I just learn different things and it makes me want to go do like it makes me want to go do stuff.
5:29
I was like, you know, that's the that is the actual sales pitch, right?
5:33
You'll laugh, you'll learn something and it'll it'll get you excited to go do stuff.
5:39
And the mom was like, you know, thank you for the pod because it's the only like it's the only podcast we can listen to together that we can both that we both enjoy.
5:47
So it's like become a thing we do.
5:49
And you know, that's probably not that common, but that was one of my like golden nugget kind of moment takeaways from the whole thing.
5:59
Yeah, that she was my favorite person that I met.
6:01
But anyway, my point is is that it was cool that like um and what you were saying is what we saw a very micro version of that with 500 people was like go to the place where there's other weirdos like you and like cool stuff happens.
6:13
And and that's always really fun.
6:14
I met a lady who was like uh yeah, you talked about me on the pod and I recently sold that thing for $30 million.
6:21
And she was like waiting in line for like 30 minutes to talk to me and I was like, what? Can I wait in your line?
6:26
Like I want to I want to I want to learn about you. wait in your line? Exactly.
6:30
Let me Yeah, let's do some of the interesting people that we met.
6:31
So there was a guy at the beginning of the show, we do this thing where we're like, put your like raise your hand if you're an entrepreneur.
6:39
Most of the hands go go up. It's okay.
6:41
Keep your hand up if you've launched your business.
6:43
All right, like 15% of the hands go down.
6:47
Okay, keep your hands up if you have more than $100,000 in revenue. Okay, so hands go down.
6:55
A million dollars in revenue. 10 million in revenue. 30 million in revenue.
6:59
We just keep going up to see kind of like who is who who who wins the No Small Stuff competition of that of the crowd.
7:06
Cuz we're like, there's the people who are there, they already kind of know our story and they know our bits. We don't know them.
7:11
And so that might be actually more interesting.
7:13
And there was a guy who was one of the people who's got like who was at the kind of like 30, 40, 50 million level.
7:19
He's like um Yeah, I I sell gear to fire departments around the country.
7:24
And he's like, you know, like we're like like hoses.
7:26
He's like like hoses and uniforms and you know, nozzles and and like, you know, just stuff for the fire department.
7:33
Did he say that he did 57 million in revenue of that? Is that what he said?
7:40
the exact number, it was something like that.
7:42
It was in the it was either 30 or 50 million something somewhere there.
7:43
He said he had an exclusive right to sell in nine states.
7:48
So like, you know, beautiful business, right?
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Cuz he's got a basically a monopoly on selling in these in these certain states.
7:53
He's like won the contract or whatever.
7:55
And really profitable business that uh you know, who even thinks of that?
8:00
Like who even thinks about who's the who's the B2B e-commerce for fire departments?
8:04
And it just gets you thinking, wow, how many niche businesses are there?
8:08
Cuz you just kept meeting one after another.
8:12
Do you have any others that stood out? I got a couple more. Uh we went to dinner.
8:15
So we had a dinner the night before.
8:15
One business that I really like that I'm eager to see if it's going to work out or not is called Boom and Bucket.
8:21
And what Boom and Bucket does is I I don't know if it's rental or if it's for selling equipment.
8:28
But I think Is it selling?
8:30
So basically if you are if you own a or if you need to buy a tractor or like one of like anything caterpillar, so like dump trucks, I guess.
8:41
Boom and Bucket, whatever you know, whatever has a bucket and carries heavy equipment. There's a marketplace.
8:46
Yeah, it's a really good name.
8:46
It's Boom and Bucket and it's a really cool website.
8:49
And so they I think the founder his name's Adam Lawrence.
8:52
He previously was the COO of Bolt.
8:53
Bolt was like this like high-flying startup, one-click checkout startup.
8:58
To be determined if it's going to work out, but they raised something like hundreds of millions of dollars at multiple billions valuation.
9:06
He left there after being there for a while.
9:08
Then he went and started Boom and Bucket.
9:09
And he's telling me all about it.
9:12
I think it's only a year old or two years old, still new.
9:14
So they're still figuring out if it's going to like take off or not, I think.
9:17
But really cool business that I actually think will work once they can kind of get to to to you know, with marketplaces you need supply and demand. It's really challenging.
9:27
But if you if you I'm on their site right now, so Boom and Bucket, which also sounds like an amazing name for a bar in Austin.
9:34
Like, you know, a bar with like, you know, dollar jello shots and like you know, the axe throwing in the back.
9:41
I feel like that's actually in Austin people just have that in their backyard, the axe throwing thing.
9:46
That's like that's what it seemed like. So No, bro.
9:47
We all have cold plunges and saunas.
9:52
That's the thing in Austin.
9:54
So the first thing on here is a a 2012 Caterpillar 420 F.
10:00
For somebody out there, they're like, "Oh, my favorite model."
10:03
Uh Been dreaming about that one. Yeah. $77,000. Ships nationwide.
10:08
You click it and it's basically like, "Here's the thing.
10:11
It was primarily used in construction for concrete.
10:13
Uh you know, here's the specs. Uh we inspected it.
10:17
Here's what we found that was great about it. Here's what needs work.
10:21
It's got a residual oil build-up on the engine valve cover. No active leaks."
10:24
So, you know, they're adding value by doing inspections and doing close-up and detailed photos of the equipment.
10:30
And then they say, "Great. You can buy through us.
10:31
We will finance it to you and we will take care of the shipping to get this to you."
10:36
Um this seems like a great idea.
10:39
I don't know anything about this niche, so you know, take that with a grain of salt, but um love the name, love the idea, and I love that this guy went from like the most Silicon Valley VC thing you can do, like a network effects VC-funded multi-billion you know, unicorn that's either going to become a hundred billion dollars or go to zero and he's like, "I'm going to move to Austin, grow a mustache, and start selling tractors online."
11:04
Dude, he had a he had a thick, beautiful mustache, and he was wearing cowboy boots, and he looked exactly he looks like you want him to look.
11:10
He looked like he was in disguise. Yeah.
11:15
He looked like he was trying to blend in in Austin. So, this guy's awesome.
11:18
His name's Adam Lawrence. I love Adam.
11:19
I've I've I've gotten to know him over the past year. So, he was cool.
11:22
Who else was was interesting?
11:24
Um another one that I thought was cool.
11:26
These guys were in the meet-and-greet line.
11:27
They come up and they're like, "Hey, love the pod. Blah blah blah. No questions. Just want a picture."
11:30
Um or actually, they had one question.
11:32
They were like, "You know, we do franchise marketing."
11:38
And I was like, "Franchise marketing, what?" Uh say more.
11:39
And they were like, "Basically, 5% of McDonald's stores use us as their digital marketing agency and social media marketing agency."
11:49
And I was like, "Wow, 5% of McDonald's franchises, that's like that seems really significant."
11:52
They're like, "Yeah, it's going great."
11:54
And this is actually the second time I heard about it, and this is kind of my rule of two, which is if I hear about the same thing from two completely separate people, it's like, "Well, roll up the sleeves.
12:07
Time to go down a rabbit hole."
12:10
Plug the nose and take the plunge.
12:11
heard someone talk about the same business or the same like literally the or the same style of business or the same of business.
12:17
So, our buddy Sieva had told me about this these businesses.
12:20
There's a two businesses called one's called Scorpion Marketing, and the other's called Ferocious Marketing. Uh Okay, I see a trend.
12:27
Normally, it seems like a little bit of an overcompensation, but they actually sound like badass businesses.
12:31
Yeah, I need like a I need like a like a like a rabies LLC, you know what I mean?
12:37
Where it's like where like typhoid fever uh marketing or something.
12:44
I need something like that. I love that. Hey, we're from dengue.
12:46
Um yeah, we're the boys over at dengue fever. We're happy to help.
12:50
We make it hot, you know what I mean?
12:54
Genghis Khan Incorporated. I love it. the competition.
13:00
So, he had told me that one of those two, I don't remember if it was Scorpion or Ferocious, does over a hundred million dollars as just a kind of like Google paper click plus um you know, basically Google ad agency plus maybe um maybe Facebook ads as well for franchises.
13:15
Like they go to every, you know, Goodyear Tires in America and they're like, "Yo, you need to have a good presence online. This is what we do.
13:25
We help Goodyear Tires franchisees make more money in your location.
13:30
You pay us whatever, ten grand a month, and we take care of your website, your marketing.
13:34
We'll make sure you're visible on Yelp and on Google when people are searching for tires. Blah blah blah." And that's what they do.
13:40
And then they go do the same thing they did in tires, and then they'll do it in Jamba Juice, and then they'll do it in one franchise after another.
13:48
And so, I kind of love this model.
13:48
I think that this like this idea of general like generic agency, meh, but agency that is tailored towards franchisees, I think is great. Why?
14:02
Franchisees all are going to have the same problem set.
14:03
You're going to have a cookie-cutter customer. I love that.
14:05
You typically if something is a franchise, it's got scale already.
14:09
So, you know that niche is sort of validated.
14:11
Third, it's the easiest marketing pitch in the world once you get started, which is that yeah, we do uh over you know, 5% of McDonald's franchisees use us or we're the largest agency for McDonald's franchises. We are the number one.
14:25
We serve over 150 store uh franchisees. Guess what?
14:30
The 151st is way easier to sell to once you got to the 150, right?
14:35
It's like it it becomes a snowball in terms of your marketing.
14:37
Um your operations can get streamlined cuz they all again, cookie-cutter customer, they all need the same thing.
14:42
And then lastly, that type of customer, a franchisee, they've basically put like their net worth on the line to own these franchises.
14:50
They typically are not like these brick-and-mortar franchises, they're doing that because they're not super tech-savvy or online-savvy.
14:57
And so, I think it's the perfect kind of customer, and you can just provide clear ROI from month one.
15:03
And I think you could do this in a lot of niches.
15:06
Like I think you could do this in like senior living.
15:10
Like my father-in-law has a senior living facility.
15:13
And um he is like he's basically like the entire business is just how's our occupancy?
15:19
And or or you know, if occupancy's at 55% versus 65% versus 75% versus 85%, that's like the that's a swing of like ten million dollars just in that that question right there. Oh, wow.
15:31
Um and so, I'm like, "Great.
15:34
Hey, Dad, what are we doing for Well, how are we filling that occupancy, right?
15:38
Like you know, what are we doing?"
15:39
And he's like, "Well, I don't really know how to do online marketing cuz most people who own senior living facilities are not the most tech-savvy.
15:47
He's like, So, we need like a like a come die with us marketing "We host coffee and donuts like brunch for the local hospital nurses cuz that's like their number one source of deal flow right now.
15:58
And then there's these search engines like like placeformom.
16:00
com or something like that.
16:03
And you know, you try you try you tell them, 'Hey, I'll pay you for leads,' but they just don't bring you that many leads.
16:07
And so, somebody who can basically solve the search query for like, you know, senior living Austin or memory care Austin or whatever.
16:18
The person who can rank you at the top for that search is going to be the difference between 55% occupancy and 75% occupancy, I think.
16:25
And so, I think if you found a niche or a franchise like that doing the the sort of digital marketing for it, I think it becomes very appealing.
16:34
Yeah, you just have to run it, which can be challenging.
16:38
Running those companies are is very hard, but getting customers I think is actually easier than the one thing that makes running a company easier?
16:44
If you had good a good way to get new customers.
16:47
It is like the number one like, you know, Advil for all aches and pains when it comes to running a business is, "Well, at least we're getting a bunch of customers." Like, you know, easily.
16:57
We have a reliable way to do that.
16:59
Uh every other complaint from there is like, you know, just a a little little bump and bruise.
17:03
Another interesting person who you met for the first time was Nick Gray.
17:07
So, Nick Gray was like the we we asked him to like MC our event, and then he ended up just attending every other like dinner that we had, and he like MC'd it hardcore.
17:18
And what's interesting about Nick Gray is you guys should look him up is he's in like real time you can watch him like become an authority on this very strange topic of like hosting small gatherings. Right.
17:30
And he might be able to turn this into something substantial.
17:31
And just to give you a an example of what happened.
17:34
We had this like fancy restaurant booked for this one dinner.
17:36
It got rained out because it was like the table was partially outdoors, so we went to this kind of crappy bar, and then we moved to another bar next door that was also somewhat outdoors, but had a roof.
17:47
And Andrew, one of our guests, was like, "Oh, man, is it going to be cold?"
17:52
And and Nick was like, "Yeah, it might be cold. Hold on."
17:54
And he ran to a shopping mall across the street and bought like a hundred dollar long-sleeve t-shirt and goes, "I got you."
18:00
And how impressive is that?
18:04
is the ultimate party host, which is no surprise because that's what he does.
18:07
So, his I don't know him. You know him very well.
18:09
I just met him and I'm and just I'm just got my first dose of Nick Gray, and I can't wait for my second dose.
18:14
So, basically, it sounds like he ran a company called Museum Hack, which was basically a kind of like a night adventure company.
18:24
So, you would go to a museum.
18:27
The tour would be hosted by a local stand-up comedian or magician or somebody who's got some sh- showmanship.
18:33
And uh and basically, he paired showmanship with something that needed showmanship, museum tours.
18:38
And it was a good company.
18:41
I think it was making a couple million maybe one, two million dollars a year profit.
18:44
He sells the business, takes the proceeds, invests it into I think Did you say all of it into Tesla or like just a lot of it?
18:52
So, previously, he had made money because he him and his family started an aviation parts business.
18:58
So, they made like the screens that go in like private jets.
19:02
Like a like the navigation screens.
19:05
With the earnings that he had from that business, he invested it all in Tesla.
19:08
And there's these funny pictures of him during the New York Marathon years ago, and he would hold up signs that says, "Buy Tesla."
19:15
Cuz he was like trying to show up everywhere and just Tesla bomb. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
19:19
And then he uh killed it on that.
19:22
And then he started this uh museum company.
19:25
With his proceeds, he put it into Cloudflare, which has not done well.
19:28
But you'll see him all the time. It's really funny.
19:30
You'll see him like someone be like, "What's the best service for this?"
19:33
And he'll just reply on Twitter, "I hear Cloud Cloudflare is really good.
19:37
You should check out Cloudflare."
19:39
Like he's like promoting it.
19:41
And with his book, he does the same thing.
19:42
He's got this book called Two-Hour Cocktail Party.
19:43
If you go on Google Photos and look at the reviews of any bar in Austin, he's been there and he's reviewed it.
19:50
And when he reviews it, he takes a picture of his book in front of the sign or the food of that restaurant as like gorilla marketing. That's all he does.
19:57
He does little things like that kind of told me about this guy as this kind of like super social guy that's in Austin that's like now doing this thing called the two-hour cocktail party.
20:08
And um and he sold like, I don't know, 10,000 plus units of of that book.
20:12
And he was like, um and I I couldn't tell at first.
20:17
I was like, "Well, is he a idiot or a genius?"
20:20
And I think this is a common game I play where I meet somebody and I I'm playing the idiot or genius game.
20:26
And in the case for idiot was like Wait, so he like sold his company and now he's all in on this just perfecting this like owning this little sub-brand, this con- this content brand around hosting a two-hour cocktail party.
20:40
I I can't tell you the last cocktail party I hosted.
20:43
So So I was like He spent 3 years writing that book. And he was all in.
20:47
And then all the things you told me about the way he was promoting the book and books in general are not a great business model.
20:51
So I was like, "What is this guy getting at?"
20:52
And that was my like, "Is he an idiot?"
20:57
But very quickly I've shifted into no, this guy's a genius. And here's why.
21:00
So first of all, it's a real problem.
21:05
Hosting a Hosting a party a Hosting a Hosting any kind of party, forget like a specific like two-hour cocktail party, but hosting a dinner party is something that is valuable if you do it, kind of stressful when you do it, and there's a difference between bad, good, and great that comes into a bunch of details.
21:24
And the details are things like when you invite people, how do you prep them for it?
21:30
What is the email you send beforehand that reminds people even that this is happening, what it's going to be about, and how they should show up.
21:35
Uh and that when they show up, like how do people have to introduce themselves?
21:40
Oh, he's a big got to have name tags.
21:41
Name tags help because whether you Name tag Nick. Name tag Nick.
21:46
You got to You got to have name tags.
21:47
Okay, what else do you have to have?
21:48
He's like, "Well, you kind of want the event to flow versus just having it be like, well, whatever happens if we break out into to random clicks of people that already know each other for or a giant group where it's kind of awkward.
22:00
Uh you know, what's going to happen?"
22:02
And so he's like has his little system.
22:04
He's like, "I'm going to have some unstructured time and some structured conversations."
22:07
And then back to unstructured after the structured cuz the structured gave us all something to talk about in the unstructured time.
22:14
He's got us to And it it goes into little things like, "Hey, you know, if you host something at your house, like nobody knows where the trash is.
22:21
And so they're opening all your cupboards of your house trying to find [ __ ] Now they're just going through all your [ __ ] And then they just leave it on the counter, and now your house is getting Now the party's looking like a college frat party.
22:29
Just put a label where the trash is. Let's just do that."
22:33
And he's got all the little reminders and tips and tricks for a host.
22:34
Okay, so solves a real problem that's kind of stressful and kind of valuable if you do it right.
22:39
Like we've both been to parties where the magic happens.
22:43
The conversation just gets really interesting.
22:45
You meet three or four people that you're like become really good friends with. You did this actually. Like this is how we met.
22:50
Was it you hosted a dinner party at my office.
22:53
And so like, you know, the the right dinner party can lead to some really great things, and the wrong one is just forgettable. Okay.
23:01
So now, why do I think it's actually genius?
23:04
I think he's got a win-win scenario.
23:04
And what I mean by a win-win scenario is that whether this becomes a big deal or not, he wins.
23:11
How The first part is by doing this, he is building like the ultimate friend group network.
23:17
Like I think Andrew called him Andrew Wilkinson called him a friend billionaire.
23:22
He goes, "Nick's a friend billionaire."
23:23
And he'll And Nick Nick won't brag about it, but I'll be like, "What'd you do this weekend?"
23:27
He's like, "Oh, I was at a friend's house." I was like, "Who?"
23:28
He was like, "Oh, uh Matt Mullenweg, the guy who started WordPress."
23:31
We were just I was just at his house all weekend. And I was like, "What? How do you know Matt?"
23:35
He's like, "Oh, I met him at a dinner this."
23:36
And he like has so many stories like that.
23:39
And when you are a friend billionaire, what does that mean?
23:41
That means you you know a lot of cool people, so you're constantly inspired by the people around.
23:46
You got a lot of people who, you know, got your back and who love you.
23:50
And you you have a bunch of of like real connections and like real a real social life, which I think is like I think it's kind of like a one of these like silent like you know, epidemics that's going on right now is that most people I know have like a really weak and feeble friend group.
24:06
Maybe I'm just in that that world.
24:08
I don't know, but like a lot of people have this feeling of like "Great, I work from home. Uh I live at home. I eat at home.
24:15
I order food on DoorDash.
24:17
And like I don't see another human being for like I can go 7 days without seeing another another like person with a pulse.
24:24
Or even if you are seeing people, it's all transitional transactional.
24:30
Like great, I live in SF or LA, and I go to Barry's Bootcamp, and everybody rushes in and does the thing and then rushes out.
24:36
And like this like what happened Like where am I supposed to make new friends?
24:39
Uh you know, that's not really like that easy for most people.
24:43
So anyways, I think that what Nick has is actually quite rare.
24:47
So whether the all this is is he makes a bunch of friends, has a bunch of fun experiences, um and you know, he was showing me this video on his phone.
24:54
He's like, "Check this out."
24:55
He's like, "Last night after we hung out, I was on my way back, and my friend texted me and said, 'You got to check this out.
25:02
It's flooding in my area, but it's created like this almost like fake surfing thing.'
25:05
Like it was like flooding on some street, and the water was running really fast, but there was like a lip in the in the road.
25:12
And so he could you could go on a boogie board and basically feel like you're surfing."
25:17
And they just did that for like hours, and he had these fun videos. And I was like, "Cool.
25:21
I was just like on my phone scrolling while you were doing that." Right?
25:25
Like This guy's not only a a friend billionaire, he's going to have he's like an experience billionaire.
25:28
So I think that's the that's the bottom of the win.
25:31
Of if nothing else, he gets that.
25:34
But at the top, I'm like, "Dude, I kind of think this should be a local franchise.
25:38
Like I think that he should basically turn this into like the modern-day Toastmasters.
25:43
Like I think if he wanted to, this could be an enormous business, and it could help a lot of people because he could basically say, 'Look, jo- open up a local chapter like Toastmasters, and um it's just dedicated to hosting awesome get-togethers of awesome people.
26:01
I'll train you how to host them. You right? You fly out to me.
26:04
You You attend one of these as part of your training.
26:07
And um and then go wherever you live and start hosting these things.
26:11
And uh you know, pay your membership dues to to be a part of this.
26:13
And let's let's create an international wave of people who want to get better at hosting things and having an awesome social life.
26:23
I think he could create the next Toastmasters. What do you think?"
26:27
So Toastmasters Uh so for those who don't know Toastmasters, I don't know entirely how they describe themselves, but I I knew it as like a public speaking club.
26:34
So you spend 50 or $100 a year, something like that, and you get to go to a local chapter where you like everyone practices public speaking, but I think they weave in some type of leadership component where you can like learn how to lead, but it's all related to public speaking.
26:48
They're a nonprofit, so you can look them up.
26:50
So Toastmasters has $63 million in assets, of which it looks like about 35 million of that is just cash.
26:58
And then they did last year something like 18 million, 19 million in membership dues.
27:03
Oh, sorry, 25 million in membership dues and about 30 million in aggregate in total revenue.
27:09
So like not a nice sub- That That's very nice. Uh so definitely worked. Yeah, exactly.
27:14
And I think that like, you know, there's a lot more people who want to be able to host a party and build an awesome kind of like social life for themselves than there are people who want to get better at public speaking.
27:27
And uh so I think this actually has a lot more legs.
27:29
And it reminds me of the game.
27:30
So I haven't read his book, but uh but Neil the way Neil Strauss wrote The Game and was like, "Hey, do you want to get better at, you know, like meeting women?
27:39
If so, you know, this is a book that's going to tell you a bunch of awesome sort of war stories plus techniques that that can help you do that."
27:47
And I think that this reminds me a little bit of the game.
27:52
It's got the benefits of the game without the sleaze factor of of the game.
27:56
And so for that reason, I'm in.
27:59
And I just gave him I just gave him I just gave him the thought leader triangle with my hands for those who are listening.
28:05
I It's where you you start with the the pyramid of hands going upwards, and then on the on the inflection point of the sentence, you got to flip it down.
28:15
This data is wrong every freaking time.
28:17
Have you heard of HubSpot?
28:20
HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated.
28:23
Woah, I can see the client's whole history, calls, support tickets, emails, and here's a task from 3 days ago I totally missed. HubSpot, grow better.
28:35
Did you meet anyone else that was interesting or have any other thoughts about people you met or experiences you had?
28:41
a couple high-level thoughts.
28:41
Couple high-level thoughts.
28:43
The most So we did the meet and greet for like, I don't know, it was almost like 2 hours or something after the show.
28:49
Um just like people Are you tired after that?
28:52
Um I have this thing where relief gives me a lot of energy.
28:55
So I was so relieved that the show was over, that I felt like people had a good time, um and that I didn't like my my trip was over.
29:02
I was going to go home and get to just like be in my bed and not have to be I was traveling with my two little kids, which is, you know, has its own challenges.
29:08
I had no less than 10 people reference the size of the cotton candy that your children had.
29:14
They were like, My wife wanted to see the show, so she brought my kids who were 2 and 3 years old to the show.
29:19
And that's like, you know, that's like, you know, opening up a lighter inside of a natural gas factory.
29:25
Like you you kind of know that this thing could combust at any second.
29:29
And she just had a backpack of bribes, which I think actually should be its own product for traveling moms.
29:32
It's just a pre-made backpack full of like little dollar store toys that you can give out every 15 minutes to be like, "All right, be occupied.
29:42
Don't scream and cry and think about anything."
29:44
And just unbelievable amounts of crazy candy that they never get to eat.
29:48
Like a bathtub-size container of candy. lollipop.
29:54
It looked like you know those like Dude, someone told me they're like, "We saw Sean's eating Sean's kids eating a kebab or like a hot dog or something."
30:02
Except it was like of lollipops.
30:05
It was like a You know when the shake builds like a a 95-story like apartment for himself in in Dubai?
30:10
It was the the shake Dubai tower of lollipops. It was incredible.
30:15
Yeah, I had a bunch of people tell me about that.
30:17
But anyway, what were you saying?
30:18
So, I would say in the meet and greet line the most common I would say the most common questions I and I don't know what you experienced cuz you had your own line and I had my own line, so maybe your yours was different.
30:30
I got a lot of people being like, "Hey, whatever. Love the show. Can take a selfie."
30:32
And then got one question for you.
30:35
And the question I was like, "Oh, this is this is going to be a it's probably going to be a doozy, right?
30:39
Like they're they're they want you know, they're going to they're using their one shot on this question."
30:43
And it would the most common questions had the most obvious answers.
30:46
It would be like "You know, I'm trying to decide between this or this.
30:51
You know, what do you think I should do?"
30:55
Well, what do you want to do?
30:57
"I really want to do this."
30:57
All right, well, then you should probably do that one. Or like "I don't know."
31:00
And it's like Well, if you like I mean, do you want Do you like Do you like one more than the other?
31:05
Like do you you know, do you want one more than If you need If you did know what you wanted, what would you say?
31:11
Yeah, I know you don't know what you want, but if you did know, what would you say? And they're like "B." I'm like Cool. Do B, then. Right?
31:16
Or it'd be like Yeah, and I and I hate giving that answer because it's like you know, not that we're someone's hero, but don't meet your heroes because like yeah, we just give you the most obvious obvious answer.
31:27
Or the second one is like, "I'm doing this, this, and this." And they go, "Oh, cool. What are the results?"
31:31
They'll tell me I'm like, "What were the results last year?" Okay.
31:35
Well, just yeah, keep going.
31:35
Sounds like it's working. Exactly.
31:37
Either it's working don't don't mess it up or sounds like it's not working.
31:45
Do you want to like you're asking me for investment and actually you should be asking for advice, right?
31:51
Because it's not working.
31:53
You know, the same thing was like "I'm doing these I got these two ideas.
31:57
I got I got one company I do this and another company I do this and I'm really it's really hard because blah blah blah." Cool.
32:03
Sounds like you're going to do two companies.
32:05
Like do you think do you think the optimal strategy is going to be to do two startups at once or one?
32:11
Like and they're like, "Yeah, one probably." Cool.
32:14
So, which is the better business?
32:15
Like which one do you want to do?
32:15
Which one is working better?
32:19
And then they're like "Well, no, but see, this one kind of feeds into this one."
32:25
And I'm like No, it actually eats away at all of your time and mind share.
32:27
It doesn't feed into anything. And they're like "Hmm."
32:31
And I'm like You know, like you Elon Musk can can run two companies at once.
32:35
He might even be able to run three.
32:37
But um un- until you have, you know, like until your palm is like, you know, a physics textbook, like you know, until you can until unless you're built the way he's built, like it's probably not the optimal strategy for you.
32:49
Like if you're in this meet and greet line, I'm just going to tell you right now probably don't want to be CEO of three startups at once.
32:55
And so and the obvious answer for most of them was like, "Well, what if you just focused on the one that's that you like more or is working better?"
33:01
Like I think that would probably work better than try to make both of these these fledgling things work.
33:06
And so I felt almost silly that that that was the case.
33:10
And what were you saying here about everyone was searching?
33:11
Cuz we met like a bunch of successful people.
33:13
For example, probably one of the more successful people we met was this guy named AJ Patel who is like 32 or 35 or something like that.
33:24
And he started a dog supplement company, which whenever I hear about that, I'm like that's the greatest thing ever because who knows if like the product will work.
33:32
But he originally sold a portion of the company at like $200 valuation and then a few years later sold it for $650 million in valuation.
33:40
And he seemed pretty like zen-like.
33:43
Like he kind of had his act together, but still there were some things where he was like trying to figure out what to do next and like he had normal questions that everyone else had.
33:53
And on here you had every everyone's searching. Yeah.
33:55
Actually, I want to say one last thing about the previous thing about most common most of the common questions had the simplest answer.
34:00
That's not a knock on those people.
34:02
What I meant is dude, this game is not as complicated as we make it.
34:06
I have the same I do make those same mistakes and it and it all it takes is just a third party with like a fresh set of eyes to be like, "Well, sounds like you just pick the one you want to do." Right?
34:15
Or like instead of doing three things, try focusing on the one and it'll probably work better.
34:20
Or like, you know, whatever.
34:22
And so I think that it's useful to almost have that be your own coach in that way and save yourself a lot of heartache because that it wasn't a knock on those individuals.
34:32
It's that is the common problem.
34:34
Um is that we we we don't have complex problems. We have simple problems.
34:39
And a simple problem doesn't need a complex answer.
34:41
It needs a simple answer. So, that was my point. All right.
34:45
The to the second thing, yeah, everyone is searching.
34:46
It didn't matter who we were hanging out with.
34:48
Net worth zero, net worth 100k, net worth 1 million, 10 million, 100 million, and the and the and the billionaire we had dinner with. Everybody was searching.
34:57
Searching for meaning, searching for what's next, searching for what they should be doing with them their time.
35:01
Searching for a better challenge, searching for a way to to solve their problem.
35:06
It just felt like everyone was searching and specifically a lot of people were searching for like direction.
35:11
And it really made me like it really highlighted me the value of when you know you when you have a clear direction the value of that.
35:21
To like to be grateful for that and find people who are good at figuring that out because I think if you stay in that searching state for too long that shit's dangerous. It's like an inception.
35:30
It's like we can only be in the dream for an hour before we forget that it's a dream.
35:36
Uh you know, we got to do that thing where we [ __ ] cold plunge ourselves to get back out of it and wake back up.
35:40
It's like there is it's okay to be in a wandering mode or a searching mode or kind of a thinking mode, like what do I want to do?
35:48
But after 6 months, after 12 months, after 18 months, like that [ __ ] becomes you get lost in the sauce.
35:54
And I felt like there were kind of a lot of people that were lost lost in the sauce.
36:00
That that that they were their search was sort of like almost indefinite.
36:01
And I think that's that's dangerous.
36:07
That's interesting and that's actually really scary.
36:08
That's that kind of a because it's one of those things where if it goes on for too long, it gets even worse and then you know, you're like you know, ass deep in it and you're like, "Oh, no.
36:18
forget how to even start the engine.
36:20
It's like this car hasn't been on for a long time.
36:22
I did Does the engine start?"
36:24
And I think you're good at this.
36:24
I think the way I think you're really good at this.
36:27
The way you are very structured helps you cuz I think you're very like regimented.
36:32
You're like "For the next 3 months, I'm going to only talk to people and figure out what I want.
36:37
And after 3 months, I'm going to have a conversation with myself and shift into the next gear."
36:40
And because you're This is my read of it at least.
36:42
I I don't know what goes on in your head, but my read of it is No, that's that's exactly how I do it.
36:47
box things and you know, there's an argument to be had for like just wandering around and letting you know, don't you can't control everything.
36:55
But I think having these creative constraints, these like time box constraints helps keep you honest.
36:58
Like am I really Am I even learning from my wandering at this point or am I just Have I forgotten like my my head from my feet?
37:06
I do I even remember what the hell I'm supposed to be doing right now?
37:08
And so I think you know, you had a period post-Hustle and pre-Hampton that was like your searching period.
37:16
But it was like I think you knew you were going to search.
37:18
You knew you were going to wander and explore, which meant don't jump into something really fast.
37:25
But also don't let that last forever. Is that right?
37:28
Yeah, well, I'm obsessed with time.
37:28
So, like even when I was 20 years old, I had this document.
37:33
I think if you Google like my name and then CEO doc, you'll be able to find this spreadsheet.
37:36
And I would map out I I think I had thousands of them of all these biographies of people I read and I would type in like when they started their apprenticeship, when they got successful, and the time it took to do that.
37:48
I was obsessed with time.
37:51
And the reason time's important is I think that the constraint is incredibly necessary.
37:55
I read this book by Robert Greene and he talked about urgency.
37:57
And that was the first time that I learned about the importance of urgency.
38:00
And so that's why I'm obsessed with time.
38:02
And so usually what I do is I have this thing called worry time, which is very similar to like searching time.
38:07
But worry time is like, "Here's the period that I can worry about this these following things."
38:12
So, like it could be like you know, I'm not sure that here I'll make a list of all the things going on in my life that that are happening right now that I'm not sure about.
38:19
Like it could be like this podcast.
38:21
It could be my relationship. It could be anything.
38:25
And it's like, "All right, on Sunday from 3:00 to 8:00, I'm going to worry about it." Right.
38:29
And I'm not And then I'll like set time aside to worry about it and then I'll set it aside and my time into every moment of every day and be this underlying worry or anxiety that just sort of like plagues you.
38:40
Yeah, so it's just like you know, like have you ever used Headspace, the meditation app?
38:43
There's this I'm a Calm guy myself, but go ahead. Yeah, I like Calm, too.
38:47
But Andy, the guy who would narrate it, would be like, "All right.
38:50
Today we're going to we're going to do the meditation, whatever.
38:54
Now, the cloud is above you.
38:54
Let's put all of our thoughts and feelings and worries in that cloud above us.
38:58
Now, let's just walk a few feet away.
39:00
Now, we're away from the cloud.
39:02
We can acknowledge that like our worries are up in that cloud, but we're no longer under it.
39:07
And we can go back under it when we're ready and worry about it."
39:09
And so that's kind of how I came up with like worry time.
39:11
And so I have worry time and I also do the same with like searching time.
39:15
So, it's like, "All right, I'm going to search for this.
39:18
And then in 3 months, I'm going to say, 'Did I find it or not?' No? Okay, fine.
39:21
We'll give it another 3 months.
39:21
And then once I find it, it goes "Searching's done.
39:24
We are no longer searching."
39:26
So, I actually turned off like this is just a very small example.
39:30
I turned off the Twitter DMs of my Twitter handle cuz I would get all these interesting opportunities, but I said, "Nope.
39:35
We are done with opportunities. I have the opportunity.
39:39
We are going going pursue that."
39:39
And then at a later date, we'll open back up to pursue new opportunities, maybe, but right now there's no nothing new. Right.
39:46
And I like we my wife and I were joking, but it's not really joking.
39:48
It's like my rule right now is no new friends.
39:52
I don't need new friends.
39:52
I have the friends that I want. That is perfect.
39:56
I'm not going to go out and hang out with new people.
39:58
No new friends because uh you know, like the searching time is done for now, and we'll open it up at a later date.
40:04
Auditions will come at a later date for new ideas and new friends. Dude, that's great.
40:06
I I love the way you said that.
40:09
I do a similar thing, but without uh I I I hate the word time. I'm the opposite of you.
40:14
I I want to get off the concept of time altogether.
40:18
Um but but in reality, the result is actually very very similar what I do, which is that I I focus on the word constraint.
40:24
So, how can I use a constraint to my advantage?
40:26
I love this because naturally, I'm always constrained. All right?
40:30
Like I don't always have every resource at my disposal to do what I want to do. All right?
40:36
Let's say I'm traveling and I don't maybe have the time or the equipment to get to the gym to do the same workout that I was doing before.
40:45
Then how do I get excited about the constraint? Okay, I got this wall. I have the floor. I've got my suitcase. Ah. Interesting.
40:51
I can air squat the suitcase and then I can, you know, do these like I could do a push-up challenge where I'm going to do 100 push-ups in the next 5 minutes and I'm going to see, you know, if I how far under that time I can get.
41:04
And you know, you do that and you've used a constraint to your advantage to have a better experience.
41:10
So, I I always have the saying which is I'm not going hour to hour.
41:14
I think that's a really I think time creates a lot of stress in people's lives.
41:17
So, I want to use constraints without the stress of time.
41:19
So, what I say is like, all right, I'm trying to have an experience right now.
41:22
What kind of experience do I want?
41:23
I want a sweaty workout experience. Okay.
41:27
How can I now use an use a constraint to ratchet that up and make it even better? Um right?
41:33
Like that's how I want to do things.
41:35
So, I I'll do the same thing where I'll constrain myself. All right.
41:38
I'm going to turn off DMs or I'm going to do no do a no new friends season.
41:41
And I'll I'll use these words like season to to sort of time box them, but without the sort of urgency or stress of like the thing you did where you're like, how successful were these guys by 30?
41:55
Dude, that would have just made me feel miserable.
41:56
So, I had to like tweak that a little bit for myself where I didn't want to always feel perpetually behind in life.
42:02
Um and so my way of doing that was focus on, all right.
42:05
I'm about to walk into this room.
42:06
What kind of experience do I want to have?
42:09
And get good at choosing that and then be like, how can I use a constraint to to like level that up to enhance that rather than feeling constrained by lacking some resources that I otherwise would want to make this happen.
42:22
I think the time thing is important because you do compare yourself to others and comparing yourself to others, everyone says is bad.
42:28
I actually think in some ways it's really great because you see what's possible.
42:31
Just like if you're like an athlete where you're like, I want to be like this athlete.
42:34
I want to be strong, but I want to be stronger than them or faster or whatever.
42:39
But whenever we do these events and I meet all these amazing people, like an AJ, like a Suli, like an Andrew Wilkinson, and I hang out with them and I think I'm behind. I'm way behind.
42:51
that's the And that's dangerous. That's dangerous.
42:53
That's the thing I referenced the other day when I said, there's the there's the the science of success and there's the art of fulfillment.
42:58
What the comparing yourself will help you in the science of success. It will motivate you.
43:02
It will put a chip on your shoulder.
43:04
It'll get a light a fire under your ass.
43:06
But it's not going to help on the art of fulfillment side.
43:09
It's so what some people try to do in life is be like, let me solve the success thing first and then I'll do the happy thing after that.
43:16
And I think what you'll do if you look at what remember my back to my everyone is searching thing.
43:21
What ends up happening is people solve the success thing.
43:24
They try to throw a bunch of money at the happy thing.
43:26
It works to an extent, but not all the way there.
43:29
They kind of disillusioned and they just sort of fall back on, well, let me just go do more success [ __ ] At least back then when I was only focused on success, I felt better.
43:36
And I know how to do that bit more than I know how to be happy.
43:40
And uh and so Or or it's like, I thought this number would give me the answer. Turns out I was wrong.
43:45
It's actually five times that.
43:47
Yeah, it's actually it's not it's not 50, it's actually 150.
43:49
Somebody said this to me the other day.
43:51
They they said it's always three times more than what you got.
43:54
Uh like people always think, if three times more, then then I'll I'll chill out after that.
43:58
I'll I'll really move on to that next phase.
44:00
And I think while I I don't think that's a bad path.
44:02
I don't think you end up in a bad spot.
44:03
I do think there's probably a better version of it, which is like, can I do happy and successful at the same time? Is that possible?
44:13
and and I'm going to out him here, but it's nothing crazy, but we were had dinner with Andrew.
44:16
Andrew, you know, his company as of Friday, I don't know what it's say, was worth 850 million in Canadian.
44:22
And I was like, we were talking about like what's next and or like we were talking about like just personal like motivating factors and he was like, oh, I was motivated because I wanted to feel secure financially because for some reason I always felt insecure as a kid and you know, everything comes from like issues you had as a child.
44:37
And I was like, do you feel secure now?
44:39
And he was like, you know what? Not really.
44:42
And I'm like, wow, you don't we we're still not going to feel secure at that number?
44:47
Uh like you you always need more and I always and I couldn't decide if I felt negative about that feeling or positive, but I have realized that that might be the learning is that like you don't feel secure.
44:56
A lot of people don't feel secure regardless of what they have or what they don't have.
45:01
Like it's the it's the same feeling of it's not enough.
45:03
Like it can be taken away.
45:07
I I view it a little differently.
45:07
It's more like the security doesn't come from the money.
45:10
That feeling you want is it going to be is it going to change when the money changes in that in that way, right?
45:17
Like I feel secure now and I have one one billionth of whatever he's got, right?
45:22
Like it's like, you know, he Why?
45:24
Because I just view I just view it differently.
45:27
I have different insecurities than he's got, right?
45:28
Like uh but on the on the financial one, I'm like, as long as I still got my wits about me and my two hands, I'm always going to be fine. I got my brains. I got my hands. I'll always be fine. So, what do I care?
45:39
I could lose all my money in crypto.
45:40
I could lose all my money in this this business could tank.
45:43
Podca- I could say the wrong joke.
45:45
I could cancel on the podcast tomorrow.
45:48
Still got my hands and my my brain?
45:48
All right, I'll be all I'll be all I'll be all right.
45:50
And so if you it's like fitness, right?
45:53
Like if I put you in any fitness test, I think you would feel pretty secure. Right? Like Yeah.
46:00
I don't think I could be like, Sam, we're going to do a work- Like I think if you invited me over, you're like, let's do a hard workout.
46:08
You know, I'm not eating that morning.
46:08
I don't know I don't know.
46:10
I got to be light on my feet.
46:11
I got to I got to I got to do I Hey, does creatine work in one day?
46:13
Let me take some of that.
46:15
Like, you know, I'd be stressing out because I don't have the fitness security.
46:19
Whereas I think if I invited you over for a hard workout, you'd be like, huh, we'll see, right?
46:25
Or even if somebody even if David Goggins invited you for a hard workout.
46:28
May- maybe at that stage you would feel feel a little bit of the the lack of security, but I think for most people in most situations, you would feel feel pretty secure.
46:34
And so I I think it's everybody's chasing a feeling.
46:37
They think the feeling comes from a thing.
46:40
The feeling doesn't come from the thing.
46:42
The feeling comes from you and comes from practicing having that feeling.
46:44
And I think until people grok that, they're just not going to have the the type of feelings they want of happiness and all this other [ __ ] Speaking of which, we have a very sturdy audience.
46:55
I was putting my hand around on people's backs take a picture.
46:58
Got a bunch of broad backs.
47:02
Yeah, we had a whole bunch of broad backs. deadlifters out there. What's going on?
47:06
There was a there was a bunch of sturdy-ass people.
47:07
Maybe it's a uh a Texas thing, but there was a bunch of big old boys that we were talking and and women.
47:13
Like every like there was so many strong people.
47:15
I I probably said at least 20 times.
47:19
Uh like, you know, it's like you're awkward.
47:20
You is the meet and greets are weird.
47:22
I don't know what to say to people.
47:24
Uh so, it's usually like, oh, I like your shirt or you look huge. You're yolked.
47:28
But I I said that so many times. Yeah.
47:32
Yeah, we got we have a interesting interesting demographic.
47:34
There's like the people that look like you, the people that look like me, and then there's the then there's the people that look like neither of us.
47:40
But it's kind of amazing how well distributed.
47:41
It's like bunch of Indian dudes, bunch of really strong white guys, and then like and then and then the other group, which is a blend of of normal people.
47:52
We had so many Indians and so many Indians with the really thick accent.
47:57
So, I guess they had just moved here.
47:57
Do you think that we are are we popular in India because of the topic or because of you?
48:03
Well, I mean, there's a lot of a lot of business topics out there.
48:06
They don't all have that.
48:09
I think you know, like everything is Where's Chamath from?
48:11
What's he he's uh Is he Indonesian? he's from uh Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka? I mean, I don't know.
48:18
Do they they probably love him, too, but like it was like the 6 million people underwater or something like that.
48:24
It's like a very like I don't know how many of them even have access to like, you know, know about know about him, but but yeah, if if he goes to India or something like the um cult phenomenon.
48:31
Him, Naval, Balaji, like they really really look up to to to those people.
48:36
And like it's like if you go to in China, the most popular person was Kobe Bryant.
48:41
And they said Kobe Bryant was the star of stars because of some combination of like he's got the thing that they want, like crazy like athleticism, plus they piped those Laker games into China and like only Laker games for like a period of time.
48:52
And so he was just And everyone in China wishes they were a black man. Yeah, exactly.
48:56
And he was just like looked like a god compared to them, right?
49:00
And it's like I think you you like people who are they're like you and so you feel like you could be them.
49:05
And then there's people who are so unlike you that you're like, you are so different.
49:09
I just I I am in awe of what you are.
49:14
It's like the Bjork effect.
49:14
So, Bjork, you know, is from Iceland, which only has like 5 million people.
49:18
And like Bjork's music sucks, but every once in a while she would be like number one on the charts.
49:23
It's because like everyone in Iceland would like cheer for her because she was like doing something interesting in America. Or like Bruno Mars.
49:30
If you go to YouTube and look up Bruno Mars's videos on YouTube, they have like three and four and five billion views on YouTube because everyone in the Philippines cuz he's like Filipino is like that's our guy, you know what I mean?
49:43
So, I guess that's why we have a really nice Indian contingency cuz you're their guy.
49:48
Whereas with me, it's just a bunch of like you know, like guys from Ohio, but whatever.
49:53
Dude, can I tell you speaking of Ohio, can I um do a little bit here on Jerry Springer? What about him? RIP.
50:02
Died 2 days ago, I think. Um Yeah.
50:04
His story is kind of crazy.
50:04
Do you know much about Jerry's backstory?
50:09
Wasn't he the mayor of of someone in somewhere in Ohio like Dayton, Ohio or something?
50:15
But he was really the mayor of Was he was the mayor of first and then talk show? Yes.
50:17
So, basically his career is like he at 25 he's the advisor to Robert Kennedy during his presidential campaign who I think died or got assassinated or something. Um Yeah. Then he's like, "Okay."
50:30
Goes on to do like kind of like local city politics.
50:32
Ends up becoming the mayor of Cincinnati for a brief period of time.
50:35
Gets fired because he solicited a prostitute, I think, and got busted for it.
50:40
And so, he's like, "Oh, sorry.
50:42
Like yeah, shouldn't have paid for an escort or something."
50:44
Um so, now he's like out of the political game and he's, you know, in his 30s, I guess, and he's like, "What do I want to do next?"
50:53
And so, he he gets casted onto local TV to do a political show.
50:57
It's like, "Oh, you could be like our political kind of like talk show type of guy."
51:02
So, he does that for for a little bit and then he gets his own show.
51:04
So, he's I I I don't remember what year this is like I don't know, '91 or something like that.
51:11
And he gets his own political He's doing his own political talk show.
51:13
3 years go by, kind of unspectacular.
51:18
And then the moment happens.
51:18
A new producer comes in and is like, "Hey, look.
51:23
This political show is going nowhere. Let's switch it up."
51:28
The And The Jerry Springer Show is born.
51:31
So, the producer comes in and he's like, "Look, we're going to shift it towards controversy, uh um dirty laundry."
51:35
And basically like we'll captivate We'll make captivating TV by putting scandal on air.
51:38
And we'll have like Was it fake though?
51:40
So, con- uh there's there's different opinions on this.
51:46
I read a bunch of like Reddit posts of people who were producers on the show or good went on the show.
51:50
Here's Here's where I think it netted out, which is they would cast for scandal.
51:57
People would say, "Yeah, that happened to me."
51:58
The producers would intentionally not fact-check anything.
52:02
And um so, you could it could have either been real for you or you could have just been like, "If I do this, I could take it on TV.
52:07
I get a flight to New York. I get to go."
52:09
Basically, me and my my whatever person get to go on vacation in New York. All expenses paid.
52:15
We get to be on TV and you know, that'll be that.
52:18
And so, for some I think it was like truly real.
52:20
For a lot, they would like kind of like make it up or they would embellish.
52:24
So, it would be like "Yeah, I cheated, but like actually they weren't best friends and I didn't steal like we knew each other first and blah blah blah and he actually knew about it already.
52:34
He's not finding out on air, but like whatever.
52:36
We'll kind of recreate that."
52:37
And was it daily or weekly?
52:39
So, it was I think it was a daily show.
52:40
It at its peak it's higher rated than Oprah.
52:43
So, he becomes the number one daily show.
52:47
And for the first time in people's So, so here's some of the kind of amazing things. It goes 18 years on TV.
52:50
Jerry knows it's stupid, but he's like "This is what people want and I'm going to give them what they want."
52:58
And I I had a few takeaways from this whole thing, right?
53:01
So, first of all, Jerry Jerry Yeah, like just that's iconic.
53:06
It's just so iconic and I love it.
53:06
Yeah, that was it was it was the pre-WorldStar.
53:12
Dude, WorldStar WorldStar lives in the shadows of Jerry.
53:14
So, here's couple things that stood out to me.
53:19
Number one, he gave people what they wanted, not what they what he thought they should want.
53:24
And in fact, he started with what he thought they should want.
53:26
Oh, here's the latest on the local political issues and where we stand and blah blah blah.
53:32
And he pivoted and he pivoted the right way.
53:34
And I think as entrepreneurs, um there's a great like Gary Halbert quote where he says, "No more Never has more money been lost than trying to market to somebody what they should do versus what they want to do."
53:42
And as a marketer, you got to internalize that.
53:46
Now, there are some people that are not in my cult that that hate that phrase.
53:51
They think that's terrible.
53:53
That the world is terrible because of that.
53:54
They say, "No, shouldn't we strive to be better?
53:57
Shouldn't we strive to help the world be a better place and and not that?
54:01
Like these sugar-filled cereals and these like you know, dopamine social networks and all this stuff?"
54:08
And so, some people hate that that's true and they're fighting against it.
54:12
As an entrepreneur, I'm in the camp of you are here to serve customers.
54:15
You're here to give them what they want.
54:17
If you want to win, you give them what they want.
54:21
You get If you want to win really big, you give them what they want in a way that no one's no one else is giving it to them or maybe even that they didn't even realize that they wanted.
54:26
People didn't know they wanted this and you're the first to provide it.
54:29
But that's the game of business and to me.
54:31
So, so anyways, I think he's a great example of giving people what they want.
54:35
Uh two, he pioneered a new format.
54:37
So, his whole format of like putting this dirty laundry on air and the fights, the bouncers, the like the you know, the the pregnancy test for the DNA test reveals.
54:49
Like this guy is a goddamn innovator.
54:52
Uh number three, he became number one.
54:54
He bigger than Oprah in in his prime.
54:56
And lastly, what I love was he uh Dude, he did 5,000 episodes. his friends to win, too.
55:01
So, his security guy, Steve, who became like a character a character on the show.
55:05
Like they're best friends.
55:06
Steve says you know, the most wonderful things about Jerry and Steve gets his own spin-off show later after the after the Jerry Springer show.
55:14
So, I love that he kind of brought friends along the way and that they when he eats, they all eat.
55:20
And there was a few few good examples of that.
55:22
And the other funny thing about this And people people liked working for Jerry?
55:26
People From what I can tell, yeah.
55:26
Like it was like the opposite of Ellen.
55:29
Like Ellen is seen as this like, you know, America's sweetheart and then behind the scenes was like, you know, a menace.
55:35
Apparently, Jerry was the opposite.
55:35
It's like he was seen as a menace to society and actually he was kind of a sweetheart from from what people said.
55:40
Now, maybe it was just the guy dies and no one wants to trash him, but like that's what I found.
55:46
The last thing though that I thought was interesting was that in a weird way because this show was really popular like in the early '90s, his show was actually the first show to expose people to like to people being gay or trans or like all kinds of stuff that's like LGBTQ.
56:01
Like And he was like this is a For a lot of people in America, they had never met or heard of anybody who was in any of those categories.
56:12
And so, he kind of was like the Band-Aid rip-off moment for for a lot of America on these things, which I think is also kind of amazing.
56:20
The Real World was kind of like that, too.
56:23
I went to I went to an all-boys high school and and like I remember being like 14 or 15 and for some reason the high school it was like a good the culture of the school like young men felt fine coming out and saying they were gay.
56:34
I remember like meeting these kids and that was like the first time I've ever done that and like met like someone who admitted to being gay.
56:40
And at first I was like uh you know, back then you you would make fun of people and then you realize, "Oh, that That's that's horrible.
56:50
Obviously, we shouldn't do that and they're my buddies."
56:51
Um And then it goes back to and therefore because I love you, I'm going to make fun of you just like I make fun of all my other friends.
56:59
And that's like Yeah, and because I love you, I'm not going to treat you differently.
57:03
We're all boys and we're just going to tease each other over someone has braces, someone you know, likes men, whatever. It doesn't matter.
57:09
We're going to make fun of ourselves.
57:10
And and that's just a way that's the way that young boys show that we accept each other. That's how we show love.
57:14
It was just a mini It was a mini Jerry, you know? Jerry was first.
57:19
You know, like like well, we're not not going to make fun of this person because of this and that.
57:22
We're actually going to do it because it shows that we're going to It's normal.
57:26
We're going to normalize it.
57:27
So, who knew Jerry was so progressive, you know what I mean?
57:30
The guy was a Bobby, we got Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and we got Jerry Springer.
57:34
These He's just one of many in a lineage of pioneers breaking down social barriers. Yeah, I saw he died.
57:41
Dude, he seemed He always seemed really likable.
57:43
I remember watching him like Did you watch it?
57:45
Like did when your grandmom like babysat you or something?
57:49
Like that's like what I remember doing is like No, I was just home after school by myself.
57:53
Yeah, like like it was like 4:00 when you get home from school, you watch Jerry and Oprah.
57:56
I remember watching all Or when you stay home from school being sick. You watch Maury.
58:01
Yeah, staying home from sick watch Price Is Right and [ __ ] Yeah, I loved Maury. Maury was the best, too.
58:04
He's going to die soon, too.
58:06
I just looked him up while we were talking and he's 85, I think.
58:09
So, the legends the legends It's a it's a it's a passing generation salt of the earth type of type of people. Who's doing this now?
58:15
Is there like a thing now?
58:17
Like where does this happen?
58:17
Does this happen on TikTok or like Twitch or YouTube or something?
58:20
I I don't see That's a good question.
58:24
even though it's a good one.
58:25
You know another great one like this?
58:26
My sister still listens to this every day when she drives her kids to school. Cheaters on radio.
58:31
This the show where they like Cheaters like like That's still a thing?
58:37
Oh, it's a big it's a it's a big thing in the FM morning radio space, which is a very small thing in the world now.
58:42
I think that is actually It was Joey Greco.
58:46
You remember Joey Greco, the host? Is it just one?
58:48
I feel like every city just borrowed this format.
58:52
Joey Greco was like the more famous host and at one point he got stabbed.
58:55
Do you you don't remember that episode where he gets stabbed?
58:59
Dude, he like gets stabbed and like the thing about the thing about that era of like the 2000s and '90s, the reason it was cool was we don't know if it's fake because there is no one tweeting, you know what I mean?
59:12
You like think it's fake, but like no one has a platform to like expose like that they went on the show.
59:15
And so, that's kind of why it's hard to like recreate some of these things.
59:18
It's like we didn't know.
59:19
Like I I wasn't sure wrestling was fake or not until like, you know, 5 years ago.
59:23
I I Who knew, you know what I mean? Held out hope. It's like, "Yo, Yeah.
59:29
Tooth Fairy and Uh, Vince McMahon.
59:31
Maybe maybe there's a way.
59:33
Yeah, no one knew no one knew.
59:33
But no, that's a good question.
59:36
I'm looking it up now, cheaters.
59:38
so he did the TV show Joey Greco show version.
59:40
And then the later host was Peter Gunn's. Right.
59:42
The radio version is basically they call the wife calls in is like I think my husband might be cheating.
59:49
So then they call the husband as a woman I don't know how I don't know actually how they pull this off.
59:55
I don't I got to ask my sister what the what the actual format is cuz I don't know how Dude, it's all fake.
59:58
I don't know how they trick them that that easily cuz like I mean you'd have to get a cold call from somebody and be like yeah, I'm down.
1:00:03
Uh, so I'm not sure exactly what they do.
1:00:05
Or maybe they called Oh, I think what it is is they're like he might be cheating with my friend Rebecca and they fake call as Rebecca to try to like to catch him in the act.
1:00:18
And then they just do they hit the button and three-way call merging the wife as she just goes off on him on air.
1:00:24
It's a it's incredible content.
1:00:24
I mean like anybody who's that who's a content creator out there like if you're not studying cheaters, you're not even trying.
1:00:30
If there's a subreddit called public freakout, do you ever go to public freakout?
1:00:34
seen I've seen public freakout on a on my Reddit. subreddit.
1:00:37
That's my That's my version.
1:00:40
That's my version of Jerry Springer.
1:00:41
Public freakout and popping where they just pop like zits and [ __ ] I love that.
1:00:45
Big fan of that one and public freakout.
1:00:48
I was on the front page of uh, popping one time.
1:00:50
I had a picture get 60,000 views. So it's just whatever.
1:00:55
Can I endorse you for for that on LinkedIn?
1:00:56
What what what how do I Dude, I swear to god this work?
1:01:01
I had to get like a cyst removed from my like head and I right before I went under surgery I was like hey, Dr.
1:01:06
Brian can you do me a favor?
1:01:08
Here's my cell phone number.
1:01:10
Can you take some pics uh, while we're in surgery and send them to me?
1:01:13
I want to post them on this subreddit.
1:01:14
And he did and I got 60,000 views.
1:01:19
I have a I have a a folder right here on my Safari or my Chrome.
1:01:21
So it's called brain and it's like I took like before a before during and after photos.
1:01:27
I was the number one on popping. So no big deal.
1:01:30
I think it's literally no big deal actually.
1:01:32
That's the cool part about it.
1:01:39
I guess that's the episode.
1:01:39
We did a recap and we talked about Jerry Springer.
1:01:42
All right, that's the episode.