← Making It with Jon Davids
Making It with Jon Davids
159 - Brutally Honest Business Recap of 2024 | Jon Davids vs Charles Schwartz
00:57:05
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- [00:00]
A
What's up, guys? JD Here. And on today's show, it is the greatest hits of 2024. The good, the bad and the ugly in business, marketing, entrepreneurship, culture. And my special guest is Charles Schwartz from the I Am Charles Schwartz show. Number one show in entrepreneurship and one of the most listened to podcasts in America. You guys are gonna love Charles. I love talking to him. And, and I wanna thank you also for making this podcast number one in marketing across so many countries. Thank you all for a great 2024. And if you like this show, make sure to leave a rating or review wherever you're listening. Get my best stuff to your inbox@johndavids.com and now, the greatest hits of 2024. You're listening to Making it with John Charles. Welcome to the show and thank you for having me on your show as well. Crossover episode and I've been looking forward to this, man. Are you ready to go?
- [01:05]
B
I'm absolutely ready to go. This is fun. We always have great conversations off camera. So to actually do it back on camera again just makes it more fun for us all.
- [01:12]
A
So for the crowd, a little behind the scenes. We've been talking now for like 40 minutes and I finally said let's hit the record button because we got to capture some of this on the mic. All right, so what we're going to do here, 10 categories and it's a greatest hits of 2024. Close out the year on a high note. Let's just kick it off, man. Let's start with the best product you used or discovered in 2024. You're up. Let's have it.
- [01:37]
B
I'll go first. All right. So it actually has a little bit of a backstory with it. I went out and I went nuts in the beginning of the year because I wanted better sleep. So I bought the eight sleep system and then I bought the other chili system and I spent all this money, thousands and thousands of dollars. And then I found this little rinky dinky one which was 150 bucks. It's called the Adamsum, like B10. I think it's even on sale right now for $120. And it's this cooling thing that you put next to your bed and it's a water cooler thing and it keeps me cold when I'm sleeping. And I've spent again, I went from spending five, six thousand dollars all the way down to like 150 bucks. And it gets me unbelievably night. It's just worth it. It's Great sleep for me.
- [02:14]
A
Are you a hot sleeper normally, or.
- [02:17]
B
I am an exceptionally hot sleeper, and I don't know why I live in Florida. It's kind of counterintuitive. I should live in the Antarctic. I was in Norway shooting a commercial, and everyone had jackets on, and I was walking around with it with a T shirt and a pair of snow pants, because I just. I'm just a warm creature. God gave us chest hair, so that's what happens. I'm just.
- [02:34]
A
That's. That's crazy. Yeah. And getting good sleep, especially when you find that. That golden ticket of just, oh, I can just do this one thing, and I get a great night's sleep. For me, it's so. It's super simple. It's like a fan. And these days, I sleep with a humidifier on if it's a little dry. And just a really good pillow. That's kind of my. My magic mix.
- [02:52]
B
Yes. I have. I have body pillows as well. There's just a whole thing. I cocoon myself in there. But this. This little cooling pad, which, again, it was a tenth or even less of a price. And this isn't sponsored. I've never spoken to them. They're amazing. I bought three of them, and I was traveling recently, and I actually sent one to the hotel, and I just gave it away. I was like, oh, can you give us.
- [03:11]
A
So. And did you get it on Amazon if people want to check this out?
- [03:14]
B
Yeah, it's on Amazon. It's Adam adamson, I think. B10. I always search B10 cooling paddle and B10 cooling pad.
- [03:21]
A
Yeah, I see it here.
- [03:22]
B
Yeah, it's unbelievable. It just works. And it's simple and it's easy, and, yeah, it's like clockwork. It changed the ball game for me. How about you? What is your best one of the year? I mean, I can say ChatGPT, but.
- [03:33]
A
Yeah, it is ChatGPT. You got it. ChatGPT. So here's my thing with ChatGPT, and I know. I think it came out November 2023, if not mistaken. So I started sort of using it lightly like everybody else, and. And pretty quickly I upgraded to the paid version, and I'm using the new models. And I'm not like an AI nerd. There's a lot of people that are way more into AI than me, but I have become super proficient at prompts. I'm really, really good at prompting this thing. And I'm also really replacing Google. So I Tap on the ChatGPT app on my iPhone way more often than I Go to Google, I just ask for the answer. And it's everything from how do I make a great Caesar salad? To how do I barbecue a steak, you know, at dinner time, to draft me a letter, to send this to somebody. So it's everything from writing, and then the other thing is idea generation. So I do a lot of content on the podcast, on LinkedIn, on other platforms. And I'll never use ChatGPT to write a script or anything like that, but to bounce ideas, to say, hey, I'm kind of thinking about this. Can you give me some examples of how I might frame this? It is just an amazing thought partner. Do you use it? I use it.
- [04:42]
B
I use it all the time. And, you know, I had this guy on my show, and he taught me the prompts. He said, Listen, ChatGPT. One of the most important things about ChatGPT is you have to chat with it. So before you start prompted, you gotta sit down and say, hey, this is who I am. This is what I do. This is all. So you sit down. You spend that half an hour when I did it. Cause I did the same with you. As soon as I used it, I was like, yeah, I'm buying this. This belongs to me now. And I built this relationship with it. My assistant has her own version as well, and she's built a relationship with it. And a friend of mine's father just recently passed, and she was going through that process, and she goes, I don't even know how to write an obituary. I was like, not a problem. Tell me all the highlights of your dad. And she told me all of her highlights. I'm like, when was he born? When did he die? And I fed into the ChatGPT. I said, Cool, can you write an obituary for me? And within a minute and a half, we had what we needed to get over to the newspaper to publish the obituary. So it's it. The uses are just across the board. And I'm very similar to you. It is killing Google for me. I just don't use it anymore. I use ChatGPT for almost everything. For business ideas, for product ideas, everything. It's chatgpt for me.
- [05:37]
A
And the one thing I'll say, the big takeaway for entrepreneurs and really anybody just trying to get ahead in life, it's that the excuse is no longer access to knowledge or even access to specialized knowledge. It's do you have the persistence and do you have the sort of the wherewithal to go to a tool like ChatGPT or Claude or what, you know, pick your poison and say, hey, here's what I'm trying to do. What's the best path to get there? And to do you need to consult a, you know, a $500 an hour lawyer? Probably not these days, especially if you're a young hustler. So I think if you're a 22 year old young hustler, this is, this makes you dangerous.
- [06:10]
B
Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, from just the extraction of data, you know, we're doing a faceless brand thing right now because as you know, I test things to say, okay, let's see if it's worked, let's see if this really can do it. And we're like, we have no idea what products we're going to sell on this kind of dropshipping model. And I was like, well, let's find out. So I said instead of going to Google Trends and fighting with Google Trends, I had ChatGPT go fight with Google Trends. So what is the thing? What's going to be the best, what has the best shipping? And it mapped our entitled model for it. I said, cool, give me four more ideas. And I don't send an email now unless I put it through ChatGPT because I can't spell to save my life. It's pretty embarrassing.
- [06:42]
A
Awesome man. Okay, biggest business fail of 2024. What's your.
- [06:48]
B
I'm going first again on this one. All right. For me this is a consistent, this is an ongoing theme for me. This has been going on for a really long time. So hopefully this will get your listeners to feel a little bit better. My biggest business fail by default. Your biggest business fail is not executing, period. So this is the overall arc of this. It's not executing. But for me, when I owned an IT company very long time ago, there was one of my guys came to me and he said, hey, there's this new currency thing. It's like 100 bucks for a coin. You should try it. I'm like, I am not investing in this virtual world of Warcraft money. It was bitcoin. I completely missed the run. So when bitcoin crashed again, I was like, I don't, I don't understand it, I'm not investing. And then it just took off and did a run again. So not spending the energy over the last couple of years to learn about cryptocurrency and especially about bitcoin. Not doing that is. It's kind of a double edged sword, right? I didn't execute. Cause I don't understand it. I don't invest in Things I don't understand. That's just rule one. But missing the multiple chances for bitcoin, that would be my biggest fail business wise this year was. It was ruthless.
- [07:48]
A
My bitcoin story is so. I'm an avid and ferocious reader of trade magazines. I love reading the. I mean I've been a subscriber to the Wall Street Journal and Businessweek and Axios and I just kind of read everything. I'm insatiable like that. And I remember sitting in an airport with a copy of business week in 2015 and the COVID story was bitcoin and it was very new. Nobody knew what the heck bitcoin was back then. And I was reading, I read like a three page story about it and it 50% made sense and I was 50% like, what? Like this is crazy but the price at the time was like 800 bucks and I did nothing. I did nothing.
- [08:27]
B
I feel better. Thank you. Thank you for making me feel better about my pain that I am in.
- [08:32]
A
But the counterpoint to that is I am a believer in sort of invest what you know. So if I go back to 2015, you know, yeah, sure, in a fairy tale world, yeah, I bought a thousand of them and you know, and now it's worth $200 million. But the reality is I've made a lot of money doing what I know since 2015. So it wasn't like I wasted that decade. It really is just of course in hindsight you say, ah, why didn't I pull the trigger?
- [08:56]
B
Absolutely. It's like when they had the. What was it with the art that they did the NF, NFW NFTs, I was like, that makes even less sen. So there's a ton of things that my rules are if I don't fully understand it, I don't invest in it, period. It's just a non negotiable. So obviously if I knew now, if I knew then what I know now, of course I would have put every penny I had into it. But if I would have gone back in time with the same amount of knowledge, I probably would have made the same decision, regrettably. But the fact that I just did it again, it still doesn't make sense to me. I don't understand how the US is going to walk away from it. But hey, you know what, I like to be proven wrong on things, so it'll be fun.
- [09:31]
A
Oh no, I think you're going to be proven right on this one. You definitely should have bought the chance.
- [09:36]
B
Yeah, I should have. Absolutely.
- [09:38]
A
So my Biggest business fail. I'm going to go outside for this. So definitely I could point internally and I will later on on this list talk about my own fails. I'm actually going to pick an outside company. So I want to talk about Vice Media. Do you know Vice? Have you ever seen.
- [09:52]
B
I do, I do. They're really, really impressive.
- [09:54]
A
Yeah. So vice.com and you know, it started in Montreal and then it moved to New York. This is going back like two decades and it became this really big company and then it got swept up in the VC backed media vintage of 2015, I'll say. So back at that time frame it was like buzzfeed, Vice, there was Mashable. There's so many of these companies that just raised enormous amounts of venture capital to build these media companies of the future. And at the time I was also building a media company and of course I looked very enviously at those companies. I thought, oh, that's really cool. But it became very obvious very quickly that they were never going to grow into these valuations. Vice was valued at one point at like $3 billion. And it was a, it was a website and a TV show. Like @ the end of the day it was a news show on hbo. And so great business. But I think, and now Fast forward to 2024. You know they have, I think they filed for bankruptcy. You know, I think they're trying to right size the ship but just a total disaster. And I have friends who work there and like what a terrible way to go to build a great business but just be completely underwater. And so the takeaway for entrepreneurs and I think any business on this one is you've got to match your capital structure with the actual business. Vice is a great business that has a terrible cap table and it's just being screwed over because you know, it's $100 million company trying to act like a $3 billion company. And the advice for every entrepreneur listening is if you're building a great company, anytime you kind of hit a certain milestone, whether it's a software company or whatever it is you, you're going to have VCs knocking at your door. Just remember, you can always say no. You can always just say yeah, you know what, I really like my $3 million ARR. And I like operating as maybe a one or two man business. No thank you. I don't need to go out and be and build a $200 million company. I can buy a Ferrari with my $3 million. So really think about, don't get tempted into the VC back because they'll throw all kinds of money in your face. Just remember, raising venture capital is like getting just a bigger mortgage on your house.
- [11:57]
B
Absolutely. I brought the CEO of Cameo on and you've, you know what happened with Ken, where they went up and they went down. They had that, and he went through and he talked about it in detail. The idea of, you know, inch wide, mile deep, stay in your lane. Don't go crazy. Don't bring all the other things. Don't bring people in because it ate them alive. They went from this huge valuation to huge cutoffs during, during COVID and after Covid because he didn't stay in his lane. Know what you're good at, Stay what you're good at. Perfect it, make sure it's bulletproof, and then venture out to something else. Because as entrepreneurs, we look at the shiny new toy like, oh, we want to try this, we want to try that. Stay in your lane. Inch wide, mile deep. Know your niche and be the best person in that niche and then explore something else if you want to. But again, I think what we were talking about before regarding crypto and all that and investing, if your goal, if you got an entrepreneurship because you want freedom, be honest with yourself. You know, there's so many people like, oh, I've got grandma's favorite cookie recipe, and I'm going to do that. I'm like, really? Okay, so here's grandma's favorite cookie recipe. And then on the other side over here is not having to work in any way, shape, or form because of real estate and having that residual income. Always have your goals in line. If your goal is really, I don't want to work anymore, and I want to have 25 to $50,000 a month in residual income. Stay there, just get that done. Get that locked in, and then you can go out to the $500,000 a month in residual. Just stay in your damn lane.
- [13:10]
A
It's so true. And I'll just add onto that there's one piece of advice I give to young entrepreneurs all the time, which is they say when you're in your 20s, you should build a business and swing for the fences and raise a bunch of money or whatever it is. The smartest thing to do early on is build that will finance your life, like really, really early. Do something. Spend the first two, three years just creating an ATM that's going to give you $200,000 a year or $500,000 a year or whatever it is of your time. And then I can tell you Because I know it's much easier to do ambitious things when you're already rich because you know that it's not going to change your life at all like that. That's fine. I have no problem with someone going out and raising VC and doing whatever when they, when they've already got their home taken care of because they own, as you said, a bunch of real estate or whatever. But it's when you're living and dying and like trying to, you know, flex because you're not taking a paycheck. Every time an entrepreneur says to me, oh, I'm not taking any money, I put it all back into the business. Listen, you're kind of a fool. Like, you should be getting paid before everybody else. And so I do think there, there's a whole lot of kind of misunderstandings in this space.
- [14:12]
B
Absolutely. And you know, it's the idea of, you know, there's phases of your life as an entrepreneur. You learn, then you earn and then you return. And that's just how this, how this, the ball game works. And if you're early into this ball game, there's this myth on social media that, you know, there's so many 19 year olds or 20 year old multi billionaires being made, you're seeing the finite amount that actually did it. Most people are getting chewed up. So if you're in that age group and you're an entrepreneur, yes, strive for it, do it. But also understand you're in the learning phase. That's just where you are right now. And then once you learn enough, you will enter the earning phase and then you can give back and you could, you know, start a podcast or something. We just get back that way.
- [14:47]
A
Okay, number three, I'll take this one. First. Let's talk the best thing that you saw on social media in 2024. So best thing I saw and I see a lot of crap because I work in social media. But there's this account on Instagram, Jefferson Fisher. And I'll tell you why I love this account. So, Jefferson Fisher. I think there's two Fs in Jefferson. And basically it's this guy who sits behind the wheel of his car and gives you communication advice how to have an.
- [15:13]
B
I know this guy.
- [15:14]
A
You know him? Okay, anyone's seen him. He sits behind the wheel, right?
- [15:17]
B
He's really good. Yeah, he sits there and he gives like really high end advice about human behavior and language and all that. He's really great.
- [15:23]
A
Yeah, I know, he's really great. So he, he's in the discovery Section people see him and he's got a lot. I think he's got 5.7 million followers now. But I'll tell you the reasons I like it. So a, it's really high quality, good, good for you content, you know, it's your vitamins, it's the actual good stuff. When you can get a lot of crap on social media, it's good. Second thing, I think people ask, how do you succeed on social? And I work with a lot of brands and I do this kind of stuff. Number one thing on social is format. So whether you're on Instagram or TikTok or LinkedIn or whatever, if you can come up with a winning format that people sort of, they know and they see again and again, there's a reason Wheel of Fortune has been on the Air Force 35 years, because it's the same show every single night. And so it's the same thing on social. The guy is sitting behind the wheel of his car. You know exactly what you're going to get from familiarity wins. So that's format. And the third thing I like is that it's really raw and simple. He's not a guy in a studio. He's not a guy who's, you know, really polished or anything. He's just a 30 something year old lawyer by profession who sits behind the wheel of his car when he has 10 minutes to spare and gives out some good advice. So I think this is a great win on Social in 2024 and I'm.
- [16:33]
B
Going to piggyback off that for my answer because I think what we saw, and he's a great example of this, we're having authenticity come back into entrepreneurship. We're having authenticity come back into business. There's all these people before, it's like, hey, I'm going to sell you a course on how to be a millionaire. Step one, sell people courses on how to be a millionaire. It was just this scummy, horrible people who did that. Now we're having situations where the guy you were talking about where he's delivering massive value, we're sitting saying, this is what's actually working. Let me help you out. This is, you know, getting rid of the flash and the dance, finding the people that you can honestly be authentic with. And I think people have been watching social media for a while now. The flash and the newness of it is going away and it's starting to weed out the people who are just inauthentic and who are taking advantage of it. So I think my favorite thing that's happening right now on social media. You know, the biggest, as you would say that the best thing I've seen overall is the people who are full of it are starting to die down. They're starting to get rid of those because people are starting to figure it out. All right, that person's not authentic. And we're starting to have this drive now towards authenticity. Not the truth, we're not there yet. We're working on it, but definitely authenticity. So that's been my favorite thing that's been happening on social media. The authentic people are starting to, to scale and they're doing it by sitting behind a wheel and, you know, giving value.
- [17:41]
A
I think, I think people also get a lot more value out of that rather than watching, as you said, a 22 year old who looks like they're on a private jet. By the way, that private jet is a set in Santa Monica. I know, I've been there. It's not a real plane. They all just rent the same set. And it just makes you, you know, if you're a 28 year old person looking at this 22 year old, it just makes you feel bad about yourself. There's no, you know, people will say, oh, it's aspirational. That's kind of BS. It's not aspirational. It's aspirational. When, when a 55 year old does it, it's not aspirational. When a 20 year old does it, it's obnoxious. And I think, you know, again, if.
- [18:16]
B
It'S not true, if it's, if they're scamming you, if they're being scumbags, absolutely. But it's, you know, we're starting because there are some 22. I'm not bashing all the 22 year olds. There are some 22 year olds that have made and been extremely successful. And then there's some people who are just not. And they're renting sets, like as you said, because down here, you know, I'm in South Florida, people will rent 10, 15 Ferraris, rent an Airbnb, load it up. It goes back to the guy who sat there and said, here I am in my, my garage and this is my car. Yeah. So it's, it's that I'm glad that is starting to die down so that I think that's my favorite thing about social media.
- [18:49]
A
Check out my, my rented Lamborghini.
- [18:51]
B
Exactly. Look how great I am. I can rent things from Hertz. It's like, exactly. Really? So.
- [18:57]
A
All right, man. Most under hyped trend of 2024. So I'm. I'll go first on this one. So most underhyped. And I think it actually just started to get the hype it deserved in, like, October. And you'll understand why in a second. And that's podcasts. Now, of course, we're talking our own book here. We both have podcasts that are. That are quite high on the charts. And podcasts, I think everyone sort of knows this story. In 2020 and 2022, they already started to get big. But then I think the pivotal shift came in the US Election, which was Trump and to a smaller extent, Harris, but really it was Trump taking advantage of the audience. And it's not just the reach of the audience, because obviously the podcasts he went on had had massive reach, but it was also the authenticity. You were never going to get to see Trump up close and personal. If not for Joe Rogan, you would never get that on Fox. Like, it just wouldn't happen. And so I think podcasts as a medium for all of us, and I mean the ones who have talent, the ones who have something to say, I think podcasts are the great equalizer of the new media paradigm.
- [20:01]
B
I agree.
- [20:02]
A
That's my underhyped. And I think that they're going up really quick. How about you?
- [20:05]
B
No, I agree. I think podcasts are very underhyped at this point because there's about 3.2 million podcasts out there. Something absurd like that. What's interesting is people don't choose the. The news they want anymore. They choose the facts they want to believe. So I think there's going to come to this, this point with podcasts where someone will sit there and say, hey, you know, the globe is flat, the earth is flat. And you're going to have those people like, yeah, I believe that. I'm like, okay. And you're like, here's science. And you get to have those things where people are going to be able to push back and forth. Just like there is that filtering out that happened in social media. You're gonna start having that in news. You're gonna start having that in podcasts as well. Because there's so many people come out and they say, hey, water is bad for you. I'm like, okay, sit down. Just sit. Let's talk about this. So I think having that filter coming in overall is going to be something that's just exceptionally, exceptionally important. And I think overhyped, because we did overhype and underhyped, I think there's still this Idea of people are leaving. This whole idea of hustle porn, which is the. I Woke up at 4 in the morning. I worked out 17 times. I had 16 meetings. They're not doing that anymore. What's starting to happen is people going, I understand systems now. I now know that I need to do these certain things, and I can leverage opm, I can leverage other people's time, other people's money, and I can do that. That's starting to grain, at least in my circles. It's starting to gain some bubbling up, which is amazing. Being able to see some kids going, all right, I don't need to wake up at four in the morning, sleep only two hours, bust hump. I can execute. I can leverage other people. I can outsource a bunch of this stuff and be more effective than if I was trying to do it on my own. So seeing that start to pop up definitely in my circles has been amazing.
- [21:32]
A
I found it really irritating to see people talking about their day. And it was like, I wake up at 4am I journal for 30 minutes, then I read, then I take an ice bath, you know, then comes my sauna. And I'm like, do you have, like, you are married. You have no problems at all?
- [21:50]
B
Yes, exactly. And even if they didn't have problems, I'm like, do you not understand that system set you free? Do you understand that you can outsource 90% of this? I'm like, you know, we're doing something with this guy who he does vending machines. And he came to me, he's like, I can get anybody in the world to make $7,300 a month with vending machines. I'm like, okay, prove it. And we outsourced the entire process. He wasn't allowed to be involved in it. And it drove him out of his mind because he was used to getting up at zero dark hundred and going to execute these and do all these things, and instead we just outsource the whole thing. So people are starting to learn the power of outsourcing. And again, so that's. I think it's underhyped at this point. You're going to see a lot more of it coming in for the next couple of years, at least. I hope so.
- [22:28]
A
I like that outsourcing is underhyped. Yeah, because people, again, it's a flex. It's almost like, like a badge of honor to say, as you said, I Woke up at 4am and look at all that. Look at all I accomplished. But look at the person who got eight or nine hours sleep and is actually living their life. Going back to what you said about entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is not about being part of a tribe and trying to conform to everybody else. It's living your own life. So don't. Don't live for the gram. That's not what any of us got into this for.
- [22:54]
B
I'm a great example of that. I literally haven't posted on my gram in a year. It's on private right now. Because you know this. You have a media company. If you don't have your strategy, if you don't know what's going to go through, don't post, wait. Execute a very well thought out strategy that produces quality versus quantity. And again, I think that goes back to authenticity coming back into the. In the marketplace.
- [23:14]
A
You said it, man. Okay, most annoying buzzword of 2024. Let's hear yours first.
- [23:20]
B
Woke. I can't stand woke. Woke because people will go through and they're like, you drank a glass of water. That's woke. Oh, you wore shoes. That's woke. I'm like, everything became woke. So no one can define it, no one can undefined it. Just, it's just this blanket term that because of it, it doesn't mean anything. You know, in the past, my mother word that pissed me off all the time was literally. People would say, I literally died. I'm like, no, you figuratively died, because if you literally died, we wouldn't be having this conversation. So now that's been replaced for me. The word woke because everything is labeled woke. If you disagree with it in any way, shape or form, people just label it woke. Like, oh, you had white pillowcases instead of beige pillowcases, or you use satin instead of cotton, or you have, you know, you bought a Jeep instead of a Dodge Ram. Everything got attacked as woke. And I was like, it means nothing. Now it's this meaningless term because it's just blanketed everywhere. And it's just, ugh, it's sad. So you're.
- [24:13]
A
Let me ask you this. You're in Florida. I'm actually, I'm coming to Florida a couple weeks. But are you. Is all of Florida Trump country or is it segmented?
- [24:22]
B
It's very segmented. So there's a couple things you need to understand about Florida. You're pronouncing it wrong. Everyone pronounces Florida. It's not Florida. There is a. There's a, uh, on the end of that instead of an A. I've been down here since I was 5, so I can pick on it as much As I want, there are segments of it and there's different ways of it. Now, if it's all Trump country, there's different types of Trump country. Like if you get into metro Dade, there's a huge Hispanic and Latin culture. If you get up into Palm beach, there's an exceptionally large amount of money. I'm 15 minutes away from Donald. So it depends on where you are and what's going on. Again, just like most of the rest of the United States, the higher populated areas normally are left leaning. This election changed that a little bit. But Miami Dade, because of the influx of the Hispanic vote, it went red for the first time since like 84 or 82 or something like that. So it's not all Trump country. But the problem is there's a lot of ignorance around it. We talked about before with podcasts, people are choosing the facts they want. It's not that they don't choose the news anymore, choose the facts. And now they're going to use. Whenever they don't have an answer, the response is that's woke or, you know, or whatever it is. So it's, it's the overwhelming wall of ignorance on both sides and lack of education and God bless X for this one. They got rid of anything as far as the guardrails. And all of a sudden it's like, no, the Loch Ness monster did come out and give me a Slurpee. No, that's what happens. It does it every day at 4:00. And like, what are you talking about? So I'm hoping that as we get past this phase, people are going to go back to, okay, what's real, what isn't real, and let's start having a different moral code as far as honoring the truth of what is actually true or not on both sides.
- [25:59]
A
I think the buzzword woke for me, it had a meeting early on and I understand what the meaning was. The meaning in my mind was like, you need to, I guess, look at both sides of a situation. Or I mean, I guess it depends which side you ask, the right or the left. But, but I think what happens with all buzzwords, and I'll share mine in a second, is that it gets to the point where people feel good to use it and then it just kind of loses all definition. And, and as you said, you start to over label everything. So everything, like anything I do or anything I don't do if you want to use it in a negative sense, is like, oh, that's woke, or that person's woke, or, or, you know, you need to be woke. And it's like, I don't. Like, I'm just living. First of all, not every moment of everybody's day has to be thinking about other people or other. Like, I have a life. I have kids, I have a job. So it's not like all of this is in my purview 24 7. Anyhow, if I have a thought, it's not necessarily a political thought.
- [26:51]
B
Correct. And not everything is left or right. And I think, to your point, I rode a bike last week.
- [26:57]
A
Cool.
- [26:57]
B
Now I wrote it this week, and now it's woke. It's like, what happened? I'm doing the same thing.
- [27:03]
A
You're a climate enthusiast.
- [27:05]
B
So it's just. I'm like, what is happening? So it's gotten too much. And I think it's a pacifier right now for ignorance. And I'm just like, guys, have a real argument with me. If you don't like a certain piece of whatever it is, read it. Don't regurgitate what you heard on MSNBC or Fox or wherever it is or on it. Sit down and read. You don't like the Affordable Health Care Act? Cool. I've read it. Tell me what you don't like about it. You're not into faith. Cool. Read the actual book cover to cover, and let's talk about the entire thing or that individual scripture. So I just don't think that's happening enough because it's so easy, as we talked about earlier with ChatGPT, just to get information without getting everything. I think being able to go into a situation of getting more literate is important because information isn't the same as literacy.
- [27:48]
A
The other thing, and I think this really gets. This cuts to the core of the cultural argument that I think about a lot, is that you can cherry pick bits and pieces of what you like and don't like from other people. Something that really, I find triggers people on both sides of the aisle is if you are talking to people who, let's say, lean more left, and you say, yeah, I kind of like this policy of Trump. Or you're talking to people that lean more right. And you say, yeah, you know, I like Trump, but I kind of like this thing that, that Kamala Harris said and. And they're like, oh, no, you can't. It's like, no, no, I don't. I don't have to. It's not an all or nothing. I'm allowed to like both sides. I'm allowed to drive a Tesla and also watch msnbc. Like that's okay. It's not like you have to fall into this all or nothing bucket.
- [28:31]
B
Yeah, I agree. Because I get asked all the time and on stage they're like, are you liberal or you're conservative? I go, yes. I'm like, no, no. Okay, are you Democrat or are you Republican? I'm like, yes. Like, what do you mean? I'm like, well, I'm kind of smart. I don't like being wrong half the time. There are certain things that I really, really like on one side and there's certain things I really, really like on the other side. And I think when we stop labeling ourselves as liberal conservative, stop labeling as WOKE and maga, and we start going back to being Americans again, that's going to be a great time. I long for those days to go back to just being Americans again.
- [29:01]
A
Amen. Okay, my most annoying buzzword of 2024 is first principles and first principles. So I did some research on this ahead of time, and I think it originated. Elon Musk did an interview or something when he was talking about how he built SpaceX. And he used first principles to describe how he said, you know, to build a rocket, you need X, Y and Z. And so rather than doing it the way everyone else has always done it, let me go back to first principles and just figure out at a ground level how to build a rocket. And so that was where the term originated, as far as I know. And now I find people use the term first principles to basically cover up what they don't know, and they turn it into a brainstorming session that goes nowhere. So it's like, yeah, I don't really understand this. Well, guys, let's go back to first principles. And I think, what does that even mean in this context? Like, there's no principles to go on. So I think it's more of a funny one for me. I think people say certain things to sound smart and I don't know. I've heard first principles 19 times in the last two weeks, and I'm done with first principles.
- [30:03]
B
Well, it's the same thing when someone does standard operating procedures. Like, we need to write out standard operating procedures. I'm like, you're a law firm, you've got 50 people. What the hell are you talking about? That you need to write out standard operating procedures. Like, what did you go to? Some. And normally what happens. Those are the people got advanced business degrees, they got their mba, and they're like, oh, I need to do a business plan. You're an office manager, you don't need to do a business plan, you need to execute over here. So it's, I think it's the same thing. It's just, it's this nice term that they heard somewhere and like, oh, I need to do it too because that's what the successful people do. I'm like, no, that's not what we're doing anymore.
- [30:32]
A
Kids. Your lemonade stand doesn't need a 17 page business plan. You sell lemonade.
- [30:38]
B
And then the other people are like, oh, I'm going to make a five year plan. I'm like, yeah, good luck with that because five years ago life looked very different than it does right now. So make a six month plan. We'll get back to that from there.
- [30:48]
A
Quick break. So I can tell you about Toyota and no, this is not a car commercial. This is a commercial for Influicity. That's the marketing age agency I created in my apartment almost a decade ago. And man, have we outgrown my apartment. You can see how we helped Toyota introduce their vehicles to a brand new generation of drivers. Check out the case study@influicity.com that's inf l u I c I t y influicity.com okay, number seven, best flex or virtue signal of 2024. And in this category, what I'm trying to get to is like what's a flex or something that people do to either express something about themselves, you know, a status or something, or it could also be kind of a humble brag, which is like, I'm doing this. I'm not going to admit it, but I'm doing it because I'm flexing. Do you have one here?
- [31:38]
B
Yeah, I do. I think it goes directly with the humble brag. You know what I'm starting to see because again, I'm in South Florida. There used to be this, ooh la la, I need to show off. And now the opposite starting to occur where people are, you know, you and I are perfect example. If you're watching this video, wherever it is, I'm the same. Well, not the same. I have like 10 of them, but I'm always wearing black polos. You're in a T shirt. The people that have made it aren't walking around trying to show off anymore, going, look it, I made it, I'm successful, I'm amazing, I'm going to show off my wealth. That's not happening. We're going back to the idea of the quiet millionaire, the kind of the millionaire next door idea where it's like, I'M not showing off for someone else. Because if you're trying to do that, you're never going to fill your cup up that way. If you're going to sit there and you're going to say, hey, I'm going to dress a certain way, look a certain way, be a certain way, thinking that that's going to fill your cup up and that's going to make you feel whole, it's just not going to happen. There's a great story about Matt Damon where he won the Oscar at like 12 or however old he was. He was like 19 or 20 when he won it. And he goes back and he's at the hotel and his date is blacked out on the bed, and he just. He has a pizza and he's got the award sitting in front of him. And for somehow he got to, like, see himself in the future, spending his whole career trying to go after it. He goes, if that's a hole that's in you, that Oscar is not going to fill it up. It's just not going to do it. So seeing people step back and say, I'm not going to sit there and show off, just to show off anymore, having the confidence inside and say, you know what? I'm going to humble brag on my own. And now this trend of, you don't know who the millionaire is anymore. The people are showing off with the $300,000 wristwatches. It's not the game anymore. We're starting to go to the fact of, hey, there's other ways to do it. The real humble brag is creating residual income. The real humble brag is, you know, I've got 50, $60,000 a month in MRI coming in. So that's, for me, what's starting to happen, especially in my circles. They're like, we're done. We don't want to show off anymore. Let's just. Let's go on with other things. And maybe it's a maturity thing.
- [33:22]
A
Yeah, I love that. I think there's a line I heard, I don't know who said it, but somebody asked Mark Cuban, why do you wear T shirts and jeans and dress the way you do? And his answer was very simple. He said, because I can. Why would I wear a suit and tie? Who am I trying to impress?
- [33:37]
B
Exactly.
- [33:38]
A
I'm already Mark Cuban. And I feel like we should all kind of say, you know, I'm already John Davids. You're already Charles Schwartz. Like, who are you trying to impress? You know? And so I think, I love that And I think, actually, as you said, you can sort of spot the people who have already kind of made it. And not. Not to say that if you've made it, you can't dress, wear a suit. Like, that's fine.
- [33:56]
B
That's your thing. Do it.
- [33:57]
A
You. You do you. But do it for you, don't do it for somebody else.
- [34:01]
B
Absolutely. 100%. 100%. I remember I was in a valet line, and I was with someone I was dating, and this guy came in, he was showing off, and he had this Ferrari. And that's. If Ferrari is your thing, that's your thing. I get it. But he was being a bit of a. I'm going to keep it PG for your podcast. He was being a bit of a schmuck. I probably can get away with that.
- [34:19]
A
He's getting away with a lot worse than that.
- [34:21]
B
There's a lot worse than that. And he's sitting there and he was kind of showing off for this girl who clearly wasn't interested. And he shows up and he revs the car and he sits there and he looks at her, and she goes. With her pinky. She goes, aww. With her pinky. And I was like, oh. So it was this intense little. It's really transparent when you're trying to show off whatever it is that you're doing. Just understand, we know what you're doing, and just if it's your truth and that's what you want to do, Mazel tov. But I'd rather be the Mark Cubans of the world when it comes to this.
- [34:46]
A
Just.
- [34:46]
B
Yeah, I'm doing it for me. The reason I wear these.
- [34:50]
A
Subtlety goes a long way. I will tell you. Actually, this is actually kind of a funny. A funny offshoot of that. When I first started dating the woman who is now my wife, Been married for eight years last week.
- [34:59]
B
Mazel time.
- [35:00]
A
Thank you so much. What we were. I remember we've been dating for, like, three or four months, and we were in a car driving. We're on a road trip. We were driving somewhere a few hours in, and she says to me, so, what exactly do you do for a living? Like, she didn't quite understand. And at the time, I was an entrepreneur. I had an Internet company. I was doing very, very well. I had an Internet company. But, like, I didn't do the things that you would think I did for someone who made money. I didn't go into an office. I didn't wake up at 7:00am Like, I did. I did a lot of things that were Sort of counter to what you would think. And I kind of looked at her, and in that moment, I said to myself, oh, I'm going to marry this girl. Because I knew at that moment she was not with me for the money. And because how. How would she even know? She did. She thought I was a schlub. Like, she clearly liked something else in me. And I thought, okay, you think. You don't think I have money, and that makes me happy. And it's been eight years of marriage, and it's. It was a good decision.
- [35:52]
B
Mazel. Tough. Mazel tough. Yeah. They say when you're. When you're building your wealth or the most powerful decision in your life is who you choose as a partner. So it seems like you chose well.
- [36:01]
A
So true. So true. The most expensive thing you can do is get divorced. That's. That's. I've. At least I've heard. I've heard. I haven't.
- [36:08]
B
The person that you're not in love with, not your one. I've coached in that environment for 20 years, and it's absolutely the most devastating decision. Even if they remain married, it's catastrophic if you marry the wrong person. So marry your best friend. If it's not your best friend, don't date them. Just walk away and move on.
- [36:27]
A
That's it. Okay. My best flex or virtue signal of 2024 is being vulnerable, I think. And I see this so much now on social media and on podcasts and just in real life with people, the people that I find I connect with a little better. And I'm not saying vulnerability in a fake or sort of obnoxious way where it's like, everything is well with me. Everything's a problem. Like, no, no, no. You can still, you know, you don't have to be a snowflake about it or a feather. You can. You know, you can stand up with a spine and take life as it comes, but it's also okay. And I see this happening, you know, for the good, where people are honest with their problems. Kind of what you were saying before, where it's not all Lamborghinis and Rolex. It's like, you know, actually, we had a really bad year last year. We lost money. We had to fire some people. It sucked. That sort of thing is actually shining through, and that's a better flex for me than just, everything's great. Everything's roses. Look at me. That can be pretty annoying. And more importantly, I know it's not true. I just know it's not true.
- [37:28]
B
Yeah, I've been able to work with people who are special force operators for years. And people are like, why can't cry? I'm like, all right, come to this next event, which all specialists, Special forces guys, watch them cry, because they're going to cry. They're going to let it out. So they're like, oh, well, real men don't cry. I dare you to go tell this guy who's SF that he doesn't cry. Have fun. Good luck with that. Because it's part of it. It's. You know, it goes back to the authenticity thing we were talking about before. Getting out there, being real, showing what's going on. Don't overshare, because not everybody needs to know your business. You know, I'm not a fan of people posting pictures of their kids and when they're really young on social media, I'm like, there's a lot of weird people out there. But, yeah, be honest, be vulnerable, because that's going to be more authentic and that's going to engage better with your audience as well.
- [38:05]
A
And it also is something that makes you uniquely you. Like, the best thing you can do on whatever you're doing business, podcast, social media, whatever it is, whatever your flavor, just be yourself, because nobody can copy you. And also, you can do that for the rest of your life. You're never going to get bored of being. Of being you.
- [38:23]
B
And it's easy. Being you is pretty easy.
- [38:25]
A
It's pretty easy. Okay, our next one. Best, Best side Hustle or startup. And this could be either something of your own or somebody else's of 2024. What's yours?
- [38:36]
B
This one's easy. It's pod. So I started the podcast as a bet. I was with friends, and I don't drink. I never have. I'm just allergic to it. But my friends were very, very, very drunk on sake. And I was complaining about podcasts because I just. I hated them. I was like, I don't like it. I don't want to know what the name of your first dog was. I don't want to know what your color, your favorite car was. Just tell me what I can get. So I complained about it. They're like, all right, well, here's the deal. I'll bet you XYZ dollars that you can't do it. I'm like, fine, let's do it. Because of that and because we rank so well, and because, again, as entrepreneurs, we know how things can move and how you can reenact access to things, the doors, it's opened for Me, the things that it made me think differently about business, I would never been able to do with anything else. Podcasting became the ultimate skeleton key. You know, when I became a Wall Street Journal bestseller, that was a great skeleton key, but it's nothing compared to being a top ranked podcast. You get this, you're a podcast.
- [39:23]
A
What are some of the big unlocks because of your podcast?
- [39:27]
B
The people I have interactions with, businesses that I'm now involved with. I now am part of three new businesses because of the people that came on podcasts and they're like, hey, you're really good at this and this. I'm not really good at that. Can you help? Absolutely. And you're getting involved in it, so I'm getting opportunities. We talk about this all the time. That your network is your net worth. There are three new businesses that are producing residual income for me right now that would never have happened at all if I didn't have the podcast. And being able to walk in and say, hey, I have a podcast is cute. Being able to say as of the recording today, because, you know, the chart goes up and down, I'm number one in entrepreneurship today, which is just wild that we're there. Because of that, I get an influx of people that want to talk to me, people I would never be able to speak to ever before. So for me, that has been by far the best thing to open up doors and to create new relationships. I've got speaking engagements that I'm going to go out and do because of it. Hands down, the best thing I did in 2024, business wise, was podcasts and not invest in things that I don't understand, But I'm sure that'll bite me in the ass later.
- [40:25]
A
I totally agree with you. The podcast is a massive. I mean, people don't even realize unless you're in it. So Charles has an amazing podcast goal. Listen to it. This podcast, Making it with John Davids, is in the marketing category, number one in, last I checked, like 18 countries. And again, it goes up and down. So we're, you know, one day we're number eight, one day we're number two, one day we're number one. It changes, but, but having that kind of reach and we can see it in our numbers is a. Is a huge benefit to the business. And then on a personal side, yeah, you get to meet awesome people. Like, I met Charles through the podcast and that's. And that's how this kind of stuff happens. So it's a great networking tool and it's an Amazing megaphone to have. And here's the good news. We're just at the beginning, I think, five, 10 years. We're going to have a run here. And that's an amazing side hustle for you to have in 2024, if you.
- [41:15]
B
Execute on it properly. One of the major things that people do is like, hey, I'm going to monetize my podcast. I don't recommend monetize. You can. There's about 30 something different ways to do that, and I can tell you guys who to go talk to in order to do that. For me, I use it as a Trojan horse or a skeleton key. It's going to open up the doors, it's going to give me the connections, and then it's based on if we connect. Because you and I have had a lot of guests on our shows going back and forth. Some of them you instantaneously connect with, and other ones you're like, nope, that episode's never going to see the light of day. Because you're like, no, it just doesn't work. So being able to open up the doors, especially since we have all these new ways to communicate, but we don't actually spend time with anybody anymore. This has just been. It's been a game changer for me. So.
- [41:55]
A
Yeah. Have you recorded episodes that you didn't like and then didn't release?
- [41:59]
B
Yes.
- [42:00]
A
Really?
- [42:01]
B
Yeah. There's a couple people who. They cross a couple lines that, you know, I stay pretty politically neutral. I stay, you know, if you're going to start talking about anything that I don't resonate with. So if you're going to talk about violence, porn, politics, anything of that nature, if you're going to get a little aggressive about it, if you're going to speak hate, we're just not going to. It's not going to make it if you. We had one guy on, he turned into a telemarketing thing. He spent like the last 15 minutes just promoting his products. And I was like, okay. And we were done. We wrapped it up. I said, that's never gonna see the light of day. He's like, what do you mean? I'm like, I told you not to do that. That's not what we're here for. My podcast is specifically very similar to yours. I'm gonna give you very tangible things that you can execute. Right now. This is an anomaly. The podcast, we're doing this one, we're sharing ideas, but normally it's like, here's a tangible thing. Go do that. And, yeah, so absolutely there's some that will never see the light of day.
- [42:52]
A
I've done two that I threw in the trash can and I didn't do. But what I will say is, and this happens, I'm sure it happens to you also, as you climb the charts, you get a lot of inbound requests and you feel bad. But I say no to 98% of people. And not because I always say it's not because your business is invalid or what you're doing is not working. I'm sure it's great for you, but I have a format. I have a very specific thing I'm trying to do. And if you don't check those seven boxes, the answer is no.
- [43:22]
B
Correct. Same. And I get the same thing. People just reach out. And in one of mine, you know, for me it's outreach. You know, how many followers do you have? What does your engagement look like? I want to be able to connect to that. How much value can you provide? How well do you speak on camera? Because you and I are very. You turn the camera on. It's no big deal. We could have. Something horrible happened 15 minutes ago and we're just going to. No one would know. We can just rock and roll through it and we know what it is, so we can just rock and roll through it like nothing happened. There are people who get on the podcast where I'm like, if you don't have, if you haven't practiced, go find some lower end podcasts, practice a little while before you get on and try and do it. Because it's a great way to promote if you can. But yeah, there's some reasons why we reject people. And there's also just time. You know, December's coming up. I'm not going to be doing as much as I did the rest of the year. That's why it's the end of the year. Kind of relax then.
- [44:05]
A
Yeah. One thing I will say, and you were super lucky. Good that your podcast took off really quick for people. Just for my own sake, it was 100 episodes of garbage for me. Like I did 100 episodes where I look back and I say, I actually told my producer, can you make the feed so people can't access free episode 100? Because I think now we're on episode like 160 something, and they're markedly better. They're so much better. I've got a different presence, I've got different guests, I've got different skills. And so don't be afraid. You know, you do 10, 15, 20 podcasts and they suck. That's okay. I did 100 that sucked and now I'm number one. So you've got to work your way up there.
- [44:44]
B
Yes. Because it's not only do the guests have to be good, you have to learn how to be a host and be able to go back and forth. If you're listening to this podcast here, John and I were basically playing tennis with each other and we're bouncing off what each other have said. I will repeat something he said because it was valuable. So I'm drawing attention to it. There's just ways to be able to do this and there's certain people who do it really, really well. And if there's talk show hosts that you like that do it well, love it, whatever your brand is, do it as your brand. Be authentically you as we were talking about earlier.
- [45:10]
A
So I'll give my best side hustle or startup of 2024. I'll go outside of myself here again. So there's this company that I profiled and I'm gonna do a full podcast on them soon called Rowan R O W A N. So it's, here's the concept, Charles. It's an ear piercing place. So think about a girl or a guy who wants to get their ear pierced. A lot of women do it. I think 80% of women get their ears pierced at like 10 or 13 years old. And basically this entrepreneur back in 2019 took her daughter to get her ears pierced and noticed that it was just disgusting. The counters are sticky, the tools are not hygienic. And she thought, I'm gonna reinvent the space. And now she went from zero to 60 locations, $100 million revenue business. But here's, here's what they're doing. There's no tech, there's no crazy reinvention. There's no rocket ships, nothing like that. It's literally just small footprint stores where you go in and you get your ears pierced. But here's the cool part. The labor arbitrage is the really cool part. For me, what she said was, let's not get part timer 17 year olds to just do the ear piercing. Let's get nurses who after Covid don't want to work in hospitals anymore. And they want jobs though. So let's give that, let's get them to do the ear piercing. They're fully trained, certified, very high end. We can charge a little more money, $100 million business, Piercing Ears. I thought that was the startup of the year that I saw.
- [46:30]
B
That's really impressive. And I Think the overall narrative that is really important. Sit down. Identify pain and discomfort in your own life. Create a solution to that pain and discomfort and you'll go from there. Most entrepreneurs go, hey, I've got this great idea. It's absolute wrong way to do it. You want to go in and say, hey, this is something that is pain and discomfort for more than one person. How can I produce a solution for that? If you're in a situation where there's problems, always be looking for problems, a way to fix them. Don't say, I have a solution now I need to go sell the solution. It's the absolute wrong way to do it. You always want to identify the problem first.
- [47:00]
A
Totally. And the idea is 10%, the execution is 90%. Like what I said here. If you said to me I want to create a place where people get their ears pierced, I'd say, okay, cool, good luck with that. But if you bring me the labor arbitrage with nurses, the footprint of the stores, the branding, like everything about this. And also she did 100 pop up ear piercings before she even opened the first door to make sure the concept works. You know, can nurses do it? Are people going to be coming? So I just think the execution on this was flawless.
- [47:29]
B
Yeah, I love that and I love the message overall.
- [47:32]
A
All right, man, let's wrap up with the wins and fails. So your biggest fail, gotcha, 2024, let's have it perfect.
- [47:40]
B
So in a business sense, my biggest fail of 2024 is really, really simple. I let my personal beliefs get in the way of executing on a really good business. So a friend of mine went in and said, okay, this is where I think specifically for the election, because the election just took so much bandwidth this year, said, okay, I see this audience, I may or may not agree with them, but I know what they're saying and I know what products I can sell them and I know I can OPM and opt, I can go through and I can automate this whole thing. I can create a store and I can sell bumper stickers and hats and shirts and da, da, da, da. And he created an entire store that was the polar opposite, the complete polar opposite of his business, of what his personal beliefs were. I sat back and I was like, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to violate my beliefs to do this. And he's like, you're an idiot. And during the election cycle, he did six figures because he just went in and he created what they wanted. And he was very, he did it very executionally, he said, listen, where do these people hang out? What do they want? What are they saying? Great, I'm going to create T shirts and I'm going to do this and all these different things. My biggest fail was I allowed my personal feelings of like, I'm not going to promote that. I'm not going to be connected to that. I'm not going to do that. Thinking that, oh, well, it's about me. I put me in front of what I was, the ultimate goal, which was in this case, it was financial freedom. And doing that. The fact that I did that instead of going, no, wait, this is a huge business opportunity. He came to me first and he goes, well, how would you do it? And I mapped out this is how I would do it, if I would do it, but I'm not going to do it. And he turned into a little six figure run, which was a complete little side hustle which doesn't exist anymore because it was only during the run of the election and he sold a fortune and he didn't have to hold any inventory or anything.
- [49:08]
A
You're talking about a merch shop that sold political geared merchandise. And interesting. And what you're saying is that because of your own, you know, values or personal beliefs, you said, no, I'm not going to do that.
- [49:22]
B
Yeah, I sat there and said, I'm not going to do that. And looking back, as he started taking off, I was like, son of a gun. He's like, you don't like the individuals any more than I like the individuals. I was like, nope. He goes, but they're ravenous for certain products. Why don't we give it to them?
- [49:35]
A
And I was like, I try to be as least judgmental as I can be about the market. The market is the market. And I'm not here to say the market is good or bad. I'm here to simply make the market. Okay? If there's a buyer and I can be a seller of this thing, boom, that's a market and that's the way to go. You know, it's interesting. I talk to people who work in media because I'm in media and they work at Fox News or MSNBC or Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and a lot of people who are behind the scenes, I'm not talking about the writers and the on camera people, although some of them too, but the people who work, you know, in the executive suite at any of these companies, they've got all sorts of beliefs. Like they don't, you know, you don't have to be a Kamala voter to work at MSNBC any more than you need to be a Trump lover to work at Fox. You know what you have to do to be to work at Fox or msnbc? You have to love money and business and growth and capitalism.
- [50:27]
B
Provide value.
- [50:28]
A
Yeah. And personal freedom and having a job that you love. And it's not about putting your finger on the scale. If there's a market for this thing again, you can have your morals, like you were saying earlier, like violence, porn, all that kind of stuff. Okay, fine. But just because somebody votes a certain way doesn't mean that you can't be in that business. Like, because I don't vote that way. Who cares how you vote? You're here to provide a product or a service.
- [50:49]
B
And that was absolutely my misfire. That was probably my biggest fail this year. Because if we had done it together and we talked about it as he was wrapping it up, he goes, we probably would have doubled the income, like, absolutely 100%.
- [50:59]
A
Because I was like, there's certain things, no doubt.
- [51:02]
B
I was like, you just. You didn't do this, this and this. He's like, oh, my God. I was like, yeah, you tapped into 20% of the market. And he's like, son of a. I'm like, yeah, so I won't make that mistake again. We'll make that mistake again.
- [51:12]
A
So my biggest fail of 2024 was ignoring TikTok for too long. I was one of these guys like a lot of people like. Like you. Exactly. You're still ignoring TikTok, but. But I will say TikTok from a business perspective, for my business, in fluidity, for the podcast, for everything that. That I'm working on, TikTok has been an absolute. Just in the last 60 days that we've really been investing in it, I was like, oh, I talk the talk. I, you know, I say that you should be on all these social media channels, but I wasn't doing it myself. I waited way too long. And now, thank goodness, in the last couple months, it's actually taking off and we're doing well, but I should be doing a lot of the things that I talk about much more myself. And so actually, my learning from that, like, just in the last couple of weeks, we're getting onto threads, because I haven't been busy on threads. We're getting onto Snapchat, because I've totally ditched Snapchat, and there are hundreds of millions of people using Snapchat, you know, and it's the new generation. It's it's 17 year olds who, guess what, pretty soon are going to be 25 year olds and you want to be talking to them. So I'm, I'm now getting into a lot of the platforms that I talk to clients about all the time. I'm doing it for myself. And waiting too long was definitely a fail.
- [52:21]
B
Absolutely. And we talked about what is the greatest win. I think it goes on to what you were talking about the different of the generations. And for mine, it's wrapped around the Mike Tyson fight. So it was the Tyson vs. Jake Paul fight and everyone has their opinions. Was it rigged? Was it not rigged? I don't care. That's not what we're talking about. What I'm talking about is there is one group that were like, hey, this is the old guard and he's going to come in and he's going to do X, Y and Z. And they had this belief that the other side were just, they thought really poor of it poorly on them. They're douches, they're bad people, whatever it is. And then the Jake Paul side was like, no, this is the old man. This is what it is. And you had these two polar opposite sides on what was going on one way or the other. And as the fight went on, I had to sit there and accept that because it was surrounded everything else that was going on, that there's a new order coming in, there's a new way of life coming in and it's not the way that I used to think about it because I'm 47. So for me, Mike Tyson was the scariest creature in the world because I played Nintendo nes, accepting things that how they were said, this is the new world. I might not agree with it, I might agree with it, but this is how things work now. But at the end of the fight when it was clear that Tyson was a little tired and he couldn't respond as quickly, the preconceived notions that this generation were just these scumbaggy, douchey, whatever it is, that's Jake's brand. He could have popped him, he could have really hurt the guy and he held back and it gave me that little bit of hope. So going in and the biggest win was to sit down, to turn off all the noise that all the preconceived notions that I had and say, listen, accepting things that they are what they are. Life's an equation. There's constants and there's variables. Don't attack the constants. The constants are things are different. Now I get to say, well, back in my time, I now can say that because it's not the same time anymore, but also letting go of maybe there is some good here. You know, we talk about this, the idea of the 10th man we talk about in Israel all the time. If nine people in the room all agree on the same consensus, the tenth guy has to, no matter what it is, think the complete opposite of what it is and how to go through it. And being able to sit down with friends on the left who are freaking out, people on the right who are freaking out, and people in business and all of this who are completely terrified about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that things are really going to be bad or really, really good on the other way, sit down and say, hey, you know what? What if you're wrong? What if there's some difference here? Maybe there's going to be some good value here. And being able to disconnect of that, for me, that's the biggest win, to be able to sit there and say, hey, I made some huge mistakes over the last year. I got to work on it. I got to do those things that I needed to do to fix. Maybe sitting back and going, all right, this is how things are. Maybe you're not completely right on something. Maybe you're not completely wrong. Being open, but not being emotional about it one way or the other, being so married to your beliefs, because if not, you're just going to give yourself a heart attack. You're just. It's going to be horrible. So I think that was my overall biggest win, was just to let go. I'm like, okay, let's see what happens.
- [55:01]
A
That was a Charles Schwartz original. Man, that was beautiful. I love that. No, that was inspiring. I really appreciate. Appreciate where you. What you took from that Netflix Live Tyson fight to extrapolate that and have that kind of lesson from. And that was awesome. You know, I'll keep mine really short and sweet. My biggest win of 2024 is this podcast, this episode I'm having a great time doing. And just the growth that I've seen, I already mentioned it, I won't rehash it now. But sticking with something because you believe in it and you enjoy the process of being yourself and expressing yourself and sticking through it, even through the silence when no one cares, the questions when people are saying, hey, why are you wasting your time with that? Why are you sitting in your basement with a camera on talking? Who are you talking to? It all pays off in the end because even if you don't get to number one of the podcast charts, that's fine. Think about the people you meet. Think about the enjoyment you have. And again, this goes way beyond the podcast. It's about picking your flavor in life and just running with it and not doing it for others.
- [56:03]
B
Yeah. So for the people who didn't fully understand what you're saying, I'm going to kind of shorten that. What John was saying was his biggest win was that he made eight years with his wife, and he's ecstatic about that, and that's the greatest win of his life. So that's what he actually said so he doesn't have to sleep on the couch ever again.
- [56:17]
A
Listen, man, every year, my win is my marriage. Every year.
- [56:22]
B
100%.
- [56:23]
A
That's an easy answer. All right, well, it's a good thing that she doesn't listen to this podcast, right?
- [56:29]
B
She will. She will.
- [56:30]
A
She might. She might. Charles, this was awesome. Thank you. 2024 was great. 2025 is going to be even better. So thank you for ending the year with us.
- [56:39]
B
Thank you so much for having me on. I really appreciate it.
- [56:41]
A
Thanks for listening. Hope you enjoyed this episode. If you haven't already done so, make sure you subscribe to us wherever you listen to podcasts and let me know what you think of the show. You can get me on Twitter, ealjohndavids. R E A L D J O N D A V I D S Of course. Hashtag making it. We'll talk to you guys next time.