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- [00:00]
A
I have felt like a little bit of a, like, pinch me moment where I've realized.
- [00:07]
B
Don'T say that.
- [00:08]
A
Pinch me.
- [00:10]
B
Just don't say that one.
- [00:11]
A
Pinch me.
- [00:13]
B
Yeah, I will pinch you if you ever say that again.
- [00:16]
A
And I'll just say, ow. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it. Like, no days off on a road.
- [00:28]
B
Let's travel never look what's going on over there.
- [00:30]
A
What has been going on? We haven't seen each other in seven days and we've both talked to a bunch of interesting people. Have you enjoyed your time away?
- [00:38]
B
I have. By the way, people are like, why do they do these separate. And it's like, dude, we live on the other side of the. I live in California. Sam lives on the far east coast. And so for us to do an in person recording, it's like, hey, would you like to fly across the country for this Day Today just to record this podcast? And both of us have little kids. Neither of us want to do that. So if you see us doing one on one interviews with people, don't worry. Me and Sam are still good. We just, we live really far apart. Okay, so here's the deal. In the last 10 days, both you and I have gone and done podcasts that have not come out yet. I think this will come out before those with guests who are incredible. So I think all. I think all of them are either billionaires or soon to be billionaires. But that's the bu. The money is almost the least interesting thing about each one of them. Like what they did and how they. How they roll, how they live is more interesting. And we did them in person. So, for example, I went to Las Vegas, I went to Tahoe, and I'm basically staying at the person's house and I'm hanging out with them all day. And then the podcast is just kind of like a one or two hour recording in the middle of that day. But I'm spending 12, 24 hours with this person. And when you do that, you pick up a lot. And neither you or I have talked, but both you and I are kind of students of the game of life. And one of the ways you be a student of the game of life is you don't just try to do all the experiments on yourself. Right? That's a pretty slow and painful way to do things. A faster, easier way is to go and get a little Costco sample of somebody else's life. I've never had a fig Before. Let me try.
- [02:07]
A
Let's.
- [02:07]
B
We'll try. Fig. Almond butter. Is this something I like? Am I an almond butter guy? And so I went and sampled these people's lives, and you did, too. And so what I wanted to do, if you're down for it, is I think we each have three names of people we hung out with. And I want to take the one thing that stuck with you that was not in the podcast.
- [02:28]
A
Man. We get to hang out with so many amazing people, and it. It absolutely wears off on you. Our world is business, but frankly, I find, like, just the money part to be a little bit empty. And I think you agree with life is more. More rich than just money. But it just so happens that we like being people who are experts at their field, and the field is business. And so we've. There's probably only 3,500 or 4,500 billionaires in the world. And I feel like every year we get to hang out with, like, 30 of them. And again, the money is not the important part, but the fact that it's just like. So if there's only 4,500 people, of all the people on earth who are in this category, it's pretty exciting to be around someone who's the best at their field. And it 100% wears off to you. Wears off on you, where you start normalizing being in the 1% of whatever activity you were trying to be in.
- [03:15]
B
Totally. Yeah. And your money point is. Right, which is even if we were just like, if I ran into Kobayashi on the street, I'd be like, this guy's the great. I'd be like, honey, this guy's the greatest hot dog eater of all time. Now, she wouldn't care to be clear, but I would be like, it would be like meeting Kobe, right? He's the Kobe of eating hot dogs. And so, you know, excellence in any form is interesting to me. And anybody who is gets an outlier result in a field that many people go try to choose, because there's always interesting. How did you get that? Because if you're interested in becoming an outlier in your field, you can actually learn from it in any field anyways. So you're right that our quote unquote job gets us access to this. Now, the giving part here is we don't want to be selfish to just kind of keep for ourselves, you know, what we picked up. So let's jump in. All right, so I go hang out with this guy, Hayes Barnard. Most people don't know who Hayes Barnard is. But his story is pretty crazy. So the short version of his story is guy grows up single mom, kind of from the dirt actually in Missouri. And he ends up sort of hustling his way into a job, a sales job, then a tech sales job, then he ends up at Oracle. And he works for Oracle in the 90s when Larry Ellison was basically flip flopping between Larry Ellison and Bill Gates as the wealthiest man in the world. And so he becomes basically a competitive salesman. And so he becomes a top sales guy at Oracle just by working harder than everybody. So he's like, I would just get in earlier, I would stay later, I would work every weekend. Those guys, most of the sales guys who were doing well by 3pm they would leave. They'd go play basketball or tennis or racquetball and I would just stay the extra three hours and I'd say the extra four hours. And I would just do that every single day. And it just added up. So he ends up becoming a top guy at Oracle. But he sees that some of the other top guys at Oracle go, leave and start these huge companies. So Mark Benioff leaves and goes, starts Salesforce. This other guy leaves and goes, starts this other company. And so he starts to think, hmm, maybe I'm like them, right? And maybe I should go do that. And so he leaves and he starts a mortgage company where he's like, maybe the same way I could sell complicated enterprise software using a call center and some online ads, maybe I could sell a mortgage, right? Most people at the time felt that mortgages were too complicated. Like you needed an in person, you know, a local bank branch with a local banker who's going to talk to you and hold your hand and all this stuff. And he's like, I don't know, I think with like radio ads and a call center in Sacramento, I think I could just sell mortgages over the phone the same way I've just been selling Oracle databases.
- [05:49]
A
Did he know anything about mortgages or.
- [05:51]
B
No. But his friend from childhood, his best friend from like fourth grade or something like that, he kind of knew a little about mortgages and Hayes knew a lot about selling. So they leave to go start this thing. In the 08 mortgage crash, he survived because they had been underwriting conservatively. So they were the one mortgage company that was like not giving out subprime loans. So they survived the mortgage crisis. But during that time he diversifies because he's like, instead of just selling mortgages, what if I go into the energy business? What if I branch? What if I diversify. Instead of just selling mortgages, could we sell solar and help people with their utility bill? So if, if, like, what if I gave you a thing that's cleaner for the environment, saves you money on your electricity? So he starts a company that does that for solar. Now that solar company gets bought by SolarCity, he ends up driving. He's not actually installing the solar. So like, you know, SolarCity would actually go install the solar. If you don't know. SolarCity was started by Elon Musk and his cousin. And so he was selling the Solar and then SolarCity would go install it. At one point, I think they made up like 50% of SolarCity's revenue. It was like insane. He was driving so much revenue for them. And so SolarCity acquires them. SolarCity, that ends up getting acquired by Tesla for two or three billion dollars. And then, you know, Tesla's gone on this crazy run in like, you know, whatever, 30x and sent. So here's this guy Hayes, who is, you know, he grew up nowhere in Missouri. He has dyslexia and a form of dyslexia where he ends up flunking out of the first grade because he can't read properly. You know, he works on a farm, he's a Subway sandwich artist. And somehow this guy's now one of the wealthiest men in America. Okay. He's a self made billionaire now. So I go, I want to do a podcast with Hayes. So I hit him up. I'm like, hayes, would you do this? I know you don't do a lot of these. Would you do this? He says, yeah, sure, no problem. Now the thing about Hayes though is that Hayes does not do anything at like a chill level.
- [07:43]
A
So like, dude, he was the most unchill person I've ever been around.
- [07:47]
B
Well, he's fun to be around. He's actually extremely fun. Like, he's very funny. He's fun. But like, if he chooses to do something, he doesn't have to do anything. You know, he's the only. And this is his thing, he says, he's like, we play full out. So Sam, normally when we book a guest, especially like, let's say one of the, like more on the higher end of the range of success of guests. What is the normal prep experience? Like maybe a week before, just walk, walk through that.
- [08:11]
A
Well, so sometimes we want to do a call with them, but then other times if someone's really successful, you're like embarrassed to ask them, like, can I spend like an hour of your time just brainstorming and so sometimes Ari will call, sometimes one of us will call, depending on how successful they are to not disrespect them. And so it's quite challenging the more successful they are. It's like, can I waste an hour of your time, like, just prepare or do I just show up with stories and I ask your friends and hopefully it goes great.
- [08:35]
B
Yeah. And sometimes we send them like a doc, which is like, hey, here's some. Can you fill this out? This will help us. And then I would say half the time they do fill it out, but half the time it's like they give us either nothing or half, half filled out, something like that. And we just show up, we say, all right, we gotta make it happen.
- [08:51]
A
We understand, we hope it works.
- [08:52]
B
This experience was completely different. So Hayes not only calls me, he calls Ben two or three times before the podcast and he starts discussing, you know, what can we talk about? Tell me what. What's what you think is going to be interesting? How do we make this amazing? He just keeps asking this question, how do we make this amazing? So instead of just saying, what are we going to talk about? That's the average question. His was, how do we make this amazing? And he keeps calling back and he's basically like, when he says this, he's like, I don't say yes to many things, but if I do say yes, I go all out. And so first in the pre prod, the pre pod prep, he's, you know, really active and he keeps asking, how's it going to be amazing? And this idea he comes up with, he's like, you know, most of the time you sit down and people ask the same five questions about, like, how'd you do it? You know, what do you think about AI, blah, blah, blah, like these same questions, and you get these robotic tech answers from these, like, you know, these tech people. And he's like, let's do it different. So he's like, why don't you just come out to Tahoe, come to my house, and let's spend the whole day together. Come do my morning routine with me. It's amazing. You're going to love it. It's going to be great.
- [09:55]
A
All right. A few episodes ago, I talked about something and I got thousands of messages asking me to go deeper into explain. And that's what I'm about to do. So I told you guys how I use chat GBT as a life coach or a thought partner. And what I did was I uploaded all types of amazing information. So I uploaded my Personal finances, my net worth, my goals, different books that I like, issues going on in my personal life and businesses. I, I uploaded so much information and so the output is that I have this GPT that I can ask questions that I'm having issues with in my life, like how should I respond to this email? What's the right decision? Knowing that, you know, my goals for the future, things like that. And so I worked with HubSpot to put together a step by step process, showing the audience, showing you the software that I used to make this, the information that I had. ChatGPT ask me all this stuff so it's super easy for you to use. And I, I said, I use this like 10 or 20 times a day. It's literally changed my life. And so if you want that, it's free, there's a link below, just click it, enter your email and we will send you everything you need to know to set this up in just about 20 minutes and I'll show you how I use it again 10 to 20 times a day. All right, so check it out. The link is below in the description back to the episode.
- [11:10]
B
And so we go to Tahoe and we're like, cool, we'll, we'll be there Tuesday, we'll see you Wednesday for the recording. And he goes, awesome, be at my house at 5am oh my God, what are we doing here? So we show up at 5am and he's like, boys, good morning. He's already like, I'm like rubbing the like boogers out of my eye and he's like awake and he's, he goes, let's go down to the lake. Okay? So we go down to the boat and we take this boat out for two minutes into the middle of Lake Tahoe. It kills the engine and we're like, okay, what's happening? It's completely dark out, by the way. Sun hasn't even rose yet. He's like, so we're gonna do my morning routine. He's like, you're gonna love it. He didn't just say like, I hope you guys like this or thanks for, you know, like, thanks for coming, like, I hope you have a good time. He was just like, you're gonna love this. This is gonna be amazing. He basically brainwashed me before I'm even out there of like, I do love this. This is kind of amazing. He was so charismatic. He was just having a good, he was genuinely excited. That's the thing. He's not like trying to sell us on anything, right? Like, he's Doing us a favor, inviting us into his life, but he was genuinely excited for us. And he's like, my friends are out here. This is great. You're going to love this. So he kills the engine. He turns on. He's like, this is a little woo, woo. But just, are you guys willing to play ball? Like, just, let's do this today and you'll like it. So he puts on this breathwork routine and he's like, I met this guy, you know, on an island with. From the guy who, you know, the guy who started Cirque du Soleil Ghee or whatever his name is. He's like, I met this kind of breathwork guru on his island and he's amazing. I've been doing this for like 20 years since then or something like that. And so he. We do this 15 minute breath work and then he's like, all right, boys, stand up. Let's go. We jump in the lake and we're like, we do this kind of like cold plunge in the lake, basically.
- [12:55]
A
And Lake Tahoe in the summertime is so freezing.
- [12:58]
B
Yeah. So we jump in immediately, like, you know, lose all feeling in my body. And then he's like, okay, we're going to go down and do a breath hold down underwater and for a minute and like, this is going to be great. It's going to feel like you're in space. Open your eyes. Like, I don't have goggles. He's like, open your eyes. I was like, okay. And so we go underwater. I open my eyes and it literally looks like you're. It's floating in space. He's right, by the way. Can only hold my breath for no joke, seven seconds. I don't know what happened.
- [13:26]
A
Yeah, well, when it's freezing, it's hard.
- [13:28]
B
So I immediately go down and I'm like, nope, I'm done. I pop back up. He's underwater. So he comes up, he's like, okay, let's do that again. I was like, okay, yeah, yeah, I need a redo. Because that was, you know, pretty short. So we do it again and then he's like, you know what? I heard this thing, this is amazing thing. And it said basically that, like, you know, as you get older, you really want to make the most of your life. You guys are still a little bit younger than me. You'll feel this too. Like, you get this sense of urgency about, like, you realize, you know, your friends start getting sick, you know, your parents getting older. You realize, like, you know, this time is not, you know, time is Time is really precious. And there's a time hack. You guys want to know the time hack? We're like, yeah, for sure. But what's the time hack? And he's like, if you do something new every day, you sort of mark the day. Because, like, you know, if I ask you, Sam, what'd you do five days ago? It's probably pretty hard to remember what you did five days ago. Even yesterday, it's pretty hard to remember. And that's because when we're in these routines, and routines do serve us, but they. It causes all the days to blend together. But if you do one new thing a day, it sort of marks the day. You're not gonna remember every single day, but it makes that day more memorable. She's like, let's figure out what we could do new today. And we're like back on the boat, shivering. And he's like, you see those rocks? I always see those rocks when I do this routine. But I've never gone out there. You guys down to swim out there?
- [14:45]
A
Oh, my God.
- [14:45]
B
Okay. Yeah, let's go. Not because they know. So we jump in the water and we start swimming. And he's swimming like, you know, a shark, basically out there. We are like, I'm like, dying, basically. And behind me I'm like, I don't even know if Ben can swim. I look back at Ben, like, his glasses are, like, foggy. I'm like, well, I don't know what's going on. Diego has, like, shoulder dislocation problems. I'm like, Diego's for sure gonna dislocate his shoulder and just sink like a rock to the bottom of Tahoe. We're all dying, and we're swimming from rock to rock like little kids. He's like, let's like, playing tag, basically. He's like, let's go over there. All right, race you to this one. And we go. And he wants to get to the big. He's like, look at that big rock. Let's get to the big rock. We go to the big rock. He ends up getting to the big rock. Jump off the big rock, have this great moment, come back to the boat, and this is all like before 8am and he's like, I do this every day. And I remember just having this feeling, which is like, this guy basically lives his life at a level. He plays at a. At a full out level. He plays with a level of intensity on everything that he was doing, whether it was like the podcast, his morning routine, like, each of the things I would do at a 7, he just does at a 10. And if you think about that, like, how does that stack every single day, right? Like that extra three units of intensity that he puts in. And by the way, it's not like he's not like hard work in a sense. Like, he's just like, he just goes for it, right? He's having more fun. He's willing to play more than us. And we went and played pickleball with him. We did whatever we did that day. He was like this. And he told the story during the podcast of this where, you know, he was a certain way. But he's like, once I worked for Elon and he worked for Elon for 10 years. He's like, it broke my frame of reference because I was telling him, I was like, you kind of broke my frame. Like, I have a morning routine, but it's not like this, right? Like, I have a. And I was like, by the way, it's not the money. Like, yes, you've got this beautiful.
- [16:34]
A
Was it a sick house?
- [16:36]
B
Oh, my God. Unbelievable. To the point where he was like, he's like, yeah, I prefer not to film this. I'm not trying to show off. I'm like, yeah, the people who try not to show off have the things worth showing off, of course. And so I'm like, it's. Even if I had that house, would I act like this is the honest question I had? I was like, even if I had this house and I had that boat and I had this little like, you get in this like fricking like Willy Wonka elevator to get down from the house to the boat. And I'm like, would I wake up at 5am every day and do this? No chance. I'd be cuddled up in bed with, you know, like, I would be the little burrito tucked in with my. Just my eyes peeking out of the covers at 5 in the morning. But he does it right. That's like kind of the difference between him and me is that he, he plays full out. And so that was just the big takeaway for me from that whole experience.
- [17:25]
A
Was, do you want to live like that? Like, I, I, like, I think so. When I'm around, I've been around people like this like they're crazy people. And I think I admire so much about this and I want to take a little bit, but I don't, I don't want to replicate that. Like, I'm not a high energy person like that all the time. I'm only a high energy person like that Some of the time. Hayes was like that all the time I was around him.
- [17:47]
B
He's energy rich. Yes, I do want to be like that. Because I think that. Because I think that. Well, first, the feeling I had by 8am I was like, oh, so I've conquered the world already. Like, what can you do to me today that's gonna make me feel bad? Is anything really gonna mess with my mood or my, you know, myself today? Like, it's pretty hard to do that when you, like, conquer the morning like that. But, like, forget the morning routine and like, waking up at 5am like, that's sort of secondary. The point was, if you're gonna do something, like, just actually, like, do it fully. And the thing you. The prerequisite for that is to be energy rich, to not be energy poor. Like, I went there because I'm like, oh, this guy's so successful. He's money rich. And when I walked away, I was like, the money rich thing is a byproduct and a complete secondary footnote to being incredibly energy rich. And two of the guys said the same thing. I don't know if you remember this. I said this when we went hung out with Mr. Beast. I was like, this guy's like the Energizer Bunny. And we were talking about like, literally the. When he walks, his walking pace is faster than the average human being by like, you know, two notches. The two. Two of the guys that came with us, they're like, do you see how fast Hayes walked out? It was hard to keep up with them. He's like, just literally has a pep in his step. And I think just. I think being energy rich is one of the more attractive things. Like, you see people who are contact rich. It's like, oh, wow, they know all these famous people. You see people who are money rich. Oh, wow, they got all these dollars in the bank account. To me, energy rich is very, very appealing.
- [19:13]
A
To give like an example of this guy Hayes, he's not talked about at all. He's very under the radar for how big a big of a big shot he is. We're with you and me and a bunch of people were with Jesse Itzler, who is a very gregarious, loud personality in a great way. Like, he is also energy rich. And I remember being in this room with these guys in. In Asana, actually, and Hayes took over the room because of his stories and his energy. And one thing led to another, and they are apparently Hayes hobby is that he used to be into hip hop and he loves to freestyle rap with is a very strange thing because this guy is like a. He looks like me, but like 55. He's just like a blonde hair, Missouri guy, and he is an amazing freestyle rapper. They went and freestyle rap and he was beatboxing for like six or seven minutes, and they went. They went and did this thing. It was so good. And I remember talking to him and being around him, and I. I don't think I've ever met someone whose oven burns that hot. Like, he was on fire the whole time.
- [20:19]
B
Yeah, exactly. He's an incredible dude. The other amazing thing, by the way, hung out with him maybe 12 hours straight.
- [20:26]
A
And did he work in the day off?
- [20:30]
B
So he was like. He's like, I. Because I was like, dude, Hayes, you don't got to do this, man. Like, I appreciate it, but, like, you don't have to. You know, it's not like normal for a podcast to do this. He's like, no, you guys came all the way out here. I want to make the time. You know, I know, I know you guys took time. I want to make the time. He's like, I thought this would be. I thought that would be so rude. If I just show up, we record, and then you leave. Like, no, I want to make the time. One thing that he. That stood out, he did not check his phone a single time in 12 hours. And I told him at the end, I was like, is that normal? Like, I know you're getting emails. I know you're getting slack messages. Like, just like all of us, right? Like 10 times more than all of us. You run a $10 billion company. He's the CEO of a $10 billion company, and he did not check his phone a single time. And he was just like, well, you know, like, if I'm with you guys, I want to be with you guys. And if I'm working, I'm going to be working. And I was like, well, if you say it like that, then, yeah, I guess I'm a little bitch for. Yeah. Let me put this away then.
- [21:25]
A
Do no amount of people or stories that I can tell or probably you also can tell from that is going to be the Hayes Carl hang session. That was really good. Did Ben and Diego have a great time, too?
- [21:39]
B
Oh, I think Ben is at home making Valentine's cards for Hayes right now. He's just like, I love that, man. I was like, I do, too. Honestly, I do too.
- [21:46]
A
What a guy. If you Google his name too, this is all public. He, like, his side hobby was there's a famous hotel in Tahoe or maybe Reno. I forget exactly where it is. And he owns it. And he was telling me about the renovation and everything like that, and it was like an epic thing. I forget exactly.
- [22:04]
B
The story is so. The story is this. He's in the lake doing the morning routine every day, and he's like. He's like, I didn't think about, like, manifesting. I don't even know what that word really means, but he's like, I was in the lake and I was thinking about my life and, like, you know, what I wanted. I was full. I was just filling up with kind of, like the feelings that I wanted. He's like. And I see this hotel, and there's this hotel that was kind of like on the. You know, over the hill a little bit. It was on the. On the other side of it. He's like. And it's two. It's literally like one minute from his house. And he sees that hotel while he's in the. While he's doing his cold plunge in Lake Tahoe, and he just decides, looking at it, he goes, I'm going to buy that hotel. I don't know how, but I'm going to buy that hotel. And then he starts working on it. He finds out it's owned by Larry Ellison, his old boss. That's right, his old boss's boss's boss or whatever. And he goes and he purchases the hotel, and they're turning it into a proper hotel in Tahoe. And he walked us through the construction of it or whatever. And even that, you know, he's architecting his life. It's not like he's doing it to make money. He was like, we're going to put pickleball career pool here this year. This year. All these activities is like, I want a place to do activities. I want a place for my friends to come and stay during the summers. Like, this will just make my life so much better if we. If we. If we generate this. If we make this happen. Incredibly generative guy.
- [23:18]
A
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- [23:48]
B
All right, let's do the next one.
- [23:49]
A
All right, man, this is Gonna. That. You. You. You started off really strong there. It's hard to follow. All right. This person I actually just hang hung out with, I didn't do a pod with them yet because they refused to come on. So I'm gonna say a little bit of information about them. Enough to make it awesome. Not enough that I would totally blow up their spot, but. Have you heard of the company Buck Mason?
- [24:07]
B
Buck Mason. I've heard of it. What do they do? Is that a jeans company? No. What is it?
- [24:11]
A
Sorta. Sorta. So they started in 2013, and they started in 2013 selling something very simple, a T shirt. And their goal was just to make the best T shirt. I'm actually wearing one of them right now. And they didn't. They tried to raise money. He was like, I. I tried to raise as much money as I could that I got lucky because I was horrible at fundraising and I could raise no money. And so they bootstrapped this company. I think it actually started with like a Kickstarter or some type of auction like that, like a pay and then we'll make it type of vibe. And they build this company and over time they've grown it and grown it and grown it. And I suspect he didn't tell me, but I suspect they do. Somewhere in the 150 million dollar a rear a year range. And he has 42 stores now. So when you go to buckmason.com, what do you see?
- [25:01]
B
Yes. Well, I see this is like this nostalgic. I see. I see this, like, video of these guys from. What is it, maybe like the 80s or I don't know what era.
- [25:11]
A
It's like a California cowboy 80s vibe. Yeah.
- [25:14]
B
Yeah, exactly. And I see a bunch of T shirts and collared shirts and jeans pants.
- [25:20]
A
So I love this brand. And I became friendly with him because I've DM'd him to get him to come on the podcast, and he refuses to come on. And I ask him why, and he says, I just want the brand to be the face. I don't want to, like, get too popular. I don't want to be the face of the brand. I want the brand to be the brand, which is always, like, whenever I hear someone say that, I'm like, oh, you're the best. You're. You're going to win.
- [25:40]
B
You're amazing.
- [25:41]
A
Yeah. Like, oh, so you're. Yeah. Whenever you hear someone say that, it's like, okay, so you're absolutely going to win and you have the right attitude. And so he started this company, 2013 and clothing companies are a pain in the butt. You and I know people in this industry. We know E. Com guys. It's really, really hard, and it takes a long time, I think, to figure it out, but basically they got to the point in 10 or 15 years. Now it's 2013, so, 12 years where it's really starting to fire on all cylinders. He's grown into 52 stores, and I started talking to him about the history and everything like that, and I started realizing it's not that crazy to do this. Like, it's really hard. But I was thinking about every project that I've started since 2013. So in 2013, I had just graduated college. Do you remember where you were? It was 2013, sushi era.
- [26:33]
B
No, no. That's when I moved to San Francisco. Monkey Inferno.
- [26:36]
A
So what was sushi era? 11.
- [26:38]
B
Yeah, 2010. 11.
- [26:40]
A
So imagine you starting a sushi store in 2011, and you just. You were chained to that company, and you just had to stick with it. You had no other options. You just had to. I have a feeling it would be a huge success. And I have a feeling that if I had done the same with whatever I was doing, that there's definitely a world where I would be five or ten times more successful than I am now because of just compounding of sticking with something. And I. I sort of felt, first of all, 12 years, it sounds like not a long time, but when I thought about, well, where was I in 2012, 2013, and what all. What all have I jumped from thing to thing to thing? And should I have just stuck to one thing and done that the entire time? And where would I be now? Because he was telling me his story. And I love where this guy, Sasha, his name's Sasha Cohen, I love to hear the story where he is now, which is like, I've got this amazing team. We're firing on cylinders. I just get to, like, work on the really exciting projects, and it's just going great. Cash flow is not an issue, whatever, etc. It doesn't feel like that leading up to it, obviously, it's really, really hard. And the majority of the time, I would think you'd want to quit. And the majority of time, I would think a guy like him, he didn't say this. I'm guessing if someone offered to buy the company from him at different weeks throughout the year, I bet he would have said yes, just because it's. It's really freaking hard. But I just remember thinking, like, I wish I had the foresight to the statistics, yes. Like, I wish I would have. I regret that a little bit. When I see where. I'm like, I don't. I don't exactly want to pay the price that you had to pay, because that was really hard. But when I see where you are now, it seems very attractive.
- [28:20]
B
Yeah, that's a great one. Honestly, actually, that was pretty common amongst all the people I've met with. Actually, two of them even said this. They go, I have very high pain tolerance. And the reason why they were saying it was actually not as a brag. They were like, you know, one of the problems is I have a really high pain tolerance, so I will keep doing something even when it's not, you know, quite right or not obvious. There probably was a better way or a better idea I could have done. I don't know. I'm just. That's who I am. I just keep going. Hayes even said this, kind of off the record. I was like, dude, what do you think is the difference about, like, know, you and a bunch of other people are like, you know, what I was really interested in was. And I probably didn't say this right, but when we were talking about the morning routine, he said he has a different friend come and do it with him every morning. And so he was like, yeah, yes, whatever. He's like, tony Gonzalez did this with me yesterday. The hall of Fame tight end. And then he was like, oh, yeah. Over the week. He's like, oh, he had this thing on his knee. And I was like, what happened to your knee? Like, you got cut up there. He's like, yeah, I was mountain biking with. I think his name was Lyndon. Like, the. The Elon's cousin from Solar City. He's like, we were mountain biking yesterday. We went. You see that mountain? We went all the way over there. I was like, God, this guy's so active. He's unbelievably active, this man. But also like, he's hanging out with hall of Famers. He was talking about Elon and his son went and worked at SpaceX. And he's like. I was like, oh, you didn't have him come work with you? And he's like, no, I wanted him to go see what it's like to work with Elon. He's like, I just wanted him to go. Like, it took me a while to go see what the. The hardest working person who tackles the biggest problems on Earth, you know, I worked 10 years of my career, 15 years of my career before that happened. I wanted my son to see it, like, right away. But, yeah, just incredible. Stick to itness for all of them because I'll do my next one. Yeah. So next one is Hormozi. So I go to Las Vegas and I hang out with Alex Hormozi. And a lot of people know Hormozi because he's so. He makes so much content.
- [30:11]
A
I don't think. I actually think Alex Hormozi doesn't get enough credit. Every time I hang out with him, I think, dude, you're really wise. Like, this is.
- [30:18]
B
Yeah, he's actually very legit. So, okay, so I have a bunch of things that I could say as my takeaway, but I promised one. So here's my one of Hormozi, student of the game. Okay, so what does this mean? We're talking, and I asked him, I said, you know, I get a lot of emails, but you put out so much more content. You have a much bigger audience. You must be getting 100 emails a day from entrepreneurs who want some advice from you or want some help or want you to invest. And then he does these workshops every weekend with a hundred entrepreneurs. So I was like, so you're seeing another maybe 500 plus, maybe thousand plus entrepreneurs in your workshops that are in person, and then you have all the deals that you look at, maybe another few thousand deals that you look at. Probably looking. He's probably meeting, I don't know, 5,000 entrepreneurs a year at the minimum. And I was like, what do you think is the mistake, the biggest mistake you see them make? I ask him this, and he says, they're only studying their business. They're not a student of the game of business. So what do you mean? He goes, well, when you start a company, you're very, like, narrowly focused on your business, your industry, your business model. So he's like, you know, Sam, you're doing the Hustle newsletter. You probably knew a ton about newsletters, right? You knew everything about other newsletters, and you knew everything about maybe the media industry as a whole. And I think you're very good about being a student in the game. But I would say most people were probably, you know, even one tenth as curious as you. But then you might also have gone and looked at the events business and then the SaaS business and other businesses to try to understand, like, oh, is that a better business to be in? And actually, you started in the events business, then you went into the media blogging business, and then you found your way into the newsletter business. And you were like, that's a better business to be in. And now you're in a paid community business that's actually a better business to be in than even the one one were before. And the reason why is because you're a student of the game of business, not just your business. And Alex Basie was like, I made this mistake. You know, I was basically a gym operator. I had one gym and then I had two gyms, I had three gyms and I was going to own and operate gyms and I got really good at owner operating a gym. But the best thing he did was he went to this mastermind and I think Russell Brunson was there and they basically were like, you're a 10 out of 10 entrepreneur going after a 2 out of 10 opportunity. Like, forget opening and running gyms. It sounds like you're amazing at getting a gym to have no members to go to, like a ton of members. Why don't you sell that? Create a sell the sell the ability for any gym to fill up their. To get more members. And so then he's like, ah, okay, that's smart. And he goes and he learns about other business models. He realizes that he should do this thing called gym launch where he would fly to a gym and he would basically say, hey, look, if I can get you 500 more members, can I keep the first month of their membership? And then you are, you know, the six weeks of, of of pay that they're going to pay upfront and you get to keep all the recurring membership behind that they're like, all right, sure. He's like, at no risk to you. You pay me nothing, I'll run my own ads, but I get to keep what I kill. And so that became Jim Launch and that became the thing that was really, really successful. And now he's in a better business, you know, like let's say private equity and he's buying SaaS companies. So he's gotten into a even better business than that. Right? Private equity is a better business. And so he's like, I think most people are in the game, a student of the game of business. And so, and at the end of, we basically talk for, I don't know, two and a half hours. We do like a two part episode. And he had, before that he had done two podcasts. So this guy's done like, you know, basically eight hours straight of talking and where I think most people would be like passed out on the floor or just ready to go home or just want to go eat or just be like, can you guys get out of My office now. He was super curious still. And he's asking me a ton of questions after the pod. And he asked me a question. He's like, what would you do differently if you were me? And you know me, I can't hold my tongue. So I'm like, yeah, honestly, I think this. And I gave him a very blunt and honest answer of like, I think you're amazing at this. But I think this part of what you do doesn't do you justice. I think it actually makes you look. It's like, bad for your brand. And I think you're. You're. You shouldn't be doing that.
- [34:25]
A
How did he receive that?
- [34:26]
B
Extremely well. And this is kind of like kudos to him for A, being curious and then B, being not defensive. And so he. He texts me the next morning. I didn't even give him my number, but he gets my number from somebody. And he says this. He goes, I just want to say thanks again for the pod. I've been thinking a lot about what we talked about at the end. Then he goes, it's hormozy, by the way.
- [34:45]
A
And.
- [34:45]
B
And then he goes, I'm gonna make some changes, some content changes. I appreciate you caring enough to say something. I thought that was just like a really kind message, but also, like, you know, a testament to him for. For being extremely open minded and being a student of the game and being like, having that mindset of, I'm here, I'm gonna try to learn something from every single person I meet. That's just such a positive attribute to have in general.
- [35:08]
A
I'm good friends with a guy who bought one of Alex's companies. So Alex started this thing called Allen Software. My friend was the buyer of it, and that is an interesting place to be in. So the person who you buy, the buyer of your company, they know all of your. They know the truth.
- [35:26]
B
They know all your dirty secrets.
- [35:27]
A
Yeah, they know all the dirty. They know everything. And I was like, lloyd, this is when Alex first started getting popping, before we ever even had him on the pod. I was like, lloyd, is this guy legit? Like, this seems too good to be true. And to this day, Lloyd is like, he. He's the smartest person I know about business. Like, he, like, knows everything about Alex. That's. That's what due diligence is. And he is. Knows everything. And he still is. Like, this guy's the best. When I need advice, it's like your.
- [35:54]
B
Doctor'S giving you a colonoscopy. He's like, yeah, he's got a great gut.
- [35:58]
A
Yeah, he, he, he. And, and so that, like, tells a lot about him. And what's funny is Alex comes off as a very serious guy, and he is a pretty serious guy, but he's a lot more fun. Like, I'm able to have fun with him whenever I'm with him. He's way more fun than he gives off.
- [36:14]
B
That was one of the things I told him. I was like, you come off so serious, but you're actually, you have a great sense of humor. You should show that and show yourself having fun and not just like, I paint the windows black and I grind right there. That is part of you, but there is another part of you, and I think you don't really do yourself justice and like, not showing that side.
- [36:35]
A
This is so funny. As we were texting, my friend Lloyd just texted me about Alex, a compliment about Alex, the same guy referring to.
- [36:44]
B
This just out of the blue, just.
- [36:46]
A
Now, out of the 1249. This is, it's 1252 right now. He just, he just texted me a thing about how Alex just gave him some great advice, which is pretty funny. That's pretty awesome. Did you. Their seminar business. So basically a lot of people don't know this, but acquisition.com either buys or invests in companies, whatever, pretty normal. But they also have like a seminar business, which is like, on paper, if you were to think about it, like the worst business to be in.
- [37:13]
B
You're selling your time for money.
- [37:15]
A
Yeah, yeah. They own UFC's old headquarters and people spend five or ten thousand dollars to come for a three day, like seminar. And according to Alex. But also I just like random math and you could like see like the schedule, how full it is. I think that thing is killing it.
- [37:32]
B
So that was my runner up takeaway, which is turn your. There's a business. A more practical business lesson. Turn your cost centers into profit centers. So he said two things about this. The first is the. On the workshops that you're talking about or the seminars. So he was like, well, we're doing acquisition.com and we're. Because of that, we're talking to all these companies and we're diligencing all these deals. And I'm basically the. That's a big cost to me. Right. I'm paying. I have a team of people that's diligencing all these businesses. We meet the entrepreneur, we ask him a bunch of questions, we dig into their business, and you know, we're only doing one deal out of every so many. Right. So he's like, all the others are just the cost of doing business, and it's costing me a few million dollars a year. So he has the idea, like, how do I turn my cost center into a profit center? So he's like, well, let me just try this. So he says, all right, I'm gonna invite whatever, 50 entrepreneurs out to our headquarters. Come spend two days with us. We will dig into your business. We'll learn what's working, what's not working, and we'll help you sort of unblock and, like, you know, maybe if you're a great fit, like, you know, we should have a conversation. But, like, this is really about understanding what's going on in your business, how to unblock you. Okay. So that's what they did. And basically, he turned a thing that was losing him a few million dollars a year of people cost into, I think, like, $10 million plus of free cash flow. And he said the same thing about content. He goes. He goes, I don't make content cause I enjoy it. I make content cause it builds my brand. And I was like, really? I do it because I enjoy. I like doing this. He's like, well, he's like, the way I think about it, is this in the old world, let's say the TV era or the radio era, you had to spend millions of dollars of your money to build your brand in the consumer's mind. The crazy thing about social media is you get paid to build your brand. So he's like, yeah, like, I make all this content, I'm building my brand, but I'm making money doing that. So he, again, he turned a cost center into a profit center on the content side too.
- [39:22]
A
And he loves it, by the way. He absolutely loves it. I think you and Alex actually have very similar attributes, which is you both like teaching. And so, like, I've been talking to him. I've been buddies with them for a little while, and we'll just be talking about, what's up? What are you doing? And he's like, oh, I'm making a Google document for my staff on how to sell better or how to do this. Like, he loves process and he loves teaching.
- [39:46]
B
Yes. Yeah, that's. That's. And the part I think he really loves is writing. Like, I actually like writing out the stuff, like, almost in textbook style. All right, you want to do another one or you want me to go?
- [39:56]
A
All right, here's a quick one. Do you know the company Zapier?
- [40:00]
B
Yeah, I do.
- [40:01]
A
Zapier was founded in 2011, another company by the Way that was founded way. It's way older than I thought. So Zapier is a company that they. Now they're basically an AI company. Like, they make ways for you to connect different AI stuff. So, like, if you're ChatGPT, you could be like, you know, make a. Whenever I get a calendar invite, do this and use ChatGPT to do it, whatever. They started in 2011. Now I think they do something like 400 or $500 million a year in revenue, and they've only raised a million dollars of funding. And they founded the company out of Jefferson City, Missouri, which is the capital of Missouri, near where I'm from, the smallest town you could think of. It's like nothing. It's like when you think of in the middle of nowhere, Missouri, you're going to think of Jeff City. And I met Wade because years ago I used to host this event called Hustlecon. And you spoke there, A bunch of other people spoke there. And Wade showed up. Wade wasn't supposed to speak until like 2:00'. Clock. And he showed up at like 8:00am and him and I sat backstage the entire time. And we. For two days. Actually, it was a two day event. He sat with me the whole time. And the reason he sat with me is I would have all of the speakers come to the green room two hours in advance. And I always lied to them. And I think you know the story where I would say, you have to come for mic check. But of course there is no mic check. The mic works perfectly. But we just wanted to hang out. Like, there's no mic check for a conference. Like, you just put the lapel on and it works, it works. I would tell people, oh, you have to speak at 3, make sure you're here at 1 for mic check. The reality was, is I just wanted to hang out with them backstage. And there was one time, like, I distinctly remember, it was like Casey Neistat, the founder of WeWork, it was Wade from Zapier and then like the founder of Class Pass and Tucker Max, if you know Tucker Max. And we were like all in a room and I was like, how wild is this? And I wouldn't say a word. I would just listen to all these conversations people were having. And Wade was the one guy who stayed the entire time with me. And we just sat and listened to people talking and it was so fun. And that's how I got to know Wade. I had him on the pod last week because I wanted to see how he's using AI. And it was Crazy, this guy, because he's. Wade's a billionaire. So Wade is probably 35 years old. I think he started the. The company when he was a senior in college, and I think he graduated college in 2011. Zapier, they did a funding round, I think three years ago at six or seven billion dollars valuation. I asked them where they think they're going to be in five years. He told me a billion in revenue. So the. I don't know what that means the company's worth, but I know that it means that on paper he's a billionaire. And I was like, why are you living in Jeff City, Missouri? He was like, well, it's where my family lives and I like it here. And I was like, wait, does anyone know how big of a big shot you are there? He's like, no, the people here don't use Zapier. Why would like. So they have no idea. And I was like, well, do you have like a fancy house? Like, do you stick out? He's like, no. Like, no one has any idea. Like, I'm just like a guy. And I thought that it was so cool to. To see because I was hanging out with Sasha, this guy who started Buck Mason, a very cool brand. I was hanging out with Eric, who has founded Ramp and is the hottest thing going. And everyone knows in the tech world what Ramp is and it's one of the fastest growing companies and people know Zapier and everything, but they don't know Wade, the founder. And it was so interesting how he was just a guy. It was. And he was just. He was just a guy. That's all he was. And he very had that every man mentality or everyman vibe. And he came on the POD to talk about AI and he was just like Dharmesh. He was a nerd. Like, he was in the weeds and he loved it. And he was incredibly passionate. And his. He didn't have a fancy webcam. It was him. And it looked like a small, very small office in his house. And it was just totally unassuming and I loved it. And so I think my biggest takeaway with him was how passionate he was about this game that he turned into a career and how inspired I was that he was not flexing. And he truly, like, it was the opposite of Hayes, where not that Hayes flexes, I mean, where Hayes is just full of energy and he's like, I want to manifest, I want to do this. This was the opposite. It was an introvert, nerdy guy who just did what he loved. And it Just, it worked out, and he just was really happy. Go lucky. And it was really fun because I'm used to these haze guys. I. I'm not quite. But, like, these, like, alpha, like, let's get it. Let's get after life. Let's manifest. Let's have fun. Let's do this. And it's awesome to get the opposite of that, because I think when people listen to this podcast, I hope one of the takeaways is that there's a million ways to get done what you want to get done. There's a million ways to achieve your dreams. There's a million ways to get rich. There's a million ways to go to where you want to go. And where you want to go can be anywhere. And there's. There are maybe some best practices, but I can give you tons of examples of people doing the exact opposite, and they're just as happy and just as effective. So that was my big takeaway with Wade.
- [45:01]
B
I like that. Yeah. There's a. You know, you get to create your own little heaven on earth. And that's one of the cool things. When you go and you meet these people, you get to sample what they chose for themselves, and you pick up like, ooh, I really want that. Or in some cases, ooh, I really wouldn't want that. You know, there was one guy who won't be named, not in this trip, but in previous one, where this huge house and fancy cars and all this stuff, but also, like, huge headaches with all of that, oh, I gotta get this repaired and this. And then that car got a scratch, and then this has this, and it was like, man, you own these things, and then they own you. And it's like, oh, wow, definitely. For me, that would be a total trap to fall into. Good. I'm glad I saw it firsthand so I can avoid that. Whereas with other people, for them, that is their heaven on earth. They want that. They actually prefer that trade off of, you know, and so you want to. It's good to sample the different sort of styles so you can get a feel for what you think is going to work for you. Because I think people have this idea of, like, oh, you just got to do what you want. The reality is you don't know exactly what you want until you're even exposed to certain things. And then you sort of develop taste about what it is that you like and what it is that how you want to be. You can sort of. You can modify yourself based on, you know, what you're exposed to.
- [46:13]
A
So you guys know this, but I have a company called Hampton joinhampton.com, it's a vetted community for founders and CEOs. Well, we have this member named Levon. And Levon saw a bunch of members talking about the same problem within Hampton, which is that they spent hours manually moving data into a PDF. It's tedious, it's annoying, and it's a waste of time. And so Levaan, like any great entrepreneur, he built a solution. And that solution is called Moku. Moku uses AI to automatically transfer data from any document into a PDF. And so if you need to turn a supplier invoice into a customer quote or move info from an application into a contract, you just put a file into Moku, and it auto fills the output PDF in seconds. And a little backstory for all the tech nerds out there. Slavon built the entire web app without using a line of code. He used something called Bubble IO. They've added AI tools that can generate an entire app from one prompt. It's pretty amazing. And it means you can build tools like Moku very fast without knowing how to code. And so if you're tired of copying and pasting between documents or paying people to do that for you, check out Molku AI. M O L K U dot AI. All right, back to the pod. All right, so let's do. I'll do Eric Lyman. So for those who don't know, Ramp is a company that does credit. It's like a basically a credit card for startups. They're worth something like $10 billion, and I think they do 800 million in revenue. Eric, who's the founder and CEO, is 35 years old. And it's just absolutely breathtaking how fast they've built this company, because I think the company is only four or five years old. Like, it's brand new still. And my biggest takeaway, I had two takeaways. The first is that he was so nice. So if you Google Eric Lyman nice, there's all these posts that talk about how nice this guy is, but it's very.
- [48:01]
B
Did you go home and do that? Did you Google Eric Lyman nice?
- [48:04]
A
Well, I was like, surely everyone talks about, like. Like, he was the kindest person I've ever met. Like, when he looked at me, it was like I was the only one in the world that mattered at that moment. And, like, I talked to Ari. I go, ari who? Ari only talked to him on the cell phone. And I go, ari was this guy the nicest guy you've ever met. And he goes, when he talked to me, I fell in love. Like, I, like I wanted to keep talking to him. He felt, it felt like I was the only one that mattered to him at that moment. And he did such a good job. And like he wrote a follow up email and he wrote, like, I was truly blessed with, by our conversation. I am so thankful. Whatever. He was so nice. But what I found strange was you don't meet people who are nice and intense. And so I asked him a question about something. He goes, look, ramp is 2053 days old and we're only just now. And I was like, wait, did. What did you just say? He, he goes, yeah, ramp is 2053 days old. And I was like, you know exactly to the day how old Ramp is. He goes, yeah, of course. Like, I'm trying to get this done by this amount of time. Like, I know exactly to the day. And I just found it very strange that you can be both incredibly intense at having a company and intense about life, and also a very generous, kind, nice person. Those two things typically are not in the same package. And so my big takeaway with Eric was how you can be not a jerk. You don't have to be, you know, a big, like pumping your chest, big ego, highly confident guy. You can be very soft, you can be really kind, but also a complete killer and savage. It's a weird dichotomy, but you could be both.
- [49:39]
B
Yeah, I talked to him before. I think I've told this story before. I met, I met him many years ago, before he ever started Ramp. And also super sweet guy. And then what they, the other thing I've said before is I can't believe Ramp one in that same way. Because at the time I remember that Brex was. Brex looked like the runaway winner. It was the YC company. It was based in Silicon Valley. It had raised a bunch of money. I think it launched earlier than Ramp. And it just seemed like Ramp, this company out of New York, just seemed like the natural second place winner and instead Ramp has crushed it. And actually Brexit is the second place winner in that space or third or whatever.
- [50:15]
A
And he had a whole answer to that. So most people, when they start a company, it's like, it was cool or I had this problem or whatever. He had a four point list where it was like, well, because I asked, I asked the same question. I was like, you know, Brex was already around, this was already around, whatever. And he's like, well, the Frank Dodd act or something like that. Was passed. Which meant this, this and this and that also meant. And then he had like, it was a four point list. And it was incredibly intentional. And he's like, I saw at Capital One, it took this many days to approve an account. I figured if we could reduce that to only 7.3 days. And since there's this many potential businesses in the world, if we do that and we do this many businesses per day, it was like incredibly detailed and exact and precise way, which isn't typically how I think about building a company. A lot of times it's like off energy or like vibes. Like this feels a certain way. He did not have that at all. It felt like everything was like in it. It was very intense.
- [51:12]
B
Amazing. All right, let me do one. Now this is a more practical business one, I'll say.
- [51:16]
A
Was this with your brother in law?
- [51:17]
B
Yeah, this is my brother in law, Sanjeev. Okay, so this episode, I think, I think this one will have come out already. But in the middle of it, he tells the story where, okay, so the headline of this is, this guy, basically my brother in law has built a real estate portfolio. He owns basically over a billion dollars of real estate that he accumulated in about 10 years with no outside money. And so no, like he had like lenders, but no, no investors at the time. He's incredible. He's just like an absolute animal at what he does. And I always knew he was smart and I always knew he was like really like ambitious and was like, you know, he's just a winner. That part I know. I've known the guy for 10 plus years. So like, how about the fact that.
- [51:54]
A
You'Re as successful as you are and you're, you're, you're second place in your.
- [51:59]
B
Own family, maybe third. I think my wife's dad is a pretty amazing guy too. So, you know, he wins. And not, not, not just the success, but the guy's a saint. So yeah, he wins it in his own way. All right, so what is it about this guy that I picked up? So the, the short version of this story is he, he goes to law school, gets his MBA first, interns with a lawyer. So he's like working on actually the Scott Peterson case, like the Lacey Peterson, whatever. And then he meets. But he also interns. He has two internships. That's one internship. He has second internship with a real estate guy. He's like the real estate guy is always, you know, he's at home at a good time. He's in his kid's life. He's got passive income. Like this seems like the better model. I'll go towards that. So he goes to real estate. He has no money and so he can't buy any real estate. So he starts off as a broker. You know, he does his first deal, makes 60k, but by the time he's like 25, 26, 27, he's making millions of dollars a year as a broker. He would like, he'd be like, cool, you got this empty space, let me lease it for you. You want to sell this? Let me buy, let me be your buy side broker and your sell side broker and I'll lease it for you. I'll get all three, I'll bag all three commissions. Somewhere along the way, he basically makes a mistake and he's like, yep, this is where, you know, youth catch up youth and like, you know, ego catches up with you. So there's this one guy who's like, expand. He's like a jack in the box franchiser. So he's got like, I don't know, 30 jack in the boxes or something like that. And so my brother in law, Sanjeev is doing deal after deal with him. And so finally the guy's just like, at some point, instead of just leasing the place to him, the guy would say, I want to be over there. So he'd say, okay, cool, I'll buy it, I'll build it for you and then I'll sell it to you. So I'll buy, I'll develop it and I'll sell it to you. And the guy's like, cool, I want these 20 locations. So he goes and he takes out $15 million of debt to go buy 20 locations. Like, you know, three days after it closes, you know, that guy gets popped for like, he didn't pay his payroll tax or something. He goes to jail. And so now my brother in law's on the hook. He bought, he borrowed $15 million and now has these like 20 locations or whatever that need to be jack in the boxes, that the deed is tied to that guy's name. That guy's now in jail. He can't develop them. So he's basically kind of screwed. And you know, he doesn't want to declare bankruptcy, so he decides he's going to try to pay off $15 million even though he has nothing. And so he's like, okay, how do I do this? So he's, he's just like depressed and his wife is like, you know what? Like, I don't know, I've never seen you like this, you need to go to the gym. I don't know what we're gonna do in business, but just go to the gym so that you, you know, get out of this funk. And he goes to the gym and when he's there, he, this guy who he always used to see working out there at night, he used to work out at like 11 or midnight at night. Cause like after work he would go there, but today he went there in the daytime because he doesn't have shit else to do. And the guy who he always sees working out is like behind the desk. He's like, yo, you work here? He's like, yeah dude, I own the place. He's like, what? He's like, he's like, yeah, come check out the office. And when he's there, the guy tells him like he's ready to sell. He actually wants to sell the business. And my brother in law works out a deal to basically buy the business from the guy with no money down because a little bit of money down, he pawns his wife's wedding ring and they go all in. You know, they're at this point they're living in their like parents, like his old childhood bedroom and they owe $15 million and they're like, I don't know how we're going to get out of this pickle, but I'm going to. Basically I'll use the cash flow from this gym to just pay the monthly thing we owe and then we'll try to open up a second gym maybe and we'll figure out how we do this. Anyways, he ends up building like the largest private gym chain, 82 gyms in California.
- [55:26]
A
By the way, is your brother in law like really is he jacked?
- [55:30]
B
Yeah, he was one of the first like Indian bodybuilders basically in college. He was going to go pro and then like, you know, but he decided not to like go full on. But yeah, he was, he was huge before, he's big now, but he's like, oh, this is, this is the deflated version of me. And I was like, wow, that's, that's crazy. So again, whatever this guy chooses, he does with like crazy intensity. So with real estate, I'm like, so how did you. Okay, all that you told me so far is the gym business. Like how did you do the real estate side? So this is the business lesson. So he's like, you know, along the way when I would go lease these gyms, I realized I had a little bit of leverage. Right, I'm coming in, I'm as the, like, the big tenant in the shopping center. And so I just added to the lease an option to buy. And he's like, I just added a no risk option. Whereas I have the option to buy within five years or whatever. I can buy this at $4 million. And at the time, that sounded like a high price for the guy. So the guy had no problem putting it in free option. And he's like, and by the way, I have no money and no plans of how I would ever buy this place. But why not? Why not take an asymmetric bet where I have no downside, but I have possible upside down? And so his start in real estate was he's working at the gym and a guy comes in to buy the building. And the guy assumes that he owns the building, which he didn't. And he's like, we would make an offer somewhere around the ballpark of $7 million.
- [56:44]
A
Oh, got it.
- [56:45]
B
And so he's like, oh, amazing. And he's like, cool. I have an option to buy this for four, but I don't have any money. So I actually cannot physically buy this. But I'll do a double escrow. So if you agree to buy it on this date, it basically is like, I'll sell this to you for seven. I'll take the seven. I'll give this guy four. So I'll own the place, and then I'll buy this, and then I'll sell you this thing and I'll keep $3 million as my profit.
- [57:06]
A
It's the old, hey, mom says I can go if you say yes, or she'll say yes if you say yes.
- [57:12]
B
Yes. Right, exactly. And so he got his. The entire empire that he built was because he baked in one asymmetric bet, one no risk option. I thought that was kind of inspiring. Like, you know, and he probably, by the way, he probably had 10 of these that didn't pan out. But the one that did got him his start. He took that $3 million and then he used that to buy to buy and buy and flip. Buy and flip, buy and flip, buy and flip. And he compounded that over 10 years into a billion dollars of real estate from that one option. And I just thought that was just like an incredible lesson or takeaway to have. And by the way, now, so I invest with him now, so I'm able to like, it's probably my biggest investment of the past two years. Has been investing in his deals, and I'm just getting incredible returns. And one of the reasons why is because he keeps doing the same model. So he just. He's the master of de risking. So he goes into a split. Let's say there's a shopping center with, like, you know, two big vacancies. So he'll. While he's putting it under purchase contract, he already has leased it. He has a signed lease and a signed purchase contract. So the same day we buy, he has the tenant in place and he sells the thing. And so we get these incredible returns because he's de risking all these properties so far in advance. It's like a. Such a. Like the same. It's like, you know, you find one unfair advantage, and then you just keep playing it.
- [58:30]
A
Does he have an awesome house?
- [58:32]
B
Oh, he's got a crazy house. His house is crazy.
- [58:35]
A
Real estate guys always have, obviously amazing houses.
- [58:39]
B
There's one other little hack that he had that I liked. I think there's another tidbit I think people can take. So I was like, when he's doing these things, I'm like, dude, how do you do this? Like, you were buying these properties. They're, you know, maybe there's a vacancy or whatever. And, like, how are you cutting these deals beforehand to get them? You know, oh, I know the buyer at Trader Joe's. I know the buyer at whatever Chipotle. I know the buyer, the real estate guy at this place, and I'll get it under contract. And he's like, oh, it's just relationships. He always just said this vague work. Oh, it's, you know, real estate's a relationship business. And I hate answers like that that sound, like, general. And so I dug in with him, and I was like, tell me how you approach this idea of relationships. And he said this great thing. He was like, you know, if you think about the word commercial real estate, it sounds like this vast universe, like this huge industry, right? He's like, the trick is, how do you make a big thing feel small? Like, how do you break it down into an achievement, into a chunk that you could actually, you know, you could actually digest? So he's like, kind of. He's like, one day I sat down with a piece of paper, and I realized, all right, who do I. Who's my ideal person to know? He's like, well, it's a national retailer who's still expanding and growing, and they don't want to own their own real estate because I'm a developer. I want to own the real estate. I want to lease it to them. And he's like, once I did that, I realized there's Actually, like, I don't know, 150 names. And he's like, I took this big idea of commercial real estate, which felt like an ocean, and he's like, I turned it into like a little goldfish pond. 150. He's like, I could fit 150 people in this room. I could meet 150 people over the next two years if I tried. And I could form a relationship with them and I could get. So that they know me and I know them, and they'll call me and I'll call them when we have something that fits. And that's literally what he did. And I just thought that was like a great. Like, I don't know how. I don't know where else you could do that in other businesses, but I suspect that that idea of taking something big but then reframing it and realizing it's actually much smaller and more achievable than you think is. Is probably something that applies to a lot of businesses.
- [60:39]
A
Is he a billionaire or. Billionaire. Ish.
- [60:42]
B
I would say, like, ish. Not, Not. Not there. Himself. Right. Because, you know, if you own $1 billion real estate, in his case, I think like, 40 or 50% is equity and the other half is like debt. So, you know, on paper, you know, that's whatever. That's, let's say, $500 million. I don't know. I'm just. I don't know his actual thing, to be clear, but like, hundreds of millions of dollars, net worth of the six.
- [61:02]
A
People that we talked about, five of them are there, or give or take the. Give or take there. And I just think that that's. I think it's crazy. I think it's crazy. I don't know how many billionaires are in the world. Five or ten thousand. I'm not sure. Whatever is like Forbes heads. I would, like, multiply it by, like, some number. And it's crazy that over the past 10 days we hung out with five of them or something like that and get to learn from these people. And again, I don't. I. I'm almost embarrassed when I say the name my first million, because what I tell people, I'm like, you know, it's actually. It's not always about money. It's actually about, like, things greater than that. And. Because I do think life's richer than just money. But it is interesting to be able to rub shoulders with people who are in the 0.1% of their field. And it's. It's. We're lucky.
- [61:52]
B
Yeah. And also Like, I think now we're a little bit like, oh, you know, it's not about the money, but like us 10 years ago, very much it is about the main goals was like, yo, get that money, get that money and then figure out that money doesn't make you have. Sure, I believe you. It's not the end all be all, but I still want it and I'm still going to try to get it. I'm still going to try to make it. Definitely awesome stuff. Exactly. Definitely seems pretty great to have. I'd rather have it than not have it. And so, you know, I think as much as we're like, oh, you know, like, I think both are true. Like it is true that there's a lot more to life, but also to these people. And like, you know, you pick up a bunch of different things, but also it is kind of crazy to make that happen. And it's fun also to make that happen. You know, if business is your sport. Well, how are points tallied? They're tallied in dollars. Right.
- [62:38]
A
There's a guy. I don't pay attention to golf, but I'm sure you do. But do you know Scotty? Is it Schaefer? Schaeffler? He won. What did he win this weekend, the US Open or something? Yeah, I don't know anything about sports, but I know that I saw like his one year old kid like crawling up the green to give him a hug and a kiss after he won. So I guess Scotty like won. He set the trophy on the ground and his kid crawls up to, to, to play with the trophy. And Nike took out this amazing ad, the best ad ever. It was a two page ad or two like swipes on Instagram. The first one, it says a picture of Scotty holding his son and it says, you've already won. And then the second slide is. But another major. Doesn't hurt.
- [63:22]
B
Doesn't hurt.
- [63:24]
A
And I think that's, that's kind of like the takeaway here is like, yeah, it feels good to like, I, I've won already. Like I have a loving family. I feel secure. It doesn't hurt to you know, succeed a little more. And I thought that was such a great ad and I thought that was kind of a representation of this episode. That was a beautiful ad, wasn't it?
- [63:42]
B
Oh my God. Like Nike is at the top of its game when it does stuff like that.
- [63:47]
A
Yeah, it was pretty good. All right. That was a good episode. That's it. That's the pod. I feel like I could rule the world? I know I could be what I want to? I put my all in it?
- [63:57]
B
Like no days off on the road?
- [63:59]
A
Let's travel? Never looking back. All right, my friends, I have a new podcast for you guys to check out. It's called Content is Profit, and it's hosted by Luis and Fonzie Cameo. After years of building content teams and frameworks for companies like Red Bull and orangetheory Fitness, Luis and Fonzie are on a mission to bridge the gap between content and revenue. In each episode, you're gonna hear from top entrepreneurs and creators, and you're gonna hear them share their secrets and strategies to turn their content into profit. So you can check out Content Is Profit wherever you get your podcast.