← The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #53 Featuring Adam "SOS" Sosnick! Co-Host of the PBD Podcast! The INSPIRATION EPISODE! THE RIGHT MINDSET TO SUCCEED, Perseverance, ACCOUNTABILITY, Overcoming adversity, FINANCES AND MORE!
01:14:37
Loading summary
Transcript92 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
- [00:17]
B
Hey everyone. Dylan Gemelli here today with an extremely exciting announcement. I am now on the Manect app as an expert. That is Patrick Bet David's app. So you can hire me today. You can ask me questions about hormones, pept, neuroscience, cardiology, cellular health, finances, faith, religion, whatever it may be. I am there. You can book me for your podcast and you can also apply to be on mine. But go over download the Manect app, find Ylan Gemelli. I will answer either by audio, by text, you can get video responses, you can even book a phone call with me. I'm extremely excited to be available to work with all of you and I thank you all for your support. So check me out on today. Today's episode is sponsored by my good friends at Timeline. Timeline is now offering the world's first ever longevity gummies powered by MIT Appear. You've heard me talk about the importance of cellular health and our mitochondria, which is why I have Timeline as my favorite and most trusted sponsor. These are the only clinically proven Urolithin a gummies for strength and healthy aging. We may be living longer lifespans, but are we truly living better lives? We what if the key is not just adding years to your life, but life to your years? This all starts at the cellular level. As we age, our mitochondrial health starts to decline. And one of the keys to living longer and healthier is keeping our mitochondria healthy and strong and might appear targets this for us. Take control of your health now and live the life that you not only desire, but you also deserve. As a gift to all my listeners, you can save 20% off today by going to timeline.comdylan to get that's timeline.com backslash Dylan, I assure you your cells will thank you. All right, everybody, welcome back to the Dylan Gemelli podcast. So I always tell everybody how excited I am for my guests. I stay it often, but today's an extra special one. My guest today isn't really in the know of why he's extra special to me, but I'm gonna let him know after I introduce him so he has a good idea of the impact he that on me and where I've come. So you guys are going to know right when you see the face. I'm sure who I'm talking about and there's not enough intro that I could really give him to do him justice. But he's the co host of what I would say is the most impactful podcast in existence and definitely one of the highest rated and that would Be the Patrick Bet David podcast. He's the vice president of sales at welcome Funds. He also serves as a financial coach on Manect. And what I love about him is he, He. He really is helping young men develop their mindset to win in life, and he firmly believes that your network is your net worth. I'm not going to go any further because we got a lot to talk about, but my friends welcome Adam Stosnick.
- [03:11]
A
Dylan, thank you for that intro, man. I feel like I'm like, that guy sounds pretty damn cool.
- [03:18]
B
I'm known for my intros, bro. I have my days. Look, I know how busy you are. I. I really, really appreciate your time. It's an honor. It's a privilege. I can't say enough. I'm gonna tell you something very quickly, and then we're gonna get into everything about you.
- [03:33]
A
Let's do it.
- [03:34]
B
I come from, and most people know this, the YouTube background. I started doing YouTube in 2011. I was talking about things nobody would touch. Steroids, peptides. And that's what kind of built my whole career path, so to speak. When I began doing a little bit more intricate research on all different types of media and everything and podcast, I stumbled upon Antonio Brown on Patrick Bet David. Yes. Yes. And I'm not kidding you. It was a. It was a Saturday night, and I think it was like 1:30 in the morning. And that's when I do a lot of my studying and reading and stuff. And I. I was taking a break, and that was the moment where I said, okay, one, the way that they handled this situation. I have never seen anybody handle a situation like that, because I was thinking in my head, wow, what would I do here? But you guys set the stage at that moment for what I began to study and decided, okay, podcasting's where it's at, but I need to learn how to do this. I can't just go get into this and start winging it. So all I've done for the past several years and study you guys, your podcast, and then take bits from others, but what I've done is really try to not only replicate, but enhance some of the things you guys do. So you've set the stage for me, and I've watched you now several years change and the things that you've. Your mindset and the way that you deliver and everything, and it's really helped me. So you. You would have never known that. But I just wanted to tell you thank you and let you know the impact that you specifically, because I told you beforehand, I Relate with you more than anybody else on there. So I really followed you even more closely and I. I can't up tell you the appreciation level I have for your impact on what I do.
- [05:11]
A
I appreciate the hell out of that, man. That was a. That was a very chaotic podcast with Antonio Brown, man. You know, we had been working on that podcast for quite some time now. You know, it's been, I don't know, probably two years since that podcast was done. But at the time, he was. He had just won a Super bowl with Tom Brady, and he was one of the best wide receivers in the league. Sought after guy, controversial guy. He was also, I believe, running Kanye's record label at the time. So there was the Kanye thing, there was the Tom Brady thing, there was the Tom Brady and Giselle divorce thing going on. There was a Super bowl, and he was also rapping. And he came into the podcast and I assume, I know he was probably a little bit high, he was probably a little bit drunk, and before we got on camera, he was a little reserved. And then within a minute, you know, PBD was doing the intro, and it just got off to the wrong footing. And it was sort of a masterclass in almost like, I hear you, but allow me to give you my perspective. Oh, he's being unreasonable. How do you deal with people being unreasonable and hostile? Let's. Let's reel this back in. You know, even pbd, who's the. The goat, I would say, at dealing with unreasonable people, he got frustrated. And I think it was sort of incumbent on me to say, listen, guys, what are we doing here? We got two hours here. We're not even an hour in. This is getting very ugly. And long story short, we. I started basically saying, hey, so, you know, you live in Miami, right? I live in Miami. You know, so and so. Oh, yeah, I love that guy. Go. It's one of my closest friends. Oh, really? Boom. Finding common ground. I said, well, you perform at Rolling Loud, right? You know, it's just like the biggest hip hop festival in the world at this point. He's like, yeah, those are my guys. I go, those are my guys. Okay, this, that, the other. So, you know, I played a little bit of college football. Definitely not on AB's league, but I said, you know, I played at NMB. He goes, oh, that was our rival. I know. Boom, boom, boom. We kind of reeled it back in. And then, long story short, by the end of the podcast, which was a train wreck the first hour, and by the end, the. The podcast Wraps up, he goes, best podcast ever. Best podcast ever. He's taking pictures with everybody. So it just shows you, you know, just at the moment you think things are going to go awry. Can you be level headed? Can you be reasonable? Can you be measured and try to salvage something that could have otherwise been a disaster? But a lot of people came up to me after that and they go, how'd you handle that, man? That was really cool. And at the time I maybe wasn't known for being the most level headed person, but I've learned, you know, when you're next to Pat every single day, who I would say is a leader amongst leaders, you, you're gonna learn, you're gonna. What I say that he says is the four O's, you're gonna outwork out, improve out, strategize, outlast. And I've been the co host of the BBD podcast for almost six years now. And the, the one thing that I could say is I've outlasted all the expectations and outlasted everybody else and don't plan on going anywhere else.
- [08:07]
B
You definitely get across the kind of message I believe in and I want to get into that a little bit on, on the way that you are so practical and fair about everything. And I look, every human has their own preference, their own judgments and I believe in credibility and accountability. And without those two things, I find it very difficult to take somebody serious, listen to them or really care too much about what they have to say. And I feel that you have a ton of credibility by the way that you convey your message. So I, we're definitely going to get into that. I would like to just a little bit get into your background because you, you have a good background story and I want to see kind of the trajectory course of where you started and how it's evolved and what you've become today.
- [08:56]
A
So my story is this, you know, it's a, it's a classic rags to riches story. I grew up in Miami and my father was a disabled businessman. He had cerebral palsy. My mother was a, a nurse of some capacity, meaning she kind of had on and on off jobs and house was filled with love but also a lot of chaos and I was a good athlete. I was fortunate enough to get a sports scholarship to a very prestigious school in Miami called Miami Country Day. Tom Brady's kids go there. Now speaking of Tom Brady, I think Shaq's kids went there, Shakira's kids, pretty prestigious school. And I was by far and away the poorest kid in school. So I was, you know, and I was a very good athlete. So I would find myself being the poorest kid at the one of the richest kids in school. But then I would play in this traveling basketball league in Miami. And I was like the one white boy balling out and I was like the one guy with a father, so to speak. And I realized, you know, whether you're the richest kid, whether you're the poorest kid, be humble, be real, don't try to be somebody you're not, and get along with all types of people. And I was able, fortunate enough to get a sports scholarship, played football in college a little bit, and came back to Miami after graduating from Florida State University with a lot of friends and a lot of big network. And I got into the nightlife scene. I was doing hospitality, I was doing standup comedy. And the point is I was doing all these jobs. Substitute teacher, sports agent, real estate agent. I was doing all these on end jobs, but I was broke. And the second part of the story is that I got a job as a cold caller for a startup financial firm. Welcome, Fuzzy. Uh, I've been there 18 years now, and my first year I made five grand, right, Dylan? And they said, if you stick with it, Adam, you could actually do something with your life. I said, all right, there's something called stick with itness. I said, let me stick with this thing, baby. Stuck with it. My second year, I made a hundred grand. That was by far and away the most money I've ever seen in my life. Prior to that, doing standup comedy and throwing parties in South Beach. I think the most I ever made was like 20 something grand. So that allowed me to understand the concept of save that money. And then at that time it was 2008, 2009, the recession hit and I definitely understood about saving that money. I saw people all around me getting laid off, losing their jobs. Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers. And I said, all right, I don't know what's going to happen here, but let me buck, buckle down, hunker down and learn this craft. And hopefully I still have a job. 18 years later, I'm the VP of Sales. Done very well for myself, made money. I became financially free of what I would call it chilling at age 35. And chilling I define as when you own your time. You know, I always ask people, if you had all the time in the world, what would you do with your free time? And that's where you find your chilling, your, you know, your modern day retirement. So while I'm doing all this financial business, right, Dylan. I meet a guy working out in the gym at a financial conference in 2012. We're the only two guys in the gym. And he says, hey, what's up? I'm Patrick. Hey, I'm Adam. That turned out to be Patrick. Bet David. Pbd. We developed a friendship, kept in touch, did no business together, just kind of were colleagues in the same capacity. And in 2016, I saw that he was doing stuff online. I was like, dude, I didn't even know about the online. What is all this stuff? And he sort of inspired me to pick up the phone, social media myself, and I started my own brand, Sauce Talks Money. And I started talking to young people about money and being relatable about money and how to save that Money. And in 2020, we teamed up, and we, to his credit, started the PBD podcast. And I've been running with PBD ever since. So I went from a. A broke jack of all trades to a. Someone who's, you know, I would say, done pretty well, beat the odds. And now I. My main goal is giving back to young people, especially young men out there, and teaching them how to be capable in life out there and how to, of course, save that money and accomplish what they want in life. So now I'm here at valuetainment. Bing, Bing, and thank God I have a. I have a leader around me, pbd, who kicks my ass or gives me a hug sometimes, depending on what I need it. But that gives me accountability and allows me to strive for greatness and even greater things than I probably even wanted for myself. Deeply grateful for what Pat has done for me.
- [13:06]
B
Love that. You know, from my story and combined with your story, the importance of perseverance. And I find people that have persevered and then they use it as fuel are the ones that you can't stop, you know, and. And I love that, and I love that don't take no just keep pushing type of thing.
- [13:26]
A
Well, Dylan, you say it's funny that you use the word perseverance. A lot of people say, what's the secret to success? I said, there's no secret to success. There's no get rich, quicksame scheme. But, you know, I tell you one thing, one acronym, a big fan of acronyms, one acronym that I always say, if you want the secret to success, it's something called cpr. And CPR stands for consistent, persistent, and resilient. Life's gonna get in the way. You know, things are gonna happen. You're gonna lose a job, you're gonna lose an opportunity. But you know the old adage, you know, get the knock down 10 times, get up 11, consistent, persistent and resilient. Life's tough, but are you. Do you have the capacity to get your ass up, get back in the gym, so to speak, get back in the office, get back on the podcast. We all have wins and losses. There's no undefeated teams out there. You're going to have, you know, they say, you know, you don't win or lose, you win or learn. And I've had, I've had my fair share of wins and I've had my fair share of learning moments, but the most important thing is you get back on there, back to work, back on the podcast, back on the ball. And good things will happen when you're consistent, persistent and resilient.
- [14:31]
B
You can't be a good winner without being a good loser. I'm not saying be a happy loser. I'm staying a gracious one that says, okay, I needed this. And then when you realize you needed it, it makes you better. And that's the key, I believe, too, to go along with what you said, which is spot on and I couldn't agree more with. I want to ask you about something, and this is something that drives me crazy. It pisses me off to know it, what you're doing, helping young men with money. I have wondered, and I want your opinion on this. Why is it that in schools, and this goes back to when me and you were in school before, I don't know how far back, I'm not a historian, but I do know this. Why aren't we being taught about credit and the things that actually matter for us to live instead of art and music for five years and home act when none of us are going to stow shit. I'm curious as to why or what is your thinking. And wouldn't you find it to be quite beneficial if we were teaching people, as they were growing, the importance of credit, the importance of understanding how to manage your money? Because when you have credit, you know this, you can walk in anywhere and basically get whatever you want. But if you don't, you are going to have a very hard time doing anything with your life. And if you're able to get things, it's going to be super high interest. They're going to bury you. I've been trying to teach people about credit and help people fix credit for many years. Once I actually learned about it from wrecking my own. What is your thoughts on that, am I, am I on the right path there with Michael?
- [16:00]
A
Of course. I feel like I'm a student in school. Like, ooh, ooh, ooh, I know the answer right now. And I say this all the time. We all go to school, we take the same sort of useless classes. Algebra, the ABCs. Algebra, biology, chemistry. Hell, they had me in wood shop at one point. The last person on earth you want cutting wood is this guy right here. But no money class, no money class. No classes about budgeting. No classes about saving. No classes about appreciating assets versus depreciating assets. No classes about the stock market. No classes about credit. What's the difference between debit and credit? Well, all these. Nothing. Nothing is learned. I actually have a good friend who is a part of a financial literacy movement to try to get schools to teach this. The reality is you cannot depend on schools for this. You know, teachers and I was a substitute teacher. I was a teacher for one year. I love teachers. I think they're incredible as long as they're not pushing some sort of woke ideology on kids. But teachers are needed. But teachers are also broke. Our teachers are underpaid. Teachers don't know a lot about money. Just because you went to school to learn to be a teacher, you shouldn't be necessarily teaching kids about money. So there's a failure in our education system or even in higher learning when it comes to teaching kids about money. Now. All right, I understand an elementary school. All right, well, you know, you know, all right, I get it. Middle school, okay? High school people are starting to work then. But then in college even, no money classes. So what happens is you're a 22 year old graduate, or maybe you go get a business degree or get a master's and you graduate school, or maybe you get your medical degree and by the time you're out of school, you're 25 years old, you're 30 years old, and you've never taken one money class, not one. So they tell you how to make money, they tell you how to get a job, they tell you how to get a diploma. But when you start to make money, everyone's like, what the hell do I do now? So then you bury yourself with a ton of debt, right? Student loan debt, whether it's automobile debt, credit card debt, you know, the list goes on. But you don't know how to deal with the debt. You don't understand the importance of having good credit. You understand the importance of understanding there's between appreciating assets, depreciating assets. These are all things that I had to learn the hard way. When I got this job as a cold caller when I was 26 years old, I didn't know what the hell I was doing. All of a sudden, a year and a half in 2008, now the find, the great recession, the world melts. I had made, for the first time, my life, 100 grand, which is a lot of money to me at the time. And one of my mentors is my business partner now says, how much money did you lose in the market? I go, how much money did I lose in the market? I don't have any money in the market. He goes, great. Now's a good time to start investing. The market was down about 50%, 2009, I want to say. And I started investing, and I started learning about a 401k. And then every year, every year, I started learning more. So, you know, there's only two ways to have more money. You can make more, you can spend less. I always encourage people to do both. But in order to spend less and in order to earn more, you have to learn more. So it's not cool to, you know, you don't go up to a chick at the bar and be like, wait till you see what I got on my 401k, baby. And the match. It's not hot, it's not cool, because you're not going to basically reap those Rewards for another 30 years. But I ask people, when you retire, do you want to have a million dollars in your 401k or $0 in your 401k? Trust me, it's a lot cooler to have a million dollars in your 401k. It ain't sexy, but a 401k will keep you afloat for the rest of your life. But all these things are synonymous, whether. Whether it is stock market, which is difficult to understand, whether it's crypto to understand, whether it's credit scores, which are difficult, difficult to understand. A lot of these things are never really taught to us, and they're very foreign. So we're sort of, you know, money is a language, you know? So in school, I grew up in Miami. I took Spanish class as an elective. Thank God I took Spanish, not French. There's nobody speaking French in Miami, so I took Spanish, but I skipped class a lot. Okay, Dylan. I didn't necessarily pay attention. So I'm out here in Miami trying to pick up tricks and hang out with people speaking broken Spanish. You know, I think I wanted soup and I ordered soap. All of a sudden we have a problem right here. But if you speak broken Spanish, you know you'll be able to get through it. But money is also a language. And if you speak broken money or broken finance, guess what? You're going to end up broke. So all this stuff is a language. All this stuff is that you need to learn. And you can go to school to learn how to get a job and learn to have a career, but if you don't know, learn about money, you're destined to be broke. And then, you know, the stats are crazy out there. Two thirds of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. 50% of millennials that make 100 grand or more still living paycheck to paycheck. It's not a income thing. A lot of the times it's a spending problem or it's a not understanding money problem. You make, you make 100 grand a year, but you spend 110. So now you're 10 grand in debt. All of these things are a cumulative factor that lead to the average American being broke. We live in the best country in the world, the richest country in the world. Why are two thirds of our people living paycheck to paycheck is because they never had that money class in school. And my goal is to actually help alleviate that. And that's why I'm working on some big projects here in Valuetainment that we're rolling out pretty soon to help people get better and save that money.
- [20:58]
B
I love it. I love it. You know, I learned like you and like most people that know a lot about money, had to learn a hard ass lesson, right? And one of the main reasons when I turned to selling drugs was the overwhelming amount of credit card debt I accumulated in such a short amount of time. And I remember, I still remember getting these things in the mail.
- [21:22]
A
You're approved for $6,000 here, you're approved for $7,000 here.
- [21:26]
B
I was 21 years old and had five credit cards with about a hundred grand on them, you know, worth of credits because I paid some cars off in high school because my mom and dad were helping me to do some smart things. But I still try to do everything on my own. And before you know it, I'm a hundred grand in debt. And then I'm, I'm.
- [21:44]
A
What age was that 100 grand in debt?
- [21:46]
B
20, 22.
- [21:47]
A
Holy crap. The fact that they would have let me, they don't even let a 22 year old stack up that much credit card debt is crazy.
- [21:52]
B
To me now, let's talk to Discover and Beast about that, right? But you know this. I was going to ATMs, pulling out money to go party every weekend. And I was spending left right on everything, not understanding the concept of a 25% APR. You start making monthly payments, and they're not going towards anything. In fact, the balance is still going up and you're paying 5, $700 a month. And you. You're not only just providing them free money, but you're going backwards on top of it. And so I learned the hard way, too. And now everything is done tactfully. It's paid in cash. Even when I charge it, it's just to build points, and I pay it off the second I charge it. And, you know, the only debt that I have now are my cars. And I mean, that's kind of normal debt, but otherwise, everything I have, if I want the, the AMX points, boom, I get them and I pay it right off. I go in and I pay.
- [22:45]
A
Well, you learned your lesson. And a lot of times you learn your lesson the hard way. You know, we talked about earlier, you don't win or lose. You win or learn. You know, I. I guarantee you know exactly what the interest rate on your credit card payment is. I know if you pay it late, what the interest rate will be. And this is why you pay it off in full. I'll never forget this story. Right? I mean, I was. You're. You're in Arizona, right? Yeah.
- [23:05]
B
Yeah.
- [23:05]
A
Okay. I was out in. I was out in la, and one summer I was staying with my buddies, former NBA guy. And he had an amazing house out there and a bunch of college. Like NBA. Sorry. Like NBA hopeful college kids. You know, college basketball players were, you know, they come by the house, hey, what's up? They were friends of friends. And this one kid, Alex, was a good buddy. Now, now he's in his 30s. He was like, oh, you know, Sauce, you're the money guy. Let me ask you a question. This is what I want to do, blah, blah. I said, how much credit card debt do you have right now? He's like, I don't even know. A couple grand, whatever it is. I go, that's something you should probably know about. I go, what's the interest rate? He goes, I don't even know what.
- [23:44]
B
I don't know.
- [23:45]
A
Where do I even find that? I go, log on right now. Grabbed my phone, I said, we're going to film this. Log on right now. And he said, all right. I go on to chase. Not to put Chase's business out there. It could have been any credit card company. And I said, log on and go to make your next payment. And you could see what the APR is, right? You know, the annual percentage rate. And he goes, 24.9%. And I go, what do you think about that? He goes, I don't know, is that good or is that bad? I go, well, I'll let you give the answer. If you're striving, if you're, you know, you said something that your money's going backwards. Debt is your money going backwards. You're losing the interest rate game, whereas investing is winning the interest rate game. And you have your money appreciating over time with compound interest. If the goal, let's say, is of the stock market, if you say, what should I try to earn in investments in stock market? Well, 10% is a damn good number to return, right? Can you get 10%? So I said, if 10% is a good return on your investments, you're going backwards 25%. You tell me if that's good or bad. He goes, sounds pretty damn bad to me. I go, you'd be right. I go, the best thing you can do right now is before you can save, before you can start stacking cash, before you can start earning money and compound interest and appreciating your money over time, pay off this 25% wait around your neck, so to speak, this noose, this weight that you're carrying around, get that out of your life. And he goes, let me do that. And he says, I see to this day. He goes, you know, I've been debt free ever since that moment. I go, amazing. I go, now tell all your friends. He goes, why is that? I go, because we need a million more people to become debt free. So you're absolutely right. You learn the hard way, and sometimes the hard way is 2 grand, sometimes it's 5 grand. You know, my friend Dylan over here, it took him a hundred grand to learn the hard way. Shout out to Discover and MasterCard. But yeah, unfortunately, you know, what's the whole concept? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me once. You've been fooled by credit card companies or any sort of consumer debt or any sort of cash, cash advance type companies. You realize, oh, man, this is no good. Now everybody's talking about the buy now, pay later type thing, these loans, but it's not a good look. And this again comes down to financial wellness and financial prudence and personal finance. The last thing I'll say About this. It's called personal finance for a reason. It's personal finance. It's your money. Ain't nobody going to figure this thing out for you. Just like self esteem is on you to figure out your esteem, just like personal development is on you to figure this out yourself because nobody else is going to do it for you. You either learn or you're going to end up paying the price.
- [26:19]
B
Right? Don't fall for the Visa. Visa got me by letting me put an Italian flag on my card.
- [26:24]
A
I was like, okay, I'll take, I'll take.
- [26:27]
B
Don't fall for that, because that's what they do. And I will say this one more thing before we move on. If you are looking at percentage rates while you go to a credit union, because you're always going to probably get a much lower interest rate. And I think people don't realize that and they don't understand functionalities of credit union versus banks, where the banks have these like real bureaucratic, strict guidelines they follow on. A credit union can really do whatever the hell they want, Depending on the SPIs or credit union, but they have the ability and the capability to give you more credit line, lower rates, better terms, just depending on where you go. Just wanted to throw that out there.
- [27:01]
A
Very good point.
- [27:01]
B
All right, let's move on. I want to talk a little bit about sports. Then I want to kind of get into more of like your role on the podcast. Go set up there. But I am an avid sports guy. I mean, like, my whole life revolves around health, fitness and money and sports. Right. So I know you have a sports background. Tell me a little bit about your priorities. You know, sports that you played. Did you say you played? Some college ball and what your passions were. I just, I love to talk sports a little bit and kind of get a feel for what you've done.
- [27:28]
A
Yeah, love sports. Growing up, I mean, there wasn't a day I. I basically was never home. Whether it was, you know, growing up in sunny South Florida and Miami, there was never a season where you couldn't just be outside running around. Whether it was playing, literally tackle football in the streets in my neighborhood. Eventually I played baseball. My first sport that I, that I fell in love with was taekwondo. I did karate and then it turned to basketball. Then it was baseball. Then eventually it was football. And then in ninth grade, I was playing, I think in three different basketball leagues in Miami. I remember I was like trying to get onto a fourth league and my mom was like, what, what are you doing? It's too much I said, this is what I like to do. Eventually I got a, like I told you earlier, a sports scholarship to a very prestigious elite high school in Miami. And it was a basketball scholarship. But basketball season didn't start till December. I believe school started in September. So they said, you know, how's your football skills? I go, I might even be better at football than I am at basketball. Let's give it a shot. So made the varsity team as a. As a sophomore. And as a sophomore, I was playing varsity football, varsity basketball. And got the crap kicked out of me in football. Got. You know. You know how in basketball, like, if someone's too little, they're like too small? Whatever. I was too small, but I was fast. But by the time I was a senior, I was a captain of the football team. I was MVP of the football team. I was captain of the basketball team, MVP of the basketball team. I was getting my stats in football. I led the county in receptions. I was all county and football. And I ended up getting a football scholarship to the small school in North Carolina. I had other schools to check. I just. Despite me going to a college prep school, I had no clue what I was going to do and ended up going to this small school in North Carolina, Greensboro. Played football. And first time, first time I got in on a game, it was a third and eight and run a ten and turn. Caught the ball, got destroyed by the linebacker. You know, I led the county in receptions in my division in high school. And all the hits I took in high school paled in comparison to me getting just slaughtered by this linebacker from some school in North Carolina. Just ate me up. And I said, I don't know if this is for me, bro. But continued to stay there, played school there. Ended up not necessarily wanting to stay back at school. Cause I'm from Miami. Was. I ended up sort of as a student athlete playing for the basketball team. Like, not officially, but like, unofficially. I was like, all right, let me get back into the basketball. I transferred to Florida State. I walked onto the football team there. I said, you know, what's the likelihood of me actually getting any playing time? Here they go. No, you'll get some playing time, but in four years from now when you're a senior, until then, you're going to be a crash test dummy and get the crap kicked out of you. So I said, that doesn't sound like fun, but that was sort of the end of my college career. But I ended up playing basketball at the. In Florida State, if there's any Florida State People out there to the Leech center and I would play in the most competitive leagues over there. And I was a damn good point guard, played for basketball there. Ended up trying out for the Nuggets. When I moved out to Denver for the Denver Nuggets summer league and ended up making it to the final cut, it was Kiki Vandaway who was the gm, if you remember who that was. And he said, listen, thanks for the opportunity, but though, you know, I had to actually ironically leave for a. A flight to go see my dad, who I hadn't seen in a while. But that was sort of the end of my sports career. But I love sports. After college, I tried to become a sports agent. All my, you know, I, the story that I told you earlier about my NBA friend, that was the guy, Chris Humphries, that ended up marrying Kim Kardashian back in the day. He's the guy that I would live with, that grooms him in his wedding, but played in all these summer league basketball leagues, in these semi pro leagues, in these semi pro sort of football, flag football leagues. I love sports. What sports has done for me is taught me how to be competitive, taught me leadership, it taught me teamwork. It taught me the CPR that I talk about. Consistent, persistent, resilient. You know, Michael Jordan got cut from his high school team, I believe in 10th grade, turned out fast forward. Greatest player of all time. Greatest athlete of all time. Certainly air of Jordan. So that it comes down to resilience. Are you going to, you know, if you're, whether it's on a, whether it's in a game you're down a touchdown, whether it's, you know, you need to win the game in order to make it to the playoffs, whether it's, whether it's anything in life, things are going to be tough and you have someone on the other side that are they going to bend or are you going to break? What's going to happen? And it teaches you a lot about who you are as a person. And to this day I still, you know, we have an amazing basketball court here at valuetainment. Knock on wood. I'm still king of the court here. Even though I'm 45 years old and all these young bucks try to test me, you know, still got game like Jesus Shuttlesworth a little bit. So people say, well, you know, a guy, would you play golf? I said, no golf for me, bro. As long as I can run around and shoot and kind of be an athlete, I'm going to delay the golf as much as I can. So I love playing sports. I love watching sports. I will say this, I'd rather play sports than watch sports. One of the reason that I'm sitting with you here today, Doug, is because there was a time where I think, you know, I said I was in three different basketball leagues when I was in high school or ninth grade. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do athletically. There was a time when I was 20, somewhere around in my early 30s, and I was in three fantasy football leagues. And every Sunday I would watch football. And I was dating a girl at the time. She was like, every Sunday you don't take time. And I, for whatever reason, I think it was like on a random Monday night, Aaron Rodgers needed to throw for 300 yards and he threw for 299. And you know, he the, the play that should have been 300, the guy caught it, but it was ruled out of bounds. And I remember being like, on like suicide watch because I lost my fantasy football league game because Aaron Rodgers. I said, I'm done, dude. I'm done. I quit fantasy football. I said, I'm done. I'm taking my Sunday's back is how it happened. Because, you know, Sunday, you know, if you're doing fantasy football, you're up at 11 o', clock, you're putting your lineup in the game. Start at 1, you're watching the 1 o' clock games, then you're watching the 4 o' clock games, then it's a Sunday night football game, then it's Monday night, and then boom, now they got Thursday night football. Saturday is actually college as a Friday night call. You guys like, you can spend 20, 30, 40 hours a week watching football to what, maybe win a thousand bucks in Finnish football? The end of the day, I said, what would happen if I take all my time and effort and resources and don't do anything to do something like this? So what I did was I took my Sundays back. I stopped playing fantasy football. And what happened was I said, all right, I have my Sunday, I do whatever I want. And I said, let me start doing this social media thing a couple hours on a Sunday. Fast forward. That was in 2015, almost 10 years ago. Look it up now. I'm here now because I stopped playing fantasy football. That led me to starting social media, starting an Instagram account, starting a podcast, joining forces with pbd, doing the PBD podcast here at valuetainment. Now we're one of the biggest media podcast companies in the world. And now I'm Here with Dylan over here, talking about life, fitness, and everything in between. And it's so important that I dropped the dead weight. I got lean and mean, and I focused on really what I wanted to accomplish in this life rather than mindlessly scrolling through fantasy football scores. And I took my Sunday back because despite me loving sports, still to this day, I'll watch a little bit here, a little bit there, but I do not prioritize watching sports. I might play a little bit of sports to stay in shape, you know, you're a fitness guy. But it all started with taking my Sundays back. The encapsulated version of me liking sports. To me, unliking sports. Or at least fantasy football.
- [35:00]
B
Now I get it. I worked for a, a bookie when I was 18. I started bartending, and they found me there because I was 20.
- [35:06]
A
I knew I liked you. We did the same thing.
- [35:10]
B
Yes.
- [35:10]
A
And I run in book.
- [35:12]
B
You know damn well then what it's really like. We're not talking fantasy. We're talking, like real life. Hit with the money and what it feels like, especially at a young age. That just factors more into my story too.
- [35:23]
A
But what happened when you were doing the book? What was it? What was going on with that?
- [35:26]
B
Great happened when I was doing the book because I was gambling just as much as I was collecting. You know what?
- [35:30]
A
I, yeah.
- [35:32]
B
Then we lived in Vegas, and I, I, I had stopped for so many years. And when I met my wife, we eventually moved to Vegas from Hawaii and we started to do this.
- [35:41]
A
Oh, well, let's just go to the.
- [35:43]
B
Casino, because it was very close, just, just for fun. On a Thursday, so she can do a $10 parlay. And it turned into me doing $10,000 teasers for, for about a month. And I said, dude, I can't do this at the end. Let's just not do it. And I just, that was it, about a month. And I, I was smart enough at that point to say, forget it. So I stick to fantasy now, but I don't let it dominate me. I just play in whatever.
- [36:04]
A
I hear you. I mean, for some people, like, I have all my buddies still play fantasy. And for them, they're, they're family men. They got kids, they got real jobs. It can be an escape. And I totally understand that. You know, hey, listen, I just need to cool off. That's cool. But when you're in three fantasy football leagues and you're, you know, whether a pass is completed or not or you gain a yard is really. That dictates your mood. That's when it becomes a problem. Nobody I know in life says, how'd you make your money? How'd you find success? Fantasy football, bro. I get it. I figured it out, right? Yeah.
- [36:34]
B
I wanted to bring the sports up. One, because I was just curious because I'm such a fan. But two, you touched on it, and it's how it relates to everyday life. And once again, that word perseverance and overcoming and challenging yourself and figuring out ways to win. And I'm not saying to be an obsessive winner. I'm talking about how do you overcome circumstances. And winning in life is all about overcoming everything that comes in front of you. Because I don't care how great things are. One day in the blink of an eye, something happens and something comes up, there's a problem. I always tell everybody, you went to bed one night and you woke up and you got told, you can't leave your house, and you can't do this and you can't do that. You didn't know it was coming. So anything can happen. Anything. And I. I think preparation. Look, I'm a very biblical guy. I'm a very spiritual guy. And. And if you're not school anybody, I always tell everybody that. But God always says, better be ready, because you don't know when it's coming. And so one of the things that I try to do, and this is for everything in life, is just be ready for anything. And just because something's going great one day, that word that I despise is called complacency. And minute that you get complacent is the minute something bad is about to happen. It's inevitable. You gotta be ready. I'm not saying be a psycho and be, like, freaked out all the time. I'm just saying be ready. What do you.
- [38:02]
A
What is it? What is it when luck is when preparation meets opportunity? Yeah. You never know. You never know what's going to happen. I have a good buddy here in Miami, shout out to my boy Gil. He's a. He's a rock star. He's a singer, but he's. He's unknown. You know, he's in a band. I see him grapple with, you know, having a good time, going out, you know, having a beer or two, what have you, or going to bed early, keeping his voice right, you know, for the last, I want to say, like, year, he's really been on the right track. And I said, you never know what's going to happen. Boom. And you never know what's going to happen at Any moment. At any moment. At any moment. He's like, man, you know, I've been. I've been. I've been practicing, I've been singing. I've been just doing my thing. I've been working hard. I haven't been going out. And boom. An opportunity comes in for him to perform at Lollapalooza. His band gets picked up. Now an agent that wants him and his band to tour all over the world. I said, because that's because you stayed ready. It would have been so easy to be a typical rock star and party and do drugs and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But this is your one shot. He's not a spring chicken, you know, he's. He's in his 40s. And I said, this opportunity comes, you cannot let it pass you by. You gotta be ready no matter what career you're at. He stayed ready. And I'm so proud of the freaking guy. But there's countless opportunities like that. There's countless stories like that that at any given moment, someone says, hey, I need. Need you to fill in. I mean, Tom Brady, we're referencing him for the third time. Tom Brady was the backup for Drew Bledsoe. He stayed ready. They put him in the game and it delivered his team a Super Bowl. And now he's the. He's the goat. Greatest football player of all time. It's cause he wasn't supposed to play in that game. He wasn't supposed to be there, but he stayed ready. So there's countless examples of that, of staying ready. What do they always say? That proper preparation prevents poor performance. Ppp. So practice doesn't make perfect. Proper preparation. Proper practice makes perfect or prevents poor performance. So I'm right there with you, Dylan. Staying ready.
- [39:57]
B
I'm from Iowa, but I was a Big Ten guy, and I remember going to games, he wasn't even a starter. He split time with Drew Hansen. They didn't even start.
- [40:05]
A
True.
- [40:05]
B
Imagine having to be ready to go in and then sit right back down and don't know when you're going back in. Be cold. I mean, there's. I don't know that there's a better example of that. It's a perfect example. So I'm glad you bring that up.
- [40:17]
A
Oh, yeah, he's the goat for. For a reason.
- [40:19]
B
Okay, so I want to talk to you now about different aspects of where you're at today. I want to talk to you about what it's like to work with PBD and have somebody like that to, I guess, really learn from and look up to. I don't care who we are. We all have a mentor, somebody that helps us, somebody we go to, advice, somebody everybody needs that I believe that you can just lean on a little bit and that you can trust. And you know, I do a lot of that through prayer. But I do have a mentor I go to for pretty much anything, especially health related questions where I'm at a loss and I always tell people, I won't you. I know a lot, but if I don't have the answer, I'll get you one. But I'm going to go get you the right one. I'm not going to fake it and fake the pump face. So tell me, is, would you consider him a mentor to you? And, and if so, or if not, who would be? And then what is it? Just kind of like learning from him and different aspects of life and what are the types of things that you do pick up and learn from him that are the most valuable to you?
- [41:21]
A
Yeah, well, 1 million percent. Pat is a mentor. He's a friend. He started off as a colleague. He's, he's like a big bro. He's almost kind of like a father figure in some capacity. He's just that dude. Pat's been battle tested. He's been around the block. It's kind of hard to say, Stop it, Pat. You don't know what you're talking about here. Now, on the podcast we'll have, you know, minor disagreements, but in real life, I will never talk back or like, try to marginalize what he does just because every I've seen him do it. It's not like he came from money. He came from, you know, born in Iran, made in America, 1.8 GPA, but put in the work, much like, you know, rest his soul. Charlie Kirk didn't go to college, just read a gazillion books. Came a leader, became a man of faith, became a family man. And it's someone that I think any of us should strive to be because it's, you know, 80% I think of millionaires are first generation millionaires. So when you see someone like Pat do it, anyone could do it. There's nothing, there was nothing like, as Pat always says, there was nothing that you could have that he could have seen in him, that he would have been, you know, nearly a billionaire at this point. But for me, it's always, it always a mentor doesn't always need to be like, you suck. I'm great. Let me show you the way. Right? It's always just, you Know, where are you at now and where you're trying to go? Pat always talks about mountains to climb. My big. Before I even really started working with Pat on a daily basis, I had a mentor. He brought me into the business. He showed me the, showed me the ropes of finance and insurance and all this. But he wasn't like a leader or anything like that. He just showed me business wise. And I always said to myself, I said, one day, you know, every, every dream always starts with one day, I'll do this. I said, when I was a broke, broke kid, just graduated college, that was a jack of all trades. I said, one day I'm going to be a millionaire living in a penthouse, high rise, downtown Miami, and I'm going to know everybody in Miami and I'm going to be the man. And you know, I said that when I was 22 years old, fast forward, I'm 35 years old, I'm living in a penthouse in Miami, you know, made my money, life's going good, you know, gorgeous girlfriend, the whole deal. And Covid happened, obviously it was tough for, for a lot of people, tougher challenges. And Pat and I were talking about teaming up. He said, what's your goal? I said, well, I'm kind of like living my goal right now. It's kind of cool, you know, I have this opportunity, opportunity to work with you and life's kind of going my way. I said, what's your goal? He goes, my goal. I want to take over the world, man. I want to take over the world, but not like in a psychopath way. In like, I have so much to give and I have so much to offer the world that I want to spread my message of capitalism and entrepreneurship and love of America and everything we, we stand for here at valuetainment. I want to spread that over the world. I want to take over the world. And I now we talk about, you know, the future looks bright on the hat here, everything that we do here. And I said, man, I just wanted to be the man in Miami. That was my goal. He's like, you got dream bigger, buddy. We're trying to take over the world. I said, okay, great. Sometimes it, you know, you might think you're here, but you see somebody that sees your capacity to go much further. So some people are underachievers, some people are overachievers, or some people are achievers. You know, I, I always say, you know, that one of the greatest lines, I always say one of the greatest lines in a movie was in Bronxdale and an opportunity to spend a lot of time and even interview Chaz Paul Mater, if you've ever seen that movie. And the movie says the saddest thing in life is wasted talent. We all have talents out there, and nobody wants to look back in their 80s or 90s or whenever they're a hundred years old and say, I regret not doing this. I regret not doing this. So PBD inspired me to say, yeah, you're doing okay. You're doing good. You can do better. And I'm so grateful that he took me under his wing, and now I get to learn from him every day.
- [45:08]
B
One of the biggest fears that I had had, I don't anymore, was what you just said, waste talent. Because I feel like that's one of the gravest sins that anybody commit is wasting talent. You know, when you lose time and you realize you can't get it back, and then you factor in that's talent that you wasted because you could have been utilizing it in a. In a manner that it was intended to be used. And when it's given to you, there's nothing worse than wasting it. And I, you know, look, nobody's perfect. We make mistakes throughout life. But once you start to make them and they start to compound, and they compound, and you're not taking accountability for it, and you're blaming everybody else, and you're doing this. You wake up one day and you're like 55 years old, and you're still doing the same damn thing you were doing. Talking about the same stuff, complaining about the same same things. Never made a change, never tried anything, never did anything. If you don't take a risk, and it has to be a calculated risk. I'm not saying just go be evil and be a nutback, but I'm saying take calculated risks. Some are going to hit and some aren't, but when they hit, it's going to eradicate the M. You'll never even remember the Mrs. Expired from, just not making the same mistakes again. But they'll be one airing out the other. And I think that the mindset is everything when it comes to all that we do. And it seems to me, as I've watched you, that your mindset has changed over time on what you see and how you see it. Like I said earlier, I found you to be very fair, even with your own. Just like I have my own, my cognitive thoughts and beliefs and whatever they may be. I would do this thing, and I taught my wife that. She'd be like, why are you staying that? You know, because we're not LeBron fans. And I'll say, look, I don't like the guy at all, but I'm going to be fair. When I'm giving an accurate assessment about somebody's talent or what they do, doesn't mean I like him. Doesn't mean that at all. I used to be like that with Draymond Green. I'd tell her, I'd be like. Got her into sports with me, heavily watched everything. Well, why are you giving him credit? I said, because he's cursed. Doesn't mean I like him. Doesn't mean I like him at all. But you can't. You can't go through everything with the bias on everything and not be there. Otherwise, you're just like the next person that everybody else is talking bad about. So talk to me about how you've kind of evolved, you changed your mindset. If that has come from just personal experiences that come from being on the show and listening to other people around you. But why. Why is it that you seem to be the most rational to me on the stats? That's what I'm saying. Aside from who clearly has that effect on you. But, you know, I. And I love the people on the set. I love Vinnie, but he's just. I mean, when he gets into it, it's like there's no. No rationale. I'm looking at the other end of the spectrum, and I like fairness, I guess, is what I'm saying. I. Look, I have the same beliefs, and I think some of these things that go on are so insane that I asked myself if we're living in the fucking Twilight Zone. But it's. It's the way it is right now. So how do you stay even keeled? How do you stay fair? How do you do that? Especially when you got other people around you that maybe aren't that are your friends?
- [48:18]
A
Yeah, well, it's. I'd be lying. I said, if it just comes naturally to me. It doesn't. You know, before I started with valuetainment, EBD said, I want you to read a book. It's called Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. And it was all the basic premise of stoicism. The good things are going to happen to you in life and bad things are going to happen in your life. And what do they say that life is 20% what happens do 80% of how you react to it. So life is not fair. You know, the. The. One of the. The least attractive dispositions or character flaws that people have these days are victim men well, it wasn't fair that I wasn't do that. I didn't have this. Well, why does he get to do that? Well, life's not fair. And we all start at different places in life, and it's not where you start, but where you end up. And if you're willing to work hard. Charlie Kirk taught me this. He said two of his favorite words, four letter words, are work and earn. And if you earn the right to have a seat at the table, if you earn the right to have an opportunity, if you earn the right to, you know, there's no denying that you put in the work. There's been times where I've emotionally reacted to certain situations and paddle pulled me inside and said, why'd you act that way? Why would you. Why would you respond that way? I said, you know, what could you have done differently? You know, like in sports, you watch game film, Draymond Green, right? And I said, maybe I'll take a deep breath. You know what? Let me give that person benefit of the doubt. Let me put myself in someone's shoes. Let me understand where they come. Let me be pragmatic. Let me be a little bit more measured. I. It's easy to be emotional. You know, facts don't care about your feelings, so to speak. But put it this way, when I started the BBD podcast, I'd been in social media for about five years up to that point, right? And it was on Instagram, and it was, you know, encouraging people to be smart with their money and save that money. And kind of hard to hate on that, right? Like, the hate comments weren't as plentiful. You know, occasionally somebody like, you're an idiot, bro. You don't know about money. Okay, cool. But for the most part, it was 90% positive comments. But then I got into the YouTube world and who we, you know, you suck. Fire Adam F. You stupid. This stupid that. I was like, whoa. And that was coming from my friends. So. But these. These comments, a lot of people, you know, online is not real life. And the people. I always say that the. The people making these comments, they don't know you. They don't know what you stand for. They're judging you on one comment that they heard on the Internet. And they will villainize you and dehumanize you and literally call for your execution just because they don't like the position you took on X, Y or Z position. Whether it's Trump, whether it's the wars we're going on in the world, whether it's the financial position, whatever it is. And you have the ability to say, all right, anytime now that we talk about Trump or we talk about Israel, we talk about Ukraine, we talk about these major, major things, you know, I'll open up my phone, I'll go on the Internet or on Instagram, let's say, and I open it up and sometimes like a message will pop up. Nothing will prepare you for the day until you walk. You know, you wake up, your first message that you look at is, I hope you die. Go F yourself. Blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, whoa, I haven't even, I haven't had coffee yet. And you just kind of have to laugh at it now, given the stakes of today, where we're at today, it's, it's becoming a little close to home and sad and it's crazy. But you can't let people on the Internet convince you that you're not good enough, you're not smart enough, that you're not qualified enough. Do you have belief in yourself? Are you, you have that CPR we talked about? Consistent, persistent, resilient. Are you going to outwork out, improve out, strategize, outlast? It's so easy to quit. It's so easy to give up. It's so easy to be a victim. I've learned, I'm so grateful from PBD to kind of like fill my cup halfway because it's so easy to like, ah, it's not fair. Why am I not doing this? Why does this person get this? Well, they worked harder, they deserved it. Okay, that's great. What next? So all of this kind of falls under the victim mentality and we live in the greatest country in the world. Yes, the United States has problems, yes. No, there's no country called Utopia. There's a reason that people are flooding through the southern border, even the northern border, to get to America. There's a reason that we have the longest line of country of any country to get into. Why is that? It's because we live in this amazing place. If you were born in America, you have, you were born with a silver spoon, with your passport, with your birth certificate, and take advantage of that. You know, last point is we just came back from LA two weeks ago, three weeks ago, month, month ago, and Pat was on this jubilee thing. Did you see any of that where Pat was, was a capitalist surrounded by 20 anti capitalists and you know, they spoke for hours on end. We, I was right there, you know, feet away from going on there. And I, if I could Encapsulate what this conversation was. And these are white kids, black kids, Latin, you know, Asian men, women, the whole thing. One trans person, whatever. Pat doesn't know anything about these people. These people know a little bit about Pat, but this is how it summarized every single conversation. Life's not fair. It's not fair. It's not fair. Pat says, I believe in you. You can do it. Just try harder. You don't understand where I came from. You don't understand. Life's not fair. Wah, wah, wah, wah. I believe in you. You can do it. You're in America. Lift yourself up. You can do it. Try harder. Okay? No, I don't want to try. It's just constantly that victim mentality, and it's just so unattractive. So anyone out there, any young person out there, any kid that's out there, just if you believe in yourself and you have the ability to walk, to run, to jump, and you live in America, just keep kicking butt and good things will happen. It might take five years, it might take 10 years. Good things take time, but good things will happen if you have the right mindset. A lot of. A lot of people have the wrong mindset, victim mindset. They're choosing to lose before they've even played the game. I wish better for people.
- [53:59]
B
I did that so long where I kept standing my stuff. Why is it that I feel like I'm doing so great at all this stuff and I never get the credit I deserve or I don't get the shiner, I'm not getting the eyeballs, or I'm not getting this. Why is it? And I kept asking myself that, and I think that contributed to my always having to. Well, I got to be the king of this and the king of that. I got to do this to stand out more and do that to stand out more when the reality, it was my own inadequacies and the things that I was doing wrong or not good at, that I gave myself too much credit for. And when I started to look in the mirror and stay to myself, dude, it's you. It's you. It can't be everybody else. It's you. What are you doing wrong? And what is it and why and how are you going to fix it? Just fixed it. Take accountability. Everybody's got a story. Everybody's got some sort of hardship. We all go through it. There's no human that's ever lived without a hardship, okay? And. And I think that part of the problem is, like you said, everybody's got in built in excuses now. And that's been pushed onto everybody. It was already a problem and now it's just been exacerbated. It's a human problem where we all look playing game and make excuses, but now it's just put out on everybody. And the people that make it are the people that, are the ones that have the, the rationale to look at themselves and say, well, maybe it's just me. Maybe this just the way the world works. And I got two choices, Accept it or don't. And if you don't, you're going to be complaining your whole life. If you do, you figure out, yeah.
- [55:37]
A
We don't know what it's like to grow up prior to, let's say, civil rights, prior to, you know, the 1960s. We don't know what it's like whether you were black, whether you were a woman and you didn't have the equal opportunity to men, whether you, whether gay, you didn't have the same rights. None of that currently exists. There's nothing that a black, a woman, a lesbian, a gay, a this or that, the other. There's nothing systemically that's preventing anyone from doing anything. All those rules are out the window. Now if you, if you want to say, no, life's still not fair. Life's not fair. Okay, but systemically, there's nothing stopping you. Charlie Kirk would say this. What can you do that I can't? What can I do that you can't? And the answer is nothing. And if you still want to look for an answer to feed your victim mentality, you'll find it. But the reality is, in America today, the world is your oyster. There's nothing that you can't do if you actually put your mind to it, set goals realistically and accomplish it. That's the beauty of where we're at. Like, if there's something that you want to summarize, America, it's a land of opportunity. And we all have this opportunity to create whatever we want to create. And we can create our own existence. And some people want to live in my truth. And my truth, well, there's only one truth. And if you buckle down, you kick some butt. If you're a young dude out there, yeah, you might be 22, you might be 25. Life might, might be going your way right now. Trust me. Look at what Dylan's doing right now with his life. You didn't come from the easiest circumstances. I know your story. You know, you took some wrong turns, but look at you now. Life's going great. We have this amazing opportunity to bounce back. America loves a comeback story. So no matter where you're at, if you can reverse course, buckle down, and be the man you want to be, good things will happen. It might take time. Good things will not come quickly. But this isn't a microwave in life. We're running a marathon, and we want to win the game at the end, not the beginning. So I'm excited for the. You know, one of the things we say around here is the future looks bright, Right. So as long as you do things the right way, future looks bright.
- [57:40]
B
Yeah. And I want to get into that with you on the future. I. I just want to make one more point, and that is that every negative situation has the ability to be reversed into a positive situation. That's why we're given those. Actually. A negative thing like that is actually a gift, because it's a lesson and it's a guide, and it's an aid to help us to achieve something a little bit better. And there is no human that everybody's going to like. And the more that you try to do, the more people are going to love you, and the more people are probably going to not love you. You said I would wake up my wife, my. My step kids. When I first meet my wife, they're reading these things getting said about me online, and all I'm doing is talking about health and fitness and.
- [58:20]
A
And.
- [58:20]
B
And everything like that. That comes with the territory. If you're going to act, you better be ready to deal with it. If you're not, then it's not for you. But you got to be able to just realize that that's going to happen. If I'm waking up in the morning and that's what I'm thinking about, I got my own internal problem. Right. You know, if that's affected me, when I get up, it's like, okay, great, I'm going to say my prayers, I'm going to take my shower, I'm going to clean up my neck and look good for camera or whatever I'm doing, and I'm going to go roll. Nobody's.
- [58:47]
A
The bigger you get, the bigger target on your back. That just kind of comes with the territory, right?
- [58:52]
B
The more followers you get and the more people that look up to you and love you, the more are going to not like you.
- [58:57]
A
Yeah, well, that's why Pat wrote his book, you know, choose your enemies wisely. You want to have some enemies in your life. You want to have some naysayers, you want to have some haters. What do they say? Like, keep grinding until your haters become your appreciators. Or if you. If you ain't got no haters, you ain't popping. I learned this from watching Jake Paul. And you know, obviously, in life, the best thing you can be is be beloved. You know, I love that guy. He's the best. Everyone loves him. You know, Michael Jordan, whatever. Second best thing you can be is hated, despised. Not like. Okay, because the third option is. Who's that? I don't even know. Irrelevant. So Jake Paul. Not a lot of people like Jake Paul. Five years ago, he was this, you know, social media kid, you know, that was trying to be a boxer. And, you know, I don't like this guy, but what'd he do? He kept grinding, kept winning, kept making money, kept improving. You know, he's took his lumps. He took his losses, but he's been a big, big, big winner. And how many people were like, damn, this guy. Oh, man, I used to hate this guy. Now they at least respect them, you know, you respect what they're doing. Of course you'd rather be beloved, but beyond that, you'd rather be disliked or despised or at least respected than irrelevant. Irrelevancy is no fun. The last thing anyone says, what do you think about that guy? Never heard of him. Because he probably hasn't made a big enough impact. So impact is what it comes down to. And helping others is. Is the name of the game. So if you can impact a lot of people's lives, you're going to have your haters, no doubt. But if you're doing things the right way, it'll all work out in the end.
- [60:35]
B
That's what I love about you. What I love about PPD and what I love about the entire show is authenticity. I have always prided myself on, you're getting what you get. I'm the same dude that you talk to off camera that you do on. I'm not playing a role. I'm not doing any of that. I understand for certain aspects in life that that's just part of it. Promoting fight. You know, you're doing something, maybe a show on YouTube, but with what we do and when you're trying to make an impact on people and you are, you know, reaching millions of people and. And talking about things that are really, really impactful in our life, I think that authenticity is key.
- [61:11]
A
That's the thing, Dylan, with. With podcast, there's no script. I don't have a script here. You don't have a script? We're not reading off cue cards. We're not. We're not reading a teleprompter. It is what it is. If I screw up, if I stumble, right? My bad. That's what it is. You know, that's what. That's the reality we're living in. People are so done with the fake, with the inauthentic, with the reading off the cue card. You've seen so many of those clips where every single newscaster is repeating the same line after line after line after line. So there's a reason, you know, not to get all political. There's a reason that Trump, who's despised by so many people, but everyone else, says that guy's at least authentic. They'd say he's the. He's the most honest liar in the world. They would say, all right. Interesting how that works. So he's telling the truth, he's lying or whatever, versus someone like Kamala. Everything's scripted. Everything needs to be edited. Everything needs to be polished. And I think a lot of people are done with that. And then obviously, if this. The recent election is any evidence of that, is, yeah, they'd rather have the honest asshole than the. The. The lying nice person. So being authentic is the name of the game right now.
- [62:15]
B
The most respectful thing, even to somebody that may be disrespectful, they still deserve respect for being honest and being themselves.
- [62:23]
A
No, Dem.
- [62:24]
B
You know, when they're saying something that they mean it one way or another, you might not like it. What I always tell people when you with me, if you're going to follow me, I'm going to tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. Some people love that and they want it, and some people freaking hate me for it, and they don't want to hear it, and that's fine. But if I don't tell you what you need to hear, then I don't really care about you at all. Not at all. My basketball coach in college, he told me, and just what you're talking about being irrelevant. He said, if I don't take the time to yell at you or get on you, it's not a good sign because it means that I don't notice and I don't think you're worth the effort or the.
- [62:56]
A
You know. No doubt. Well, that's. That's what I learned when Pat was giving me a hard time in my first year. There's publicly, there's privately. You know, we get into it all the time. He goes. He said, listen, Pat, if he didn't care about you, he wouldn't try to help you. And. But he cares about, you know, David Falk was a guy that Pat interviewed. He was Michael Jordan's agent and he was the agent for mj. He was the agent for Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, all the great NBA players. And he spoke at the, the Bolt conference. That was just. That just passed. And I spent a lot of time with him. We went out to dinner. Then he. Then he spoke with Pat. Then we went out for late drinks and we spent a lot of time. He said, as my agent, it's not my job to tell you what you want to hear. It's to tell you what I think you need to do. So he would say, I'm not Michael Jordan's friend, or I'm not Patrick Ewing's friend or Alonzo Morning's friend. I'm their agent. And I'm not going to tell you what you think you want to hear. I'm saying this is what I think you should do. And that earned him a ton of respect. It's kind of like what you're saying. I'm not gonna tell you what you wanna hear. I'm gonna tell you what you need to hear. And that's what a leader does. That's the difference between, to be honest with you, something that I've been studying recently is in between being nice and being kind. You know the difference?
- [64:08]
B
Yes.
- [64:09]
A
You know, nice is short term pleasantries. Hey, how do I look? You look good. You look good. You look good. You look real good. Hey, how do I look? You look like you're putting on some weight, buddy. What's going on here? Right, you know, hey, does. Do you like my outfit? Yeah, you look nice. Dude, go and change right now. You look disgusting. What are you doing? Who wears khakis? You know who, who wears corduroys? What are you doing, buddy? Kind might be hurtful in the short term, but it's out of genuine concern and the gen. Genuine empathy for the long term. Whereas nice is to make you feel good short term, but has zero long term benefits. So I learned that here one week. I'll tell you a quick anecdote. In the same week, a girl here at work who's a is she's here somewhere on Monday she said the I'm the biggest asshole and oh my God, I'm so mean. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And on Friday she called me to say, thank you so much. You're the best. I can't believe you. Oh my God, Thank You. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I go, on Monday, I was the biggest asshole, and Friday, I'm the nicest guy in the world. What changed? And I said, I didn't change. I said, your perception of reality changed is because on Monday I told you that you need to do better, and that's not good enough. And if you show this, if you show this report, whatever it is, it's not going to be a good look for you. So as much as this, this. This criticism hurts right now, you have a few more days to make this right. I highly suggest you do this differently. Do it better, you'll have a better result. Long story short, she cried and went back to the drawing table. And by Friday, she fulfilled what she was looking to do. And she was so thankful. It's because I didn't tell her, yeah, it looks good. Everything's gonna go great. So if you turn this thing in, you're gonna get fired or you're gonna lose your job, or they're gonna say, this is a disaster. What the hell are you doing? So it was a tough pill to swallow. But that's the difference between being nice and being kind. Nice. Yeah. I'll tell you what you want. Kind is. You know, you might not want to hear this, but you need to hear this. And I think a lot of people in America would be better served by people who were kinder rather than nicer.
- [66:16]
B
Yes. Because the people that are kind actually care. I told my wife when I met her, I said, it is very, very, very important that you. That you follow me on this. If I talk too much, if I'm annoying, if I look bad, if my clothes don't match, say it. I will ever do is get mad.
- [66:35]
A
Did you say that to her?
- [66:36]
B
Well, because I. I always want to know from the people I'm around if I'm doing something wrong, so I don't continue to do it so that you don't resent me later. And so I told her, I said, if you really love me and you really care about me, this is something you'll do for me because you will not let me go out and look bad. You will not let me be annoying. You will not let me do these things. And I said, but you got to be tough. And you got to understand, I'm gonna do it with you, too, because I don't want to resent you. And I don't want to live in a home where if you're doing something and it eats me and eats me, and then one day I just Explode, because I can't take the annoyance anymore. You got to be tough with me. I'm giving you the green light to punch me in the face, essentially verbally. But it's okay because it's helping me, and it'll help us. And if you can use that to help you, your relationships, your progress, whatever, just like what you did for her, you blessed her because you helped her. You prevented something bad from happening by something a little bit painful in the front to bring in a ton of joy at the end. Yeah.
- [67:34]
A
I have so much respect for the conversation you had with your wife, basically giving her the open reign to kick your butt. But, you know, it served you well, I assume.
- [67:43]
B
Dude, go to prison. I'm not saying to anybody. I'm not recommending it.
- [67:47]
A
All right, step one. Go to prison. Go on. I'm ready.
- [67:51]
B
But then tell me if there's anything in the world that you could experience worse than that and having everything and being reduced to that, and then come out of there and tell me if you're not well equipped. And then you've learned. Something that I learned in there is, man, if you can do X, Y, and Z, you can do anything. And so what I tell myself, Adam, when I'm having trouble with, can I do this? Did somebody do it else, you know, did.
- [68:15]
A
Did someone else do it?
- [68:16]
B
Yeah. Well, what.
- [68:18]
A
Why can't I look at this?
- [68:19]
B
Like, look at them or if someone's never done it, why can't I be the first one to do it? Why can't I be the one that everybody goes, well, he did it. And so that's just the way I kind of view life now as to where I take it in a way where everything's a lesson and everything's learning. I used to hate that my always tell my dad, everything's a lesson with you, my mom. Everything has got to be a freaking lesson. Well, it is. It is. It's just how it's conveyed and how you take it, you know? That's kind of what I've lived by.
- [68:49]
A
Oh, yeah. Shout out to you for having the wherewithal and the knowledge to at least have that mindset. And shout out to your wife for talking all the trash in the world to you to improve you, buddy.
- [68:58]
B
She still barely does it, but, you know, she's not wired that way. But it worked. Good thing.
- [69:06]
A
Actually, it is, man.
- [69:07]
B
Like, I always want to know. I never want the doubt. And so if you know and you're not in doubt, that's one of those driving factors behind what I feel has helped me to kind of get past the problems I had before. And, you know, it is what it is. Like I said, it's a learning experience every day. I don't care if you're 20 or if you're 80, there's to learn. Because stuff's always changing.
- [69:29]
A
No doubt.
- [69:30]
B
My motto, anyway. Oh, dude, I know you have to go shortly. I can't tell you how fun this was. I could talk to you all day. This has been huge. And I've been looking forward to this. You know, things you look forward to, you never know how they're really going to go. I don't get scared about. I'm not intimidated by one thing. I don't get worried. I don't get any of that. I get excited. I get amped. And rightfully so today, because I. I knew and I said it after I talked to you, told my wife, I said, I cannot wait for this. I hate doing podcasts on Monday. I don't record on Monday, but I couldn't wait. And so, dude, thank you for your time, for your efforts, for all you do. Your. Your whole mindset, it's appreciated. And you don't realize sometimes the impact you've had on anybody. Big people, small people, doesn't matter. I. I learned that over time that not everybody clicks the like on your post, and then one day they write you and you're like, whoa, you know, no, what I told you today is a fact. You had a major impact on what I do. And not that I'm something so special, but, you know, I've gotten a decent size now.
- [70:29]
A
I've seen your stuff, man. I see out there, you're doing your thing. I. I have infinite respect for somebody that just keeps going and going and going and going. I told Pat this, I said. I said, pat, I'm not a sprinter. Like, when you say, hey, we need you, this, that. I'm like. I said, I'm a marathon runner. I said, I'm not going to stop. You know, there's the famous quote from Will Smith. He goes, if you and me get on a treadmill, you know, you're going to have to peel my dead body off the treadmill, because I'm not going to stop. Between the two of us, I'm not. So once you have a purpose in your life and you have meaning in your life, and you know where you're going, you just don't stop. You know, you. You went to jail and you've had a tough go of it, but look at you now. You know, I've had some tough things in my life. I've had some challenges. We've all, we've all have challenges. The key is you just don't stop. And I think in America today, there's a lot of young people that have fell for the victim mentality. They've, you know, they get the participation trophies or the. They think that socialism or communism is the answer because it's. They don't have to put in the work and actually put in the time and improve. And it's just a fallacy. No matter what you do in life, you can always reverse course, turn around, kick some ass. Work, earn, save, invest. I tell people this all the time. Work, earn, save, invest. Work, earn, save, invest. That's in finance, that's in relationships, that's in anything in life. As long as you put in the work and you take value out of it and you play the long game, good things will happen. So it happened to me, it happened to you. It'll happen to anybody in the audience that uses that blueprint. And don't get down when bad things happen. It's just a lesson to be learned and dust yourself up and get back out there and fight and save that money.
- [72:10]
B
I love it, man. So I'll link everything in the description. It's obviously not hard to find you on pbd, but for your own personal. Is there any places you want to tell people to follow you to listen to some of the stuff you personally have to do on your own?
- [72:24]
A
Yeah, anything, Anything on my socials. It's all sauce. Talks money. SOS Talks money. And be on the lookout because we're launching a personal finance and what it means to be in a man in America, a young man in America course in the coming months. So be on the lookout for that. But you can find me anywhere. You can find me on Manect. Manect is our app where you Instead of you DMing people and then never getting responding or never get a response Manect. I think the average response percentage from the manect experts is 97%. I think I'm at a hundred percent, maybe 99. If I miss something. You should probably look into the app. Someone like you that, that does a lot of advisory in the, in the fitness space, in the financial space. I can get you connected with that, but it's free on the app store and you can find us on Manect. So I think the average email or DM gets answered 3 to 5%. But on Manect, this platform that we've built, that Tony Robbins just joined and became a strategic partner, which is incredible. 97% response rate. So whatever challenges you're dealing with, whatever expert advice you need, you can find myself or PBD or Tony Robbins or our whole gang over here on Manect and expert advice for pennies, so to speak, compared to wasting your time and efforts on EM DMs and emails. So check us out on the neck, our value team.
- [73:50]
B
I'm going to talk to you about that. You're not getting rid of me now. I've been trying to get to you guys for years. So it's too late. You're stuck now.
- [73:56]
A
You're in, bro. You're in.
- [73:58]
B
I appreciate you so much, man. Thank you for your time and for everything. I hope everybody enjoyed this as much as I did. I'm sure that you will, but please listen to this closely. There's a lot of gems in here and a lot of things that are going to be highly beneficial for your overall quality of life. So thank you everybody again. Stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan Gelli and Adam Stosnick signing off.