Like everybody here, we can all consume whatever we want so we can fly and whatever planes we would like you know you fly private. You can say the nicest hotels get the nicest. Everybody's got to dinner every single night of the week at the five-star restaurant at the mission star and you can do that for the rest your life but I can get by that skyscraper right there and I can't buy this huge company and so what happens is like the things that you want to buy change and so you create a new deficit for the amount of wealth that you all again. This is just assuming you like the gate. And so like I like
The games, I just want to keep playing
it. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to know, where should we go? Where should we start? Because you do a
lot of these interviews. What what's the fun version of this for you? Because I feel like, if somebody actually wants to know an answer to something it's been published, you got a bloke you out of Twitter. You got it. You got 1,000 YouTube videos, like it. If you're motivated, you can go find the answer. Like I tweeted out. Yo, Alex coming on the Pod, say,
Would
you like another? Like I'd like to know his thoughts on offers making sure off of like, yes, literally his book and I think the book is like free or 99 Cents. So like that's just a lazy lazy question at this point, but I know whenever I do interviews, there's some version of the conversations that are more fun or I'm like, yeah. When we talk about that stuff, it's more interesting to me in that kind of liked me up in a different way. What does that for you? Well, I'll say there's two things that I've been probably focused a lot on one is obviously acquisition.com. And to like what we're doing,
And kind of clarifying the mission between.
Well all the stuff they were actually doing every day and then the other side of it is just that the leads book is coming out soon and so it's tough because I'm sure you guys have had stuff that you've worked on and it's like been on its way coming out and all of your energy is going into writing it or building it or recording stuff about it and then you can't talk about it because I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to talk about all the time until it's like ready to go off. And so the six weeks beforehand is when it's like we all this pre-recorded
I've got like all courses like I got all this shit that's going to, that's going to drop when the next book comes out. But I haven't talked about anything lead related for like two years because I've known because I've been working on for two years for the next launch. So those are the two things that are like top of mind for me like what we're doing on the mozi media, side and acquisition are calm and then and then the lead stuff. What's had a split between those two? So you got media, you got Acquisitions.com, give me the time.
It so given on a given month, you know what percent is a pie chart, what he's spending on the content versus Acquisitions and then also on the money side, like are you making more off the media or you make it more off? Acquisitions. What's this, what's the relative difference between the two? Yeah, we lose money on media. So no we don't make money, I think I think between like AdSense and if you consider Book Sales a part of that but I give the book away for 99 cents actually. Amazon updated it because we re up
It was like some fix it and they wouldn't let us go below one night, which now makes all the times I said 99 Cents, like, people were like, he's trying to get us. It sucks anyways. But no, I think the book does the book does about a million bucks a year in profit in terms of like what it what it makes and then and then AdSense is probably like five hundred grand a year. So it's like one and a half million and that that barely covers the media team. And so that's how I manage the team right now.
We've got ten and then we've got vendors. Are you enjoying it? Yeah, I dig it. It's fun right now. We do I report once said to answer your question, Sean about time split. We do one recording to every 14 days that's like the direct to camera stuff. And then you off, I do a podcast. Like, I got one of my guys here, Trevor, his reporting, you know, our our side of it so that they can clip this stuff later. So are you any adding X Plus 1 one dedicated day. Twice a month. Are you enjoying like the celebrity that comes with this?
You know getting notice and things like that enjoys probably like I feel like there's some people love attention and there's some people who hate attention, I'm like right in the middle. You know what I mean? Like I was I was purposely deliberately not public because I wanted to be rich in Anonymous and I was kind of like the mission for a long time for me. And then now that we are on there, I would say that there are pros and there are cons of increasing, you know, fame or what you want to call it recognition. I think the pros outweigh the cons but there are consequences.
It's like, what you weirdos? You don't mean like work. We have, we have security, you know, I mean, like we go to like, I can't, I can't attend any of that. Like, I can't attend an event. Like, I can't go to somebody's like small group meet up. Like, I can't, I guess it's very hard because I can't enjoy anything because I'll have a line of people or, you know, asking for advice or signatures or pictures or whatever. And like, again, I am grateful as shit to everybody to do that. It just like, it's a different experience. So, I just have to, I have to if I'm going to
Do something I go into it. Knowing that's my experience is going to be, not whatever, whoever's on stage. Alright, everyone, so really quick, a few weeks ago, the founder of HubSpot who seems dharma's. She came out of the pot, he's a fan. Favor of the party comes on every couple of months and we love them. You guys love them. And he told us about this new project that he had, it was called chat spot. It's pretty amazing. It's an AI powered tool within HubSpot. It does everything you could just use your words and talk to it and we'll pull all these amazing reports. They'll tell you about your
Leads. It can forecast Revenue all in seconds, it's amazing. So if you're running a business that requires more leads, that requires creating new landing pages, where you have to make tons of blog posts, we have to pull different reports, we have a CRM, you have to check out HubSpot there, the sponsor of the Pod and you could check it out and used our meshes new tool called chat spot. It's amazing. I've been using it for my own business at Hampton and we love it so check it out. HubSpot.com
Yeah, maybe the online experience dope but it makes the real life experience less different. It's different that City fundamentally just changes with the in-person experience. It's like if I walk out so like what's interesting is that I was able to or have been able to to Mark how social media and like the audience has grown by the number of real-world interventions. I had per unit of time and so like I remember the first time I go recognized public and then it was once a month and it was once a week and then it was once a day and then it was every time I walk outside the door and now it's about five times.
Or six times, every time I walk outside I get I get recognized. And so like I just imagine that that just continues to compound, you know, with time and with distribution. So it's just it's different. But here's the pros, we get the best talent for our portfolio companies. And Frack was not calm, because so many people want to come here. We get them for at market rate or below because of all the learnings that they want. And the other people who are also Pro players on the team, we get the best deal flow.
It's all proprietary companies that want to work specifically with esta. Not trying to exit to anyone or sell to anyone. They want to work with us. Deliberately to scale the company. So like I continue to do it because I'm more rewarded for doing it than I am punished for doing it. But there are definitely, you know, you get weird letters and you get, you know, weird attacks and things like that. Like it's just, you know, it's, it comes with the territory and it's to be expected. And so for us, the pros, outweigh the cons, but there are cons. I remember talking to a Tim Ferriss and
Just tell from the outside but he I don't know if he's mainstream famous or not or if I'm in a bubble, but he's popular enough that he has all these people listening to him and all that stuff. But he went the cool thing about him was he had high-profile people and people who like a lot of people who listen to you, you're like I'm thankful that you listen, I don't exactly want to go hang out with you but you see you at what hexley have a ton of listeners, who would reach out to him? Who are like, you know, like the Matthew McConaughey's of the world or, or some like football
Coach or Ryan holiday has that to where it's like someone who's like a big deal. Who you're like, oh my God, you listen to me. That's amazing. I would, and I would be honored to go and hang out with you. And he had, he had stories like that, and Shawn, and I have had that a little bit, were like some, like, business person who we both admire will be like, yeah, I heard your pot on this thing, and I'm like, oh, wow, you've listened to that has that have you crossed that threshold where you have people who you admire? Who are messaging you and being like, man? What you said was really cool what you're, you know, I have a question about X mines in your like, oh, man,
That's amazing. My Heroes want to talk to me now? Yeah I mean yes, I don't want pretty won't last but like there's been some mega mega influencers who are like followed me and like hit me and they were like dude this is awesome. And I'm like well now I think less of you because you follow my content. So I red flag. There your eyes. I told Layla, the biggest red flag, I had with her was that she was animated and I'm not kidding. But yeah, like some NFL players that I used,
Look like, you know, really look up to like, huge MLB stars, like and like shoot, shoot podcasters, that, that, you know, followed me in and yeah, it's been cool. One of the, one of the reverse situation is what I like, go to, like see I'm like, oh, yeah, how is so-and-so celebrity that click and it says, like, follow back and I'm like, oh shit. But no, it's cool. I mean, it's, it's surreal. I'm sure you guys have had, it's real. It's very well. I grew up like admiring Lance Armstrong. I'm big into the Endurance Sports and what time.
Email and it was like hey just let you know. I love the hustle and he sided with Lance and you could tell it was Lance Armstrong by his Gmail and I was like I don't believe this is really Lance Armstrong if it is, here's my phone number. Call me right now and he called me within like three minutes and I was like, he Paul they go Sam. What's going on? And I was like, Lance, is this really youthful troops? Yeah, I had a couple other athlete.
It's holler at us and I remember thinking like growing up playing sports, I would have kill to have a complete like this recognized me and I could never achieve the athletic greatness enough for them to acknowledge me. Oh my talents. And then now you just take this total like outside path and you get to her. Like one time we had like this is really weird but like the lead singer of Linkin Park. Mike. He like tweeted out that he likes our pod and the hostel whatever and I was like oh that's sick. Like I never would have wanted to have met you but there's no way
Could have gone down Miss normal path. But if we went this weird way, we finally kind of met and I found that to be very strange and awesome. Yeah, it's sort of that be so good. They can't ignore you as a general advice for life, like, whatever you want is on the other side of you being so good that you can't be ignored and anything things, and at anything and also like it doesn't have to be. I think that's kind of what you're saying, Sam, it doesn't have to be the thing, you expect, right? I'm like, oh, you want
You know, you want to meet Warren Buffett someday. You don't have to be a stock picker. That's not as probably actually the least likely way that Warren Buffett's going to want to get a want to know you. And in general, you shouldn't really pick based on what they want. You should just pick based on the thing. You can actually get so good at that. You can't be ignored and it's hard to do. Obviously, that's hard to do, but it's like more of the, it's more of the right guidance than than many other bits of advice you could take, as far as like a North star, for how you're going to like, you know, what, you're going to go for.
Right. Exactly. And so anyway, it's called that we're all kind of like seeing that in reality want to come true. Are you enjoying acquisition.com? Because I know when we first talked to you, I think you are maybe only a year or two years and you're relatively new. I think you had just sold. Jim launch. Are you happy with like, is it what you thought it was going to be and do actually, like doing. And by the way, explain, what Acquisitions? Yeah, what that is? Yeah. It's
Adopt a common reason I emphasize that is because there's somebody bought Acquisitions plural.com, and it's just a not b, not me, it's different. But acquisition.com is our portfolio companies and
So I'll give you the the tldr 92nd cell. I had a chain of gyms took that license. The IP 25 thousand locations start us up on company to sell through their distribution base and then sort of software company. We exited all three of those companies. In 2021, we taken out 40 million in distributions prior to the exit, we sold forty, six point, two million. And the software company I did separately are sold separately and strategic Giotto is all stock. And I said it because you guys are probably laugh because like, I agree were like a Google Docs. Remote has a net worth, and it says 15.
It's like why I sold the company for 46. I'll cash. So, like, I don't know where you got that and really, really do that and get that money is because it was making money. So so anyways, that was pretty much 2020. Once we closed a simple Route, 20,
If they're six cameras, who was one of those days it was right around Christmas tree for it's Christmassy. That's the was Christmas Eve. We is we closed and then we started out was there's knock on the next day. And so that was when we like we made our kind of Declaration at that point though. It already made me three minority Investments that had done really, really well. And that's why I wanted to make that kind of my next big thing. If you started it the next day that means you kind of had this idea cooking. So what was the, what was the Genesis? Why did you why did what made you realize? Oh, this is what I should do next. I should buy these.
Already stakes and in companies like the one I just built, and I should get this domain name, which I assume you had to buy. So, how were you so ready to do that? What was the thought process? So during covid because obviously gyms were affected by covid. You know, we took a hit, but we took a major hit your still profitable, but it was a, it was a big, you know, it's hard and so to kind of get some space because there wasn't a lot like I couldn't do more. You mean, it was give me like a
Obviously we, you know, we push these harder, but like I was all above the business enough that there was nothing I wasn't going to do anything, right? And so I try to just needed to take my mind off things. And so by happenstance, a guy who owned a photography, a single photography studio, made his move on my calendar and in the first and this is not how you do this at. Everyone's like do not do this, but I was actually still taking some calls for Alan because I wanted to do something like testing and this is before I had a big bread. So I was just kind of like,
Founder talking to customers to get an idea of what was going on. But she knew me enough from just like, I'd written a small book in the gym space 200 much secrets that he had read that book. Well, I loved it applied it to his photography business, and she took a sales call through my software company because he knew, I was taking the calls. And so, he hopped on and was like, I had no interest in your software, he's like, what could you, please give you 20 minutes? And I was like, sure, man. Alright, I just liked his Vibe. And so, anyways, we ended up doing a deal and so, we took him already present in the business.
And that business I think had done 1.6. They were doing 1.6 million a year at a single single location which is pretty awesome for a tiny like photography studio and he had I think he had taken and this isn't all the book clearly cause there's a million things but you taking some of the concepts and German speakers book applied them and it had grown the business a lot and he had an agency for photographers to kind of like do the same model for that. Right? And so we were having a conversation and he was like yeah I did exactly what you said and all the
Photography studios add four hundred thousand a year, the top light, when they use our thing, I was like they add four hundred thousand years, I can only average. It's like okay, how much are we selling this thing for? And I use these like pennies and I was like, okay, so let's not do that. And let's open them all and so that kind of pit. So he actually in this is where, like, the trust factor of what, like the inbound you upload. Just what I love about a concern that calms. We have a lot of trust and so we actually shut down a business that was making it.
I think 500,000 a year in profit that agency side and shut it down to zero because he, like believed that he believed me enough to go all in on this other direction of private ownership of all the locations. All right, there's this amazing book called getting everything you can out of all, you've got, I read it a few years ago and it changed my life. And the reason I loved it was because it basically talks about how to get and make more money using things that you already have. Coincidentally, today's podcast is brought to you by
Business Made Simple. It's a podcast by Donald Miller who I'm gonna tell you about in a second, but he has this amazing episode. That's all related to this book. The things that I learned in this book, it's called how to make money with what you already have. It's an incredible episode talks about all the stuff that I learned in this book, The Host is Donald Miller. I didn't know who Donald Miller was up until recently, but over the last 12 months, this is totally by coincidence. It was all separate people. They said you have to check out dr. Miller he's amazing. So I'm happy that he's part of how spots podcast Network. You can check it out. Business Made Simple.
Podcasts. It's where he coaches you and how to build your business like an airplane where the cockpit is your leadership. The body is your overhead. The right engine is your marketing. The left engine is your sales. You have to check it out. This guy's amazing. It's called business Made Simple with Donald Miller.
Do you ever wake up in the morning and dread the day or struggle with feelings of discontent? We all have. That's why I'm excited to share with you a new podcast called practical stoicism every Saturday morning, host Tanner Campbell, examines the ancient texts of stoicism and delivers practical takeaways that you can use to find a more fulfilling life, stoicism practice by Kings presidents, entrepreneurs and more, but don't be intimidated. You can benefit and learn from the principles of stoicism just like George Washington and Adam Smith did.
We highly recommend checking out, Tanner's episodes with Sentara Gonzales about wisdom, unlocked, Association, based program, that helps inmates transition to a stable life outside of jail. So if you're interested, you can check out practical stoicism on Apple Spotify or wherever else you get your podcasts. And so as of today and that was 2020. As of today, we have 36 locations in that business, just 30 plus million a year and it continues to grow by one.
Or two locations every month. And so, what's, what's that business? Due in June it? Varies. Its children photography, right, dude? That's insane. And you. So, when we last had you on, I saw, I went to website and I was like, okay, cool, what, what are the Acquisitions great? What are the would they acquire? And I saw basically like an enchanted fairies, and I was like, okay cool, they're doing like that of the gym launch Playbook on this other space. That makes a lot of sense. And if I go there today, there's still the same company. So, how come you're not putting a new acquisitions up there?
Jim you've made a bunch of Acquisitions like, you know, in the last 24 months or whatever. Why not put new companies out there, you're pretty open about other stuff but in this case you're not putting them up there. And then also I let's start with that. Yeah, main reason. So there's two big reasons why we're now public the Acquisitions. Number one is that it's my brand has, grown to such a degree that like, if I say, hey, this business is awesome and it and it has a national about like Enchanted, fairy
He's is less of a you know like unless you're in one of those 30 Market than also, my audience isn't like moms with kids so like it's it's you know, it's arms-length enough that it doesn't affect the business. But as you can imagine a lot of the businesses come to me or business services and their, you know, their National their International whatever companies. And so like me endorsing a company would 5 10x the company overnight. And so that comes with a couple things one is that I haven't. Negotiated those deals with a brand endorsement excluded. If I include a brand endorsement, then I own majority.
I'm not going to like, I'm not going to risk my face on something I can't control. And so these are our most of the most of the Investments. We have our main artery, we do have a majority investment as well, but that was one that came in as a minority and then I just bought more of excel of the business and it was up our wheelhouse. The second thing is that if we were to exit those businesses and I had to have an endorsement in a minority position, then guess who has to go with the deal me.
Right. Like I would as an acquirer. If there's some massive influencer that's associated with the brand like teeth are getting out in a deal and so our whole goal is to build value in the in the business so that the business is sellable. And we're Bible and we use my face to bring deals it. And so that's why I've been really, really tight-lipped about the businesses. How many deals have you done so far? We've did not right now. We have 11 probably companies. Is it all your own money? Are you raised a fund? That's all.
Private saw my damned. So you're going all in on this. And so I asked you originally, are you happy with how this is working now? Is it what you thought it was? What's it going to say? No. Well, yeah, I could feel like, well, he's like, well, I didn't realize like this is actually just a, mostly, a due diligence game, and I don't know if I love testing. Mean, what's the worst part about? It was something you didn't kind of was a downside to being fully respect upfront. So
I think there's like knowing something and then experiencing it are to kind of separate things until I like, I know that in a minority position we have to you soft influence to try and move things forward. I know that but I would say that the most difficult part is is is half listen to advice.
And so I'll give you an example. So if I say, hey, we think that this operator your business blows and we need a new operator person says, okay, and then we find the new operator and they hire the new operator, but then they don't fire the old operator.
Like what the fuck? Right? Very hard to win at that point, right? Instead. Well, I list so like it's kind of like, listening to half of someone's died device. It's like, yeah, I'm doing the cheat days for rushing the cheat days. It's like yet but there's the their days that you're in a deficit. Yeah. But you said cheat days. Raise your baton was like, yeah, but you also need a deficit you know what I mean? And so it's it's listening and completeness and so I don't know, we may move to like because like the business that I would say transfer
Only that I enjoy the most is the one that we have complete control. And so we bought majority of that business and we were growing that one like gangbusters and at the speed to action is so much faster. That being said, you know, we've you know, I would say like the biggest wind we have been coming to came to us at 16 million the year before they did 50 last year, 20 million. And even since the biggest company that we have a boy, oh, we've had your the, the enchanted fairy. This is obviously one that, you know, did that at to wish.
Speedo combining the two things though, the pacing to an athletic month, right now or 2.7, something like that. So we have seen that a big ridiculous deal, right? Like, I had a friend message me, that was like, dude, her moseys Playbook is obviously amazing. But he's like this deal that they offered us. He's like, I don't know who would take this and I, you know, he's like, there's he's, I don't know if this is actually the deal or not, but he's like basically was like, no money. We give you, no money, but we get ownership a, but if we grow it above X. So, it's kind of
Of like a I think sounded like more of a risk risk free strategy in a way. But is that is there a standard deal structure and is that it where you're not putting capital in? You're basically saying give us the equity. We guarantee we grow by this much and if we'd all some out of there, some some club and we've iterated it honestly, a bunch of times. So one of the one of it, so this is a, it's your question Sam. I probably even more pointedly another getting into it. One of the hardest things about like the investment cycle is that when you're making
Product, right? You're trying to sell a service, you can ideate, it create an MVP pitch it see how it goes with in, like 60 days, like the whole like the whole thing Soup To Nuts. You can you can do that whole cycle, 60 days but deals, it's like, you can think of and, you know, and idea for a deal structure, it takes 90 days to six months to close the deal and then it might take a year to Stephen just like some preliminaries of, like, how do we like the structure? How does it work? Etc? And so like, I still feel like we are most
Our infancy in the deal structures that we have. So, like, in terms of no money in there are deals, we put money in their deals, we don't put money in, it depends on the deal. Like the big one for money is it depends on what the need of the businesses. So like we're opening up a lot of brick and mortar locations like we're about to. I think we might have actually close to their tomorrow on a 28 location chain, that one requires Capital open world. Okay, so that one like I know where the capitals going, I see what their terms of capital r let's get up right.
If it's a national base service business. So let's say it's, you know, mortgage sales. Like they don't need, there's no capex like they just need recruiting any goodbyes and that's how that's how sales gets increased. And so, like, that's where that's where does the money, like, where's the money going and was, it used for, like, what? I don't want to do is just like someone got to go buys a mansion in after I read a chat. Like that's not the goal here, like the goal that we're both together wanting to grow this massive thing. And so, it just really depends on on what the, what the nature of the deal is. So that's number one.
But in terms of how we structure them originally, I had won the Grand Slam offer until I'm saying. Now it's just much more straightforward like we were at, you know, we're Equity holders in the biscuits. It's interesting because it's actually gotten less cute and less clever at the time has gone on. Like it's just much more like, this is our deal, like we own a big chunk of the business and we're going to grow it. And I mean, the thing is, is that for us based on my hold Co boss, like I put
500,000 a year in labor into the businesses and like that's if I wanted to do like not markup labor like that's hard cost and so if a company for example, you know, he's doing whatever five million a year in ibadah and I'm and I'm buying a, you know, a 1/3 stake, or a 40% stake in the business like like what are my value that? And how much of that value is going to come in the front in the form of just work that we're going to do?
And so that's where that's where the valuation and how much cash in etcetera kind of becomes more like ordeal basis. But yeah, so the long story short is one is soft influence. Has been something that I've been learning. We met in the future, just do more mature part yells where the founder stays on. Because like what I want to do is show how much more we grew this. I mean we do have obviously someone already ones that are crushed to but like I want to murder this maturity tail and be like wouldn't you like to have 49 percent of something 10 times bigger.
A hundred times bigger and so that's kind of that angle but yeah, we're learning every day. We talk to our good friends, Andrew. Well considering he's done a similar as thing as you. And then we've got a handful of other friends that have done something and they're like, well I got really inspired when I read this Warren Buffett book and that like taught me a little bit about compounding growth. In other people have cited other books, or things that they learned or they're like, oh, no, this is the way to go. And that's what I, that's why I got into this. What about you? What trends
Listen to you from going to this like almost PE model versus just one brand model. Yeah, there are definitely if I were to have already, give us a name it would be like a merge, give a family office and conglomerate because family office in that it's literally just family Mane. Like I don't, I don't have any outside investors and then conglomerate in terms of like our business model like I'm not trying to exit anything, I would like to continue to compound Investments. We have if a Founder apps to lie like meet Stuart wants to or, you know, gets divorced and asked them to create the asset then like we will go down that.
A trout. But long-term were long-term holders but in terms of the inspiration, it was actually because Jim launch has. There's only 50,000 microchips again the u.s. waste and we already got on the phone with 20,000. So, like if you're Mike regime, owner should know, we are probably. And I realized I went to this this little Meetup of entrepreneurs and it was like six or seven people in the hole.
room is doing in aggregate like 500 million, a year Revenue,
and I was all, you know, I think we're doing like mid-30s at the time and
I was like, I was really excited to go because I said, what do these guys have that? I don't have, like I wanted to let you know like what am I missing, right? And we had been there for like three years. We've been mid-30s for three years. I felt like I was like something was wrong and the big takeaway. I had was not that they better systems are better marketing or better at sales are better product. They just were going after be no more like every single one of them to a minute how to Market? I was 10 to 100 times the size and so I said that whatever I wanted to do next was going to be was going to go after a much bigger bar and there are significantly more.
Businesses, the nerd James. And so, that was kind of the big things like okay, well, it's something that can compound forever and that has two, huge town, and so we kind of like walk backwards from there. And then, in terms of like the doing that's model, like we believe that people like build the people and the people build a business. And so, like lay low, you know, when we were 18 months of ideation, I know we're going full circle but like, how did we start the next day? Well, these are the things that we're thinking through and I said lie,
Well, if I were to die tomorrow, what business would you start? She's like, I'll try to recruiting firm. That was like, I don't want to start recruiting firm. It's like huh? I won't like is there a way that we could combine what you like and what I like into something cool. And so for us, like the most Hands-On valuable thing that you can do for businesses. Find a players because if you find a player's, you put them in the business and they grow the business and then that value stays inside the Enterprise of the business. Not hold Co like not the goose but the egg, right? And so for us, we just
We'll treat crazy talent because we light our competitive mode is that we have more influence than it, they do. So, we have a whole culture Community Mosey Talent, where our head of people like continues to bring people, I'd be of tons of people, every single day, they're applying for or fully positions. And then we can screen them, vet them, and then because we know the company a end because we're long-term incentivize, we don't just want to like, put a body in a seat. We want to find the killer that we know that. If we that we, what we want to fill the role W, right? When filled with somebody who
Who matches the culture and matches the skill set of the business at this level. So while sounds like first, I watch runner's there at whatever Amanda mods and they're like, okay do I hire a bookkeeper? Do I hire staff accountant to a higher control dryer? See a photo, I our director Finance like we're like who am I hiring right now? And what does that person look like? And so, like, we've done this enough times to be like, OK, at this level you probably need a controller who has experience going from a minimum of three minute modes and Bray. And like, at that point, they and will
All them up front that we will bring a CFO, whereas transaction experience in the future. So they're not jostle when that happens, right? Same thing, I'm scaling out the sales team, they're all like, okay, well I've got three good guys. It's like cool. We need 20 so like you can't do is take your best closer and make a manager. Cause he's never done this before. So we want someone who's built at least one or two. She'll seems specific to let's say it's about or might be, Abit depends on like, the sale process of the business. And they've got the specs of teams and, like, cool will bring that guy in. We have our clay books to we say, hey, on our interview process were like, this is how we do.
Do things during wine with that. And if we do feel like there's alignment and they can take it, they have the chops because we do skill tests then we can say, hey, I think that you'll match an obviously, the founder still has final say because they have to like the person Rises and work but we do a lot of the heavy lifting because you know, we might take 100 interviews at hold codified, 11 guy, for one, specific role for one company and that's where that labor cost comes in for us. But was he put? Like the reason we took majority? And it took me to rebut majority of the that business was weird.
The entire executive team, we built the entire executive team and we're like, okay, cool. And the fatter is like you know what, I kind of want to do other things to the business. Like I know it's been good hands. I trust you guys and so it was like a very friendly deal and now he just gets checks every month and like likes his life. A lot, and we just continue to run business, which were cooler. There's this really cool video where your with Grant Cardone, and I think you were like in the process or pre process for selling Jim launched in your like, and he said something like,
Rich people sell their companies, wealthy people never sell and cool is that I've sold a company before. Sean is sold some companies before you've sold a company. What's so funny is a lot of first-time, Founders and second third time, a lot of people that whole business is selling but
After they sell, they go through this period and they're like, shit. I shouldn't sell ever again, actually. And you said, you sold the business for forty seven million. You said, you had taken 40 million in distributions. So, in my head I'm like that's a pretty shit sale. Then do you wish that you would have just held on to it and never sold that that company?
No.
Because the person I was then wouldn't be able to do what I can do. Could I do that? Could I see today? What? I hold on to it. Yes. But I don't think I could have done it then and so a lot of the res like transparently. If by it, I got more credibility from selling Jim launch at 46, and it was valued at 150 before. Cogan, so to your point it, well, as a shit sale. But I was done, I was emotionally done with business. I just didn't want to do it anymore. I still own a third of the business, so like
Like when they crush the exit, the next exit at 250 million. I'll still get my hundred million dollar check from that, but I was, I was a much I'd moved on. And my big thing is, like, all my friends. All like, let's be real. Like, dude, you sound depressed as far? Like you're not interested and I was like, dude, I want to do this new thing, know. Like did you light up when you talk with this new thing? And so I actually walked away from the deal during the deal process and then came back and so like yeah it was not like is one of these people give me
A
lot of I'm glad you brought up a lot of people, you meet raised for that, but it off context. It what? Like, you know, we'd end, we didn't 30 million inhibit bad, the to 24 months, prior to the deal. So like you just tell you, if we 6.2 is not like, like, I told them I needed to be public about the number because I do know that the vast majority people don't get it. Um, and that, that is enough to give me credibility for fucking Tick-Tock. Um, but it's not like the transaction itself isn't necessarily one.
I'm like proud of him proud of what we build them to continue the company's growing 40% since we sold a trip it's a they're going to kill on that to open. Now that I also understand how death Works which I didn't understand that. Like again this is like knowing we're experiencing, like I understood that they were being a debt alone. I realize that 80 or 90 percent of the money that they put in a then just immediately. All right, back out. Leveraging, the company's books. I was like what shit? I could have kept the whole fuckin thing and
90% of the money. Not personally, guaranteed, Andy, risk, myself, but without a created, the same story of something that is sellable from a person broader perspective, and I think the answer is no, and so I don't regret the sale. I think the sale was required for that step in my journey. I think that now
because we have the credit but like, no one cared that I taking 40 million in distributions. Go gave a shit. They did matter. Like the day. I sold my neighbors were like, oh I saw you on Forbes? Like congratulations, like I was richer before I did the transaction. I was woke there before that point, but like it allowed us to do acquisition a compass. I don't think I could have my brand was so. So I was still the CEO as far as people were concerned of that company and I needed to have that space so that I could create acquisition.
Shawn would you have done? What do you think? Would you have done that? I think he explained it, beautifully. I think he explained it exactly beautifully and honestly, which is that
Two things. You just said that I resonate deeply with me one. This is the last thing you just said which is to have what you want sometimes you just need to make space and so this is like I learned this through relationships and you're dating somebody, you kind of they're not exactly what you want. They're not bad, there's nothing wrong. There's nothing terrible about it. So most people just stick with it for years and years and years. And then they're kind of like well if there was like a much better option than yeah, like I would feel more comfortable just like
Doing some being single but I've always been very quick to just if I know this, isn't it? I'll break up. I don't need to have another great option, ready or like shown to me to make it real. I know that if I make space then great things can appear, and it sometimes you just got to do that. Like, I've take it, like, when we sold Biba, it was the same thing. I had, I've been doing this thing for six or seven years and the business was doing, okay, at that point and thought like, you know, but in my heart of hearts, I knew this never going to be mad.
Passive and we'd all gone into that business with a basically like yo, let's do something massive. So, by other people's standards, it might have been a good business by all our own mission, it was going to be a failure. I knew that and so it was when I was out with a friend and he was like, I don't get what you're doing. You he's like, you just need to shake things up and, you know, I was shocked. I couldn't sleep. I was like, he's right. Like, I've been doing this for too long. I knew shake things up and so I went into our investor the next day and I just said,
I think it's time we change things up. I said, I need to change things up. I said, you know, if you want to keep going, I will help you hire a CEO and you can take have somebody else. Take this over, I'll give you back my shares. I don't need a thing from this. Like I will do whatever I can or give me 30 days. I'm gonna see if I can sell
Or I'm out like those are the, this is either way in 30 days. This is going to change for me. I've just decided to make space basically tip for something. He's like, well, what do you want to do next? And I was like, I've no idea when he's like, well don't really like you know, usually people when they're, you know, they come to me it's because they already kind of lined up something else. I was like, no honestly I have no idea. I just know that I need to make some space and so that part resonates with me and also the idea of like you like when I look back now and I'm like, oh, like
Before I sold our company if I didn't if my company wasn't going to be the next big thing, I'm just shut it down, literally just turn it off. Take a zero on it and then I just started looking around. And I learned this word akwa higher in Silicon Valley, so people just sell failing companies and then I learned like you know they asset sale 20, you could just sell the code in the assets like wait be there who are these buyers and I didn't even really understand what my options were and so when you talk about basically, I could have refinanced, I could have just refinance based on the business assets took 90 percent of value, I've
That same like stupidity later but like that's like life is basically looking back and being like I was such an idiot and that's how I Mark years of time not by like the calendar days but by number of times I look back and say God I was so dumb. I didn't even understand this. I was sitting on something. I didn't really understand. I didn't really know what I now. Knowing what I know. Now I know exactly what I should have done and at that time I didn't even I wasn't even aware that. I was making a mistake. Well, the difference is like I think that we all us three actually have done where we are tacticians. So like I understand how to
Gross shit, and I understand like you build this page, you do this thing, you write these words, here's the customer, talk to him, whatever. I think the the Gap you have to bridge is becoming a from tactics to strategy and I used to like make fun of all my buddies who are in finance and like dude you're just like an Excel monkey, you don't know anything. Like you just, this is stupid fucking head. Trying to maybe make some money but you don't know. Shit. And then I realized like when they talk about a debt and stuff, I was like, I'm not going to pay attention to any of that because I think that's stupid and then I realized how it starts
And I'm like, oh my God, that's what the strategy. So it's like that's the strategy and that and I was like oh I used to think I've got good Vision, I understand how this shit works and then I realize how money work to live more with debt and borrowing other people's money to do this and like taking money off the table and all these, like terms that I kind of heard about, but I didn't exactly understand. I realized shit. If I'm going to be like, really good at my job, I got to be good. I got understand the tactics. You really also have to understand the strategy, which Alex it seems like you're actually now. Now you get the strategy of
How money and business works. Not just the tactics which the whole hundred million dollar offer book, which I read. I think it's awesome. That's mostly tactical, but the Strategic shit is what you're saying of like, oh you can borrow other people's money and to do this that that some big picture shit. Yeah, without a personal guarantee. So because I'll be wide open down the business because I don't know risk that I was like you are not risking it. Like the business is risking in it. And if you're willing to do a sale for X, it's like, where are you willing to do? But because the business is going to take the risk on either,
I mean, depending on the acquire, but if you're selling a private Equity, it's like I know you have a lot of bigger Tech audience, but I probably have a bigger. Like, I like cert, like I would say everyday business audience. You know, guys who have massive ripping businesses, or, you know, she's chain of teeth whitening Studios. Your me, like, just just those types of businesses. The ones that tend to follow more my stuff and like, that's usually going to be a rollup or a private Equity acquire for the most part. Right. Maybe a strategic, if you like have another big teeth whitening seen a little by you, but like that's about it and
I think I resonate with what you said. Say, I always thought those guys. Like, I like, you know, even understand business. And I do agree. I actually don't think they understand business, but they understand the macro level business. And I think where you get really dangerous. Is when you do both, they both games, like you can, because what they do, the own almost purely inorganic growth, they try and stable shit together that, okay? We bought for companies that do you know, three million ibadah and so now we have publicity but we're gonna have some Equity Arbitrage and we're going to be able to sell this thing actually engineering. Yeah.
A muppet at and then it's just there's just a math equation, like it even matter by growing their businesses but it's like what if you do that and you could also triple all the businesses and they'd like that's when you create these like breathtaking home runs and that's kind of what I mean. That's what we're trying to do that condition and I don't, I don't have, I don't have I don't have a huge need for more money unless it's a an enormous. Like there's nothing I can do. I'm have you ever have you ever feel like Dennis's? I like, how to be rich? I think that's named the buck.
Yeah, we love it, looks like that, but that table a lot like the comfortably poor, you know, comfortably Rich, then you get to like rich rich, super resonated with me. It's like, I'm the, I'm the the comfortably rich but like, not the super-rich not thought, like so ought like everybody here. We can all consume whatever we want so we can find whatever planes. We would like you know, you fly private. You can say the nicest hotels, get the nicest are babies, go out to dinner every single night of the week at the five-star restaurant at the mission star and you can do that for the rest, your life.
You your personal needs as a human being are satisfied but I commute by that skyscraper right there and I can't buy this huge company and so what happens is like the things that you want to buy change and so you create a new deficit for the amount of wealth that you all again. This is just assuming you like the gate and so like I like the game. So I just want to keep playing it. The funny thing is that what you actually like is just playing the game and if you just said, well, I'm rich enough then you'd have to stop playing the game, you really love. And so instead you
Start to come up with like things. You want that in actuality sound a little bit silly. It's like actually, I don't even think you want that skyscraper or to buy that. I don't even think that's actually what motivates you. It's just that I'm actually Peak loving the game right now and the game only works if you care about the score and so you know, it is impossible to put the enjoy that you can't play the game. If you've said, I've already scored the maximum number of points, then the game becomes kind of silly. And so it's funny like this is with all of our friends. It's like why are you doing this? Don't you?
Got enough money, man. And it's like, yeah, but I don't have enough enjoyment. The enjoyment that game is infinite. And the thing I enjoy the most is playing this game. And, you know, I'm so I'm going to continue playing. But in order to do so, I have to, like, construct these silly like dreams that are, I'm not even sure. I really care as much about as far as just playing the game do that was huge and as a side note, it's like if you think there's kind of like I feel like two ways you can create a deficit, right? So one is I can create a financial deficit by saying, like I want this thing. It's costs.
Billion dollars. And so I need to go make a billion dollars. There's might have somewhere, I have more, I want to go the other side is, what I was it like when you ask like, what are you like excited about because I said like, what are the worked Parts? But like I'll tell you what's good right now is that we have finally separated Mosey media, which is basically like my my Laila personal brand and like the cat that we put out, obviously the books kind of fall into that like the courses, the books, all the material we get out to to Mosey media. And so what we originally were saying we start acquisition about cam is that the mission was to make real business knowledge accessible to everyone like that was
Does the mission of the company and that is still very much the mission of Mosey media. What we realize is that hold Coast team. So like RX Consultants are, are people who've worked out our heads of sales who bet on sales? Teams are has marketing, but up Market Apartments, a marketing functions are had a customer success who build that product in Decline experience cetera. Like those people didn't really resonate with making business education, access whatever. Like that was it actually like what their mission was and so we got really clear on what the mission of acquisition talks hummus.
Which is in this kind of came organically, so just like, really exciting for me. But one of the things I've always envied about Elon is that like, every company he gets involved in basically Saves the World. I like what? I like he finds a way to tie the mission of what he's doing to save and world's a even Twitter use, like free civilization, needs free speech. And it's like, boom has admit. How did he take a meme blah for what's that would tweet. Sit and arrogant, dudes, European and turn it into a few? No free speech, or civilization. Like, that's where
A lot of his Geniuses and so for us I was like, what's that saying? And so we have the external gap of like yeah. I want to hit the billion or whatever but I think the internal one is that we want to build a company off of praising up punishment. And so we have this shootings terms of how we try to build things is like you can punish people, or you can praise them and we believe that you get more performance out of Praise. Now, you look at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan look at McKinsey, look at Bay and you look at these massive companies, even some of these huge ones and it's a lot of people
Like man, it's a toxic toxic work, environment is really hard bubble bath and so those are usually pummeled punishment driven cultures and so we want to. And so what's happened is like by doing that, that has aligned all of our hold code team in terms of how we want to build these companies. And the billion-dollar Alex marks is basically irrelevant because like to really win by their standards. We need to build something that's 10 or 50 or 100 billion, you know what I mean? And that might take the rest of my life time. It'll probably happen after I die, but if we
Do that. Then we can prove one thesis which is like people want to work and most environments are set up to punish people and all you do is you raise the bar of what it takes to not get punished. But what happens is people turn out of work, they burn out, they hate their jobs, they hate their lives and I think that there's a better way and Layla and I are going to try dedicate the rest of our lives are trying to prove that and so that is the mission of acquisition not common. What we do with the companies and we can show that that is not just like fluffy stuff. And I think if it were just Layla it be
A woman driven thinking like, oh, it's a girl who sang, you should be nice to people but I think I given how I look how I talk. I can probably deliver that message and it may take the rest of my life to do it, but like I haven't felt like fucking amped about anything in a long time. The last time I was just pumped was when the mission of Jim launch was to take the gym industry from his knees to his feet because the average homeowner takes some thirty six thousand dollars a year in personal income and has like maxed out credit cards and has like 18 days of cash on hand. And I was like, I want to fix this. And what ended up happening?
Things like I was, I was emotionally mature enough, I took enough licks from people really close to me, both clients and employees that I just like, I just needed to put distance like I had 17 different people work for me. Try to start their version of my business. Your, I mean, I had clients try and see, you know, like, start there like because it was a, it was a business based on Consulting, right, as a Consulting business, like once you had kind of models, you could, in theory, trying to be with us now, no one has succeeded.
But it was enough that I was like, dude, you were bankrupt and like, and like on the brink of divorce and used all of her stuff and then like, you scaled, the three locations and sold them. And now your families financially set off. And like now, you want to attack me. Like it happens enough times to your feet and then you kick me. This is how I get repaid for this. That's how it felt. That's how it felt. And so I wasn't like, I think now I can handle it a lot better, but at the time I just like I felt so disenfranchised. I just felt hurt honestly cuz I really poured my soul into
Trying to fix the gym industry. And so when I felt that way we created space and then it just became an asset we own and that's why I was open to selling it but like I haven't felt like that until now and maybe it took two or three years for us to for me to refine what that big mission was. But that's something I can get behind. Like that's something I'm fucking him for. It's so funny. You mentioned the Yvonne big mission thing like this guy. He did it with Twitter too which was really funny. And then while he was doing that deal, these came out psycho Elon Musk.
It's like this woman who worked for him and he's like, yeah. He was like, overpopulation under population that we're at risk of population collapse. It's actually the biggest risk of all and be like, I'm just doing my part and I was like this guy. Yeah, that's a flan done. Like, how did he get away with this? He spun that shit like a. Like he did a small like him. 540 on that thing spinning that to be like, actually actually, I was also saving the planet with that one didn't. I was like
You're welcome. I think that's I think they call it where it's like just like the male male bullshit like the abilities for some some men to just absolutely bullshit their way out of everything and elon's got that like he is the world. He is the world leader in that I think they're yeah, estimate though. Like, in terms of like, because even thinking if I wanted to create a stronger narrative because like I'm already a about this narrative, but like I would just look up stats on working involvement and talk about how like, it's the end of work and until until unless something changes. And so,
It's like we're saving work. Yeah, it's all what story you're telling yourself because it then you'll tell that story to others. And if that story serves you then great, I mean, I think I personally, I think this is the Silicon Valley like, like PTSD or whatever, where it's like, anytime I hear a mission statement, I'm like, just shut the fuck up. Like tell the truth. You want to make money, right? You want your own life value to increase? And you realize that in order for you to get that value, you had to create more value in the world. And so you identified, some people
Needed something, he provided that value in Spades. Whether that was dentist need better software or that's you know, the world needs a social network or we want to send disappearing photos back and forth to each other's phones. Like you know you here Evan Spiegel like if you go look at the original landing page, it's of Snapchat or the emails that he sent to the sororities and fraternities where he's just like the landing page is like two chicks in a white bikini, like kind of like, do it like taking like a naughty selfie, basically. And then the,
A giant timer where like the the photos going to disappear? And same thing. When he's emailing the frats and sororities tell me he's not saying I'm trying to you know reinvent the way that humans communicate actually you know, 75 percent of our brains is wired for images not text and so I wanted to make a messaging app that was image-based and that you know and then you hear him do the the pitch and he's like, you know, for too long images of only been used for memories, but I wanted to use images for communication the way we originally did with hieroglyphics and shit. It's like, bro.
It's okay. Hey, you thought this app was fun and cool. And like that, it might be a hit and it took off in like, you know, these like schools. And because people wanted to get around, you know, their teachers or parents being able to see photos in the camera, like that's okay. And but they always do this, that was tie it back to something where it is a mission. Now it's the d word, it's democratized. Oh yeah. Like we're doing whatever size access to private limos really a like. And then, of course, what does it become right as the
Marketing teams get in there and the consultants get in there. Like, we're our mission at over, is to make Transportation as readily available as running water. That's because that became their mission statement. Sounds fuck. Yeah. Whenever someone's like using, but I want to be released by showing up in a black limo. Yeah, start you and literally the early stories of anybody who knew Travis and Garrett at Uber was like they'd be like, dude, check this out.
Push a button while they're at the at they're like Michelin star dinner. And be like, watch this car shows up and they're like yeah that's rise ball around. I could see where he's at on the map. Like this is amazing. This is my private driver, you know. I summon him through my app and it's like, there's a there's always to me like the disconnect between what I think the truth is, which is a little bit skeptical and jaded and then like the revisionist history story that like sounds really admirable and Noble and like, I personally have just come down and I've landed on like, I'm okay with the
Truth. I get the human nature and we're kind of just Primal animals and it's okay you seek pleasure, you avoid pain, you like status and you. Yeah, you don't want most at us like which Alex is Alex is like mesh. So like you know about Alex maybe it started as like the mission of our company is to get your money and to put it in our bank account. Step are like we're changing our bank account one dollar at a time and we're starting with your talents. I think you get our dollar like
South Park has crack baby basketball league and he's like, someone's like, look, we need a little beaded, pay our babies, our athletes, more money, goes, look, ma'am. I don't make up the rules. I just think that him up and write them down, like 20 open to do because inevitably, all right, I imagine it started with, I just want to get rich and do dope shit. And then it changed to, you know, this pretty Grand thing of changing work.
Instead of using praise. And when did that change, I think it's yes. And so Sean. I'm like I like the bullshit am Etc. Like I full-heartedly hear you on that and I think that one is that the truth can change. And what I mean by that is because it's not like we're not talking about a fact we're talking about truths of of why someone does something and so like why someone does something can change. So like when I started Jim watch I've said this is I was like the mission of Jim wants us to not be prank like that.
Is the mission of Jim launch. But what happened is after I saw the lives, I got transformed from it and I was no longer broke the mission had to change because I had accomplished that mission. So the mission had to get bigger in order to continue to expand that because I'd families relied on me employees said our customers and so did truly become to take its knees knees to from its East towards the Jimmy Dorsey from deceased was feet, right? And so like acquisition.com started with the thing that I was passionate about because the only thing is Passion about was just spreading like good business. Like I love talk about business. It's like my favorite thing in the whole world I don't think about this is a rabbit.
It's about the summit course about business. The concept is like and then I do business in the meantime like I fuckin love business. And so that was the only thing that I felt passionate about. And so that's when I made the mission about. But as we've walked the past, realizing that like the reason, the businesses have done really well for us is because of the cultures that we create and we believe that those cultures for a better businesses and honestly also better working Vibe, like generate really good, bottom line, but also really great experiences for the people who work there and so like I haven't been amped about it. And so like the truth,
Of why I want to go there now. And I see that a much bigger picture than I did. When we started it two or three years ago, I think that. I think your reasons of alt. And so I think that it makes sense. That I think it's both honestly, like I have a Spiegel's personal goals, he was like, he had transferred money, from that person's account to his, to the degree that he could buy whatever you want. And so I think you just think more about it and you're like, why do I want to do this? Because you have to have a reason. Otherwise you just, you could go to a ball of nothingness and so
Oh yeah well I got me into bed. I think the best way to actually learn that we were talking about the last episode we talked about what's the restaurant. John Panda Express guy. Yeah and then and we were like
You know, he he just sells like orange chicken. Like, that's not exactly inspiring. But like he, he employs like 20,000 people and he like, gives these guys. I think he we are talking about, I have my notes here, he gives them all like he pays a little bit for them to Tony Robbins, he gives them like the Think and Grow Rich books and like all these books. And he's like yeah, like the whole chicken shit like that's kind of cool and all but like I'm actually like taking an hourly wage worker and we're trying to, like Elevate them and so I'm like, oh I can get behind that I'm in on that. And if you look at like a lot of non
A corn on Silicon Valley, companies employ like 30,000 people and they're like, yeah, you know, we so tires and that's cool. But I'm really just trying to like, we create jobs and that's very fascinating and that's really exciting, and that's cool. It's better for the economy or like, you know, some of these like really Boring Brick & moring brick-and-mortar businesses. I think that's actually where you see a lot of really cool missions or like if you ever read the, have your read about the Koch brothers. They boasted mean Coke, like, cooking streets. Yeah, yeah yeah, Koch Industries. So basically started with the dad.
He was like an oil guy and then they use the byproduct of creating oil to create all types of plastics and whatever. And so now it's arguably, it goes back and forth of the biggest privately owned company in America and he was like, no, like my whole thing is like, freedom for people, you know. And I want to like teach them that they have autonomy and like, through working here, he's got a whole book on his Management systems and he's like more. So what I'm inspired about is like, is like giving empowering people. And so anyway, when I read about those like older,
Companies actually think that's a bit more inspiring than, like, some dork saying that he's changing the world. One like computer ship at time when it's like, I don't know. Like that's not exactly inspiring, you know, it maybe hasn't played out yet.
Yeah, yeah. It's like a Bill Gates said he was like, when he started was like, I want to have a computer and everyone's like, okay. And then he did it. Yeah. So I think I think part of it is also like, what snaps on the timeline are we looking at? But do I 100% agree with you said like I love like you shot. It has to be good. Basically it shifts from internal to external like in the beginning you do it for you. Obviously you do because you get you get praise instead of punished like you have good thick more good shit than batch. It's you keep doing it. But once the thing that was good no longer like the diminishing Return of the pleasure of more.
He isn't there anymore, then you have to find a new, you find a new goal, like you said, and then anything also coincides with other people being motivated by, not making Alex rich, but by proving a point that we can create companies that reward instead of punished and actually a better returns like I'm Juiced and like we haven't proved it yet. That's fine being busy yet. We want to ask you two questions. The first is around people, you admire. So we talked about the Panda Express guy down are just our own last.
I said because we were featuring there's like crazy. Rich Asians basically was the fat of the episode and then it turns out he lives, there you or whatever. Like you know, you're both in Vegas who are some people that you admire. So I always find this interesting to hear who kind of like stands out and why for, for different folks. So, who are some people that you admire, either past present, Leo, people that you've met, because I know that this kind of like getting famous on YouTube thing, opens up a bunch of doors. You meet a bunch of cool people that, like, you, otherwise.
Expand your circle of people, you get to know through this stuff. So who are some people you admire? Well, I definitely admire and repay turned from an Express because they're a married couple who built this whole thing and they didn't, they never took it outside money and they've owned the whole thing privately their 2600 locations. They do 3.7 billion a year with 27 percent margins and they take 935 million dollars a year in personal income and I think that's only possible because they have created a new vision for what they wanted to come to be about which is about their employees. I am
Inspired by Warren Buffett. You're a man. I mean, I am because of the long-term mentality has and he built Berkshire Hathaway, and in some ways, I feel like he built it, he's like a beautiful life story of like just believing in the power of compounding and patience and like, that's what I feel. Like his virtues are that he's demonstrated in rational decision-making. I would say that for us, it's like, if we can build something like that, but just with our own, our own spin around zest, which is around, Praise of punishment. Building companies that like, we can win by their scoreboard, but we do it our way. So, that's that, the
An angle and I mean I admire you a lot. It's hot, you know just like what we were talking earlier like his ability to see vision and connect to a larger Mission. He seemed you've been able to masterfully do that every single company's been a part of and his track record is incredibly fucking impressive. And you just continue to like, defy the laws of like, what seems to be like normal or possible over and over and over again. And so I think just like I'll be just like stairs into the abyss insist like let's do it. I think that's something that I really, really admire. Yeah, obviously has flaws like all of us do, but I
He also has been really good about like, owning his flaws and being public about that. He's just a human. And I think he may create a new model for how big public CEOs rod and maybe that, you know, maybe we're in the beginning of that world and I think on the totally other side of the coin. I think I admire what like mr. Piece is done from a personal branding perspective. I've been able to get to know really well and
and Jim's Jim thinks really big and has a tremendous work ethic. And I think seeing the merger, like seeing her, all these things are like you on has been able to build a personal brand and you know, in a lot of ways. Like, if you're a fan of Elon you want to buy all of the things, he just happens to have enormous monetization vehicles and to your point Sam about like how they use like yeah, sure, we make tires. Yeah, sure we sell aren't chicken. I got in a lot of ways. I see like all the companies we have an acquisition are calm as I. Give course we transact, we build businesses but like
Reason we do it is this and I think that's really dope. And so that's, that's like those are probably the like, if you were to mix, like, what are the things that I'm drawing inspiration from occurring. It's a, if you look at what we're doing, it probably would make sense to see all three of. Those is three biggest kind of influencers, you got like mr. Beast on person brand side here, you've got Warren Buffett on the investment side and anyone from like the big vision and I feel like those three things are, probably where I draw the most inspiration from it turns into, like our day-to-day and what we try to do.
What's interesting about you is that you're pretty good at your very catchy. So like the whole knees to feet thing is pretty awesome. And then what was the line for your current company? It was reward versus punished. Yeah, you're pretty when we need to beat him, you know, being at their game and we won't do it our way. What you said, we want to beat them on. We want to use their scoreboard but do it our way. So you've got your quite lyrical. You've also done a few. There's like, actually a handful of things.
Things that you've talked about very like casually that I've caught on to that. I really like. So for example, you say you say desert, what do you think desert every day or whatever? Skip dessert, never, skip dessert. And then you also because your whole like dieting thing is, you eat all of your protein earlier on. And then you're like, all right. Now I have a fat and carbs, I, we can go big on those. It like you've done like a few things outside of business that I find, like, almost more impressive or I actually use on my daily life more. So,
Then your business stuff, which I actually found is pretty funny. You also have, I don't know if you've seen the show, but if you Google like there's this, like, 23 year, old Alex, who does a thing where he's like, I'm going to do a bulk over the neck like eight weeks and he has like before during and after photos and like that's stuff. I look at significantly more than a lot of your business stuff. I find that some of your Fitness and diet stuff like a more interesting applicable in my day-to-day life and the business stuff.
I'm shocked that like this a living for like I like I drink about it in the comments with, I was like people like admire are like my way of thinking about things in business and I was like, for a decade. I do that with Fitness. I just don't talk about it because everyone feels entitled to opinion because they have a body.
And I think and I hate, I hate getting into the like, what about salt and like to just fuck off like just what I, you know, I have so little patience works. I'm like, look at you and like if you were more in shape and by the way, no one has been more in shape than me has ever criticized. Any of the content here. It's just like, people were wealthier than you never. Say, should a business advice. Would like about you? I'll be like no one ahead of you ever, shoot them. Well, the cool thing about it is like, I use the fitness analogy ton of business because I'm like, well, it's
Hard. But it's simple in that. If you lift this, much weight in eat like this for a year, you're not necessarily going to look like Arnold, or be lean or whatever, but you're gonna be pretty good or better than where you are now. And you just got to do it for like two years. And you gotta like, be fairly strict about it, so like that's why the carryover is quite fun. Watching you do both of those things and appreciate it. Yeah. I mean, simple not easy. I feel like it's the fucking theme of so many things like sitting this nutrition Mary
Ridge business, like simple to do are simple simple to understand. Conceptually very hard to do. What's the simple not easy for marriage? I think it's risk-reward more than you punished. I mean, it actually comes down to that. So like, okay, if I want my wife to scratch my back or I have to wait until she scratches my back of her own volition and then I have to reward immediately and then she will want reward more and so she will do it again, very pavlovian of you. We I mean, I think we're all that. You don't have fun.
Three things you can do when anyone does anything around you is that you can punish them for doing it. You can ignore that they did it, or you can price after drying it, I've entered the Tony Robbins like everybody calls it and it's like the four, the four styles of being in a relationship exists. I'm like this. I don't have you heard this thing. It's like the first one. Let me see if I can remember it off top my head. So basically he goes you know, first ones like a baby. It's like, I need love. And I don't have to give anything to you. So it's just like I cry. You get
Give, and that's it. Like, you better be happy with that Arrangement. So that's like one relationship. You can have one style relations you can have it. Obviously, like doesn't work out very well. Once you're an adult, you can't just cry expect to be given everything you want and then they're not have to do anything in return because that's baby love. So that's baby love. Then he has the next one which is basically Tit for Tat. So it's theirs were almost everybody falls into so this is probably gonna sound familiar to least two like to an extent and is probably the root of all problems in.
Egypt is tit-for-tat, which is you measure what you get and then you give based on that. When you're, when you're given a lot, you give a lot. But then as soon as somebody breaks the cycle and they short you consciously or unconsciously, they don't do what you, what you wanted. You also withdraw, or pull back some amount of giving and then they reciprocate, give they, they also measure and pull back and both sides do that. You end up with a sort of a race to the bottom. And so that's Tit for Tat and that's where most people stand. And they it's just a cycle that resets over and
Again, the next one is unconditional love, which is basically, I give regardless of what you give back. I give because that's who I am. I give because that's how I, that's how I want to roll in my relationship. I control what I control and obviously, that's way better. And like, to me, that's the simple not easy in of being in a relationship is just going to go unconditional mode rather than Tit for Tat. And then he has like some Higher One which is Munch Munch love or something like that. He calls it where it's a virtual love. It's like I love you even though you hate me, like a monk can be like
I pray for her and love even my enemies and those trying to hurt me and he's like, you know, nobody gets there but like that. That's traditionally what you could, what you could get to as well, is like, you know, the love, like a monk who loves even their enemies and those who got try to cause harm and so that those are the four levels of love. I remembered Alex. Do you ever feel like I saw this video of you here today and now everyone's like, giving you a hard time or they're just teasing you in a good way about like your outfits, you wear the same clothing all the time so you made a funny video about it.
And you go instead of just saying, oh, it comfortable you go, dude, I'm just more darwinian to them. These shorts. You want to go work out. I can go work out. You want to go to rush roof? Yeah, that's that's what he said. He goes. You want to go swimmin. These are waterproof. You want to go. I'll show Russia. He's like just good enough that I can go and do that. I can do. Anyway, I can do anything. I'm darwinian. You're not. I win you lose. I bought the shoes. You had been checked because you you were like the sandals. These are the perfect sandal for working out. Run into, you know like walking through rain.
A
hill or do they like being at the office? And in the comments if I was like, yeah, what's the sandalwood said? Where's the affiliate link? We can't find it and then some dude like 50 comments down, it's like, dude, that's what these it's this brand, the The Nightshade color of this. All right, respect to this guy for finding it. I'm going to go buy this thing, dude. But dude, you ever like, did your mom and dad are like, hey quit being such a douche and we just wear what we bought you because the be nice. Like at what point do you like are you like
This makes proper me and also like a good the brand versus like live a little and like, let's just fuck around. Do you know anything? Yeah, like a good for the brand is actually not like really a salt when it comes to it. Like, I believe that it's like brand comes as a result of rather than like conscious you do me like, like, we were like, so when you think of never skip dessert? I was like, I was making fun of Fitness people, because my original audience was Fitness people who obsessed about like not eating cookies, and I was like, aha, yeah, I really like eat dessert.
I mean but do it in a way that you some six-pack all time so that was why never skips there's always like never Skip Leg Day. Never skip Monday. I was like ice cream stir. Like the Cavs thing is because like I genuinely have started training. I started I start every training session since since a girl told me that she thought that my calves weren't big still like 12 years, 14 years that I start every session with calves. And so, like my calves have grown a lot and so everyone's like Jeanette like my calves were sticks and I
Train the shit. So like, is it part of my grand? Yeah. Because it's in some ways like it's true Lindsey. Yeah. Think they should Lizzy, 14 years of fuel, you gave me insane. It's, the outfit thing is actually because my is my content team that wanted to make content about it because they're like, dude, you're fucking Maniac with this. Like, I feel like people should know this because everyone who knows you like in person knows that like like when they walked in for like almost a year and a half, there was a stacks of shoe boxes and I would wear different shoes.
For a day, an hour, a day, a week and a kind of graduated to like if they're good enough or I can walk around the apartment, then I'll walk around for their day if I can walk around with him for a week and I still like them and most of them never got there. So I have a few finalists that got to that point but like I think I just took obsessed about making things better. Same things like if I do end up doing a you know if there's a good enough company that does no strips like I'm going to iterate the product a bunch of times until I think it's absolutely Untouchable and then I'll say this is the one I use and I can say that I say that with confidence because I did
The work on it for me. I shape. I just hate having to change. Like I don't know what it is. It's like it means that I started my day like not thinking about what I was going to do. So is like okay well if I can create it a setup or a uniform for myself that I can be in the most environment. So for me I'm really never in less than 40 degree weather like ever because I usually tend to be in warmer spots of the country in general. And so like this this outfit goes 40 to 120 degrees and so and I can go to the gym, I can go to the pool
I can walk for hours, I can walk all day. I go to a nice restaurant. I can do all these things because if they need to do it, but that's crazy because your wife who have seen, she dress is lovely. She like this, it's fashionable. Sure. Her hair. Always looks nice. You know what I mean? Like I said it goes 40 to 120 like a car goes zero to 60. Then put it back to this flannel. If it's Jack right here, this thing goes 40 to 120. Once once it's a 16-point 40, I get calls. I have to pay it but like up until
Oh, then I'm pretty much good within that range. And so like, I can, I can button think, like this thing, can go full full sleeves and like, I'm like, that's what I'm in like mask old mode. Or if I go to a restaurant there and fire cities, I can have that right? But otherwise, you know, like I'm in be termed, like we go to the gym, you do me one of the pool. We go to beach, we go. Wherever I'm going to be in Beater mode. You remain in. This is the lowest thing for. I tried a zillion drive it like a car.
Well, my whole outfit has sports mode. People are like process for like my whole outfit us towards mode and comfort mode and whether mode and I can, I can do that. And so, I mean, like I enjoy I enjoyed finding each of these things almost, as much as I enjoy wear them. And I every morning and this is like, every morning when I put this on, I get like a little a little booster. I'm like, I know that I've picked every single one of these pieces out. I have no doubt that this is the best thing for me, but for my day and so like,
Like I know that the brand of white Beaver that I have on right now, I tried 40 or 50 other brands on. And I want, I knew this one sad why I wanted to sit. It wasn't too thick on the shoulder or too thin. It didn't drop into some string on the back, some people like that. I didn't want that, like Peters themselves are thinner than tank tops their ribs so that they fit, right? I think even like, if you're seeing this Under Armour tank tops, or there's like, shrink-wrap ones, like, they don't look good. Like, I think they look synthetic and for me, I think they look like kind of synthetic e. Like I don't like it.
Like cotton better and so like it's just a number of iterations like if I talked about the sure I could sell you a zillion things that I looked at. Like, I mean I just I've like an Excel sheet that like I thought you would have. I have a few friends like that. I'm not as extreme but I like buying a testing like I tell us about, I think shunted Shawn where's ordered? Like 20 the same shirts. What products this is actually interesting. This is I don't think this is like to inside baseball but what products and brands do obsess with and love like in your daily life?
Well, I won't say them because I'm in talks with like hasn't specifically like me to try to figure something out, but I will caveat that with. I think that in general people like my life might be different than theirs and I think just being delivered. It like some people just like sleepwalking through life that like they're always sitting there with their pants that just don't fit, just right? Or always don't have this thing like a lot of stuff. I modify. So like I might like my gym bag like there's a video about my gym bag like I
Not a bunch of them bags and I finally found a bag that I liked and then I modify the shit out of it and like that bag. Now, every time I go to a gym, people like to that bags. Awesome. I was like, I know because I made it for this function and it's great and I love it, it's really good, you know, space. So I think it's more just like, finding the whatever you're 40 to 120 is because maybe you live in Michigan and it's always cold. That's like what your have a different standard. What standard where, what shorts are they? I thought you still wear just Jorts. I used to make fun of you for where I used to wear Jorts but George that. Yeah, the rich sauce.
I'll tell you, I used to wear George because they were more comfortable and I could do more casual settings with them right there. Like always showing up in like athletic shorts here. We just let it just, it looks, it looked like almost too, casual. I think it's a lot of restaurants are like no athletic wear and so, I was like, okay well that's annoying. And so then it went through this whole thing where I had to find like the best short and then while I was doing that, like the ones that I have have back hooks on them so that if I can hang them to dry, I've got an iPhone pocket in there that's built in, so like
Because I hate having to sit and then you take it out of your pocket. Yeah. Every time you feel like it's such a pain like there should be a pocket for this everyone has well right. And there's like a little place that I can plug an iPad, iPad pencil in my shorts, because I use my iPad a lot. Like, I've got cargo on the other side and these are stretchy, but not too stretchy, but they're stretching up loyal. Why do you think what lift Freight you hauling in there buddy? What do you got? What type of what do you think the cargo? Also a mic gummy bears. No odds have this mic packs, so a lot of times it's mic packs who were getting up early
Right now, my mic packs, my cargo pocket, but like I could fit a water bottle in here if I need it. Uber or hotel Key like Hotel keys there. Whenever we're traveling where I use my Nicorette is actually Nicorette. So I'll have Nick ran my pocket if I go to podcast. So I just I'd like always have the stuff that I need there, you know? Well isn't it weird that? I like the best the best way possible van. This is what it is about. These are my favorite kinds of PODS when you find out you know. It's like I want to see your weird. That's what I know you.
Until I see you're weird. I don't actually know you. I feel this is my this is my personal a personal thing and I'm glad we went down this rabbit hole because good I got to see your weird. It's funny cause when we let our check right now, my shaking not going to show you the brand but
I got this backpack here right in this back.
I wore.
I can wear it at like when we travel, I can wear it everywhere and it has everything that I used to travel and I can travel for 4 weeks ago, because all I have to pack is a re pairs of shorts that are identical, that are multi everything, and then I just have an amount of tanks that is whatever the laundry cycle of the trip is that the net zip and I could put one flat on top and I'm good. Like, and I don't even have to use the expansion part of that backpack, which I have options if I need it. And so like and it has a cool
One thing for all my wires, that's flat. So it doesn't take up space. Like there's just a lot of like when I went through a zillion different bags to find that I went through the ceiling, different bags to find the gym bag but like know, whenever I pick it up, I'm like this is the best backup job. You can go. You seem like a clutter-free guy. Like you have a cleaner who comes to your home very very often and someone who does laundry and also, do you own, do not own a lot of stuff. I don't Layla dust.
Right? So like hi. I that backpack and like tank tops. Like I can fit my entire wardrobe, my bedside table, and so, super easy. And like when I was trying stuff on, you know, one of our sisal come and they'll return, you know, anything that that I don't use or whatever. But like I think we're I think the underlying point where there's like Layla doesn't do that at all because that's like that's not real like she doesn't like that at all like she brought really poor always wanted to have nice nice clothes and now that she can, she
She loves wearing nice clothes and she feels good word, nice clothes. And she gets hit by bus the designers. Till I go to the runway things because she she wear like one piece of her wardrobe. Is the entire cost of My Worship, like one piece like a top. What the best way you spend money for you personally like not like a business investment that you know your you think it's a great Roi you get a bunch of joy out of it or it's like dope for you. That is let's say
Your content team and not like something that's directly in the business. Yeah, I mean I would say jsx is wonderful since it's in the southwest so it's a it's like semi-private flying. Yeah. I flipped down pretty good. Oh, it's great. I mean it gives you so like I the only reason we fly private is because it saves. The only reason we do it like and you a lot less hassle but jsx allows you all the benefits of private flying the septic and fucking jsx plug but it's really good and it tickets like
300 bucks when it would normally be like 50. So, if you want to fly jsx from Vegas to Salt Lake or Vegas to Scottsdale or Vegas to Lala, it's 300 bucks, it's nothing right? And you really, you walk up to the plane, you get on the plane and then you walk off the plane. Like, that's it, you know? I mean like it's just like private. There's just a few other people there and it's private flying. In my opinion, has the most benefit for the shortest travels and the least benefit for the long travels because like long travels. You want to fly as high as possible.
As fast as possible. The bigger point. You know, the bigger the plane the better and and by percentage of the trip, you know the going through security and dealing with the hassle, if you have a five and a half hour flight five and a half hours versus like seven hours of Transit, does it you like the days fruit? Like it's kind of like it doesn't materially changed a lot but on a short travel where you're going like sub, I was a sub 2hours. Like you can you can double the length of the trip or triple the length of the trip. I got
in Reverse cut it in half or by a third by flying private and so that's where I feel like you get the highest marks or benefits also the cheapest private flight to the shortest ones because it's by our so that's kind of like when we when we when we go back and forth and usually the only times will five private is if we can't get a direct jsx plane, we will wrap up in a second about last time you were here. Sean asked a question about your portfolio and I want to follow up on it. What's your portfolio looking like in terms?
Of like you're both your private Investments, as well as like we doing with your money. Are you keeping it in equities? Bonds, cash. I think last time you were super heavy cash, if I remember correctly or I'll tell you what. Yeah, that's what it was. It was treasury's. You're like I'm almost entirely treasuries, what's it? What's it looking right now in terms of like a if you could do like a pie chart and percentages probably still have
Treasury's. Except now they're a lot better than before. Yeah, they're probably half. Treasuries. I'll leave a quarter and just like indexes and the other quarter is in private companies.
So pretty simple. Yeah, probably not by valued over time. That that treasury part is going to continue to decline as we do more and more deals. Yeah, I still think that like, I mean, I don't know what the future looks like, so I like I tend to like having lots of cash, like, I feel good. I never want to not be able to do a deal that's going to 10x because I don't have cash like that. Like the the cost egg missing the 10x is well worth the quote inflation that I'm suffering. For the difference between the treasury yield and the inflation cost. And yeah I would imagine you probably don't own a car.
Car and you seem like you'd be a millionaire. So whale has a has one of those H2O electric hum or pickup trucks. Oh my God. That's hilarious. Yeah. That if you have one. Yeah. Yeah. So she was like, I want it. I was like, okay that's actually no, it's not really my role that mine would be if it were me. I would have a Dodge Caravan. I was like all blacked out tinted windows with the TV's, you know? I mean in the back like sliding door as I pull up, that would be more my, my style, you know, you renting you're renting still, or do you own that place.
No, we actually just bought, we just bought a place. We were running for a couple of years and then Laila found one that she was like, I want this one. So like our get it. So I'm actually so we have we just move to that actually are yesterday. Was the first time I was asked by my background is not my office closet, but we're actually retrofitting a closet here until you to be my office. Dude, I heard that Derek from more plates, more dates, I had heard a story. So he basically started the his whole video thing when he was, you know, no one. And he just
It had a shitty apartment and I had heard a story that he is back at the original. Video was just him on a white wall, that he caught that white wall and put it into each of his now, nicer homes or apartments. I heard he took that wall with him everywhere. So even the shade was the same. I don't know if that's true, but I'd heard that. And I thought that was pretty funny. Our, I'm a big believer that like
Derek, obviously knows what he's doing. I just always just want like if I move you guys like my background will change and you'll know that like something's changed my life irritable. He's way more private than you. Yeah, he's way more. Private doesn't want anyone whose last name is Sarah? Um, different, you know, Different Strokes. I think on a long enough time rise and everyone will find out your last name. I mean Lady Gaga try to go by got like you can Wikipedia or name so like you know you can you can find it if you get famous enough and I figured that like we will get Badness enough and so it hasn't been something that I have
The attacked, you know, a ton. Well, thank you for coming again. You, if you go to our YouTube page, my first millionaire actually like the I don't know what they call that video. But you're like our main page was audio and video for a while. Yeah. And it's like a quote of like I've come to the conclusion that I just like to work and I don't like when people ask me why am I working all the time or something like that. But thanks for doing this again and we really appreciate it. No I mean thank you guys for having me on and thank you to the audience for baby-making request, a be back on so I appreciate it.
It means a lot to me. So thank you guys for just being awesome Post in general. Awesome. Well, that's the pot.
I feel like I can rule the world. I know what I could be, what I want to travel. Never looking back.
