04: High-School Dropout goes from Living on Porches to Building an LA Fashion Business // The Story of Magnus Walker

Been in LA two years, floating around, not really achieving anything. And then, you know, more couch surfing. Had no real prospects for a job. What am I going to do? I know I don't want to go back home, but I'm kind of running out of money and kind of running out of people to go couch surf with. I said, hey, I really related to your story because I was on this journey. I was going to school to be a lawyer because that's what my dad did. I'm three years into this, whatever it is, lawyer degree. I really hate it. I really want to make surfboards and your story has inspired me to. If he can do it, I can do it.

Welcome to From Rock Bottom to Rockin It. I'm your host, Eric Gilbert Williams and this is the podcast where we explore personal stories of people who hit absolute rock bottom, then got back up, wiped off the dust, kicked failure to the curb, and now they're rocking it like you'd never believe if you didn't hear it. Live. Right here we cover subjects in business, sports and life in general. If you like this podcast, please share it. These interviews are intended to inspire, to motivate, to give hope and vision. So please share this episode with someone who needs it. Use your Instagram account, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn hand signals, trained pigeon. Send smoke signals up in the air, use Morse code, whatever you like. Just share the love and share this episode. Also, email me anytime. Podcasterrickgilbertwilliams.com Send me questions you would like to have asked of future guests and I will incorporate them. Or just send me some suggestions on how to run a better podcast. Or just say hello, I'd love to hear from you. That's podcasterrickgilbertwilliams.com I know you're going to love today's interview, so let's get started. And with us here today on From Rock Bottom, the Rockin it is the one and only Magnus Walker. This episode is for those of you who, like me, dropped out of high school and made your way through life by following your gut and embracing your passion. Because that's what Magnus did. He went from dropping out of high school at age 15, working basic construction jobs and taking the bus for years as a low income guy to Rockin it in LA in the fashion industry, doing business with the biggest stars in Hollywood real estate deals and collecting 50 Porsche 911 sports cars. He's been on Jay Leno's garage. He has a great documentary which I've included on my website in the show Notes to This episode. And now Magnus is with us here on From Rock Bottom to Rockin it. Magnus, welcome to the show.

Yeah, I mean, I always describe myself as street smart. I always say, you know, these really two schools of education, I suppose, and I'm the example of someone that left school at 15 with two O levels. My younger sister Naomi, who's six years younger, she was the complete opposite. She ended up with 12 or 13 O levels, three A levels, went to university, got a degree in the end for quite some period of time, didn't actually use that education. Whereas I left school, like I said, at 15, 20 levels, and sort of was more what I call, I suppose, street smart. And I think that's kind of a common thread with a lot of entrepreneurs or people that just find a way to do things that they really love. And I always say, you know, there's certain things that can't be taught in a book and gut instinct is one of those. And I rely a lot on what I call gut instinct. It either feels right or it doesn't. Generally if it feels right, it also feels sort of slightly nervous, slightly dangerous, slightly overwhelming. And for me that's usually the sign to press start and go. So that's kind of my take on education. I've never been able to use Pythagoras theorem to figure anything out, but I've been able to do multiple things, I suppose in my life. I Left school at 15, was on the dole at 16, did some odd jobs, generally sort of low level construction, mixing plaster, painting walls, cleaning breaks, filling skips. So that taught me a hard work ethic. And I suppose looking back at my life, what motivated me really earlier on was I was a middle distance cross country runner probably from the age of like 9 to 14. Had some success, I didn't realize at the time, but later on, 30 years later, I realized that was sort of a driving force of being self motivated, being goal orientated and basically being a little bit of what I call a lone wolf. I was never a team sport player. Cross country running, middle distance running, I believe is really a solo sport. And it's one of those things that you really have to push yourself because there is no support team. You know, you're in that on your own. I later sort of coined this term. I became an adaptive swimmer and that sort of happened when I first came to America when I was 19 and worked on a summer camp with kids because I was in a completely unfamiliar environment, something that I wasn't used to. I'd never gone to a summer camp in England. They didn't really exist. And I ended up doing this thing called Camp America, where I was placed in a city underprivileged summer camp, kids from the city of Detroit. And this was on a camp on Lake Michigan back in 1986. So that was where I sort of really was out of my comfort zone, a long way from home for the first time. And that was where the street smart element of survival kicked in. And from that summer, I probably spent eight weeks working with these inner city underprivileged kids. And of course, it was a culture shock. I was into heavy metal and Guns N Roses. And the majority of the people on this camp were not listening to that type of music. They were listening to hip hop and Run DMC and LL Cool J. So, you know, it became one of those sink or swim, learn to survive on your own type of environment. And I think for me, arriving in LA when I was 19 years old, having no sort of curfew, so to speak, of parental guidance, of people telling you what you could and couldn't do. And when I was in England, to backtrack slightly, I never actually had a real job, barely had a bank account, never had my own apartment, always lived with my mom and dad, never had a car. So all my adult sort of learning experiences and responsibility of really taking care of myself were trial and error. And they were done in la. And I arrived in on a Trailway bus from Detroit into Union station, like August, September 1986, not actually knowing anybody, but just having that, I suppose, naive to teenage. How bad can it be? It was like the beginning of what I like to call my sex drive, rock and roll phase for a couple of years. It was just super exciting. As a teenager, you feel like you're invincible, right? You can do anything. Anything really meant a lot of couch surfing for the next 18 months and basically living on very little three burritos for a dollar and jars of ramen and stuff like that. But it was kind of an exciting time. So that's sort of my beginning backstory on moving from Sheffield, England to LA as a teenager.

So let's narrow in on the early conversations. One of the things that I found really interesting when I was looking at your YouTube videos and when I was watching your documentary. So my parents are both working class people. My mom is in the school system as a teacher for a very long time. My stepdad's a car mechanic. And I think, if I remember correctly, your parents are in a similar position. Is that right?

My Father had multiple salesman jobs. One of them was selling nuts and bolts for a company called Motorlink, which was an automotive supplier. He sold air conditioning. My mom actually worked at a school, not in a teaching capacity, but like childcare assistant slash assistant teacher. So that was my background, you know, growing up as a kid, I'd always been into cars, even though we didn't really own one. My father, dad had company cars, but he tinkered and we watched a lot of motorsports. And so I think it was a combination of my DNA. The car thing obviously came from my dad, but I think most of my drive came from my mum, believe it or not. But I didn't realize that at the time. As a teenager, like I say, well, leaving school at the end of the fifth year, I was 15, almost 16, went on the dole the next year, bummed around, so I was going nowhere fast. You know, this is early 80s in Sheffield, England, working class town, not a lot of prospects, so times were tough, you know, it didn't sit well, especially with my dad. I sort of not dropped out, but hadn't followed up on education back then. My motivation was to grow my hair long, listen to heavy metal music. So that was my rebellious spirit, I suppose, coming in at an early age, which, you know, when you're in that element, you don't have a lot of history to back it up. And look back on 15 years old, I got long hair. I'm going to heavy metal concerts in Sheffield. Sheffield was a musical town, A lot of bands came through there, so there was a lot of inspiration. But at the time, you know, I had no real sort of distant memories. Now when I turn the clock back 35 plus years and I can see those formative years of, oh, okay, yeah, I'm kind of slightly rebellious. I don't like to be told what to do. I've always done things my own way. That began at an early age and I think a lot of it was sort of through the music I was listening to, the environment I grew up in. I remember my dad, I tell this story all the time. You know, you're not living in my house unless you cut your hair and get a real job. Well over 37, eight years later, I've never really had a real job and I've actually never really cut my hair.

So do you ever put on that George Thurgood song and just laugh? You know, Come on, you must have done it at least once.

Those are things that just kind of stuck with me, really.

Here at From a rock bottom to Rockin it. You know that I love to support charities, organizations and people who are having a positive impact on the world and making it good change with people that need it. So please remember first of all to share this episode with your friends and subscribe to the channel. Give us a five star review. I'd really appreciate it. And now I'm going to talk a little bit about an organization called Mind. And you can find them@mind.org UK and this is the mental health charity that works to make sure that no one has to face a mental health problem alone. I really could have used something like that when I was a kid, but here it is and now I can share with you guys. And their mission here is that what they say is they will not give up until everyone experiencing a mental health problem gets both support and respect. And obviously that's a cause and a mission statement that I will absolutely support at any time. Now mind's online resources and confidential infoline provide advice on how to look after your mental health and discuss what we can do to protect our well being individually and collectively. If you're worried about how you're feeling or have questions about your own mental health, start by reaching out to mind.org UK. They can help you make choices about treatment, they can help you understand your rights and they can help you reach out to the sources of support that you need. Together we can all get through this one day at a time. Visit Mind's website@mind.org UK and now back to this powerful interview. Yeah, and how was that conversation early on? I mean, there's people listening to this show right now. I mean this show is called From Rock Bottom to Rockin It. And when I was younger and having one of my rock bottom moments when I snapped around age 15 or 16 and ran away, I can only imagine what it must have been like for my parents to see this and to watch what was happening. I mean, both of them came from a very stable, grounded background. And watching me essentially snap and go crazy and just disappear, they've told me they were thinking that they lost me for good. That was the biggest fear, right? This kid just dropped out of high school, he's gone, He's a misfit. Things aren't working out the way that they anticipated. And so there's people listening to the show right now who are parents of kids who are also struggling, who are with what I call the teen social pressure, broader subject. And there's also people listening to this. Who are those kids or those young adults who are struggling Themselves and people that are just embracing their passion, Right. And that passion leads them in a completely different direction than ever anticipated. It's always new territory. And the point I'm getting to, Magnus, is that, I mean, you dropped out of high school, you went your own path, but you didn't get stuck. And that's the thing, is you didn't get stuck there. You went your own path and you succeeded really well. Now, a lot of people I interview here on the show, usually everyone gets stuck for a while, Right? But you seem to have jumped that phase. I mean, I want to hear your story. I mean, it sounds like you just followed your gut from day one and made it work. So two questions. How did you not get stuck when you dropped out of high school? And what was that conversation like with your parents?

There was a lot of fights, things being thrown, both. My dad was maybe had a bit of a violent attitude or temper. I mean, it wasn't a supportive environment of creativity. And I do remember a moment. I want to back up a few more years. I go back to my sort of cross country, middle distance running. And this was a pivotal point for me. Early on I had some local success, county success, and back in the early 80s I ran for this club called Hallamshire Harriers. And a little bit before I was there, there was a runner called Sebastian Coe who ran for the same club. And Sebastian Coe went on to be an Olympic champion and world record middle distance record holder, 800 and 1500 meters. And I met him once and he signed this certificate. I think I finished second or third in some local Sheffield high school cross country race. And I got these little plastic certificates, paper certificates. Anyway, Sebastian Co signed it and he just literally said one thing, well done. And that to me was like a really supportive thing. I mean, my dad supported me when I was running. But to have at the time a world record holder sign a piece of paper that said, well done. Congratulations, Sebastian co. This is 40 years ago and I still remember it. It was 1980, or it might have been 78, might have been 42 years ago. So why is this important? Well, it was important because it was someone outside who I didn't really know, but essentially patted me on the back and said, well done. And that was like a first ray of hope of I actually enjoyed running. And it was something I was pretty good at. And I was good at it all the way up until I got to be about 14, 15. And at that age in England, something else happened. It was like, in England you can go to the pub at 15 legal ages 16 in at 15 and having a drink and you know, you get your first girlfriend and you're going to rock shows and all of a sudden, you know, running for me didn't fit in with that environment. And the minute I stopped running it was sort of like that's when I started battling with my dad because I suppose a little bit of his identity came from through me. I suppose having a son that was pretty good at something. And that was when it really sort of got a little testy where I just avoid him because it wasn't worth the fight. So I would sort of be out of the door before he came home or I would come back from the local rock club, you know, at 2am in the morning. And so I tried to avoid him a little bit. So left school at 15, went on the dole at 16, did some odd jobs. The first turning point really after I realized doing manual construction labor for next to nothing, doing all these dirty jobs wasn't sort of the future. I went back to college or I went to college and did a one year, it was called City and Guilds Leisure and Recreation Management Course. And essentially it was a catch all jack of all trades of everything from basketball coaching to swimming to life saving to all types of sports related things. I was still pretty active. So for me it was kind of a natural thing to do to sort of try and get some direction. And the direction I got from that, other than sort of having a fun time for a year at college, which was pretty easy, was I heard of this thing called Camp America. And essentially that was how I came to America. Basically what it was an organization that recruited students who would then spend anywhere from eight to 12 weeks in America. Eight of those would be on a summer camp and then you'd have two to six weeks to travel around after you'd sort of done your term at the summer camp. That was how I got out of Sheffield and came to America. And I actually glanced at the questions you asked, you asked me to look at. And generally I do a lot of interviews and I never really like to be asked questions before because I don't want to seem too rehearsed and scripted. But one of the questions you did ask was when did you hit rock bottom? And this story leads into that. So, you know, for me, when I actually hit rock bottom was I came out to America, got accepted on this summer camp. Inner city kids in Detroit, took the Trailways bus from New York to Detroit, had a great time in Detroit in 86 because Detroit was a little bit similar to Sheffield, former industrial city fallen on hard times. What I didn't realize at the time, I knew it was a car related Motor City, but I didn't realize the impact that really would have on my car life 30 years later. So Detroit was a Motor City and it was also a music city. Everything from Iggy in the Stooges, MC5 Motown. There was a great environment to be in. So even though that sort of summer, working on that summer camp was not easy for me because it was kind of a challenge. Long days, that was where I sort of became, I think what I like to term the adaptive swimmer. Then I took that long Trailways bus which took a long time to go from Detroit to la. I grew up watching a lot of American tv. Dukes of Hazzard, Chips, Rockford Files. It was the birth beginning of, you know, Guns N Roses, Motley Crue, heavy metal. Everything I was into was based in la. So it seemed like the natural thing. But you know, of course when I arrived at Union station in LA at 5:00am, you know, it was like wow, this is not like the LA I thought it was going to be where all the movie stars and rock stars, you know, it wasn't like that at 5am at Union Station when the bus came in and I had nowhere to go and I fell asleep on a bench and cop woke me up and basically said, you can't be sleeping here, you got to move on. And anyway, long story short, the next two, three months ended up staying at a hostel on Hollywood Boulevard and then went to Venice, then went to Santa Monica, met some people and sort of fell into this really cool ramsackle group of people that were all misfits trying to do things in la. And I stayed in LA until probably late November, early December and I'd overstayed my visa and at that time I sort of had to make a choice of do I stay and really sort of risk a lot of stuff or do I go back to England? And I ended up having to of course my mum wanted me to come back and I hadn't really sort of found my footing yet. And so I borrowed some money and took a one way ticket and flew back from LA to London to Heathrow obviously sat at the back of the plane, it's a 12 hour flight. I uncomfortable and this is the moment, the rock bottom moment that I'm leading up to. So I'd had that taste of freedom and it sort of slipped out of my grasp. And the real moment was I Traveled around America at that point or had been in America for almost six months doing whatever I wanted. Got on this cheap flight back, student travel association, I don't remember what airline it was, flew back. And then I had to get a train from London, from Heathrow but on the tube to King's Cross or whatever. And then I had to wait another two hours to get on a another train to go to Sheffield. And this is the moment. The train going to Sheffield was packed and it's a two and a half hour, three hour train ride and I had to stand the whole way with this huge duffel bag that I'd had like six months of stuff in. Ended up sitting on the floor in the sort of aisle of the train. And I was miserable. And that to me was like, wow, this is rock bottom. I failed. I went to la, I went to America, I thought I was never coming back. And it was the moment of wow, it didn't pan out the way I thought it was going to pan out. And that to me was the rock bottom moment. So of course, you know, I had to move back in with my mom and dad and back to the arguments of people saying see, I told you it wouldn't work out or whatever. They said a lot of negative comments and I couldn't wait to get back to America. So I went back on the dole back doing odd construction, just hating it, really, really hating it because I'd had that slice of freedom. And then I reapplied to Camp America, the same organization, in 1987 I think in May, fully expecting to get re accepted. And when I applied they said, oh, sorry, we don't have a space for you. It was like whoa. That was the sort of fallout, the safety plan of I'll just go back to America in six months time and do it all over again. But this time I, I'll never come back. So when I was sort of not turned down but told hey, we don't have a place for you, it was like, well that was my sort of safety net parachute, what am I going to do now? And the real sort of strange part to the story was of course that was not the answer I wanted. And then about two weeks later I got a phone call and this is 1987, so it's 33 years ago, but I remember it's like tomorrow, like it's yesterday. I got a phone call on a Tuesday and it was basically conversation went like this, hey, so and so from Camp America, just calling to inform you we found a position for you can you leave on Friday? Listen, on a Tuesday? Of course I can leave on Friday. You know, I don't have a job, I'm living at home. You know, I can throw some stuff in a backpack and yeah, I'm going on Friday. Took a train back down to Heathrow and got on a plane, went back to New York and then this time I worked on a summer camp with undercity inner privileged kids in New Jersey, which was even better. Same type of camp as Detroit. But what was even cooler was it was only 35 minutes out of Manhattan. So I've kept in contact with a few people via pen pals because this is pre Internet, pre cell phone. I'd literally write a postcard or a letter to a couple of people that I'd sort of click with who were all in bands and similar age, still living in la. So I did the summer in New Jersey and then went out back to LA. September of 87 and I vowed second time around I was never going back. And I've been in LA for the past 33 years. So I spent 19, 20 years in Sheffield. I just turned. I'm 52, I'm about to turn 53 in July. So with 3/5 of my life have been spent in LA, 2/5 of my life had been spent in Sheffield. So I'm more Americanized than English, but still have my Made in England tattoo. And one of the highlights for me really was last year I became a U.S. citizen after having been here at the time 32, 33 years.

Congratulations.

That was a real milestone for me as well. There's a lot to fill in in between 1987 and 2000. So far away with any other questions?

Yeah, yeah, there sure is. And there's such a story here. And if I roll back for a second, you're having that rock bottom moment, you're in England. And this I told you so vibe, or I knew this was going to happen. Energy was coming from your parents or from your friends. And I remember when I was having my first near bankruptcy moment. I was about 20 at the time. I was doing an event production company out in the greater Toronto area because I was just following my gut and following my passion. So I was there and it didn't work out right. The business didn't work and I spent all my money. I was deeply in debt. I had maxed out three different lines of credits. And so there I am having that awkward conversation with my parents. You know, I'm living in the basement, you know, it didn't Work, just like they feared and just like they said, basically. And she said to me once, you know, Eric, you got to go back to school. If you don't go back to school, you're going to be a roofer for the rest of your life. I remember her saying that. But to me, the concept of going back to school was like, it was like going to jail. Like there's no way ever that I could see myself doing this. It was just a no go, right? I didn't fit in. For me, it was a place where my creativity was stifled. Now, there's some people who do really well in school. And I'm not saying to go to school or not to go to school. I'm just saying my own personal experience. There are people who thrive and do so well in a school learning environment. Simple example, I would never go to a doctor who didn't go to school. I would never go to the doctor who was the high school dropout.

Right?

But that's the point, you know, I didn't want to be a doctor. School isn't for everyone all the time. And it was really difficult to stick to my guns. Broke credit lines maxed out business failed. Stuck in my mom's basement and she's telling me that she was right and I got to go back to school. It was really difficult to stick to my guns in that moment and continue following the dream and keeping that dream alive and keep following my gut and living for my passion. I was completely against the grain. No one in my circle was doing anything like I was doing. I was the black sheep. And so my question for you, Magnus, on this subject is where did you find the guts and the grit to stick to your passion and to follow your gut through all of this turmoil that you were going through? Right. How did you stay on your path in spite of the roller coaster that was going on?

I think it was just that feeling of I didn't know what was coming next, but I knew it was not going to be as bad as going back to Sheffield. So to me it was like the grass was always greener on the other side. And I've never been that guy that ever that had the five year plan. The school you go to, these careers and counselors, and they'd say, where do you see yourself in five years? And I don't know where I see myself in five days. So I still had that mentality in LA when I first got there. I suppose the first two years were just kind of similar, odd jobs, but a little bit of money. Went a long way. I was couch surfing, living on people's floors. Being English at the time was kind of a novelty. So people would let you into clubs for free and give you drinks. It was easy. Living a little bit went a long way. But probably after like 18 months, that novelty was wearing off. Was becoming tiresome. Having to sort of depend on other people to get around because I didn't have a car at the time, I'm getting around LA on a bicycle. It became sort of tedious and not as much fun. And that was kind of like almost rock bottom moment number two. This is probably been in L. A two years, floating around, not really achieving anything and then, you know, more couch surfing. Had no real prospects for a job. What am I going to do? I know I don't want to go back home, but I'm kind of running out of money and kind of running out of people to go couch stuff with. And then, as luck would have it, I was walking down the boardwalk in Venice. This guy called out to me and said, hey, you're English, right? I said, yeah. He goes, you want a job? I said, well, what is it? And this guy was selling seconds from the Gap retail store closeout stuff. And I said, sure, because at the time I needed a job, I needed something to do to occupy my time. And this was just Saturday and Sunday and I think it was $10 a day. But I was the guy that would stand in front of the booth on the boardwalk from 8am to 6pm Help set the booth up before. But essentially I'd be like the guy calling people in, hey, step right up, don't be shy, come and take a look. I got 1 for 5, 2 for 10, 4 for 20 type of thing. I was that hawker guy that brought people into the store. And I'd never really worked retail before, so it was kind of alien to me. But on my mum's side, my granddad Joe, his whole family, the Edwards and Bennett's, they were market traders in England, in Sheffield, and they like selling fairs and outside markets and they'd sell everything from pottery to painting rollers to cleaning supplies and occasionally that sort of goes sort of help out with him a little bit. And I think that was where my retail call it entrepreneurial. I don't know if it's a skill, but maybe it's a skill.

It's a spirit to me, I call it the entrepreneurial spirit.

Yeah, So I had that spirit that was already in me, that DNA. I didn't realize it at the time, just like the loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, I didn't realize. And the rebellious spirit of the heavy metal music, I didn't realize. But I kind of enjoyed doing it. So I did that all throughout the summer. And that sort of really gave me some satisfaction, something to look forward to, some purpose. I'd achieved a goal of finding a job, but what it really did was it led me to the next step. And by that I mean I saw a guy who was basically selling second hand clothing. And this guy was selling all types of secondhand clothing. It gave me the idea of, wow, I've always kind of liked that look. So I started doing the similar type of thing. And I'd go to thrift stores and yard sales. And at the time, this is probably 1989, I started buying old Levi 501s, anywhere from 50 cents to $3. And I'd go to the Salvation Army St. Vincent de Paul thrift store. And I rented a little spot of my own. So I'm working for the guy doing the Gap closeout stuff Saturday, Sunday. And during the week I rented a little spot on the boardwalk and set up my own little stand. You know, on the first day I think I did 20 bucks and I'm selling old paisley print dresses, cowboy shirts, Levi's, whatever cool stuff I could find. Going to thrift stores in the morning and then setting up a booth and selling in the afternoon. First day with 20 bucks, second day was 30 bucks. I've started to generate a little bit of income. And then I did one thing that was a little bit different. I'd always sort of been able to sew. My mom taught me how to sew, and the extent of sewing was making my Levi jeans as tight as I could. When I was a teenager living in Sheffield.

Priorities, right?

Yeah, priorities. So my mom had a little Singer sewing machine. And what I did was I started buying these old paisley print or any cool sort of florally paisley print shirts or dresses, started cutting the fabric up and sewing it onto the jeans. So it was kind of like a Grateful Dead, hippie, black Crows, Woodstock looking thing. And so instead of selling the jeans that I was buying for anywhere from 50 cents to 3 bucks for 10 or 15 bucks. Now the jeans were customized, they were patched up, and they were 20 to $30. And that was when things really took up because no one was doing that. A few other people were doing the vintage clothing. So it was kind of hard to compete in that arena. And I just sort of had this idea and the idea took off pretty quickly. Before you know it, you know, I'm doing 100 bucks a day, 200 bucks a day, 300 bucks a day, 500 bucks a day. The next challenge came of how do I make the stuff quick enough? So, you know, instead of going to the thrift stores and buying pair of jeans here, two pairs there, I found a wholesale of Levi's where I could go buy in bulk 50 to 100 pieces. And Levi's were graded A, B and Cs, or 1, 2, 3, depending on A and number one were perfect. And they were probably 10 bucks more than I wanted to pay. And as I was patching them anyway, I'd always buy the C's or the threes, which were ripped up, and those would be anywhere from two to five bucks. So I'm paying more money for them. But I've got this continuity of supply and stock. And then I started hiring a couple of people. I had one person who would put the patches on the jeans that I paid $5, and one person that would sew the patches on the jeans that also paid five bucks. So these people would come and pick up, okay, here's 20 pairs of jeans you're going to put the patches on. Here's the fabric, here's the sample as to how I want them to look laid out, do something sort of similar, bring them back, and then the sole would pick them up. So all of a sudden, I'm not manufacturing the stuff on my own. I've set up my own little operation, and now I'm selling the jeans anywhere from, let's say, 25 to $50. So the margins and profitability have gone up. And then two pivotal things happened at this point. Back then, Venice was really a big tourist attraction. It was a great place. Venice is still a wonderful place, but a lot of Europeans visited, and a lot of retail store owners would go down Venice. Because Venice was a creative environment, a lot of people started their business in Venice, whether you were a tarot card reader or a crystal gem seller or a Grateful Dead vendor or someone selling sunglasses, socks, or whatever it was Venice was happening. Basically, someone came down the owned a store on Melrose and said, hey, I'd be interested in carrying that line. So all of a sudden, I accidentally sort of fell into the wholesale clothing thing. And around this time, I started branching out. Also, I saw a guy selling Guatemalan tam hats from Guatemala. I thought, oh, that's kind of cool, but I don't like that Guatemalan fabric. So I took an old velvet dress that I'd bought And basically I bought one of these Guatemalan hats, took it apart. It was a big round circle, like a pie hat, pleated up. Oh, this is pretty simple. I could make this. So I cut a circle out of velvet, and these guys just used a little black nylon lining. But what I did was combined. One side was velvet, the other side, I go, this will look great with this floral paisley dress as a lining. So all of a sudden, it wasn't lining, it was a reversible hat. And this took off. So now I'm doing the patchwork jeans, these reversible hats. This thing sort of grew from this one little floppy Renaissance tam type thing to. I remember vividly someone coming in and saying, hey, can you make a cat in the hat hat? And I go, what's that? I didn't know what the cat in the hat was. And I went and got a book and of Dr. Seuss and saw what a cat in the hat looked like and go, oh, I think I can make this. So I made one and I made another one. And before you know it, I had a cat in the hat hat, a top hat, and Uncle Sam had a mat out his tea party hat, a court jester hat. And this was like a real creative period for me, where it was a combination of I'm coming at it from the sort of black crows, rock and roll, patchwork velvet, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin side with a little tinge of Grateful Dead mixed in. And the Grateful Dead was still touring at the time. So Venice had this whole counterculture Grateful Dead element. And then around 1989, 1990, this British UK racing really exploded big. And like the ravers, even though it was a different music, it was a similar type of vibe and a similar type of look. And so all of a sudden, I'm like making hats and jeans and really starting to do pretty good down there on the boardwalk. And someone said, started wholesale in a couple of little stores on Melrose. One of them was a store called Waco or the Soap Plant. And I think what I did was I made up 50 hats, put them in this big duffel bag, went down there, had an appointment with the owner buyer. He basically picked out 24 hats out of this bag, paid me on the spot, and then I was wholesaling, and it was like, wow, it's kind of strange how that happened. And I actually missed one pivotal part to the story, which I'm going to backtrack to, but. And then someone said, hey, have you ever thought about doing a trade show? And I go, what's a trade show. They go, oh, it's a wholesale thing where all retail buyers go. And so I did1 in 1990 in New York, flew to New York City. We rented a booth at the Javits center, a little 10 by 10. And back then I was doing all this, everything I just described, plus I kind of had a love affair with Americana, which I still do. And it was all Uncle Sam, Evel Knievel, Captain America, stars and stripes, red, white and blue. But one time I bought what I didn't realize was a Peter Max bedspread, and I cut it up and put it on these jeans and they sold great. And someone goes, do you know what that is? I go, no. He goes, that's a Peter Max bedspread. It's probably really collectible. And I didn't know at the time. I go, oh, okay, I'm onto something here. So then I did these stars and so stripes. I bought this American flag, bandana, printed material, and started doing stars and stripes, patchwork, Evil Knievel stuff on jeans. And then I had an Uncle Sam, mad, had a top hat, stars and stripes. And around 1990, 1991, you know, the Gulf War broke out and everyone was like, patriotic American fever. And it was like, wow. All of a sudden people are wanting everything that I'm making.

And right when we come back from this short break, Magnus, I'd like to ask you about your rockin it moment. A time when you knew that you were on top and all of this turmoil was in the past. That question when we come back from this short break from rock bottom to Rockin it, is brought to you by me. I do this because I wanna help people. I wanna help people by sharing these powerful stories like you're listening to right now with Magnus Walker. Remember to check out his YouTube channel. Just go on YouTube, type in Magnus, Walk Walker, or go to the show Notes to this episode on my website. There's a URL directly there. You can follow him, you can like him, you can check out what he's doing, get in touch if you want to. He's always up to something interesting. I find him fascinating. And remember also to share this episode with people who need to hear it. Please subscribe to the channel, like it, comment on it, send me an email. All of that stuff really helps me a lot. Remember, I'm paying for this and I'm not asking for anything other than than for you guys to share the love and help other people by sharing these positive stories. Magnus, again, you can check him on YouTube just type in his name. And now back to the show. We are back now here on From Rock Bottom to Rockin It. Magnus, thank you again for taking the time out to talk to us and to talk to me. I really appreciate it and I'd love to ask you about your Rockin it moment. Now can you tell me and tell everyone here who's listening, what was your Rockin it moment? When did you know that you hit the peak? Right. The roller coaster goes down, but it also goes up. When did you know that you were up on the up?

Here's my Rockin it moment to pick up from where we left off right before that break. The very first trade show, New York City, the Javits Center. I think it was actually the accessory show. Someone said you should go to the accessory show. So got a couple of big duffel bags, fold with patchwork jeans. And this time we had 10 different styles of hat in the line. So we rented a 10 by 10 booth at the Javits Center. It was kind of expensive. We didn't know what to expect. We're shoved in the back corner, hippie looking couple, new kids on the block from the West Coast. And the very first day we got an order, believe it or not, and this is my rocking moment back in 1990 or 91, 30 years ago, we got an order from the Disneyland theme park. So a buy from Disneyland came in and essentially ordered 144 of 10 or 12 styles of hats that we had. So do the math. It's 144 times 10 or 12 styles. The average price of the hat was 15, 17, 50, 2250.

Yeah, that's a nice order.

Wow, this is the huge order. So now we go, how are we going to manufacture this? I've sort of rolled the jeans people into the hat people, but now we're coming back with that was Disneyland. Plus we had three other days of other people ordering. So we came back with hundreds of orders per style. And we're like, wow, we're gonna have to find a contractor to make these hats. But there are no contractors making these hats because we kind of invented them or we weren't sort of made in volume. So it was hard to find a manufacturer that could do it. But we did find one in la. We basically showed them and I think our first order might have been 250 pieces or 500 pieces per style. But the rocking moment was Disneyland walking in because we never ever thought that would happen. And they were buying these for the theme park. And then within the next Three months. Universal Studios and Six Flags Magic Mountain had also started placing orders. So it was like, wow, now we're making 1,000 hats per style. Now we've got to go move out of the apartment. The next thing was we rented a garage in Venice right off Lincoln Boulevard, in a back alley, under a house for 200 bucks. We quickly outgrew that. Then we ended up renting a warehouse off of Picasso Avenue that was about 1500 square feet. That might have cost us 1000 bucks a month. So it sort of got in this short period of time, literally less than 18 months from getting the $10 a day job selling seconds from the Gap to doing everything I just described selling some vintage clothing, the Patchwork jeans, the first trade show, Disneyland, Six Flags, Magic Mountain and Universal Studios. Now we're employing people. We've probably got 200 accounts plus those big guys. And one of the very first departments or chain stores we sold was a store called Hot Topic. We got an order from them at that first show as well. And at the time they had five stores. But over the next 10 years they grew to almost 700 stores. So there was a lot of volume there. But what happened in this next sort of interesting period from call it 91 to 94, that three year period, we had a really good run where we were no longer working at the retail store on the beach, but we still kept it because the cash flow was great. We're concentrating on wholesaling and manufacturing. Well, two, three years in, people started knocking us off and going overseas to China. All of a sudden there's a lot of competition. They're not quite as good, but the wholesale prices are half of what we're charging. And it really sort of ironically became what I always term we became old hat because all the cool boutiques that we'd sold before, like Patricia Fields and Trash and Broadville and all these hip stores, two, three years in, when you could sort of buy something similar, not at a Walmart but at a big box store, we'd become old hat. People didn't want that. And this was the first sort of change of identity. That little company that I formed on the boardwalk in Venice, I term Venetian paradise because I was living in Venice. I was a Venetian. He's someone that lives in Venice. And this was my idea of Paradise. So, you know, we had these little labels that we cut out of fabric and handwrite Venetian paradise on it. And we kind of became pigeonholed of, oh, we don't need to go see Venetian Paradise. Those guys are old Hat that looks over. And that was like the awake up call to, oh, fashion. You got to keep reinventing yourself, right? So the weird thing was at the time, right at the sort of tail end of this, the rap movement sort of caught on to the big floppy hats. TLC and all these type of bands were wearing these whimsical hats. And I remember I was making a hat for this rapper guy who wanted a custom big, big oversized hat. And he goes, wow, that's some serious shit. And it was like light bulb turned on. Whoa. Serious. That's the new name of the new company. And we're going to stop making the hats and move into full on rock and roll, cut and sew stuff. Instead of just doing patchwork on the Levi's, we're going to make our own patterns, our own fabrics. So we'd already had two, three years of wholesaling, built up a following. So it wasn't like we started again. We just switched over. No longer started phase out of the jeans and floppy renaissance Mad Hatter hats and we just moved into the next trade show. We did okay, we changed the name. We're now serious. We're no longer doing the old hat thing. We're doing sex, drugs, rock and roll, cut and sew stuff. We're doing it with a little twist. We're using different fabrics, tar seat fabrics, swirl velvet sequins. Fabrics that hadn't really been used the way we were using them. So the stores already knew we could deliver. They knew we had good ideas. We knew or they knew if they placed an order, they'd get the order. We weren't flaky, we weren't going to be out of business. And then we had that chain called so the big sort of retail of Disney and Universe and all that stuff. They dropped off, but it didn't matter because by this time we're doing a lot of business with a Hot Topic. And over the next probably 10 years, we did a lot of volume with those guys, opened up our own retail store on Melrose and became probably one of the top 10 rock and roll clothing wholesale manufacturers in that genre on Hot Topic. For those that don't know, they were like specialty retailer that really just sold to teenagers. And they were like a glorified head shop that had become a rock and roll shop. And they were in every mall in every city, all over the country. And this is the era of Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, all these sort of bands. So their customer was people like us. It was rebellious, alternative, pissed off Rock and roll, hip hop, gothy, whatever you want to call it, people. And we did a lot of business with those guys for the next 10 years. So that was the next step from humble beginnings to reinventing the brand to really moving forward. Had our own retail store, started getting a lot of recognition, outfitting everyone from Alice Cooper to Madonna. Being in LA helped because there were a lot of stylists pulling wardrobe for bands, for photo shoots, for tours, for videos. Bands themselves would stop by the retail store. We met Alice Cooper and Rob Zombie and all these bands and started doing wardrobe for Alice Cooper and even went on tour with him. It was like, wow, fuck, how did this happen, right? How had it gone from three burritos for a dollar to all of a sudden I'm hanging out with Alice Cooper. And this was probably, honestly, in five, six, seven year period. This is something that would never have happened if I'd stayed in Sheffield, cut my hair and got a real job. That leads to the next sort of pivotal point. I moved out of Venice, moved downtown in 94, rented a warehouse, rented a separate loft, and over the next six years, just really works hard at the business. By this time, I'm late 20s moving into early 30s, having some success, which inspires you to do more creative stuff. You're on this roll. And then in 2000, so what was it at the time? I was 33, I bought this building in what was called the arts district of la. I got to the point where we realized, why are we paying two people's mortgages when we can afford to buy our own building? It just didn't make sense to us. But yet to everyone else who like, well, that's a stupid thing. You shouldn't buy a building, the company should lease a building, you should never own property, blah, blah, blah. And we're like, oh, that doesn't make sense to us. Why are we paying two people's mortgages when we can buy this former industrial building built in 1902, that's 26,000ft. We can live upstairs and run our clothing company out of downstairs. That was how I saw it. So we bought this building and converted it to a live workspace. It was a former industrial building, two story brick, tons of character, but a lot of deferred maintenance. But for us, I'd lived in a loft from 94 to 2000. I like the big open space and I like to be close to my environment where I work, you know, I've never commuted really. Even when I was in Venice, I was pretty close to where I worked. So we bought this building, rehabbed it, moved in, lived upstairs, ran our club downstairs. We're still going really strong at this point. We've got a dozen employees shipping online, We've got retail, everything I described. And there was an article in the LA Times right after 9, 11, like September 30, 2001. And it was about adaptive reuse of former industrial buildings and people living in lofts. Somehow they found out about it. I don't quite know how they found out we have this loft, but somehow they did. Anyway, we were like the featured double center spread in the LA Times Sunday color supplement with about a dozen other lofts. But ours was like, kind of the biggest one or had the biggest spread or whatever it was. And about a week or two later, we got a phone call from a location service saying, hey, would you be interested in renting your building or your loft for a music video? I'd lived downtown for eight, six, seven years up to that point. So I'd see them film everything in the neighborhood from Batman, gun in 60 seconds, Terminator, stuff like this. But because we didn't own a building, never occurred to us you could actually make money renting property. So we said, sure, yeah, how bad can it be, right? And this story is pivotal also, because the very first thing we did was a Missy Elliot rap video. And I didn't know much about the film production world, but I thought, you know, you're a nice guy, you give them everything they want. So I didn't know about a site rep and a location rep. So I'm doing it all myself. The shoot starts at 6am on a Friday morning. In the afternoon, they said, hey, can we shoot a little segment in your office? And they were just supposed to be upstairs. I said, sure, no problem. I'm the nice guy. Two, three hours later, there's like another 40 people here. I go, what's going on? They go, we're shooting a Verizon cell phone commercial on the back end of the video. I go, oh, no one told me about that. I gave an inch. They took a mile. A few hours later, they said, you know, it's around 8, 9 o'. Clock. They said, can we shoot a little scene in your garage? And at the time, I didn't have as many cards as I later did. So I go, okay, sure, no problem. All of a sudden there's like 40 extras in this nightclub scene in the garage. Now it rolls around to midnight. Remember, I'm being up at 6am being the nice guy, saying, yes, to everything I give an inch, they take a mile. By midnight I'm done. I'm like, fuck it, I don't care anymore. I go, it's a 12 hour contract that expired at 6pm you now six hours into overtime, I'm done. I need it to be done, finished by 2am so they go, okay. You know, they're trying to cram basically two days worth of work into one day. They finish shooting at 2am but it still takes them two hours to break everything down, get all the crap out of there. They finally leave the property at 4am 22 hour day. I think I went to bed around 5am and said, I will never do that again. It was a 24 hour day. Once the dust had settled two days later and we realized how much money we made on that one day shoot, which became a 22 hour shoot. And back then, music videos paid a lot of money. So that was like, okay, I guess we'll do that again, but next time we'll set boundaries. We'll learn to say, no, you can't do that, or yes, you can, but we need more money for that. And then over the next two, three years, lived and filmed in the building at the same time, but was pretty selective as to how much filming we do because the novelty of having to go rent a hotel for a day or two and with cats to wear off. Yeah. And you know, as exciting as filming seems, there's a lot of hurry up and wait and you don't always see cool stuff. But three years in 2004. So this is now 16 years ago when doing this movie, which was a pretty big movie called the Whole 10 Yards, starred Bruce Willis, Matthew Perry, Amanda Pete wasn't the world's greatest movie. But they rented the building for four weeks one month, paid us a boatload of dough and relocated us to a house in the Hollywood Hills for a month. And that was when the light bulb went off again. It was like, wow, I bet if we didn't live in the building we could film all the time. So I took a leap of faith. Rented a house for six months, not knowing if we'd ever move back in. That six month rental became a two year rental. And we went from doing, let's say, I don't know, call it 15, 20 days of filming a year to doing at our peak for the next 10 years, well over 120 days a year of filming. So once we didn't live there, we took everything that came along and we started doing a lot of these long Term reality shows. This is 10, 15 years ago when these things were just happening. And by that I mean Project Runway, America's Next Top Model, the Voice, whatever music related show. We tended to get a lot of them because people would rent the building for eight weeks and it would be like the same type of breakdown. They build out, prep for two weeks, bring in the contestants who would live there for a month and then they'd finish, and then two weeks of strikeout restoration. So the average reality show was probably six to eight weeks long. And we did probably two a year, plus a boatload of music videos, TV shows, crime drama, csi, Without a Trace, nypd, whatever, because the building had a lot of different looks. So that leap of faith of, okay, let's move out and see what happens. Sixteen years later, I never moved back into the building. And that was when the sort of second wave of business really took over the film location rental aspect. LA is a movie town. They shoot a lot of production here. Was pretty lucrative because unlike the clothing, you don't have to keep reinventing the three legged pants and keep sort of trying to stay one step ahead of the trend. And it was pretty lucrative and it was pretty enjoyable. And we basically just maintained the building book days and made sure people didn't sort of damage it too much. We were pretty lenient. We wouldn't really get too upset. Once we moved out, we said, okay, whatever happens, happens. If people scratch the floor, ding the wall, we got to repaint, no big deal. So we were very generous with our time, ended up getting a great reputation for not just having a great place to film, but being film friendly. By that I mean, you know, we never sued people for damages. And that tended to happen a lot where people would say, oh, you've scratched my floor, now you've got to refinish all the floors in my house. Those are the people that don't get a lot of filming. We just took it as wear and tear. And we refinish the floors at the end of the year and make it look good and keep going. So we're on a roll for a long time. And the filming basically led to me closing down the clothing company, Serious Clothing, that started in 1994. By the time of 2009, 10, because we're sort of doing a lot of volume and revenue with filming. And by now I'm in my 40s, not going out quite as much, priorities had shifted. You know, I always choose to say I personally design what I like to wear. That was when I was striking my stuff and going to clubs and rock shows in the 40s. I'm no longer doing that, so I'm wearing the same thing. So what happened to the clothing was we lost passion and interest, which ultimately resulted in sales declining. And probably for a year or two, we were losing money. All our friends worked for us, and they worked for us forever. So we didn't want to shut that down. So we just kind of sort of sales dwindled, dwindle, dwindled to the point where we're like, why are we doing this? We started hating it. To me, success is always having the ability to do whatever you want to do. So why am I doing something that I don't like, that's no longer creative, that I'm no longer passionate about? And we were fortunate that the film revenue was strong enough where we just said, okay, that's it. In 2011, we're closing down. Serious. We didn't sell it. We kept the sewing machines, kept the pants, kept everything. But just. We did our last trade show, shipped the orders and said, that's it, we're done. But we kept everything just in case, you know, we ever wanted to go back and redo it. But the clothing job is one of those things that's 24, 7 full time. You gotta always be active because there's so much that can go wrong with it. The filming was kind of the opposite. We knew the film revenue was going to pay the mortgage, essentially, and little by little, you know, our employees faded and went and found other jobs. And it was like, well, what are we going to do next? Didn't know. And then what happened next was, I don't know if you've seen it, but to me, Moscovic short documentary film, Urban Outlaw that was shot, I did see it and came out.

No conversation with Magnus Walker would be complete without talking a bit about cars.

Yeah, so that's kind of like the third phase. I didn't know what that short documentary film was going to be, to me is vision being around filming. A lot of people have said to me, we should shoot something on your cars. And it just never seemed right. People just kind of seem like not the type of people I wanted to be involved with, or I didn't click with them for some reason. Tamir and I clicked my Porsche thing. I bought my first one in 92, so I've owned them forever. Probably in the late, I don't know, 2008, 2009, I started sort of posting on these online Porsche forums and built a little bit of a following about the cars that I was building. And Tamir had read some of these and I started to get a little bit of magazine coverage. I was kind of like avoiding really putting it out there. And Tamir approached me with an email and then we had one phone call and he said, hey, I think there's more to your story than you're putting on these Porsche 4 forums. And I have an idea about making a sort of story about Porsche as the vehicle in the story. But the film Urban Outlaw is not really a Porsche centric story. And for me, I was like, okay, how bad can this be? I'm gonna hang out with this guy for four days, make a film. I'd never made a film, never been in front of a camera. I wasn't. That guy didn't even have a smartphone or anything like that. So I wasn't on Facebook, wasn't on Instagram. But, you know, I'd have this success with the clothing where I'd been in a lot of magazines, so kind of felt like the time was right to explore this next chap made the film, came out six months later and came out October 15, 2012. And from that moment onwards, it's been a roller coaster ride the past eight years of opportunity travel, me going all over the world. So it didn't change me, but it changed my life in the sense of people starting inviting me places, Porsche being one of them, come and visit this, do that. Tamir went on to be a pretty successful commercial film director, directing a lot of car related content. So there was a leap of faith there. If I hadn't closed Serious Clothing down, I wouldn't have all the time in the world to essentially pursue what I call an out of control hobby. And for me, a lot of the car related stuff is a hobby. It's not a business. I'm not really selling product. I don't build customer cars, I don't work on other people's cars. But the three things that I've done in the past 33 years at least spoke about over the past hour being in LA is the common thread that stitches that fabric together is I did three things. Clothing design, wholesale manufacturing, fashion, retail is one. Property development that I bought. And basically at a time when the timing was right. And the Porsches that I built are all things that I had no background education in, but I was super passionate about everything. So I did it to the best of my ability. And those are the sort of things that created my own style and what I would call sort of my own luck. Whether it's like the clothes own unique look. The property that I'd sort of bought over a 10 year period because at one time I owned six pieces of property in the neighborhood. They had their own style, their own DNA, and so did the Porsche. So there was a common thread that went through and it was just an artistic interpretation of things that I was interested in. Cars, culture, buildings, architecture. So that's kind of my story over the past 30 years.

It's an amazing story. And one of the common threads that I pick up is this subject of trusting your gut, taking that leap of faith, just going forward and following passion. And one question that pops up over and over when I'm talking to people in my inner circle and comes up on the show is how do I know when it's my gut speaking? There's the intuition, there's the passion that speaks, but then there's also the doubt and the insecurity and the ego. And it can turn into a bit of like an argument in the mind, right? There's one voice that says, hey, do this. This is the right thing to do. This is what I really want to do. And then there's the other voice that says, well, no, you can't because fill in the blank. It won't work because. Fill in the blank. This is going to fail because fill in the blank. And it's this back and forth conversation. So the question comes up of how do we know which one's which and what's the methodology to figure that out. So, Magnus, I want to share with you the my methodology to figure it out, and then I want to ask you what you think about it. So for me, when I'm trying to figure out the difference between passion or not. For me, if it comes up and it feels good and it feels powerful and I don't know where it came from, I call that passion. Let's say I really want to do this, whatever that is, and that's the first thing. That's the first voice. And I call that passion. The second voice is usually, oh, well, you can't or you shouldn't because. And that second voice I call the ego or the anti passion, whatever you want to call it. So basically the first, the third and the fifth argument that I hear in my mind are passion. And the second, the fourth and the sixth I consider to be the ego and the anti passion. So the dialogue will basically be like this. Passion speaks. Hey, let's really do this. I really want to do this. Ego speaks. No, you can't, because of Then passion comes back and says, yeah, but I really want to, and I think it'll work. And then ego comes back and says, look, it's just not going to work. No one's doing it. You can't do it because of this and that and the other reason. And then passion comes back on the fifth phrase, and it says, yeah, but it doesn't matter. I know it's going to work. This is what I want to do. And then, of course, back and forth. So the first, the third, and the fifth argument in that little voice dialogue inside the head to me is the passion. And then the second, the fourth, and the sixth are the ego or the anti passion. And what do you think, Magnus? Is this resonating with you? Do you have a similar perspective on this? Or how do you differentiate between the two?

First of all, most of the time, I've never asked other people's opinions, because if it feels right to me, that's all I need to know. I'm not trying to get advice or make someone else happy or get their feedback because they're not inside my body. So, you know, to me, it's like, okay, I've got this idea. I'm trying to make these evil Knievel pants. How do I do it? I'm going to figure it out. I really like this building. It feels right. Not really concerned with what other people think. I'm really not asking their advice. Especially when it comes to cars, everyone's got an opinion. So for me, I never got derailed. And I think a lot of people get derailed exactly as you said it. They have an idea. Hey, I want to brew bourbon in my garage. And the friend goes, oh, that's a stupid idea. It'll never work. And they get sidetracked. And they're afraid of failure, so they never attempt it to begin with. They've given up before the cross is start line. In 2014, I did a TED Talk. It was called go with your gut feeling. This, to me, was another pivotal point, because I honestly didn't know what a TED Talk was. Someone approached me. Film. We think you'd be great for a TED Talk. And I'll talk about the TED Talk, if I may, because I think it's going to answer a few questions. So they said, okay, we think you should come down and rehearse it. And I've done quite a bit of filming by this point. I go, I know the story like the back of my hand. It's my life story. I don't need to rehearse. It. But he said, well, why don't you come down to ucla? It's a Friday afternoon, I get there around noon and they say, okay, you have 18 minutes to do TED Talk, few slide presentations. And I rambled on for 45 minutes telling my story because I didn't know how to self edit. And they said, well, you should go home and really self edit. So I get back Downtown, Friday afternoon, 4 o', clock, I start writing down my life story. Born 7-7-67. And I go through all the pivotal points that we just talked about. Left school at 15, came to America at 19, blah, blah, blah. And I'm walking around, pacing around, I'm starting to stutter and stammer, and I couldn't tell my story scripted. So after about an hour and a half of getting frustrated, I'm like, fuck it, I'm just gonna wing it. I know I have 18 minutes. But I knew if I didn't get to a certain part of the story by 10 minutes, I was sort of done with. And for me, back to leaving school at 15, I'd never sort of gone through that, speaking in front of an audience. It was an unfamiliar environment to me. I'm at UCLA Royce hall, on a stage in front of a thousand people, and it's live. And everything that I'd done before that was film related, Tamir Moscovic was a great example. I'd ramble on for 45 minutes, he'd find the great 30 second clip, put in the film, edit it down and make me look good. So all of a sudden my confidence is a little bit less. Oh, I got no safety net here. I do not have a safety net. So I walked on stage. The first 30 seconds I felt really awkward and uncomfortable. So I'm like, oh, this is live, everyone's watching, it's going to be filmed. And then I cracked a little joke, people laughed, and then I just rolled into it. The TED Talk, out of everything I've done is being watched more than anyone. It's like over 7 million views, one of the biggest TED talks. And for me it was like, wow, this is strange because I'm just talking about my story. I was like the last person to go on before lunch. And I think there were 10 people ahead of me, three an hour type of thing. And they were talking about molecular science and this, that and the other and things that I didn't understand. I get up there and I'm just talking about my life. That's it. It's not rocket science. I'm Thinking I shouldn't really be here because what are people going to learn from my story? But it's weird, like 95% of the people that have seen the TED Talk and I get more emails from people that have seen the TED Talk that said, hey, I really related to your story because I was on this journey, I was going to school to be a lawyer because that's what my dad did. I'm three years into this, whatever it is, lawyer degree. I really hate it. I really want to make surfboards. And your story has inspired me to. If he can do it, I can do it. And I get more emails from that than I do about anything. Those to me are the most rewarding emails because they inspire me to keep doing what I'm doing. It's great when people say, yeah, I really love the cars that you build, but it's even better when someone says, hey, I watch your TED Talk and it changed my life and I changed my career and I quit my job, I left university and now I'm doing something I really love because before those people might have been like, oh, it's not the path I'm supposed to be on. So for me I tend to keep it simple and to me I don't really have. I think you have to have self belief, single mindedness, determination, not afraid of failure, keep surging forward. You also, I think after be at a point where you've got nothing left to lose. I've sort of been high and I've been low in the sense of I've had money in the bank and I've had no money in the bank and you're almost sort of washed out and that's when you dig deep and when you really get creative and make things happen. For me, when there is no safety net and the TED Talk was like that, it taught me how to self edit my own story. I refer to it as a 30 second elevator pitch. Get to the point quickly, don't bore people with the details. And it taught me how to be a sort of better in a public environment, which has been helpful later on. So that's kind of my rambling answer to that question.

I could keep talking with you for a whole lot longer than I'm sure that what you actually have available. So I'm going to respect your time here and wrap up. Unfortunately, everyone listening, remember to check out Magnus's YouTube videos. Trust yout Gut. There's going to be a link on the show notes of this episode. So you can just scroll down on my website to have a quick link to go directly to Magnus's YouTube videos. It's a powerful speech. It's a great TED talk. I encourage you to check it out. It's the one with 7.1 million views. I watched it last night before recording this. Remember also to please share this episode with your friends and with people who need to hear it. This is an interview designed to inspire and motivate people who need it. So please share this. There is a way for people who have dropped out of high school or who don't fit into any sort of school environment. There is a way for you to succeed and to do awesome stuff in fashion or in music, or to just get into business or just to follow your dream and have a rockin it moment of your own. I hope everyone listening here right now remembers that. You know what? There's a rockin it moment on your path. It's there. It's coming. Stay focused. Stay on track. Remember to keep your chin up and work through your rock bottom moments. Re Listen to this episode if you need to. Obviously you can listen to it a thousand times if you'd like. I'll talk to you next time on From Rock Bottom to Rockin It. Bye for now. And that's it, my friends. For this episode. We will see you next time. Please send me an email, say hello, give me some feedback, let me know what you think. Give me some tips and suggestions. I'd love to hear from you. Also, please share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, doesn't matter. Just give. Get it out there. I really appreciate it. And we'll see you next time on From a Rock Bottom to Rocking It. Have a rocking it.