Capitalism.com Founder Ryan Moran On How To Live In The Freedom Fast Lane

All right, welcome back to the show. This is Brad. And today is a very interesting day. As of the day that I'm recording this, the nation has a new president. Or will President Trump love him or hate him? It's been a very historic occasion. And I don't think there's anybody who's listening to this who probably wasn't glued to the TV or the Internet, watching the election and watching what's going on. And just a really, really crazy time. Good or bad, depending on your mood. Don't let it affect me too much. I just kind of move forward and continue on hustling like I know you guys are probably doing as well today. This may be somewhat appropriate, too. You know, the economy and the government is changing. I have got my friend and the founder of capitalism.com Ryan Moran is joining us today. He teaches people how to, you know, change the world and make money in the process by building a business and investing the profits. I've known Ryan a little bit here for the past several years and watched him do some really amazing things in the world of E commerce and, you know, even a very big live event that he's hosting in about a month called Freedom Fast Lane Live. And I will have the. I'll have a link in the show notes so that you can go check that out. I plan on being there, and I think it'll be just a tremendous event for you guys to check out as well. So if you like this show and if you like what Ryan has to say, you can get a lot more of him live here real soon. So without any further ado, let me welcome Ryan to the show. How are you, my friend?

Hey, Brad, thanks for having me on, man. And even if they don't like what I have to say, they can still check it out. You know, if we're talking politics, I'm sure somebody's going to be upset. At least that would be the goal, I think, if that, if that came up. But. But yeah, thanks for having me on, man.

Absolutely. You know the crazy though, right? Huh? This is the day after the election.

I mean, the way I look at it is capitalism is exactly the same as it was yesterday, and hopefully it'll be the same in four years. The matter remains, you're still the best shot you have at solving all of your problems in the world. Problems. And if we're waiting for a politician or a government to do that every four years, we were doomed in the first place.

I could not agree more. And it's one of those things that it Just, you see everybody just so wrapped up in how much this affects them. And it's. Emotionally, it's an emotional thing. I get it for a lot of people, but. But there. There has been also nothing. And I don't want to make this a big political podcast episode, but it almost does seem like, especially this year when Bernie was so close to the nomination, too, like socialism having a much big, bigger and growing voice in the country. And then on the far right, capitalism. And it's kind of interesting to see the two of, like, all of the tension between these two ideologies battling for the soul of this nation.

Don't you agree? So I don't agree. And here's why I was. I was bacon wrapped up, too, but I was wrapped up because I don't think capitalism was. Was represented. I mean, if we look at. If we take policy aside, if we look at the difference between capitalism and crony capitalism, capitalism would be getting things done and solving problems and changing the world through the profit motive, whereas crony capitalism is getting government contracts and changing legislation. We heard a lot about crony capitalism. We did not hear a lot about free market capitalism. And I think they're very, very different things.

That's a very good point.

So I felt very frustrated through the election process because. And one of the reasons why I feel so compelled to spread the message ofCapitalism and Capitalism.com is because I think we have seen the world bastardize capitalism and replace it with this idea of the government being the solution or big business being in bed with government. And at the end of the day, I don't think there are many Occupy Wall street type of Bernie Sanders supporters, people who are upset that people are making money. They're upset that they're making money at the expense of others by being in bed with government. And we can all agree on that. But that's not capitalism. Capitalism is providing something of value, creating new value, and being immensely rewarded in the process, because there is no limit to the amount of abundance that we can have. And that's the message that I fear has been lost throughout all of this noise.

You put that really eloquently, and I totally agree. And that's one of the things I didn't even bring up, like Trump, because I don't see Trump as the bastion of capitalism. And I don't see, you know, or the, you know, or the poster boy. And I've always been. It's kind of funny. Like, when I was a. When I was a kid, I love, like, Alex P. Keaton was My favorite character on all television. And I really. And I grew up, I have a finance and an economics degree background. And, you know, I studied Milton Friedman a lot. And I studied a lot of these people who are, you know, some of the, you know, some of the leaders of capitalism and what real capitalism is. And I think unfortunately, the most, the majority of the people out there don't really know what capitalism is. They hear about it as, oh, that's a capitalist country, or, oh, capitalist pigs are ruining everything. How? You know, for my audience who maybe doesn't have a degree in economics and who hasn't studied all this, I mean, you're the founder of capitalism.com. give me some more details on what it really represents and what it doesn't, and maybe some of the myths surrounding capitalism and what you're trying to do to dispel those.

I would consider capitalism to be the container through which individuals are financially rewarded for solving problems. Or to put simply, we change the world and make money in the process, and it's the best shot we have at solving any problem that you want. I don't care if it's global warming. I don't care if it is energy, if it is illness and disease. Capitalism is the fastest, the most efficient, and the best shot we have at solving all of those problems. And we only slow it down when we get in the way. When the government tries to come in and expedite it, it usually rewards winners before they have won and prevents people from coming in and being innovators. So the best thing we can do to solve the world's problem is just to keep the hell out of the way. So that's. I would define capitalism as that container through which we protect private exchange so that we can solve problems and make money in the process. The biggest misconception people have is that there's a fixed pie that by me producing something of value and being rewarded, I have now made it harder for you to experience the same benefit. The opposite is true. By me providing value in the marketplace, I've made the pie bigger. And therefore you have more to work with. You can actually succeed even more. And by you succeeding, you provide more into the economy and I've got more to work with. It's the reason why we can look back 100 years and we say more people are fed, more people have housing. The quality of both of those things have gone up. More diseases are solved, even though we're, quote, using up natural resources and we have more people to feed on this planet. So that's the reason, because by more creation, we actually build a bigger pie. And when there's a bigger pie, we have more to work with and we can build an even bigger pie. That's why the growth curve is exponential, as Peter Diamandis would put it. It's why we're able to solve more problems than ever before. It's why we can solve more diseases and people can live longer. And that can only go up as long as the pie continues to get bigger. Everybody has more pie to eat, so let's make more pie. The opposite approach would be there's a fixed amount and we've got to figure out how we're going to divide this up equally and fairly and make sure that people put back into the pie according to their fair share. That would be a misunderstanding of how an economy works, because an economy, as it grows, literally creates more wealth and we can create an infinite amount right.

Now, what about the, you know, what about the naysayers who have seen, and I, and I think I know your answer to this because. But you know, who's seen what? The unbridled greed and the unbridled profits at any cost, etc. That has kind of given a black eye to some capitalism. And they think, well, we need to have all these government controls because we obviously seen what the banksters have done and all of this other stuff. Do you believe, as I kind of do, that it's, it's the over regulation and the over. Well, I don't want to put words into your mouth, but what do you think has kind of caused that?

So there was a phrase that during the crisis in 2007, 2008, that Wall street was drunk. And that would be what most people would say would be that unbridled capitalism of the bankers. But if we simply look at who provided the alcohol, who brought this alcohol to the party to make Wall street drunk. Well, we can point back to the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates below 1% or at 1% for a long time, which is where they are. You know, they're below 1% right now. We're doing it again. We're staving off the hangover with more alcohol. So I would go back to policy. The policy is that we had below market interest rates, which allows the rich to borrow at almost no cost and buy apartment buildings and buy businesses and buy stocks and real estate and all these great things that spur economic growth. But they're doing it carelessly because there's no risk, because they're paying almost nothing in interest rates while the Poor, they pay higher prices because now there's these asset prices going up. So rent is going to go up, so the cost of housing is going to go up, the cost of food is going to go up, the cost of gas is going to go up. And meanwhile they're getting less in their savings because the banks have below 1% interest rates. So you have a policy that is supposed to encourage growth, but it actually makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. And then we blame capitalism for making income inequality. It just makes no sense.

You're right.

I think a better way of looking at this would be to just stay out of the way, let markets decide how things are going to work, and then you don't have all of these problems. So I look at policy as the problem in the first place. So what about.

Social safety nets and what about those aspects like how. Because there is the purest capitalist, laissez faire, every man for himself, et cetera, but then there's the more realistic side that we live in and et cetera. What's your view on the social safety nets?

Well, my personal view is that they tend to have an opposite effect. I think it's a really good thing. I think it's a really good thing for us to take care of one another. I just happen to think government is really bad at it. I really want my neighbor to be taken care of in the event of something happening, but I just don't trust that to out of touch politician to be able to make good decisions for him. Now if we're going to do it though, the best way we could do it is on the state or the local level because then we have more control over it. We have more ability to affect change if we don't like the policy in the first place. Easier to hold a politician accountable. If they're on the state level, you can vote them out. A lot easier than waiting four years for whoever's gonna run for president to be able to do something differently. So if we're going to do it, we need to do it on the local level. The idea that we could have a policy work for 400 million Americans over 50 different states, over 4,000 miles is absurd. Because the people in Colorado are gonna have different needs than the people in Florida. So a one size fits all policy I think is a mistake. It's inefficient. And if we're going to do it, then it needs to be done on a local level where we can have more direct say over what that's going to look like, you know, it's a.

Shame that we, when it comes to politics, I think as a nation, we all tend to pay more attention to the things that happen at the top. Less that happened locally in our communities, in our county, in our state, which when you look at what affects us the most and what we can, what change we can affect the most, like you just said, it's much more at the local level. I mean, I know when I voted in this election and I primarily voted for a lot of the things that were on the ballot in San Diego and California in general, more so than I did at the federal level, because I know that those things are going to affect my day to day life to a, arguably, to a larger degree. One of the things that was on the ballot, I believe it was out here in California and I know in a lot of places around the country, I think I saw it pass a lot of referendums on increasing the minimum wage. Probably seen some of that. Your views on the minimum wage, I think.

Well, my view on the minimum wage goes back to that. Yeah. But I think it does the opposite impact. I think it actually hurts poor people more than it helps them. We could go deep into the economics of that, but I understand that it's a well intended policy that I think does the opposite effect of what people are hoping for. And to your other point about we pay more attention on the federal level than the local level. That's the reason why on capitalism.com our tagline is be the change. Because it's a really bad strategy to wait four or eight years for you to have an impact on somebody's life by voting for the right guy or girl. It's just a really, really bad strategy. I want some, I want change to happen. So I'm going to wait eight years, I'm going to hope my guy wins, then I'm going to vote for him when tens of millions of other people are also going to vote. Hope that my voice is heard and then wait two more years for them to be able to hopefully pass a policy and hope that it trickles down to me. I can't think of a worse strategy than that when you can just create the change that you want in your life now.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. You know, on the, on the, on the minimum wage thing, it kind of reminds me, I wish I could find this. I've searched all over the Internet, but it was years ago that I saw this analogy to it and the guy was telling a story. He's like, man, I couldn't believe it. I. He goes, I had this old computer, and I was. I was done using it. I was like, I threw it on ebay. Like, I figured I'd sell it. I. I was going to throw it away, but if I can get a little bit of money for it, somebody offered me 200 bucks. And we went to engage in the transaction, and then I got a letter saying I can't sell it for $200. And it was from the government. I was like, what do you mean? I was like, I'm about to complete this transaction. They're like, no, you've got to sell it for $500. He's like, well, it's not worth $500, and nobody will give me $500. The new buyer. And they're like, nope, sorry. He's like, yeah, you probably think that's a ridiculous thing. The government would never tell you that you have to sell what you have for a higher price than the market's willing to give you. It's like, well, that's exactly what they're doing with minimum wage. You know, somebody may not have a lot of skills, and there might not be somebody out there willing to pay them $15 an hour, but they'll pay him 5. And you're telling these people at these lower level, you're not allowed to sell your time, you're not allowed to earn money unless you charge a much higher rate, then nobody wants it. And I was like, that was a pretty interesting analogy that I think a lot of people can.

Yeah, I would look at it even broader than that and just say, and forgive me for repeating myself, but waiting for your labor union to give you a better deal, or waiting for the government to change your salary and just putting your hope and the government telling you what you're worth, I think is insulting because I think people are worth more than that, and I think that they can impact change faster than just waiting for a politician to give them what they want.

Do you think that because of the country right now, I mean, it's. Nobody would argue. Well, nobody who knows what they're talking about would argue that America is a purely capitalist country. I mean, we are very much on the socialist spectrum based upon a lot of the policies and a lot of things we have now. Do you think we're too far gone to make a big difference? Or do you think that it's through entrepreneurialism and education that we can start to turn this thing around? Or do you think we're on a path to just becoming a pure Socialist country.

You know, I go back and forth on this, but if you ask me today, my answer today is that I'm very optimistic. That has nothing to do with the election. Just overall, if we look at the progress that we are making in the private sector, it far outpaces what's happening in the public sector.

That's true.

And if we look at that, we are disrupting industries faster than governments can keep up. Governments just have to get out of the way. If Uber and Lyft can disrupt the taxi industry and the transportation industry faster than any government can do and faster than the government can even update their legislation, then what do you think is going to happen when Tesla releases the self driving car?

Yeah.

And then the their built in Uber technology where I can be in the Bahamas and I'm renting out my Tesla while I'm gone because it's driving itself and I come back and there's money in my account.

My friend Annie and she went to Pittsburgh and she actually took a self driving Uber just the other day. I mean the fact that.

Yeah, so I mean I am very optimistic that we are outpacing government so quickly that we will easily see that there's no reason to stand in the way of capitalism and we just need to get out.

You know in James Altucher's book Choose Yourself, you probably read. I have, yeah. One of the things I loved the points he made paraphrasing here was that, you know, because of what's going on with the economy and the environment, et cetera, that throughout history it's never been more important to be entrepreneurial or to be an entrepreneur, whether you're an artist, whether you're in a business or whatever. Because changes are coming and you're being forced, like people are being forced into independent contractor status more so than ever before. But he says so never has it been more important to be, however, never has it been easier to be an entrepreneur. The fact that, I mean you, and I mean can you imagine like 15 years ago, 20 years ago, whatever, having the ability to sit down and have a, have a business as a teenager, you know, or whatever with your computer and nothing else. Like back then to start a business it was massive capital. Like the only type of business you could start without a bunch of capital is a multi level marketing business.

Yeah. And today it's almost expected that young people are going to be entrepreneurs because. Because they're, because they want, they don't want to be doctors when they grow up, they want to be YouTubers.

Yeah. They want to Be Elon Musk. They want to be YouTubers. They want to be. They're the new rock stars. I was actually writing an article about that. Another thing, and I was having this conversation last night, just kind of out, you know, we were solving world problems, obviously over beers. And you mentioned earlier Peter Diamandis, who I've met and loved, all of the stuff he's doing. And you've got him coming to Freedom fast lane live, right?

That's correct. He's keynoting the event.

That's awesome. So Peter, for my audience, if you don't recognize him, founder of X Prize and was, you know, his entire model was, well, let's solve major world problems by putting a prize on them, which, and I think, what was it like a $10 million prize to be the first company to get into space? That's what Richard Branson and Bert Rutan won. Was it like 10 million the first X Prize?

It was 10 million, yeah.

And I bet that they spent more than $10 million to. On their plane. I'm willing to bet.

I have, I have no idea, but.

I'm willing to bet the first company to take a plane to space it cost more than $10 million. But I was like, that's really interesting. When you think, especially in America, we had this really competitive spirit. One of the simplest problems is just sponsor a prize, even if the prize is minuscule and it's like a trophy prize, it will ignite the capitalistic entrepreneurial passions of so many people and problems get solved so much quicker than ever before. And I think that if our government took a note like, you know, read some of the stuff that Peter's put out, implied it, that is a big part of the future. So I thought that was awesome when I saw that you were having him keynote the event.

Well, even if we were to go more micro than that, there's just something magical about in your business. What problem is it that you solve when we look at it that way. So I teach a lot of e commerce entrepreneurs, I teach a lot of individuals how to build physical products, brands and how to sell those. My kind of shtick is the 12 months to 1 million plan. What you need to do to build a million dollar business in 12 months. And one of the sticking points that a lot of the new entrepreneurs that I work with have is they say, okay, so I've got this product and now what do I do with it? And they have no idea who they serve or what the pain point is that they're solving. What problem do you solve with your product. Because if you can solve that and we can put a person behind that, then your entire product line becomes extremely, extremely clear. And as a result, you'll have no problem marketing that product because it's a. It's a clear solution to pain. And when it is a solution, that's really easy for people to get behind into support. Whereas if it's just a product that. That's harder to sell. So if we were to just think about entrepreneurship and your business as the solution to some problem that's easy to get people to rally behind, that's a cause people can believe in, and that's when you have raving fans and you have repeat customers. And it just gets a lot easier from there.

Yeah, it really does. And I think that looking. Sometimes the problem that you're solving is not an obvious problem. Sometimes it's not right out there, but digging and really thinking about what is it. You can uncover some gold when you. When you really think like that and take that filter to your business, to your service, to, you know, to whatever. Like, you know, my wife, I've had this conversation with my wife, and she's a. In addition to owning Stiletto Coffee, she's a mortgage officer. And although that's a harder problem, with what problem are you solving? Selling coffee, you know, but because you're more like fulfilling a desire. But in the mortgage business, like, I've had this conversation, like, what problems are you solving when somebody comes to get a loan through you? So that.

Right.

You can really articulate that. In a way, it's going to touch them more emotionally. It's going to be. It's going to hook them much more into, you know, working with you as opposed to just say, no, I make loans so people can get houses.

Yeah, exactly. And all of a sudden, now there's a mission and a reason why you exist rather than you just pushing paper all day. I think, I think, look, all entrepreneurship and all capitalism is the solution to some problem and making money in the process. You're making the world a better place, and you're making money in the process. But we so often forget about the making the world a better place or solving a problem piece of it, but they're hand in hand by you having a transaction take place. You're making a world a better place because someone voluntarily said, I want that thing more than I want these dollars. And now the pie has gotten bigger and we just see it in dollars. But you've forgotten the impact that you've made in the person who voluntarily said, I want this thing, and it's easy for us to lose that. And I think that's part of why we have demonized the idea of capitalism, because we have forgotten that behind all of the transactions, there are wants and desires that people are voting for. And they're saying, I want this, and this makes my life better.

You're 100% spot on. I even did a. Whoops. Just dropped my earpiece. I even did a podcast episode recently, and I've got an article coming out about kind of the difference between trying to be an entrepreneur and simply being entrepreneurial and how you don't have to quit your job and take on a ton of risk and raise capital or spend a bunch of capital in order to be entrepreneurial. You can do that inside a job. You can do that wherever you're at simply by understanding exactly what you just said, which was, what does an entrepreneur do? They create value by solving problems and receiving value in return. And it doesn't mean you have to. You know, that's really all it is. You can do that by asking questions of your. You know, if you've got a job and you're in accounts receivable, and there's nothing really amazing about it, what questions are you asking your colleagues, your bosses, your superiors, people in different departments? Are you finding out what problems and inefficiencies are there? And then are you taking the initiative to go solve it? Whether it's you or somebody, you know, that's being entrepreneurial and you get rewarded for it. And I think if more people took on that intrapreneurial entrepreneurial spirit, we'd have a lot less issues.

Yeah, I agree. I think that's how real change gets made. It comes from people being entrepreneurial and people starting businesses and solving problems.

Absolutely. I want to shift gears a little bit because I want to talk about some of the cool stuff you've been doing with this event and some of the growth. Like, was it last year that when you did the Freedom Fast Lane live, was that your very first live event for that?

Yeah, that was. That was the first one. And I did it because I didn't think I could.

So I was gonna ask you about, like. Yeah, so tell me about that, because, I mean, you came out swinging. Like, you came out, and you made it. You made a big splash. You didn't have, like, a little, tiny little workshop and then built, you know, take years and years to build up. I mean, you got some good names there and you got some good people there. I mean, how many people were the.

First event we had? Just over 400 at the first one. Yeah.

And for those of you who've never thrown an event putting 400 butts in a seat, especially. Did you do it in December last year as well?

Yeah, we did it right before Christmas last year. And my, and my daughter says hello.

That's crazy to me. Like, the fact that, like, you even pulled that off is amazing because, you know, like, everybody's got crazy travels schedules in December. But going back to the very first one, who are some of the big. Because I can't remember off the top of my head, but you had some pretty big key.

Yeah, let's, let's tell the story here because, yeah, I, my, my goal, my goal ever since I was a kid was to own the Cleveland Indians. And up until this point, I would say they're a really bad baseball team that I want to turn around. But this year was a pretty good year. So I've been in this entrepreneurial and Internet business world for several years, and at one point I just looked at myself and I was like, the path that I'm on is not going to get me my dang Cleveland Indians. Like, playing in the field of individuals where people are just trying to extract as many dollars as possible rather than doing something incredible is not going to give me my Cleveland Indians. So I've got to go get some better strategies. So who are the biggest and the best people that I follow, respect, or that have mentored me that can up level this? Because this is a problem. If I'm going to own the Cleveland Indians, I got to do something different and I got to start doing it now. So first call I made was Gary Vaynerchuk. Not because he talks about hustle and Monday mornings, but he wants to own the jets, on the jets. And he runs 100 million dollar agency. 100 million dollar per year agency.

Okay, so tell me about that. Did you know Gary before that?

I didn't know Gary. I just knew that he was the first person that I had to call.

Okay, so tell me how that went down.

Well, how what went down?

How did you, how did you do that? Like, what's the. When you want to talk to somebody?

I just paid him.

Okay.

I mean, I just, I just put down money. There are people who are like, how'd you get in touch with people? I had paid them. I mean, amazing.

It only works all the time.

Yeah. I mean, I would pay for coaches, I would pay for consultants, I would pay for employees. Why would I Hire the people who are 10 years ahead of me so I can collapse that time and make it happen faster. My second call was to Grant Cardone. I didn't know who the guy was. I just know he owned $400 million in real estate and I thought that would make a really nice down payment on the Cleveland Indians. So I need this guy to come in, come in and talk about his empire here. My third call was to Jeff Hoffman who founded PriceSign.com has a billion dollar net worth that would get me two Cleveland Indians. So we're well on our way here. I called Robert Herjavec. Robert Herjavec, not because he's on Shark Tank, but because he runs a 50 to $100 million a year company and invests in new companies. And he's seen everything that has done to grow a business or tank a business on a massive scale because he's invested in all these companies. I want to hear what the best strategies were. So we. My intent is always to bring in those who can accelerate the process to extraordinary results and collapse it into three days. Because you can't help be in that environment and walk out a different person. It's just like, you know, you're the average of the five people that you hang out with. You're also the average of the people that you listen to and you follow. And in our little ancestral world, we follow the exact same people and talk about the exact same things. It's exhausting and it's kind of depressing because it's time for a better conversation. So this year we're covering the path from 0 to 100 million in every stage in between. So everyone who we're bringing in has either been a part of a company that has made that that growth or has been a piece of an overall strategy that contributes to that. We're doing a panel of $100 million business owners. Peter D. Is keynoting the event. We brought in John Mackey, Whole foods, Whole Foods, $13 billion a year in revenue for that company. Selling other people's products. Like I look down on selling other people's products. But he does it a $13 billion a year. Oh, I guess we got to talk because I'm wrong about something, right? So that's the idea. We put those who have done these extraordinary things that are beyond what our industry usually settles for. We put the best people into one room. I do it selfishly so I can up level and then we invite people to join because anybody who's going to resonate with that is the type of person I want to hang out with and will probably be good for me to know on my path to only Cleveland Indians.

I love that line of thinking. And you're playing the long game with it and understanding that access and influence are, you know, will get you very, very far though. That being said, early on, you know, you had and that that was just what last year's lineup. I mean, you've got a even more impressive lineup. Like you mentioned this year. You don't have to go into, you know, exact details unless you want to. But you know, how much did you have to really? I mean, did you have to go pretty much in the hole? And I mean, you took a big, big bet on this. Like if I build it, they will come, did you? Not where I get these right people. I mean that had to really kind of make you, you know, tighten up a little bit going, man, I'm shelling out a lot of cash. Is there?

Oh yeah. Then events don't make money.

No.

So I mean, this is the most expensive thing we do. It's the most laborious thing we do. Sometimes I like to joke that we spend six years or six years kill me. We spend six months of our year prepping to do something where we won't make money.

Do you think you'll lose much money or do you think you'll break it? And I'm talking about immediate.

Yeah, our goal is to not lose money. Our goal is to break even. And we did last year. We probably will again this year.

That's beautiful. You can put that on and break even, that's all.

Well, it's also a lot of friggin work. But we do it because it's the long game for me. It's. It's the long game of who am I surrounding myself with and how am I thinking. I literally, I literally build and host the event that I want to go to. And that's why I do it.

Right?

Because there's no other event where I can get the same experience. So it is. Sure it's good branding, but it is literally the event I want to go to that we put on in December and we invite people to join and they don't have to spend six weeks, six months planning it and doing all this work because nobody else was doing it. So somebody had to and it was us.

So all the big marquee names and I have not held a big event like you've done so and paid speakers to come in, at least not yet. But all these marquee names, they all expect full payment upfront, way ahead of time. Or were you able to negotiate any kind of unique or creative situations that took a little bit of the pain off you until later?

Some of them are willing to negotiate, but the standard approach is half upfront and half 30 days before the event.

Okay.

So if you book them in January, you'll put basically a 50% deposit down, and then you'll pay the rest in November. So that's your standard speaking arrangement. So there's some flexibility there.

Now, were you able to, at least since the first one, capitalize, work with. Find any opportunities with some of the people from, you know, Gary to Jeff or herjavec or whatever, like staying in contact with them and furthering that relationship?

Well, Grant was an interesting case, by the way.

I didn't bring his name up in that list.

Yeah. Because we don't like each other very much. But the rest. Yeah, there's. There's some, I guess, social capital that's built up, even if it's, you know, an opportunity comes up and someone says, oh, yeah, I remember that person. So there's not a. There's not a direct. There's not a direct path to victory there in every case. But even if it's a year from now, sometimes that relationship capital cashes a check.

And then. So you mentioned a few of these, but on the. On the lineup this year, Peter Diamandis, Jesse Itzler, who was on my show earlier, way, like, back in February, I'm really looking forward to actually meeting in person this year. Who are some of the other big marquee names that you've got?

Alicia Silverstone, the actress, but she's a successful entrepreneur and nobody knows it. It's kind of sad that nobody knows it. Sean Stevenson, who I know you know and are friends with, you know, one of the things at events like these, I've realized, is that being in that type of an environment can also be kind of hard on your psyche because you hear all these amazing things that happen, and then, at least for me, I get depressed about it because I.

Say you compare yourself to them.

Exactly, Exactly. So we always kick off the event with someone like Sean, who has this story of you have nothing to be upset about and clears the pathway for three days of Grove.

Sean's great. Have you had. Was he at the last one?

He was not, no.

He is great. You've seen him speak in person, though, obviously, right? Yeah, he's so awesome. To kick off an event, he sets the tone like, nobody. I've ever seen.

Cameron Herald speaking calm. The million dollar man. He's been a part of three different companies that have gone to 100 million.

He was just on the show too.

Cool. And the one I'm probably most excited about, Tom Bilyeu, the founder of Quest Nutrition.

Yeah, that would be cool.

To 500 million. Perfect. And that company went from zero to 500 million in like five years. You know, selling food, that's just, that's impossible. And doing it with no outside capital, wow, that's just, that's just ridiculous.

You did a podcast with him, didn't you?

I did. That was just.

I've got that on my list to listen to because I was like, yeah, that really, really interesting. Especially as a consumer of his product.

Yeah, fascinating story.

The who. Who are some of the people that are not coming to this? Who you don't know yet, who are on your big wish list of maybe next year or the ones that you really want to uplevel again.

Oh, if I told you, if I told you, I'd have to kill you. Oh, you gotta like, I'm gonna share that with you. No, we actually, we're already in planning mode for the next one. So we have to. If we're gonna make everyone bigger and better than the last one, we always have our hit list going.

What about. Well, you don't have to name any names, but what are some of the fields that you're really looking into? Because obviously there's people who are, you know, founders of companies. Like, are you also looking for big VC type folks or Silicon Valley or anything?

What's most interesting to me is people who have built sustainable brands.

Gotcha.

The quests of the world, the honest companies of the world, the whole foods, the dollar shave clubs, the companies that have brands that are then sold for millions or billions of dollars. A, because that's sustainable. B, because I think that is where all the VC money.