Burn It Down & Rebuild: How I Made $2.4M Last Year But Lost It All

Oh, man, I'm excited for this one. This has been. It's been a long time, dude. What's it been, two years?

Yeah.

The last time I see you, like two years ago in person.

When was that?

I'm trying to think about that.

Was it more? Was it?

Man, no, I think it was two years ago. It was probably before I moved back to Arizona and you went to Boca. Maybe it was more.

It's probably two and a half because.

When did you move to boca?

Yeah, in 23.

Yeah.

So, yeah, 23.

It's interesting being here to. Really interesting being here. Cuz we're in Miami right now. Obviously I met you here.

Yeah.

But it feels. It feels like it's been a decade.

Yeah.

And at the same time, about a month since I came here in 21.

Time flies, man. But it also seems like it went super soon.

Is it a Miami thing or is it just a general thing? Times?

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, a lot's happened. Like, we were just talking about off camera, but I think just when you. When you. It's been two and a half years. I mean, that's a long time.

Yeah. You know, it feels like I just saw it yesterday.

Exactly, too. Like, I just. I still remember when we were at Soul Bras, like when I was fresh in Miami and we went to his white dinner at like.

Great restaurant.

Yeah, yeah.

Except they have seed oils in everything.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So I still remember that. And that feels like it was yesterday.

Yeah, that does.

Or even when we did the first podcast with Logan, for example.

Yeah.

Maybe we'll do another one. Yeah. That. What, 20, 22 was that?

I think so, man.

Yeah. Shoot.

I remember meeting you the first time.

Yeah.

We were at Liloquoi. We got breakfast.

Yes.

I was like, who's this Brian guy tweeting all this stuff? And then Logan's like, I'm getting breakfast with him. Like, cool. Like, I'll come.

And then we walked the.

Yeah, the.

The.

Yeah.

Yeah. You guys. You guys gave me the official Miami South Point.

We can't reveal too much.

Yeah.

This is a little secret.

They actually made me do a ritual. They're like, I can't tell you why, but you got a circle around this tree. I'm like, what is it for?

What?

They're like, I can't.

It got rid of the tree. No, they tore the whole thing out.

Yeah.

The ritual's done.

Wow.

Oh, man. No, I really, I. I've been doing little. Little podcasts here, a little podcast there. I've been putting Them on my second channel. Maybe I'll put this one on my main channel. I've been. I've been thinking about how I've been doing that.

Yeah.

And it's really good to have you here, bro. And do this and just talk business. Personal stuff for sure. Because we're good friends and it's been a while and we've been. We've both been through some.

Yeah.

I didn't realize it when we were talking before. And I don't think you realized on my end, so. Yeah. Dude. What? Let's start here.

Yeah.

What's the biggest thing that you're focused on right now?

Being the best father and husband I can ever be.

Your father now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How's that?

One month.

As of today, she's one month old. It's been. It's been amazing, dude. She's like, I told you when we were coming up the elevator to do this, I'm running on four hours of sleep, but actually I feel like I'm fine, you know? Like, it's funny, you think, you know, optimizers. Eight hours. Aura ring, you know, like blue light blocking, glasses, all those things. And then you have a kid and you're like, oh, she's crying, gotta help. Gotta hold her, take care of her. And four hours of sleep later, like, you're good. Were you.

Were you eight hours before that?

Oh, yeah. I was like, I can't function without eight hours. I would tell myself that. And I would need to be in a deep sleep. And I have to have the room dark and cold. And I still do all those things. Obviously. I still. I still wear the blue eye fucking glasses. But I'm also running on four hours of sleep. And I'm like, I can do a lot more.

Actually.

I have a lot more capacity.

I like to say that I get eight. I like to think that I get it, but it's really probably like six or seven on average.

Good sleep.

Yeah, exactly.

Like, I even stopped wearing the OURA ring, too. Because I think I heard Logan say this back when we first met, too. He was like, I don't need a ring to, like, tell me how to sleep. And I was like, I think that's kind of true. Like, maybe. Maybe I'm doing too much sometimes, you know, you just sleep.

Yeah. The biggest thing for me is consistent bedtime.

Yeah.

Which I have not been great at.

Yeah.

But consistent bedtime, consistent wake up. And the room just dark.

Yeah.

I'm just dark. And actually here I've been getting incredible sleep. So I noticed Like a lot of these apartments, if you're watching this and you know you got your apartment or your house, whatever. A lot of the shades.

Yeah.

Let a lot of light through. Especially if you're in a city or you're in an apartment complex and there's a lot of lights on outside or security lights outside your home. Blackout shade.

Yeah.

The only problem is it's so dark that in the morning.

Yeah.

You can't see anything.

Yeah.

So I really, I really need to just build a home and then have it on a timer so it's super dark.

And then wake up with the circadian and everything.

Yeah.

But yeah, man, that's what I've been up to. Just taking care of, doing. I mean, I say taking care. My wife's been taking care of the baby. You know, I've been doing my best to help her, but. And then just I, I've scaled back the business pretty significantly as well.

Really? In what regard?

I had a team of 16 last year. I'm down to a team of three.

Whoa, we gotta talk about that. I didn't know that.

Yeah, yeah.

I, I just also realized I was chasing a lot of things that are very, it was very status driven, very power, very like sort of, you know, big team, big agency. On the surface it looks great, but at the end of the day I was waking up and I'm like, I'm not happy if I check Slack and I don't get deals. I'm like, that can't be good, you know, and, and then I'm like, my, my whole happiness is dictated by this, by this slack channel for the deals. And I'm like, But long story short, I just realized I'm like, what am I actually optimizing for, for. And then again, you know, the kid helps with that. And I just realized I'm like, okay, I'm chasing big revenue, chasing big team. But like, reality is like I, the client results aren't getting any better either. And the client results aren't getting any better. The. I'm basically a master manager now. I'm not even doing the creative work that I used to do. Therefore I'm not actually as involved as I'd like to be. And as a result of that, like, I just decided to change a few things and go back to what I really want to do. And like, so now I'm in a place where I'm working hands on with clients again, choosing the right partners that I want to work with. I'm also still doing education and that's What I'm actually getting a lot of fulfillment in as well.

So.

Okay, let's talk about that because I'm really, I'm really curious about the business stuff.

Sure.

You're. You got a team of 16.

Yeah.

Can you talk about the revenue?

Yeah.

Like what it was and maybe the profit.

Yeah. Last year.

And how it scales different.

Yeah, of course. So last year we did top. Top line 2.4. Okay. Profit margin was. Thank you so much. Yeah. Top line 2.4. Profit margin was 33. And I had payroll and overhead of about 150k every single month. And this is just. Oh, and it was. And. And like, you know, that sounds like. Looking back, it's fun. Sonny. It's so funny, dude. I was hesitant to ever talk about this, but like, at the same time, I think you just got to share it because, like, I think some people will hear that and be like, bro, that's nothing. Like, wait till you have a million, you know?

Yeah.

So it's all perspective.

I think it depends on the margin though.

Of course.

Like, if that's 70 margin, you're like 150, no problem.

Yeah.

Yeah. But it's a little 33. And it's like. And, and the biggest problem was a lot of that was again, dependent on new customers. So a lot of. I learned a lot of lessons because you go from like, you've, You've experienced this as well. You have a. Done for you agency. When you first start, you. You scale it to 100k a month. You have people on retainers. Right. You lose one client that's on a 10k month retainer, you still have 90k coming in. Right. Well, what we ended up doing was the way we were able to scale the 2.4 was we started scaling back the done for you agency to scale the productized service. We were selling these 15k packages and that was making us the majority of the money. But it depended on ads, it depended on sales team. And we were starting basically from basically zero every single month.

And.

And I didn't like that. And there was a lot of arguments internally about that too. And I just knew, like, recurring revenue had to be a factor in there, but we didn't focus on it because we were just focused on the product.

So how'd you switch? What did you switch back to?

Yeah, so, okay, so, okay, so then at the end of last year when I was moving back to Miami and I also knew my wife is pregnant now, we're gonna have a kid soon, so what do I want to do? And. And I was like, okay, well, the clients aren't getting the best results anymore. I feel like I'm just scaling to scale to hit the next milestone. 500k a month, a million a month. People are telling me that's what I. That's what I need to do. And, like, internally, I'm like, yeah, like, let's just go. Let's just go. A million a month. Million a month. But then deep down, I'm just like, I don't know if that's what I actually want right now or if it's just what everyone else told me I should be doing.

Interesting.

And because I'm the person that has said or I'm supposed to be this person that everyone thinks I am, that's what I should want, and that's what I should be doing. And then I just. I basically woke up one day and I was trying to force it. It wasn't fun. Like, I wasn't flowing anymore. I was just brute forcing everything. Content, talking about YouTube ads, all the stuff that I was doing in the business. And I was just like, I'm just not having fun. And like, you know, again, Alex Hormozi hears this. He's like, bro, fun that I haven't had fun in five years. You know, potentially. Right. So again, everyone's perspective is different, but for me, I'm like, well, dude, I can do whatever I want. Like, I don't have to listen to anybody, actually. So what do I want to do? And so fast forward to today. I scaled back basically, everybody. It wasn't overnight, like, this decision to where to be where I am right now, talking to you about this with where the business is at. Took like eight months, bro, and November.

Of last year to make a point and obviously expand on it. Yeah, but what. That's always an interesting period.

Yeah.

Where there's a lot of team dynamic shifts because you usually have a lot of extra cost to offboard somebody and revenues dropping at the same time.

Yeah. So. So what happened was. This is what happened November election season last year. Right. Every October, November, especially during an election season, the ad costs skyrocket and things just start happening. Right. Well, keep in mind, my wife and I were in Europe at the time, and we just got back to Miami to try to find a place to live. I was staying with my parents for a little bit. Me and my wife, while we were trying to find a new location, our ads died literally overnight, bro. Our ads stopped working. Our ad costs got through the roof. Lead quality went to the. To the Shitter, my top sales guy doesn't have any calls booked. And organic, you know, everything, everything I say in my ads is the same thing that's happening to me now, right? My, my organic's doing decent, but it's not enough to keep a closer from wanting to go and get a new gig, right? He was making 30k a month before. This month he's not going to make anywhere close to that. He's probably like, what the happening? And meanwhile, I'm also thinking about, I got to find a new place to live here. I got to think about the kid I have on the way. I got to think about all the payroll, the expenses. All this stuff's on my mind and I'm trying to juggle it all. And at the same time, I'm like, also questioning, like, do I really want to continue doing it the way we have been? And so all that's happening. And then, yeah, like you said, I still have to make payroll. I still have people to think about. And of course, I don't want to just fire people without knowing for sure I don't need them. So I'm like, how do I deal with this? And then every single night I was, dude, I was stressed out because I'm trying. There's this push and pull that was happening internally with me. Like, bro, are you just being a little bitch? Like, what are you doing? Like, do you really, like, you should just scale, like, just freaking make it work. Like, just keep going. And then, and then I'm like, but at the same time, deep down I'm like, I don't think this feels right. So it was that weird programming of like, yeah, are you just quitting or like, you know, quitting or are you really trying to do something different because you're being called for that and, you know, sitting here now, who knows? But all I know is I can say I feel a lot more peaceful.

How those margins now, bro, I mean.

It'S 80 plus, right?

And way more, way more secure. Especially with the family.

Especially with the family. And I'm focused on the right thing, which again, that was the thing I learned too. I talked about this at my last Mastermind in New York City, but I was telling these guys because, you know, we were hitting 350k a month at our top month, you know, 50 profit margins at that month. And, you know, we ended up at 2.4 million last year. But what they don't see is they don't see the overhead, they don't see the payroll. I remember one month In October, I was paying $20,000 to contractors to help us fulfill on the service. And then I looked at that, I was like, dude, what are we doing here? And the service wasn't getting that much better, you know, like, the more people we had, it actually wasn't getting better. So I'm like, I think I'm doing this. I don't know if I'm doing this the right way. Or maybe I am on paper, maybe I've done it because I've exited fulfillment. I'm not on client calls anymore. I'm just managing. So on paper, to everybody else, I've exited, my team's doing everything. I'm just being the CEO. But then like, I can't ignore the fact that clients aren't getting, like when I say clients aren't getting results, 60% of clients plus we're getting results, right? But when you take a productized service and you go mass market with it to the coaches, consultants, agencies market, a lot of those guys are making 10, 20, 30k a month. They don't really have a legitimate business. Right. It's just them. And they also don't have much to spend on ads. Plus they're paying us. So if the ads don't work in the first month, they're griping they're going to refund. So there's a lot of.

They needed to work so fast, you guys can't even get the work done.

And we're used to working with the bigger clients, the ones that can afford the budget. And so it was all that stress too, because I want to get clients results. I care about my reputation, I care about getting people the result that we promised. But at the same time, I also can't control all the things that it takes to control a profitable cold campaign and a sales funnel. And I, and teaching a team to do that too. So long story short, I, over the last eight months, every single day has been sort of like that. Maybe, maybe I do this, maybe I do that. But then I was just like, it was a slow transition. Okay, I'm going to let this team member go, get rid of this. Let these clients do their own thing, you know, reduce the amount of ad spend and.

And you're just doing. Done for, you know.

Well, mostly.

Mostly.

So it's actually I, I call it the three offer suite. So it's. I still have a few done for you. Boutique clients that I personally run the ads for that are partners of mine. And that's, you know, those are like guys that are already doing multiple six figures a month. They need someone for YouTube ads and I'm just like, cool. I'm back to my old, like, how I started.

Right.

But with the rates that I can charge now. And that's my like, boutique offer. Like my highest priced in the middle. I have. I still have the hybrid offer, the one that we sold last year that still works, but I'm only selectively selling it to people that I know I can get results for. And it's more productized, so I don't have to spend all my time doing all that for them. They're just. It's more consulting. And then I have the Mastermind. And the Mastermind is just a call a week in person events, which I love to do anyways. And it's kind of a natural ascension because what happens is someone comes to me and they want the done for you agency, but they're not ready for that. Right. So I still give them the hybrid. I still help them with the setup, consult with them, and then once it's running and working, they can either upgrade to the agency if they want and if they. If I want to work with them.

Yeah.

Or they can join the Mastermind, or they can just say, I want to continue doing it myself, whatever. So that's what I do right now. Sick, bro.

That's. That's been an incredible. I can relate on a lot of levels. It's been an incredible journey. Step by step, the whole thing. I. I'm kind of in a mid period right now where I've removed myself from most fulfillment except for two hours a week, you know, and then sales. I don't have to do that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

On and on. The marketing end, the launch, socials, like brand content is mostly done by the team. I'll record a couple videos, you know, a week, and it's, It's.

I see your ads all the time on Instagram too.

Really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're not even running hard.

Whiteboard. The whiteboard. Yeah, that one. I always see that.

Thank you. Yeah.

I mean, we're not even running it hard yet, so that's interesting.

Cool.

But the. The big thing for me now is the personal content because your Twitter the.

Last few days has been going up as well. So you've been posting hard.

It's really interesting. It's really. I want to break. I want to break this down a little bit. I've been kind of in that period where you've been in where like dude, payrolls.

Yeah.

And we need to bring in.

Yeah.

You know, new Deals every month to meet the payroll, this and that.

The.

The margin's okay, though, so it's like, whatever. I'm gonna keep doing it. But the thing is, I. I know I want the mill a month for sure. And I know it's me because I know the things that I want. I'm like, 100 is not gonna afford, you know, a couple of these things that I want to be able to take care of. So I have to scale there if I want to get what I want to get.

Yes.

And I have strenuously, like, every month. Do I need this person? Do I need this software?

Yeah.

Do I need this ad spend doing?

Yes.

Our acquisition is also different because. And it's also part of my goal. I don't really want to run crazy cold paid ads.

Yeah.

Until I'm at super scale. Like, I'll just come to you at that point. Hey, dude, we're doing a mill a month. Like, just run the YouTube for me. But I want to get to that level with the security.

Of course.

60, 70% margin. That's the caveat for me. I want to get there, but I want to do it without breaking my back on 20% margins, where I'm stressing losing my hair from, like, oh, my God all the time. And. And that's the place I don't want to be in. And I'm trying to completely avoid. So I'm trying to do it organic. So for me, it's interesting because I got to Miami and I'm like, I'm gonna record a shit ton of content because I haven't had, you know, this view, the whole thing. The beach.

Yeah.

I slowed down my Twitter, which is where we actually acquire most of our clients from. My Twitter, probably like 80%.

Wow.

And I slowed it down. And then like, the past month, I'm like, why? Why aren't we making money? I'm recording all this content. And then I'm like, oh, I tweeted maybe 20, 30% of what I normally am tweeting. So I've been hammering, hammering that. And it's just kind of period of I left my day to day was always fulfillment.

Yeah.

And selling and making sure that we're doing some marketing and we're making money. But now this is the first time where it's. I could just make content. So what do I.

What do I.

What do I do?

Yeah.

I don't know how to do this because I haven't done it 24 7. Yeah. I'm walking the other day, filming a vlog and I'm like, this is work, but it doesn't feel like work. I'm taking a walk. Well, I'm vlogging. This is interesting. And so it's been a thing of figuring that out. And in that process, I stopped doing what I was doing that got me there, and it faltered a little bit. So I can relate on many levels. I can relate many levels. And I'm curious if you're ever going to shoot.

Yeah.

For the middle of month or big numbers again. Or it's going to be a different model.

What that looks like the reason why. Again, it's not that I don't want a million a month. It was the intention behind it.

Okay.

The intention that I had at that time of like a million a month. It was like. It was like almost out of an. Out of an attachment that if I didn't get it, I wouldn't be happy. That was the problem. My intention and the reason I wanted it was because I had a fear of, like, not being good enough if I didn't get it. Or I had a fear of, like, I won't be happy. And like, if. If I don't hit these numbers. And that was the biggest problem I realized. So it wasn't a matter of, like. It wasn't a matter of like, I want a million a month because I want to impact this many people to be able to do that. Yeah, it was. I want a million a month because that's what people say I should do. And, and it's. It's. It's. It's like, that's the next goal. But, like, okay, it's just a rat race then. Then it's 10 million, then it's a hundred. And I wanted to be able to come from a place of like, okay, if I'm gonna do that, it's not gonna be a million a month goal. Like, that's gonna be the byproduct of serving this many people.

And it could be for the right reason.

It's for the right reason this time. So 100%, dude. I mean, that's the problem. Like, that's why I was. So I guess, like, I haven't really talked about it much because it's like, I know people are going to perceive it differently. And it's like, oh, he quit or gave up. And it's like, I've had all those internal thoughts myself. So anybody. Anybody can say anything anybody can say is not going to be something that I already didn't ask myself.

And for anyone that does say anything. There's 10 more people that are listening to this being like, wow, that is such good perspective. I'm not at those numbers yet, but that makes a lot of sense. I want to build my business X, Y, Z, certain way.

Yeah. I just, I just want to do it in a way that's going to serve others at the highest level where I'm not, like you said, I'm not selling my soul just for the sake of collecting the bag. You know, I want it to be, I want it to be worthwhile and I want it to be at a true servant of people. So ultimately that's what.

Yeah.

The answer is yes.

Dude, that's sick, bro. I think it's real alignment fulfillment.

Yeah. It's like right now I'm taking a little sabbatical, if you will, you know, realigning.

Still, still collecting cash.

It's like, dude, I'm still doing what I want to do, but it's high profit now. It's like my lifestyle is good.

Yeah.

And it's like, oh, cool, I'll see where I see what's next.

You know, like, I'd be really curious to just hear a little bit more about the recurring because it's something that I've been playing with a little bit because I slow the agency down. A lot of a couple of guys that I work with, very boutique.

Yeah.

But I'm sort of looking for opportunities now at the higher end to ramp it back up because I'm out of fulfillment on the lower end. What we're starting to do is create a lot of people that are kind of ready for it.

So that's where I think the question you're going to ask is maybe how do you, how did you, how would you add recurring revenue back?

Well, yeah, I'm just curious. Yeah. How did you add it back and what does it look like now?

Yeah, so basically the biggest this is. I'll give you some context too. So last year when we were scaling up, we were doing, you know, at the peak like 20, 25 units a month of the 15K offer. Right. And that's just the 15K. So that's not including the agency. It's not including some low ticket stuff as well. But the problem was we were listening to all these people that were like one product, one funnel, one thing, one this, one that. And like that works. But it works to get to 100k a month, to get beyond consistent, 200, 300, 500, a million. Like you, you need multiple offers, you need multiple offers for multiple markets. And you need to sell multiple different price points.

I'm going to jump in and say one thing on that note. I agree on both ends.

Yeah.

So I agree that you need one funnel, and I agree that you need multiple offers. I just think of the offers as in that same funnel.

They can be 100%. That's a good point. I agree with that completely. Right. Everybody that comes through that funnel, there's going to be three different. Four different types of avatars on the sales call. You can sell them one of four things or one of three things. So 100%. And that's kind of what we did. Right. But the problem was we, you know, again, looking back, I'll take responsibility because I was the business owner and the CEO, but I. I knew we needed to continue having recurring revenue, so I never wanted to give up the agency. Recurring. But internally we would have discussions and that wouldn't be. That would always be an argument, a.

Type of conflict between you and, like, other senior members.

Other. Other. Exactly. And. But I'm like, just. But I was thinking long term, though. That's the thing. I'm like, it's cool to have this thing working with ads, paid traffic. It's a system, it's a machine. We can make it better. Of course. But I. Oh, like, I don't know about you, but I'm almost like, only the paranoid survive. I'm always thinking, how do we make.

This thing have to be able to survive?

How do we survive 10, 20 years from now?

You know, if you. If you're out of cash flow.

Yeah, it's just the business month and ads break. Like, eventually it did. What then, what then what do you do? And so I was always thinking about that, but I, you know, just, I was like, okay, let me listen to the people and let me listen to the team, and let's see what we. Let's see what we do. So we started. We started basically. I hate to say it, but we just started taking our eyes off the agency and the results started dropping. Clients started churning, and we were like, let's just let the clients turn right. Naturally. Not on purpose, but naturally. And so we weren't doing it, like, maliciously. Like, they're gonna turn. Like, everyone has churn. They're gonna turn.

And you just weren't signing anymore.

We weren't signing anymore. Let's just not sign anymore.

So they convinced you.

Exactly. I got sold on that. And looking back, I. I want to say, yeah, I mean, I should have put my foot down. I could have.

And is that person still on the team?

No.

So that was.

You guys have beef or.

No, no, no, no, we're good.

Yeah.

But ultimately it's like, dude, you know, we learn. Like I learned. So going back to your question now, it's like, well, just don't do that. Right? Like, because what we had was actually the best flywheel. I just explained my offer suite. It's literally the best flywheel. Any business, I think, that sells done for you or some mix of done with you can do. You have a done for you agency that has clients on retainer, right. You keep it boutique 5, 10 clients. You charge anywhere from 10 to 15k a month, ideally plus percentage of profit or revenue. Right. And that's like if you want to take it out the operational that we were going to have, like, you have one person who's really good at done for you and fulfillment, just servicing those clients, which is what we had. Right. They were only focused on agency clients. And what happens is the people that come to the agency, they either come organically, right. Or through referrals or through word of mouth, or they come as an ascension from this 15k offer, which is our hybrid offer, because we're already getting them set up and running on ads. We're coaching them to get it profitable, making sure the funnels dialed in. Now that they're profitable, guess what? They can continue running the ads themselves or you're ready to graduate to the agency.

How many people did you graduate?

I was like a 20% graduation rate.

Interesting.

But the. But the other thing I realized too is that not every client. The thing I would also do differently too is that not every client obviously can afford a 10k plus percentage of profit or revenue. Right. But they still want some done for you. So you could also layer in a sort of just in our case, like just a media buying service for a retainer. Right. And just keep it recurring revenue, keep them on. And the LTV can be a lot higher too, or they can continue on consulting. So that flywheel that, that three offer suite, I think is the best way to do it. And that's what I would do differently. Again, that's literally what I'm doing right now. I'm creating my own agency clients through the hybrid offer.

So really interesting. This is because we're on the same page about this. I remember talking to you about this 10 years ago. We were talking about done for you or no done for you.

And I was actually asking your advice. I was like, I think I was asking for your advice. I was like Should I keep this? Should I do this?

Yeah. And you like me to keep done for you. I remember.

Yeah.

So I slowed a lot of it down. Kept a couple clients. It's been there man. The recurring of a done for you Setup is awesome.

100.

It's awesome.

Yeah.

Now I've also started to feel a little bit of that like because. Because the lower ticket stuff, the coaching consulting type of stuff, that is a one off deals. I've started to feel a little bit of that like you know every month you got to make sure people come through.

Yeah.

You know, because there is no recurring there. And I look about it or look at it as like segments of business.

Yeah.

So what we have now is we have a low, low ticket 250 course.

That were just started. $250.

$250 course for beginners.

Yeah.

So it's one funnel to me. So someone that doesn't know who I am. Cold traffic on my theme pages.

Gotcha.

Which we're doing hundreds of millions of views a month right now. So like get a bunch of people there we things but get people to have followers. Because we noticed at the coaching.

Yeah.

The people that came in that had some followers but had no clue what they were doing or how they got the followers or how to, you know, make money from it or start an offer or anything. Those were our best clients because they already had followers. They'd posted. They're committed.

They're committed. Yeah.

So I want to get hundreds of committed people in per month.

Yeah.

And grow them a little bit, you know and get them there. They have followers. Then they're like well how do I make money? And then it's like hey, yeah, we got this thing.

Yeah.

So the first one's called Sprint. Then we got this thing called Accelerate, which is our main product. We've been selling for a while. We're going to help you get to 20k a month and then you're going to graduate. No guarantees. Ftc. Right. It's just, it's just that's the goal.

Yeah.

Now when they graduate that they're like, well what do I do?

Yeah.

Because everyone starts to go look at agencies or this service, they start to get pitched.

Yeah.

Come to us. We're going to scale you to 100.

Yeah. Yeah.

And we've been running some people through.

That 20 to 100.

Yeah.

Right. So we've had some people graduate. We're moving them up and then someone at 100. That's when I can approach and say look.

Yeah.

You're a great fit for me to, like, come partner with you. Whether it's equity, whether it's a percent.

Yeah.

Whatever it looks like. Want to have a conversation?

Yeah.

And that's their. That's the 4 offer stack. So I just have the course at the very bare minimum, which is different than you, but. Yeah, that's like. It's like the same. Same setup.

Yeah.

I think the difference maybe slightly, like, nuance wise, is I look at it as graduation period.

That's smart.

Yeah.

To where they're, you're ready for the next thing. Let's have a conversation.

That's the thing, too. I look back because the biggest problem I realized that we had in our team, too, was. And you probably don't have this. It's because you're naturally already thinking about that. But I've learned.

I probably had it and I probably learned the lesson or something.

Just a few. I mean, because what I also learned is there's a difference between customer support and client success. So what do I mean by that? I mean that I went, for example, to a mastermind in Germany. This was. They flew me out to speak. It was a mastermind of 30 agency owners, all doing 100k plus per month. They're all German. I don't speak Germany. I don't speak German. But they speak English, thankfully.

Yeah.

And all of them, Everybody speaks English.

Best language.

Yeah.

They at that mastermind. I learned the difference of their CSMs and the way they train them versus the CSMs that we had. So what do I mean by that? Their CSMs are salespeople. Like, they're sales people. They're inside sales reps. And they're good at customer success and client success because they're salespeople. They're challenging, they're holding frame, they're pulling, and they're pushing when they know how to do it. They're not taking any bullshit. And they also know how to make offers, how to upsell, how to send.

I've learned that recently.

My CSM team. This is my fault again. This is my responsibility. They weren't trained to be salespeople. They were just support doing the service, doing the fulfillment, doing the consulting type of stuff. Yeah. And then when it came time to challenge, to hold frame, to make offers, to upsell, you know, that was a whole thing. So I didn't learn that until, you know, recently. But ultimately, that was a big reason why I had to downsize, too, because I didn't have, you know, a lot of the bright people in the Right. Seats.

Let me ask you something.

Yeah.

When you have those CSMs that aren't challenging or aren't salespeople or aren't pushing, this is something I noticed. So I'm asking if you had the same thing, which is the clients start to look elsewhere because they feel like they can't get the answer internally because they're not being guided through the system. They have the frame.

They have the frame. That's the biggest problem. 100. That's. That was the issue. We're always playing defense, and, like, one of our core values is we play offense, not defense. Right. And it's like we were literally weren't embodying that core value.

When you have a big team of it, it's like, hard to.

And I'm trying to shift that. Yeah. And it's like, guys, no, no, no. And then. So I had to go back in the weeds before, obviously, the reduction here, but I was back in the weeds looking at these CSM calls, and I'm just, like, seeing everyone get walked over, you know, And I'm like, why are we letting the clients talk to us like this? Like, the client isn't always right when it comes to the things they're paying us that they need help with. You need to tell them what they need to hear. And even if it's on, if. Even if they don't want to do it, they still need to do it because it's their business.

And.

And I was having these calls, like, every day. Like, I had. I had to. Basically, I. I started having daily CSM huddles, right? Like, you're pulled back in. Pulled back doing daily CSMs, daily sales.

So it's like, why not just do that myself?

That's the conclusion I came to. Because I'm like, I'm already doing it. Clients want to work with me anyways. Clients want to pay me. I know I can get them the best results. I'm the best marketer on the team.

I.

All these. These, These, you know, selfish thoughts came into me. But at the same time, it's like, okay, let me pull back temporarily so I can again, and then.

And you can rebuild.

Rebuild with the right.

I see it.

Because also, it was also, dude, like, again, not only was the skill gap there for the team, I. The management gap for me wasn't there. So that was my fault for the skill gap because I wasn't training as good and I didn't hire the right people from the beginning, but I was also paying pretty well for the skill gap. Not to be there, which caused the overhead and the bloat. And, and so how do you for.

It to get done? Half, half way where it should be.

And so then you're just like, I, yeah, there's no way. You can't do this without people feeling bad. But that's just what you got to do, you know, and it's going to be a short term pain.

Yeah.

I tweeted this today. I was like, you don't have a real business until you've had to have exit conversations with people on your team that have probably been friends with you. And they're asking you for way more than you know.

They're asking you for more. And you're like, you gotta go.

This is a business. It's a tough, it's 100. And then you also, it's, it's, it's just, it's just I have so much more respect for, you know, business owners like you and me because when you have a team, you know what it's like. And there's a lot of feelings and a lot of relationships you have to manage. And it's, it's, it's very humbling because we're the one that took all the risk and people fail to realize that. And a lot of times because it's always on our mind, we're thinking about business 247 and it's not like we don't want to make people happy, but it's also like we have to think 10 steps ahead. So it's, you got to have those uncomfortable conversations also.

Especially different at a company size that we're at.

Yeah.

Where you're big in, in regard to like where we started.

Yeah.

But big in the scope of business.

You're, you're not even a small.

Yeah.

You're still a small business.

Yeah.

Like you're, you're nowhere near a medium sized. Not even close. Even at 50 employees.

Yeah.

You're still small.

Small.

So yeah, if someone really wants the security of a job and whatever that looks like, a corporate setup, consistent paycheck, you don't have to worry about anything. You don't even really have to work that hard. It's probably not at a company that we're building. But if you want that freedom.

Yeah.

Because there's a lot of freedom if you work with someone like me. And I'm sure the same with you.

Yeah.

I mean, you want, you want that freedom.

Yeah.

You, you want to make or have the potential to make a bunch of money if you're a high performer of course, those are the right people. You're almost like an entrepreneur, but you don't want to take on the full risk.

Yeah.

And I've noticed the same where maybe there are some people that are more corporate based. It's like, this is not the situation for you.

Yeah, yeah.

So anyways, that's. That's what I've been up to. And I learned a lot of lessons on how to not run a business, how to do it better. So it's all hindsight. 20 20, man.

Why are you back in Miami?

So I'm back in Miami because I. I love Miami. You know, I moved here, like when I met you two and a half years ago, three years ago, I never wanted to leave. The only reason why we left is because. And I. You know, we talked about this previously, but like, bro, our condo that we were staying at had mold in it. And we didn't know it until the lease was one month and a half from being ended, that we were living in a moldy apartment the entire time with the air conditioned spewing mold to us. And my wife and I are just eating it, basically. And. And I didn't realize it until a month and a half left on the lease. And I was like, this is fucked. We got to get out of here. And so I ended up just like, you know, the way, the way. The way I think is commit first and figure the rest out later. So when I realized the apartment had mold, I was like, we got to get out of here. We temporarily moved our stuff to my parents who were in Hollywood, Florida. And then we just said, let's go back to Arizona, because that's where we came from. That's where my team was at the time, and that's where Jennifer's family was. So we just moved back to Arizona to be with the team in person. We got a little office, have some FaceTime that. That did really well. Obviously we scaled up pretty fat, but we didn't want to stay there. We just had to go back there to detox. So, yeah, I had a lot of health issues, too. So now I'm back in Miami because thankfully I was able to go all through that.

And I mean, we were talking about before, for anyone listening.

Yeah.

The correlation of what was going on with me and what was going. It's very, very. On many, many points.

Yeah.

No, we. We were also had some health stuff.

Yeah.

Same. Similar.

And it started in the Boca House, right?

Yeah.

Similar exposure, you know, the whole thing.

Yeah.

And you don't really realize it. You're just like, oh, something's. Yeah. And you start to look up different things, especially if it's the first time it's happened to you.

Sure.

Why am I so tired?

Yes.

I can't tolerate that food anymore. I'm not a though, so I'm still gonna eat it.

Yeah.

Because. Because, like, part of it as well is people like you and me are very mentally resilient.

Yeah.

And we have to train ourselves that way. So we always think of, you know what, I'm fine. You know, I got. I got work to do. You know, it's good. But you do it long enough, and then you look around one day. Whoa, wait a minute. I feel way weird.

Yeah.

As soon as I got here.

Yeah.

What's.

What's going on? So similar. Similar thing.

Yeah.

And I'm still in the middle of the detoxing. That's why I came here.

Yeah.

I want to be on the beach, in the gyms, in the building, in the sun for a while.

Yeah.

And obviously you did the. You did the same. And, dude, Miami is the only place that I can line up podcast after podcast.

Yeah.

This is the fourth or fifth one I've recorded somewhere on my second channel. This one will probably be on my main channel.

I think.

This is the only place I can do that over and over and over and over again.

Yeah.

For businesses. I forget how good it is.

And it's so funny how similar our journeys actually are with this mold exposure, because, you know, the whole story is pretty crazy. But ultimately, dude, when I was in Arizona and, you know, I was talking to you about this, like, so happened for me is I started noticing I had a. A little circle spot on my skin. It started off as like a. A little, like, almost like little sort of eczema type thing. And I'm like, huh, what is this? And then, like, it just wouldn't go away. And then a month would go by, and it's a little bit bigger.

Yeah.

Second month goes by, it's a little bit bigger. Third month goes by. It's like kind of a ring now. And then again, I was telling you, I was like, well, you and I and Logan were sometimes going to, you know, goat shed here and training mma. And I'm like, yeah, I did some wrestling.

This was 2022.

Yeah, 2022. So I'm like, okay, I did wrestling the other day. Maybe I got some ringworm or something. But then, like, ringworm supposedly supposed to go away pretty quickly. And you can take this and it. But it's not Going away. And then I'm like, like you said, I'm mentally resilient. I'm out in the sun. I'm in Miami. I'm eating good food. I'm like, I'm healthy.

The sun masks it a little bit too.

Yeah, yeah. It's like, it does. And so I'm like, but it's just not going away. And then, then, of course, I was telling you. We came back from London one day and apparently we were gone for a week, but our air condition broke. And that's when everything started clicking because the air condition was broken. We walk in the apartment, immediately smelled like mildew. They come to fix it, they don't fix it. They end up just draining all the fluid that's in it, which was the thing that was spraying the mold. And then that's when I kind of realized something was messed up. I knew it was mold. And then we ended up having to get out of there, but the damage is already done. My wife was having brain fog. She was really fatigued. So now I'm in Arizona, you know, after that. But I work with this mold specialist, and she tells me, and at this point, dude, my skin's getting worse because she tells me to take these. Take these over the counter. Yeah, over the counter. Not over the counter. Sort of prescription prescribed mold removal drugs that go into your gut and supposed to kill all the mold. Mycotoxins, but it also kills all your gut. That's healthy for you. And I didn't know at the time, so I started going against what I normally would.

It's like an antibiotic.

It's answer. Literally an antibiotic. So, yeah, perfect. Best way to describe it. It's an antibiotic I took to kill the mold, but it also took the healthy gut flora. So my skin ends up getting worse. I, I, you know, I showed you the pictures, but, like, my arms look like I'm. It's like I have like a leprosy or something, dude. It's like. And I'm. And keep in mind, we're scaling the business, right? I'm managing the team. I'm doing all these things. I'm trying to heal myself, and I'm just like, what is happening to me? And then the only thing that helped me, going back to your question of why I'm back in Miami, was I just looked at all the pills, the supplements I had to be taking that day, because apparently my blood work and all that, and I was like, it looks like we're dying. Like, I feel like I'm an old man right now, taking all these supplements.

Yeah.

And. And I was like, this doesn't feel right. And something just told me, yo, go to the beach. Get back to nature. So I ended up flying back for two weeks, taking two weeks off the business, staying with my parents, spending two or three hours at the beach every single day in the sun, just sunbathing, swimming, eating my mom's food. And then, bro, my skin started healing itself naturally. I was dug off all. Everything that people told me to do. I just went back to nature.

And.

And so at that moment, I knew. I was like, I need to be here in Miami. Like, this is a sign. Like, I need to be in nature by the beach. So once I had that, we went back to. I went back to Arizona, and I was like, once the lease is up here, we're going to go back to Miami.

Man, I have so many points to, like, go over. There's more stuff we can talk about in this discussion in terms of the health stuff. Yeah, I think this is an important discussion to have and talk about because there's probably a lot of other entrepreneurs out there that are exposed to shooting like this. Yeah, there's plenty of people in Miami, for sure. There's plenty of mold in Miami.

Yes.

There's plenty of guys building businesses in California. There's plenty of mold out in California, especially on the coast. Malibu, SoCal.

Anywhere where it's humid, dude. I mean, the beach.

Yeah.

So you have like. It's so, like, I just want to stress it for the camera. It's so important to pay attention to the environment so that. And also take care of yourself so that when something like this happens.

Yeah.

You're sensitive enough to it, so you realize. And two, you're resilient enough to come back from it, because imagine a guy that doesn't take care of himself, is fat, eats garbage, he's inflamed all the time, doesn't work out, isn't in nature. And then he has this happen, and that's the tipping point to him. And then he can't run his business anymore. It's like, that'll kill you, you know, and there's a lot of. Like, the antibiotics is so interesting because I've gone down the rabbit holes of the mold stuff, because we were exposed, you know, in Boca a little bit, but then at our next apartment, where I, like, I can't really talk about. But we were exposed again. And that's really where it was gnarly. Dude. I was losing my hair. Still am. Because I'M still detoxing.

Crazy, man.

Hairline's good, though. Hairline.

Yeah.

I wouldn't even notice, by the way.

You wouldn't. It's just a little bit of, like, shedding and stuff. I got these random. Like, they're not pimples, but, like, little dots that are, like, almost inflamed pores.

Like, popping out, like, almost like a rash.

A little. Yeah.

Yeah. I did get a little bit more acne. And people don't realize, like, with the antibiotic, you're killing the gut flora and the whole thing. But the mold doesn't just live in the gut. The mold is in all of your cells.

Yeah.

And so then when your body's in a place where you can detox and it starts coming out, now it's in your bloodstream. Now it's back in your guts. You can't just kill. You have to kill everything. You have to pull it out of your. Your cells and all of your body and the whole thing. So it's been a long process of that, and it's. It's brutal.

Yeah. I mean, I'm still. I still have stomach gurgling and burping issues to this day. Like, I'm still healing right now, and it's happened almost two years ago.

Yeah.

Well, I found out two years ago.

And to manage the business through it. Let's talk about that. Because you also had something happen.

Yeah.

We could talk about sharing it. Yeah, it happened to me.

Yeah.

And my girlfriend. It hasn't wanted me to share it, but I'm looking at her. But I've wanted to share, like, your. Your wife had a miscarriage.

Yeah. So. So prior to the miscarriage, we. We were trying to have kids. Our goal since we met at 25 was, like, 30 years old. We're gonna start trying. So that was you 30? I'm 30.

Yeah.

You're 30. Wow. I thought you're still 28, 29.

I look that, you know, I mean, you look younger.

You look sharp, dude. You look great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, I turned 31 in August, actually, so I'm getting.

Happy birthday, dude.

Thank you, man.

Well, I mean, it's late, but no.

No worries. So. Yeah, so we were planning on having kids, and so I. Again, keep in mind, I'm going through all this. My skin looks like. And in the back of my mind, I'm like, you know, I got to get rid of this. Because we. If we want to start to try to have kids, like, that could up the pregnancy, that could up the kid.

Yeah.

And so I'm not only trying to get rid of it for my health, but also for our future family's health. And anyways, yeah. So fast forward a couple months after I go back to my. After I come back from Miami and I hit the beach and I'm. I'm getting better. So once I come back from Miami, I start going. Jennifer and I start driving to California, like, every other weekend to just spend the weekend at the beach.

Nice.

And I started healing myself because I'm like, okay. And it was decent drive. And it was also. Yeah, it was like five, six hours from Arizona, so it was like back and forth California. But. But it helped me because I was de. Stressing. I was disconnecting a little bit from the business, but I was also. This is when I started having really feelings about the business, too, and where we were going back then. And then I remember I had a podcast with Ty Tai lopez. This is July 4th, so.

Oh, dude. That's not to say anything, but that's when. Not. Not to cut you off. But that's when Tai Lopez, his copywriter copied.

I remember that thread. Yes.

And you sent it as an email.

Yes. Because that's when he started coming back on the map, right?

Yeah, he.

He start. He bought that he. Or he rented the. The Beverly. The new Beverly Hills mansion, the bigger one. And Jennifer and I were in California for July 4th because we got married in Laguna Beach. So we went back to that area to celebrate our. Yeah, our anniversary, and we spent the week there. And then Ty's team actually reached out to me and they were like, hey, you want to do a podcast? And I was like, sure. Well, actually, before they did the podcast, they invited Ty actually DM me on Instagram, and I didn't think it was actually him because he replied to an ad of mine and he was like, I can actually. I don't know. It didn't like, it did. It wasn't even spelled correctly, but it was just like, we should connect or something.

He DM me as well and invited me on the podcast after you went on, and I kind of, like, made a couple of videos.

I thought it was fake, bro.

Yeah.

He was like, we should connect. And, you know, I'm like, sure, win. Oh. He's like, we should do pod.

That's what he said to me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He never answered me back, so, like, sure.

When he goes where you live, dude?

Conversation I have with him is the exact.

I was like, is this Thai, bro? Like. And I was like, Arizona. But I'LL be in California actually July 4th. And so he invited me to his. Where he actually filmed the Here in my garage one. The first one. That's when he did the first, like, sort of revitalization. So I was there with, like, Grego Gallagher was there. A couple people were there, but that's when I connected with him in person. And then his team's like, hey, you should stay another day. Can you. Can you squeeze a pod in with. Can you squeeze a podcast in with a tie? And of course, I'm like, opportunity of, like, of course. So. But like, their team shout out to Ty and his team, dude, Ty's such a genius. But also, it's also his kryptonite too. Ty's such a good marketer. He's such a good. He comes up with offers, like, on the fly.

Yeah.

But his team then has to fulfill on all of them. And. And he's also managing a bunch of podcasts and everything. So they're kind of all over the place. But they, they, they. They get it done and they make a lot of money. They wouldn't give me a.

He's, like, back into info, like, fully.

Right?

I. I actually don't know. I. I can't say for sure. I don't know what he's.

I've seen him promoting a bunch of stuff.

I think he's put. Yeah, he's promoting stuff.

Yeah.

I haven't really been. I don't know. So I don't know. He's promoting. Yeah, he's. He's promoting again. Whatever. He's promoting. Who knows? But he was promoting at that event too, and he promoted, like, seven different things. And I was like, okay, these sound interesting. But I'm like, the team. How to keep up with this is pretty interesting. So anyways, they're like, yeah, can you save a podcast? He said we should do a podcast. I'm like, yeah, win. Let's do it. He's like, tomorrow, talk to them. So then I'm like, okay, like, yeah, let's do the podcast. And they're like, hey, can you, like, stay another day or two while we figure it out? I'm like, yeah, so we extend our stay a little bit. And dude, like, literally down to the very wire. Like, they. They weren't giving me a set. Yes. If we could do the podcast or not. And I'm like, okay, probably not gonna happen. So Jennifer and I are literally driving back to Arizona. We're already about almost an hour into the drive to Arizona, and their team text me, hey, can you do the podcast today? Literally in two hours or something like that. And I'm like looking at Jennifer and I'm just thinking to myself, I'm like.

Is it worth it?

Is it worth it? We're already back home at this point. I'm like, my thoughts are like, dude, just keep driving. Like you don't, like you don't need it. But then I'm like, at the same time, I'm like, I'd probably regret and, you know, it'd be fun.

Did she encourage you? Yeah, she would have done the same thing.

She's like, let's just do it. We're already like, just turn around. So we. So we turned around and of course, you know, I wanted to do it. I was like trying to do it. So I'm like, okay, let's do it. Fuck it, right? And that's when we did the podcast.

Nice.

Now, the next day after, we went back to Arizona, so keep in mind, to give some context, miscarriage. We were pregnant this entire time. So for the last almost three months, we knew we were pregnant and we didn't tell anybody. You know, I wanted to tell everybody, obviously, but my wife didn't want me to tell anybody. And respectfully, you know, she's the one carrying the baby, so 100. I'll respect that and I'm optimistic about everything. But she did tell me there's. There's some complications that can happen in the first three months. Of course, I didn't want to think about that, believe that, even let it enter my mind. So I didn't even, you know, worry about that. So I was like, oh, I want to tell everybody. But she's like, no, it's not. I was like, okay. So I did the podcast with Ty. I'm coming back to Arizona. The next day we go to spend. We watched the soccer game, actually Colombia versus Argentina in the World cup or something like that at her aunt's house. On the way there, before we drive there, she. She started bleeding. And this is like literally almost at the three month mark, you know, and when we're at her aunt's house, she started bleeding more. And the look on her face, I could tell something was off. And we start chatgpting everything. And you know, they're saying, well, it might not be a miscarriage yet. Sometimes if it's brown, it's something this, that and that. And then that night she bled more. And then, dude, like at that point we, we both, we both knew. But like, then there was discharge of like the actual, like, Embryo of the kid, because it was almost formed, and that starts coming out. And we were both devastated, dude. I didn't know what to do. Like, we had all these plans we were talking about for the last three months of where we're going to be, how we want to plan this, how we want to tell our family where we're going to live in Miami, all these things. Things. And then, boom, just like that, miscarriage. And then that's when I really started thinking about everything. And. And that hit me pretty hard. That hit her pretty hard.

Was that where you started thinking about.

The business even more? Because, again, it all correlates. Started it, then the miscarriage.

Yeah.

And then it's like, okay, well, if we're not going to have this kid in the next six months, like, we thought, what do we want?

Like, what.

What do we want to do? And that's when we made a decision to just pack up our stuff and actually travel for a little bit before we had, you know, a kid. So what's.

What's interesting. I'm not sure if you're religious or spiritual.

Yeah, I believe that for sure.

There's.

Yeah.

100.

It's almost like God or the universe kind of giving you a shove and then another one. Another one to say, like, you got to make a change of some sort.

I'm trying to trigger you. Yeah.

Yeah.

Hey, bro, stuff you're doing isn't aligned with what I'm trying to get you to do, and you're thinking about things that you shouldn't be thinking about right now. So, like, I'm gonna have to show this to you to make you wake up or something. And, yeah, like, that's the thing that was the hardest part about that whole entire thing. Because I say hardest part, but also the biggest blessing, too, because at the moment, dude, you don't know why. Like, dude, she was crying every night. You know, I'm holding it in, but I'm like, like, God, why? Yeah, why? Like, why me? Why us? What did we do? Like, what are you trying to teach me here? Because, like, this does not feel good. Like, like, what is happening?

Yeah.

And why us? Like, you know, all these questions. But the blessing in that, dude, is we actually became more spiritual because as a result of that, we actually, you know, started praying together, like, started reading the Bible. I. I've never read the Bible in my entire life. And I started reading through it. I'm like, what does this actually say? And I started getting more faithful. I had more faith. And as a result, today I have way more faith in God and higher power universe, like you said. And I know everything's for a reason, and it's you just. The problem was, is at that time, I wasn't ready to surrender. I wasn't ready to just roll with it. But now, having gone through all of this, I'm just like, God, you take the wheel, bro. I'm here, gonna show up with whatever you give to me. And I'm gonna still have intentions, but I'm not going to be so attached to what I want. My preference, because it's ultimately your will.

You know, so I can speak on many levels of that. You know, I haven't said this publicly ever, because it's a sensitive topic.

Yeah.

But you know, when we were in Boca, so I'll give you a timeline.

Sure.

We split the business at launch socials, which we own. 50. 50. Logan and I split the company.

Yeah.

We're gonna go separate directions. Him and I are both still great friends, which is awesome, but it's just the vision wasn't aligned anymore. So I'm at my. My own place now. We don't have the team house anymore. And, you know, just trying to put the pieces together. Grow, grow, grow. She gets pregnant. She gets pregnant. My girlfriend.

Obviously some random girl.

Was it two months later? Two and a half months later, after the business, after the split.

Yeah.

Funny enough, he got his girlfriend pregnant. Like a month and a half.

It was all after.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was crazy. So anyway, that happens and I'm like, I'm gonna be a dad, I gotta get serious. We just split the business. What do I like what's going on here? And I just became a maximum risk taker and put everything into crypto, which.

We should talk about, by the way.

Yes.

I went crazy and then just started going nuts with the con. Like I. Oh my God. Like this, this, this, and this has to happen now. Comes January, we're still. We're having like the health thing, but it's not too crazy. We're figuring it out. Funny enough, right before we find out she's pregnant, we're like, we're gonna cut the lease and go travel.

Yeah.

And then next day we find out.

Yeah.

Next day after we plan the whole thing.

Wow.

We find out. So two and a half, you know, almost three months go by, we're in a car crash.

Geez.

Get rear ended.

Wow.

Seat belt around her stomach.

No.

Paramedics come, the whole thing, they think, you know, you're okay. Whatever. The crash isn't bad. Next Day ultrasound or two days later. Miscarriage.

And this was like, how far in this is?

10, 12 weeks, something like that. So. And I'm, I'm not having trouble talking about it now because it's like, we've thought about it, we've gotten through it. We know where we're going. And the biggest thing since then has been improving the health.

Yeah.

And just being in a situation with no stress.

Yeah.

So you can have.

Yeah.

The family. No problem. Because you're describing to me like, dude, I'm sitting three hours a night, like running, running a company, max stress on top of that is crazy.

Yeah.

So. So for us, it was, it was that. It was just, it was one. It was just one thing after another after another. I ended up having one of my biggest months in business ever.

Wow.

About two months after that.

Holy crap.

Which is cool because we launched a product. But since then it was kind of a trickle down and it started to go back up. Things, Things are looking good again. But through that process, it was thing after thing, you know, business split, and then I split the agency with my old partner.

Yeah.

And then Logan and I split for different reasons. And then this happens.

Yeah.

And then we get further exposed, you know, to everything. And then I realized it's like, it's like another kick in the ass. Another. Another one like, you got to change. You got to change.

Yeah.

I changed a lot of things with the business. Rebuilding a lot of pieces. And I became a lot more spiritual through that process. After a lot of those trigger points, just as you're describing. Where for me, you know, I grew up Catholic.

Yeah.

I don't know if I consider myself Catholic now. I believe in God 100% spiritual. I feel like I'm more religious than a lot of people that go to church.

Exactly. Yes.

Because you, you know, I agree completely. Some of these, these church sermons and things, I'm like, religion is not talking.

You don't need religion to be religious.

Exactly.

Religion is a man made construct. It's all the same thing. The problem is there's labels and it's a business.

I think it's really powerful. The religion is really powerful to keep a society together.

Of course.

And it's good for the person that's not really thinking. But just going to church, I'm gonna go by the commandments. Yes.

Whether you're Mormon, whether you're a Christian.

Society, together, it's a way to live.

And it's, it's, it's net.

But when you really start thinking about it.

Yeah.

Of Course, there's. There's a lot of nuance in all these different things. So I believe in God 100 and.

We'Re marketers, so we can see the marketing.

Yes, exactly.

Right.

Exactly. The construct of it.

Yeah.

So for me, it was a kick in the ass after kick in the ass, and I became way more spiritual, way more religious than I ever was through that and just way more aligned with what I want, where I'm going, the hard work. I actually need to take. Take to get there because a lot of what I was doing was coasting.

Yeah.

I didn't deserve to have those biggest months ever. I didn't deserve a mill a month at that point because the momentum wasn't building enough.

Yeah.

I was doing what I needed to do to make money, and I was just mostly even hoping that was going to happen when I. When I took a step back and looked at it.

Yeah.

And now I'm all in. You know, before this hammering work all morning, now we're doing this.

Yeah.

And I'm sure maybe we'll get food after. Or not. I'm going. I got a bunch of videos to record. You know, I'm saying back there, but yeah, before I was just like, yeah, as long as I do one thing.

A day, it's cool, you know, so it's almost reinvigorated.

You read 100. I'm excited again.

Exactly.

Yeah, I'm excited again.

Thanks, bro. Yeah, of course. I mean, I think that's the whole point. Like, we were talking before camera too. Like we were talking about. It's. It's a blessing in disguise because it's like, what is this teaching me? What's the positive here? That's the only thing you can do. And clearly for you, it's. It's helped you. It's helped me 100%, helped us learn.

I love the trenches. I love it, dude. I love being in the trenches. You know, I don't like bad things happening, but I always know that there's a new lesson from it or there's a new thing.

Yeah.

That that's gonna come out of it.

Yeah.

I feel like that's where all the innovation is.

Yeah.

When you're at your lowest and you have to make something work, it happens. And then I. I asked myself the question, how can I simulate that experience and that innovation when things are good.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

That's probably like, why a lot of people like to do 75 hard, you know, because they're just like, yeah. They're just like, I gotta do Something let. Dude. Okay, let's talk about crypto for a second, because you mentioned that, like.

Yeah.

Was it all types of just meme coins, or was it, like, just one? Like, it was like, bitcoin.

I wouldn't do a couple. Like, just big ones. Okay. And then there was some. There was some meme stuff.

Okay.

I messed up some entries and didn't.

So it was like trading. It was like you were basically trading sort of gam.

I was trading the cycle. I was trading the cycle. I wouldn't call it gambling. Okay. I would say this cycle has been super weird.

Yeah.

And there's some coins that I was super hype on.

This was like, a year ago.

This is like, year and a half.

Okay.

Okay.

Year and a half. That was super hype on. That I lost on.

Okay.

And some. That I made good amount of money on.

Yeah.

And it's interesting, you know, I started thinking about crypto seriously, at the end of summer 23, because I'm like, some shit's gonna happen here. I can see it.

Yeah.

And I had been through the previous two cycles a little bit, but I didn't have enough capital to really take advantage. Or even in 21, I was not paying attention.

Yeah.

I literally bought crypto in 2018, 19. In between cycles.

Yeah.

And then I didn't pay attention. And then I Show up in 2022, because I'm just focused on business. I'm being an idiot in Miami. I'm young, 22 at the time.

Yeah.

And I look and I'm like, damn. I just missed out on, like, real money, like, millions of dollars because I didn't sell, and it all went to zero.

Yeah.

So same dude.

So I started really paying attention in 23, got heavy into it. Not as much as I should, and then messed up some entries. And it was a mix. It was a mix I had, basically. They call a barbell.

You invest in crypto.

That's certainly 100%. And the more time goes on.

Yeah.

The more I. I like bitcoin over altcoins.

Yes.

That's what I'm gonna ask you, bro. That's what I was gonna ask you. I'm, like, looking back, if you just would have invested all of it into bitcoin. Yeah.

It would have been great. So much. So much less stress.

Yeah. Because, dude, I've So just give some context. The last three months, like, all I've been studying, because I've had so much more time, like, what do I want to do? It's just been bitcoin Crypto, bitcoin, reading economics, how money works. What is money learning? Like I make all this, I made all this money but like why is everything getting more expensive? Why is the purchasing power of the dollar going down? They just, I just got, I don't know about you, but in 2020 I actually was able to through the US government get a credit recently of a hundred thousand dollars just basically sent to me by the IRS because. Shout out to the IRS because I employed four full time W2 employees during COVID It's called the employee retention crisis. But they just sent me that 100 grand. And keep in mind they also printed a ton of money back then. And again I'm studying bitcoin and I'm just like, this can end well.

Like they printed I think 25 or 30% of all dollars in existence.

It was 2020. Yeah, like it was. I. I don't know the exact numbers, but I should know. But it's like, yeah, a significant amount more money than they've ever put into the entire.

And everything is doubled in price.

Yes. And so it's like everyone's got the stimulus checks. And like I did too. I'm like, yeah, great. I mean I'm already making money, but sure, yeah, I'll take the 1000 bucks, whatever it was. And, but now learning that, that. Oh no, that's bad. And, and funny you say you, you, you first invested back in 2018. I also, I had a friend in college when I went to Arizona State University. His name was Josh James. Shout out to Josh. He was mining bitcoin back in college 20 respect, 2012 on his computer. One of the most smart nerdy. Also loved to smoke weed with him. Guys. I knew we would smoke weed and we would just watch funny Cops, like Cops all the time and. But he would, we'd always talk about crazy shit. He told me about bitcoin back then, how he's mining it. Dude, all I cared about that point was just like getting high, drinking because I didn't have any goals so I didn't win in one of the. Out the other. And then 2018 comes, you know, bitcoin, all these things. He's. I hit him up and he's all bullish on xrp.

I was so bullish on xrp.

So yeah, yeah, he goes, he goes bro, you got. He's like XRP bro, everything else XRP. And it was like 30 cents at the time.

Yeah.

And I, and this is when I was working for Dean full time. So I had a little bit of savings Not a lot, but I had 3k. So I was like, I just, I just transferred him 3k because I don't know anything about crypto but I know he's smart and I know he's done the research and he's very confident and he's. I've been, I've known him since 20, 2012. I trust him. I just transferred in the money. I said, can you invest this for me? 3k into XRP. He goes, Holy shit.

Yeah.

So I invested it, you know, invested. He invested it for me. He bought XRP. It goes up to $3. Right. Or whatever it was at the peak. So now I went from 3k in my investment to now I'm 30k. I'm up. Right. And I just think it's going to keep going up and then it starts going down. Yeah, then it starts going down and then I'm like it's going to go back up. Never went back up.

I think it bottom around 17 cents.

I lost money.

Yeah.

And. And then I was like, fuck that. And, and I think I just kept it or he sent it to me or something. I don't know. But what happened is two years later, three years later, 2020, now I now have adspend.com. i'm gone from Dean. I have my team, we're in the Phoenix office. I have a little bit more money and I start, I start reading about bitcoin. So I start reading about just specifically Bitcoin. I read the book Bitcoin Billionaires. I read the bitcoin standard, a couple other books and I'm just like, this just makes sense. I grew up playing Runescape on the computer, you know, doing these, these computer games. This digital currency makes sense. I don't use dollars anyways. I use my credit card. The world's only going to go more Digital. Is scarcity. 21 million. Okay, this makes sense. I bought in an 18K.

Nice.

Then I sold at 39 because I didn't want to make the same mistake as xrp. I didn't want to get greedy. But I didn't truly understand Bitcoin. So I would have.

My phone's recording right now, but I wish I could pull up some of the buys I had. I was buying XRP.

Yeah.

In 2018.

Yeah.

But to buy XRP I had to buy Bitcoin first. And Bitcoin was like seven grand.

Okay.

Yeah.

And I'm buying this bitcoin to transfer it to a different exchange to buy xrp.

Yeah. It was so.

And I'm like I look back on that and I'm like, dude, I must have bought like a bunch. I probably bought at least like 10 bit.

What exchange were you using?

I was using Coinbase and then transferring it to a different exchange because Coinbase was.

You were probably ahead of me then because I, I was only like using Binance in 2020. That's when I first invested.

Yeah, I. It's around there, bro. Like a little bit before that.

But. So that's so interesting though. But, but it's, but it's so funny because, like, I thought I knew. And then I ended up trading the bitcoin for Fiat again, but I didn't understand at the time, I. So I ended up selling it and I just. And I, And I didn't. Also keep in mind, just like you said, that's when I first bought bitcoin myself in 2020, when I was 18 and I sold at 39 and I thought I was like, I'm smart.

Yeah.

And then I ended up buying back in at higher price anyways when I realized I made a fucking big mistake. But I didn't keep dcaing in either since then. And then until recently, I'm just like, okay, no, I. This, this still makes sense.

I think it's going to continue going up. Maybe, you know, this cycle probably goes a little higher. Maybe, Maybe over time. Over time? I look out like a decade.

Yes.

DCA, 100 bucks a day if you can anything or I mean, if you're. If you can only do 10, do 10, whatever.

100.

If you do a thousand. $1000.

Yeah.

But I personally now think I want to stack more.

Yes.

That and S P. Because for me, I look at it and I'm just like, wealth generation is investing the business. No, the business. The business is where I'm going to make the money. Because I used to think with the XRP way back in 2018, I was like, I'm going to get rich off this. I'm not going to have to work. That was like me being a little kid. I was still, I was still a teenager.

Yeah.

And now I look at it as a smart adult, professional investor, business guy. To me, it's like that's where I want to store my money. I want to store it in that. Probably the S P. Yeah.

So, so what I meant by that was like the, for me, at least the way I see it now is like the vehicle, the business is the vehicle to get rich.

Yes.

And then what you need to do is you need to fund the profits from the business that you're not going to do, deploy back into the business to invest into wealth accumulation, which is S and P potentially. Or you know, bitcoin, for example. Because like, that's what I learned from Robert Kiyosaki way back when. It was like, you're an employee, then you have to go to a solopreneur, then you go to a business owner and. And then you're an investor. Like you want to get to be investor.

Let's talk about that real quick. The transition from employee to solopreneur, I think especially solopreneur to business owner is probably one of the hardest pieces.

Because fear. It's fear.

But also like think about where you were at. You did transition from solopreneur to full on business owner. I don't know. Would you say you're a solopreneur?

I was, I transitioned from employee to a solopreneur. But the way I made it easy, easier for me was I didn't quit my full time job until I was making more.

Yeah.

On the side as a solopreneur.

I think that's easier.

Yeah.

Than the transition from solopreneur to full time business. Like medium sized business, you could say. Because the skill set is just so. It's so different, you know, and you're trying to manage the payroll.

You gotta hire people.

Yeah.

Pay people. Yeah, for sure. I mean, looking back, for me, it kind of, it kind of felt like it all happened naturally. Like, and I think too, like when you're first starting your business, you know, this was, this was, you know, 2020. This is when I was 25. So five years ago. It's only been five years. Crazy. When I first started adspend.com.

Yeah.

But time flies, man.

And super cool. You've been doing the same thing the entire time.

Yeah, exactly. And it's just been ad spend dot com. So it worked. And then also at the same time, it's like the transition from solopreneur to business owner. What happened for me was I just got bored as a solopreneur. Like I was making good money, but I was just bored. I was like making good money, had a good lifestyle, everything was good. And then I was like, I don't know if I want to continue doing this like by myself. It's funny I'm saying this now in retrospect, five years later. Right. The position I am now with way less team, obviously. But that's just the ignorance. It's like I. I don't know if I want to do this by myself 10 years from now, do I want to be, let's say, 40 years old or 35 years old and still be a solopreneur? That's the thought I had at the time, which motivated me, out of fear, to be able to go into a business owner. So then I started hiring people. I started building a business. But I also was ignorant in the best way possible. And I mean that. I was, I was, I was bullish on potential possibility.

Yeah.

With, with, with, you know, I have, I have. I can take all the risk. Like, there's no responsibility. And so the process of solopreneur to business owner happened. It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, but it did happen naturally. And I look back and I was like, yeah, I just kind of learned it on the job. But for me, actually, I think the biggest part was going from employee to solopreneur, because leaving that full time job, even though I was making more on the side, was a hard decision because you really got to take full responsibility.

Yeah, that makes sense.

That's the hardest part that I think most people have, in my opinion, is like, you got to let go.

I always, always hated authority. So I was like, get me out of here.

You wanted to be like, I just.

Wanted to do my thing.

Yeah.

I was always like that as a kid too, you know, playing with toys, with maybe a friend. I had to put it back my way, you know? You know, it had to be. It had to be Nick's way. So I always had, you know, struggle with authority or just like, I was always good friends with teachers.

Okay.

But I would always, like, do it out of, like, I want to have it my way, you know, and be able to just have maybe a little bit more freedom in that environment. So for me, I think actually the transition from solo to business. Yeah, I think I went too fast.

Oh, because you didn't like, maybe giving up control either?

Maybe, maybe I don't. I mean, that's been a learning lesson.

But too fast.

Like, I've gone over that hiring too quickly. I think I've. I. When I started, I hired too quickly and didn't stack up enough of my own money.

Gotcha.

And then it puts you in a position where this has to work now.

Yeah.

And that's a mistake I made when, you know, early on. I wish I did the solo thing.

Yeah.

Longer.

Built a war chest.

Built a war chest. And then. Yeah, A year, two years, you know, the whole thing. And then gone and said, I'm gonna scale this and. Because it's way easier to go and scale when you're sitting on a pile of cash.

Exactly.

Throw it at ads, throw it at new people. Testing. You can test a lot faster. But when you need something to work now.

Yeah.

It's not a fun position to be in.

That's what I learned from Sam Oven's actually in Quantum when I first joined his mastermind. He was always a big proponent of get a war chest. And his war chest at the time was like a million dollars in cash in your business checking account. Because then you can make big dick moves. He would say, he's like, you just. You just. Your balls sit more. Like you have more balls.

I was gonna bring up Sam because you did the thing with him. I think that you did like a YouTube program with him. I'm really curious. Curious what's going on with school, because it's a big talk all the time. You got school, you got wap, you got all these other ones.

Yeah.

And then I think there's maybe some beef between Iman and Sam because Iman bought consulting.com or something.

So this is actually probably going to be the highlight of the podcast here because this is. This is stuff I love talking about.

Okay.

I love the tea, but I also love talking about it because I don't think a lot of people talk about what's happening inside the industry.

Yeah.

So this is such a niche podcast.

But for the right person that listens to it, they'll love this.

Like me and you.

You know, like me, you, Logan, Daniel, anybody. So. Okay. Yeah, so let's talk about that. So WAP in school, I've never used wap. All their guys hit me up all the time to promote something and jv.

And they're really nice.

They're nice.

I like them. But they won't add that damn phone number at checkout. I'm trying to get the phone number at checkout for two years.

Look, I've never used it. I'm sure.

Anyway, sorry, sorry. That's me ranting.

But I've also. I'm an investor in school, so I also.

I didn't know that. Congrats, bro.

Yeah, thanks, man. I mean, again, it was just because I was a. I owe all my success to masterminds, bro. That's why I do my mastermind. I was in the right place at the right time, and the opportunity was offered. And so I said, yeah, sure, I'll take a risk.

Got it.

But I knew Sam.

Okay, so now I'm talking to an.

Owner of school on paper. Yeah, I guess I don't do any work. Sam's done it all. I just, I just helped him with maybe a little bit of cash, you know, Anyways, so I hope that people don't take that the wrong way. Sam would have done it with or without me. He offered me and I said yes. Right. And he offered the mastermind too. And so everyone that was in the mastermind got an opportunity to invest.

Nice.

That's the best part. Um, so when I say the WOP thing, I just, I'm, I'm, I'm loyal. So, like, I also know they're competing, so I don't want to also in good faith to Sam, because I, I, I really respect Sam and I, I'm actually invested in school. I don't want to feel like I'm trading teams either.

Sure. Makes sense.

And so, and I also just like using school. I have never used wap. I hear WAP works. I think there's competition for a reason. Now, the eman thing is interesting because, look, WAP and school do virtually similar things. From what I know before I get to the eman thing, actually, school is very simple. It's simple, it's community focused. It's not meant to have all the bells and whistles. If, you know Sam makes sense and you know how he's built his courses and his programs, it's enough to get you the result.

The only thing, the only thing I had a gripe with about school.

Yeah.

Was messaging people like a group chat feature. Group chat within a school.

I agree.

If, if they had that, I probably would have still be using.

I agree.

I use Discord, I use wap, the process of payments here and there and some stuff like that. But Discord is just what we use for hosting.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, like in the same regard. It's like I use School, but I have slack, and then I have a slack from my mastermind, even though my contents on the master in school. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's definitely a feature that hopefully maybe they add. We'll see. So it's simple. The product works, but it's meant to be the least amount that you need to just get the job done. It's simple. Right. That's how Sam operates. Wop, from what I hear, has a lot more of the bells and whistles, but at times can potentially be a little bit more overwhelming, especially for the average consumer that, let's say, buys a course from me and now they have all these other things potentially. I don't know I've never used wap, but that's my interpretation of it. I'm sure it works again, their circle, their school.

Yeah.

Now on the iman thing.

But before you get there, is the goal of school to like sell or what? What's the.

I mean, I don't want to speak for Sam or anything, but I do know that that's the play. I mean, look, Sam went all in on school.

Yeah.

He gave up an eight million dollar a year business while he was making five, six million dollars in profit. A team of seven people to go to school.

So he's scaled consulting.com down to that.

Yeah, I, I feel like again, Sam already taught me this lesson, but I didn't learn it until I actually learned.

You went through it yourself.

Because when I first joined his mastermind, that's when he had just got done transitioning consulting.com from 36 million New York penthouse office, everything big team, 40 plus people to California. You know, less is more team of seven people.

Did his profit stay the same?

He made more profit, bro.

He made more profit, bro.

He was making 30 this go. This actually is perfect changes for the eman thing.

He was making 30 about it.

Right.

He was making 36 million with school, but he was profiting consulting.com. sorry. Yeah, yeah, good, good catch. He was making 30s at the peak, $36 million in revenue. And allegedly from what he. He says, Sam says he was making about a million.

Maybe crazy. Those margins are crazy.

Maybe. I mean, but again, nasty. He had.

In a bad way.

Yeah, it's not. That would be tough. I mean.

Yeah.

So a million, however much profit that was, it wasn't more than 2 million though. So I guess that's not a lot of profits, a lot of top line. But then. Okay, so this is when he, he admits publicly too that he read the book the Everything Store by Jeff Bezos and he realized he was doing business all wrong. He was chasing top line revenue. He was scaling at all costs. The product wasn't getting any better. The more team members he hired, he was all the revenue. A lot of the revenue of the company was being reinvested back into the company. But not in client success or not in customer results, but in ads. He had all of his staff for marketing, not on customer success.

So why even scale that big if you're not making more money?

But that, that was a big. Obviously, obviously probably red flag. But. But he also just realized he wasn't customer obsessed. He actually wasn't embodying customer obsession. He was scaling the company but he, his product, his. His results were apparently worse. His. His marketing budget was going back into ad spend. He. It wasn't going back into the product itself. Not the product. So he had that revelation. Revelation. And then he transitions. He goes from that to, okay, no, I'm going to focus on less is more. Less team. Two things we, you know, consulting or Quantum Mastermind. And then like up level.

And then that's where it changed and then came in.

Right.

And that's when I joined the Mastermind after he goes, I'm back. Here's what I'm going to be focusing on. And so I joined the Mastermind because he said he's going to be running YouTube ads. And I'm like, what does Sam know about YouTube ads that I don't? You know, if I just learn one thing from him about YouTube ads, it's worth the investment. So I joined in 2022, actually, right. When I moved to Miami. I joined like February that year when I moved to Miami. And. And then at that Mastermind, he just talks about, you know, how everything was structured before, how he would do it again. And I'm hearing all that and, you know, I'm just like, okay, that sounds great, but I want to do more. Like, I want to grow, I want to go big, I want to have big team, all these things. And then, you know, he's like, why? Like, asking me, like the introspective questions, like, why, why, why, why, why?

And.

And I just didn't understand why he wouldn't keep going at the time. Now I know, obviously, and I kind of experienced the same things. It's like, product, all those things. Right. So, okay, now let's transition to the Iman thing.

Right.

So Iman was in Sam Oven's Quantum mastermind in 2018.

Got it.

Like 2017, this is when, like, Alex Becker was in there. Sure. And then he starts high rose. Right. This is when all these guys came from Sam Ovens before me. Iman, obviously, as well. So Iman very publicly says, as well, he learns that these guys are making so much top line, but they're taking such little profit. And I, I believe that was also, you know, subtle jab at Sam without saying it, because he was in Sam of his Quantum.

Right.

And he knew that.

I saw a clip with the exact numbers, I think. Okay, so it was funny.

Yeah.

So he says, he says that. He says, like, when you learn that the guy you're learning from is making this much top line, but then he's only taking this much profit, it's like, what the are you doing? So I think that's when he stopped obviously going to the Mastermind. But he also started doing Iman, right? Whatever he wanted to do.

Sure.

And, you know, now he is where he is. And so he invested in personal brand, not ads for all those reasons. He learned from these guys. And so now let's transition. When I went to Quantum, when I was in Quantum, I was there in California for the Mastermind one weekend. And I actually met up with a client of mine, Rhian Doris. Rhian Doris owns a company called Flow Research Collective. He's partnered with a guy named Mark Caller. And they have a really big company and they help a lot of people with like, getting in the flow mindset, those kind of things with business owners and entrepreneurs. And, and I mentioned Durian after day, after day two of the Mastermind. I was like, you know, Sam's. Sam's gonna sell. Like, he just made an opportunity to invest in school and he's gonna, he's gonna sell consulting. And he, he was in Quantum before with Sam too. He's like, really? And so I think he immediately text Sam and funny enough, a few months later, Ryan, because I said, I actually told that to Ryan, he ends up being the one to buy consulting.com.

Got it.

He became the owner of consulting.com. he bought consulting.com, owned the domain, started to sell up a couple things. Don't think it really worked out because no one really wanted consulting.com without Sam. Right. And then transitioned to Iman now. So Iman, apparently, I believe from what I saw in Rhian story the other day, partnered with. With Ryan. And then I think he just bought the domain or something for now at least. And then he put the picture up there to kind of not necessarily throw shade at Sam, but probably the entire industry as a whole of like, you know.

Well, there's a lot of guys.

I'm better than you.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Well, look where I am. Look where you are.

It sounds like the.

Because.

Because I saw a couple clips. Yes, I was scrolling a little bit.

Okay.

I saw a couple clips of him with Dan Henry.

That was the podcast. I heard him talk about it as well.

And he was basically throwing shade at people for not making profit in the info industry. And obviously, dude, the whole. The whole point of this industry, like, is supposed to be a high margin business, you know, And I know you. You've dealt with it. I know.

Really? I literally realized that. I was like, dude, I'm not going to exit at this right now. So like what am I doing here?

You have to make profit.

Let's, let's, let's, let's, let's boost this profit up.

Yeah.

How can we, how can we get this to 100% profit real quick? Like let, fuck, let me think about everybody else for a second. Let me think about myself.

And that's why I'm so big on organic, personally. Like my, I mean I know you're, you're an ads guy, so it's different and you work with a lot of ads.

But I also have my biggest income coming from organic as well. Sure. Word of mouth referrals.

To me, ads has always been a really good multiplier on top of the organic. So, so I really like you build the organic as big as possible organically with good content and then, cause here's the thing that I think, I mean you get it, but there's a lot of people out there, they're like, I want to run ads. Cause I don't want to make content all day. I'm like, dude, what do you think is the ad? It's content. The ad is content. So if your content isn't good as a baseline, how are you going to run a good ad?

You don't even know how to talk to your market. Exactly.

So, so for me, organic is all the testing. You get the organic done, you bring in all the people and then retarget them. And then if you really want to run a cold campaign, you run a cold campaign on top of that.

And surprise, surprise, all of my best clients historically across the last five years have all had a solid organic brand and presence on these platforms before they started.

Right. It's so interesting because this brings us back to the beginning of the conversation we just had. I'm like, I want to do the middle a month organically.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean there's guys like Andy Elliott that are crushing it like that as well. Like he posts a bunch of content and I heard him say actually he doesn't want to rely on these platforms like meta or YouTube ads and all these things to get customers. Right. So he's got good at content for that reason. Patrick, Red David, same thing. Valuetainment. They're using content.

The biggest guys, the guys that make the most.

Yes.

All have great content as a baseline.

Exactly. So, so yeah, I mean look, you know, I, I, if you look at Traffic and funnels. Com. Right. Iman bought that too.

Yeah.

And so I think that one's, I.

Think that one, that one's just fine. That One's definitely a job. Well, because, I mean, Taylor Wilts was clearly talking about Iman in that tweet.

Oh, is that what it was?

If you go to trafficandfunnels.com right now, it's a Taylor Welch tweet subtweeting Iman. Not mentioning his name, but he's like, you can just be a guy that buys a Lambo and sell a course, and people think you're rich.

No, I think it was like he stole, like, a sales guy or something.

You can see it says literally subtweeting Iman Gadzi, but. Yeah, but Iman bought that domain.

It's so funny about how every level of any industry. I'm not just. It's not just the info industry. It is to most people. Because this is so public. Yeah, because it's like the guru type, and everyone's got this thing and everyone's on this podcast and the whole thing, it's so public that everyone sees it as, like, high school to a degree. But I feel like every industry is like this. Like, I imagine the real estate industry just like this. I know the car industry, when I was in it, is just like this. There's, you know, little. Little, you know, clicks and stuff.

Yeah.

It's so funny, though, how, you know, you grow up, everyone's still kind of in high school a little bit.

Yeah, exactly. It's just a different niche, a different vertical, different industry. And I like it, dude. I think it's. It's fun, you know, that's why we're a part of it.

Yeah, I. What would you say your goals are, you know, with this industry? I'll share mine after. But I'm really curious, you know, what your goal is with this industry. If you'd stay in it forever, if you'd go to something else.

Question, dude. I guess my goals have changed from today than it was before. But, I mean, my goal for the longest time was just to have my own mastermind, bro. Like, that was always my dream. I remember having a conversation with one of my first business coaches when I. That was the first mastermind I ever joined, Vince Del Monte. And I remember, like, after three months of working with him and going to the second mastermind of his, I just looked at him in the face and I was like, dude, I just want to do masterminds. Like, this is what I see the most. Like, because my life changed because of masterminds. Like, again, dude, I don't say that because it's just, like, marketing, but, like, and because I Have a mastermind because it's genuinely true. Like, only reason I was able to invest in school, Mastermind. Only reason I was able to partner with Sam Ovens on Wetube Mastermind. Only reason I was able to start a YouTube ads agency and ad spend.com to what it is today. I joined that mastermind. And at that mastermind, he gave me the light bulb moment and told me, you should just do YouTube ads and cut all the fitness stuff out. Because at that time, I was working for Dean. I was trying to start my own fitness brand. And he was like, bro, forget all that right now. Just do this and you'll shortcut this and get what you want. And I was like, okay, that makes sense. He's richer than me. I'll listen to him. And it worked. And I got clients. I started my agency. So that was my goal for the longest time, just to have my own mastermind. And now I have it. And that's kind of what I would really still want to do. I want to be able to host masterminds and events and workshops all across the world at dope places in Europe, in Asia, admin in Hong Kong, bro, admin in Antarctica, you know, admin in the Maldives. Like, why not, like, and just get people together that are like, you and me that like, talking about this stuff and all want to be around people that are doing the same thing and have fun, not just talk about business. Yes, of course that's going to be natural because we're just motivated like that and have fun, not just talk about business. Yes, of course that's going to be natural because we're just motivated like that, but also to do it while we're walking the beach, while we're having good food, good dinner. I want to create experiences. Like, everything I've done with adspend.com has worked because of the branding behind it, the experience, the intentionality. And our customer. Our core value is red carpet customer experience. So for me, it's like, bro, if I could just keep doing masterminds the rest of my life, like, that's my goal. I'll be living the dream for the rest of my life.

Simple. Yeah, I like it.

So it's like, how do I do that? Well, all I got to do is keep posting content, keep talking about masterminds, keep adding value to people, and keep sharing my story. And naturally, I can help the people that have been below me learn from the mistakes I made the last few years. You know, like, I think a big imposter syndrome. I used to have is like, who's gonna want to learn from me? But like, apparently a lot of people, you know, like, there's a lot of people that haven't got to 350k a month. There's a lot of people that haven't had 16 team members. So it's like, okay, I can just share what I know authentically. And so my goal right now is like, okay, be a good husband, be a good father. You know, do my mastermind give value to clients and focus less on, like, the tangible. Like, I gotta get this, otherwise I'm not gonna be happy. But, like, let it happen naturally and just be the best I can and it'll just come nice. That's it.

I love it, bro. That's incredible. You're winning.

Thanks.

You're winning, dude.

Yeah.

Sometimes it doesn't feel like it because, you know, but360, you got to be.

Great third party perspective. You're winning, man.

Thanks.

It's interesting because my goals are just different.

Yeah.

Like, at least with the industry. For me, the industry was. This is an easy way to make money. I've become good at this.

Yeah.

First with theme pages, then the agency, and then obviously consulting. And it can turn into a cash cow that goes forever because we're really good at what we do and we take care of our clients and it's healthy. We don't rely on the paid. You know, just only paid or multiple team members. We have a core group of Americans. Some VAs, we're there. That's my happy medium. Between the 16 and like, the two. Is that middle ground.

Yeah.

And for me, the biggest thing is to make a ton of money.

Yeah.

Become rich from the industry without selling my soul.

Yeah.

I don't want to sell shit because that comes back on me and my reputation. And I never want a bad review. I never want a bad experience. I never want someone to be able to say, he, you know, lied to me, he didn't help me. I, you know, it was, you know, he worked with me in bad faith. I want to be able to get rich from the industry while preserving the reputation so I can do whatever I want to after or during or the whole thing. And that's what's important to me. I think a lot of people maybe don't care, so maybe that makes me different. I don't know. But I know there's a lot of people that do care.

Yeah.

And those are my friends.

Yeah.

I mean, you see these people nowadays. I mean, you can. You can just go on Twitter or go on Instagram and everyone's an AI agency, you know, expert.

Let's talk about AI agencies, bro.

They're just, they're just, I mean, what, like they're just, just launching some go high level thing or like AI agent thing and they, they've shifted their brand. It's like the white label go high.

Levels are just like, dude.

It's also just like, you can tell who the guy is that just is in it for the money. And like, that's the thing I get tripped up on too sometimes because I'm like, I mean, like you said, if the goal is to make as much money as possible, I mean, the guys that are doing it, they have no problem just going from offer to offer to offer, trend to trend to trend. And they make the most money. At the same time, though, they also get the most hate and the most flack and the most ftc, you know, compl. FTC lawsuits. And it's like, did, have they sold, have they sold their. So debatably, yes. Have they sold their soul? Debatably, no. Whoever you talk to.

But it's like, do they, do they know they're doing something wrong or not?

Well, that, that's where, that's where I, I, I tended lean. Yes, because.

And then they continue doing it because.

They do it again and it's like, come on, man, at what point is the money just like that, that's all it is. Like, you don't even care.

It becomes dirty. In my opinion.

You just want to sell anything you can.

I think it becomes dirty.

Like, that's what that, that's for me. I think that's the biggest thing I realized recently is like, dude, if my heart's not in it, like, if I can't genuinely say I can sell this and I'm confident and I love it and I want. And I know it's going to work and it can help somebody, bro. Like, there's, there's not no amount of money you can pay me though, that would give me to say. Because it's like you were literally selling your soul just like the WAP thing, right? Like it's like again, wap whatever, right? But they were willing to pay me to sponsor one of my masterminds. And like, I was like, I could take the money, but I feel like I would be selling my soul or be a sellout.

I mean, to. You are a soul.

So it's like you got, at a certain point, you know, Diddy's gonna ask you to party and you gotta say, no, you know, so you gotta. You gotta be able to be okay with not saying so. I completely agree with you, dude, and I applaud you for that. Like, it's in this. It's hard for.

I mean, you're the same way as me, of course.

And it's. And I. It's funny. I saw this Instagram post the other day. It's like, maybe it's taking a little bit longer for you. Maybe it's doing this and that because you're not selling your soul. You're not scamming people. And you see all the people getting exposed every day. It's like, sometimes I just watch these Spencer Cornelia videos or these coffee Zillow videos of these people, and I'm just like, dude, I can sleep a lot better than I thought at night because there are literally people out there that are actually truly scared scamming.

I don't watch those videos. I think sometimes some legit people get caught up and I think they're looking for fishing, you know, I hope they put me on there one day.

Put me on there. I'm legit.

I'm legit.

100.

I got the receipts.

Oh, yeah, but.

Yeah, but I think that would be funny.

It's free exposure, but it's also bad exposure. Like you to get again.

But you know what?

The thing. The majority of the time, they're people, they're exposing. They do sort of like everybody, like, for the most part, I've seen. I'm like, okay, that's okay, that's fair. That's, you know, it's like, okay, that's a lot of people saying that they got scammed.

You know, I don't watch the video, so I'm not.

I like it.

You know, apparently the industries.

Well, a lot of them, yeah, it's. It's. There's a lot of people there, dude. It's like, there's.

There's so many. It's really interesting. There's so many info people that I don't know about. Yeah, you just don't. I just don't know.

Well, there's more and more being created every day because everyone can become an expert now and sell. It's like, even you create. You sell content. You tell people how to create content, and you help them create content that gets them more customers.

Yeah.

If you're good at anything nowadays, you can become a guru. And like, you know, that word gets thrown around a lot. But it's like, dude, if you're like, you, me and your girlfriend could theoretically Throw up a mold course right now and teach entrepreneurs how to detox from mold. Because we've gone through it and, and.

I would say that's not invalid as a thing at all.

It's actually probably one of the best things we could do for the health of many people.

I tweet about it all the time and actually get some of the most engagement on my account. I'm like, info is awesome.

Yes.

Just sell the course, bro. You're good at something. Go sell it. Why not help?

Go do it.

It's in your brain.

Yeah.

You have a skill, you have knowledge, you have an experience. Pull it out, package it, Come to me, I'll help you package it. Package it up and sell it and, and go make the money that you want to make.

And so the line, I think becomes drawn when that's, that's, that's it. Right? Intention's good, everything's good, product's good, clients, results are good. And then you sacrifice all that for the sake of. You don't even, like, you don't fulfill it all. Like, you just stop fulfilling.

Yeah.

You don't, you don't deliver. You claim everything, you don't do anything and that, and you do it hundreds of times, thousands of times. And that's where again, you get exposed for.

You're gonna make X amount with Amazon Automation. Guaranteed. Like some of these guys going down. I'm like, you, you said that.

Yeah. And, and, and it also just like, I think people are, I don't know, man. People see right through that nowadays especially, I hope, because it's just like, it takes work, bro. None of this shit's guaranteed. Yeah, dude, Waking up tomorrow is not guaranteed. So it's like, bro, just chill out. Like just, this is gonna help you. This is gonna get you clients, like, do the fucking work, bro. Like at a certain point you get kind of like, Sam got to that point. Like I saw him in Quantum, he was just like, no claims. He's like just the simplest marketing at all. No claims, no guarantees. And it was like, it's simple, but it works, dude. Like, you don't need, you just get over the marketing claims and the guarantees. Eventually you're just like. And those kind of clients that come through that stuff anyways, it's like, bro, it's a different, different, different client journey.

Where, where do you, where do you see your brand going from here? Because you do a lot of really niche high end stuff and you have followers from it, obviously.

Yeah.

But I mean, we both know if you continue doing current Niche stuff. You're not going to be a million follower person. Do you ever have aspirations for that? Do you want to be there?

Yeah. This is something that I'm actually glad you asked me about because I'd love your opinion on this too. Yeah, I mean, I'm at the point now where I don't just want to talk about YouTube ads anymore. Like, I, I, I've said the same thing the last five years. Right. It's like, how, what else is there? You know, it's like it's going to be the same thing over and over and over again. I've evolved. Like, I like talking about this mold stuff. I like talking about health and wellness. I like talking about masterminds. I like talking about bitcoin. I like talking about freaking, you know, organic foods. I like talking about organic cotton clothing. Like, that's what I really love doing and like exploring and learning about. So it's like, how can I incorporate that, like, at this point with my content? I'm not even worried about, like trying to, you know, from a business side, I'm not really worried about trying to get clients from my YouTube channel. I'm just trying to grow my message and like, the message is like, growth, like personal development, giving back everything I've learned. So I actually see my brand actually growing faster and bigger because I'm starting to branch out and grow broader topics and not just be honed in I'm the YouTube ads. Adspend.com paid ads info. You know, like, that's great, but like, when I'm at, when I'm talking to guys like you and like people that are in the industry, this is what we talk about. It's like, why can't I just talk about this on my channel? And so where do I see my brand going? I see my brand actually truly becoming more of a, you know, personal brand. Of course I'll still do adspend.com that'll be what I do. But it's not who I am. So if I can eventually going back to my goal, like your question about my goal. I want to leverage the mastermind, but I also want to leverage what I've done with adspend.com and I want to be able to have my own health and wellness sort of brand and company as well. Like retreats, you know, like cold plunge, sauna, like those kind of things, like these devices that I use anyways, like, what's stopping me eventually when my bitcoin goes, you know, to where it is that I can invest in all these things and build these compounds and, and have a compound here.

I see you keep talking about a farm farm. I've been talking about that for like four or five years.

Yeah, I wanna, dude, I, I, here's the funniest part about this. Where I see, where I see the world going, dude, like, this is why I'm super bullish about Bitcoin as well, is because it's like AI is coming and like AI, from what I'm seeing and learning is like, it's like it's gonna replace a lot of things. And like that's why the, are you.

Using it a lot?

Yes, but like not even at the, at the, not even 20% of capacity. Like I haven't even tapped into potential because again, I'm like, okay, what do I need? What's actually, what's actually needed for, for this to run? And so point being is like I see writing on the wall where it's like, what's going to be truly scarce, what's going to be valuable in the future? What are people going to actually care about? Like if AI is what it's going to be, which we all know it probably is, what actually matters at that point? Well, the only thing that matters in my opinion is good health, good food, community, those three things. So if I could start talking about those things now and building my own community around those things, have my own farm, have my own son, my own cold plunge, my own chickens, my own self sustaining food supply, be able to raise my family as well, but be able to bring people there and give them the experience so they can disconnect from the fucking slop they're consuming all day long when they're scrolling right and unplug for the matrix finally to actually connect to nature. Get back to the beach, get back to the water. Like, bro, I can say without a shadow of a doubt I get paid from the Internet, but I don't spend the majority of my time on the Internet. Like I spend the majority of my time. I love being in nature, I love walking, I love being outside and where the world's going, dude, a lot of nature's going to get wiped up from these data centers, from these energy supply centers.

I saw you post about that. You've been doing it a lot more recently. And I, I'm seeing it and I'm.

Like, I think the same exact way.

Yes, it's cool. I didn't know you were that deep into something because it's like, dude, we.

Need it, but at the same time it's actually hurting us. And that's the part that I get torn by, because it's like, my business is built around all this stuff, but I'm actually starting to find myself.

Agree.

Less. Well, I just think you're a smart.

Guy, so, like, you saw the opportunity with the Internet, so you're like, let me. Let me build my shit on this.

It's cool.

Let me make money from it. But now you're. You know, I got a kid, too.

Yeah.

How do I want to raise her? Do I want her on Twitter scrolling all day? Like, do I want her to hit the TikTok? Do I also want all this beautiful nature that we have in the world to be replaced with solar panels and data centers and all just a chatgpt this prompt. And I'm like, fuck, it's tough, man. Because I tell my wife is like every week. I'm like, let's just buy the farm as quick as possible. Let's get our families on the farm. Let's have two or three houses each. They're living on site, and let's just have our own homestead.

And then. So crazy. Like, because I didn't know we were this. Like, I have.

That's why we're friends.

I have these same conversations all the time. I mean, we just haven't seen each other.

Yeah, of course.

Well, where are you going to buy farm? You know?

Medellin, Colombia.

Yeah.

Oh, wow. Because the price of. Okay, so farmland here, right? I mean, Florida, it's crazy.

Yeah.

Get one acre for, like, a million bucks, which is. It's not even a good.

Depending on where you at.

Yeah.

It's not even a good acre to land either, in most places in Miami especially. But Medellin, bro, you can have a couple acres, 400 grand, your own house. Like a couple five, six acres, plus cows, like, all in, like, maybe 500, maybe even less, bro. And. And plus my wife's Colombian. I want to learn how to speak fluent Spanish. I'm almost there, like, 60%. We want our kid to speak fluent Spanish. I want to be able to have a place here in Miami and in Medellin and go back and forth. So, you know, we, like you said, come here, we do business. It's like the Tai Lopez thing. He's like, I spend X months in Scandinavia. I go to Cali to make it Scandinavian, Huh? Yeah. Yeah, he loves it, dude. But I like that, like, lifestyle. I don't want to spend all my time in Miami. I also want to disconnect and go to my farm. In Medellin. So that'll be the place we end up buying.

Awesome, man.

That's awesome. That's what we're looking at right now.

I'm American, so for me, it's probably gonna be somewhere here.

We talked about Europe a little bit. But I also like the fact that it's the second location outside the U.S. in case, you know, having that sort of diversification. Because I love the US but, dude, you never know. You never know. And especially with the whole thing with. Again, when you go deeper into bitcoin, you just realize, like you. I never used to think that the dollar could fail. I never used to think the dollar could go to the Venezuelan peso.

Yeah.

But the way we're printing now and the way everything is becoming more and more inflated, it's like, there's no reason why America was just the best until it might not. And again, I love America. I'm fucking American. Like, I'll be here.

Are you from, like, Colombian descent?

No, I was born in Texas. My parents were born in Texas.

What are they? What's their answer?

Yeah, so it's funny, my. So my mom's side of the family, her parents were born. Well, her dad's half Native American, half Mexican. Sorry. Half Native American and a little bit of German. The mom's side's a little bit more Mexican descent. My dad's side of the family. My grandparents were born in Texas, but their great grandparents were born in the small town of Mexico too. So it's Native American, Mexican, and a little bit of European.

Got it, got it.

So, but like, I'm American, bro. Yeah, Fully here in American. Fully. I love the United States, but all I'm saying is, like, okay, in case. And plus, I just want to be able to go somewhere else, you know, Medellin, have a farm, come back. So, yeah, dude, I would love to have farmland here too, potentially, you know, who knows?

I've been thinking about it a lot. I'm not sure where the answer is yet, because I also like the mountains.

I have a friend in Arkansas. He actually paid $450,000. This is where I got the numbers from. So I kind of. I don't know how much farmland Medellin is. I'm still researching it. But he bought. Yes, he has five acres in Arkansas. Again, it's Arkansas, five acres. But he had. But that came with his own six bedroom house. Five acres, and it was only $450,000 total.

Way out in the middle of nowhere.

Towards the middle of nowhere, sort of. He's in the middle of me.

I kind of like that. I like going off great a little bit.

If you're having a farm.

Yeah.

You might as well have a farm.

Yeah. So for me, it's like it's going to be somewhere in America. Then maybe there needs to be a third spot, like a mountain spot. But the more and more I think about it and live and do business, I think a place in like in Miami has to be the case. You know, think about a finance guy that is, you know, like minded, like us. They would have a place in New York City because they have to be there for business. I don't have to be here for business, but it's so good for my business to be here.

Yeah.

That it just makes sense.

And it's kind of a different part of Miami.

It's not Brickle.

No.

You know, you look outside, this is way more chill.

This is Miami.

Yeah.

This is probably one.

Like that's what I always tell Jennifer. It's like our vision board, we've always had is like condo in Miami, you know, farm in Medellin. And we go back and forth.

All right, so guys, look, we're gonna cut the podcast because the camera keeps dying. It's not plugged in, it's not charged, the memory card this, memory card that. But dude, this was awesome. Yeah, this was a great podcast. I appreciate you coming on.

We can do this every day, the whole thing.

We will maybe have to do it. We'll maybe, maybe if it's not soon.

We'Ll have to do another 100%.

On the farm. Yeah, on the farm.

On the farm.

I don't know if you guys even know about the farm. Depending on, depending on the microphone. Regardless, guys, Brian's link is going to be in the description below. You know where to find me. Instagram, Twitter, here on YouTube. Make sure to subscribe. And I've got videos going out damn near every day, so I'll see you on those. Cheers.