24 Minutes to change how you live your life

People, welcome back to the show. What I'm about to share with you is one of the most impactful speeches I think I've ever given on a stage. This is actually from Fund Launch Live 2. We had about 2,000 to over 2,000 people in the audience, fund managers from all around the world that flew in. And what I dive into is all about how to build yourself as in the process of hook, story, and offer. And what I talk about has absolutely changed my life. It's changed the way I've looked at the world, how I approach risk and reward, how I approach business, how I approach hiring people, how I approach doing things in my life that may seem scary. And it's actually helped me produce my first hedge fund, my 2 other previous debt funds, how I've launched subsequent funds, done partnerships, deals, joined mastermind groups, has all come back to kind of this central thesis and focus of my life on how I approach risk. Hope you guys enjoy. Let me know, subscribe, comment down below what you think. But right now we'll roll over to the clip from Fund Launch Live. You have an awesome hook, you have a great story, and you have a great offer. So I want to tell you a little story. Is that okay with you guys? Little story time. So right here, this is a picture of my beautiful mom. Right here, she's sitting front row, which is awesome. This is my beautiful mom. I actually served a 2-year church mission. I went to Taiwan. I spoke Chinese. It was amazing. This is actually the moment I got home, the first time I'd hugged my mom in 2 years. This is her, beautiful mom. And she gave me some fantastic advice. So this part of my life, I came home and I wanted, I was hungry. I wanted to get into business. I wanted to get married, et cetera. And my mom gave me some amazing advice. By the way, just side note, my mom, While my dad was starting all of his businesses, you guys know my dad and stuff. My mom actually during that time they weren't making a lot of income because it was you know how entrepreneurs are you're up and down. My mom goes and starts a teeth whitening business on Overstock.com. Remember Overstock.com? I think it's still around. Was the top selling teeth whitening product on Overstock.com was making was kind of the breadwinner to fill the gap while my dad was launching business scaling to bring it in. My mom just said you know what I got three kids I'm a single or a stay-at-home mom I'm just going to make some money bring home some bacon. Isn't that kind of cool? Clap it up for my mom! Isn't that incredible? So cool! And I'm the product, and I 100% have 2 amazing parents. You guys are amazing, I love you so much. Thank you for being incredible parents and individuals.

Thank you.

So this is my cute mom here on this picture, and she gave me some phenomenal advice. Let me take you back. I think I'm 20 in this picture, 21 years old, and I wanted to get married and date and stuff. She gave me some great advice. She said this, Bridger, When you're dating, make sure you have a really good first kiss story because you'll tell that story 1,000 times. True or not true? True or not true?

True.

True. Ladies in the room, true or not true?

True.

True, okay. Pretty good advice. If you're gonna have a love story, make sure it's good, yeah? And so I remember internalizing this advice and the night I got home, actually, I wanted to get out with my friends. I hadn't seen my friends in, what, 2 years? So I was like, let's go hang out, et cetera. We get together and this group of girls comes over at this place and I see This girl. I was like, whoa! She's gorgeous. Now I knew who this was; her name was Lauren and we actually lived on the same street, 7 doors down. But I didn't know her like this. I was like, wow, she's really grown up in the last 2 years. She's gorgeous! Who is this girl? And I've got to go out with her, I've got to date her, etc. And so we start dating, we start going out, all this kind of stuff. This is actually a picture of our— it's kind of an embarrassing photo— our very first date. Look at how awkward we are. I don't wanna throw it up. This is a terrible picture, but this is our first date. We're in Park City out there, and we went out, and it was amazing. And I was like, man, this girl's super cute. We had known her family the whole life. And so, we started dating, and we started progressing, and we were building up to where we were just kinda, should we date, should we not date? And I didn't wanna jump into this relationship, 'cause our families knew each other so well. Does that kinda make sense? I didn't wanna like, if I was gonna date her, I was gonna, like, I really was gonna be all in. So, we started dating, it was to the point where it's like, hey, we hadn't kissed at all or anything. It's like, okay, we either need to like kiss and progress or we need to like stop hanging out. It was kind of to that point, you guys know what I mean? And so, I get to this point, I'm like, okay, I think I wanna like go into this relationship. She's beautiful, gorgeous, amazing. And so, I remembered back to what my mom said. What'd she say, right? Have a really good first kiss. Have a really good first kiss, 'cause you're gonna tell that story a lot of times. And so, I remember it was a Saturday night, we'd planned this date, she was gonna come over to my house, we were gonna watch a movie together. And I was like, maybe I'll kiss her during the movie or whatever. And I'm like, that's kind of a lame story. Like, you know, but I don't know what else. I'm like, what do I do? And so I would get home from this thing. And by the way, I'm living at home at that time. It was between college and stuff. And she was at home as well. And so I go and I get home and I text her, hey, you want to come over? She's like, yeah, I'll be over in 10 minutes. And my mom goes, Bridger, what are you doing? You don't text a girl to come over. You go to her house and you pick her up.

Good advice.

Good or bad advice? Pretty good advice. Clap it up for my mom, okay? You don't text a girl. You go to her house, you pick her up on a date. And I was like, yeah, yeah, okay, what am I doing? So I go, I text her back, hey, I'm coming over. Stay at your house, I'm gonna come pick you up. And I look outside and it's raining. Ooh. And it's one of those warm summer rains. You know what I'm talking about? And I'm like, oh, I got an idea. I grab an umbrella, put it up, and I start walking outside, 'cause she's only 7 doors down. Go out of my house, I walk down to the street, I get to her house, and I go to her front door, knock on the door, and Lauren comes to the door and says, hey. She says, what are we doing? I'm like, oh, we're gonna go in the rain, it's a beautiful night. So she comes out in the rain, we start walking, we're talking, we're laughing, giggling. I pull out my phone, play a little John Mayer. I put it in my front pocket. So we start dancing in the street. So we're dancing, I'm swinging her around in the rain, this beautiful summer rain, we're dancing, walking down the street, we're laughing, giggling, it's like it's out of a I'm not embellishing the story at all. It's 100% true. We are dancing, having a great time, and I'm sitting there, if there's ever a time to kiss a girl, it is right now. You know what I mean? And my heart's like, oh, I'm starting to pound. I'm like, okay, I gotta figure this out somehow. So finally we get to the front of my house. We walk down the whole street. We get there and we're in front of my house. I'm like, okay, this is do or die. I'm here. And so we're spinning around and we get to this point and she kind of swings and I'll go this way. So I'm on the curb area and I get her closer to me and I grab her and kind of pull her close. Okay? We make eye contact and, like, it's the moment. You know the moment? Like, it's there. We're, like, right here. And I pull out a line. Don't use a line, gentlemen, but I used a line. And I said, hey, Lauren, I think we got caught in the rain. And she's right here and she kind of laughs. She goes, ha! And then she just keeps dancing.

What?

She's dancing around like this, and I'm like, oh my gosh, what's going on? But she realized what was going on, so she quickly came back, and we got here again, and then I hit her a second time. I said, Lauren, I think we really got caught in the rain. And I kinda give her some big eyes, she goes, oh. And then I put her hair behind her ear, I pull her in, we have this amazing first kiss, just sparks flew, it was phenomenal. It's amazing. And you can clap it up for that, that's pretty cool, right? And then we continued to date, it's amazing, it was awesome, it was just, we just, you know when you click with somebody? That's just how it was. We just clicked, it just took off, it was amazing. About 6 months later, we're in the same spot, it's snowing now outside, same spot outdoors, same curb spot right there, and I say, Lauren, first time I told her I loved her. So I think we got caught in the snow this time. And the first time I told her I loved her, same spot, which is pretty cool. Fast forward, she ended up serving a mission for our church as well, went to Portugal, which was really cool, came back home, we started dating, and it was to the point where we both wanted to get married. So this is a couple years fast forward, And I thought, man, I gotta propose, I gotta make this thing epic. Where should I propose? What do you guys think?

The same spot.

The same spot, right? So literally, it's springtime now, and I'm like, hey, we're gonna do it. I made sure her nails were done, I made her dress up for some stupid reason. I was like, oh, we got something going on, you gotta dress up all nice. And we end up walking down the street again, and we're reminiscing. So we're back on the street, we're walking together, holding hands, reminiscing about the same spot. We get to the point, where we had our first kiss, first time I told her I love her. She gets there, and we're kinda talking, and then out of nowhere, fireworks go off. Like real fireworks, boom, boom, boom, boom. She turns up and looks, she's like, oh my gosh, and she's shocked, she's kinda scared, like, whoa, there's fireworks, like what's going on? She turns around and I'm on one knee like this, boom. Will you marry me? She turns around and we kiss and hug, she says yes. This is actually, and by the way, I had hidden her family and friends and my family all in the houses and cars around, So, in the bushes, everyone pops out and goes, congrats! Hey, whatever! And we're surrounded by people. This is actually a picture of us right there getting engaged. That's in front of the house I grew up. That's my door that I grew up on.

Pretty cool.

You can clap that up. That's pretty cool, hey? She said yes and it was fantastic. And actually, I don't know if my wife's going to notice, I would love to have you come on stage. So, Lauren, can you come over here? I want you guys to see my beautiful wife, Lauren. Actually, is Jonah here? So, we've now been married coming up on 4 years, and if we can get Jonah on stage, right over here, which is awesome. This is the fruits of an amazing woman. It's hard to be an entrepreneur's wife, especially an entrepreneur that goes on stage and puts themselves on camera. It's kind of tricky. So, with that, give a huge round of applause to Lauren, and there's Jonah. What's going on? Hello, hello. How you doing? Oh, don't be scared. Say hi. Can you wave at everybody? Wave at everybody. Can you wave? There's Grandma Jane. Papa, he's called Papa John at our house. Papa, say hi to Papa John. Oh, it's kind of fun. He's a little nervous. You're okay. Yeah. Oh, we'll get a picture, I guess. I'll get there right here.

Can I go?

There we go. Hey, I just want to say before you go, it is tough to be an entrepreneur's wife. And thank you so much. None of this would come to be. None of the people would be here without you. And I love little Jonah as well. So you're amazing, Lauren. I love you so much.

Love you.

Clap it up for my beautiful wife and son here. That is 100% true and I, it's amazing being in a relationship when you're on a team with somebody. Garrett's gonna talk about this tomorrow in depth. I'm so excited for you to hear Garrett on stage. It's gonna be amazing. Now, with that amazing story, it's all true, by the way. I want to share this as a powerful concept, though, that actually Steve Larsen taught me. He said he met— anybody know Tony Robbins in here? Because he actually met— this is a story from Steve. He goes, I met Tony Robbins and Tony taught him a powerful thing. He said, Steve, you are your greatest hook. You, who you are. Who would love to have a love story like that? Anybody in the room? All the ladies are like, yeah, I'd love it if my husband would do that! I would love that. Like, they're like bumping their boyfriend, et cetera, right? Well, guess what? You can. Guess what? That story, that's actually my story. It's not made up, but I envisioned it. I built that story. I had a desire for my mom. My mom told me, write a great love story and then make it come to be. And we have a great love story because I decided that I was gonna have a great love story. You guys following along? Is this kind of making sense? And ta-da! We have this really cool— and by the way, that's like one; we have 10 other stories that are just all these cool stories with our love story. We made it kind of epic and I, in the back of my brain, I was like, I want to have an epic love story because guess what? At dinner parties the rest of our lives, people are going to ask us, how'd you guys meet? What was your first kiss? And I was like, I want to have a cool story to tell, yeah? If you're with me, say yes! Yes! This is a powerful concept that you are your greatest hook. A lot of you want to speak on stage next year and I love that; I actually want you to come speak. The people who speak on stage, guess what they have? A really good hook, and they live their hook. Who was here for Tim Ballard last night? What an amazing talk. Tim Ballard, by the way, we raised over $115,000 last night for OER. Clap it up for you guys. That's amazing. Incredible organization, and we'll keep that going in the back of the room, etc., for the rest of the event. We'll call Tim at the end and tell him how much we raised, which is pretty cool. But Tim Ballard, what's his hook? Do you remember from last night? He had a government job that he left because he couldn't save, he could only save American children, he couldn't save all the other children. So he left his job, started a private organization that would go save children all over the world from sex trafficking and sex slavery and organ harvesting. Saved 6,000 kids so far. The reason Tim comes and speaks on stages, on Good Morning America, writing books, because guess what? He lives his hook. He is his hook. Is this kind of making sense? Another guy, Ed Mylett, you're going to hear him tomorrow morning; first speaker tomorrow morning, by the way. You better wake up, set your alarms. Ed Mylett's going to light this place on fire. You better set your alarms. He is amazing; he lives his hook. Have you ever heard Ed Mylett speak before? He is his hook. Even me, I live my hook. I'm guessing there's a reason a lot of you came today. You're like, there's this kid we heard of that runs these funds that has this dad and his dad turned him down for money. I've got to see this guy in person. Really, though. That's my hook. You guys know my story; that's my hook. I live my hook. The reason I speak on stage and we have an event is because I live my hook. My challenge to you guys is to live your hook. Is this kind of making sense? Another example I want to share; this is actually a childhood friend of mine; she's now world famous. Her name's Kelsey and she was just a normal mom. Any moms in the room?

Woo!

Raise of hands. Clap it up for the moms in the room, holy crap. Watching my wife do that whole thing, it's unreal. So clap it up for the mothers in the room. She was a mom and she had, I think she had 2 babies at the time, or 2 kids already, and she was feeling a little flabby, as moms do after postpartum. And so she did what a lot of women do, like, I'm gonna diet, I'm gonna starve myself to death, so she did it. She actually, this is a picture of her at 145 pounds. And she felt like she was flabby, I think she looks great, but she felt like she was flabby, so she decided to lose 20 pounds. And she actually did it. It's pretty cool. So she loses the weight, she starves herself, diets, and she still is feeling a little flabby. So then she loses another 5 pounds, okay? This is actually a picture of her down at the, if you can see at the top, so it's 145 in the first picture, 122 in the second picture, poundage. And she's like, I still don't feel healthy, I don't feel strong, I don't feel all these things. So she goes, and this time she started like blogging. She again had no following, nobody knew who she was, but she's like starting to put this out on social media, like, I don't feel like this is working. for us women just to starve the pounds off you. So she goes, you know what, I'm gonna try an interesting experiment. I'm gonna put on 20 pounds of muscle. I'm gonna do a body, I'm gonna eat protein, I'm gonna work out, I don't care about my weight, I'm gonna feel strong and fit and healthy. This is her at 140 pounds. The first and last picture are the same weight. Interesting, you clap that up, sorry, clap it up. That's pretty cool, right? And a lot of women resonated with this hook. Like, that's, yeah, why are we starving ourselves to death? We should be healthy, we should work out, we should be strong. Same picture, same weight, excuse me, totally different outcome. Interesting, right?

Right.

And all of a sudden, ta-da, she's on Good Morning America. She's writing books, she has over 2 million followers on Instagram, makes millions of dollars a year as a fitness influencer person online. She was honest. I know, we knew her growing up, we know her family very well. Her name's Kelsey Wells; you can go look her up. She was a normal person just like any of us and decided to live her hook. Is this kind of making sense? If you're with me, say yes!

Yes!

Another cool example, there's a lady in New York that had a hard time dating. She felt like she was too old, like she's like, I should be married by this point. Anybody ever felt that? Maybe inside you can raise your hand if you ever felt that. But it felt like she was too old. To be still dating in New York City. And so she said, I'm going to do an experiment. Had no followers, nothing. She said, I'm going to go on 30 dates in 30 days with 30 different men, and I'm going to plan the dates and invite the men out. Kind of cool. So she starts writing this little blog and starts posting about it. Every date she would go on, she'd get it. She'd invite a man out. She'd go on the date. She'd plan it. And she'd write a little blog about how it went. Day 1, day 2, day 3. She goes all the way to day 30. And actually, crazy enough, day 30, she goes on a date with a guy that she really hits it off with, keeps dating him, gets married to the guy, writes it all. She blows up into a huge success, writes a New York Times bestselling book, goes on Good Morning America, etc., the whole tour. Why? 'Cause she had an amazing what?

Hook.

A hook. She lived her hook. She just created one. Is that kinda making sense? Now, Bridger, what if it— what if I fail? What if my hook doesn't work? We live in a world, even if you fail, Make it epic. We literally live in this kind of crazy world. If you fail, just make it a really good story and you'll do well. Anybody know this guy on the screen? Jordan Belfort. Now I don't condone this story at all, but I'm just saying what's the worst possible scenario? Let's say you start a fund. Worst possible scenario, it's fraudulent. You do pretty much everything. You go to jail, you go to federal prison. I mean, that's pretty bad, right? Let's just say worst case possible scenario, you end up like Jordan Belfort. Anybody want to take a guess of his net worth in 2023?

$200 million!

It's actually a good guess. $115 million. And that's after paying back, he lost like $58 million down the hole, federal prison, etc. Because he failed so, in such an epic way, we like to hire him to speak and see sales trainings and go on, like, make it epic. Does that mean, now, I don't condone what this guy did, But it drives home a point. A lot of us are so scared to take a chance, take something, we're so scared to fail, and typically if we fail, just make it kind of epic. Another great example, anybody know this guy? Adam Neumann, WeWork, founder of WeWork. What happened to WeWork?

We crashed.

We crashed. They made a whole documentary, We Crashed. Worst case scenario, man, imagine a company, you're on public TV, your company's failing, that'd be pretty bad, right? Huge failure. Do you guys know he just launched a new company? Anybody heard of this? It's called Flow. They just raised $350 million for this company. Who would have invested with this guy? In this group? A couple people, ah, maybe, I don't know, I don't— he failed before. Well, he just raised $350 million. Andreessen Horowitz was the lead investor. One of the most famous funds of all time in Silicon Valley invested with this guy after a failure. Why?

Why?

'Cause we love people that have drive, vision, incredible hook. Now, some of us may say, I would've never invested in that. Well, maybe, that's okay, you have your own opinion, but Andreessen Horowitz, some of the smartest people on planet Earth invested with them, so maybe they know something that we don't know. Huh, interesting. Is that kinda making sense? Yes. If we live in a world, make it epic. So when I was in school, I was in college, I learned this principle. I actually had a friend that worked at Google, and he said this, he goes, you wouldn't believe how many former Olympians college athletes and entrepreneurs I work with. And by former, he kind of means failed, because a former entrepreneur is essentially a failed entrepreneur, right?

Right.

He goes, but Google loves to hire them. A former Olympian is kind of someone maybe they didn't really, they kind of made the Olympic team, or they got like a low rank or whatever, but they were an Olympian. He goes, Google loves to hire people that have drive, that have gone after something, even if they failed, we love seeing that. Is this kind of making sense? If you're with me, say yes.

Yes.

So, I actually took this to my career. A lot of you guys know my story. How many businesses did I start my first years of college? 6. I started all these companies. Why? Because I knew even if I made money, so outcomes, if I made money, great, I made money. If I fail, I've got a really cool story to tell. And companies wanna interview a kid that has a cool story. Does that kinda make sense? And evidently, it worked. This is pictures of me getting recruited out to Cisco headquarters, Walmart e-commerce headquarters, Meta headquarters, and Tesla headquarters. They flew us out. They wanted me to come. They wanted to hire me. Why? Because I had a really good hook. I started these businesses. They're like, who's this kid in college? He's raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for a fund. He had these businesses. He had 7 tutors at a Chinese tutoring company. Like, we got to interview this kid. Is that kind of making sense? I live my hook. You write your own story. We write our own stories. Look at this, we've talked about this before. Mason and I spent $150,000 on a mastermind program. We've talked about this multiple times this event. When we were sitting, we were sitting in a group like this and we got pitched this thing, we're like, ah, should we join? And I always look at things like, okay, if I spend $150,000, will I make back at least $150,000 or more? $253,000. And we're like, we actually thought, we're like, you know what, yeah, the connections we'll make, the people we'll meet over the course of a year, 3 years, 5 years, I think we'll make more than $150,000. But then I told Mason, I said, let's just say worst case scenario. Worst case scenario, it's terrible. It sucks. It's just awful. This is not worth our time, money, effort. If we make a YouTube video that says like, I joined a group for $150 grand, it sucked. I like, I got ripped off. Who would watch that video? Decent hook, right? A lot of you guys. So we're like, either way we win. If it's awesome, we make money. If we lose, It's a really good story. I'll write a book, I'll talk on stage about how I spent $150 grand and it sucked. Yeah? Is this kinda making sense? If you're with me, say yes.

Yes.

Okay, you write your own story. But Bridger, it's too risky, right? I don't know. I wanna share a really cool video here. Anybody know Jim Rohn? Jim Rohn? Oh, okay, some Jim Rohn fans. Make some noise for Jim Rohn, everybody. Pretty cool, okay? Tony Robbins' original teacher, this is him. Play a video. I want you to hear his voice. I love his voice. I've actually studied him as a speaker. He's incredible speaker. I wanted to like mimic him and awesome. It's amazing. So audio team, if you get the the sound up, we're going to play this video from Jim Rohn. Sound good? All right, here we go.

I used to say, "What if this happens?" It's called the language of the poor. What if this happens? And on top of that, if this was to happen, look at the fix I'd be in. I better not try. I could always ace myself out. Then I'll tell you what changed my whole life when I finally discovered it's all risky. The minute you were born, it got risky. If you think trying is risky, wait till they hand you the bill for not trying. If you think investing is risky, wait till you get the tab for not investing.

That's right.

See, it's all risky. Getting married is risky. Having children is risky. Going into business is risky. Investing your money is risky. It's all risky. I'll tell you how risky life is. You're not going to get out alive.

True or not true? True, right? I love that. I love his voice and Jim Rohn is amazing. But what's more epic, right, than running, raising a fund that's going to go out and change the world like we talked about yesterday? What's more epic of a story than that? When you got your grandkids around you one day and you're talking to them, what's, you know, Grandma, Grandpa, how'd you guys take over? He said, oh, we started a fund. We went and we conquered and we did this whole thing. Is that kind of making sense? Additionally, I've never seen, I don't know about you guys, I've never seen someone put their time, effort, and energy into something and fail. I really haven't. Have you ever seen somebody put their full focus, time, energy, and attention to something and fail? Us humans are incredible people. We can create and shape our future as long as we are focused on something. We're actually remarkable beings. There's this cool book called—