Making Billions: Lessons Learned From the King of the Thrill Pill Cult | Shaahin Cheyene | 1110

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. This is a live in person show, which I absolutely prefer over zoom or remote, but you know how podcasts are. The people that you want to hear from oftentimes aren't where I am and vice versa with good microphones and all sorts of. So thanks for showing up in the same city, same time as me, Shane.

Yeah, great to see. I always find face to face is better.

Yeah, it's just way more fun. So what are we going to talk about? What are you going to learn today? Well, how about we talk with the Willy Wonka of Generation X. That's a name I think you've earned. Building a billion dollar ecstasy business and not going to jail for it. Creating herbal ecstasy, being investigated by seven attorney generals and not going to jail for it because there's nothing wrong with selling herbal ecstasy. And this is back in the 90s. So this is a while ago. And you weren't even 18 when you did that.

Nope.

Okay, so you guys interested yet? Like, what does this, you know, kind of drug kingpin from the 90s got for us? Except he's also an Amazon expert. Since then he's been selling nootropics and a bunch of other stuff on Amazon as a very, very successful entrepreneur. So he's also an author, filmmaker, got a couple of his books here, like Billion How I Became the King of the Thrill Pill Cult. So basically all around interesting guy. Shaheen, Cheyenne, perfect. When people are taking a lot of herbal ecstasy and they try to say your name three times fast. What happened?

Well, unfortunately, you can't get herbalaxy anymore because they banned the key ingredient in it. Um, we're going to be doing a relaunch at some, at some point and.

Yeah, we're going to just call it like you FDA just like, dude, I'm serious. Like, they're going to come after you so bad. Like, like you should be respectful to those guys.

Well, in the United States, the key ingredient which was ephedra at that time, is now no longer easily readily legal and available. So you can. Ephedra? Yeah. And for people who don't know, because I don't blame anybody for not knowing, because you haven't been able to get that for close to 20 years. Here in the United States, ephedra is one of the oldest plants known to man. You know, when they, when they find these like cavemen, mummy type things and they find these little pouches on them, they almost always have a little bit of ephedra in there. And ephedra is a stimulant, a central nervous system stimulant and one of the most powerful, I think plants like, known to man. So it's very effective.

More than coca.

Well, so coca, if you process it, will have the effect of, of cocaine. Ephedra, you can have it just the way it is and it will have that, that stimulating effect. Coca, if you, if, you know, like, if you ever travel to south or Central America, actually has the opposite effect when you have it in tea. When you see people having coca tea.

I would chew mouthfuls of it at altitude to feel better. The first time I went to, I guess to go mountaineering in Ecuador and in, in Peru for sure. Both. All the times I've been there.

It's such a bummer. You can't get it. It's such a bummer. It's illegal in the us it's actually a really nice tea and it's not strong.

It takes like, I don't know, £50 to make a useful amount of cocaine or something. So. And guys, I. Cocaine's a terrible drug. Like you shouldn't do it. It's dumb. So just to be really clear, and if you really like to wake up, there's just better drugs for that and there's probably natural ways. So I like, that's one of those things like porn and cocaine do similar things to your dopamine receptors. So like, why would you do that?

Yeah, especially don't do them at the same time.

Never thought of that. I see why they call you the Willy Wonka. So you're already like doing all these things? No, you're just an interesting guy. You've been homeless, you lived out of your car. You fled Iran when you were five years old carrying your family on your back. Do I have a story right?

More or less. Yeah. So we left Iran. 1979, the Iranian, Iranian revolution.

Really serious time, right?

Like serious time.

Nothing on, like literally nothing, Nothing.

And we came here. My parents, you know, were basically working their fingers to the bone trying to, you know, make a living. And I was like, dude, there's like a guy driving down the street in a Ferrari with a beautiful blonde in the seat next to. How do I get that? And I quickly realized that there was no laid out path. They don't teach you that in school, they don't teach you entrepreneurship and.

Of course not.

So I bailed on high school. I bailed on. Yeah, just ninth grade. Before ninth grade, I Dropped out in eighth grade. Dropped out? Yeah.

What did your parents have?

Say that I cut all ties. I kind of, you know, I, I read.

Wow.

Yeah. Good or bad? I read that book, Think and Grow Rich. I don't know if you ever heard of it.

I read it when I was 16 and did all the stuff in it. Stuff doesn't work. I literally was like, on my mirror, I'll have a million dollars by the time I'm 23. And I only had $6 million by the time I was 26. Like, the thing doesn't work out. No, it totally works. So, yeah. So we were both influenced at a young age by Napoleon Hill.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, I mean, and, and his, his stuff is now pretty controversial, but we won't go into that. But so I thought to myself, you.

Can'T cancel Napoleon Hill. Like, that's stupid. Like, if you're trying to cancel, pick a guy who's alive to cancel, for God's sake. Stupid. All right.

It, it inspired a lot of us. So, you know, I, I, I take it for what it's worth. It worked for me is what I can say. And, you know, I was 15, I decided, hey, man, you know what? I'm like, sink or swim. Let's go. I don't know what I'm going to do, Dave. I'm going to go find my fame and fortune. I found a mentor.

So how are you living? You're in ninth grade. You cut ties with your parents. Did you have a car? How did you do this?

I had a car for a period of time, and then I lost it to a mob boss. Long story. And I got into the electronic music scene at the time.

So you were a raver back when Crystal Method was coming out?

That's right. And what I would do is I would, I managed to, like, make friends with everybody in the clubs that kind of knew me. And I didn't do drugs. I would just go into the clubs late at night and I would observe what was going on. I would observe the commerce happening in the clubs because I was interested in making money. I wasn't interested in partying. I wanted to know, how do you make money? And I quickly realized that the DJs broke ass. Can we curse on this? I don't know if we can curse, but Broke Ass always broke.

The club promoters don't tell Steve Aoki.

He'S doing all right. That's changed a lot. That's changed a lot. This was, this was early 90s, and the club promoters also broke but these clubs would happen all the time. I thought to myself, man, they must be subsidized. And by the way, you asked me how I lived. I would sleep behind the speakers. Glorious place to sleep. You've got that droning beat. And you could get a solid three, four hours with that metronome behind you. Nice. Delta Waves is fantastic. So, you know, I. I started looking around, and I saw these guys, they were, like, subsidizing. They give some money to the club promoters, they give some money to DJs, just kind of keeping the electronic music scene going. And I was like, what are these guys doing? And of course, they were dealing the drugs. Now, I looked back to my teenage years, and I thought to myself, this is going to be amazing. And then I look back to my original life of crime, where we were selling contraband in school gum, nudie magazines, whatever.

This is like in eighth grade. Before you dropped it.

Yeah, before I dropped it.

Like, the ultimate bad influence so far.

Yeah. And I just realized that I was really fucking bad at crime because we'd be really good at making money and always getting caught. Like, 100% getting caught.

Right.

So I was like, dude, I can't fucking do crime. It's just a bad idea. And then it occurred to me, what's the main drug that's happening right now? And it was this drug. Mdma, methyl dioxy, methamphetamine, Ecstasy. Here's the problem. It was now illegal, and the supply of ecstasy had dried up. So people were taking all kinds of shit trying to. Trying to get the effects of ecstasy. They weren't really taking ecstasy. So I thought to myself, man, if I could come up with a natural alternative that wasn't illegal, I could maybe do something. Now, I didn't realize that I was broke. I didn't have any money. I didn't have anywhere to live. But I went about the journey of creating it.

Wow. Okay. So you put together herbal ecstasy and what was in it?

So initially, what I did was I went down to Chinatown and I was like, give me all the herbs that do something. They're like, what do you mean? This is for heat. This is for cold. This is for cough. And I was like, fuck, all right. I got to go back to the drawing board. So I did what anybody in the early 90s would do. I pulled out this big book called the Yellow Pages. And I went to the library, and I got all these books, and I found this guy. His name is Andrew Whale, and I've.

Interviewed him on the show at his restaurant. Yeah, he's old school. I love Andy.

Okay, Old school guy. He had written the textbook for drugs in the early 80s for schools that taught people what drugs. This is what LSD is, this is what mushrooms are. I'm like, this guy's gonna be the perfect guy. And of course I dialed and the first ring on the phone was him. And I said, hey man, this is what I'm trying to do. Can you help me? He's like, who the fuck is this? How old are you? And I'm like 16. I think I was just like, just a little bit older than 15. I said 16. He goes, okay, okay. And he gave me some suggestions and I went and I got some books, I started getting ingredients. I somehow managed to get myself a girlfriend at that time, I don't know how, being dead broke. And her dad was some kind of school administrator. So he would leave early in the morning. I would sneak in through the back as soon as the dad was gone and we'd be mixing stuff up in the kitchen.

This is like some kind of Ferris Bueller's day off kind of story is what it sounded like. All right.

Yeah. And so eventually we came up with a formula that really worked and we would just test it on the teenagers in the neighborhood. I'd be like, hey, you guys like going to raves? They'd be like, yeah, like, you guys want to try a new, new, new drug? And at first I didn't have the money to buy the capsule machine, so we would roll them up into balls and put em in the oven. I tried to get it as close to the capsule size as possible, but you have to take like 20 goo filled tablets. But when we got the formula working, I mean it felt ing credible.

Ephedra can get you loopy.

Yeah, oh yeah. But it wasn't just ephedra. So it was like about 10 or 12 different ingredients that made it. Because if you take just ephedra, it'll make your heart beat really fast. Yeah, and it doesn't, it's not, it's not a well balanced formula. So the Chinese rarely use it by itself in traditional medicine. So yeah, so we got a formula that worked. And in all my youthful exuberance and wisdom, I decided to take it to a club. And now I was like, all right, how am I going to sell this fucking stuff? I got to find distribution for it. And I was like, you know what, the drug dealers, they don't have any money.

The organized crime people must have loved you. Okay, tell me what happened Here.

So I walked into the club. I mean from my club days, I knew who the biggest drug dealer was. And man, I was sweating. Sixteen years old, walked into the club.

Did you like wear a suit?

I should have. No. I mean I didn't have money for a suit.

Just like Miami Vice or anything.

No. But what I did do is I had little baggies filled, like they look like they would be a drug with this butterfly on the front and just the letter E. And I walked up and it was like, you know, the older I get, the more and more I believe in just a little bit more. Woo woo. And I don't know how it was possible, but like synchronistic events. There's. There's a guy, his name's Kirby, he wrote a book about that called Synchronicity. I don't know if you've read it.

I haven't read that book, but you can manufacture Synchronicities? I know people teach that stuff. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. So it's, it's an amazing thing.

But by the way, I meditated you.

Appearing here, you manifested me. So I, you know, I walked up to this guy and he was a rough looking dude. So like now everybody's got a tattoo on their face. Or maybe two. Back then if you had a tattoo on your face, it was serious.

You were a murderer? Pretty much. You were a murderer pretty much.

Yeah. It was not, it was not normal. And this guy had tattoos on his face, he had the gold teeth, he had bodyguards. I walked up to him, he was like, do you want kid? And I was like, I was like trying to get the courage to do it. And I was like, it, I'm gonna do it. It's now. I pulled out the backpack and I was like, you gotta sell. He's like, get the out of here. And just in that moment, two people walked up to him. They wanted ecstasy. Guess what? He didn't have any. And so it was a choice for him in that moment between selling what I was selling and selling nothing. And I just held my ground. He said, don't fucking leave. And so I'm staying in that club. I am sweating. He took the whole backpack, which was like, I don't know, 500, a thousand doses. And I came back, they motioned me forward, you know, the bodyguards moved the side. I thought the dude was going to kill me. I was thinking, I'm going to wash his car, I'll walk his dog. Like, I'll do anything. This dude doesn't kill me. Turns out he sold out. And everybody in the club was pointing and hands up in the air. We love this stuff.

We love.

And the guy's like, how soon can you get me more?

Wow. And so how much did he pay for it?

It was. So it cost me in those days. And the price didn't change for the majority of time. Just like Coca Cola, it was 25 cents a dose. And we were selling it for between 20 and 25.

That was the retail price. But what was your wholesale price?

It was half of that.

So you were getting 12.50 for a 25 cent.

Oh my God, 25 cents. And it was cash. It was all cash business. So after that we did Lollapalooza. We did the entire tour with Beastie Boys and all those guys. You know, we were doing easily two to five million dollars a show. Cash. I had to buy vans to move security for that. It's a really good question. Again, in my youthful exuberance and intelligence of a 16 year old, I had none.

You probably got a lot of it stolen out there.

So much of it stolen.

It happened with my T shirt business. I was 16 ye selling t shirts for Santa Barbara for Halloween. Halloween T shirts. And yeah, one time I'm like, how can I have no more money than like one guy with the bulky jacket? Like, I should have jumped on him and pounded him. But you know, I was a kid too. Like, you just don't know.

Yeah, but I write about that in my book, actually. It's really interesting. And I had a total solution for. And it's a great business hack. I know it's bulletproof biohacking. So my business hack for that was what I called suicide margins. If you make enough money, you can solve any problems. So that was my solution. It was just, hey, throw money at it so I can just make more money. Solves all the problems.

It's true. And that's. I know some wealthy people who spend all of their time trying to avoid taxes and the easiest thing to do is make more money. And then if you pay the taxes, you still keep more versus taking all these legal risks and going to jail for 18 months for fucking around and finding out and all that. I'm not a friend of taxes, but you don't need to be hyper aggressive on that stuff because like you said, improve your business a little bit. So you figure this out at a young age and you lost some money, but there was so much left over. Like, did you, you know, buy convertibles and strippers and all that stuff?

We had all that stuff. Any. Any Vehicular thing we had there was.

You were 18 at the time.

Yeah, I was under 21 for all.

Of the herbal ecstasy days with unlimited money and no parenting.

We were. Yeah, we were printing money.

Did you ever, like, call your parents up and just wait, I left a million dollars in the. In the garden or something?

You know, look, I took care of my parents afterwards, you know, I kind of came back and, you know, I don't know if you know much about Persian culture, but as long as you made money, like, all sins are forgiven.

So that's the difference between, like India and Persia. And India's like, you're not a doctor, not a lawyer, not an engineer. You don't exist. And they're like, show me the money. Yeah, I got you on that. Yeah. I have a key member of my team is Persian and I hear the stories. Yeah. So this is. This is amazing. So you came back and that you were, you know, you made good of yourself despite yourself. But then you kind of got seven different state governments coming after you. What did they. What was their charge? What did they say?

So nobody had ever done what we had done. And this is the really interesting part, back in those days, I'm sure you remember because I know you, you're. I mean, you're a incredible pioneer in. In this industry, was that vitamins and supplements were not sexy like they are now. You didn't have.

It took work to make them sexy. Dude, the whole bio thing was about making them sexy.

Okay? So you go to the, you know, back then you went to the natural products expos, all the big trade shows, and it was fucking boring, man. It was like round label, you know, it was like. It was all like, jancy. There was nothing sexy about it. So here we are. And they were like, well, if it's a drug, we can regulate it and get these guys out of here. And mind you, right at that time there was a company which will remain nameless, but they had spent billions with a B creating a little blue pill. And this blue pill was the answer to what? To Prozac, which was in the 80s. And what did Prozac do? What was the main side effect of Prozac for males and for females?

Gee, I wonder if it's similar to what high dose methylene blue does because it's also an SSRI and it rhymes with ed.

There you go, there you go.

So there you go, guys wake up without a kickstand if you're on SSRIs.

Yeah, definitely. A lot of guys waking up without A kickstand. But then their plan was foiled. They were going to be making billions and billions. Stock price going up, everything crazy. But here's this little Persian kid, he's not even 21 and he's he creating a billion dollars in revenue with a product that's unregulated.

And this was actually going to you like in a corporate form at this point.

So they came after me directly. I mean I met every three letter agency known to man. It was like somebody. It was like someone's got one of those strings, you know, and they pull it open and the trapdoor opens and like the pinata breaks and all the stuff comes out. I was like, where are these guys coming? The IR this, the CI this, the ND this, the FD this. And all of a sudden I'm on tv. And I'm on TV in a big way. I mean I did every major station, every major talk show.

So you even had like the ftc and people come after you?

Oh yeah, yeah.

Of all the regulatory agencies, they have some of the most power. But they also are like the ones that enforce truthfulness to the best of their ability. Which I like. Right. Like you are not allowed to lie.

Sure.

That's a really good business rule. Like don't lie to your customers. So I'm like. Of all the three letter agencies that like I would say are doing the right thing.

Yeah.

The FTC is probably at the top of my list.

Yeah, look, I think it's all good on paper until you realize the bureaucracy of big government and then it stops working. Because you've got a lot of lawyers that are given a directive. And now, as opposed to doing what's better for humanity and for the public, they're just trying to. Trying to meet their directive. And that was the problem with this. We weren't hurting anybody. Still to this day, Dave. Billion dollars Sold. Not a single report of an adverse reaction with Herbal Xi ever. And I. And I challenge him. We had lawsuits. None of them stuck. Nobody proved anything because the product was safe. Herbs in general, supplements, if they're put together correctly.

Okay. With the if.

Yeah.

And they don't have lead and metals and they don't inhibit liver function because you're taking too much of them. Some of the Chinese herbs are a little aggressive that way, but okay. Well formulated, are very safe. I gotcha.

I gotcha.

I just don't want listeners to believe all herbs are safe. There's a lot of shit on Amazon right now that is really concerning. And some of the like He Sha Wu for gray hair. Yeah. You go 20% above the recommended dose and your liver shuts down. Oops. You know, there's.

Oh, yeah, you can die from. From herbs for sure. No question. And if it's. It's incorrectly formulated. But, you know, look at the Chinese, man. They've been taking all that stuff for. Since the dawn of time in hospitals. They give it to you in China, and they're doing just fine.

They. They know a few things.

They know a few things. So. So what happened is all these agencies came after us with the directive of getting rid of this key ingredient and, you know, really with the directive of getting rid of us, because nobody had ever used plants recreationally in a. In a. In a product. So they're all going like, dude, we've got supplements here. We've got drugs here. How do we get this guy? This is. This is not even on our radar, and he's making hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

Yeah, they didn't get their cut.

They didn't get their. Well, this. Okay, so did you think of just.

Paying them their cut? Just like, like in food coupons? I don't know how you.

When you're a rebellious teenager, you don't think that in retrospect. Okay, I'll tell you this, by the way, There's a film coming out about this. It'll be on the next two years. It's a big studio that's making. Making My Life Story based on the book.

But in retrospect, the book is Billion, by the way.

Yeah.

When did you write this? Is this new?

2020 came out during COVID Yeah, Billion. How I Became King of the Thrill Pill Cult. But because of the strike and everything, the film's on hold. But it'll come back. So the thing of it is this. When these agencies come after you, they usually just ask for money and you can pay them, and then it goes away. Which I thought, what the fuck? And my lawyers came to me and they're like, dude, just pay them. You're not going to beat the government. This is how aggressive things were. I had on staff close to a dozen attorneys on staff. I mean, I'm not talking outside firms, I'm talking just my staff of attorneys.

Yeah, you were definitely the young, testosterone fueled kid. And this is a lesson learned for you. If you're an entrepreneur, there's a lot of entrepreneurs listening to the show. It's a bad idea to get in a fight with your government because they have a monopoly on guns. Unless you live in Texas but even then, they have more than you. Seriously, governments have a monopoly on violence. They can take anything they want from you. At the end of the day, even if you think it's not legal, if a judge says that they can do it, they will. So you should be respectful of them and recognize the actual game you're playing, which is that some agencies, they're kind of sponsored by business, so you should be a good corporate sponsor in whatever the way your industry is. And oil and gas does it one way, big pharma does it another way. But at the end of the day, the government wants business to happen, so there will be jobs. Because if you have a lot of peasants without jobs, they get pitchforks. And then you get a new government. And this is just how the world works, right? So, like, be a good, a good entrepreneurial citizen, and you can be disruptive, but it doesn't mean that you get to break all the rules or even follow the rules the way you want, because you probably, well, you'll experience what you experienced, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So they came after me. I should have. You were absolutely right. And no one's ever said that to me. So I appreciate you for saying that because I really think that way. I'm like, dude, if I was smarter, I would have kept a lot more of my money and I would have just paid them off. You just paid them. But I was so rebellious, Dave. And so, you know, I was the.

Same in my 30s. I had ODD, like, oppositional defiant disorder and OCD. It's like, never mind. Get money. Which is just a lack of wisdom. And also, like some people say, without selling out. Well, like, you're, you're in a system and I'm, I, like there are some things where, like, if it's unethical, you don't, you just don't do it. Like, I, I, I don't lie, for instance. Right. And if there's two paths forward, you know, one of them is a better path that allows your work in the world to reach what it's doing and it's not harming others. Okay? Like, that's how the game is played. 48 laws of power actually got me to think differently. That changed my whole life. But I was, I read that when I was 26. That explained how tech VCs work. So just for, for, in the, in terms of coaching our listeners and learning, sharing some knowledge, it doesn't feel good to realize, oh, my God, I'm up against a power that's greater than me. And it's not Fair. And the sense of injustice is what is actually you can heal your sense of injustice and just recognize the world is quite often unjust. And once you do that and you don't have to roll on the ground screaming and whining and asking someone to change your diaper or whatever, you'll probably be a happier person and the amount of injustice in the world won't change at all.

Now you're talking like a hacker. And I love that about you because I'll tell you why. Because what I'm hearing you say is you don't always have to go through a brick wall. Sometimes you can just stop and go around.

In fact. All right, this is a story from Iran. When there was the big. Actually, was this Iran? No, it was probably in Kuwait, if I'm remembering right. When the invasion happened, some generals like, let's get into this vault full of gold. This actually really did happen. And I'm probably telling the story poorly. So they threw tanks and explosives at the doors of this big heavy vault. And you know when, when the place was retaken, the, the doors were destroyed, you know, and they're 10ft thick or whatever, and they could have, with two of the many things they tried, just gone through the wall, like just go to the side and blow your way in. But they didn't, they threw everything at the doors because that's how you're supposed to do it. And there's a certain mindset as hackers and entrepreneurs. We're like, well, that seems like a lot of work. So we're fundamentally lazier than other people, which means we do it in the way that was the least amount of work, which means we got more done, which is like the, the beneficial side of laziness, even, even though people don't like to think of it that way.

But it is, it's true. It's true. And I think probably one of the things one of my mentors has taught me in the last few years, which I think has been most impactful for me is, is really the concept of you don't know what you don't know. And when I was in my 20s, I felt like I fucking know everything. And that was the reason why, I mean, it's probably the reason why Herbal XA isn't around today and not a multi billion dollar company, was because I thought I knew everything. If I knew then that I didn't know, things would be different.

So part of this is you clearly had a traumatic childhood. So people who have traumatic childhoods are more likely to Be rebellious. Especially in the early 20s. I have the same thing. So I was unwilling to ask for help because like I'll do this. I already know everything. I'll do it myself. So back in 1990. See, so good. God. This would have been in 1994. I've already been in Entrepreneur magazine. I'm the first guy to sell anything over the Internet. Did you know that?

Wow. I didn't know that.

Yeah, the T shirt said caffeine. My drug of choice.

Oh, I love it.

And E Commerce didn't have a name and we didn't have web browsers or online payments. So people would mail me a check and I would mail them the shirt out of my dorm room. I was just trying to pay for my college, but I got in, you know my fat picture, I was like, you weren't £300. I'm like, well, here's my Entrepreneur magazine picture when I look like a 300 pound lesbian and I say lesbian because my testosterone is 200 and I look very androgynous in that photo. It's on my website.

Don't cancel, Dave.

Well, you can cancel me if you want to, but you know, you should at least ask. Ask my preferred whatevers so you can skirt the line. I skirted that line pretty well.

I'm down.

I don't. I don't think. I don't think I crossed any. Do you?

You are safe.

Are you feeling triggered?

Just. Just slightly. But the coffee made it.

You should unload that gun. Do you need to get a therapist? There, now we're all offended equally. This is great. But what I was trying to say when I distracted myself with my bad sense of humor is that that unwillingness to ask for help. So that story. I'm there. I was also working in an auto parts warehouse, putting car parts in boxes. It was the most mind numbing work. But it paid three times as much as working at Dairy Queen, which was the other option. The small town where I was. So I did also weld Toyota truck frames. If you ever drove a Toyota I worked on. I'm sorry, I wasn't good. So I didn't do it for very long because I sucked. But regardless of all that, I. I had this idea and I remember it so well. I'm like the best product sell over the Internet. It's books. It was 1994. Okay. And the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and there's a, like as an. When you get a really good idea and you can like see the path. I'm like this is because you can organize them. Right? So what did I do? I thought, well, I acknowledge everything and I didn't do anything with it. Like I kept selling my T shirts and shut the business down because it was too much work to put them in, to put them in envelopes. And like, I did not ask for help. I didn't hire people, much less I was 60 miles from Silicon Valley. I could have like driven there in the 300 pound computer hacker and probably like done some Amazon level stuff. But the point here is unwilling to ask for help. Meanwhile, Mark Andreessen, same thing, you know, he, he does the first web browser and I've got this first E Commerce. He goes to Silicon Valley, finds a guy who's like 50 Jim Clark and says, hey, will you teach me? And Jim's like, sure. And I'm like, I'll do it all by myself. So who's the idiot here? It was clearly me because I didn't ask someone at least twice my age for help. And I didn't do that till much later in the aging space. It took me until I was about 27 to realize I don't have to do it by myself. What age were you when you realized maybe you should get some good advice?

I think it was long after because my ride was so wild and crazy and fast that I was just like, fuck it, make more money. You got a problem, make more money. Mob coming after you, make more money. Government come after you, make more money. It was my answer to everything.

Yeah. Kind of the worship of the almighty dollar.

Yeah. And I learned later that, look, money has two parts and this was like mind blowing revolution to me. Part one is making it. Part two, like we were discussing earlier is fucking keeping it. That's a whole nother science.

I made and lost $6 million before I was 28. I'm with you, man. People lose money easily. How'd you lose it all?

I didn't lose it all. I had the wherewithal to keep a good amount of it and I did the right things with that. I went on from there to inventing digital vaporization which really we were the first vaporizer company. I exited it and the company went public. It was the first vape company to go public. I don't endorse vaping at all. I think it's not a good thing.

Heated tobacco product or an actual vape.

So I had the patents and wrote the first book on the technology of actual vape.

And you didn't do anyone to solid on that one. You can do like four lifetimes of karmic debt for that or what?

So, no, actually, the way we had built the devices has nothing to do with the vapes that you see now that cause injury, which primarily is based on the fact that they had to get them small and convenient. The first vape that came out was ours. It was called the vapir, and it was about the size of a ketchup bottle. And I had done deep dive. We used plastics that would not erode when exposed to amounts of heat. The heating element, and this was key, was made from ceramics.

Oh, wow. Okay.

Because when the heating element is metal, you get little metal parts, especially degrading as they go up and coming into the lungs. You don't want metal in your lung. Device was revolutionary. Plus, we had patents on digital regulation of temperature. So turns out that, you know, you heat tobacco up to a certain level, you get smoked tar, carbon monoxide. But if you can heat it digitally, accurately, to just below the point of that, you get all the active elements without any of the smoke, tar, carbon monoxide.

And so you did that because I was in Dubai and Turkey last week or a week before, and you see it all over the place. The heated tobacco products. They're doing exactly that. I've even met with Philip Morris because they're like, what else could we do besides tobacco that wouldn't be harmful?

Yeah. Well, so you will appreciate this because I know everybody rips off your stuff that you did earlier on is that I'm watching this freaking documentary called Big Vape that's on. On. On Netflix. Fascinating. About the. What do they call this? The vape. The jewel company, right. That sold billions of dollars to whatever to. I think Altria ended up buying them. And I was like, fuck, that was all my shit. Like, I'm looking at them. The pitch that they're giving was my pitch a few years before they even came around. And, I mean, I had all my stuff patented. I had it all. All set. But they were smarter. They were smarter.

Again, European patents or something.

No, you don't know what. You don't know. I sold the company. I exited in 2006 for reasons that were not reasonable. Again, you know, like. Like you're saying it's. It's so important to. To ask for help, right? But I was going through the brick wall rather than going around it, and I think they were willing to make the compromises necessary to make it convenient. The smallest we got it down to was like a cigar, right? Because I didn't want to make that metal heating element. I wanted it to be ceramic. I wanted it to have all these things. But they were willing to make those compromises and they got it very, very small by using certain chemicals that evaporated with lower temperatures, which meant lower energy usage on it.

Wow, what a crazy story so far. Now I want to ask you something that's maybe a little bit more psychological, emotional, metaphysical. So you've pretty much made in Crash the herbal ecstasy thing. Like, you've been fighting really hard. You know, it sounds like you exited your vape thing not on the best of terms. Did you feel discouraged, defeated? Like, no matter what I do, like, at it's not working right, or were you still, like, I have so much money, it doesn't matter.

Like, money helps a lot.

It does, absolutely.

Yeah. I. I think a good friend of mine and a teacher of mine would always say the guy that said money is the root of ev. All evil didn't have any. So I definitely think money makes life easier. It makes it more convenient. So I was very happy with the money that I had. You know, I don't have to work anymore. I didn't have to work back then, so.

So you. You were comfortable at least?

Yeah, I. It's not like I was soul crushed, but, you know, when you're a high achiever, anytime you have an exit. This is a very common thing for guys who have exits in their guys and girls who have exits in their companies. They exit. They. They open up their phone, the bank account pops up, there's a few extra zeros at the end, and they're like, dude, where's my. Where's my ticker tape parade? Like, what the fuck? Like, nothing.

It's actually very lonely when that happens because you can't tell anyone or they just become jealous.

So that's where you find out where your real friends are. For me, those exits were okay. You know, I made the money, the money was there. It was. It was great. But you probably understand this as well. You also end up selling your baby for me. I've never chased money.

Right.

Money's always. Money's been easy for me.

Hold on a second. When you were young, you were chasing money.

I wasn't chasing money.

It was just coming to you because you cared about it. But you weren't chasing. I know what Cassie was saying.

Yeah. I genuinely was in the buzz of what I was doing. And I think back to this. I was like, was I chasing money? No. Every time I've tried to chase money in my life has ended. Up in absolute disaster. It's been the biggest waste of time. So I, I learned early on in my 20s that that doesn't work for me. I got to work with people who I enjoy working with. First and foremost. If you're an asshole, I don't want to work with you. It's just, there's no price for that in my life. And I want to work with people that are doing cool shit. Where our missions can, can meet and where we can create a bigger impact. As Steve Jobs would say, a dent in the universe together, that's what's important to me. I say, you know, a lot of, a lot of people will say, you know, just bullshit or whatever. And at the end of the day they end up just chasing money. I really don't give a. I've had enormous amounts of wealth and I've been as broke as you can get. Reverse debt. And honestly it's better to have money, but at a certain point there is something as enough and then you can do cool shit that really matters to you and that you enjoy doing. Like stuff that like you and I are doing.

It's, it's important. And for the, the average person listening to this, if you're not an entrepreneur, or even if you are, it's not like the opportunity to make ten plus million dollars comes along even for entrepreneurs. It's exceptionally rare. Like bulletproof. When it had a hundred million dollars. There's only 17,000 companies in the US of any size above 100 million a year in revenues.

Right.

It's a very small number. And each time you add a zero, you're taking out, you know, 99% of the likely things. So it's, it's exceptionally rare and so you can have that sense of gratitude. But once you have an exit like that, that's why you see so much enormous wealth concentrated these days. Because you have many millions of dollars. A million or two here, a million or two there. And some of those are going to pay off. But if it's your first million, like taking half of whatever you make and locking it in a bank where you can't spend it on stupid shit. I wish I'd have known that the first time I made $6 million. And the second, like, like I, I've made that mistake more than once. We'll just say it's easy to lose what you make.

Yeah. Boring non sexy investments. Real estate, you. Blue chip stuff. Treasury bills.

Right, right. Although in the US treasury bills, I'm not sure how the US currency is doing over time. And debt and all that, but that's a whole different discussion. So you didn't get discouraged, but you also didn't stop. A lot of people I've known, they make their money and they put on some weight, and they kind of stop doing stuff that matters. And John Gray just talked about this. Your testosterone drops when that happens, when there isn't like, a challenge, there isn't a mission, there isn't a little bit of adversity that you're overcoming. So they're sort of like, I don't know, I'm going to buy some art. Right. So how did you avoid becoming that guy?

Well, I started a family, so family first, right? My family's the most important thing. We've got a beautiful boy who I absolutely love. And it's been one of the greatest challenges and adventures in my life is having a child. Yeah, he's 10 now, which is incredible. So I think that's been really inspiring. And also one of the things I learned along the way is that especially guys like us, we have a diverse range of interests, and we have a tendency to be like, man, I'm interested in this. Let me make it into a business and make money from it. It's just naturally what comes. But what I've learned is to have a whole series of things that I'm interested in that have nothing to do with making money and that I will never make money from them. I'm not anxious, but I will spend time doing it. So I think Kotler talks about it in his. In his book. He calls it following your fascination. And so I think having things that you're genuinely interested in and fascinated in is a big deal for me. Friends and social connection. Like, I mean, real friends. Not just, like, bullshit people, but people who you really connect with super important and do. Like, we were just talking about doing shit that makes an impact, that makes a difference. That's everything.

Yeah. And funny enough, that raises dopamine and testosterone service to others also puts you in a flow state. So you figured that out somehow early, which is. Which is really cool. So you turn to Amazon after being a drug kingpin.

Yeah. So look, I found out about this little guy named Bezos who had launched the platform. And I was like, this is cool. They're selling books on there. Like you. You know, we probably had a similar thought at the similar time. It was going around in the air, and I was like, man, similar to you. Like, I don't want to deal with the platform. I don't want to deal with the Whole thing. And then turns out that he opened up the platform to third party sellers. We were one of the first on there. I knew somebody who worked there and was like, hey, you know, you can just reach out back then. You could email, email jeff. Jeffmazon.com and he write back. You can even get on the phone with the guy. So we did that and I was like, this is really easy. We launched the first product on Amazon. The first product was a brand of Matcha tea called Matcha DNA, which I no longer am a part of. But it's an amazing product and overnight we had done hundreds of thousands in sales. And back then there was no like regulation. They were, it was all new. We got like 5,000 reviews. The product was selling like crazy.

How many of those reviews were your own people?

Not a lot. Not a lot?

Yeah, not a lot. The most honest answer ever.

Well, yeah, I mean, you know, you get what they call friends and family to, to, to start you off.

Those are legal.

Yeah, I think those would be illegal.

No, no, those are legal. Friends and family are allowed to do it.

Are they?

Okay, yeah, as long as you're not paying them to do it. It's, it's when people use bots and.

All that stuff, well, they, everything is great.

If my mom reviews my book, like I'm, I'm okay with that. Like, there's nothing wrong with that. Thanks, mom.

Yeah. And so, so very quickly I learned, hey, you know, and this is probably a lesson that you've, you've, you, I've learned from you, is if you play by the rules, you won't always get what you want. You'll get what they want you to have. And I thought to myself, man, let's figure out how to hack this Amazon thing. So we became Amazon hackers. And at the same time a lot of guys were becoming Amazon hackers. And we created seven figure, eight figure one company that's close to becoming nine figure company selling on Amazon and we own that real estate and we learned how to blow things up on Amazon and make money. And you know, I started a course teaching people how to do that. And yeah, so it's very exciting things.

As I'm recalling, you had a cognitive enhancement protocol on Amazon.

Yeah. So, you know, again from the XC days, I was really interested in that field. We partnered, believe it or not, with one of the same pharma companies that I had that had railed against me with the government back in the days. And we created a really badass brain supplement. It was in liquid form. It was in capsule form. It was called Accelerol, and it was the first brain supplement to be sold on Amazon.

Wow. So you and me and Tim Ferriss have that in common. So back In, I think, 2004, when I was finishing up business school, my kind of final project was, I'm going to make a nootropic. A brain supplement. But it was going to be called Unfair Advantage. It was going to be marketed to parents of college students. You're spending 80 grand a year. I'd put your kids through college. You might as well give them this $50 supplement so their brain will work after they're done partying. Right. And so I had it all lined up. And it's funny, at Bulletproof, we did use that name, Unfair Advantage, for a cognitive enhancement thing years later. But there's that. And then Tim, actually, Tim Ferriss, he started a nootropics thing around the same year, as I remember, and that was part of his story in Four Hour Workweek. Right. So there's something about entrepreneurs and cognitive enhancement. And now, like, half the entrepreneurs on the planet are doing nootropics. And I like to think I helped on that. So did Tim, so did you. I mean, there's a lot of us working on it, but it's pretty cool.

Yeah, you were a huge mouthpiece for that, and that was super important. I actually remember finding back to talking about synchronicities. Bradley Cooper was in my house in Venice and we were hanging out. This is before he became famous, the Limitless guy. And then he came out with that film Limitless. And I was like, that's the pill that everybody wants. Let's make the. What a badass film. Except for the fact that you ended up becoming a psychotic murderer. Get rid of that part.

And it was based on Modafinil. Because when you take Modafinil, color saturation changes a little bit if you're watching for it. And I know at least that the director or camera crew did, because every time he would take the drug, it would shift into a green spectrum. Like, I know that shift. Oh, I was on ABC Nightline as I was like the only guy without a bag on my head. Like, I took Modafinil in business school so I could graduate. And, you know, so there was a whole. That was. The Limitless Pill was the prescription cognitive enhancer.

You caught that. You know, there's something about filmmakers who know how to show those experiences. There's a series on TV now called Britannia. If you've ever seen it, it's fascinating. It's about pre Roman and just like Roman times and the foundation of London, of modern day London and the drug scenes, the psychedelic scenes are so spot on. You just know those guys have had some experiences.

Yeah, you can tell if it's real versus not real. One of the guys who wrote for years for ncsi, ncis, whatever, la, he's like, he had some really realistic scenes and he did my 40 years as in neurofeedback training, I got to know him and it turns out he's very well respected trainer in an esoteric knife fighting form and like world class sort of things like he knew combat scenarios and that's why they could design these scenes the way they could do it because it was not fake. Right. And so knowing, knowing that those people are out there is interesting. But you're also into Jiu Jitsu. How does that play a role in your mindset?

I think Jiu Jitsu is really interesting. I've been training martial arts Since I was 13 and I trained at a studio where the guy was one of Bruce Lee's prodigy and was, was a big legacy place. And I think one of the things that martial arts has taught me is discipline. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is unique because it really is, is a high, like you say, releasing dopamine because in that moment when you're grappling, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is all about grappling. Every class has constant hand to hand combat. And even though you know you can just tap and all the pain goes away and it stops, your brain doesn't recognize that. So when you're training, you instantly put yourself in that state where it's like tunnel vision and you are there to survive. So there are no other thoughts. When you're grappling, you're not thinking about the rest of your day, you're not thinking about your taxes, you're not thinking about your fight with the, with the wife or girlfriend. And all it is in that moment is survival. And so people know people who train Jiu Jitsu. When you're done with a really hard, we call it rolling. When you're done with a hard roll at the end of it, everybody's like, oh, there's just this release of dopamine where you just feel incredible.

Kind of like a cold plunge.

Kind of like a cold plunge. Yeah, that's right.

It's actually a very similar neurochemist. Anything that hurts briefly and then resolves will create the same dopamine.

Have you ever tried it? Have you ever tried Brazilian Jiu jitsu.

So I did a little bit of judo when I was younger, but not formally. But I have a little question for you about that.

Okay.

Yeah, tell me, have you heard the latest Joe Rogan Elon Musk interview?

I have it on my phone. I haven't listened to it yet.

Tell me. So they talk about the Zuckerberg Elon fight. Elon's like, anywhere, any rules, anything. And, you know, he's been in real fights. I've been in a lot of real fights, too, when I was younger. Just when you're the biggest kid in school. Yeah, the little guys always go after. He's like at least 100 real fights. I never threw a first punch, by the way, and always threw the last one because physics. So what Elon told Joe Rogan, which is funny because, you know, Joe's a bit of an expert in fighting, right? And he's like, I'll use my patented walrus technique, right? And. And he's like, what? And then Elon's like, look, physics. He's like, I'm a rocket scientist here. So it doesn't really matter if. I mean, if Zuckerberg has some skills, I'm literally going to lay on him and I have so much extra mass that, yes, it's possible he could win, but, like, he's like, I'm also trained and, like, I don't even need to be in good shape. I just need to get on top of him. And so I've also seen, was it Zuckerberg and Lex Friedman sparred. So if I try Elon's walrus move on you, what's going to happen? Because I outweigh you by what? How much do you weigh?

I'm 180.

Okay. So I'm like 20 extra months. I'm 200.

So in the words of Mike Tyson, everyone's got a plan until I punch. And it's just one of those. This is. This is one thing that I love, right? So, you know, in all areas of life, right, we're in the. We're in. We're in the world of business, you know, in the world of health and wellness. There's a lot of out there. There's a lot of people who can just talk and get away with it. We were talking about that earlier. There's so many people who do that. One of the beautiful things about jiu jitsu, I know today, I guess I'm being an evangelist for martial arts in general, but maybe Brazilian jiu jitsu in particular is that there are no liars on the mat. Once you get on the mat, all that bullshit goes away because it's you and somebody else. And some of the guys I know, like my old teacher, who was a amazing guy, he was 125 pounds and he could take out guys. Many times, he would just put you to sleep, man. And I don't care how cerebral you are, there are things like muscle memory, muscle. There's unknown things that just can't be learned any other way than through experience on the mat. So while I think Elon cerebrally might be correct, I think he might be in for a rude awakening should it actually come to the combat.

He might. He also has the point. He's. He's done training for 10 plus years, and he's been in a lot of real fights. I somehow don't think Mark Zuckerberg has ever actually faced down three bullies who are intent on causing him real harm. And Elon's done it way more than one time. And so, like, there's a little bit of, like, street fighter in there that doesn't match Harvard. Like, I know a lot of guys who've never been in a fight in their life, and it's a very different vibe. Because if I walk into a place and, like, it's risky, like, I know in my bones I'm, okay, one of us is gonna die. And if I go in, I am literally going in. And that's how it is, and that's okay, right? But the thing is, thugs, they know that because they can feel it. And they're like, you're not a good target. I'm gonna pick someone who's smaller and someone who's never been in a fight before. So I'm like, you might hurt me, but I'm gonna hurt you more. And I'm okay with it, right? And so there's a bit of a vibe there that everyone's okay till they're hit in the face. And I think I wouldn't want to wrestle Mark either. He'd probably kick my ass too. The reason I know that is because I. I sometimes date a woman who is very strong in jiu jitsu, and she's five, six or something, and she can pin me. Like, there are times where I'm like, okay, I actually can't get out of this. Like, it's kind of embarrassing because, you know, I'm substantially larger. So the walrus move does not work on her, So I wouldn't think it would work on you. And so, Elon, if you're Listening to this. I wish you luck. I want to see it. And I, like, do some pushups for the walrus or something.

I should have prefaced it by this. While I don't think his walrus move would work, I think that he would be one of the people that if he were to invest the time.

Well, he has.

It sounds like in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

In a bunch of different styles. He talked about him with Joe then.

I think that 10,000 hour rule might be a 1,000 hour the role for him.

Yeah, the 10,000 hours plus the. You know, I've been knocked unconscious as a kid multiple times and almost died. Like, he talked about that on the show too. And I haven't been. I've had knives pulled on me, but I haven't been knocked unconscious. Been kicked in the head a few times. Maybe that explains it. But the idea here is like, he was in South Africa with like, real crime. And I think that's one of those things where you can go into a deeper level of survival mode. But, dude, what do I know? I'm not an MMA announcer or a professional comedian or any of that stuff.

Stuff.

But I would like to see the results. And I don't think I'd want to wrestle you. And if I did, I would probably have pepper spray in my back pocket because.

Yeah, look, it's interesting too what you're saying, Dave, because back in our days as kids, you got knocked out. That happened to me too. And now there's so many boys I see growing up, they've never gotten into a fight. They've never had that kind of confrontation. They might talk a lot like, oh, I'll knock you out, whatever. Like how? That's a great question to ask somebody if it's not a life threatening situation. When they say, I'm going to do this to you, you go, how? And when you see that blank look come across their face, you know that they're just full of shit. It only takes a second, right?

No, it. It only does. God, it's making me think about this. There was a time, I don't know what grade it was, probably ninth. The Golden Gloves champion of my city comes into my room and starts picking on me. Me, because this guy's like a trained boxer. And I'm like, why not a little yellow belt endoju? So I thought about it. I'm like, he's gonna. If he gets one punch in him. So I looked at him. I kicked him in the shin as a soccer player as hard as I could. He Started jumping and I tackled him and put him in a judo headlock. And he came to school the next day with a neck brace on because I totally cheated. Like, oh, he's a boxer. I'm not doing that. Right. Which is why I would pepper spray you and then wrestle you when I had a gas mask on. But otherwise you just don't do it. You should run. And so there's, I just thought of that. But it's, it's one of those things where like, if you're listening to this, you've never been in a fight. You probably should do some Jiu jitsu or some other kind of thing. Especially if you're a guy, I think it'd be really important. And if you're a woman and you love it, it might be important. But there are self defense methods that are more important for you than Jiu Jitsu.

Yeah. And what I heard you say that I think is probably the single most important thing is I tell my son, this is, oh, you know, why do we train? You know, because my son's training now too. He's been training for supp since he was 3. And I tell him we train so we don't have to fight. And the fact is, if you learn this stuff, it's not that you can just defend yourself if a situation comes to it, it's that those situations won't come. The predator walking across the street catches that vibe and he'll go pick on somebody else because they don't want somebody who's going to fight back. They want the person who's scared.

But years ago I was with a partner and she was came across the story of a black belt woman who was assaulted and froze up and didn't use any of her skills and was like, what is wrong with me? And it's because it's normal to freeze up if you've never been in a real fighting situation. And so they designed a thing, in fact that partner went through the training of like that's better self defense for women. And then do Jiu jitsu or any martial art you like. But you need to do the thing. So you will default to taking a specific set of actions to protect yourself. That probably isn't grappling. Yeah. And then learn grappling or whatever you like, but learn self defense first if you're into that. My advice, just from watching this over years. And then don't be in unsafe areas. And if you are, have a big strong guy who knows Jiu jitsu with you. And then you're Fine. All right. What other advice would you have for entrepreneurs or just people? Because you've lived a very interesting life so far.

Yeah, we talked about this, I think, briefly before, but I think your power as an entrepreneur now, a lot of times comes from your reach, and you gain that reach by being able to get your message out. I think that's one of the reasons why you're such an incredibly positive influence on people, is because you not only have that mouthpiece, but you know how to create it. You are a master curator. Right. All the stuff that we talked about, the butter, coffee, right? Like, maybe you weren't the first person to drink butter with coffee.

Turns out it was Ethiopian warriors thousands of years ago, but I didn't know about them.

But it doesn't fucking matter. You might as well been the first person to come up with it, because you're the first person that brought it to all of our attention because you know how to craft that story. And through doing podcasting, which is, you know, like, now all my efforts are around my. My podcasting company, Podcast Cola, Give a. Give it a quick plug, which gets people booked on podcasts. But through this medium of podcasting, you have the ability to get your message out. And especially what we're doing now, like, long form, you get to really get to know the person on the other side. And even though, you know, we're not really selling anything, we get to have a conversation that is impactful and important. And I think that's, like, something that's so powerful, but I think as an entrepreneur, you want to do what you've done, which you're one of the best in the world at, which is curation. You want to become a curator of these ideas. Like, there I. And I tell people this all the time. There's no fucking money in innovation. I fucking created.

They steal it as soon as you do. It's terrible.

Yeah. I created the modern digital vaporizer, Digital vape. You guys can look it up. I wrote the book on it. I've got the fricking patents. Nobody came before me like all that technology I put out. Did I make the billion dollars from it? No, it's. It was. It's somebody else who came after. Innovation is a quick path to losing money, unless you're. You're a big company, in my opinion.

But the big companies can't innovate, which is funny.

That is funny. But being able to become a curator of ideas and being able to get your message out there, particularly on podcasts, I think is. Is. Is which, by the way, now is one of the highest ROI methods of marketing out there. It's the ultimate hack, which is why you've been doing it for how many years now?

10 years about. We're almost a 400 million downloads. Won a Webby award, and it's gotta be what, 11, 50 episodes or somewhere around there and. But the real thing is I got to talk to really interesting people who were teaching me stuff for 1100 hours. Plus with all the extra edits, it's probably closer to 1800 hours. You think about that. A full time job, eight hours a day is 2000 hours a year. So I've almost had a full time year of just eight hours a day talking to smart people, learning from them. So I might have learned a few things.

Of course you know how to do it. Which was my next comment, which most people don't understand, is most people think you go on a podcast and use that person's audience to sell some stuff. It's wrong. The way you've been doing it is the right way. You use podcasts, tactically, you use podcasts to get your foot in the door. If you want to meet somebody, maybe you, you, you know, you wouldn't normally be able to get in to meet that person, billionaire or somebody who's famous, whatever. But are they interested in becoming famous? Are they interested in using your mouthpiece or having you interview them? Probably more so than they'd be interested in having a cold call about you, about some great business opportunity. So knowing how to. Not that you would ever need that, but for, for the general people out there.

When I started this, I mean, I was well known in computer security and cloud computing circles, which are like this big of circles that no one cares about unless you're a nerd. So, yeah, I was. Oh, this is an excuse to talk to authors. I get to call Robert Green. I talk to all these interesting people. And I'm also, I'm really good at predicting the future. And there were very, very few podcasts when I started, which is why I could win a webby and I could grow the way I have and gain the audience. And Also I'd spent 15 years either running an anti aging nonprofit and being media trained and giving keynotes. So I knew how to interview people, which is a skill. Most people on podcasts, they just sit there and, you know, goof off. There's no structure. So I'm fortunate, just incredibly fortunate. Right time, right place, right skills, but man, it pays off. So my advice for anyone who's I Mean, you run a podcast booking agency, but you should learn how to interview people. It's probably a good idea.

Yeah. And it's a learned skill. Like with our clients, you know, the first thing we do is we teach them how to do that so they can not only be guests on other people's podcasts, but also, like you said, beautiful. Do it on their own. And. And when you can do that, now you've got the use of other people's audience that you can borrow and bring over to your own show. But also you have the power to use this podcast tactically. So you're 10xing the power of that pocket. It doesn't matter if one person is watching or 10 person is watching it. A lot of the deal deal flow that I have in my different businesses come from me being on shows. Not necessarily from other people listening to the show, contacting me, but just connecting with the show host. Because who has a podcast is entrepreneurs, People who are in your industry, people that are in your niche, and people that are so active that they decided to create a fricking show and put the time and energy into creating that. And there are now over 8 million podcasts out there.

So essentially, you guys do media training. But. But does your mother know that podcast cola is totally a scam?

Yeah, right? In what way?

I'm just testing your ability to handle hostile questions to see how good your media training is.

Yeah, dude, you're dealing with a guy. So they would put me in a room right back in the Herb Lexi days, and they'd be like, great, we want to have you on. A perfect example of this is Montel Williams.

You remember Montel?

Montel would be like, we want you in. And they would put me on a nice plane, they put me in a nice car, drive me to the studio. And so often, not just Montel, but other. Other people. Then I know there's a studio audience there, but I'm like, why am I in a room with a camera facing me here? Why am I not on with the rest? And then all of a sudden, ushered into the room would be. And you guys can get watch this stuff on YouTube because it's all online now would be like FDA, FTC, all the three letter agencies. And I'm talking to a screen and they're talking to a studio audience. And you know, I was young and. And again, you know, I trained, right? Not trained, but it worked out perfect because people saw right through it. And every time the government came out with a new law, right? They would come out and they'd be like, oh, this product is really dangerous, right? And I'd be like, fuck, we're gonna lose, you know, we're gonna lose everything. You know what people were hearing? People were hearing, this shit works. That's what people were hearing.

The government wants to ban something, it's twice as good.

Oh, yeah. And I tell the story. I tell it in my book. Billion, if anybody reads that is that I went on Montel Williams show. And when I went on his show, I knew that one time that it was going to be a sabotage. So I got there a day early. We gave free pills and T shirts with. Before the Internet, we had this thing called 800 numbers. 800 numbers on the shirts and we gave people sweaters. And the deal was you get all unlimited free pills for like the next year and I'll give you a bunch of free ecstasy. Take it now, take it later, whatever you want. Or herbal ecstasy, by the way. I didn't give them real drugs. And I said, when the show comes on, you take your shirt off. And you did not.

That is so gorilla. And that makes me happy.

And the show, you gotta hack everything. And the show came on and of course there's Montel and he's got this guy that he dragged out from the FDA, Mr. You know, Brown suit dude. And he's out there talking about it. And then he had some mom that died from somebody else's product.

Wow.

On a show about me, like, talk about forging connections, right? And so I was like, oh, okay. She's looking at me angry. And I'm just. I looked at her, I'm like, lady, that's terrible. But wasn't from my product. So I'm. I'm really sorry about your kid. I think he took real drugs. That was the problem, which he did. And then Montel's like, oh, this stuff's terrible. Whatever. I took my shirt off and I've got this video on. And I write about in my book with the 800 number, we made a million dollars in airing. And it took them about five airings on national TV to catch on and blur it because they didn't realize. And it was one. And those are the kinds of things that we did. Just going around the wall, not through it.

That is so good. So you're just, you're a natural at that. You can actually be trained in how to handle hostile questions from media. And I disrupted a lot of things. I made grass fed a big thing. And I'm not the only person. I'm not Taking all the credit for that. But I was a major voice in making grass fed beef. Like, the first restaurant that I know of that only served grass fed beef in LA was my restaurant. And, you know, I've been pushing on this and I piss a lot of people off, you know, eat butter. So I'm used to that. And I'm also really well trained from corporate America and that. And same thing, like, if people see how we deal with trolls online, like, you can play with these guys, like, they have no chance with someone who knows essentially jiu jitsu with hostile questions. So it's cool that you teach people that. Which means you go into a situation like where there's a takedown, they're trying to ask you the questions, which, like the one, does your mom know? You're like, what kind of question is this? It's designed to really bypass your prefrontal cortex. Get your amygdala so you'll be reactive.

Yeah.

And yeah, the answer to that was, I could tell. Even though you're trained, it got you off for a second. But probably because of you, Jiu jitsu, you got right back on, right?

Yeah.

I mean, look, it came out of left field too.

Yeah, it came out of left field. So I'm trying to figure out what the angle is. But interestingly enough, I mean, you can always ride that. Right. You can be like, it's a scam because it's probably too good to be true. And we just keep producing results for our clients in podcast cola. But the fact is, you know, for a lot of people, if you don't work it, it's a scam. You could work it a lot of different ways.

Yeah. And just even like, there must be a reason you're saying that. Right? And that buys you time to think. And they're like, by the way, that's from Chris Voss, who's been on the show as well. FBI negotiator. He's a great guy. So there's all these things. But if you're just for sharing knowledge for people who want to be hosts and all that, you definitely want to do some kind of training on media. Learn how to interview. Learn how to be interviewed. And there's a reason that when Bulletproof started and the biohacking movement started, I've been in every major men's magazine. I've been in Vogue, I've been in Mademoiselle, and I was the fat computer hacker from Jurassic Park 1. But I was a good guy. No way I should ever have my shirt off. In a magazine. Except I can now, but it's so unlikely. But all that media stuff happened because there's a skill to working the media, and now there's a skill to working podcasts. So it sounds like you're. You're teaching a generation of entrepreneurs to do that. So it's. It's a worthy skill, and it's not easy.

Thank you. And thanks for mentioning Chris Foss because, you know, he wrote the forward to my book.

Yeah, absolutely. Chris is a gentleman and a scholar. I've called him a few times when I needed ninja negotiating with moves.

He is the ninja and a master at doing podcasts. You know, he was just on Andrew Huberman's podcast.

That's right.

And there's a big one that I think he's getting very close to being on, but I'm not going to mention it because I don't want to jinx it.

Yeah, you don't want to jinx it. It's funny. Andrew Huberman was on this show around episode 400, before he had a podcast.

Oh, no way.

Yeah, it's my job. I said curate. Like, I'm going to find the good ones, like, good for you. Like with Human Performance Lab at Stanford. So I'm happy he's structuring the content the way he's doing it, because a lot of people are listening, and it's epic. So lots of friends have been on the show. Well, Shaheen, how do you handle this? I can send people to your website, but they'd have to spell your first and your last name. It seems like that's kind of hard. Is there a hack for this? Do you have, like a. Yeah.

If you guys want to get ahold of me, you can just go to podcastcola.com and email me there. I'm on there. Or you can. You can get me@shaheenshayan.com, spelled S H A A H I N C H E Y E N E dot com. Either of those links will get to me. I've got a link tree on both of those websites, and it'll tell you about all the stuff I'm doing. And the book, obviously, is on Amazon. You can get the audiobook on Audible. Yeah. And then I've got a podcast called Business Story of the Week where we interview entrepreneurs and what they're doing. And Business Story of the Week's doing really well now, so if you guys want to check that out, that's amazing, too.

Sweet. Well, thanks for stopping by.

Thank you, Dave. Appreciate you having me on.

If you like this episode. You know what to do. Pick up the book. It's an interesting read and you're going to need to drink something while you read the book. DangerCoffee.com support the show. Support my work. This is my new coffee. Ultra clean, best I've ever made. Plus trace minerals, plus electrolytes. You feel the difference and it tastes like really good coffee.

Legit good, actually. I just had a cup and it was. I was like, fuck. This stuff's actually good. It's really good.

Thanks. I think I'll see you guys later. You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey.