Hustling, Failing, and Finding Balance | Lukas Pakter on The Jared Goetz Show

So if anyone's listening right now, you found something that's working, like, don't take it for granted. Nothing lasts forever. I mean, think about the greatest creators in the world. Elon Musk, he went from cars, now he's building rockets. He's always releasing something that's groundbreaking. And it's not like you put in a bunch of work and then you can go smooth sailing. So you got to keep going at it.

A TikTok star, entrepreneur, and co-founder of the massive athletic wear brand Squid House. And then it starts getting cold in October, and I just kept buying inventory and sales start tanking, and I'm sitting on like a couple hundred grand with the shorts. How did I— how did I I did not fucking plan for this. I'm an idiot. Like, this is actually like the worst moment ever. And I'm sitting on the edge of my bed. Like, I literally thought it was the end.

If your true self knows you got to get off your phone, but your mind's like, I'm going to scroll a few more minutes, like, just get off of it and you're going to give power to your true self and take it away from your mind. I think that's the game. It's like being able to take the power away from your mind and, you know, back to the moment. I think you can create anything you want in life. What's up, guys? Welcome to the Zen Hard Podcast. In this episode, I'm interviewing Lucas Pachter-Friedman. Founder of Squid Hoss, which is a really cool clothing brand that focuses on real body positivity, not feeling good about yourself no matter what it is. It's the people that actually do the things they say they're going to do and make a positive change that they support by actually giving out free clothing. If you stick to it, if you say you're going to lose weight and you do it, you get another shirt. It's amazing. Uh, Lucas is a young entrepreneur doing pretty incredible things. We're actually going to go film, uh, another video after this. But stay tuned for this episode. We dive deep down a bunch of different topics and I hope you enjoy. Lucas, welcome. How you doing?

I'm doing great, man. I'm— it's the end of our Florida trip, so I am a little excited to get back home and just chill for a little bit. But it's been good, man. It's always really cool meeting with other young killers. So yeah, thanks for having me. And I get to be on the, on the talking side now instead of the question side.

So we're doing both.

Oh, okay, perfect.

Well, Oh yeah, tomorrow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it'll be refreshing to like be on the other side for once, you know?

Yeah. How many videos are you doing these days? Like where you're doing the questioning?

Like my podcast? Yeah, usually about one a week. Uh, we space it out one a week, but I'll film like, like 5 or 6 on a trip. Like in Miami, we've been here for a week and probably shot like 6 podcasts. That gives me like a month and a half to work, stay home, because all of them are in person, just like yours.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I feel like you don't get the same effect from a Zoom podcast, you know, kind of like how much effort you put into something has a direct correlation with the impact of it. So when you get in person, it's more effort.

100%. I feel like every single person that I've— every single person that I've had on is also someone that I think I'd want to be friends with, you know, and I've always become friends with them.

It's a great way to meet people. Oh yeah. But you do something unique. So you're actually going and spending a day with people. Yeah. And seeing into their life before doing the podcast. What— where did you get that idea?

That was, that was more recent. So I've probably done— I think we're like close to episode 50 now. Um, but probably the first 30 or so were, yeah, just, um, just podcasts. And then long form is, is king these days, especially with like the Instagram and TikTok algorithm. Like I used to make like educational business and life advice content. It doesn't do well anymore.

Yeah.

Unless you're throwing some aspect of, of brain rot or flashiness in there.

Yeah. Like a big hook. Yeah.

Or like, or like this for 2 minutes and you'll get extremely rich. Guaranteed.

100%. Yeah.

Or you have to show like a fucking $300,000 car in the background or, you know, the Lamborghini logo behind your head. Like people, people's attention spans are just so short. That there's no way to get to them through short form, or it's at least a lot harder. And the algorithm also doesn't even favor follows anymore. I don't know if you've ever noticed that, but like, followers don't matter at all. You could have a million followers and get 200 views per video, and like, your followers aren't even showing your stuff. Like, I'm never on the friends page on TikTok, I'm always on the For You page. Even Instagram doesn't show you anymore. Yeah, so So I feel like YouTube is like the last frontier for content, even though it's been around forever. I think that's where you really like build value.

That's where you can build an asset that you can—

yeah, 100%, because you only subscribe to so many people. Um, and as long as you're in a good rhythm and you're doing, you know, a video a week or every other week and people are constantly coming back to watch your stuff, then yeah.

One thing I really liked about you before we met today was I told you I had this grab his G-Wagon and I was like, you know, you're like, it would be better for the video. As much as we hate having to do flashy things, it would be better for the video. And I was like, all right, we're on the same page because yeah, when I was younger, I'm 34 now, I did the whole like, you know, flash Lamborghini thing. And it was honestly, it was for, I realized it was for personal validation because I was so young and I'd just seen a little bit of success and I wanted everyone to see how successful I was and like tell me how cool I was. And I realized that gets old really quick, but that's something that seems like it's pretty big in culture today, in these days.

What, like the flashy shit? Yeah, yeah, everybody. And it's horrible for society. Yeah, like there's so many different, like, entrepreneur types of entrepreneurs these days, like, and I'm friends with guys on both sides, but you have like the flashy guys who make, you know, a couple hundred grand a month, maybe even to like, like 6 to 7 figures a month. And they drive really nice cars, they have really nice apartments, and like everything you see is like flashy. And then it's like, you know, buy my course or info product. And then I'm also— and personally, I like these guys a lot more— and a lot of like young founder circles. And these guys wear jeans and t-shirts and they're building, or they have already sold the company for $70 million. And you would never know, but they're like the most interesting people to talk to. Because I always think like you get with what you lead, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

And so that's why I moved to Austin as opposed to like Miami.

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, I don't think it's good for society. I think there's so many— I mean, like, think about it this way. 30 years ago, going to college and getting a, you know, high 5-figure job, call it $70,000 to $100,000, was like the American dream.

Yeah.

Nowadays you're technically a loser. If that's— that's how social media makes you feel. Yeah, you're a loser if you get a job like that, right? And there's nothing wrong with jobs like that, but I think a lot of young guys especially are just like terrified of that outcome, and they just get sucked into these like rabbit holes on social media of like, you know, right, you need to— you're a loser, buy my course or whatever.

I think at the end of the day, less than 1% of people actually— so like people spend their whole life chasing these things thinking that's what they need. And the sad part is most people never actually get it, so they spend so much time chasing it and never get it. Yeah, there are certain people that get lucky early on, such as myself, where I got it early on and I realized like there's still a void that needs to be filled, and these cars and, you know, flashy things did not fill that void.

I think you need to go through that though, you know, like you'll always hear the, the billionaire saying money doesn't matter But I think everyone thought it did in the early days, you know what I mean? And maybe I'm not even qualified to speak on this yet, but from like at least my friend, like I'm like probably the poorest one out of all my friends.

It's a good place to be.

But that's what they say. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, I don't care about money too much. Like I know it'll come, but that's what they say. And I think it's just part of the process. Like everyone's curious. You want to know what it's like. And then once you've gotten there, then you can check it off and go do the other things. But I think there's nothing wrong with like wanting to experience that.

Well, certainly nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong with it because it leads you down paths, right? Like if you don't have something to strive towards, you're going to be stagnant. And if you're not growing, you're dying. So it gives you something to work towards. Yeah. But you know, it's, it's the, the problem is that most people never attain that, right? There's, you know, there, there are the people on social media that are flaunting things and And I'd say 75, 80% of the time, like, those people are not independently wealthy, meaning like what I define as independently wealthy is that the interest on your liquidity can fund your life and you don't need to actually earn any more money to live. And I think a very small percentage of the people that are flaunting things online are actually like that. But then everyone else that's looking up to them, they spend so much time chasing. And I agree, there's nothing wrong with you know, having to go through the process. But most people never get through the process, is my point. Yeah.

And I also think— I don't even think it's good for the people that are like the— not specifically core sellers or whatever, but I don't think it's good for them either. Because when you build a platform with like the flashy lifestyle, you are going to need to feed that, um, that beast now, right? If that's why people follow you, you're going to continuously need to spend, spend, spend to sell this lifestyle in order to bring in income. And that's not a good, you know, that's not a good place to be in, in my opinion, because it could end in your— and, you know, trends end, right? Just like we talk about, like, you know, whether it was, um, like dropshipping being crazy profitable in the early days, now not so much. Still a lot of opportunity there, but there's trends. TikTok Shop is probably the current one, I would say. And a couple of people make a ton of money. Everybody else kind of gets left in the dust. And I don't know, like, I think people need to realize that that's not the best way to build an audience, in my opinion.

I also think personally, from my experience, it's counterintuitive to growth to be attached to those types of outcomes because I'm a firm believer that the energy that you have in the present moment creates the life around you in ways that are beyond your intellect. And so if you're attached to getting these things, you're inherently not getting them in that moment. So you're feeling separate from those things, which you're gonna, you know, essentially manifest more separateness from those things. Yeah, and I think like that's a big, you know, thing. Another thing is a lot of these younger guys— by the way, how old are you? 23. 23. So you're very mature for your age. And like, you know, I would easily— you know, I, by no means do I judge anyone for being young. But I think, you know, a lot of younger people are— they are very attached to these outcomes and they are creating that energy of separateness from not getting those things.

So—

and there's not really enough people talking about this type of thing online as much as there should be. I think it's important that people can realize that because a lot of people at your age, they look at these people online and they think, You know, that guy, that guy knows what he's doing. He knew what he was doing and he executed on a plan. I don't know what I'm doing. But the truth is nobody knows what they're doing when they're doing it. I don't know what I'm doing still.

Fully agree, dude.

Like, that's an important truth to understand. So nobody knows what they're doing.

Yeah, but same thing with like even the health gurus. If you, if you come off that way and you sound like that, no one's gonna listen. Like, I don't know if you've ever like really gone into the, the like crazy health guru rabbit holes, but I think I have. The people that are giving the mainstream info, you could say, are not actually like the real experts, right? They're just great salesmen, right? Right. Like, I won't say any names, but you know, if I make a video saying I think you should do this, and like, you know, based on my research, I think this is probably the best way to live your life or the best way to maximize whatever, no one's gonna watch that. But if I am very strong and assertive and dominant and saying you need to do this or else you're gonna die, then everyone's gonna listen, right?

Yeah.

So that's what's interesting, you know. And you say like there's not that many guys out there promoting the, the good stuff. We don't even know that. There might be a lot of people out there doing it, they just don't get it, they don't get the views. Yeah, that's so true. Like I have, I have a really good friend who really, really smart guy and more importantly, just a really great human being and serial entrepreneur. Been doing it since he was a little kid. You know, he's probably had like 4 or 5 failed businesses. And then, you know, his recent past 3 have all made him multiple millions each. And he just started doing content and he just doesn't really have like the crazy content. Persona yet. Yeah, maybe it'll develop, but all of his videos are gold and no one really gets to watch them because—

yeah, well, it doesn't get that rapid growth, but you can also think of the compounding growth, right? Like, you get a few people that really like your content and they tell a couple people. Now you have 6 people that really like your content. Now next you have 10, and then you got 20, and then like it starts compounding on itself if you're authentic.

And I think that's actually probably the best way to grow long term, right? Because you just cannot keep up with— like, if you blow up off a trend or something and you go viral, right, it's probably going to cut. Like, I mean, you've seen it too just because you're older, but very few social media guys stay around for years. Yeah, every— almost every single person in every single niche usually has like 1 or 2 years where they're popping They could be in the fitness niche, in the health space, in the money space, and then they're like gone forever, right?

Yeah.

And I think it probably is better if you're just consistently growing. I would say so. You can make that same argument for some businesses as well. I was talking with a friend about that this morning, actually. He was saying like, you know, a lot of the businesses these days, especially ones that are taking advantage of TikTok Shop, they'll go from like you know, low 6 figures a month, kind of like figuring out the sauce, just right time, right place, right opportunity. They blow up. All of a sudden they're doing a couple million a month. You just can't keep growing at that rate forever. It just doesn't work like that.

I mean, you have to continue to iterate because those things happen and you have to take advantage of them when they happen, right? Yeah. I mean, I'm 34. I've been an entrepreneur for, you know, 15, 16 years now. You know, when I see something that I know it's not gonna be around for a long time. I know now, I gotta go all in on this thing. Like when I started dropshipping and my store grew from $0 to $2 million in 60 days, I think back to that and I kind of took it for granted and I probably could have 10x'd what I did had I known then what I know now, which is these things don't last forever. Like go all in on them when they, when they come.

Yeah. What do you think is that opportunity right now?

Well, I think there's a few things that they're, you know, that you can capitalize on. I do think TikTok Shops is, you know, very early on. If you compare TikTok Shop to like Amazon or eBay, for example, TikTok Shop, I believe, has 250,000 shops. eBay has 20 million shops, right? Meaning you're very early on. And also, I believe the person who's first to market gets completely outsized returns. The person who's second to market gets really good returns. Third to market gets good returns. And then fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, right? From a percentile perspective, they make less and less returns. So if you're early to something, you should extract all the juice out of it. For example, we just built a new company called Storebuild.ai, and it's an AI platform that builds you a custom-built Shopify store in 5 minutes, and it's going crazy right now. And I know it's going crazy right now, so we're going all in on it right now. But I— if this was 10 years ago, I wouldn't have known that. Like, I would have— I wouldn't have been as aggressive as I am right now learning through listening. So if anyone's listening right now and you found something that's working, like, don't take it for granted because they don't— nothing lasts forever, literally. I mean, think about the greatest creators in the world. Elon Musk, right? He went from cars, now he's building rockets.

Now he's—

he's always releasing something that's groundbreaking.

Yeah.

And it's not like you put in a bunch of work and then you can go smooth sailing. So you got to keep going at it, but you got to love the process. You got to learn to love that process, I think.

Definitely, 100%. And I think— fuck, I had something I wanted to say and then it completely just left my mind. I— well, you always got to be iterating, number one. But— oh, that's what I was going to say. I— one thing that I've learned recently is always, like, if there's ever anything new and interesting, just try it out, even if, like, 9 out of 10 are failures. Like try it out right away. I remember, you know, we— so around this time last year, actually, our business was really, really struggling because I had never really done clothing before. And we went from like, you know, sales are going up and up every single month, up, up, up, up, because it's getting hotter out. Like, we're selling like shorts. That was our main product, right? And then it starts getting cold in October, and I just kept buying inventory, and sales start tanking, and I'm sitting on like a couple hundred grand with the shorts. And then sales start tanking and I'm like, oh my God, like, how did I— how did I not fucking plan for this? I'm an idiot. Like, this is actually like the worst moment ever. And I'm sitting on the edge of my bed like, what the fuck are we going to do? I thought it was— I literally thought it was the end. Maybe not the end, but I was like, I'm going to have to sit on this inventory until it gets hot out again for 7 months. Yeah. And someone had been telling me like, let's try out TikTok Shop for 2 months. And I was like, bro, no, we're not going on fucking TikTok Shop, bro. Like, and then still, this was like right when it came out. I think it first came out in like August. And I was like, we're not going on TikTok Shop, bro. That's dropshipping and shit. Like, it's going to make our brand look horrible. Finally, we had no choice. I was like, we got to try something. So we go on it and instantly, because they were giving out so many free coupons and stuff, we sold out of our entire inventory in like, in like 3 or 4 weeks.

Wow.

So it saved our business. Or at least like recorrected us, you could say. And you know, if I would have tried it a little sooner, would have been that game changer.

When you're in that— still very early, but yeah, when you're in that position of like, oh fuck, I don't know what to do, that means you're in the exact place you need to be in. Seriously. Yeah, like every time I've been in that place, the other side of it is always something greater than I could have ever imagined.

Dude, I fully agree. And it's beyond just business. It's like at least in my life, I, I look at life like a, like a mountain, right? You have your peaks and then you have your little valleys. And every mountain, like, the higher you go, you hit this peak, seems like everything is great, right? It's never been better. Like, your beautiful girlfriend, for example, like, you're on, you're the man, whatever. Boom, you get cheated on or you get a breakup, whatever. Now you're in this pit. I feel like when you're in the pit, that's what I like to remind myself with, whether it is business or personal life, whatever. It's like, you know what, something really good is about to happen.

Yeah.

And maybe it'll take a month or a year. Maybe that pit might like— it might last a long time. But if you can just remind yourself like something good is going to happen right after this, it's a lot easier to get through because now you're not just like dreading when is this going to be over? You're excited about what's about to happen, you know?

Yeah. I think the problem is when you're in the moment, it's a lot easier said than done to remind yourself that things are going to be good. For sure, because like, I mean, this is where I believe spirituality comes into play and learning to be able to let go and just be in the moment. Because at the end of the day, if you can be completely present, everything's perfect in the moment. The only thing that's not perfect is your perception of what the future is going to be like. And if you can be present, you can cultivate the energy you need to create that future. But people, most people, myself included, and often, you know, oftentimes are just so worried about the future.

But how do you live in the moment as an entrepreneur when you always need to be planning and preparing?

Practically, it's, it's, it's a, it's putting habits into your life that gives you that space. It has to be an intentional thing. Like for me, I get up in the morning, I get outside as soon as I could. I know my day is going to be better if I can get out the door earlier. So like if I take an hour and a half to get out the door versus 30 minutes, like just getting out the door and going on a walk for me is my time to let go and be in the moment, you know? And then you cultivate the energy, you feel great in that moment, and then you can let go. All right, I did my work for the day energetically, and now I can go and do the things I need to actually do in this 3-dimensional physical world that we live in. Yeah, so I think like actually putting intentional time slots to be just simply to let go and to just realize that things are perfect in the moment is really important. I don't think people value that. I think most people get up, they check their phone, they scroll on social media, maybe get hooked on something for a little bit too long, even though in the back of their mind they're probably like, oh, I should probably get off my phone. But they just keep going and going and going. And it's like the other thing is too, like we know, like our, our true self knows what we should be doing and our mind is consistently trying to do things that just bring us pleasure and dopamine. So it's a consistent battle. I think winning those battles, even those micro battles, are so important. Like, if your true self knows you got to get off your phone, but your mind's like, I'm gonna scroll a few more minutes, like, just get off of it.

Yeah.

And you're gonna give power to your true self and take it away from your mind. I think that's the game. It's like being able to take the power away from your mind and, you know, back to the moment. I think you can create anything you want in life.

I definitely— I'll be the first to admit, I definitely have a very hard time living in the moment, at least at this current point in my life. Because— but I'm still like very happy though. That's the thing is I'm not like a— like, I, I've— I, I think everyone in their life has to go through like a rock bottom or a depressive, um, you know, series, a timeline, whatever. I went through that when I was a really little kid, and I, I feel like that taught me a lot about life and, and kind of got that out of my system.

What did you go through when you were younger, dude?

I just— I did not fit in, bro. I was like a black sheep. Like, got bullied.

Like, really?

Oh dude, yeah, because I don't seem like that at all.

Well, it's—

things have changed, right? But yeah, when I was in, um, when I was in middle school, elementary school, middle school, and up until like freshman year of high school, got really bullied, you know. I was, I was so depressed, like I almost, almost killed myself, like straight up.

Really?

Yeah. And that's what this, um, tattoo right here is about actually. It's like, it's like this little kid, that's me, looking at this older version of himself in the mirror. And I had this like moment where I was super just unhappy and I felt like a waste of air. Like my parents were great, very like loving, great people. But for some reason I just felt like a waste of air. And I was like, and I was like, fuck, dude, I'm, I'm done with this shit, right? And I was probably like 12, I think. And but I think every 12-year-old goes through something like that, honestly.

Yeah.

But I, I looked in the mirror and I was like, you know what? This is what I thought to myself. What am I missing right now? If I had the respect from my peers and my friends, if I had the attention I was looking for from girls, if I had the nice things, if I had the confidence, the respect, if people liked me, like I looked, I wrote on like a list, like what are the things I want that I'm lacking? And then I said, okay, if I, if I had those things, would I still feel this way? And the answer was like, absolutely fucking not. Like, life would be great, right? So I think that's the difference between like, you know, being depressed and depression. So like, I was able to like logically like pinpoint like, okay, if I had these things that I don't have, I'd be happy. And it's not like physical things, it's like a state of being, right? So I said, okay, now I have to— I just have to go get those things, right? And then I'll be happy. And so yeah, I kind of like looked in the mirror I was like, I'm going to just picture this future version of myself that has those things and I need to become that person. Like visualizing, right? Yeah. And yeah, I feel like ever since then I've been just like a very, very happy and grateful and content person. But I definitely have a hard time living in the moment for sure.

It's, it's a blessing to have went through that. Like, think back to your high school.

Yeah.

The people that were like the coolest in high school that didn't struggle. I mean, at least from my high school, or now kind of like, I don't know, not doing that much.

You know why that is, in my opinion? I think—

yeah, tell me.

I think— because I made a video about this the other day— I think that people that got a ton of external validation when they were younger have a very, very hard time taking risks.

Yeah.

And I see that in a lot of my— because like, all my change— yeah, exactly. Like, if, if you're the man in high school or even in college like, and you went to all the parties and you got all the girls and you're on the sports teams, whatever. It might even be earlier than that. Maybe even in like middle school. Like if you were like really popular in middle school, you inherently are probably not going to take much risk because you're so used to like everyone, right?

You don't want to change.

Giving you validation. Yeah.

I think you got it.

And then that state of being is really hard to change once you become older. And I see that in a lot of, in a lot of my friends, honestly, like I'm like, dude, you guys got to get after it. Like you got to start taking risks. Like quit your job, start a business. They talk about wanting to do this stuff and then they won't do it. And I think because like internally they're terrified of like what people might think, right? Which is the hurdle that everyone has to get over at the beginning. But it is really hard when you've always gotten— it's like a, it's like a really, it's like a really good-looking guy when he grows up probably actually won't be that good at talking to girls because he didn't have to go out and do it as much as like the guy who maybe wasn't as—

he didn't learn anything. Pain is growth. You know, a funny, funny story. When I was in, uh, yeah, I was in middle school, there was a, you know, the middle school football team. It was a walk-on, meaning nobody got cut. Me and this one other kid got cut from the team, and it was like I felt like the biggest loser in the world. How did I get cut from the football? It was a walk-on. Come to find out years later, my mom didn't want me playing football, so told them not to let me play, which I'm actually grateful for. But it was like, it was very painful.

Probably fucked you up.

Fucked me up. But that fucked up.

Why would she tell you?

I don't know. I don't know. Granted, I am happy I didn't play football because I know a lot of people that did and they have like, you know, brain issues and things like that. But it fucked me up. But I do think that you need pain to grow. Like, you cannot live your whole life on a high the whole time. It just doesn't work. Yeah, pain is what makes you change. What makes you— it's what makes you reflect. It's what— and then on the other side of pain, when you get over something, you raise your standards. Yeah, right. Your new normal is now like— your new level is now the normal. It's almost like in business too, right? Like when you're, you know, let's say you started a business and it's generating, you know, call it $5,000 a month in profit. Like that's your normal. Like it's good. If you have like a $2,500 month, it's really bad. And you see people out there doing, you know, $100,000 months. But in your head it's like, yeah, they're doing it. But subconsciously you don't feel like it's possible for you yet. But you keep grinding, you keep doing it. And then, you know, maybe one month you have a $20,000 month and you're like, wow, that's now your new standard. Looking back, $5,000, really bad, right? $2,500, horrible. You keep grinding, keep going. You hit the $100,000 month. $5,000 is putrid. But just a few months ago, $5,000 was normal. Yeah, and that's life. It's just a series of continuously outperforming what you believe is possible. And pain is the way to do that. That's the only way for sure.

And yeah, I have a question for you actually. So in your own, in your own journey as an entrepreneur, do you feel like going from— let's, let's talk about like levels, right? Like $10,000 a month is like level 1, $100,000 level 2, $1 million a month level 3, $10 million level 4. When you think back about like how you got from each level, how you got, how you climbed each level, Was it like a bottleneck type situation where you kind of just like one day stumbled across the answer and then it changed everything and you were able to scale up? Or was it like a slow and steady climb?

No, there was big breakthroughs. Yeah, several of them. It's not a slow and steady climb by any means. I mean, for me personally, I was, I was living in Los Angeles with my then girlfriend, now wife, splitting rent on a $1,500 a month apartment, you know, like grinding. I actually went to— have you ever been to a Tony Robbins event?

Yeah.

So my friend and mentor, he was a professional NFL player, and he's like, yeah, I'm going to this Tony Robbins event, you want to come with me? I was like, sure. And we like learned about energy and learned about all these things I never knew about before. And it was actually fucking crazy. Some of my listeners probably know this story, but we did some exercise where we visualized our future life and like put put a lot of energy behind it. I won't get into all the details right now because, you know, I'm interviewing you. But the— after the event was over, I was moving from Los Angeles to Florida and I had a 5-day drive. Literally the day after the event, we packed up a U-Haul, threw the dog in the backseat, drove to Florida, and my business went from doing about $1,000 a day in revenue to by the end of the drive, it was doing $50,000 a day in revenue. It was like— it was a humongous change. Yeah, and it was, it was beyond what I ever thought was possible. But I truly believe because I was able to have a very strong vision and put a very strong emotion towards that vision that the universe shaped things in a certain way. And also, I strongly believe that the way you feel is a frequency or a vibration, and your thoughts are attracted by the way you feel. So if you feel massively abundant, you're going to have thoughts that are massively abundant, which is going to cause you to take action that's massively abundant. But when you have thoughts that's scared or, you know, scarcity or lack or whatever, fear, you're going to get thoughts of that same frequency and it's going to drive you down that path.

Yeah.

So anyway, you kind of get to these moments and when you, you know, when you keep going and you keep trying new things, something actually changes and it's, it's well beyond what you thought was possible. So To answer your question, I think, you know, if you look at life, I think, you know, any entrepreneur has— yeah, you have micro wins.

Yeah.

But occasionally, once every year, 5 years, 10 years, you have a gigantic level up and that's your new standard. And I think that just— that doesn't happen many times. I think like if you look at, you know, Elon Musk, for example, and I don't know his exact history, but like, I know he built PayPal and he sold it $100 million. Most people would have given up right then. Right. I got $100 million. I can live on it. But he took another risk, risked all of his money. Tesla almost went bankrupt. He almost lost everything. Boom. Next level. Right now, the rockets. Now the Neuralink. Now, you know, the Star— what's it called? The internet. Starlink.

Starlink.

Yeah. Neuralink.

You know what's really interesting about Elon is this actually made me feel actually a lot better about myself because it can be so easy to compare yourself to others, right? Especially these days.

There's—

oh, bro, like there's a stream of others in your life. Like, there's like some of my friends from like high school and college, like, will text me and be like, bro, you're fucking killing it right now. Like, like, that must feel awesome. And I'm like, bro, like, I know a kid that's like 2 years younger than me worth $100 million. Yeah, right. There's always somebody. Like, this is the way everybody you look up to looks up to somebody else. Yeah, right. There's always somebody bigger. There's always a bigger fish. But something that I read the other day that actually made me feel a lot better was Maybe I'm getting the age wrong by a year or two, but I'm pretty sure I read that Elon didn't make his first million until he was 27 or 28.

Oh, wow.

Which really surprised me. I, for some reason, I had thought, oh, he sold his first company for like $40 million right out of college. Yeah, I didn't know that. Right. And so that makes you really think a lot, like, wait, the richest person, the, the greatest entrepreneur of all time, right? Didn't even make his first million until '28, '27. Okay, I got some time.

You know what I mean?

So that made me feel a lot better. But yeah, you're absolutely right. It's usually just like a steady grind for years, years, years, no results. That's the thing about entrepreneurship is usually it's like, you know, money unfortunately is the only thing that's really measurable. And so you will work and you can genuinely, like this is kind of how I feel like with my business right now, like the team is getting better, the business is getting better, I'm getting better, I'm getting smarter, more connected, more experienced. And the measurable figure hasn't changed.

Yeah, exactly.

And it will eventually, maybe in a month, maybe in a year, it will change and it'll 10x or whatever. And that's going to feel great.

Yeah.

But that's what entrepreneurship is, man. It's like, it's not like a steady climb that you can see the results slowly coming back. It's like no results for years.

There's only one score, unfortunately. Yeah. I think the problem with, you know, comparing yourself to other people, depending on where you live too, you get a lot more of that. So like, I always try to stay away from like the Miamis, the New York, where there's like all this competition, all these people doing things. And I always try to do my own thing.

It's distracting.

Yeah. Like I was like, let me just do my own thing over here. And then like, you know, I'll go to like an event maybe like once a year, two times a year. And I'll go like, you know, network with the people I know, but I go back to my bubble and I do my own thing and I create over there. I think a lot of people, they're like, I want to win. I want to be an entrepreneur. I'm going to move to Miami. I'm going to go network. I'm going to do it. And there's nothing wrong with it, but it's just not my way of doing things. Yeah, I like to go just kind of have my own, my own bubble, my own circle to create it. So you— what made you pick Austin? How long have you been in Austin for?

Been there a little over a year now. It's a good question. I picked it because I wanted— I really believe in, like, I look at like myself as like a character, right? I love like this. This, uh, I used to be the biggest fucking nerd ever, played like video games 12 hours a day, right? Back before I was starting business, I was running Minecraft factions.

And I was—

Minecraft is like a game that I grew up playing. And there were these, uh, there was so many different like game modes you could play. But I was, when I was like 12, 13 years old, when I was like depressed and really upset at school or whatever, I'd come home and I'd be running teams of like 50 to 100 people. And they were like the best teams on servers that had tens of thousands of players, right? And I'd put in— and it was literally a business. I would hire— I'd create forums online to recruit and hire people. I'd promote and fire. People had hours they had to clock every week. Like, you had— and all of us were doing this for free. Like, literally just, like, playing for, like, 12 hours a day for free. Like, showing up to class tired because I'd be up till 3:00 a.m. And so I was, like, running a business with, like, zero, like, uh, actual reward from it except for like the fun of it, you know. That's why I love entrepreneurship and it's not about money for me. But, um, you know, I started my business in college. I moved to LA after college because I thought that's where I was supposed to be, right? I'm doing social media, like clothing, whatever, like LA's the spot. And I didn't like it that much at that point in my life. Yeah, because I think I think LA is probably the best and the most fun place to be in the world if you're rich and you have a big following. Yeah, but if you're on your climb, it's so brutal.

Yeah. And the same thing.

Oh my God. Yeah, it's so brutal. And it's just like it's a ladder and everyone is climbing, stepping on each other.

Yeah.

And I realized that when I went to a coffee shop and I got— this is like such a dumb analogy, but I got a coffee and I bought a croissant and I was like, hey, can you heat that up? And she's like, it's already heated. Doesn't even look at me. And hands it to me and it was fucking cold. And I realized, I realized— here's the analogy. The analogy on that is like that girl, she was like this pretty young girl, but she was kind of bratty and stuck up. Does not want to be there, right? Like that is simply a step on her journey to go do whatever else she's really thinking about while being behind the counter, which is probably being a model, an actress, or an influencer. Right, right. Like she does not want to be at that coffee shop. Yeah. And it was depressing. And then I visited Austin and I went to a coffee shop and the dude was like, hey, how's your day going? And I was like, dude, it's pretty good. And he's like, what are you up to today? Like, he genuinely just wanted to talk. Yeah. And he's getting paid the same as the L.A. girl. But he, like, looked at that as like, I'm supposed to be here right now.

That's a great analogy.

And yeah, man, thank you. And it was, it was really eye-opening. And so at that point I was— and oh, back to the video game thing. I look at like myself as like a video game character. And so in order to get to the next level, I need to change quite a bit. And so I'm always like trying to physically change the environment my character is in. So that's why I think I'll always, at least while I'm on my journey, move every couple of years. And so moving to Austin was like, okay, that allows me to reinvent myself again, right? When I was in high school, everyone called me Lucas.

Yeah.

And that was the kid that didn't have that much confidence, was pretty insecure, like essentially just wasn't very happy. Then when I get to college, my name is Pactor. That's what everyone calls me. That's like my new character, level 2. Yeah. And I'm a little more confident, I'm a little happier. I become fraternity president. I'm starting to like, okay, feel good about myself. Level 3 is Austin, and everyone now calls me Squid, right? That's like my social media handle. So this is like my new character in his new environment. And I wanted to go somewhere where I felt like I could not only build myself with like minimal distractions, but also build a team. Because at the end of the day, building a business is about building a team. And I knew that if I were to build Squid House in LA, I would just be getting employees like that girl. Yeah, like they might be working for my business. But they don't really care about where the business is trying to go. Like, it's my dream, it's not theirs.

Right.

And Squid House would be a means to an end of paying the bills so that they can go become whatever they want to do.

Right.

There's nothing wrong with that. But in Austin, there's a lot of like really young, hungry people who are willing to like, you know, put in for the bigger picture. And so it just felt like Austin was a good place to like grow myself and grow the business.

Yeah.

So my goal is to be there for like probably 3 or 4 years. Ideally, in perfect scenario, I want to sell Squid House in like, yeah, 4 or 5 years, and then probably move to maybe New York or something for a couple years, and then back to California. California.

Yeah, that's a cool plan. That's a good vision. Yeah, that's really— yeah, that's great. I, I saw something you posted about, uh, on Squid House about body positivity, and I really fucking liked it because I'm like You know, I don't know if I'm like an angry, like, you know, white guy who like looks at the world and I'm like, you know, like people are against fat shaming and all that. Listen, I'm not shaming fat people by any means, but like this new body positivity thing, it's like, just be happy with your body, even though it's like, it's unhealthy for you. It's unhealthy for society, right? You're like being overweight and not in shape. Is just for most people just a product of your habits and your disciplines.

Yeah.

And instead of actually making a change that's going to be better for you and everyone around you, you play the victim card and, you know, you're just like, you know, people are patting you on the back and you—

I hate that too.

You did a body positivity thing where it was like, if you lose weight, we'll send you a new pair of clothing for free.

Yeah. So I think this is going to be like— I used to— I got really good advice from a friend who's a successful entrepreneur. He's like, He's like, why is Squid Hoss special? Why would I buy your brand over Lululemon? And I told him like, like all the 10 reasons you should buy our brand. And he's like, wait, wait, wait, what was number 7? What was that one? I was like, oh, we support real body positivity because we give away gear to people who lose weight. He goes, he goes, bro, what are you doing? And I was like, what? He goes, you're digging a mile wide when the gold is right below you and you just need to dig a mile deep. Yeah. And that was really interesting to hear.

I love that.

He was saying, you're focusing on so many things. He's like, all 10 of those things are awesome. But he's like, you do not need that. You only need to focus on one of those to get to $100 million. And then maybe you bring in number 2 or number 3 to get to $1 billion or something. But, and it was crazy. And so then I just started focusing on that. And I hop on meetings with some, we're in the middle of raising right now, right? So I hopped on some investor calls and you could instantly see people's eyes opening when you say that. And even our new, like, this new guy that works for us, Nathaniel, he's, um, closer to your age, really successful, very, very smart dude. And I just randomly got connected on the phone with him and, um, and he consults for like some massive, like, multi, probably $100 million brands. And I mentioned that to him and he was like, wait, what? And He's like our CFO now, kind of like our fractional CFO now. Just joined the team, gets paid way less than he deserves, but he— we all pay ourselves very little. Yeah, but he believes in the vision simply because that— I was like, why did you join? He said, because he said that. Yeah. And so I think that's going to be what's really working for us long term. And now I include that in all of my ads and I include it in my pitch to investors and I include it in Um, yeah, every time I do a podcast, and it's really— it's, it's so simple. I can't believe no one's ever done this before. Like, so like, our brand is called Squid Hoss because it's made up of these two terms. Squid is like an insult, right? That means loser, beginner, essentially. And then hoss or house means winner, right? So beginner to winner. Our brand is all about transforming both in your personal life, mentally, in your business. But the gym is like a great first step for most people. So it's— we're a fitness brand where we make activewear, fitness apparel. And so I was like, okay, well, we promote like, you know, wanting people to go through like a Squid Hoss transformation, losing weight or gaining muscle, becoming the best version of yourself physically. Let's help people on that journey. And it's actually a great business model too, because like Sure. You know, if you— the whole concept is like, if you buy an item and you lose a ton of weight in order to become your best self. Yeah. All you have to do is just let us know you're on that journey ahead of time. Like text us or email us. I plan on losing 50 pounds by summer 2025.

Yeah.

And if you actually do it, we'll reward you with a new item in your new size for free. Yeah. And we want people to do that. Very few people actually hit us up for that. They always say, oh, that's awesome, I love it. But think about it, like, I'm losing, what, $10 or $15 on the cost of goods, $5 for shipping, so like $20 total, and I'm— I get a walking billboard forever.

So you know what might get a lot more people to do that is if you do like, you know, one or two people that have the biggest transformation, they get like a year's worth of clothing or like an all-expenses-paid trip to like an event you guys do.

Yeah, we do that. We do that too. So we do that. That was another one of the 10 things we do, this thing called the Squid Hoss Transformation Competition, right? You know how, you know how GoPro does, like, you can submit GoPro videos and they give away like $1 million in prizes every year? Yeah, we do that too. Every few months where if you have a badass transformation, And it doesn't have to be like from fat to skinny. It could be like, um, you got fucking smoked by a car on your bike and your doctor said you were gonna never gonna walk again. And then you just ran an Ironman. That was one of the submissions last time.

Wow.

Or you were like an alcoholic druggie and everyone gave up on you and then you turned around and now you're like the healthy, sober version of yourself, right? Yeah. You just have to, you don't even have to have ever purchased Squid House products before. You just have to make a really cool, compelling, emotional video and then post it on social media when we run our competition every few months and do hashtag my Squid House transformation. And then we just picked the 3 coolest videos.

Yeah.

And last time I think we gave away like $5,000. Business was much smaller back then. I'd like to get that up to giving away $1,000,000 a year, right, to the, to the 10 coolest Squid House transformations.

Yeah.

Because the best part about that is like, these are dope videos that go viral and then everyone's looking in the comments like, what does Squid House transformation mean?

Yeah, right, right.

That's why we don't require them to buy any products, right? You can still win money and the prizes without even being a customer because you're still promoting like our lifestyle and our— our—

that's a— that's amazing because you can create— I think the best businesses are businesses that create movements that, you know, get people involved. And I think you know, your comment earlier about people in LA hiring them, they're really just kind of looking for that next thing. Having a business with a higher purpose gets people that are part of the company to feel like it's something that they're contributing to the world as well. And I think that's a really compelling story. So, you know, I haven't done deep research on all of your guys' marketing, but like, that's something I would dive really deeply into.

Yeah. That's what we're trying right now. I mean, even like, um, you know, you know, Comfort Clothing. Have you heard of them?

No.

So one of like the guys who's kind of like helping us out, advising us, named Hudson, he is the founder of this brand Comfort Clothing, which is fucking killing it. They're doing like a million a day right now selling hoodies and sweats. It's insane. And their whole unique selling point is, and they say this in every one, they instruct all of their creators to say this in every single ad. They say, hey, you know, I just got my new hoodie from Comfort. You know, it feels great, whatever. By the way, did you know Comfort supports mental health and anxiety because they make hoodies that feel like a hug? Wow. And so our, our version of that is like we throw that in all of our ads and it's like, you know, are you looking for new gym wear? Like buy gear from a brand that actually wants to see you win. Like we actually— the whole real body positivity thing. Because it's also a little controversial. What do you mean real body positivity?

You get 70% of people that kind of hate how society does that to want to, you know, that loves what you're doing.

You got to make something that— I've always believed, like, whether it's in politics or social media or business, you need to create something that pisses somebody off. Yeah, there's no way to walk the line. Yeah, because then you piss everybody off.

Exactly.

Um, like, if, if, like, if, if you're like If someone asks you like, you know, who are you voting for? What do you support? And you go, I don't know, I think there's good points on this side and good points on this side. Bro, boring. Like no one's going to listen, right? You got to say like, I'm fully in support of this. And that's— and people think that when they do that, a lot of people are going to hate them for it.

Yeah.

Yeah. But a lot of people are going to love you too. And that's better. Yeah.

But the problem in today's society is that both sides and, you know, politics specifically in today's Election Day, which is crazy how fast things have come around. Is that both sides of it have painted the other side as either really bad people or really stupid people, right? Like, if you, if you support Trump, you're, you're a bad person, you're racist, like all that shit. If you support Kamala, you're an idiot. Like, yeah, so like, you know, and your friends, if your friends and family have different views too, it's, it's very controversial. So I think a lot of people are kind of, you know, myself included, like I haven't publicly talked too much about politics Yeah, granted, I am 100% in support of Trump. Yeah, I mean, compared to, you know, Kamala's—

yeah, I mean, me too. What'll be really interesting is, um, is just to see the, the aftermath. I think, um, dude, what about all this?

Have you seen all these posts about election fraud?

Like, no, tell me about it.

Compared to like last election, like, I'm seeing posts on like Twitter and Instagram of like videos of people pushing Trump's name and it won't go, but if they push Kamala, it works. Or like, you know, all these cases of like proof of election fraud, election fraud, election fraud. And I don't know if it's actually happening or if it's the media that's trying to rile up society. I don't really know what the whole kind of like backstory of this is, but it's like, if Kamala wins, everyone's gonna say it's election fraud. And if Trump wins, everyone's gonna say it's election fraud. And it's like, it's not a good place to be in. First of all, The election, the way they're doing it is pretty stupid.

Well, there is for sure fraud.

That's a given because it's systemically built for fraud.

Yeah.

You don't need an ID to vote. You can ask for an ID.

It's fucking crazy. Did you see the Elon Musk interview that just came out like yesterday?

From Joe Rogan?

Yeah.

I didn't watch it.

No, I watched like halfway through and he made a really interesting point. I fucking love Elon, dude. He was like, what did he say? He said, I guess there's been like literally like verified reports from like government.gov websites that there have been like millions of immigrants flown into swing states over the past— I didn't even know this— over the past couple years. Yeah. And what, bro, that's fucking crazy just to think about it. And yeah, you don't need an ID, so who knows, man.

Not need an ID. You— they cannot even ask for an ID or it's illegal in 13 states.

That's crazy.

It makes no sense.

Yeah.

You know, they, they were— I was watching something where, um, Donald Trump was saying like 'Whether you like it or not, we're gonna protect the women.' And he was talking about like from illegal immigrants, people that are, you know, bad people coming in illegally. And they spun it to him basically saying, you know, 'Whether you like it or not, we're gonna, you know, do something about women.' And it was like about abortion, and it wasn't what he was talking about. They take these little segments of what he says more specifically, right, because the media is always on the other side. Of what he says and paints an entirely untrue story about it. Yeah, which is fucking crazy. The news should be there to provide news and truth.

I think the news is gonna die. I think news—

I think news, um, there needs to be a standard, dude, because even social media, there's no standard.

Yeah, I mean, they're— it's hard to have a standard when everything is owned by, you know, people with biased opinions. But I think, I think news, like traditional news outlets and channels and all that, are— I think they're just going to die with age. Like, nobody our age watches the news, right? The only people that are watching the news are people who have done it for 60 years, which is like old people.

But the news is all over social media. Clips of the news is all over social media.

Clips, yeah, absolutely.

Granted, you get, you know, a Joe Rogan interview with Trump got— I think it was like 40 million views on YouTube. Yeah, in like a 7-day period or something. Don't quote those numbers, but it was something like that.

It's crazy.

The news isn't getting that many views. Yeah, more people are watching that interview. Kamala did an interview with, uh, what was it, Call Her Daddy or something?

Yeah, got like 700K or whatever.

700K in the same amount of time.

So yeah, how do you— yeah, like, you know, let's say it does go blue on this election.

Well, they're, they're, they're starting to plant the idea that there's gonna be election fraud. So like, if she wins, even though I'm not, you know, conspiracy theorist, I don't, you know, I'm not really gonna like— subconsciously I'm gonna think there was election fraud.

Yeah.

And I would consider myself a very reasonable person.

Yeah.

There's people much more extreme than me.

Yeah.

They're going to say this is election fraud and that's going to piss people off.

There's for sure going to be riots either way. I think, I think there's going to be riots. I think if Trump wins, there's going to be riots against the idea of Trump being president. And I think if she wins, there's going to be riots based on not even necessarily like they hate her, but they feel like it was rigged.

Dude, it's all because of this victim mentality. Where people are so passionate about this election because they think that their life is directly correlated with the outcome, as opposed to just focus on your life and you can do whatever you want in life. Like, if you are watching mainstream media or even clips of it on social media, there's all this talk about how, you know, groceries are too expensive, gas is too expensive, everything's too expensive, right? So what do people think? Well, man, I, I can't, I can't do what I want to do because it's too expensive. They start to program people And instead of not listening and doing what they, what they need to do and outperforming their beliefs, they just throw in the towel. It's too expensive.

Yeah. You like, it's like people spend like, like, just think about it this way. Like, okay, you, you spend 10 to 15% of your, of your daily thoughts thinking about, you know, worst case scenarios when it comes to politics. What if you spent that 10 to 15% of your day, like actually like working a little harder?

I think it's more than 10 to 15%, bro. If you're, if you're on social media for friggin 7 hours a day. Yeah. Like maybe a lot more.

But, you know, you talk about like the price of groceries going up, you know, a couple, a couple dollars or whatever per item. Like, I get it, that's a problem. But like, yeah, just like, in my opinion, I've always been like a focus on making more money type person. I'm also very much like— this is a very controversial take I have— like, I, I love, like, fully in support of freedom of speech and like protests and, and protesting powerful and important issues. But you'll never catch me with a sign up because I just, I think that that's like, I think that action has the least amount of outcome. Like, I, you know, even though like I don't agree with, you know, Cuban on a lot of political stuff, I will say like I respect him because, you know, he didn't like that the cost of certain drugs were absurdly overpriced. And instead of like holding up a sign or ranting about it on X, yeah, he went and he fucking did something about it, you know what I mean? So like, and, and that's the way I think people should be thinking, you know what I mean? Like, you do have power. Like, you don't have to rely on somebody else to do everything for you. Like, you can go and do it.

Yeah, but the reason why people don't do it is because as a society we embrace victimhood and we reject accountability. Yeah, like I saw a post on LinkedIn and this is a controversial topic. There was a— it was a Black woman who made a long post about why she got fired because her boss was racist. Granted, there's a chance her boss was racist, but in reality, companies focus on profit. They focus on output. Yeah, right. So if you're adding a lot of value to a company, you're not going to get fired. But instead of people saying that, all the comments were Good for you. Good job speaking up. Good. Like basically what they're saying is good job being a victim.

Yeah.

Right. And that gets embraced in society. But the only way to change in life is to have radical accountability. Every single area of your life, whether you caused it or not, you need to take accountability for because you're not going to change your life otherwise. And we don't embrace that as a society.

You know what pisses me off? You know what really pisses me off, dude, that I see that I always get like, it just always ruins my day, honestly, which is not good that it has power is like I love— I'm a huge capitalist. I truly think if you provide a shit ton of value, you're going to make a shit ton of money. And the people who provide the most value make the most money. And it really just is that simple, right? Elon Musk is the wealthiest person alive right now. He's whatever. Yeah, because like, who knows? But like, you know, officially he is because he's done a lot. Same with Jeff Bezos, same with Mark Zuckerberg. Say like you use their products every day, like you rely on them. For your satisfaction and happiness every day. And then people are, oh, and they took the ton of risk. And then, you know, like I saw actually a really great Jeff Bezos interview the other day, like a clip of it at least. And every, every single comment, every single one was, bro's like a slave owner, pretty much, bro doesn't pay his employees. And I'm just like, you guys realize that he worked every job, right? Like he packed the books from the garage. Then once they got big enough, he hired someone to do that. But he was the sales guy. And then he was managing the salesmen. So he was this and he was doing the accounting and he was doing the customer service. Like, that's what people don't understand is like, if you're the CEO, if you were the founder as well, you worked more than likely every single job in the business as it grew. Yeah. And taking a decrease.

If you're the low guy in the company, take your paycheck and invest it in the stock. He's made millions of people a shitload of money from their stock price.

Yeah.

So instead of saying, 'Yo, you don't pay me enough, blah blah blah blah blah.' Like, what? That doesn't serve you. Yeah, it doesn't serve you at all. It actually completely does the opposite of serving you.

Well, that's what's interesting though, is because— so like I said, every single one of the comments on that video was negative. And that's because like, if you were to say something positive, you're just gonna go do it, right? Like, anyone who disagrees— anyone who disagrees with what those people are saying, they're not gonna fight them in the comments about it because they know that that's pointless. And so that's why it's so unfortunate, because social media is primarily negative these days. And the beef and the drama, that's the stuff that gets views because the positive people are like, well, I'm not going to waste my time dealing with these losers and idiots. Like, yeah, you know, and yeah, nobody—

well, nobody learned growing up that you need to take— well, I don't want to say nobody, right? Most people didn't learn growing up that you need to take radical accountability for your life. Like, that's such an important thing. It's so much easier to blame something else, blame someone else for your problems. But like, you could find examples of people that had such a slim chance of being successful and they grew a beautiful life. You know, I, I grew up with a single mom, only child, one-bedroom apartment. She worked two jobs. I wasn't poor. I wasn't in like Section 8 housing, but we certainly weren't wealthy. And it could have been— it was really easy to be able to say, oh, you know, I didn't have those opportunities growing up. But like, I didn't think that way because I don't think social media— it wasn't around when I was growing up. So I don't think I was like so you know, I wasn't consuming all these things that changed my reality. Yeah, but today everyone consumes so much of this and it brainwashes you, hypnotizes you. You know, you get into the state where you're on your phone and you're, you're completely detached from the world and you're just consuming dopamine hits and it's just hypnotizing people over and over and over and over and over again. Yeah, and as a society we embrace victimhood.

It's so frustrating. It's literally probably the thing that pisses me off the most. Like the other day I was on So like, okay, so I've been making content. This is the traditional content creator entrepreneur route, right? You go, you start a business, you sell it, you make a ton of money, then you go make content, right?

Yeah.

And then you teach lessons, whatever, or write your book or do the podcast, whatever. What I was thinking was like, okay, you know what? I really believe in myself. I know I'm going to be very successful. Might happen when I'm 25, 35, 45, who knows? I'm gonna start documenting everything now, right? Like, I'm gonna treat social media as like my journal, but I'm just gonna talk instead of writing. And, and I actually didn't expect any sort of like following to come from it until like after I was successful. Thankfully, you know, I'm very fortunate and happy that people do like my stuff. But, um, you know, I make my content for free. It's literally more often than not, it is not content of me talking about what worked and how much money I made. It's me saying I made this mistake, this is the lesson I learned, right? Exposing myself. Yeah. Um, and so, you know, I do all this for free. I don't sell a course, I don't have a program, I don't even have like— like, I don't sell— I don't make any money from social media except hopefully if you want to come support my businesses, like, then you can buy my products, right? But, you know, every like week or so I'll usually do like a 2-hour long, like, TikTok Live, and it's literally titled, like, Answering Business Questions. And I just sit in there and I answer people's questions. And I would say, yeah, probably majority, like, 60% of them are good questions, right? Like, you know, what did you do when this happened? Do you have any advice for this? But a solid 40% are literally stuff like, um, people will be like Bro forgot to mention that his dad, like, funded his business. It's not only not true, right? Like, I don't talk about, like, my, like, personal stuff with my dad too much, but not true. But you're literally wasting an opportunity to ask a good question.

Yeah.

Like, like, how does that do anything for you? Let's see. Let's even say, like, let's even say, like, my parents and my family did fund my entire business.

Yeah.

It still doesn't do anything for you.

No. You know what it does for them? Validates their victimhood.

Yeah, I guess it does. Yeah, it makes them feel better.

It validates their, their, that victim mentality that they have. That's, that's the major problem across society.

But it's so frustrating because I'm like, bro, I'm literally here to help you guys, bro. I'm literally like here just to answer questions and try and be helpful. I want to help you guys.

Yeah.

And some people just literally just—

that's just the way it's going to be.

Yeah.

You know, I, uh, I totally— there's, there's no way around it.

Do you think that'll get worse?

Well, I think everything gets worse before it gets better. So it's pretty bad now. I think eventually it'll get better, but I don't know how much worse it'll get. I think it depends on how the— I think people's energy is directly correlated with the mass amount of content that they're consuming.

Yeah.

And I think that the problem is that these media conglomerates, the social media conglomerates, directly profit based on people's attention. Their attention is directly correlated with the type of content they consume, which is the stuff that makes them feel bad. At the end of the day. Yeah, the clout chasing, the I wish I had this, the wish I had that kind of stuff. So if they make money on that and they have shareholders, they have to do more of it. People are going to consume more of it. The algorithms are getting stronger. I think it's going to continue to get worse.

Yeah.

You know, if I think through it, it's probably continue to get worse until someone makes a change, right? Like we're talking about, like, right, like we should figure out how to make a change.

Yeah.

If we're going to be the guys talking about this stuff. Which we are doing at, at a small scale. You're at a larger scale than me as far as like your audience. I'm doing what I could do right now by having these kind of other side conversations. But there's change that could be made. You know, I have a new social media app that I invested in called Spacewalk, and it was built to give people genuine human interaction, right? Because social media is very fake.

Right.

You're posting because, you know, people are watching you. You're commenting knowing people are going to read them. We built Spacewalk. It's completely anonymous. It's a private profile. You pick your interests and you click start a session. It connects you with a one-on-one audio-only conversation and you can talk to as many people as you want. At the end of your session, you can either like or dislike people. And if you like each other, it opens up your profile to the other person. You can see their Instagram, things like that.

And it was kind of like blind dating, but for friends, blind relationships.

But what it does is it takes the ego out of the interaction. And, and there's not many interactions that are ego-free, especially in today's society. I mean, you go, where are you going to go do that? You're going to go to the coffee shop and talk to someone?

You're going to video games, honestly.

Yeah, yeah, video games are a good example. But then you got people that are just playing video games. Yeah, which is no problem with that. But my point is I'm trying to change that by getting involved with that company, uh, and we'll see what happens with it.

I like that. Um, Is there like a bright future when it comes to like a monetary return for that too? Like, how do they monetize? Yeah, is it more just like a passion you want to help out because you think it's a cool concept?

There's a very bright future. Um, I can't get into too many of the details here, but there's a very bright future.

Gotcha.

We'll see what happens with it. But my point is, you know, we're talking about the people that want to make changes. They're not sitting there commenting. They're doing something to make a change about it. Yeah, and that's what we should be doing, right? We see this problem in society. We need to make a change on it. Yeah, you do that through creating good content, writing books, creating companies that can help these things, your body positivity stuff. Like, this is good stuff.

Thanks, man. That's why we're really, um, we're really excited about this YouTube thing. I don't know if you had a chance to check out any of the videos yet, but like the whole concept for our YouTube is combining Jake Paul-like entertainment with Alex Hormozi education.

Yeah.

And in my opinion, because of like brain rot social media and people's attention spans being so short, you just— you really can't educate these days, and you shouldn't, without entertaining.

Yeah, you have to entertain also.

That's why classrooms are so like— bro, like, I mean, imagine if like the teacher would have spent a little more time trying to make it fun, right? You ever had like— like 9 out of 10 teachers are so boring you just want to get out of there, but every once in a while you have a teacher that really cares and they make it fun, like that history class or whatever in 7th grade.

Yeah.

And you learn something because it's fun. It doesn't feel like it. Being educated and learning should be a fun experience.

Yeah.

It shouldn't be something that's like, fuck this, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

So the concept for our YouTube is like every single episode is with a young founder. So someone you can actually like relate to and not just like some 78-year-old hedge fund billionaire who does— you can't even understand what he's saying. Yeah. And but every, you know, we talked about this with the whole your car thing. You do have to show a little bit of flash and you have to entertain a little bit in order for people to want to listen. It's like a friend of mine has this charitable— he has this charity in Austin at COTA, Circuit of the Americas, where like billionaires and really, really wealthy individuals loan him their supercars. Yeah. And then he takes kids from like really, really bad, poor neighborhoods that have like never gotten anything their way, probably missing a parent. And he drives them around in these supercars on the track.

That's cool.

As kind of— it, dude, it's such a really— it's such an awesome idea because these kids, essentially what it does for them, it's like, this is possible.

Yeah.

If you choose this store and not this one, which is where most of your friends are going to go.

Yeah.

Um, and so like we're essentially trying to do the equivalent of that with content by like only doing vid— like I've had people offer me like $15-20K to come on the podcast before, guys that I know are just like fucking gurus with no value. Yeah. Um, and so we're like really selective who comes on. It's, it's only people that I would personally want to be friends with that have a really cool story. They're doing something unique. And then every video is just like, yeah, it's a flow back and forth between entertainment and education, right? It's like us checking out your new car, and then we're gonna go do your house tour. That's the motivating, entertaining aspect.

Yeah.

And then we'll, you know, ask you a couple questions like, what's, what's the biggest lesson you learned in the past 2 years that changed everything for your personal life, right? Yeah, stuff like that. But I think it's going to be big. It might take— we're putting a lot of money into it. It might take a while until it starts to like actually pop off. Um, but I think it will be.

It's different. It's entertaining. And yeah, I haven't watched your videos specifically because I didn't want to try to prepare.

No, no, that's good.

Inauthentic for them.

Yeah.

I figured you're going to come in town, we're going to have a day, whatever you do, you do. It's just going to be real. As real as possible. Yeah. That's authenticity shows. People can feel authenticity for sure. They could feel fakeness.

Yeah. So.

I want to, you know, before we end things, I do want to talk a little bit about the things you do for your personal development, for your mental health, for your physical health. What are some of the routines you use in your life that make you feel better?

I don't have too many, um, like nitpicky routines. I mean, I try, I usually, you know, I've tried the whole waking up at like 4 AM thing. I did that, I like, I played football in high school and I was, you know, probably I was a back up. I was one of the worst ones on the team, but I was definitely the hardest worker. Yeah, 100%. Like, I'd wake up at like 4 AM every morning, go to the weight room at the school, work out. Then I do like routes by myself on the field, only kid there. And, and then for a while I would wake up like really, really early, um, when I was trying to learn how to day trade over in LA. And the waking up early thing just isn't— I like, I just realized like that's not gonna be what changes anything, you know. So I usually wake up around like probably 7, 7:30 these days. Um, the morning I like to have like pretty chill, and I'll, you know, go walk. Even I could have a coffee machine at my place, but I usually like to go walk to the coffee shop and grab something, get me outside.

Yeah.

And then it's mainly just meetings all day long. Um, I'll usually do a couple of meetings until about 10-ish, maybe 10:30. I'll hit the gym and then I'll have like my first meal usually after the gym, midway through the day, and then just meetings for the rest of the day. I literally— all I do is work right now. Like, I'm not— I never go out really. I will go on a cool trip every, every couple months and have a good time, whether that's like Coachella or Europe in the summer or ski trip in the winter, uh, maybe Art Basel in like a month or something. But in general I usually just work all day. Not really like dating right now, honestly. I'd love to if good options arrived, but I also like don't really feel like I'm in the right headspace to do it. Yeah, I feel like, I feel like I'm in such an important point in my life right now, such like make or break, this needs to happen the right way and soon, that that's kind of like what all my focus is on. Um, and I definitely, I definitely probably have a problem in terms of like workaholic type nature. I will say sometimes I'll feel like I need to work if I'm not, when in reality there's actually nothing that needs to be done. Yeah, like I'll finish everything and it'll be 7 o'clock at night and I'll be like, okay, I could watch a movie. I need to watch a podcast. Yeah, or I need to read, I need to do something that's better for me or else I'm falling behind. Yeah, that's probably not a good habit to have, um, but I feel like that feeling is probably going to be there until I make enough money where I feel like, okay, I can let my foot off the gas a little bit. Um, but yeah, I'd love to hear like if you have any advice or suggestions, what are some of the things that you think I should implement that have been game changer for you?

I think the, the main thing I would highlight is like there they're— I mean, at least from my journey and, you know, I, I do spend a lot of time with people that have, you know, gotten pretty far in life. You know, I'm part of a group called Tiger 21, which you need a $20 million liquid net worth to get into. So it's like very, very, you know, less than I think it's 1,500 people in the world. They're all age groups, all age groups, all different industries. You know, you get together once a month, all day. It's really cool because you do what's called I forget what they call it. Basically, you reflect on your whole life and you build this whole presentation like it's like 2 hours long and you, every little detail, pictures, blah, blah, blah, go through your whole life and then you go into your financials. And it's cool because it's about money. It's about preserving wealth, maintaining wealth, growing wealth. And you could talk about money. It's not like a taboo thing there. But anyway, my point is I get to surround myself, you know, the neighborhood I live in. I'm probably on the low end of the spectrum. It's like a very cool neighborhood. Um, my point is there, there is like, you know, you said when I get to this level of money, like I probably won't have to, you know, work this hard or I won't, you know, be that way. The level never really never comes. Like it just doesn't.

I don't think the level comes, but I will admit, like I thought this was just me. I was with one of my friends the other day. These, the, the, the 22-year-old is probably worth over $100K and he somehow just mentioned like, bro, yeah, I remember 3 years ago I'd wake up at 3 AM every single night sweating that I wasn't rich yet. And I was like, me too. Yeah, I think I'm in that right now. Yeah. Um, and because once again, I feel like I'm getting better and better, like every single day. Like, the network is getting better, the business is getting better, and it's not frustrating at all, honestly. Like, because I know it'll come with time, but I am eager for that moment to come because I— it's not like I'm gonna work any less or work any less hard. Yeah, but it just will be nice to have like that first big when, you know what I mean? For sure, for sure, for sure.

I think also there's like, there is a correlation between working hard and success, but I think it's overemphasized in society. Um, I believe that, you know, working hard is important, but if you're on the other side of the spectrum, like the spiritual side, I think it's more important, right? Because you can work hard and you can go from point A to point B to point C to D to E, F, G, X, Y, Z, and you land here. But if you had just taken, you know, 20 minutes to reconnect with the truth, let go, be present, feel the energy, you might go from point A right to point Z, and you get there in the same amount of time without having to do all these things to get there.

What are some, what are some actionable items like the average everyday young entrepreneur can take to speed up that process, or to really like think and plan, as opposed to just like firing everywhere like a madman?

Yeah, I'll go. I won't go as deep as I could go, but I'll go a little bit deep. I think spending more time reflecting is really important, right? We go, go, go, go, go. One thing that I do at the end of every day is I do like a daily review where I sit down with this. I used to use a notebook. Now I use this Remarkable with a 4-colored pen. Like this has colors on it and I'll literally look at my calendar. I'll write, okay, woke up at this time, drank coffee, Every detail, went to the bathroom, you know, spent time with my son, went for a walk, had this meeting. And anything that I did that was good for myself, that was like I'm proud of, I write in green. And anything I did that was like impulsive, whether it's like I scrolled on my phone here or I, you know, I drank a third cup of coffee when I didn't want to, I'll write in red. And then as I'm writing all these things, I remember, oh, I got to email that guy or, oh, I got to follow up on this thing. And then at the end of it, I grade my day. Like anywhere from an F to an A+ on how I was that day, how aligned with my truth of who I want to be was I that day. I've never gotten better than a B+ in my life, and I've done this for probably 2 or 3 years straight. But it's like, it takes, you know, in life there's so much going on, and then you throw in like the media and all the means of communication. I think I get like 1,700 notifications a day on my phone on average. So there's so much going on, and I think it's really important to just reflect and remember what's important. And then the next morning you wake up a lot more clear. So like that reflection time is really important. I also think the mornings are very important where you're— some days I'll wake up and I'll get right into work depending on what's going on, but I try to give myself space in the morning to realign with my truth. And that means different things to different people. In my case, you know, I've been kind of on the spiritual path for probably 7 or 8 years where I've kind of felt connected with a higher power and things that are kind of— words are too limited to explain, but I try to get there and I get there by letting go completely, surrendering, being in the moment. And being in that moment, you experience something. But what happens is, is like, for me, my mind will be like, oh, you don't need to go on the walk right now. Like, we know what's going to happen if we go on the walk, it'll be good, but like, we don't need it right now. But then I know if I just get out and go on the walk, I'll have an experience. I'm like, oh, I'm really happy I did this. So putting habits in place that are non-negotiable habits that allow for reflection and realignment, I think, are the two most important things. So the morning and the evening, and, and making habits and having discipline to stick to those things. The experience is always greater than what your mind tells you it would be.

So I agree with that, definitely.

So yeah, just like putting some frameworks in place to do the things that you know you need to do, whether it's the reflection, the whatever people do, whether you meditate, cold plunge, whatever it is that makes you feel better. And understanding that in doing so and having the discipline, you're actually training your subconscious mind to feel worthy of more. Instead of like, I'm going to get up and go for a run in the morning, and you get up and you convince yourself not to. And you know, you come up with all the excuses and you validate it in your mind. Your subconscious is still like, dude, you're a loser, you didn't get up, I don't feel worthy of, of success, I don't feel worthy of this. But if you get up and do it anyway, your subconscious is like, yo, we're the fucking man, like, we are worthy of this. And when you feel more worthy and more confident, you see opportunities that would have just went right by your, your consciousness. So I think habits that give you that space and understanding the power of continuous discipline and what it actually does to you are two things that like are big, big things in my life. Sweet.

Yeah, I'll try and I'll try and implement some of those.

Try not go too deep, but it's hard.

No, that's good. That's helpful. Yeah, I'm always— it's always interesting. I'm always trying to get like— I would say like even though everyone has like slightly different variations of their advice, because I've learned a lot of like great things from a lot of great entrepreneurs like yourself, it's all, it's, it's all kind of the same thing just with a slightly different variation, you know. It's not like, it's not like one person has like this fucking secret. Yeah, it's like the same thing repeated over and over.

Um, yeah, well, the thing is, words are inherently limited. Words were created to connect separate people, right? So in just in and of themselves, they are limited. So there's a limit between how much you can transfer utilizing words. So when I say something versus someone else says something, we might mean the same thing, but it's in different words, so it comes out differently.

For sure.

So, yeah, um, this was an incredible conversation. I think, um, I will— I, I personally support your brand. I think your brand's amazing. Thanks. I love the body positivity. Um, people want to follow you, they want to get your, your clothing. What's the best place for people to connect with you?

Lots of different links. There's like 5 different ones, but like, yeah, my Instagram. First of all, thanks for having me on, man. It's really fun. Um, and, uh, appreciate the opportunity to come out here and see all this. I'm excited to see what this office turns into. It's gonna be sick.

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, Instagram is just my name, Lucas Pachter. TikTok, Squid Pachter. We got our podcast that we'll do tomorrow called Squid Talk. Got the YouTube channel, Lucas Pachter. And then yeah, the business is called, uh, Squid House.

We'll link it all, we'll link it all below.

Cool.

Great conversation. Thank you.

Thanks for having me on, man. This was great.