Radical Accountability & Manifestation | Mason Doerr

The reason why people would argue, oh, we need to raise the minimum wage, we need to do these things that we're talking about, is because the media, the things that people are consuming, they use like moral compass. So people only really believe things based on the things they've consumed externally.

The easiest way to change who you are and who you want to be is by taking action even when you are in that low state.

What is God to you?

I think of God as sort of like what my real life dad would be if he were like perfect.

People that are living in challenging times, the news and the media feeds them a reason instead of taking radical accountability and doing something. I think that that's the biggest virus of our society. What's up, Zen Hard listeners? This episode is sponsored by Zendrop. Zendrop has a very special place in my heart, not only because I started the company, but because dropshipping is really a life-changing business for me. You see, I tried tons of things when I first got started, and what I love about dropshipping is that there's always an opportunity to sell a new product to a new person. There's billions of people and millions of products you can sell, and you never need to touch inventory. All you need to do is pick a product, run ads to it, and if people buy it, you make a profit. So if you're interested in getting started in your e-commerce journey, check out Zendrop.com and get started today. What's up guys? Welcome to the Zen Hard Podcast. In this episode, I'm interviewing Mason Dewar, otherwise known as Cardinal Mason. This is a really good one because we're at different points in life. Mason's 25, I'm 34. We're in different parts of our journey, but it's really cool to see the things that he's experiencing and the things that he believes about life and how they're leading him down an incredible path. But we don't just talk about the philosophy of life and creation. We also discuss fun things like watches and cars and living it up and enjoying Miami and which alcoholic beverages are best to drink at at night if you're trying to have fun. Anyway, this is a real fun one, guys. Enjoy, stay tuned, and I can't wait to see what you think. So yeah, we're talking about tactics. You know, it's funny because we're talking about what we wanted to get into here and start off. And, um, the funny thing is like you go to like a business seminar, right? Like a Grant Cardone event or something, and everyone's there to learn about tactics and marketing techniques. And how do you do copywriting, how do you run ads. But do you notice 95% of the people there haven't figured it out yet, and they're all focused on the tactics, which is why I don't really like to discuss tactics, because the people that have achieved anything have figured out something deeper than, you know, how do you run an ad, or how— they figured out something about themselves that gives them the guidance to figure things out. What are your thoughts on You know, you've achieved quite a bit for your age. I mean, you're 25, right? And you have a big program in the copywriting space and, you know, you're well known in that world. And it's a lot for someone your age and for someone in general. What are your thoughts on, you know, if you're, if you're, you know, starting a business, focusing on tactics versus focusing on personal growth?

It's an awesome question. I think I can only speak for myself. I remember a strict or a very distinct difference between who I was before I was decent at business and who I am now. And it's kind of hard to think about like, like chicken or egg theory where it's like, did that happen because I, you know, got better at business or did I have to grow first and then the business kind of came after? Um, and when I teach, you know, how to get started with freelancing, like there's a lot of like mental work that has to be done first. Or undone, I guess, to make someone sort of like ready to take that leap and like do what they need to do to sort of like figure stuff out. Yeah, I think the biggest thing is like, which most people don't have, it's like a sense of like independence and like certainty in like what they're doing and what they're like deciding to do. Like, um, I mean, you probably know this too, like you get stuck in like the employee mindset where like you never feel comfortable doing things like on your own without asking for permission or like waiting for someone to tell you to do it. And I think like that's a huge thing that people need to figure out, like when they're sort of like starting to transition into like being a business owner.

Yeah, for sure. I, I don't know if you know, I, I had, um, like an education business as well. Yeah, before Zendrop. Um, and we—

in the glory days, that was when it was fun.

Yeah, that's still fun. But I built the funnel that everyone copied. Like, I don't know if they still run it. I'm kind of out of that world now. But, you know, we had a coaching, a group coaching program where, you know, every week there's like 5,000 people in the program. Every week people would join, there'd be 100 or 200, whatever amount of people on. And all the conversations would start with like a question about e-commerce. But the 90% of the conversation would go into personal development stuff. It's like we, you know, people that want to get started with something, they don't necessarily believe they can do it yet. Like they know it's conceptually possible for other people, but for themselves it's not reality yet. And it's like, how do you break past that belief? How do you outperform your beliefs and kind of get to that next step? How did you do that?

How did I outperform my own beliefs?

Yeah.

Like, did you—

okay, better question. When you were first getting started, by the way, when did you kind of get started in this career path?

I was like, I was in like the COVID generation. So I was in my third year of university up in Canada.

Yeah.

And I got really sick of it. And then when COVID happened, like we just— everything shut down. Like there was no school. So I didn't— I wasn't working and like I finished my exams and I was like, well, I got nothing else to do. Like, let me just try this copywriting thing.

Did you think it was— were you like, I'm going to crush this? Or were you kind of like, you know, I know other people are— how did you feel when you first got started? Okay.

So I had never really crushed anything before.

Yeah.

So I didn't have the confidence that I was like, I'm going to take this on and, you know, just nail it. Yeah, as you and I would do now, where it's like you and I both started like a handful of businesses. If you had a good idea about something, you kind of know how to like flesh it out and like how to be semi-successful, even if it's like not that great of an idea. I never had that, and so I— it was a lot of just like blind faith in like knowing that other people had done it before. Cuz like my thing was like, I don't know if this is real. Like my whole thing was like, I'm just going to send cool emails to see if I can get clients.

Yeah.

I didn't know if that was real until I got my first response.

Yeah.

I remember the guy's email address too, because it was like so like impactful. Like in my mind it was mh@vandalproject.com. It's a Canadian supplement company in Vancouver.

Yeah.

And I pitched him and I said it was a no, obviously.

Yeah.

But I was like, oh, someone read this email and considered it and then landed on no.

Yeah.

Someone's going to land on yes.

Big breakthrough.

And so once you, once you have like a tiny little bit of proof, at least for me, once I had that tiny little bit of proof, I was like, okay, like, time to go, like, double down on everything and like, just make this happen. And then I think 65 cold emails later, I, you know, I was making money doing what I wanted to do.

Yeah, I actually remember my first time getting a sale on my, on my dropshipping business. And that was also— I was like, before I got into dropshipping, I actually owned brands. I did the hoverboards, I did inflatable loungers, and I was at a state fair selling inflatable loungers. Like, we would set up booths and bring like 300 of them and just sell them to people. and I had started a dropshipping business on the side just for fun, and I ran some Facebook ads. I remember I was at the event and like a sale came in. I was like, holy shit, like, I need to go fulfill this order. Yeah, it was like, this is crazy. I didn't do anything. I'm not at the event. So it's like, it's your career is a consistent, breaking through of micro barriers of beliefs and leveling up your standards. So your first thing was someone answered a cold email, right? It's like, okay, well now people can answer cold emails. I can get a yes. And what was your first client like, or your first actual yes?

I got, I got pretty lucky. My first client was Everyman Jack. Do you know that brand?

Yeah, is that, uh, they're around, like they're in CVS brand?

Yeah, yeah, they do like deodorant, like just men's, like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I bought it. That was my first client.

Really?

Yeah, dude, my strategy was I would go through, uh, Instagram because I didn't know how to find business. I didn't know about databases or anything like that. Yeah, I had no methods. And so I would literally just scroll through Instagram till I got an ad and then go and kind of audit their copy and stuff like that. And then I would go and use this tool called Hunter.io to pitch, or to find who the email address was that I should be reaching out to, and then I would pitch them.

Hunter.io?

Yeah, it's like an email, like, finder tool.

It's like a database. You could find the email address of someone that you want to get, is that what you're saying?

Right, but you basically type in the company domain, so airmanjack.com, and then it'll tell you CEO.

Oh wow, that's useful.

Super useful. It's, it's— yeah, it's the same as a database, just like a little bit more efficient.

But before you knew the tactics of all this stuff, you decided, let me just scroll through Instagram and try to figure this out.

Exactly. I didn't know that I could like actually use a database and blast out like 10,000 cold emails a day. I didn't know that yet.

But it's a good thing because it's like momentum leads you into unforeseen outcomes. If you just start on something, you're going to learn something through the process. It might lead you to something that's unexpected and you're going to learn from it and keep growing. I think a lot of people They don't start because they don't have the grand plan yet, or they haven't convinced themselves that they know enough to do it.

Were you different though? Like, did— because you were an earlier entrepreneur, I think it sounds like you kind of always had that, like, that entrepreneur bone. I didn't. Were you sort of like a, I'm gonna just like figure this out as I go and like just hope it's all good? Because I was not that.

I think— well, I don't know. I think for me, I had this like unwarranted confidence when I was younger. Like, I don't know why I was able to, like, scheme my way through high school and do pretty well. So I thought, like, I could figure other things out.

Right, right.

I think a lot of people get beat down a few times and it's like, all right, well, I can't do it. I got lucky on a few things early on, which, you know, we need validation. If you try enough things and you keep getting beat down, it's like you're going to give up eventually, right? Have you ever seen that image of a guy who's like mining for a diamond and there's like a thin wall there?

And the diamonds are right there.

Yeah, I think, I think of that image all the time. That thing, that image always breaks me through. But the other thing is like people online that are, you know, looking at success, quote unquote successful people, which by the way, is such a broad term. They look at people that have achieved things and they have this misconception that that person knew what they were doing. That person had a plan, they executed on it. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't have a plan, therefore I can't get started yet. But the common theme I'm finding from anyone from you know, people in their, in their early mid-20s that have a certain type of business to CEOs of billion-dollar companies, people still like— I still don't really know what I'm doing. I have more confidence because I've done things, but like, I still don't know what the right thing is going to be. And I think that's a concept that I'm curious if you find that amongst your group of coaching students, that they don't take action until they feel confident they know exactly what they're doing.

Yeah, that's something I have to tell them a lot is like, you're never going to know 100% of what you're doing. Like, you're always going to— you're never going to get past like 55, 60% of like feeling ready until you actually just start and you will figure it out on the fly and you'll get confidence by those little mini inputs like your first sale, your first response to a cool email.

Yeah.

And so I attract a lot of people like me. So you sort of natural born entrepreneur, me not so much. I needed to get sold on the idea that I could actually do it in order to trust the playbook.

Yeah.

And then once I did, I was like, okay, I'm just gonna turn my brain off and just send a bunch of cold emails. And then it started to work because I just did the work.

Yeah.

But for me to convince myself that it was possible, like it was a colossal task.

Yeah.

And so I have to tell people like, don't wait until you're ready because you're never going to be ready. Like you kind of have to like shoot in the dark a little bit.

Yeah. It's never the right time.

Exactly.

So have you hit any plateaus that you've broken through since you got started in this career path? Like, have you hit any times where you're like, man, I don't know what's next? Or have you just kind of had momentum since you got the ball rolling?

Yeah, okay, so yes, but I've—

it's—

I've never really had to force an answer to that. Every time I've— are you spiritual or religious or anything?

Very spiritual.

Okay.

Um, religious in my own regard. I don't follow a certain religion to the to the book.

Gotcha. Okay, so this applies no matter what. I feel like I've been— my path in business has been very spiritual, where it's like everything that's kind of supposed to happen has like been— it's been strangely coincidental. So like, I've— anytime I like need the next sort of thing, there's something that's like glaringly obvious right in front of me where it's like, oh, that's what it is. I never like, I never sit there with like a business model that's like I'm not super stoked on and like, what should I work on next? And then build it. It's just not how like it's ever worked out for me. Like there was so early in 2023, like February, March, there was like a project that I was working on for a while that really kind of started to like tank and it was coming to a close and I was like, what am I going to do? And I was like, there was a brand that my friends were working on that I could have jumped on. I, there was like a SaaS idea that I had that I don't even remember now. And then I didn't even see it. And then like right in front of me was what I'm working on now, Copy MBA. And I was like, oh, duh, like I'll just do this.

Yeah.

And so that it was so easy for me to make that jump. It's always kind of just been handed to me. And so like if, and so it's maybe not the most like entrepreneurial way to think about it, but like if at some point I am kind of done working on Copy MBA, which is years from now. I know that when that's actually ready to happen, like, there's going to be something else that's right in front of you. It's like, that's the exact thing I need to do and just jump on that.

What you just said is so powerful. I don't know if you know how powerful that is, that you have a knowing that you're being guided or that things are happening the way they're supposed to happen. And I think that comes from— and which, which, which is why a lot of people that are successful in entrepreneurship and have an abundant life, not just money, but family, love, joy, fun, adventure. They understand the distinction between their, their mind and their soul, or, you know, their, their chattering ego and their true self. And I'm— this is my philosophy, has always been that if you can kind of tap into your true self, you, you can tap into that intuition and be guided. And I think most people out there, their mind has most of the control over them, and they're consistently judging things and and they feel like they need to do something. I need to do, I need to do, I need to do. And my kind of broader philosophy is like, the way you feel and the way you are in the moment creates the life around you. And if you always feel like I need to, I need to, I need to, you're going to get more of I need to. And it's like, if you can tap into that intuition and feel guided, you're going to find that next answer. But it's— you have it inside of you. You just have to clear the clutter. But having that knowing that you have, that you have that guidance is really powerful because you can always revert back to that. That'll guide you down paths that are not apparent right now, but that you need to find.

Problem is though, it's random. So it's not like I can just like sit in a room and meditate for 30 minutes and then tap into that and know exactly what I need to do. It only comes when I really, really need it.

You ever—

you're a Harry Potter guy?

I've read the books.

Okay, Room of Requirement.

Which one?

The Room of Requirement. It's a room. It's a— okay, so it's a part of Hogwarts. Yeah, I sound like such a dork right now.

It's okay.

That's a good—

probably a great analogy.

It's a part of Hogwarts where it's like it's this room that appears that has everything you need, but only when you really, really need it. You can't just go there.

Yeah.

And I feel like that's kind of the thing where it's like those, those like thoughts or those like impulses or those answers to the questions that I have only come when it's like kind of dire.

Yeah.

Like I was this time— or not this— okay, so like beginning of 2023, I was like run out of money.

Yeah.

I was like, I was spending a lot on my lifestyle and just on stuff, and it was just like an expensive time. And the everything I was working on just wasn't working. And so it was like, it was like a last-ditch sort of like God throwing me one, and then I was able to get back up and everything was amazing again.

Did you know that God was gonna throw you one, or were you like doubting it?

No, I was stressing out, dude. Every day I was calling my partner, uh, that I was working this other project with, every day, and like We were just, we would talk on the phone and be like, what do we do? Like, what are we gonna do? And he was like, I don't know, man. I'm like, do you even care about this? He's like, no, like, bro, yes, I care. Like, we're gonna figure it out, it'll be fine. I'm like, let's figure something out then. And I was, it was so frustrating. And after like, after like weeks of that, months of that, I was like, okay. Then finally it came to me and then it was, it was good. Everything started to work out again.

But what moment did it come to you in? Was it a moment of you trying to figure it out or was it a moment of you kind of letting go?

No, it was a moment of action. So like when we kind of started up Copy MBA, the story of Copy MBA is like it was— you know who Chase Diamond is?

No.

He's like a LinkedIn influencer. He's like kind of like a mentor to me, like homie. One of my first clients, he owns an agency called Structured.

Okay, I know that agency.

Yeah, Nick Shackelford.

Yeah, I know Nick.

Yeah, yeah, Nick and Jake. So he's a partner with—

oh, I think I know Jake. Did he used to sell fidget spinners?

Yes. Okay, I know he did. I think Nick did too.

Yeah.

Um, so I worked at that agency and I've just been connected with Chase, like doing work with him forever. We launched this course in September of '22, and it was kind of like a side project. We were like, yeah, whatever, we'll make like an extra 10 a month just like slinging this sometimes.

Yeah.

And then, um, when I was making all these changes and things were kind of going bad, I, I was like, I told Chase, I was like, let me take this over because I kind of need this right now. Like, I kind of need something else to work on.

Yeah.

So I ended up buying him out, or down to like a smaller percentage, and then I started doing weekly webinars with my buddy Ben Bader. He's like sort of like a backend, like, info marketer guy, like really understands the technical side. And I was sort of like the frontend face of it, like the salesman. Yeah. And so we started doing these and it was like, I think we just started getting better at like driving traffic to it. And I think the first time I did like $20K off a webinar, I was like, huh, like this is a nice little chunk of change. Like if I did this every week, like I would be good again. Like I wouldn't have to worry about like, you know, what I'm spending. And then because of that, because we were already in it, our brains were just like lighting up with all these different ideas in different ways, like different ways to get traffic, different ways to monetize. Like, can we spin up a high ticket thing? And then it became like, it, it, it happens like when you're actually working, like you can't kind of just be sitting there thinking, like, that's why I kind of said the thing about meditation. Like you can't just sit there and wait. Like you have to be doing something. You have to be in motion for it to come. And then it will.

I have a, not an argument to that, but a different way of looking at it. I wanna get your take on it.

For sure.

So I think when you're in that action, when you're in the motion, it changes. Like, for example, let's just look at two different people. There's one guy who's like, you know, he's gotten beaten down, you know, he's scrolling on his phone all the time, he's playing video games, he's eating unhealthy foods, he's just kind of like, you know, he's definitely not in motion, but he's in a low energy state, a low vibrational version of himself, and he just can't figure out what to do. But yeah, another guy that is doing something, whether it's, you know, they're moving in the business or they're keeping promises to themselves, like working out or getting up early or whatever it may be, and they have a different energy about themselves, right? They feel better. I believe that the thoughts you need to go in whatever direction you want to go in are, are created by your energy. I believe that the way you feel is some kind of frequency that attracts thoughts. Like, I don't think thoughts come from us. I think that they're Basically, you're— if you're feeling fucking great, you're gonna get thoughts of that same frequency, right? So when you're in those really tough times, I think the first thing you gotta do is change your energy. And that can be through taking action and getting some momentum in business, or that can be, you know, getting up every day for 14 days in a row and going for a run and starting to feel some momentum. But I believe your, your thoughts are attracted to you. Rather than you trying to figure them out. So whenever, you know, things are confusing for me or conflicting, I focus less on what do I need to do and more on who do I need to be. And the thoughts kind of magically come and get figured out. I'm curious how that aligns with your philosophy about—

You said think less about what I need to do and more about who I need to be.

Yeah.

But you kind of made the argument that like who you need to be is like a direct reflection of what you're doing. So you're saying like, Is it the brain first? Is the mind first that like causes the actions or is the action that causes the thoughts? I think, I think the action comes first.

The action causes the thoughts, like in many different ways. I believe it's like, um, you know, you can look at two guys again, right? There's, there's a guy that's, um, breaking promises to himself. Hey, I'm going to get up and do this. He doesn't do it, right? He's feeding the mind that, that wants to stay comfortable and taking power away from the true self. And, and, you know, and what happens is, is, you know, we have a subconscious and our subconscious is looking at every action we take and it's either rooting for us or rooting against us, right? If you're, if you're supposed to do things and you're not doing them, you're not taking the actions, your subconscious is like, dude, what the fuck are you doing? Like, we're not worthy of anything, right? The guy that's doing all the things that they know they need to do, take those actions, the subconscious is like, fuck yeah, we're killing it. We're worthy of everything. The same guy who feels worthy or confident, same thing, can be walking through life and see an opportunity that the guy who didn't feel confident would have walked right by.

Exactly.

So I think it's, you know, if you change your— if you focus more on who you need to be, which is taking the actions to become that person, getting up, you know, doing the things you got to do, you'll see opportunities that otherwise you would have missed. You'll get thoughts that otherwise you wouldn't have had. And I just feel like society is very counterintuitive about that. And that's why, you know, when we started off this conversation, we talked about tactics, right? People are not being the version of themselves they need to be, but they're trying to figure out the tactics, but they're never going to get anywhere until they change who they are.

Yes. But do you— would you say though that your actions, like the easiest way to change who you are and who you want to be is by taking action even when you are in that low state?

I think taking physical action.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah, right.

I agree.

Moving your body, getting up, getting outside, getting off your phone.

I think because, okay, so there's like the big three, right? Like the— okay, so you need your health, you need your like health, wealth, and relationships.

Yeah.

So because that's like that, I feel like I'm in a great spot with all those. I'm very blessed right now. But there's like, you can always tell when there's something off with people when it's like, okay, they don't have any of them. Yeah, they don't have anything to work on financially. They, you know, they're not in great shape. And they have like a terrible social life. Yeah, like what's the easiest thing to work on first? I think it's the gym. Yeah, I think like, like that's kind of what I did like during COVID like that time. Like dude, I'm super fat.

Really?

I like— yeah dude, I was like 60 pounds heavier than I am right now.

60 pounds heavier?

I was chubby. It's hilarious.

How, how much do you weigh now?

Like 140. I'm little.

So you were 200 pounds?

I was almost 200 pounds, yeah.

Damn.

Yeah, I was a big kid.

Good for you.

Um, but like getting Like starting to do that, like deciding, okay, I'm gonna run today, or I'm gonna fast today, or I'm gonna, you know, do, you know, some sort of bro split for like, you know, 6 weeks straight and just not miss one. Um, that's way easier to get momentum with than like trying to do something that involves other people because your vibes are just too low. Yeah, like trying to fix your social life or start a business when like you're at the bottom of the barrel of all 3. I agree, I think that health is like probably the first thing you should work on.

Well, it, it, you, it affects your energy and how you feel, and it affects your subconscious of feeling worthy or not, right? If you're— your subconscious knows if you're acting in line with your truth. It knows if you get up in the morning, you scroll on your phone, you eat some shit, you, you know, whatever you do, you— it knows like, hey, we're not living up to our potential. Who do we think we are to be able to have this success or have this relationship or whatever it may be? But it also knows like when you get up on that morning when you don't want to go to the gym and you do it anyway, it starts to feel— it starts to root for you and it starts to guide you to opportunities. I think like society has it super backwards and I think it's a big part of it has to do with social media because we consume so much information every day that never happened in the history of humanity before.

Yeah.

And most of that information pulls you away from the need to focus on yourself because you can get the same dopamine hits from scrolling on your phone as you could from getting up and going for a run. But the subconscious looks at those two things very differently. Yeah, it creates totally different outcomes of who you are.

Yeah, I'm not going to lie. I spend quite a bit of time on my phone still, but I think there's still a balance you have to strike. Like, I think for you, probably too, you got to make a list of stuff you want to— like, just a realistic list of stuff that you want to do for a day or for a week or something like that. And it doesn't really matter what's on the list. But like you said, like, I— I love that you keep saying, uh, breaking promises with yourself, cuz like that's like a, a real, real sin that people do when it's like, even if on the thing is literally just like walk 1,000 steps, don't eat like a piece of shit, and like, you know, maybe send, you know, 10 cold emails or something like that. That's bare minimum for most people. Like, for you and I, it's like, dude, like, what else are we going to do the rest of the day? But if you can nail those 3 things, um, like that, that alone even if you're not making like actual real progress, like just hitting those marks is going to be huge just like for the internal thing.

But progress, the only— the problem with when you're measuring progress, there's only so many things you can measure, and one of them is dollars in your bank account or dollars you're generating, and that's a very measurable thing. But there's tons of progress you can make otherwise that's harder to measure. You know, you could have a weight loss goal, but it's hard to measure how many promises you keep to yourself or how you're progressing in your the way you show up in life.

Do you measure that? Is that the type of thing you would do, is like measure promises like that?

I do actually. Um, at the end of each day, I'll sit down. I use this thing now, my— this Remarkable, because it's got different colors.

I almost bought one of those years ago.

Yeah, the new one you can do colors with, and the colors are important because I, I used to use a 4-colored pen, and I would, I would sit down at the end of the day and just think about everything I did that day, from like to the minor detail. What time did I get up? Did I drink water? Did I drink coffee? Did I go to the bathroom? When did I get out the door? You know, what texts did I make? Like, just trying to recall the day. Because while you're doing that, you're like, oh wait, yeah, I got to do that, right? You're kind of like getting all those things off your mind that are causing you like a little bit of anxiety. But I'll specifically write down impulsive behaviors like scrolled on my phone, you know, drank another cup of coffee when I didn't want to, ate a piece of chocolate cake when I wasn't supposed to, in red. And then in green, I'll write my, like, the good things. Like I went for a run or I meditated or I spent time with my family or I called my grandpa. And then at the end of the whole thing, I'll give myself a score, like anywhere from A+ to an F. And I've never gotten above a B+ on any day.

Really?

Yeah.

Even, even if you're trying?

Even if I'm trying, I still don't stick to every promise.

What's an A+ to you?

A+ is like I get up exactly when I'm supposed to. I stick to my schedule. I don't have any moments of being— I think presence is a big part of it for me. Like if I'm present during the day, my day is much better. But like there will be a time where I get sucked onto my phone or I'll do something that I wasn't going to do, or I've never had a perfect day is my point.

Do you judge yourself for that?

I judge myself, but when I get it out on paper and I see it and I have a reference point for the next day, it kind of like, like resets. All right, tomorrow I can, I can get back to it. But I think people go through their whole lives without taking account for the things they're doing. Which is why they can't measure their progress, right? Because they can only measure the dollars. That's the only measurable thing.

So are you, are you on Twitter? Like money Twitter?

No.

Do you know who Brute De Force is?

I don't.

Okay, so this is a bit of a deep pull. Some, some of your guys are gonna know who this is.

Go deep.

I, I saw a tweet from him.

Who's this?

Brute De Force.

Okay.

I saw a tweet from him a while ago. That I thought was so interesting, and I've thought about it a lot. I screenshotted it, it was my lock screen for a little bit. It was something— I can't remember exactly what he said, but he said something like, the scoreboard isn't for the players, it's for the audience. And so his whole philosophy is something that I, I guess, kind of adopted by accident. So like, it's kind of anti-that. It's kind of anti, like, mark down in green and red, like, what you like about your day or something like that. It's very much like you're going to start something and you're going to be heads down in it for years, and you're going to look up and you're going to have everything you want. Yeah, that's kind of how I've been, at least for the last few months. Very much like not tracking anything, um, not being impulsive, but just kind of going off like my gut and like really, really trying to be present. Cuz like when I do that, it takes me out of it and I overthink.

Yeah.

And I feel bad. It's like a low vibrational place for me to be.

Yeah.

Cuz I used to do a lot of that. I used to like really— like, I used to journal every day on my phone. I used to think about like all the things that I did right and wrong and stuff, and like, and I kind of like beat myself up for it if I didn't do it right. But now I just don't think about it, and I just operate from a way better place. And that natural vibe lift makes it so that I can kind of, without thinking about it, just be better. Yeah, like I don't have to think about should I go to the gym because I'm just like in motion, like we said before, like just doing stuff, present. And so when I think about— so that's the scoreboard, right? I thought that was so interesting where it's like the scoreboard isn't for the players, it's for the audience. Yeah. I wish I could take credit for that, but I can't, because it's like, it doesn't really matter like what you're doing as long as like you're doing, you know, like acting, I guess, from your gut, like from your heart, I guess.

Does that kind of make sense? 100%. Well, the, the reason that I like to take a look at the things I've done for the day is because I very strongly believe that there's a battle going on inside of us between our mind and our gut. Or there's different words, right? Like the mind or the ego or the, you know, whatever, that one part of you. Or like the gut, the intuition, the soul, whatever it may be. I feel like there's a— there's battles in almost every decision that we're not conscious of. And I strongly believe that the more you can follow your gut or your intuition, the stronger you become. The more you can tap into that knowingness, you get the more of those answers. And I think for some people like myself, I'm a relatively impulsive person, and my mind is really good at convincing me not to do certain things or to, to do certain things I don't want to do. And if I don't have some kind of, you know, tabs on it, it can get out of control. But also, I think life kind of ebbs and flows. Like, sometimes I'm more disciplined with it, sometimes I'm less disciplined with it. So I think like anyone that, that says this is the way to be is a bit of bullshit because I think you have to be different through different chapters of life as you're growing. And I think sometimes a really good routine is important, sometimes it's not important. I think it kind of depends on where you're at in your, in your growth curve.

100%.

Have you heard of the, the model called the Valley of Disappointment?

Valley of Disappointment.

This would probably resonate with you pretty well.

Okay.

So basically it's a chart, right? And on the x-axis or the y-axis, the one that goes up and down, it's progress. And on the bottom axis, it's time, right? So like, as you do something, you think for all the time you put in and effort, you should get a certain amount of progress or output, right? And should be linear. But the truth is, when you start something, whatever it may be, it could be your business, it could be a fitness goal, it could be anything. You typically make very little progress or even negative progress in the beginning. And then there's a long period of time where your reality is below your expectations. So like where you think you should be. And then eventually, whether it's in 6 months, a year, 2 years, 5 years, depending on what you're doing, your reality surpasses your expectation. And that period of time where your reality is below where you think you should be is called the Valley of Despair or the Valley of Disappointment. And that's where most people give up because they look at their life and they're like, I've been putting all this work and my outcome is not where it should be. So I think that concept is, is really interesting for entrepreneurs because eventually if you keep going, you will surpass where you think you should be. Have you, have you had that experience in your career where, you know, there was days where you're like, I've been putting in so much effort and time and I'm not where I should be. And then there's a time where now you're like, oh shit, I'm way past where I thought I could be.

Yes, absolutely. I was thinking about that recently. It's less about just business and more about like, I guess, kind of the way I feel about myself, just where my life is in general. Um, yeah, I really was not happy with where I was at for a long time, up until like a couple years ago. And even then, that was when I was kind of getting close to that, like, I guess, point where they meet. And only in the last like maybe 3 months have I surpassed where I should— where I thought I should be.

Yeah.

So yeah, no, that's, that's really hitting right now. Um, why do you— wait, why do you bring that up?

I'm just thinking about people when they're talking about growth or whether they should have routines or not have routines or whatever it may be. When you zoom out at a macro level, it's good to have a roadmap. It's good to have something to hold on to. It's good to have hope. Like, you know, you said— did you say you are a religious or spiritual person?

Yeah, I believe in God.

You believe in God. And does that give you you know, hope or, you know, the power to keep going in tough times?

Yeah, yeah, that's— I mean, that's usually when I lean on it most.

Yeah.

Is like— and that's something I kind of got to work on— is like usually in the, in the tough times, it's like, yeah.

When you say you believe in God, what does that, what does that mean to you? Like, because people think different concepts of, of God. I'm curious what your stand— like, what does that mean to you?

So, um, do you mean in terms of like how I treat interactions?

What is God to you?

I, I actually think when— at least when I visualize it, it makes it easy. I know it's not actually this, but I think of God as a man in the sky.

Okay.

I think of— I think of God as sort of like what my real life dad would be if he were like perfect. Um, and you know, usually it's sort of like a, like a brainstorm buddy to like figure stuff out with. So like when I pray, it's usually like, here's what I'm thinking, like help me work on it. And like, it— he might be there, he might not be, but like usually if I sit there and think about it long enough, there will be something that comes to me where it's like, oh, that's a good idea.

Yeah.

Was that me or was that you?

Yeah.

And then also too, like, it, it forces me to just like do gratefulness.

Yeah.

Um, because like the way I like to do gratefulness is not like the things that— I think I heard this from Gary Vee. It's not the things that I'm like actually happy about where it's like we just hit a record month, like hell yeah. It's more like, thank God I still have— like, do you ever think about what your life would be like if you lost a leg? Do you ever like really think about it? No. I think about sometimes what it would be like if I actually had— if I was lopped off at the knee here and if I had to like hobble around, if like what my life would be like where I— all I'd be thinking, by the way, not gonna ruin it. Like, I would literally just be like, I would literally rather be like broke and, you know, fat and all this stuff, but I would rather have a leg, you know? Yeah, like I would take that leg over pretty much anything else.

It's a great thing to think about regularly because it, it makes life look way better than—

dude, yeah, like you instantly come out of that because you can meditate on it for like 90 seconds and think about like literally your day-to-day of like if you had to get like your girl to push around in a wheelchair or something like that, like Oh my God, like what a pain in the ass that would be. Yeah, but I have a leg and I come back to reality. I'm like, thank, thank God I got a leg, you know what I mean?

That's— I fucking love that because like, you know, as you progress in your career, financially specifically, you're like, if I only had $10,000, I'd be— I remember when I was in my early 20s, I had a business partner and I caught a glimpse of his bank account. It had like $500,000 in it and I was like, oh my God. I had $500,000, I'd be set. And I was like, you know, then $500,000 becomes a new norm. Then, then you hit a million, then you hit $10 million. And it's like you, you kind of can always feel broke or abundant no matter where you actually are. And that never goes away. You always want more. But if you think about what would life be like if I didn't have a leg, that kind of goes out the window and you could tap into that, that gratefulness.

You could do it for anything, like even a smaller thing where it's like, you ever lost a nail?

I have not though.

Oh, I used to— it used to happen to me all the time because I used to do jiu-jitsu. Oh yeah, lose nails like every couple months.

Really?

It was so annoying because it's like you lose some grip strength, like it just— you have to— or like when you bite your cheek or your tongue or something like that, it's like you can't like chew properly. You have to like— like when you're drinking water, you have to throw it to one side of your mouth. Yeah, such a minor thing, but it's like right now I, I have not bitten my tongue. Yeah, and it's like I'm happy about that, you know what I mean? Like it could be something small, like it could be awful where it's like, yeah, you lose a leg or like everyone you know and love dies in, you know, some sort of accident. Like, you don't have to think about that, but yeah, just like small things like that where it's like, huh, like that's one thing I didn't realize I was grateful for until, you know, it happened. Like, you do lose now and it's like, man, I miss my—

I miss my finger now. Most people will never lose a leg, but everyone will lose someone they love in life.

Yeah.

And it's good to think about death because it keeps you engaged It's like, have you— at least for me, like, I often think about, like, people I love. I, you know, I lost a best friend like 2 years ago. He was my age, completely unexpected. It was horrible. Um, and it was like, in, you know, before I lost him, in my head it was like, we're gonna, you know, get old, or this— like, I always thought about what life would be like. He's gone. It's like, that could happen to anyone in life.

Yeah.

So it's just an indicator that, you know, you should make that phone call. You should, because like at the end of the day, people are counting their chips, they're counting their money, but you're not going to die and have a scoreboard and say, here's how much I died with. You're going to die and have nothing. But when you're on your deathbed one day, you're going to look back and say, you know, I wish I spent more time with the people I loved. I wish I— and I think that's another big thing in society, that people disregard the, the thing they have, which is important. It's the people they love, the things they love in their life, and they're only focused on getting more money. And I actually also think that's counterintuitive. I think in being more present and, and, you know, contacting the people you love, you, you know, you cultivate more gratefulness, you feel more abundant. I think you actually generate more money that way. I think there's a lot of counterintuitive things in society. And it's— that's the— those are the things I like to talk about because that's why 99% of people never make it and 1% do, is because most people are working counterintuitively. I just noticed that a lot.

What, like, yeah, what else? Give me another one.

Well, another one is, well, some of the stuff we've been talking about, like people are looking externally for answers, they're looking for tactics, they're looking for that next thing to happen, and they're not tapping into their intuition which guides them. You know, it's one big thing is like, uh, you know, the universe we live in, right, this reality we live in is unlimited. Meaning like anything can happen at any moment. Yeah, it's infinite, right? If the universe is infinite, that means there's infinite things that could happen. A meteor can come strike the Earth tomorrow. You know, anything could happen in society that shifts the markets, that shifts your life. Yeah. And yet people have something they want to do and they expect things to happen a certain way, right? They're like, oh, well, I need to call this person, then this deal needs to happen, then I need to make this sale, then that has to happen. But if there's an unlimited universe, anything over infinity, if you know math, it's zero, right? So the odds of you knowing exactly how something's going to happen is zero. And what happens is when things don't happen the way you expect them to, you get attached to those outcomes and you feel fear or you feel, oh shit, that guy never answered me or this deal never happened. And you change the way you feel in the moment. And my whole philosophy is the way you feel in the moment creates life around you. So if you have expectations for how things happen, you change the way you feel in the moment, which creates more of the way that you feel. So it's counterintuitive. I believe you should have a vision, something that you want to work towards, and you should know that things are going to happen in unexpected ways and let go and be present. And that's, you know, this is after years of like, you know, a 12-year entrepreneurial journey. These things are starting to come clear.

I was gonna say, like, that takes a lot of discipline. Discipline to be able to trust that everything will be cool. Like, that's not something that anyone could do. You need a lot of proof for yourself, and that would happen, I guess, in 12 years running businesses. You need a lot of proof that like things just happen to work out, you know what I mean? A lot of times like you think it's over, you know what I mean? Like, I've had that thought a million times. It's like, but you're never— it's never over. Like, there's always— there are infinite opportunities to like make something happen. But yeah, you need a lot of proof in your life and in your business to know that that's actually validation. Yeah, you got to have a lot of trust.

Yeah. Yeah. But if someone receives this message and it helps them get through something, it's worth talking about in my eyes. Like the, some of them, the most successful people I've ever met have that inherent trust that they feel guided.

It's rare to—

that's rare amongst usual society, but it's very common amongst people that are the world changers. Uh-huh.

No, 100%.

I got to spend some time with Richard Branson.

Oh, that's— wait, how?

Honestly, I don't know. The universe set it up for me somehow. It wasn't something I planned on doing. I ended up going to Necker Island for a week with my family and spent a week with the guy. And he's not stressed about a single thing. And it's not because he's built so much money or so much financial success. He's always valued having fun over anything else, still to this day. And the way he puts it is if he focuses on having fun, things happen the way they're supposed to happen. And like, he has that deep knowing. A lot of very successful people I've met value the intuition and the knowing a lot more than the tactics, right?

That—

I think— I just think that's the most counterintuitive thing in society, is people are looking outwards as opposed to inwards.

I think the tactics can get you to like $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 a month because like to bring it back to sort of like regular society, the intuition thing is like what talent is in like the NBA. Like I can put up, I can shoot, you know, 1,000 threes a day and like get okay.

Yeah, shooting threes.

But I'm not going to be Steph where it's just like he knows in his heart that ball's going in. Yeah, that's a, it's a different thing. Like so for, for most people, regular person, to like start a thing and make enough money where they can like afford their mortgage and some food and stuff like that, like $10,000 to $15,000 a month, the tactics will help them. But Richard Branson didn't get to, you know, billionaire status through tactics. Like, you just can't— you can't like logic math your way through it. It's like here and here and here. And like, you can't really teach that. Sometimes you can learn it along the way if you're really dedicated and you want to, but no.

I think tactics are important. That's not my point. No, no, important.

That's what I'm saying.

People disregard the other side, which I think is equally or more important.

But I think that's why, like, okay, so like to get to $10K a month, like you could do that in your sleep. You've done that a billion times. Like, you know how easy it is to like validate an idea and use tactics to get there. Yeah, that's usually as far as people can get.

Right.

But I'm saying to build something that's greater than you or greater than at least $10K a month, like it requires a lot more. That like some people just aren't built with. And that's why, like, so that the intuition thing, like, do you think that can be learned or taught, or do you think you either have it or you don't?

No, I think it's, uh, it can't be learned or it can't be taught by someone else. It has to be learned by yourself through experience.

Gotcha.

You have to find it, and only you can find it, and it's going to mean something to you that words cannot necessarily describe to someone else. Words are limited. Words were created to communicate something that's inside of me to you. So inherently they're limited. There's only so many words you can use, but the way you feel and the things you know are infinite. So to learn how to tap into your intuition is only something you can learn. You can listen to something conceptually, like listen to this podcast and say, oh yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. That makes sense. But if you start doing the things, whether it's, you know, getting up early or going for a walk, going for a run and start feeling intuition, experiencing it, the lessons are infinitely more powerful than learning them through concept, through reading, through listening to things.

Yeah. Are you a big reader?

Yeah, I am. I, I do 75 Hard. Yeah. Yeah, I've done 75 Hard a bunch of times, so it keeps me reading. Are you a big reader?

No, no, I'm not. I, I like, I like reading from certain people. Like, I'm on a lot of newsletters. Okay, um, so I'll read like what people have to say, like, you know, 600 words from this guy for the day. I'm like, okay, um, but I— yeah, no, I don't find myself like sitting down and like reading, you know, random little books. I don't know, I just don't feel like, uh, I just don't feel like it helps me as much as like a conversation would. Yeah, and so like I'm getting way more out of this than I would from, you know, reading you know, like a, a cult classic, just because like it's more real. It forces me to remember it. Like, I may— I think I just have a bad memory. I definitely have a bad memory, but I don't remember much of what I read.

Yeah, from books. But I think the thing about reading, like, I read a lot of spiritual books.

Okay.

And I, I can't really regurgitate everything I learned. I also consider myself not to have a great memory, but there's— if I get one nugget out of it that guides me to an experience that I learn a lot from, like it was worth reading the whole book. So I'm not like reading and taking notes and studying it and like trying to live by what other people say. But occasionally I'll read something and it's like, ah, or it'll remind me of something that I'm like, that's so true. I forgot. I got to stop. Like, it's like I read spiritual books more than anything, you know, The Power of Now, or do you know Michael Singer is—

I might know some of his titles.

He, he wrote, um, The Surrender Experiment, um, uh, The Untethered Soul.

Oh yeah, yeah, of course.

Great book. Um, but the thing with reading is like, I'll— there's certain authors that I really like and, and I'll read all their stuff because I'm like, oh, that guy, that guy's figured some stuff out. Like, let me try to take in the energy that he put into this book. There's a lot of other books I'm like This guy doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about and I don't want to read it. So finding new things I want to read is kind of challenging because I have to kind of validate the author first. Yeah, I think honestly reading spiritual books like along those lines is, is, has been really powerful for me. I would encourage, um, at least kind of reading, reading some of those things because it gives you reference points. It gives you something to, to chew on and go deeper on. But The kind of— what kind of, um, do you do any spiritual practices? Do you, do you pray? Do you meditate? Do you do any of that stuff?

Not, not the traditional stuff. It's really just like, I, I— whenever I spend time with myself, I always sort of like, I have like thinking time. Yeah, like I will have time where I will, I will put down my phone. Sometimes when I'm driving, sometimes it's just like I'm sitting on my couch at the end of the day. Yeah, I'll just like throw my phone over there. And just like literally just let my mind go.

Yeah.

Um, and that to me I think is kind of spiritual.

It 100% is, but I don't think many people do that. Not many people your age. Many people are always engaged with something.

Well, it feels good to be like— yeah, I guess also too, like, talking to certain people is definitely a spiritual experience.

Yeah.

Um, like, just like, I guess, you know, the connection, or just like whatever, if we're just vibing, bouncing ideas off each other. Like, my friends are really good for that. Like, I'm lucky I got good friends that are like cool but also smart. Yeah, so like we can switch back and forth between like being like complete idiots and like actually talking about stuff that it will make us think more.

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, no, I think it's, it's easier than people would think. Like, I think like the hardest part about like that part is just like deciding to like just put the phone down for a sec.

Yeah.

Which like is like, you know, I mean, that's difficult for most people.

Yeah.

Um, but as soon as you like make the decision like, okay, I'm just gonna take 15 minutes and just like let my mind kind of go for a little bit and just like see where it goes. Yeah, that's why it's easy when I'm driving because like I'm not gonna—

you can't—

yeah, but I can zone out on the road. I did here. I left Miami, by the time I got to West Palm, I was like, wait, yeah, it's really—

it's really important to do that though. Like, yeah, you know, our minds are just like our bodies. Like there's a homeostasis. Like, you know, if your body gets sick or there's a, you know, a virus that enters it or there's some kind of foreign object, whatever, maybe your body will heal itself. It gets back to homeostasis. Like, your mind is the same way. Like, it needs time to kind of settle back, right? But in today's society, it's not the norm. Most people wake up and they're immediately either answering emails or looking at social media or they're consuming the news and there's always something going on. And most people don't give themselves the space to get back to that equilibrium. I think that's where the magic happens. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I can't, I can't relate to the— so in the morning, like, I'm on my phone right away.

Are you?

Yeah, I usually wake up to a phone call because I never set an alarm.

Oh really?

Yeah, I, I'm like anti-alarm.

That's good.

Yeah, but I mean, it doesn't even matter because like I just— someone, someone's calling me and like that's most of the time. There's probably like 2 or 3 days a week, which is like, it's kind of annoying. But, um, and then like, so I'll have to, you know, like I'm on my phone right away and people say like, you know, an hour before bed and then like an hour after you wake up or 50 minutes or something like that. Like, don't be on your phone. I mean, maybe it's just the stage of business that we're in or that I'm in. Like, I kind of have to be.

Yeah, I don't mind it.

Like, I don't feel like it really holds me back. I feel like I still get good sleep.

I think it depends on what— where you are in life. Like, there's one thing like waking up and getting on a phone call or handling some business and just starting your day with momentum.

Mm-hmm.

There's another thing with waking up and feeding your impulsive mind to scroll on YouTube Shorts for 30 minutes, you know? Yeah, the phone is not just like bad or good. It could, you know, and also if you're in a business where like you're operating the business and you're hustling and you have good partners and you're, you know, you guys are growing and you're excited, like, sure, get right to it. But if you're building something that's like, you know, you're not really in the operations, but you're kind of being strategic, like, that's why I think it makes more sense to have the solitude first thing in the morning. Again, there's no right or wrong way to live it. I, I think if anyone tells you you have to do something a certain way, it's bullshit. Which is a— I get to talk to people all the time, and people have different philosophies and different ways. And that's why I like having these conversations, because you might have a way that works for you, and might— people might relate to you more than they relate to me, and they're like, oh, he validated the way I am, and give them more confidence. And Some people might say, I think that, you know, what Jared's saying resonates more with me. But I think having these conversations is important for, for society as a whole. I don't know if in your age group, like I'm 10, almost 10 years older than you. I look at society and I'm like, holy shit, it's doomed. Like, and I don't know if that's because I'm just like that old guy and like always generations always look back and they're like, oh, the new generation's fucked. But I look at, at, you know, social media specifically. The algorithms are so smart at getting our attention. They know exactly what to feed us. Most people are just comparing themselves to other people's lives and wishing they had something that they didn't have right now. And it's disrupting their energy. Victimhood is like the new, you know, you get a big pat on the back if you act like a victim and that's happening through society as a whole. You know, if you ever turn on the news, you know, gas prices are too high, groceries are too high, we need this other president to get in. People are sitting there like, yeah, like, that's why I can't do anything, because I can't afford groceries. We need this other, you know, and it's like a big virus going through society, dude.

Like, during the election when all that shit was happening, because like normally I just turn that shit off. Like, I'm— I've been off politics. I was a poli sci major, so I used to be super tapped in. I knew what was going on. But since that, it made me hate politics, and I have not paid attention to it. Canadian politics where I'm from, or American politics where I can't even vote, so it doesn't matter. But like during the election, like the the 2 weeks leading up and then like 3 days after, Twitter for me was unusable. Couldn't go on social media. I was like, this is— I can't get away from it. Yeah, like it's like, it's like porn for normies, bro. Like they, they can't stop thinking about like what other people are going to do about how they're going to fix their lives, you know what I mean? It's like, what is Trump going to do to help me get out of poverty and all this stuff? It's like, dude, nothing. Like nothing. I've, I've been really like strict on like making sure I try not to consume any of that. Because it just makes me so unhappy. And if I look around, and you probably think this too, like if you look around in your real life, people are in the office, you know, the people that you spend the most time with, like when you go, you know, out or whatever, like the people that you just kind of know around, like dude, like everyone around me in my sort of locality is doing great.

Yeah.

Like everyone's, all my friends are killing it. My whole family's taken care of. Like my sort of outer circle is good too. I have, I have no real complaints until I go online and I see like, oh yeah, gas prices are kind of high.

Yeah.

Oh wait, groceries are kind of expensive, but it's like, I don't know.

But I think the big problem is for the people that are in like more challenging scenarios in life. Maybe it's, you know, a single mom with 3 kids living in Section 8 housing, or that's an extreme example. Yeah. People that are living in, in challenging times. The news and the media feeds them a reason instead of taking radical accountability and doing something. It gives them a, oh, that's true. I, that's, that's why I can't do this. I am a victim. I think that that's the biggest virus of our society as a whole.

I had a switch. I had something kind of similar that happened. I had to sort of wake up and realize that it was all kind of up to me. Like, okay, so when I was in poli sci, I was like kind of a Bernie bro. I was like a social democrat.

Yeah.

And so I was very much— and I still kind of am— like Medicare for All, that I still kind of fuck with. But like, I was at the time very much like, we need to like raise the minimum wage to like a living wage. Like, the government, the government needs to mandate that everybody gets paid $25 an hour or something like that. And that was just how I thought as a, as a 19-year-old.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? In Canada.

Yeah.

And it wasn't until I started— like, COVID happened, and then, um, I started doing copywriting, and I was like, oh the government's never gonna raise the minimum wage. Like, the only person who can like make me richer is me. Nobody else gives a shit about me. Trudeau doesn't care about me.

Yeah, you know, right?

And like, once you have like one of those thoughts, I think it like— that sort of puts you on the path to like— yeah, what did you say? Like, uh, radical accountability.

Yeah, yeah, you have to take radical accountability for your existence. Yeah, like, it's the only thing that serves you. 100% serve you to say Oh, it's not my fault.

It's, it's kind of pathetic when you think about the fact that like there are like probably definitely over half of the population of like first world countries that like can't take responsibility for their own survival. It's like you're making $15 an hour working at McDonald's complaining the minimum wage isn't higher.

Yeah.

And like that's— you're complaining about that to who, right? You know what I mean? Like, what does it serve you? What are you going to do about it? You're waiting for someone else to come and fix your situation, right?

It's like It just keeps you there. It doesn't serve anyone.

People would die if it was like 10,000 years ago. Yeah, you get eaten by a bear. Yeah, like there'd be nothing, like, you know what I mean? Like, it's also sad to watch.

Don't you think that, like, I'm just thinking about this now, it's not something I've like thought through and I could be like stupid for saying it, but I feel like raising minimum wage would be worse for society because for the people that get the more money, it causes them to be a little bit more comfortable in the life that they don't want to be in, right? Like, if you want to change your life, you have to be like so uncomfortable that it's time to make a change or, you know, you have to be inspired. But if you went from $15 to $25 an hour, so you're just going to sit there for longer because you're good enough, right? And then businesses will do worse because they have to pay more. They're less incentivized to, you know, to take care of their employees because they're already paying them too much. More businesses will go out of business because their, you know, top line will go down. Jobs will get cut down. Stock market will go down because there's less profits. Like, I think in general for society, capitalism needs to set the market. Oh, in every area.

Yeah. I mean, not even the fucking macroeconomics makes sense. So like, I think because like that's a given. Like, I think any reasonable person can, can agree that a $25 an hour minimum wage is not going to help society. It's going to be a net negative, like kind of how you just described. I think of it as like, it's literally none of my business what the minimum wage is. Yeah, I don't want to work minimum wage jobs, and I don't pay anybody who works for me minimum wage, right? I've never done that. Like, anybody who's ever worked— like, even 4 years ago when I was just hiring like junior copywriters to help me with freelance work, it was always like the equivalent of least $40, $50 an hour.

Yeah.

And so like, I can't— I— it's just such an exhausting conversation to have with like regular people that are like still fighting this war.

Yeah.

And I feel like most political issues are like that, where it's like all of this would be solved if you just stop caring about what everyone else is doing and just like focus on like what you're going to do about your own situation, right?

There has to be a bigger agenda at play. And the way that you like The reason why people would argue, oh, you know, we need to raise the minimum wage, we need to do these things that we're talking about, is because it's like the media, the things that people are consuming, they use like, like a moral compass. They're like, you're a good person if you want to do this because it helps people. You're a bad person. And after you consume enough of that, that becomes your argument. So people only really believe things based on the things they've consumed externally. That's what their reality is, which is why the news is challenging, because you watch one thing, it says one thing, another says the other. Yeah, but every time I think about it, I boil it down to if you don't take radical accountability for your life, it doesn't serve you. It never serves you to play the victim. I mean, I was on LinkedIn a while back and I saw a post from someone who was— it was this long post about why she got fired for being a woman of color. And listen, there are— I don't really know the circumstances, but if the circumstances were that she was actually really fired because she wasn't adding value to the business, which as a business owner, I don't care what you look like, who you are, if you're adding value to the company, not only are you going to stay with us, but you're going to grow within the company. That's what capitalism is. But she wrote this long post about how she's a victim of, you know, she's a woman and they fired me because of these reasons. And that's one thing. But if you look at the comments, there were thousands and tens of thousands of comments saying, "Good for you. Good job speaking up and good job sharing this message." And it's like they're all just validating this victim mentality, which doesn't serve anyone. What's going to happen?

Welcome to LinkedIn, bro.

It's not going to change society. This company is not going to, "Oh, you know what? We're going to—" You probably weren't adding value to the company. That was probably the truth. And if they did fire you because of that, fuck them, go do something else. But you're going to harp on this circumstance and the situation and keep it in your mind and your reality and create this life around you based on this. It's a huge— in my opinion, it's the victim mentality being patted on the back is the biggest virus of society. Yeah, I think that's pretty accurate.

I think I feel like we're moving away from that, though. Don't you think so?

I do too. Yeah, Trump might be because Trump.

Yeah, I, I have felt the shift. And again, I have no idea. I don't know. I never know if I have a real finger on the pulse because the algorithm is so good that you don't even know if there's like other, like a whole other world of people that like think the complete opposite.

You see their comments, you see all the things are validated, it gets buried.

But like the sentiment right now feels like we're shifting back towards like I think it was as soon as AOC took her pronouns out of her bio on Twitter. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, I think we're back, man. I have— I'm very optimistic. I think like I've, I've never really been sort of like doom and gloom about like the state of the world. Yeah. Um, because when it is bad, like when the state of the world is kind of not great, I just don't worry about it. And when it's good, I look around, I'm like, this is awesome. Yeah, I mean, but again, all we can worry about is you and me. That's why like It doesn't even really make me mad to think about people that, like, your LinkedIn friend. Yeah. Um, to— because it's like, it's just so far removed. It feels like we're talking about a TV show. It's just not in my reality, right? It's like we're talking about Game of Thrones and it's like, you know, Jon Stark said this and was like, that's crazy, but it's a TV show, you know what I mean?

Like, it kind of is, right?

It just doesn't even exist and it doesn't have to. And this is why I work so hard and this is why, like, you know, by the time, you know, I hope I'm where you're at at 34. I would love to be in a position where it's like I have the option to work or the option to not work around like 35-ish, that would be great. Um, and then I can, and I can fully build my life to be whatever I want it to be. Yeah. So if I decide that, you know, I'm going to build a compound and like, you know, have a runway so I can fly, you know, to somewhere else if I want to. Yeah. And like only see the people I want to see and never have to deal with like— that's the thing too, it's like, dude, the best part about starting a business is like you get to pick your coworkers. Yeah. Like I've had so many jobs where it's just like, uh, was that me? Uh, so many jobs where, um, you know, you just, you have that one coworker where it's like, oh, like this job would be so much better if it wasn't for you. Right. I love every single person on my team. I chose them. Yeah. I mean, yeah, like you can fully curate your own environment when you, when you have money and when you have abundance and stuff like that. And so that's That's what I value the most. Yeah. About like my lifestyle is like how, how mine it is.

How often do you reflect on that and think about that?

It's like one of the main things that I care about. Yeah, I love it. It's, it's so important to me.

I think that's, that is exactly what is going to allow your intuition to guide you there. It's a prime example. You want to be, you know, in a situation where you don't have to work, you could work, You know, if you want to get that bunker with the runway and you think about it regularly and you put emotion behind that, that thought and that vision, you will be guided there 100% to a tee around that age. And it'll happen that way. I've had so many of those circumstances happen.

Okay, so manifestation. Do you believe manifestation?

I mean, I know it to be a true fact. I have a crazy manifestation story. I'll tell you after your thought. No, no, no.

I mean, that was a question. I'm curious what you think of that.

So I had a, I had a validation of manifestation that was, it would seem impossible to the outsider. Okay. Which was when I was 25, 26. So yeah, we, I was living in Los Angeles with my now wife, then girlfriend, and we were splitting rent on an apartment. We had a dog and I was grinding. I was importing products from China. I had a little warehouse and an office. I was working my ass off. Like, from the outside, it looked like I was doing pretty well. On the inside, I felt like I wasn't doing good enough. I was, you know, I had enough to maintain a business, but I wasn't thriving. And I was working my ass off, like, not a huge, um, you know, uh, ratio of input to output. Like, I was putting a lot of input in to get just enough output type thing, right? I did that for like 2 years. And, um, a friend of mine who's, uh, he was a professional football player Brit Lockett, he invited me to go to a Tony Robbins seminar. I had never done any of that stuff before, and I was like, well, he was like a mentor to me, you know, cool guy doing great in life. I was like, sure, I'll go with you. And we went to this event, and we did this, this, I guess it was like a visualization exercise where, and it was like, you know, 15-minute long thing. I'll describe it in like 30 seconds, but basically you get into this meditative state and you envision yourself as as someone else in your life that loves and cares about you and like only wants the best for you. So I thought of my aunt. Okay, so I'm now my aunt and I'm walking up to my Jared's future life and I'm walking up to my future house. I'm looking at the cars in the driveway. I'm admiring them. I'm walking up the stairs, you know, the porch. I get inside. I look at the pictures of the family on the wall. I'm admiring the beautiful family and this life that I've built as my aunt still, right? I'm walking through the house, I'm looking at the beauty. I walk upstairs and I look at the beautiful bedroom and I go into the bathroom and I look in the mirror and the whole time it was actually me. It was this crazy experience because in the experience you are someone else that loves and cares about you. So your own judgment and ego wouldn't get in the way and say, oh, that's not possible, whatever. It was this exercise we did, right? And so fast forward, I leave the event. I'm feeling really good, really energized. I learned about how to change my state and how to build my energy, things like that. And my girlfriend and I were scheduled to move to Florida the day after the event, right? We were kind of like giving up on LA. It was like too much going on. We wanted to go be near her family, kind of lay a little low. And so the day after the event, we get in the car, we're driving, we have a U-Haul trailer loaded with all of our stuff. You know, we got the dog in the back of the car.

It's a long drive.

5-day drive. Yeah. And I had this new energy, right? I was like, I was getting pumped up all, you know, the event and whatever. And as I was driving, I'm getting all these ideas, right? I'm just like, oh, maybe I should double the ad set on this. But all these things were coming to me. I'm making a phone call to my media buyer. Hey, try duplicating these ads as we're driving. Try this. First day I went, I had like $1,000 a day before I left. First day we hit $2,000 in sales. I'm like, wow, that's pretty cool. Next day I hit $7,500 in sales and I'm like looking at my girlfriend, don't tell anyone about this. It's crazy. And I'm making a huge profit margin. Third day, $15,000 in sales. Fourth day, $35,000 in sales. Holy shit.

This is per day with an e-com product. Yeah. With my dropshipping business.

Okay. By the last day, we did $50,000 in revenue. Holy shit. $25,000 in profit. And in that drive, my bank account like tripled for what it was. And I'm sitting there like, you know, don't tell anyone about this. It's too good to be true. Like, thank you, God. I know it's not gonna continue, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, fast forward 2 months later, every day, like clockwork, just printing $20,000, $25,000. And so I go to drop my girlfriend off to do someone's hair, like 30 minutes away from where we were staying. And I'm in the car and I'm like, I could drive back. And then, but then I gotta go back again. I'm like, let me just, you know, I'm fiddling around on my phone. I'm looking at cars on my phone and I go, I see this like cool gray Lamborghini. It's like 5 minutes from me. I go to the car dealership just to look at it. And for whatever reason, I bought it because I had all this cash now. I'm like, I'm just gonna buy the car. And I'm driving this car for like 2 weeks. And while I'm driving the car 2 weeks later, I realized it was the exact same car that I had in that vision when I walked up to my future life. To the T. Same color, same model. And I physically manifested it into my life 60 days later. When— That is wild. It was the biggest mindfuck experience I've ever had because I'm like, 60 days ago, I would have said no, there's no way I could have bought this car. And it wasn't about the car, it was about that I had this very clear vision with a very powerful emotion behind it, and then somehow the universe created things in a way that brought it physically into my life.

Yeah, okay, that's wild. That was my most— that's very interesting. So, so manifestation to you is, is just visualizing? A lot of people, they like to do, um, that have like mantras or something like that or some sort of weird ritual. But for you, it's just literally sitting there and thinking about it.

No, it's— well, that's, that's half of it. It's thinking about it and also putting a strong emotion behind it. Gotcha. So like I do, I won't get into all the details right now, but I have a walking formula called the Perfect Walk. I wrote a book about it. I'll give you a copy. Okay. It's a 5-part walk, you know, first part, and it goes with music. You're feeling grateful the first part, and then you feel feel your power and your strength, and then you let go and you feel connected with God. And the fifth part is you celebrate, and you're basically walking as if something you want to happen already happened. So you have this vision and you're walking as if it already happened. And I did that every day for 6 months before I sold my company. I walked as if the bank, you know, wire came in, whatever. So it's, it's a vision, a clear vision, right? You want the runway, the bunker, yeah, you know, you crystallize in your mind whatever you want. You want 100-foot deep bunker? Nuke-proof. And you put a powerful emotion behind it. You feel an attachment, a love to it, and then you let go. And you know that since the universe is infinite and you can't expect things to happen a certain way, you just be present. You know, you still do the things you got to do, but you watch and see what kind of shit happens in life. It's insane. That is fascinating.

Curious, like, what you— okay, so you're, you're 34. Great shape. You run, which I think is pretty cool. I, I don't— I hate running. Me too. I— well, yeah, but you like it enough to like do— I will just choose an alternative. Yeah, like, uh, but I'm curious, like, like, you look— you, you look pretty young. Like, I, I know a lot of 34-year-old guys that just like, it becomes impossible to just like maintain the shape that you had when you were 25 or something like that, so just kind of let it go.

Like, what do you do? Um, honestly, I think one, like I worked really hard in my, like, mid to late 20s and early 30s working out a lot. I think once you build a, like, a foundation, it's pretty easy to maintain it as long as you don't go off the deep end. You want TRT? No, no, no. Would you? Um, if I needed it, but I don't need it. I test my blood every quarter, so I know, like, my test levels. I know, like, where you at? Um, so I'm down quite a bit. From last year, like 675 as of, as of like 2 months ago. But last year when I was doing 75 hard, I tested and I was like 950. But I think it fluctuates a lot.

That's like a problem. I feel like if you're that high, like the closer you get to 1000, it's like becomes kind of a nuisance.

Well, it also, it's a combination of your, your test and then your free test as well. So my free test was like a normal range and my test was like on the high end of the normal spectrum. Right. But I think it was correlated with doing a lot of heavy lifting, like deadlifts and squats. So what I did, what was a big hack for me, is I built a full gym in my house in Texas, and I had a trainer show up 3 days a week, 3 PM, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And no matter what I felt like or what the situation was, I would just— all I had to do is walk down to the garage, and it was my own house. I had no shirt on, whatever I wanted. I blast music. Yeah. And he would just beat my ass 3 days a week. That's awesome. Yeah. And I would work out probably twice as hard as I would if I didn't have the trainer. Uh-huh.

So that's a huge thing too. Like the intensity for which you do your workouts. Like, yeah, that makes a huge difference.

Yeah. So trainer was great. And then I do a ton of walking every morning. I'll run probably like 3 days a week. I'll do like one relatively long run and like 2 kind of short runs. A lot of walking. What's long for you? Like 4 or 5 miles. Okay. Not that long. I'm not a great runner.

That's a marathon for me.

Yeah, it's fucking hard for me too.

Yeah, a mile, a mile or two is like, I'll do it, it'll take me a minute, but I'll do it. Like, like a, like a 5-mile run, like, that's a challenge.

It's a challenge for me too, but it's a good, um, it's a great thing for, for confidence and discipline because it's like, it's a great thing to recognize your mind's patterns. Like, dude, my mind is clever. Like, if I say I'm gonna get up in the morning and run My mind, I get up first, I'm tired. That doesn't work. Oh, I'm feeling, I'm really tired. If I don't rest more, I'm going to get sick. And it's like, all right, that doesn't work. If you're going to get really sick, you're going to die. You're going to get cancer. Like all this crazy shit comes up. It's like, all right, we like, so your mind has patterns to keep you comfortable. Right. And running for me is a great way to like recognize those patterns and just do it anyway. So I do that. I do take peptides currently. I take peptides on and off for like probably the last 2 years.

Okay. What does that do for you?

So different peptides do different things. There's, you know, there's peptides that if you want to be more tan, you could inject yourself with melanotan, which tells your body to make more melanin. I don't take that, but— Kind of turns you orange.

I've seen guys on that.

It's basically just a branched-chain amino acid that triggers something in your body to happen. So like I'll take, I'm on, right now I'm taking tesamorilin and ipamorilin, which is like a growth hormone secreting, regenerative peptide. So basically it tells your body to make more growth hormone, which gives you energy and makes you recover better.

Does that work?

It's hard to say what work. Um, no, it's not like if you take synthetic growth hormone. Okay, it's different. It's much less, um, you know, it's— there's no negative, uh, side effects. Like for example, if you take synthetic growth hormone and you have like a cancer cell or a tumor, like that will grow. But if you take peptides, it doesn't cause any growth and things like that. It's a much lower— it's not like nearly as intense as if you're taking actual growth hormone. Gotcha. Okay. NAD+, I inject myself with that 3 days a week, which is like the currently like the best longevity medical thing you can do. Okay. There's a deep rabbit hole about that. Other than that, like I've tried everything. I do the sauna and cold plunge very regularly. I love those. You do that?

Yeah, yeah, I, uh, cold plunge is fun. Yeah, like, dude, because that's all mental. So you're saying like the, the running thing, a lot of people say that's all mental, but it's like, I don't know, there's like a— you gotta have the lungs for it. Like, your legs will get messed up if you, if, if you run, you know, long time. Like, yeah, yeah, like you'll feel in your legs. But like cold plunge, it's not going to kill you. No, sensation. Only thing you gotta get over to unlock the benefits that come after that is like, just get in the fucking cold plunge. Yeah, my buddy, my buddy Jimmy had one, uh, when we lived at our old building, and I would go down a couple times a week. He's like, yo mate, you wanna hit the cold plunge? I'll be like, all right, fine, man, whatever. And so I'd come down to his unit and, um, and I'd like, I'd get, you know, like a towel or whatever. He's like, do you want me to go first, or do you want to go first? And I'd be like, yeah, the way I'm going first. And like, I have to literally just like turn, like, turn my brain off and just like get in there, and then once I'm in, it's like 10, 20 seconds of pain, and then you kind of settle in. Yeah. And it feels good. Dunk your head. Yeah. And then, but once, like, dude, I'll spend, yeah, 2 and a half, 3 minutes in there is really all you need to like get the benefits. I haven't done it in a minute. I should do it. But, uh, do you have one here in the office?

No, I have one over my place though.

But you get fired up, right? Like, as soon as it's over, you're like, like, you just want a Conor McGregor in the mirror.

Yeah. We just, we've renovated our backyard. It's almost done, and we built a cold plunge that's 6 feet deep and it's like a 4-foot by 4-foot square and you can just jump into it. So you don't have to like lay into a tub and like you can just leap into it. I think that's gonna make it easier. Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, it's like a dunk tank.

Cold plunge is fucking amazing, dude. I don't know, I'm sure— I don't know if people listening know this or not, but it's like it gives you the same dopamine release as if you do cocaine, but instead of lasting 30 minutes, it lasts like 2 and a half hours or something?

Uh, yeah, that's what they say. They say that. I don't know, water had to be pretty cold, I guess. Yeah. Um, but no, it really does feel amazing. Like, you feel just like ready to go. You feel clear. You feel like zoned. Yeah, like, you know what I mean? But yeah, no, it's awesome.

Are you on any like health protocols that you think are game changers, or you still learning about that stuff?

I, I don't take any supplements. I've messed around with like, uh Actually, you might know, um, you know Benjamin Smith, Disco Guy, Let's Disco? Okay, well, he's doing another thing called Mars Men now. And so I wrote some copy for him, like, when he launched it, and, um, he sent me like a bunch of this stuff to try, and I liked it. But then, I don't know, I— it was like just a test supplement, and it was good. I felt, I felt good. It's crazy horny for some reason. I had to like— and I stopped doing it because of that. Really? Yeah. Um, I Buddy of mine that takes TRT, and he said that too. It's just like, dude, you're all the time— it's impossible to get anything done. Yeah, so I don't know, and I feel good now. I don't feel the need to like take any supplements. The one thing I do swear by is like, I love fasting. Yeah, I'm not that big, and so if I eat more than like 2,200 calories in a day, I will get fat, which like for most people is like, you could cut on that. Yeah, my cut is like 1,600, 1,700 calories. Really low. And so like for me to meet that all the time and like stay in sort of like a maintenance phase is hard. And so usually what will happen is like I'll have a couple of days where I'll eat like a normal person, like 2,200 calories, and then I'll— like today, like I haven't eaten anything. I just had black, like just espresso. Yeah. Uh, I guess the coconut water kind of fucked that up, actually. I just realized that. But, um, like I, I'll be good to not eat until like lunch tomorrow. So like a little 36-hour fast. Oh, that's great. And I love it. Like, that's great. You— it's like, it's more than just like a, like a weight loss or weight management thing. It's like it literally cleans out your body. Yeah, sometimes like, like when you're drinking a lot— you drink rarely, okay, once every 2 weeks. When I'm drinking a lot and eating like shit, I feel like just full of like, just, I just feel inflamed. Yeah, and like 36 to 48 hours of fasting will clean that right out. Oh yeah. And after, after those 2 days, I'm good. Like, it's like a real reset.

You know about autophagy? Uh-huh.

Yeah, your body is basically cells regenerating or something, right?

I think it cleanses out zombie cells or like dead cells, and it helps you regenerate though. It's like, it's like the cure-all for anything that comes from fasting. Have you done any long fasts?

The longest one I've done is 72. That's pretty solid. It was hard. Yeah, but when I— it was crazy because like 48, 48 hours is probably harder than 72, but it's just like, it's more about like the stuff I can't do. Like I can't go with my friends for 72 hours. Yeah, they're gonna want to go eat or drink something. Yeah. It makes it harder to work out because you're so weak. Yeah, but after 48 hours, you don't really feel the hunger. Yeah. Yeah. And so like when I got to 72, I felt like I could have done another day. Yeah, I was like, let's just end this now. It was like, that was enough.

I think it's a great thing to do once a year is like a relatively long fast. Yeah. And then short fasts regularly.

You know what's a great time to do that? Uh, like right after Christmas. Oh, maybe I'll do that because like you feast, right? Like you're eating everything.

Yeah. Or I do. Yeah.

And so like, uh, my mom did it one year and I thought she was crazy, but she basically fasted from like the 27th to like the, I guess the day before New Year's. Oh wow. So like the 27th to the 30th. Nice. My mom's— both my parents are like super fit. I have, I have good, like, I guess longevity genetics. Yeah, my dad, his— he's like super athletic. Um, and my mom like used to be like a, like a body— like she used to do shows. Really? And she's still in great shape. Like she's 53. Like she has like a fitness training business. What a great role model. But they're both short. Yeah, that's the only thing. My dad's like 5'9", my mom's 5'4". But exactly. I make it work. But, uh, yeah, I— so I learned a lot from them too. Yeah, but yeah, no, fasting, fasting solid. It's like probably the only thing I really do. Like, I mean, I'm like a normal fit. Like, I work out. I try to work out every day. Yeah, I try to do like some sort of lifting thing. Yeah, um, just because it feels good. It really does. Like, it releases a lot of dopamine. 100%.

Yeah, if you're feeling bad, you go get a nice lift and you feel pretty much almost every time you feel great after.

I, I actually feel bad. And like, because people used to say that, like, a lot of gym bros would be like, dude, I get, I get crazy if I don't work out. It's like, you're addicted. Like, that's a problem. Like, that's bad. Yeah. But I feel that too, where it's like, if I go like 2 days without being in the gym, I'll start snapping at people. And I'm like, I, no, I actually have to work out. And then I go and just do like a really tough one, and I walk out an hour later and I'm like, thank God I did that. Yeah, I mean, 100%.

I did like probably 3 months of no gym when I moved to Florida.

What for? Why? Well, we were living in Texas.

I had the gym in my house and I had that routine with my trainer. And then when we moved, we had like a week of like, you know, chaos, and we were just indulging in food. And I played a lot of golf. It's not really a workout, but I played a lot of golf.

You're walking, that's good.

And then it was like I'm like, do I want to work out or play golf? I don't play golf. And every time I just made that decision until I looked at myself, and then I looked at myself, and you don't notice, like, at least for me, like, day after day I'm not like, oh man, I'm getting bad. But if I look at a picture for myself of last year, I'm like, what the hell happened to me? Yeah, I just snapped back.

It's like reverse body dysmorphia. Yeah, I have that sometimes too, where it's like I'll look in the mirror and be like, I look great. Yeah, but like, if you compare yourself to where you were like a couple weeks ago, you're like, oh Yeah. Oh, I gotta chill.

Have you ever done 75 Hard?

No, I haven't. That's a great one.

I do that once a year. That's like my, my way to like snap back into things.

When, like, what time of year will you do it?

Whenever I feel the need, honestly. It's not like I have a specific time per year, but it's, it's been about once per year for the last 3 years. Just like, I feel like shit about myself, I'm like, 75 Hard.

I think the— I think, okay, so it's a huge time commitment and you're sacrificing a lot of like the social stuff. So like the no drinking thing, I feel like would would be tough.

For me it's not tough. For you, probably tougher because you're 25 in Miami. Exactly. I mean, I have a family, I'm, you know, living in Palm Beach area.

Still, like, you ever, you ever want to just have like a glass of wine with your wife, just like dance around a little bit? Yeah, yeah. But that to me, like, even if I'm not like going out, because I don't go out like crazy. Yeah. But I go on like, you know, dates or something like that, or dinner with the boys, and it's like, yeah. Um, or even if it's just been a long day, like, I, a lot of like the smaller bars around where I live, like, I, I know the guys that work there, own it. So like, I'll just I'll text, I'll text the owner, just hang out with them. Yeah, nobody else wants to go out. Like Enrique at this bar called 8th Street, like I'll be like, yo, you at the bar right now? Yeah, we'll just talk.

He'll— yeah, it's a lot of opportunities to have fun and enjoy yourself where you are.

And I feel like it doesn't really affect my health that much. Like, so I went out last night and I was thinking, I was like, okay, I should probably relax a little bit because I'm going to do this podcast, be on. Yeah. And I— but I, I thought it would start to go downwards. Like, I'm 25 now, like, is when I should be starting to like get hangovers and stuff like that. Yeah, I'm not hungover today.

Wow.

I only— I slept 5 hours. Wow. And I, I feel good. I don't know why, because I shouldn't, but like I feel like I've found a way to balance it where it's like I'm healthy enough so that I can drink. You know the Burt Kreischer?

Yeah, I know.

You know, I don't know which speech he does, like a, you know, you know this one, I'll never stop drinking alcohol. It's like a, it's like a 45-second rant that he did on a podcast. About how great it is, and I was like, it just— it, it makes life beautiful. Yeah, I mean, for me right now, yeah. And I wasn't always like this. It's seasons. For a long time, for a long time, I like didn't like going out, and I like didn't even like the taste of alcohol. I was like, I don't need a drink. Yeah. But it's like, dog, if it's like a Thursday night, you go and you're with a girl or something like that, like espresso martini, finish that one off, another one. Yeah, Moscow Mule, maybe 2 more of those. In between there, there's like a White T-Shot, which is kind of like a green tea shot, but it's like peach schnapps and Sprite, something else in there.

That's your combo?

A couple of those, and then like mixed drinks, like well drinks for the rest of the night. That's the wake-up feel. It's a lot of sugars, but I wake up feeling perfectly fine. Really? I don't know why. I would—

I could only— if I do drink, it's typically just tequila on the rocks. Okay, that's my go-to.

Yeah, see, like, I know I can't even do tequila. I'm like scarred. Really? From like the first time I ever went out. So I'm a nerd. In Canada it's 19. I waited until I was 19 for the first time. Yeah, like no one, no one does. Hilarious. But I waited, and, um, the first time I ever went out was just like— I was, I was working at McDonald's at the time, and I was with my like co-workers, and we were just like slamming tequila shots, and I had the worst night ever. And I woke up um, like just hating myself. And I, I've— I haven't enjoyed tequila since that. That was like 6 years ago.

Allegedly it's the best alcohol for you, for your gut. And like, as far as having like bullshit in it, if you get like a high-end tequila, there's like no additives. And it's— for me, I'm not— I don't get hungover if I have a few tequilas, but if I have like mixed drinks and I'm— next day I'm a wreck. I can't do it. Maybe because I'm old, you know, I've gotten older.

No, but I'm supposed to be old. I know, not yet, but I'm like— when I was 25, I could slam drinks and have no problem. Dude, when I was 21, I couldn't do that. I thought— I felt old then because like when I was 21, like, yeah, I would do the same thing where it's like I have a couple drinks and wake up like with my head in wet cement. I don't know why I don't really get hungover. Maybe it's like the quality of liquor that I drink. That definitely has to do with it. Maybe if you're drinking good tequila Like, yeah, you can sip. That's crazy on the rocks though. It's, it's insane. But like, yeah, good, good whiskey or something like that, like a, like a nice bottle. Like, it's gonna be pure and clean. Like, you're not gonna get super hungover.

Yeah, dude, I had a crazy whiskey experience. I was in London at a hotel called The Londoner. Okay. And I was there for my, uh, my, my babymoon slash honeymoon. My wife and I were there, and she was pregnant, so she couldn't drink, but I was walking through the hotel and I saw this like vault. I'm like, what's that? I like pushed it open and there was like this secret whiskey room. And I'm looking at these whiskeys and there's like Macallan 1937. There's bottles with like handwritten labels from like 1901, like the oldest shit you've ever seen in your life.

This is like, where in the hotel is this?

It's like down— if you go to the Londoner Hotel, you go like downstairs to the restaurant. There's like a secret door into it. It.

And just let you in there? Well, yeah, you can—

all the shit's locked up in like basically like a safe quality, you know, someone's got to come with a key and open it. Oh, oh, okay, okay. But you can try all these things, and you, you don't have to try them by the ounce, you could try them by the 10th of the ounce, because it's so expensive. It was like, you know, bottles $120,000, like a shot's like $6,000 of these things.

It was insane. So $600 to try this whiskey?

I— yeah, I think I spent— I spent about 6 grand. I tried a bunch of them. Okay. It was really fucking cool though, because it was like shit that was from before Prohibition. Yeah, like handwritten labels. Like, '01— 1901 was the oldest one I had.

I wouldn't even want to drink that just because it's like, that's history right there.

Yeah, but I wanted to like see what it would taste like. Of course, you get massive diminishing returns on the taste of alcohol as it gets nicer though. Like, you know, from like $30 bottle, like $200 bottle, okay, it tastes better. But from $200 beyond, it's like it just tastes different. It's not necessarily better. Yeah, this shit didn't taste any better.

Let me ask you this. When did you start to, uh, experience like more lifestyle inflation? So you said 25, living in LA, you're probably netting like, you know, low six figures, something like that, like doing all right.

Yeah.

When did you get to the point where you're making like high six, low sevens, where you started to like spend more on lifestyle and like really do stuff like that, where it's like $6K on a whiskey experience?

Yeah, I think the biggest change was like, you know, when I had that drive from LA to Florida, you know, I made millions of dollars that year. And then I—

that would have been 2013?

No, that was like 2017. Okay. Okay. 2016, 2017. Gotcha. And then, you know, that allowed me to— we ended up getting a condo on the ocean, you know, it was really beautiful. I really valued like the environment and the energy because that whole experience experience with the manifestation. I was like, I need to go all in on this stuff. And then that was for a few years. The next jump was like when I started my education business. We started doing— we hit like $15 million a year, um, by the second year, you know, good margins on it. And then the next big jump was like once SendDrop grew and we had our, our exit, right? So I mean, honestly, after you start making a million dollars a year, like, you, you can pretty much do whatever you want except for fly private all the time.

Okay, so that's the problem. I love flying private. Yeah, I have to stop because it's really expensive. Have you ever tried a, um, JSX?

No, no, no, no. Um, a, uh, um, not an Evojet, a Vision Jet. So there's a jet called a Vision Jet. Okay. It costs about half the price of like a midsize jet. It's fully carbon fiber. It's got a single engine, but it's behind this like round-shaped cabin so like birds can't get into it. Oh, and there's an AI, like if the pilot dies or something, you push a button and it goes to land you in the nearest airport. And worst case scenario, you can pull a fucking lever and a parachute, a rocket-propelled parachute comes down, the plane will just fall. That is the safest plane, it's the cheapest plane, and it's like the easiest thing to book. That's really— yeah, I went round trip to Nashville and it was like $18,000, where like another jet was 40,000.

Yeah, that would be—

yeah, Vision Jet. Yeah, you gotta check those out.

Okay, is it like a little— because I've seen those, like a little Honda Jet?

No, it's not a Honda Jet. Um, it's similar. It's like a, like a flying Suburban, basically. Oh, okay. You feel like 7 people in there if you had to. Wait, really?

Yeah. Okay, that's like more passengers than like a Citation X.

Yeah, okay, you could comfortably fit like 5. I mean, there's— gotcha— there's like 2 in the front, 2, and then 3 So yeah, I mean, you could fit 7 technically.

I'm gonna ask my guy because I'm flying back to Canada.

Um, how far of a flight is it? 3 hours. You could take one there. But the—

so I hate going through customs when I land in Canada, and so my plan, like what I have been doing, and it's between 18 and 24 depending on like season, to get from Opalaka to YYZ in Toronto. Yeah. And like customs is so chill. Like customs is so chill. It's like a jolly guy that comes out with an iPhone. Yeah. Says like, are you Canadian? I go, yeah. He's like, cool, see you, welcome. Yeah. Um, and like same going into the States, you know what I mean? Like you get guys that are just in better moods. Yeah. You ever get— yeah, you ever get like bitched at by a customs agent? Yeah, it's the worst. It ruins your day. Yeah. And so I, I do it just for that. Yeah. Um, it's, it's worth it.

Yeah, at some point, at some point financially you get to a point where your, your passive income on the interest on your money supports your lifestyle. Yeah. And it's like it doesn't really make a difference if you'd spend it or not because you're going to earn it anyway. But at some point it's like getting over that hump is definitely good. But the Vision Jets are a hack because you probably get it for half the price and you have just the same experience.

And that's my guy. If I can get it for around 10, I'll do it. But right now I'm flying Air Canada.

Air Canada it is.

Nah, man, I need a Vision Jet. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna find one. What's your— what do you splurge on? You like cars?

Yeah, I, uh, I do. I've bought a ton of cars recently. I just bought a 911 GT3 like 5 years ago. That's sick. Um, it's a 6-speed manual. No way!

Yeah, I got a good deal on it. What year is it? Because they still make those? 2023. Oh, so they'll make a manual.

Wow. Yeah, that's fun. Yeah. Um, I— the reason I bought it though is not— I'm not like— I wasn't like, oh, I'm gonna buy one of these cars. I was driving home and my wife was like doing something with her sister and I had like 2 hours to kill and I saw one. Uh, I drove past one, it was like the Ferrari dealership here, and I was like, let me go check it out. And I offered them like $20 grand less than what they were asking. They're like, no shot we'll do it. I was like, it's all good, no worries. Next day they text me, they're like, how about if we do it for— for— it was like $10 grand less than they're asking. I'm like I'm good. If you could do my price, I would do it. But like, and he's like, good luck on your search. I'm like, I'm not searching. Like, if you want to do the deal, I'll do it. If not, no worries. And the next day he texts me, he's like, all right, if we could do your deal, can you do it today? And I was like, yeah, sure. It was like a deal where I'm not going to lose— maybe I lose like $20,000, $30,000 on it over a year or two, but it was fun. Yeah. But the thing with cars for me, it's like when I bought my first cool car, it was great for like 6 months. The second one was great for like 3 months. The third one was great for like a month, you know. And now, now I get like a dopamine hit for like 2 weeks. Mhm. The stick speed makes it fun to drive back and forth to the office. Yeah, no, that—

oh, I— then I saw it, the gray one. Yeah, I saw that outside.

That was cool. Yeah, it's cool. It's fun. Um, yeah, watches. I only really buy things that like hold their value or experiences. Like, you know, I took my family to the Hamptons for a month in October and got a great house on the ocean. It was great. But I try not to splurge too much. I invest a lot. Um, but you know, you get to a point where you could eat whatever you want, you go wherever you want. I don't travel that much, so if I fly private 5 times a year, it's not a big deal. So I don't really splurge that much, honestly.

I feel— you feel like you've gotten it out of the way? Yes. Okay. I haven't yet. I'm still in it. Yeah, I will at some point, but right now I'm very much motivated to like A lot of people are like, uh, you know, like once you get to like $30-40K a month, like you lose motivation because like you have everything you want. It's like, I'm not close, dude. Yeah, I like watches too, but not because I genuinely like the— okay, so I got this AP Chrono last year on Black Friday. Yeah, I actually almost never wear this one. Really? It's my only AP. I, I really like Presis because of the way they wear. Yeah, so like I like the, the like the link structure, like the actual band feels really good on my wrist. It's easy to read. This is kind of hard. Can you— I can barely see the time on this. What color is the face on that? It's navy.

Oh, that's a great watch. Yeah, I love that one. I have, uh, yeah, it's fucking great. I had the openwork AP, you know, the skeleton one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's the same size. It might have been 1mm smaller. Uh-huh. This is 42 or 41? I think it's a 42. Yeah, mine was a 41, so it's a little bit smaller. Okay. But I just— I traded it in and I actually bought this one. What is that? RM? RM, yeah, yeah. RM 3501. Okay. I got it because it's small. It's like 30 grams. I play a lot of golf. You can't even feel it on your arm. And I'll never lose money on it.

It's an athlete's watch. Yeah. I love how you have an Apple Watch and then a—

No, no, I got the Whoop.

Oh, sorry. A Whoop. And then an RM. They have the same strap. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I like watches just because I honestly just think they look cool. Like, I don't— I like the way they— like, it's like art to me. Same.

It's a little machine. But then I look at, okay, this watch that I'm wearing right now costs more than my car, and my car is a big machine that does tons of things, and this just tells you the time.

And no, I know you have to wind it up, but that watch is gonna be, you know, worth whatever you paid for it a year from now. Yeah, you put, you know, 10,000 miles in the Porsche.

It's just crazy to fucking think about it though, like No, I know. It's not because of the craftsmanship. It's like, it's because of the brand. The brand spent all this money making their brand the well-known brand so that when you wear it, you have value, but it's not really value.

I think Rolex has beat the S&P 500 a couple times. Yeah, like, I don't think it's gonna continue to though. Well, no, it's going down right now. Like, I bought a bunch of watches last year and I didn't realize I was buying at the top. Yeah, I got a John Mayer. I paid like $80,000 for it. I think those are worth like in the high 60s. These now. Yeah, but I don't really care because I'm never gonna sell them. I love wearing all of them. Yeah, I might sell this one.

Dude, I got the best deal on, uh, you know, the, the Patek, uh, Aquanaut with the orange strap? Oh yeah, I got that at retail for 55 grand. They go for $125 on the— yeah, with the orange strap.

Oh damn. Yeah.

Okay, it's like the, the bigger one with the orange strap. It's like they're the one that you can't get My friend hooked it the fuck up. Like, he put me in line above everyone else, and I got it. It's got my name on the papers.

Okay, so you have an AD relationship?

Yes. Okay, I can never sell it because I bought it from them, and they'll never sell another watch video.

No, that's not true. You can sell it. It just— like, what they don't like is when you go around and flip it right away. Like, oh yeah, if you bought it and then a week later they saw that, because they, they, you know, they have people that like will spy on like, yeah, aftermarket watch dealers and see you know, where these watches are going. So like, but yeah, because if you're gonna make like $70 grand on it, like, you would want to do that. Yeah. But if you sell like a couple years down the road, like, they don't give a shit.

I think I'm gonna keep this one for my son because it's got my name on the papers and everything, and it's like such a desirable one I got lucky getting. It's something cool to give, like, you know, my son's 19 months old, and when he grows up, and I want to give him something.

Take a couple links out. Yeah. Um, yeah, no, I think the same thing. I said that about my first my first Rolex. It was like a chocolate two-tone Datejust. Nice. I can't wait to pass that down at age 18. Yeah, you know, my first one.

Watches are good reference points of life too. Like, you remember when you got it and what, what you were doing at that time, and they're like little trophies. It's like, oh, I accomplished this, I bought that.

Did you have like a milestone for why you bought your first one?

No, it was my first watch was back when I— right around the time I bought that car, I bought a Rolex Submariner, like $6,000. Now they're worth like $15,000 or whatever they are.

I paid $13,000 last year for one. Yeah, just a black, like, with a, with a date. Yeah.

Okay, same exact black stainless steel.

I traded it in for a 5980. Um, 5980 Patek, that's the, the steel one. It's got like a little Nautilus. Yeah. Oh, nice.

It's a great one.

Oh yeah, I, I didn't— I never wore the Sub, but— or yeah, I My original goal was I wanted to like make a YouTube video and like run over my truck or something like that. I never did it.

So many people would be angry at you.

I know, dude. But the, the Datejust I got— so my first $100K month like profit was September of 2022. Um, just like all the stars aligned and I just like, I just knocked it. So I told myself at the beginning of '22, I was like, if I do this, I'm going to buy a Rolex.

Yeah.

And so I went with my buddy who knew way more about watches than I did. I didn't know what I was looking looking at. Yeah. Um, and I found that one, and that's— I'm never selling that. Yeah. Like, that— I think I paid $16,250, so I actually got a decent price on it because, like, for a Datejust, it's, like, pretty nice. Yeah. But I love that watch. I don't wear it very often because, like, I have other ones that I like wearing more. Yeah. Um, but, uh, yeah, no, that, that'll always mean something.

It's also nice to know that, like, if shit hits the fan, you got, like, God forbid, you know, you get like— your watches are worth something too, of course.

But again, like, I would rather be homeless than like start selling watches.

I mean, I wouldn't— I'd rather have my home and sell my watches. Actually, no, you're right.

Yeah, I feel like it's just like— I mean, that's a Drake lyric, um, some— Making a Change Day, uh, oh, you're giving your chain away, it's kind of like giving your fame away. Oh yeah. So it's like, it's kind of just like a very humbling experience.

Yeah, hopefully sell a watch. Yeah, I don't think that— yeah, I don't think— I don't think you should be buying expensive watches if you're in the position to where you might need to sell them. Um, like, I think, you know, for people listening, like, I know people that like made $20 grand and spent $15,000 of it on a watch, and it's like, that's a stupid thing to do.

No, that's dumb. That's dumb. I like— again, that, that profit, $100K profit month Um, like it was a $16,000 watch. Yeah, totally fine, but I still felt weird about it. Yeah, yeah, a lot of it is like a mental thing. Yeah, I feel like from what I've heard, like, I feel like you have a good mindset around like spending money. I feel like that's good. A lot of people like that I talk to who are a little bit older than me, um, have a lot of scarcity around it. Yeah, it's not like you do. It sounds like you're pretty comfortable like kind of buying stuff you like.

I, I've actually always used spending money as a way to set my new normals. Like, I— like, when I was getting started, I, like, you know, I got this condo that was, like, it was out of my realm of reality. And then I, I rented this house that was, like, out of my realm of reality. And it was— I learned something, which is that once you— it's hard to get something, but once you get it, no one's taking it away from you. So it, like, keeps you at a certain level. So, like, I kind of have continued I've leveled up my houses, like knowing that I'm never going to go back from that. And money's just money. I don't know, like, you got to enjoy your life. Like, I could have probably invested better and built a bigger net worth. But at the same time, I believe that, you know, your financial advisor would tell you that buying a Lamborghini is a very bad, bad choice. But I believe that, you know, if you're on an important business call and you're driving a Toyota Camry, or if you're driving a Lamborghini, you're probably going to be a better version of yourself on that call, you know, in that cool car because you feel like a better version of yourself. Same thing with like when you're traveling, like I'll go to a really nice hotel because if I have meetings and stuff, you know, I like to be greeted. I like for my room to be clean. I like the amenities to be good because I feel better. Which at a certain level too, like the things you do become worth much more. Like, you know, when you're first getting started, deals might be worth $1,000 or $10,000 eventually. The deals you're doing are hundreds of millions of dollars potential. So it's like the amount of money you spend can only go so high on those types of things, but the things you can do grow exponentially higher. So it's like if you're in a, you know, in a city for like a meeting for a $10,000 deal, you probably don't want to spend $6,000 on a hotel. But if you're there meeting someone for a business that could become a billion-dollar company, you know, you spend that money, it's just a rounding error at the end of the day.

Do you— does that kind of go back to your manifestation and visualization thing where it's like by you spending that money— me and my friends call it a sacrifice to the money gods. Yeah, we came up with this term and we went to Europe one summer. We went to Naxos and there was this one bar that we kept going out to. And every, every night there was like 5 of us. And so we would rotate who was getting the bill and it wasn't anything crazy. Like we would get bottles. And we had a table. It was like $1,000. Yeah, it was like very reasonable because it was like just some shitty club in, in Greece. And when it was my turn, I remember, yeah, it was like $1,200. And I was just like— I talked to my buddy Danny. He was like— and he's so wise. He's just like a New Jersey, just like, just very brash. And I love his energy. So he would— he said two things that stuck with me. He said, man, just think of it as like a sacrifice to the money gods. And he also said, like, one day when you're worth $100 million, not going to matter. Like, you will not remember this $1,200 bill. Obviously now I remember for other reasons. Yeah, cuz I just remember how wise it was. But like, I mean, yeah, you, you got to—

where's I going with that? It's just sacrifice the money, God. You're spending money to set your— the stage of your life, the manifestation thing.

So like, does that kind of align with how you view that, where it's like you got to like kind of put up a little bit more than you're maybe comfortable with so it'll come back?

Partially that, and partially You know, the way we— again, my philosophy is the way we feel creates life around you, right? So like, if you're traveling and you go stay at a Howard Johnson, you're gonna feel one way. If you go stay at, uh, the AmanGiri or, you know, the Four Seasons, you're gonna feel another way. And I like to feel good. And again, it becomes rela— like, so money, like, I've experienced this more recently in life. I've gotten to a point where the interest if I have my money in a money market, covers my living expenses, right? Right. And from there, it's only going to be more and more. So if you spend $500 on a hotel versus $10,000, it actually makes no difference. And that, that's at my level. As you get to higher levels, it makes less and less of a difference. So it's partially, you know, the manifestation of things. You know, you're setting yourself up at a new standard that you're never going to go below. Subconsciously, you'll always meet that. And it's also partially the environment you put you in is going to change the way you feel and change the outcomes of the things around you. And there's also partially, as your net worth grows, the— there's a disproportionate growth in expense to the amount of money you have. So like, again, you could only spend so much in a hotel, right? But you could make infinitely more money, right? So that, that becomes a smaller— maybe it— maybe at first it's 1% of your net worth, and then it's 0.1% of your net worth and that's 0.01% of your net worth. What's the difference between 0.01% and 0.005%? It makes no difference. But there's a big difference between 1% and 0.1%. Yeah. So that's kind of the, the idea behind it is like you're spending less and less of your net worth, which is also generating you income. So it's kind of those three things, a combination of those three things. That's how I look at it.

Yeah, I love it. Yeah. I think the biggest thing that I've taken away from this is is like, um, you have a lot of trust in yourself that things are kind of just gonna like work out. Um, I think like, do you— is that like your advice to people? Like, do you, do you give advice a lot?

I will give advice if someone asks me for advice. I'll give them my whole heart and soul and try my hardest to help them. But I don't like to give unsolicited advice, which is why I'm a bit reserved on social media, because I don't want to be that guy telling people how to live, right? Which is why I kind of like bringing other people on and sharing perspectives. Um, so yeah, that's the type of person I am. If someone comes to me for help, if it's a friend or a family member, I'll give them hours of my time. Uh-huh. But I'm not going to go and try to tell people what to do if they don't, uh, if they don't ask me.

100%. Yeah, because I feel like that's solid. I feel like that, that's something I definitely learned today is like you have a lot of trust in yourself and trust in like that things are just going to be—

that there's they're going to work out after enough, like, validations of that belief that things will work out in a way that's unexpected and greater than you can imagine. It starts to be easier to trust in it. I'm not sure— I don't trust myself. I trust in God. I trust in a higher power. I trust that I'm on my highest path and that things are not going to happen the way I expect them to, right? And when they don't happen the way I expect them to, I try not to be attached to that because I always revert back to the philosophy that the way I feel right now is creating things around me outside of space and time, outside of my my tiny mind's comprehension of how the universe works. So I always revert back to that, and we'll see how things go. But that's been my experience in the last maybe 5 years or so. But anyway, I'm interviewing you, and we gotta wrap up here. So I'm curious, um, you know, based on what we've discussed today and, and, you know, the audience that's gonna be listening to this, I usually ask what's something that you want to leave people with, you know, based on your experience of life, based on what you see in society, based on things that you think would help people. What's something that you want to leave the audience with?

I think if there's, there's anything that amazes me the most about just like life in general, it's like there's a lot of things that you think are way out of reach and that you would love to have, but they're a lot closer than you think they are. Like, when we started, we were talking about how, like, I had terrible beliefs around money and business and what I thought I was capable of. And, like, one of the best things about my life so far, or I guess my career so far, is that, like, I've just gone and checked all these, like, boxes of things that I thought I couldn't do or thought I was never going to be able to touch, and I did. And now it makes me excited because, like, I have a whole new set of, like, things that are way out of age where it's like, I don't see $100 mil. It's not in my, you know, sight right now. Yeah. But I know that if I, if I've done this much so far, then like, it's, you know, it's logical that it could happen one day. Yeah. And I think like if more people, um, thought that way too, I think you'd be a lot more excited about life. And when you have more excitement for life, like, it motivates you to do more. It's just like a positive, you know, cycle that that leads you to places that you wouldn't imagine. Yeah, it's a never-ending cycle.

Uh-huh. You're always going to see things that are greater than what you've experienced so far, and part of you is not going to believe it's possible and part of you is. And the more times you outperform those limited beliefs you have, the easier it is to stick to the path to get to the next one. And I think that you're on a great journey and very appreciative of everything you shared and joining me today on the show. Thanks, brother.

I had fun. It's good. It's awesome.

Let's go. All right.