"How To Create A NEW LIFE For Yourself..." | Dhar Mann and Lewis Howes

So I'm in this tiny space and so right away I'm like, I'm gonna go back to the hills and this and that. But I'm like, no, you know what? I'm gonna make myself stay in this studio apartment until not only do I have like a nice savings, but until I pay every single person back that I owed money to. So I forced myself to stay there. I was carless. I had zero cars. I went from nine exotic cars at my peak to zero cars. and I stayed at zero cars even though I had a great business that was bringing in a lot of money. Now I'm starting to grow a business again.

Welcome back to the School of Greatness everyone. We've got my friend Dhar Mann in the house. Good pop right there. It's gonna be a great interview. We got connected, I actually found out about you, I don't know, five, six years ago probably, when you were this Jet Set Life master on Instagram, traveling the world with your beautiful girlfriend slash fiance slash cars, mansions, champagne bottles. And I was always like, something about this guy, it seems a little bit off. With this portrayal.

Yeah, right?

I was like, I don't know how he's making his money. I don't know if it's true or if it's not true. And then you kind of went silent. You went cold for like four years.

Yeah.

You didn't post anything for four years on social media.

I deleted everything.

And I kind of forgot about you until I saw you come back again.

Yeah.

And then I started seeing your content on Facebook and I was like, wow, this person's really thoughtful. really philosophical, even spiritual minded, and intentional about how he creates content. And it's really helpful for so many people. I was like, who is this guy? And what's his story? So we've started hanging out the last, what? I don't know, three to four months.

Yeah.

And you started to tell me your story and blew me away about everything you've been through. So first off, let me start the context for people. You have the fastest growing page on Facebook right now. over 2.7 billion views in a year.

2.9 today. 2.9.

Call it three billion.

Might hit three by the end of this podcast.

That's crazy. Three billion video views on your Facebook page, which is crazy in a year's time.

Between Facebook, YouTube, IGTV.

Gotcha. Correct. Okay, gotcha. And I think you might have over 10 million fans or followers across all social media in a year's time, about a year, you're gonna have 10 million.

Yes, about a year.

Right.

And it just keeps growing, man. So you were dark for four years, you came back with this massive platform from nothing. And you have an interesting story about how you got here. So I want to learn about so many things, but I want you to first try to share the story of how you had this lifestyle before to where you're at now, the businesses you've been a part of. I know you have some type of Some criminal history. So I want to hear and let people know your story.

Yeah.

I don't think you've told it publicly at all.

I was waiting for you, man. I was like, I'm gonna go dark for four years.

And then come on in.

And then reach out to me and tell it all.

Yeah.

So tell me, what was life like before?

Yeah.

When you were this kind of Instagram influencer back in the heydays of Instagram.

Yeah. For sure. So I just moved to LA and at the time, you know, this was four or five years ago, I had some money and was just sort of living this Hollywood bachelor lifestyle with all the crazy cars and the fancy house, you know, everything you can imagine as to what that lifestyle looks like. I was going to the club, you know, four nights a week with five thousand dollar bar tabs, like, every single night, living this high life. But, you know, like a lot of people, I was spending a lot more than I was actually bringing in. And at the time, my mentality was just like, okay, it's okay, I can fake it until I make it. And if I just keep this up, maybe I could start monetizing or somehow the money will follow. But it didn't.

It didn't come.

It didn't come. So what was this just credit cards.

You were using or how were you.

Spending on these things?

Exactly.

So yeah, I mean, I've always been an entrepreneur and I've had some successes, but I've had way more failures. And so when I moved to LA, I did have some money. So I was able to, you know, I had more money than like a lot of people did, but not nearly as to how lavish I was making this lifestyle scene.

And where did you come from before LA? And what was the business or the work you were doing before that brought you here?

Yeah, definitely. So I grew up in Northern California. I grew up in like this conservative Indian household. So Oakland, Oakland area, and then I went to UC Davis. And then I've been involved in a lot of different industries. This is a guy who was sort of always just looking for different ways of making money.

Like what can I do? What's the best way, the quickest way?

Exactly.

So what are some of the industries?

Yeah, it's all across the board. Real estate, real estate, I did medical marijuana, I did limousines, I did exotic car rentals, I did construction, I've now in makeup, I've created content. I've been probably in about a dozen or so industries. And it was just always like pretty much my entire life just chasing the dollar wherever I could make a quick buck. That's the direction that I would go.

So you'd see a guy who was like, oh, I'm making a ton of money in real estate.

Exactly.

You'd go chase that. You see someone who's questioning construction.

Right.

Let me go chase that.

Exactly. I thought the way to success was to have like, oh, I'm gonna start seven different businesses. And the more businesses you had or the more opportunities you were chasing, the more successful you'd be. But it's sort of like that quote by Confucius that says, the man who chases two rabbits catches neither one. And it took me a while to realize that, but I was always a guy who had a lot of speed. Whatever I set my mind to, I could get there quickly, but my aim was always off. And so what I realized is, if you're going the wrong direction at 100 miles an hour, it's a lot worse than if you're going the right direction at one mile an hour. But it took me to have a lot of experience with failure in order to finally get the direction right.

Got it.

But yeah, so involved in a lot of different industries until I finally got to where I am today.

Okay, so you moved to LA, you had some money, and what was the business you were in when you were in LA?

Well, turns out it wasn't a business at all. I was investing in something that ended up not being a real investment. So, I mean, it's sort of a long story. I'm sure we'll get into it at some point. But I just sold my medical marijuana company. It wasn't, I know that sounds major because everyone's into medical marijuana right now and it's this big hot industry, but I wasn't one of those massive success stories that had some huge exit. I sold with basically just enough to kind of start a life here in LA. And then I had a bunch of time on my hands and I had some money. And so with a lot of people, a lot of young people with time and some money, I was like, okay, you know what? I'm gonna be a full-time Instagrammer. And so literally every day I would just wake up thinking, how am I gonna post like the most baller image possible? And so that's what my page became. It was all just about sort of the flash and the superficial lifestyle. And in the beginning, yeah, it was fun and it was exciting, but very quickly it started feeling real empty and I definitely started feeling like, a lack of purpose and then also just felt inauthentic, like I wasn't being real. But when you're in that, it's so hard to actually see it and especially take yourself out of it because now you've got all these people that are sort of expecting that from you. So I try to maintain it as long as I could until I literally couldn't maintain it anymore.

Because you had like, I think you got a million followers. You were one of the few people had a million followers five, six years ago when it was hard to get an audience.

Yeah, there wasn't a lot of people that had a lot of followers on Instagram at that time. So at my peak, I got to about 800K and then I just cold turkey went off Instagram and for like four or five years just watched that following decline. And it is so painful. I know that sounds like so silly to say, but if anybody has a social media following that's listening to this podcast, They know that it's stressful when you're losing followers or you're not sort of at your peak that you used to be. So it was definitely like a painful process just being off the grid and sort of seeing my following slow, like just dropping off and then, you know, everybody speculating as to what happened to me. A lot of people thought I went to jail or they thought that, they thought the craziest things, but in reality, I was just trying to discover the new me.

So you didn't post for four years on social media?

Exactly.

And what was the final thing that made you say, okay, I gotta pull away from social media?

Yeah, so I've had three major failures in my life.

Three big ones.

Three big ones. I've had thousands of other ones. But you know, a lot of people say that they've experienced success and failure, and it's very common for a lot of, especially entrepreneurs, But my failures are the kind of failures that will like knock you off your feet and put you on your back and a lot of people don't recover from. But I've always been this resilient guy as well. And I would say like if I've got one skill set, it's being able to bounce back. But every time I failed, I always had an excuse. I always had a reason, you know? Like the first time, oh, it's the industry, the whole industry collapsed. That was the real estate, you know? The mortgage crisis that hit 2008, 2009. I was like, oh, it's the industry's fault. It wasn't my fault.

People were still making money in the industry that time.

Exactly. I wasn't taking accountability. And then so the second time, which I ended up getting my criminal charges, I got embroiled into a lot of different legal issues. My business wasn't doing well and I ended up sort of selling it at the bottom. So that was like my second experience with failure and it gets even worse. Each one was worse and worse and worse.

So what was the criminal charges for?

Yeah, so it's a crazy story. I'll get into that whole story in a second. And then the third one, which was even bigger, is I got one of my actually friends who was running this investment company, turns out he was running a Ponzi scheme and I had no clue. And you were investing in it. And all of my income was coming from that. asked me, where was my income coming from? It wasn't even coming from a real business, but I didn't know that because I was getting all of my money from this investment fund. And so, of course, when that didn't work out, then I was blaming, you know, I was just blaming everyone else for why I wasn't succeeding in life. But after my third major failure, that's when I really stopped and realized, I'm the common denominator here. I am the one person that is consistent in all three of these massive failures. And unless I'm gonna take that really serious to change the person that I am, then my outcome is never gonna change. I'm gonna keep going through this same cycle of succeeding, making it really big, and then just falling flat on my face. And so I realized that in order to become the person that I needed to be, I had to just go dark off social media, start all over, and basically begin my life as new.

How old were you?

So I was about 30 years old. So I celebrated my 30th birthday with literally not even enough money to buy the drinks I ordered at the bar. And everybody was thinking, 'cause I was just getting off social media at that time, Everybody was thinking of me as like this huge baller guy, but I couldn't even afford my own birthday cocktail. So I had hit like super rock bottom. I was on the verge of like moving in with my parents. I thought I wasn't gonna be able to even pay my rent. So yeah, I was about 30 years old when I turned my life around. And a lot of young people especially think like, oh man, I'm 22 and I haven't made it yet. I'm a failure. or I'm 27 or whatever else. I was 30 years old and completely broke and starting over with my life. And you weren't only broke, but you're.

Also, I guess, socially shamed for things too.

Absolutely.

You went through a very public breakup.

Absolutely.

A semi-famous TV star.

Right.

And she was saying things and the news were saying things and friends were saying things. People were also publicly shaming you or whatever they were doing.

Exactly. And that kind of pressure, there's even more to the story that nobody knows, you don't even know, but happy to share it today. Yeah, but no, I was like, talk about the darkest time in your life. Like that's definitely where I was. Like I thought I was gonna get diabetes, put it that way.

You were so...

I was having health issues, I was so stressed. I literally thought that it was the end of the road for me and that this is all I would ever become known for in my life. I was just this failure that would never get back on my feet. I certainly could never have imagined a few years later that I'd be on the School of Greatness podcast, sitting across from Lewis Howes, that's for sure. But it just goes to show that whatever state that you're in is definitely not your permanent state as long as you believe in yourself.

Yeah, you can change it for sure. So what's the story that you haven't told me or anyone?

Yeah, so I guess I gotta kind of spell it all out. Yeah, so I mean, I've been an entrepreneur my whole life, as I mentioned, some success, a lot more failures, but I grew up and when my parents came into this country, they were completely broke. They came, I think, with seven or $8 in their pocket. I said $7 in their pocket in a YouTube video, and then my mom texted me and she said, you gotta tell the truth. We had $8 and she was offended by that. But so my parents came, they were completely broke and trying to figure out how to make it in America. They immigrated from India. We were living in this small apartment that we shared with two or three other families. So really struggling, but my parents were really ambitious and very hard working. And so even though I grew up in this poor household, I saw how hard they were working and they started their own business that started becoming really successful. So I sort of had the entrepreneurship in my blood. So when I was like 10 years old, I started my first unofficial business. I was selling baseball cards with a little stand set up wherever there was heavy foot traffic. At 14, I was the first person in high school to buy a CD burner. I'm sure especially the young audience is probably like, what is a CD burner? But basically I was buying CDs and then making copies and selling them to my friends. Five bucks a piece. Exactly, 10 bucks. But if you add a cover, then.

You can get a couple more bucks.

Print off a piece of the COVID yeah. Exactly. And then so I always had this entrepreneurial mindset, but I always had this sort of make money fast, and even if you have to cut corners, it's okay. I had a broken moral compass. And so when I was 19 at UC Davis, I was studying economics, and it was just hard for me to focus in school. So, I knew that, you know, I wanted to get into business. I didn't want to wait to graduate. I also didn't want my parents paying my tuition. I wanted to be financially independent. So, I started a real estate mortgage company. And if you've ever watched in college, N19. And so, I rented an office. The property manager looked at me like I was crazy. He's like, Are your parents going to co-sign? And I was like, no, they have no idea what I'm even doing. And for whatever reason, he believed in me. So, I rented an office. with whatever little money I had, it was a tiny space. As time went on, I got up to about like 25 employees or so. And have you ever seen the movie Boiler Room?

Yeah.

So when you walk into a room, you just see people like dialing for dollars. That's what it was, where people were calling people trying to get them to refinance their homes because interest rates were so low. And everyone was taking cash out at that time of their properties. So they call, get people to try to refinance their homes. fill out a college app, fill out a loan application, and then I was the guy that would take those applications and then go to people's houses and try to close those deals.

Wow.

And I was doing super well.

What gave you the courage to do this?

Yeah.

I'm gonna be a loan officer.

Yeah, you know what's crazy? I was dealing with a really bad breakup at the time, and at that time, I was just like, I'm gonna show this person, I'm gonna go out and become super successful, and she's gonna regret you know, breaking up or however that relationship ended. So I was sort of motivated by this breakup and then also sort of the family background. My brother was in real estate. So, you know, I had sort of like the entrepreneurial background. Before I was 21 years old, even legally able to drink, I had three houses.

What?

And I bought a Lamborghini.

That's crazy.

And so I'm in this small college town making more money. UC Davis. Yeah, there's hardly anyone that, not a lot of people live in Davis, so here I am, this college student driving this orange Lamborghini. You know, I was being super flashy and I was spending a lot of money. I was making great money, but I was spending it super fast as well. And what I didn't anticipate is that the 2008-2009 mortgage crisis hit and completely wiped me out. I was spending money faster than I could make it at that point, and as soon as my income dropped, I could no longer keep up with that expensive lifestyle. So I go in and now I'm like, how can I even make this? How can I even afford my car payment? That was my first massive failure. So I'm like, how can I even afford this car payment? I can't afford this lifestyle. And so I've always been pretty good about fast thinking and then coming up with solutions. But often that might help me in the short run, but that thinking hurts me in the long run. I didn't realize it at the time. So I decided to start an exotic car rental company. I just created a website, took a bunch of pictures of my car. I rented out. Exactly. I started renting it out and that's how I was making my car payments. So I was able to barely buy the hair on my chin, keep the expensive car. Exactly. So that was sort of my first experience with failure. I was trying to figure out what I was gonna do after that. And so I knew, I was passionate about real estate. I still thought I was gonna stay in real estate. So now I've got this exotic car rental company that I'm renting out my car and then I go into rehabbing commercial properties and real estate in Oakland. And so I found out about this government grant program where for every dollar you spend on rehabilitating your properties, they will give you $1 back if you do it in areas that need improvement. So I was super excited about this and I was like, hey, I can take on all these projects at once because I'm going to get all this money coming back in for the government. And I, you know, again, trying to go 100 miles an hour. I think I was 22-23 years old, and I was like, I gotta make it. I gotta do something big with my life, and I want to make a name for myself.