Authenticity is everything! Connect with fans GLOBALLY! | No Standing Zone Podcast Ep.2

I'm sitting here with Tim Jack from Ryse, and I'm going to have him explain what he does. He's a tech guy, and I love tech guys. He's where tech meets music, and I love that. So, Tim, could you explain a little bit about who you are and where you're from?

100%. And everything you said was accurate. And I think that where I just— I came from a not this. So that's probably the place to start. I won't take long doing this. I grew up in Alabama. People think that's really surprising because I don't have a Southern accent. I think I was just one of those people that started out as an entrepreneur from the beginning, and it wasn't really because it was in the family or that I was around it. I think purely, and I'm not just saying this, I just was a type of person that I just have to try stuff. And I remember filling out an application for a Chick-fil-A or something and was reading it. It's like, list your previous work experience. I'm like, I'm 15. Like, I don't really have it. And this is ridiculous. And I thought, well, if they're going to pay like $6 an hour, I could probably go like work outside for $6 an hour. So I was just always of the opinion of like, if somebody's going to pay you to do something, like maybe find something that you like better and get someone to pay you to do that.

Yes.

And find something you like to do and then find somebody to pay you to do it and then figure out how to monetize it.

Yes.

I think my dad said that at one point. But, and, and so through my, throughout my whole life, I just sort of gave myself this chance in the beginning to not get a job. And if I could make whatever money I needed to make at that time, I would keep going. And so I did and really never had a job. And, um, I did a lot of stuff. I had a graphic design company and I started learning, like, I learned Photoshop by myself. Oh, you too?

Yes. Keep going. This is great.

Oh, that's great. Total synchronicity. I don't know if you've done this though. I had a professional surface cleaning company where we clean like restaurant sidewalks and bricks and stuff like that.

Wow. No. I did sign painting though.

Like what? Like the sign, like in the background?

Like, well, yes, but not that one. But yes.

Oh, that's cool.

Yeah, it was a cool job.

I should have hired you to paint my sign. So yeah, I just did entrepreneurship. I gave myself— I did not want to be like told what to do and just started doing stuff on my own and went from there. And it's been a blessing. So I could go into as much detail or I could just leave it there. Whatever you think.

Well, how did you— how did— what did you do before you started Rise, and how did you start Rise?

Yeah, so that would have fast-forwarded up to around 20— around 2016. I started a video production company. I had no experience in video, never really shot a video, uh, didn't really know anything about it. I moved from Colorado to kind of give like bury in a funeral my previous life and start over and do— I, I I was doing a lot of cool things, but I wanted to do like music and media and video. I thought it would be fun. It seemed really exciting. And I truly just wanted to have a good time. That was sort of my banner at the time. I just wanna have a good time doing stuff that's cool. And so I moved to Orange County and started networking with people who shot videos. And I used my experience in sales and marketing to go out and get customers. So we would pitch these crazy ideas and we would get different brands to pay us to shoot things for them. And that went on for a while. We got paid to do all kinds of cool things and film all kinds of cool things. And I think for me, I never learned how to use a camera. I never really learned any of the technical skills, but I always had the vision for like, here's what we're gonna make, here's how we're gonna sell it. And I would just build the people around me to make that happen. And at some point along the way, we started making a movie that was a music film about the Gorge Amphitheater up in Washington. And we started interviewing all these famous artists like Dave Matthews and Mike McCready and John Oates and Dirk Spenley and Jason Mraz and whatever, and started getting really in tune with all this.

And what's with the amphitheater? Like, why that amphitheater?

You know, it's one of those crazy stories. I, was watching Dave Matthews Band on YouTube at some point, having a cup of coffee, and it was kind of grainy footage, but it was a really cool epic venue. Like, the scenery looked really cool. But I started looking around on YouTube and there was really not a lot of amazing footage of this place. And I thought, I want to go to the show. And then I thought I should get someone to pay me to go to that show. So I emailed the CEO of Live Nation and said, hey, I would like to go shoot some content up there. Maybe we can make a YouTube video for you guys. And they said, oh, there's a— I got a response in like 20 minutes. And he was fast. He goes, there's actually a really interesting story about that place. You should talk to this guy. And that guy was Jeff Trissler, and then and currently the CEO of Live Nation Northwest. And he built that place over the past 20, 30 years.

Wow.

Yeah, a week later I was having dinner with them and then we were sitting there like, we should make a movie about this, huh? Yeah. And then we went on to win an Emmy for that, actually. Amazing. Yeah, so that's sort of the setup. We started filming live sessions and doing biopics on artists and stuff. And then when social media came into the picture, They were like, how can I get this video of me playing on all these big Instagram accounts? And I was like, I don't know, we could probably figure that out. So essentially what happened leading up to Rise is we either partnered with, created from scratch, or purchased different Instagram accounts. And they were themed accounts, so they had like, they were just music accounts or comedy accounts or whatever. And we would figure out, right? Yeah. Like, probably a better word. We'd figure out how to get the content posted on those. And there was this one moment where my, my friend had a daughter who's a super talented artist where you got a video post and it got like 5 million views in, you know, half a day. Yeah. And we're just like, wow, that's amazing. And so it's like, how can we keep doing that? Built a business doing that and a few other things like it. And then at some point we started hearing that artists were getting ripped off for streams and all these things. And I thought, well, there seems like an opportunity in that. Maybe we could build a tech platform that could automate advertising and do it the right way. And that's essentially how Rise was started.

I love that because when you go into Meta and you just press boost, it's not it. Like, that's not it. It's just them making money. Yeah.

Yeah. And the Meta ads platform and all the ads platforms are highly sophisticated. And at the end of the day, and if some people are experts at using them and some people nerd out on learning how to use them, but most people don't have that kind of time or expertise or energy to get into all that.

Right.

So yeah, it's, it's a whole new—

And I think when you're a musician, you want to hone your craft in music, not necessarily learn all the ins and outs of every, because Because advertising is really just one piece of the pie. There's so many other pieces. And once you start going down the rabbit hole of everything you need to know, it's like having 7 full-time jobs.

You know, it really is.

So I love what you guys do.

They underestimate it. It's, it's a lot of shit. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of responsibility. It's a lot of tasks. And it just is, it's such a world of jobs and work that people, people really should be humbled by how much effort it takes to figure this stuff out.

Right, right. Can you give a little overview of what Rise does?

Yeah. In short, Rise automates advertising for the music industry, and that's sort of the high-level banner. Obviously, it's more than that. But at the end of the day, someone can go to Rise and they want to promote a piece of content or a song, and they want to do that on Spotify, YouTube, TikTok. Instagram, the main platforms, they can click a create campaign button. And through that process, with no advertising expertise and no— what's the other one— no marketing or advertising expertise and no technical skills, they can then go and create a campaign. And I don't know, if you're good at it, like 3 minutes, and if you're just starting out, maybe like 6 minutes to create a campaign. And that campaign will have a minimum guaranteed result every time, kind of fit within a range of potential results. So if we tell you we're going to get someone to view your, your music video on YouTube or a piece of content on TikTok, or we're going to get someone to follow you on Spotify, we'll guarantee a certain minimum result for whatever type of campaign that is. And it might have a potential maximum that it can get up to. And we are able to do that at scale for pretty much the whole music industry, from an artist in a foreign country spending $50 on music that we have never heard before to a label or a big artist spending thousands of dollars on a single campaign. And we try to provide the same accessibility and outcome for all the above.

I love that.

Does that make sense?

It does. It makes perfect sense.

I alternate between being like super, like, I'm talking shop right now and just completely like out the window.

So, and that's funny because I'm going to take you left because that, that to me, and I'll bring it back, but, um, I love your lifestyle. And you, you had mentioned that you live in Hawaii, which is really cool. It's like you are so living the dream.

Yeah, I literally, I can't even put into words. I get so fucking excited. I literally go outside every day and I go, I can't believe I live here. I can't believe my life is as cool as it is. I look at my friends and my neighbors and I'm like, it's so incredible. We have the best weather. We have the best little community of active people. We're so lucky and we're so grateful for it, truly. And it's no bullshit, Wendy. Like, we are super grateful and we talk about it almost all the time.

I love that.

And as I've gotten older, people are like, is it good getting older? It's like my life is getting better all the time. Like, I can't wait until I'm 80. Like, I'm just going to be stoked. Yeah, I could tell that about you. You started this whole weekend energy that we have going here today.

Yes.

Good.

I'm so glad.

Can I say something though? Can I say something? Something I'm extremely passionate about. People are afraid of finding out who they really are, and it manifests in ways that seem really obvious in hindsight. But are not aware. I know who I am because I know that I'm someone who lives and thrives in this place. It might be somewhere else for other people, but it requires knowing I'm somebody who is okay living further away from family and friends and connections in some situations. My family doesn't live here, and so I have to make an effort. It's a difference for me. I have to know that I value being able to walk outside in shorts and a t-shirt over just about anything because I know who I am. And it's these tiny little things I know about myself that makes life so much better. And I'm willing to sacrifice a bunch of other things in order to have that. And I feel like people need to know who they are in the smallest of ways.

Yes. And sometimes we go through life blindly, not knowing what we like or what we don't like or who we are, what we're willing to accept or what we're willing not to accept. And it's, it's kind of amazing to me, you know, completely. You had mentioned something that's, um, like my key focus right now. You mentioned gratitude. And every morning when I wake up, I have a gratitude journal. And every morning when I wake up and every evening, not right before I go to sleep, but I'll list all the things that I'm grateful for. And it's changed my outlook on life. It's changed my It's changed my level of happiness. It's changed my health. All for the better.

100%. And as it should. Like, when people hear that, they should go, that makes sense. But they don't. They don't think it's a job or something, or they think it's like an exercise of woo-wooism that doesn't really pay off.

I thought it was too. When I hear people say it, I thought, well, okay, I'm not that woo-woo.

Could you see if that black shirt is on the sink in there? I want to show it to her. Aiden is here. He's someone I'm extremely grateful for. He is a music business student and former Guitar Center employee, and now he is working with us. But so my friend— Hi, Aiden.

Hi, how's it going? Super good. You doing okay?

Doing awesome.

Good.

She's the best. Um, my friend DRock, who works for Gary Vaynerchuk as his creative director for like many years, uh, made this t-shirt. It says happiness on the top, on the chest, over the heart.

Oh, it sure does. Yeah.

And then on the bottom, happiness is success. I don't know if you can see that.

I can. Is that the bottom or the sleeve? That's the bottom.

It's the bottom. Oh, it's backwards because it's on the camera, but is success. And then on the back, it has gratitude in all these different languages.

Oh, I love this.

And every time I wear this shirt, almost without fail, someone comes up to me and talks about one or both parts of it. And I love that. I wear it all the time, and I try to really embrace that. And it gets contagious, though, like when you actually are grateful and you're excited, because I know you are. I can tell you are. That's why I'm hyped up today. People soak it in. I want to interview you.

Happy to do it anytime, whatever you need.

What about right now? Okay.

Yes, you can ask me anything.

What's your— you're doing the journal, you're enjoying kind of the benefits, like, in all parts of your life of being grateful.

Yes.

Like, who are you in your life right now, in this chapter of your life? Just like, who are you? Where are you? What are you kind of up to? Like, what, what makes you hype? What makes me tick?

Yeah. Um, I love that you're asking this. So last year around March, I realized that I was a severe workaholic. And while I was really happy with my life and I love what I do, I realized that I had never had a relationship longer than 7 years. And that's weird because around me are people that had been married for 30 years or 50 years, you know, especially at the age that I am. And I started to go down that rabbit hole and figure out like, what the fuck is wrong with me? So I started going to therapy. I read a book about attachment disorder and realized that I have this mixture of avoidant and anxious. In my personality where I want to get close to somebody and then I push them away, and then I want to get close and I want to push them away. And I realized that I was controlling or had controlled all of the relationship misery that I went through in my life. So I started reading. I read about a book a week. This has been about a year now. I've read a book a week in, in, you know, they call it self-help, but I don't. I call it education. I've learned how to meditate. I've learned how to— I used to have 3 emotions: happy, sad, and angry. Um, I now probably have 50 different emotions. I feel my pain, I feel my happiness, I feel my emotions. I never did that before. And, um, I realized that I, I really love what I do, but I could be doing so much more to help artists. So I got a business coach in the music industry, somebody that I admire greatly, who's just woo-woo enough to keep me happy. She keeps me on point. She— we meet on Fridays, and every idea that I have, I'm now putting into action instead of just thinking about stuff and saying, wow, this would be great. And I got to tell you, I've had a really amazing career, and I don't want to belittle what I've done because I'm really proud of all the stuff that I've, that I've accomplished. But I could I could do so much more, like so much more. And I've got so much more in me to give. And I started— I've dropped 30 pounds since, since early December. I just started working out with a personal trainer. Thank you. I just started working out with a personal trainer today. So it really hurts when I do this right now. But I'm making all these really positive changes in my life. And I'm able to do it because I started studying people. That came before me that talked about how, for example, our brains don't like change. It wants to keep us safe, and change to a brain is scary. So I started reading books by neuroscientists that talked about how to make changes, how to make lasting change. Atomic Habits is one of the books that I read, which is a great book. I started really doing the work aside from just reading the books, which I've done my whole life. I've always been a reader, um, not a book a week though, like this is all insane, but I really love what the, the, the portion of the journey that I'm on right now. I was in France, uh, did you know you get this long of an answer? Um, I was in France.

I'm really captivated fully.

I love it. I was in France 3 weeks ago and I was there for 2 weeks and the first 5 days I spent in Paris because it's really, other than New York where I've lived for many years, I'm in Atlanta now, but I lived in New York for 20 years of my life, and it's my favorite city. Paris is my second favorite. So I'm in Paris like once a year, twice a year. I just really love it. And I went to Paris for 5 days, and then I got on a train with no plans, no, no nothing, right? Just my, just my suitcase. And I'm traveling alone. I got on a train, I went to Provence, rented a car, and then drove around through the south of France for 10 days. And I speak a little bit of French, but certainly not enough to be renting a car and driving around the south of France. So what it did was it took me out of my comfort zone, which was my goal, and it pushed me to my limit. So when I came home a week ago, my self-esteem was on 10 because I was able to survive something that I didn't know if I could. I didn't know if I would enjoy it. I had the best time. I saw Nice. I went to Monaco. I went to Marseille. I went to, um, Cassis. I went to Cannes. I love Nice. I had the best time there. It was Carnival. But my favorite place was Aix-en-Provence. And I went— I started there and then I ended up going back there and I just had the best vacation. I read, I did what I wanted when I wanted. I ate great food. I had no caffeine.

Fully, just fully unlocked, like just living.

Yes. And I've never done that. At 60 years old. I've never done that before in my life. So it was transformative for me.

I, I'm talking about— that's what I mean. Like, people, that's, that's the whole— and that's the whole— that's the whole thing about like knowing who you are is like, that's me, I want to go do that. And yeah, I want to go to this museum, I want this art.

I learned how to make perfume. I stopped at a perfume factory and knocked on the door and said, how do you make perfume? Like, Wendy Day doesn't do that kind of shit. I would have Google them, you know what I mean? But I happen to be passing in, in, uh, I think it was called Grasse or Grasse. I happened to be passing a giant off the highway, and I got off at the next exit and went back and just went up and said, how do you guys do this? And somebody was kind enough to, like, you know, in my little pigeon English I could understand, my pigeon French I could understand, but they were kind enough to spend an hour and a half with me and then let me make my own Wendy perfume. And take it with me. It was an amazing experience.

That's crazy. I'm—

isn't it—

fully intrigued. And you'll love this. I don't know how, um, my friend that I was telling you about, I caught up with in Honolulu the other night, Chaz Umamoto, um, he's telling me this, and this is the impact that you have on people. I don't know how he knows this. He goes, like, Wendy Day's, her favorite thing is like France she's learning French, right? Is this— this is accurate?

Yeah, French and Spanish. I'm studying both of them. Yeah.

And he's, he's just going off. He's telling me all— he's like, she loves to go there and like, that's her second home. And, or like, would like to— he's just telling me all this stuff. I'm just like, how do you know this, bro? That's, that's amazing.

How does he know that? That's amazing.

Isn't that cool?

It's really cool. And it's—

and he's so inspired by it. Like, he was excited to tell me what you were doing, and I just think that It's like when somebody's really living their life that they're really happy about, it's contagious. There's a leaf blower here. Can you hear that?

No. And you mentioned you kind of live outside. Like, how cool is that?

Yeah, it's just in Hawaii, there's really— at this place anyways, there's no fully solid— like, there are walls, but all the windows are I can't show you because everything's fully plugged in, but afterwards I'll show you. That's really cool. It's just open. So there's a leaf blower and I can't hear it. You can't escape those things.

Yeah, they wake me up every morning in my neighborhood. Yeah.

People are addicted to them. It's like you're blowing around leaves and dirt outside that is still going to be outside.

It's still going to come right back to wherever it was. They never fully go away, do they?

They don't. Anyway, if it gets too loud, let me know. But I will. It's there.

Yeah, we'll just, we'll just, we'll just talk louder. So it's not a problem at all.

Yeah. So I'm all about that type of shit because people are like, oh, this would be the perfect production. Like, you know, what's happening is real life is happening. That is the production.

That is the production. And, and social media has made us capture it, because I never used to capture life. I never captured photos. I didn't think anybody cared about what I was doing, so I never made effort, you know.

Your interest in, in, uh, in French is already captivating people I know.

That's really cool. I hope they get there someday. I also have an incredible love for Ghana. I want to retire to Accra. It's probably one of my favorite places in the world. In Africa? Yeah, Ghana. Yep.

Can you hear it?

I can hear it now.

Okay, we'll let it fly. We're not going to let him leaf blow his whole property on our podcast, right? We're going to have to go down there and give him a coconut or something.

That's funny.

All right, I think it's— I think it's passed. This has got to be— it just got to be an episode. We got to have this.

Yes, I agree. I agree. So you started this really cool company and you're living the dream, and, and one of the things I want to do is inspire artists to do this. So how did you get here? Like, how did you get the energy and the I don't want self-esteem, but the self-reliance to be able to say, this is what I want to do and I'm going to go do it.

Well, I think motivations are different for everybody. And sometimes people just go, I want a family and having kids and a wife or a husband or a partner, whatever it is, is the motivation. Sometimes it's just getting out of a tough situation. Sometimes it's just you're like an addict to the lifestyle. There's always different reasons why people, you know, get to different places. So I feel lately that I want to clarify that just because one thing happened one way for me doesn't mean that it has to happen the same way for other people. But for me, it was very much the sense of I like I like the, the creating my own structure in my own lifestyle. I like the freedom is the probably the simplest way to put it. And it's motivating enough. That's motivating enough for me to work as much as I need to or want to, to maintain that. And then in the beginning, of course, to just even achieve it in the first place. And that's all it took for me. I think that I just wanted to be free. But as the years have gone on and the experiences have gone on, and I've been the type of person that's had very classic story of like really big successes and also having like nothing at different times. And that's very much happened to me. I like at one point had an organization that I started in 2010 when I was like I don't know. I'm really bad at math. I don't know how to do basic math. I must have been 21 or something like that. I'm 34. How old was I in 2010? Who's good at math?

Yeah, you were that age. Go ahead.

I was that age. And we built this organization.

Old enough to drink. You were old enough to drink.

I was. We were in 45 cities globally within 4 years. And we were doing events. With corporations and governments and startup weeks and all kinds of stuff. And I walked away from that organization with absolutely nothing. And that's a story for another day. But I dedicated my life to doing that for a long time and had like no money or anything from working on that despite what it was. And so, yeah, I think for me, that's a big part of it is being motivated by the freedom And also, I'm really in love with this, which artists live every day, day in and day out, the idea that something that can come out of your brain that never existed, a lyric, the name of a company or a place or a concept or a joke, like the fact that you can just come up with something that if I just started saying like, Purple banana today and I turned it into a brand. Like, soon enough, Aiden would have to start saying purple banana, right? And now it's a thing. And so I just think it's so cool that you can create— everything that's ever been created in this entire world came from somebody's brain.

Yes.

You know, everything.

Yes.

And I think that when you look around and see all the things, if I just look at the objects in this house, in the house itself, like before all that. It was water and rocks and trees. And what else is there in the natural world? Plants. And that's what everything— what, caves? I don't know. That's what everything was until people's brains came along and they're like, "We should build a chair." Right. And then, I just think that's so cool. And for me, going through that process is rewarding and I just like to do it and I think it's kind of fun. And my pro tip, and I'm actually writing a book with this title, Make a Move, is basically that. And it doesn't matter what you're doing, but it's creating an identity around being somebody that does stuff.

Right.

I don't just go to work and show up and do whatever I'm told and go home. Maybe I do that make a paycheck. But in connection with that, in addition to that, I also, like, if I paint, I take a picture of the painting and I post it on Instagram, or I email or take it down to a local coffee shop. I do some tiny little action that takes this thing that I do and does something else with it. I have an idea, I email somebody, and I'll admit this publicly, I had an idea to do a Twitter docuseries because I think there's just so much wild stuff going on with all that. Probably, I don't know, a year ago I thought of this. I just emailed because I happened to have an email chain from years ago. I emailed the former CEO of Twitter and said, hey, we're shooting a docuseries about Twitter. Would you like to be interviewed? We want to talk to you. We weren't shooting one. We weren't yet, but we would be if he said yes. You know what I mean? Exactly. Exactly. And so I just took an enormous idea and sent a 3-sentence email to someone that has a connection to that idea, a strong one to that story, who would be interested and invested in it. And I threw it out there and we're not doing it, but you get the idea. It's like, yes. In an instant, I could take an enormous idea and do one tiny little move.

And it would create that movement rolling.

Yeah. And if I just do that over and over again, now I have a formula for a never-ending supply of cool things to work on. Exactly. Yeah. And I think that's what—

And that's what matters in life.

Yeah. That's it for me. And I think I think in every way, everybody has something like that that they are interested in and are maybe doing or want to do more of. So you just have to figure out how to— you don't have to create it. You just already have it. You have to figure out how to find the identity within yourself to do the part where you make things happen.

Yes, little things. Absolutely. It's little things. And little things stacked on top of each other make big things.

That's my shit right now. I'm on that. I'm on that big time. Yes, I'm excited.

I'm a big fan of stacking. I was in Martha's Vineyard when I was in college, or maybe I had just graduated from college, and I was having lunch at a picnic table, and this, this mother and her daughter came up and sat down with my friend and I. To eat their, their, their food. And the mother said to the daughter, I don't care what you do in life, just be really good at it. I don't care if you're a surgeon, I don't care if you're a trash collector, but if you're going to be a trash collector, be the best one you can be. If you can be a surgeon, be the best one you can be. And although she wasn't speaking to me, she was speaking to her daughter, it kind of changed my life, that advice, because I realized it doesn't matter what I do What matters is what I bring to what I do. So for the first, um, maybe 5 years after I graduated from school, I did work for other people and I hated it. One of the jobs that I got enabled me to take— to, to have training wheels to, to be an entrepreneur. There was very little risk. It was somebody else's money and somebody else's dream, but I brought it to life and I realized, oh, if I could do this for him, I could certainly do this for me. And then the gloves were off. Once I could do it for myself, I just got rid of the fear and did it anyway.

And it just takes that moment of realization that can kind of change everything. And those times come for different people at different times in their lives. And there's more than one of those moments in life where you create those changes. And so what was the— was it the relationship thing for you that kind of switched you into the gratitude, mindfulness type of mode?

Yes. Well, so you sent me to therapy and then therapy taught me, therapy taught me coping skills and the coping skills taught me like how to feel my feelings. And then I started to go down that whole path.

Gotcha. And so that's, that's so cool. It's like you, you have these things that happen in your life and if you just keep going down that path. You'll find what you're looking for.

And so, yes, well, it found me. That's the, that's the amazing thing, is when you go down the path, what's meant for you appears.

Yeah, all the time too, like in every aspect of life.

Yes. Yeah, I used to control everything or try to control everything in my life, and now I don't. I just, I control what I can and, and what I need to because I run a company, I can't just let everything come to me. For the most part, I just let shit come.

Yeah, same. And yeah, people, I guess, what's your philosophy on when somebody's out there making music and they have a song and they're wholly fixated on marketing it and getting it in front of people. What do you tell people when that's all they're talking about?

That I love the fact that they're so focused on their music, but it's not about just one song. It's about telling the story of who they are and creating connection. And it's the consistency of putting out the music that builds the career. So a career is not built from one or two songs. It's built from the repetition and the consistency of putting out your catalog and your music We also live in a world where it's very fractured and there's, um, people are kind of everywhere now. You know, when I was growing up, there were 4 TV stations and, you know, 3 radio stations, you know, and, and 2 newspapers in, in our town. I grew up in Philly.

So crazy that you're saying that.

And everything is so fractured now that you're really competing against everything. Like, you're not just competing against other musicians for eyeballs and ears, you're competing against the internet, you're competing competing against gaming, you're competing against books, you're competing against TV and film, anything that somebody does in their free time. But the great thing about music is it can play in the background while you do almost all of those other things. So music has a leg up, but you've got to really focus on telling people who you are, letting them see the real you. Authenticity really matters today. And getting that music in front of people, which takes a budget. And that's the hardest part, I think, for artists to understand, is they feel like my music is really good, my talent should get me over the hump, it should be free. And, and while I agree that everything in life should be free, it's not. It's, you know, it's, it's, it's how we live today. So my best advice to a brand new artist is, you know, test the market, make sure that you've got the work ethic to do this and you've got enough talent for your music to actually go and be a viable source of income. And if it is, go find an investor because without the money, you're never going to win.

Yeah. And also, I think it's a parallel into advertising because let's just say you have a video on YouTube, you have a music video or live performance video. If you, if you post that, that video and the, let's just say, 500 people organically see that video, if no one cares enough or likes that video enough to leave a comment, or most, almost more, more importantly, to share it, to click the share button, to a friend or whatever, then like you go back to cooking. Because at that point, if you want to put a bunch of money into advertising that video, certainly, uh, Google and YouTube will show it to people, but those people are not gonna care about that video. Exactly.

And I think the frustrating— I'm sorry, go ahead.

Well, no, I just— it's to your point, it's about making a better product. Like, it's— you gotta become good enough at— to, to really get people to, to watch. To you and I, it's just so simple, but it's so simple.

But if you don't think this way, it's not simple. You know, rocket science is not simple to me, but I'll bet there's people out there that find it very easy.

Simple.

You know, one of my, one of my frustrations in the music industry is kind of a, um, a humanity frustration where an artist might not have a budget. They never advertise, they never promote, and their music doesn't spread. And at the end of the day, they think it's because they weren't good enough. And that has nothing to do with it. And that's heartbreaking to me that somebody would give up their passion and they could have been the next Eminem or the next Ed Sheeran or the next Drake, and they gave up because nobody shared their, their first or second video when in reality they didn't know how to do this properly and they didn't give themselves a fair shot. It's heartbreaking.

Yeah, 100%. And I, I feel also that, um, like in, in today's market, it's, it just is the way that it is. It's, it's not something that we can control. Like Google and Meta and TikTok and these different platforms, they are really built on, on physical product e-commerce more so. And so it, the business model for, I don't know what, I'm just making up numbers here, but let's just say 95% of all of the activity on these platforms is centered around selling products. And as a person who also ran an e-commerce accelerator, an agency, and, and sold, built and sold my own physical products, is I can go on the platform, I can create an ad, and I can spend a dollar, and then I can make $3.50 back. And I can do that over and over and over again. And that dictates the pricing and the inventory of ads on these platforms. And then you bring in music and you go, well, now I want to advertise music in the same medium, right, as other physical products. And now I have a problem.

And it's intangible.

I'm getting paid nothing, essentially, and— or, or just a fraction of a penny. For an outcome when it costs a dollar to get an outcome. And so now I have an inequitable situation. And that's the corner of the internet that music marketing lives in, is I am competing against inventory that is so profitable when I'm selling something that isn't. And so we all struggle with that.

And it's very subjective.

That's the situation we live in.

And music is very subjective.

Very subjective. And then to add on one more layer to it that I feel strongly about is, is people, and I mean artists, they're going to spend the money on these platforms anyways. Sort of inevitable. They're going to spend the money. And what we've tried to do with Rise is say, hey, we know you're going to spend that money, at least for these particular types of outcomes. You can filter that budget through us. And we've literally spent millions of dollars on music marketing on social platforms now. So now we have all this data, we have a purely experience, uh, but mostly data audiences and, and, and access to reach certain people that would be likely to engage with the music or the content. And, and that makes a better outcome than if you were to go and do it yourself. And so that's sort of our been— we don't really say that on our website. It's like, you're going to spend money on— you get the point though.

Yes.

We know you're going to go and try to spend the money there anyway. So we've tried to create a system that gets more value out of that same dollar.

Yes. Out of the same dollar. And my team has proven that.

Totally. My team has proven that it's going to end up in the pockets of those platforms anyway. So if it is, watching, trying to get a better outcome.

To maximize it. I agree. Is that what makes you the most passionate about what you do? The fact that you're able to deliver to artists a better way? Or let me ask you it this way. What are you most passionate about, about what you do?

I am. Okay, so that's a great question. I'm going to say that that's not the answer for me. It's not about maximizing value, but I think for me it's more about solving an underlying problem. And the problem that we had experienced the most, that is probably the most painful one, is this, that people were getting ripped off and/or they were playing a game intentionally. Now, I know people are gonna listen to this and go, I wouldn't admit to it, but maybe they know they're buying something that's fake. In order to appear, and for different reasons, are going to, um, I call them vanity metrics. Yeah, vanity metrics, exactly. I want there to be a million streams on this song because it'll, even if I know they're fake, it'll make me look like I'm doing something bigger, like fake it till you make it, and maybe that'll open a door for me, or this or that or whatever. I, I'm, I'll remain neutral on, on the subject. I don't think it's a good idea, but just people have different reasons for doing that. It's not always, um, um, a super negative, uh, way to look at it. But for people that are interested in creating real connection with real audience and really getting to build a relationship with them, it's— it is paramount to do that in an authentic way. And right, that's been At the beginning of creating the company, that was sort of like, how do we fix that? And that's where we really started. And now the passion is in this. We've created a great two-sided marketplace where we have campaigns that people are going to create, artists are going to create, labels are going to create that have an outcome for that side. And then we have Tout, which is our artist discovery side. With the Playlist Network and the app and everything. And that's about finding people who are voluntarily interested in discovering new music and new artists and new content. That's what that's always been about. And so we try to be a matchmaker. Currently, we're launching this new thing. I don't even think you know about this, but we've just been in LA. We're doing LA every month. The passion is currently like, how do we crack the code of genuinely launching a new song in a big way and creating like a repeatable outcome that's big, not a by chance outcome that's big? And so with TAO, once— and so in, in music and in social media, what we know is paramount is really good content. Now, not every artist has really good content, so we're going to control that factor. So we're shooting that content in-house in a recording studio partnership. Wow. And bringing in, shooting it, social media content forward, very much designed for social platforms, extremely high quality video and audio, very compelling, very emotional. We're bringing that in-house. So we create the asset and we know we need that because it's proven a million times over.

Yep. And content—

we have a tremendous amount of, um, of reach through paid advertising. And so what we're going to do is actually, um, post on our feeds on social these performances and social content, uh, bite-sized, kind of like emotional, different types of things that kind of connect and help help showcase who the artist is as a person, but also help explain the music in a way that's very social and digestible. And then we're going to put a lot of our resources into actually getting people to see that content that are highly targeted and not just hoping and crossing our fingers that the algorithm is going to help us. So we're taking kind of a two-part approach or three-part approach: killer high-quality content, along with the algorithm and the sort of the chance that everyone's playing when they post, but also the resources and expertise as advertisers that we've built over the past few years spending lots and lots of money and creating that as a repeatable process. Yeah, so that's something we're doing now, and we've already filmed with a lot of extremely talented artists, big and small. We're doing more, um in the beginning and end of April, and we're going to continue to do that. And we'll shoot about a month's worth of content in 2 to 3 days each time.

That's beautiful.

Posting new music every day. On top of that, we have a million-something email subscribers, all, all listeners, uh, that are subscribed to receive music recommendations from us. We have Spotify, uh, personalized playlists that we update automatically for them, kind of like our own Release Radar. We have all these little things And so we're going to activate all of those things as a multifaceted marketing launch for songs. And I think it's going to be pretty effective. So that's my current, like, we're going, we're doing that.

I love that. I love that.

I speak from some tests. We've already been running tests and it's—

It's working good. It's working.

Yeah. So I'm hyped on that. Sorry, I get really excited. I blacked out.

No, this is what I wanted to bring out. Exactly what I wanted to bring out, because you have such a cool job and you're so down to earth and you're so authentic, and I really want people to see you. Like, one of the best conversations you and I ever had was about restaurants in Nashville. And do you remember that? And it was, it was because I thought we were all having a meeting, and I thought it was going to be the following week when I was in Nashville, only to find out that I had the date wrong. And you guys were actually like, where are we having dinner? I'm like, So I'm like, well, you should try here. You should try. I started recommending restaurants. You're like, well, I thought we were having dinner with you. No, I'm going to be there next week.

No, we had a great—

you ended up going to the restaurant. You called me. You're like, yo, that was the best food ever.

It was so fire. Actually, it had been back there twice the following week.

I went there twice in a row because it was so good.

Yeah, I went twice too. After you told us about it, we went again.

It was fire.

So fire. And there's so much good food there.

Yes. Who knew?

Who knew? Who knew? Now we know. Now we do know.

Exactly.

It's because people are moving there from other places.

That's what it is. It's all the diversity that's coming in. It's creating this really great ecosystem.

No, I grew up in the South. They have good food. They have food.

Yeah. Yeah. I like fried chicken. I do too. Well, it depends on where you get it, but I like good fried chicken. If I'm gonna eat fried chicken, it has to be banging. I can't do Popeyes or KFC. I'm sorry, I can't. It has to be—

I haven't tried either of those in a long time, so I couldn't, I couldn't give a report on that. But yeah, you're right, it just needs to be fire.

It has to be fire. Tim, what makes you happiest?

Oh yeah, I think right now what makes me happiest is connecting with people that I'm close to about that exactly, is just being way more open and honest about like, yo, I look somebody in the eyes and be like, yo, I'm so fucking happy right now. I'm just loving it. And then you could see that that's happening for them.

It spreads.

I'm trying to normalize saying I love you to friends, even especially as a dude. A lot of my homies, just like making a point to be like, hey, I love you, man. Like, truly though. Yeah. So just kind of cultivating that has been really good. One of the things that makes me the happiest on earth is I've taken up efoiling here in Hawaii, and it's kind of—

What is that? What's efoiling?

So there's two types. There's traditional surfing on a regular surfboard. Then there's foil surfing in various capacities, which is basically a surfboard, usually a small one. And to make it extremely simple, there's a very narrow mast connected to a wing that's underwater. And there's different ways that they're powered. Some of them have no power, they're just sort of analog, if you will. And then there's wind, there's different wind-powered ones like kites and handheld kites, things like that. But the, the, the mothership of them all is electric power because you don't need to rely on any certain weather conditions or swell or anything like that. And so we've taken up efoiling, and, um, one battery gives you around 20 miles— miles in the water— of range. So we can get in the water and travel 3 or 4 miles just to get to where a wave is breaking. We can then surf that wave with no other people around because no one's out there, and then ride back other— to other locations, surf a different wave, go to another location, surf a different wave, and then come back and still have time to like muck around. And you're flying like 3 feet above the surface of the ocean going down in the face of a wave, and you can do it over and over. Like, if you go regular surfing, you'd be lucky to catch like a handful of waves in a couple hours. Yeah, we probably caught 50 waves yesterday.

Wow.

In an hour.

And that's just because you can move around.

You don't have to—

you don't paddle.

Wave, go back. Wave, go back. Wave, go back. It's just over and over again. It's the best feeling ever. So that I'm really, I'm really big on that right now. It's making me very happy.

That's amazing. Yeah.

Just being happy about like what I'm working on, trying to be creative and all that stuff has just been, yeah, it's been life force lately.

That's awesome. Yeah. And that's what you do every day. You have the freedom to do what you want when you want. I love that.

Yeah. Well, you know, and I set, I set like alarms for my calls and things. I'll show you. They're all like— I've already kind of checked them off, but I had this list. I always set alarms for my schedule. And so I'm like 6:15 AM, 2 hours of computer focus with headphones on, webinars with distributors and workshops with Q and talking with you and stuff. And I had just before I went to sleep last night, I posted a little story and was just saying, I'm I'm actually so excited about everything that I get to do that I want to do it. And you didn't have to be on here today. I didn't have to be on here. We don't have to do anything and we could do something else. But I'm happy to. I'm excited about it. And I feel like I've been checking my calendar and seeing what's on there and going like, you know what? This is dope stuff that I actually want to do it. And if I feel like it doesn't line up with that, I might cancel it or just not put it on there in the first place. And we all have that choice. It's not just as entrepreneurs, some people have more restrictions than others, but you always have a choice in what you do. You always have a choice and you can stop doing things that you don't like or don't want to do because that will give you the freedom and the bandwidth to refill those future spots with things you do want to do.

You do want to do. Yeah.

And yeah, you may have to sacrifice in the short term to make that happen, but by all means, it's going to be worth it.

And, and for me, a lot of that is attitude. Like, it's like if you, if you want to do something or you don't want to do something, and this works better with something you don't want to do, sometimes if you think about it a little differently, it makes you want to do it. You know, like, I, I don't necessarily want to work out at the gym. I hate it, you know, and I just started doing it. And I, I don't look at it as working out anymore because I know I hate that. I look at it as self-care, and I love taking care of myself. I love when my brain is firing super sharp and when I can stay up for 24 hours and not feel groggy or brain dead. You know, and working out adds to that. And if I look at it that way, I don't hate it because it gives me joy.

Yeah, there's so many things that people can alter their perception on and, and just do it in a different way. I, I was the same way. I used to hate waking up early, and, and now I've, I've been doing it for a while now, but when I first started, I had to really go from well, I hate waking up early. That's still true. But what I do like is the feeling of being up drinking a chai, having some quiet time, and just feeling like I can do whatever I want for a little while and taking the time to just be creative or whatever. And yes, it's like, well, I do like that, so I'm going to do it. And once I got into the habit of getting up. Yes, I'm just excited to be up all the time.

Same. I used to hate getting up early, and then I had a— I have a client who's also my friend now, and he gets up every morning at 3:30. And while I'm not willing to get up at 3:30 because that's kind of when I go to bed, I am happy to get up at 6 because it's quiet. I can FaceTime with him and have a conversation about life or work or whatever. So I look at it I look at it like, okay, I'm not getting up early, I'm building in quiet time with my best friend.

And that's a whole other way that's motivating to get up. Like, I want to go to bed earlier so I can do that.

Yes.

I watched a video of somebody saying, I think it might have been Alex Hormozy was saying, you don't need a 2-hour morning routine or whatever. He was kind of going off about, you don't have to do this, you don't have to do that. And I thought, to myself, you know what I've been doing recently is my morning routine 3 days a week is my morning routine is I wake up and I put my noise-canceling headphones on and for 2 hours to 2.5 hours from 6:30 till 8:30 or 9:00, I don't have any calls or anything. I just put my headphones on and I do focused work. My morning routine is to wake up and do 2 2 to 2.5 hours of super focused work with no phone calls or anything. So it's like, and guess what that's doing? That's moving the fucking needle.

It is. It's like a turbo button.

Yeah, those hours.

I'm assuming you're sharp in the morning.

Yeah. And that's when like the magic is happening. And so like my words, some people are like, I have to do this and I have to make I have to make this coffee, I have to journal. I think all those things are fine, but when your morning routine is, I'm going to do shit that's really valuable, that's what actually makes things happen. And so now I'm excited to have the morning routine of getting shit done because all of the other stuff can be really healthy, but in some ways it could be kind of fluff.

Right.

I have to journal before I do any actual valuable work. Now, I must say, like, when you're doing gratitude or something, though, that is the value. That's the, the purpose in doing it is to correct self-improve, because the outcome is I want to feel better and I want to accomplish something for me.

Yes.

And it's important to understand that for you, like, that's really valuable for you at this point in your life, and you really are that is your routine. And for me, I'm getting more value out of doing productive work during those hours rather like if I wrote down stuff in a journal, I wouldn't— it wouldn't be as valuable for me as this chapter.

Yes.

When it would be different for somebody else and different for somebody else. And I feel like that's when people hear these videos or they see people that are really successful and they're like, oh, if I just do what they're doing, then it'll be for me. But we all have to understand like at what chapter we are in individually to know these are the things that are valuable for me. My morning routine should be this and yours should be that, or you shouldn't even have one, you know, depending on who you are.

Right.

So, but it all goes back to knowing yourself really well, knowing, am I the type of person that needs to journal right now? Am I the type of person that needs to work really hard? Am I the type of person that needs to do absolutely nothing? Do I need to go back and be a student and learn things? Like, where— who am I, right? Yeah.

And maybe I'm all those things. Maybe I'm all of those things, and that's fine too.

That's right. Yeah. And it's good to know. What else should we talk about? Anything else?

Yes. Yeah, I do have more things if you— do you have more time, or do you need to go?

I do, but we just have a leaf blower guy that sounds like he might be getting close again.

Okay, then I'll talk fast. Um, you're right, he is close.

How is that still going? You know what I mean?

Apparently all the leaves aren't blown.

There was a whole thing that happened.

Oh, now he's gone. He's gone.

Seems good. Okay, go ahead.

So how do you find balance between your life and your career?

For me, it's not even a balance. It just— everything just is the same thing. I recently started realizing that I'm always working and never working. And so brilliant for me, balance is— it's if I'm enjoying what I'm doing, I don't have to balance anything because I'm showing up for the people that I need to. I'm feeling good, I'm motivated. All the things that one would like to have figured out, I think. It happens best for me when I just— for me, it's just all one thing. I think other people are very different where it's like, I have to have me time and there's personal life and then there's work life. Because my job is legitimately so fun, I just don't like—

same.

I don't know. It's kind of all a little bit.

I get it.

But it is making conscious choices. I will— I get in the ocean multiple times a week. And whenever, especially I have two houses down, a really good friend/neighbor, he just texts me and he goes, "I'm leaving and I'll be, you know, can you go in 15 minutes?" And I'll just drop what I'm doing and be like, "Yeah, let's go." And I'll come back and work or whatever, but I think just choosing to do those things has been a natural balancing for me lately. And I, I say all this like really like energetically. I haven't always been like this, you know. It's taken a long time to, to get here, find out, find out what works, you know. And now I just, I can't see it being any other way.

Isn't that awesome? That's, that's amazing.

Yeah.

Do you have any, um, favorite books or movies or music that inspires you?

Yeah, I think, right, well, I've read a lot of physics books. I'm pretty fascinated by Carlo Rovelli, is somebody I spent a lot of time reading, uh, who studied— he's a physicist, um, studying how the universe operates, and And I find that to be really exciting and kind of an escape. I've also read a lot of— there's an evolutionary biologist named Richard Dawkins, and he took Charles Darwin's work on evolution, and he's still— so Richard Dawkins is still alive. He's pretty old now, but he's written like 15 books. I've only maybe done like 4 or 5 of them, but they go into tremendous detail about not how the world and the universe was created, but how all living things, how they are the way they are and how we got here.

That's cool.

Yeah. In that sense.

Like how we evolved.

How we evolved and how even things like echolocation developed independently across multiple species including human beings.

Wow.

And, talks about how bats are not that different than humans in the Cold War where two different nations simultaneously developed the exact same technology for echolocation to solve a problem. And, that stuff, just, I don't know, I just get really kind of nerdy about it. And I think that I've been pretty interested in that type of content. Um, Gary Vee is somebody that I think is really awesome. I've read his books and like to subscribe to, um, a good chunk of the stuff that he talks about. And what else?

And Tim Ferriss. I like Tim Ferriss a lot too.

Tim Ferriss is great. I've been on that for on and off for a long time. And, um, I really like— for you, you had mentioned meditation. I've been meditating on and off since probably 2020, or sorry, 2010. So, okay, so for a long time, many, many years. And I've gone through chapters of like doing it heavily, consistently, and sporadically and whatever. But I really like Joe Dispenza, I think, is a really interesting guy and have gotten into some of his books and practices. What else? Music. I love it all. I listen to a lot of everything like most people, but I'm on a crazy spectrum of— I love probably Dave Matthews Band is one of my favorite bands of all time. Still a fan. Just saw them live recently.

Amazing.

Still the old man, still got it. And I listen to Yellow Wolf and Joyner Lucas and all kinds of that kind of rap, just fast, technical, insightful storytellers.

I really like that kind of stuff. Very cool.

Yeah, very cool. I really like a lot of indie music and blues rock. Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats is one of my favorite bands. Seeing them live is just really incredible. I like Chris Stapleton, saw him live, and so many other people. It's impossible. And I try to separate my maybe work stuff from my personal listening quite a bit. I do as well. We had a campaign that came in from The Revivalists, and I low-key was like, holy shit, this is awesome. And let's see. Some of my closest friends are making some of the most dope music that I've heard in a long time. They're like family to me, but they're just starting to release music, just had their first show. They're called Pink Jag, and it's bossa nova kind of rap, but in a very unique way. On their first show at the Peppermint Club, they had a live bossa guitar player and a horn player as part of the show.

Wow. That's cool.

And everything, and the rapping, and just, yeah, really special people. And I think they're going to do big things. I've been listening to them, and I co-wrote a song with them that's going to come out. And I never said that in my whole life.

Uh-oh, uh-oh. I love how everything's cross-pollinated now.

Yeah, yeah, me too. Me too.

And I love that you wrote a song.

Yeah. And oh, and I should have said this. I play guitar. I've been playing acoustic guitar for for a long time. And I like to do that and freestyle rap. And just, I find my way into creating music as a personal thing or a thing that I do with a lot of my friends.

I love that.

Yeah. So, we'll see where that goes.

I don't have a musically creative bone in my body. I'm an artist. And I do a lot of like glass art and sculpture and clay. But I, I can't make music or sing, although I did just buy a piano, so I'm going to try to learn that.

Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, I got to learn eventually too. What's the, what's the glass stuff? Do you like do the glassblowing as well?

No, I don't do glassblowing because you— it really kind of takes two. Like molten glass is, is it's, it's lava, you know? And most of what I do, I do alone. I'm a bit of an introvert. And I really like spending time with me, so I do a lot of kiln-form glass. So I'll cut glass and then put it together, put it in the kiln, let it all melt together and make really cool shit.

That's crazy. I don't know anyone that does that except for you. That's amazing.

Yeah, that's really cool.

Do people know this about you?

It's rare. Yeah, I can't say that it— well, my circle does, certainly. Um, I can't say that it's rare because every town or city, every larger town or larger city has— has— you can take glass classes. So it's not, it's not that weird or different. Yeah, but it's certainly not, you know, if there's no real glass museums that exist. Well, there's Corning, but that's because they make glass. But there's no real, you know, it's, it's not huge, it's not super popular, but I like it. I don't remember how I discovered it, but I've been doing it, um, probably 40 years.

Wow, that's impressive. I would love to see some of that. I don't know if you can like send that.

Pictures and stuff. Yeah, I'll send you an email, some pictures.

That'd be really cool. And, um, shout out to there's no glass museums opportunity in the marketplace.

How about that? Yep.

Who's gonna— who's gonna start the glass museum business?

Somebody has to. There's a glass manufacturer in Portland, Oregon called Bullseye. And they have like a, like a gallery for the students because they also have glass classes there. But they, but there's no like museum museum. There's Corning, but Corning makes glass. There's no real museum for just glass.

There is an exhibit. It's not a museum. Is it its own museum? It might be. The Chihuly in Seattle. Did you go to that?

I have. He's amazing. Amazing. Yes.

But that's just one— it's just one artist, right? It's just the same.

Yeah.

Same person. I don't know.

Like the Bellagio in Vegas, when you walk into the Bellagio and you look up, that's all Dale Chihuly.

Got you.

Yeah.

So Dale Chihuly, that's— I did not— I didn't even know he had a first name. Just Chihuly.

That's all I knew. Yeah.

So there's that. But that's just one. There's got to be a museum of, like, different glassmakers out there.

Should be. There should be. And if there's not, maybe I should start one.

I think that could be cool.

That could be—

see, this is how stuff happens. And then you just—

it's exactly how stuff happens. And then you have the energy and the passion, you just do it.

You just make it happen. You just like— how do you do that? You just start. You just, you just email somebody, or you just go like find artists that make glass, and you put it in a building and you open it.

Exactly, exactly. If you had this to do all over again, um, what would you tell your younger self?

What advice? Do I know what I already know now?

Yes, knowing what you know now, what would you tell your younger self?

Well, I will say this, and I'm going to say something really weird. That's good to try to make a point. People don't realize that people are famous not because they're famous, but because they do something that's really remarkable. And does that make sense?

It does. What you're saying is so important.

It's not— and maybe there's some gray area where social media has sort of blurred the lines of what remarkable is because people can get put on for things that are unremarkable. But in the traditional sense of being a real creator, a real artist, or a real entrepreneur, whatever it's— or an actor, especially those types of people, it's like the— we're drawn to that because of their abilities and the skills that they have that they've shared with the world. I think if I could go back to my younger self, it would be a two-part thing. One, I would say, share your skills and ability with the world sooner, because I've only just now begun to do that. And a big chapter of my life now is doing what we're doing, which is to have conversations, connect, and actually share insight and things with the world and things I've created with the world and try to be better. But I will say Gary Vaynerchuk never made a piece of content until he was 34 years old, and I'm 34 years old, and I really just started doing this type of stuff this year. I love it. I would have told myself that, and then I would have— oh, you're going to love this classic, Jim. I would have told myself to just enjoy the process way sooner because I was heavily focused on the outcome. Yes, for so long. I wanted to win. I wanted to, like, be seen as somebody— I cared about titles, and it was more about getting to the end of the road of some kind of success than anything else. And, and while I was able to have some, some success along the way earlier, I feel that I would have enjoyed my life better if I made decisions that were more along the lines of enjoying what I'm doing rather than being heavily focused on what I want the outcome to be. And I don't regret it, but it's close.

Wow.

That's good. Yeah, those— what about you? What would you— what would your answer be for that?

Definitely enjoy the process, smell the flowers along the way. I grew up in a poor neighborhood and everybody around us had money, we did not. So I grew up feeling a lack. And I think if I were to give myself advice, I would tell myself to stop chasing money because it'll come. Money's a tool. It's not the destination. And it took me a long time to learn that. I didn't start my company until I was 30. So I didn't really start living my own dream until I was 30. I was working for other people. I was in school. I'm one of those people that, that's overly educated. I've got two master's degrees and an undergraduate degree. And even today, I'm still taking classes like every—

that's awesome.

Yeah, I'm just always learning. And I used to think that there was something wrong with that. I used to hide that from people and not tell them that I was learning. But I love it. Like, I'm driven by knowledge. I'm driven by learning. It's my passion. So now I do it unabashedly. Like, I'm so— I'm so in your face with it, you know? And I think I would also tell myself to stop sweating it. Like, it'll happen. Like, don't— don't like try to control every aspect of everything. It's— life's gonna happen. I'm gonna be successful. Successful really is all about just having an idea and showing up, and somehow you figure out how to do it. And you've built your life the same way, and you know that, like, you've been successful at a lot of different things. And even the things that you may feel like you weren't successful at, you were, because you got the lessons to get you to where you are here today.

Yeah, you should yell that at people. You should yell at people and say that a lot.

Yeah, yeah. So I should get a tattoo on my forehead and make everybody read it.

You should. And yeah, if you'd have to tattoo it so that it— what about if on camera sometimes it inverts? You might have to do it in a weird way.

True, true.

So I want to just— because so Aiden is here and Aiden is 20. 20 years old. Love it. And he's in music business school and was working at Guitar Center and now he is working with me, Aiden. What would you tell your younger self as a 20-year-old? What's your answer? I like the enjoy the process because right now reflecting on it, I'm looking for that end. What can I achieve? How can I achieve it? Soon can I get there, when it's probably I need to do something.

That was, that was, that was me at 20. And then when I got there, it was like, okay, I'm here, now what? And I realized that I was just always chasing destinations. I was chasing the degree. Like I said, I'm overly educated, so I was always like, oh, I got it. I didn't enjoy school. It was like, I got to graduate, I gotta, I gotta get the degree, I gotta get the degree. And then I got the degree and was like, oh, fuck, now what? Okay, let me go get an MBA. Okay, okay, okay. Okay, go through the program. Okay, got to take this class, got to take that class. And I don't remember enjoying the classes.

Oh, man.

I was learning for a piece of paper.

When you say that, it sounds painful when I hear it.

It was. I was learning for a piece of paper, not for the experience. And what's really cool is as an adult, I've gone back and I've retaken classes like economics that I hated and took just so that I could— okay, I got to get a certain grade point average. Now I'm taking economics to learn the theory of the economy. Like, I'm taking it to really understand it and learn it, you know. And that's awesome. Yeah. And to me, that's— it's food. It's food.

It really is. It's fuel for me.

It's what gets me out of bed in the morning. It's what keeps me going, is I get to learn every day. I'm learning how to be better at my job. I'm talking to people that are more successful in whatever area than I am so that I can learn and apply myself and become successful in more areas for my clients, you know, to help them get to the next level. And that drives me, and it's wonderful.

And how could you not? Because everything is changing and expanding so consistently that you just have to constantly be engaged. Um, and I say have to, but in the sense of like, if you're really into something, you gotta, you gotta be in the weeds, I think.

You do.

I don't really think that there's a way to not be, because it's— and if you can enjoy this industry for real, anything—

because it's not obvious. You can't look in at music and figure out how to do it. You can't watch Drake and see what he's doing and say, oh, I want to get on, I'll do exactly what he's doing. You can when you're a superstar, but that's not going to build your career when no one who knows who you are and you're just putting out your first song. You know, I, I want to help the people that want to help themselves, the ones that really want this, that are willing to sacrifice for it and do what they have to do to win. Because this is— it's— I used to say it's a full-time job, but it's not. It's really like 7 full-time jobs.

It really is. But, but in— but not in a negative way.

No, in a positive, amazing, overwhelming way. No, no, you do what you can and you get good at what you can, and you find others to help you in the areas where you're, where you're not strong.

And when you're good at it, it feels good. Yeah, feels good to be good at it.

Yeah. And it feels good when somebody comes up and, and I get to, I get to see my clients go through this all the time. Somebody will come up and say to them, Man, I was at the lowest point in my life and I heard your song, blah, blah, blah, and it saved my life. And I look at people that say that and I'm like, you know what? This is why I do what I do. That is exactly why I do what I do.

Yeah, that's powerful. I mean, obviously, literally life-changing for people. And that's when it's so much such an easier way to connect if you're creating music to help yourself with something or to help somebody else with something, it's way more successful than