if you have a Tik Tok you can put out three videos and the third video gets 2 million views and you just made $20,000 off your product launch so if you can learn that content style I don't know how you can fail it it's painfully simple everything comes full circle when you're who you're supposed to be like I just I focused on me I didn't it's so cliche but I didn't spend time you know obsessing over girls or chasing these things like I was focused on my individual glow up and it just showed how easy all of the other things tend to fall into place let's say that I found the the winning product I've then developed like a unique product which is 3% let's even say it's 5% 7% better what are the actual practical steps of me now promoting that product on Tik Tok I'll break down the step by step for building a multi-million dollar company in this era okay so 6 months ago I shared on this channel that I had this crazy goal of hitting 100,000 subscribers well it's not as crazy as I thought at the time when I said that we had 3,000 subscribers and we're so close right now to hitting 100,000 so please help us out with this goal this crazy dream that I had hit that subscribe button here's where I wanted to start cuz Rob Oliver people might know you as rob the bank um and I wanted to read this tweet that you wrote you said in the last 10 years I've nearly lost my business sold it later for $30 million dodged cancer became a father of two found God during dark times you then go on to say that that these past 10 years have been a crazy ride and it all started with my dad and so that's where I wanted to begin that last part when you reflect on the story and it's a crazy story could be a movie right mhm why do you say that it's starts with your dad why is that the starting Place well I think that was my inspiration like biologically you're you're born from your father but to see the platform that my dad kind of gave me you know he started with was born in a tent in Tennessee and first father or first child of five kids mom was 14 when he had him and that was kind of my Baseline for seeing work ethic every single day like that was a guy that just blue collar put in the time 30 40 years you know as long as I saw him growing up that was just self-made and self-built and he's not like crazy crazy you know multi-millionaire or anything like that but just to see some take kind of this idea of like the American dream and make that [ __ ] happen while everyone around him is like addicted to meth and falling apart and so that was always kind of my springboard and really my competition in life too in a lot of ways which sounds uncomfortable to say about your father but it's like you know if if someone took it from Zer to one I need to take it from from one to two um and that that's really where my my story starts I'm curious that is an interesting thing to say right that your your dad is almost your competition but I think I think there's something in that in the the father and son and you want to take kind of the Legacy that they've built and then take it forward I'm curious where that where did that thought first start like is there an experience is there a moment where you were like yeah it's it's become reality I I take pride in saying things that I think a lot of people maybe think or it's like deep down in there but it's so uncomfortable to say you'd never you'd never actually say it and then one of those examples is when I sold my business the genius brand you know multiple eight fig thing he had a distribution compy which was like totally different that he had built over 30 years and was much smaller than genius and we sold our businesses right around the same time I sold mine first for for more more money and like believe it or not he's proud of me but there was also a level of like whoa what the [ __ ] you know like like um and so I I just I've been through a lot of different father moments if you will that um there's like this duality in it that anyone out there that has a relationship like with their dad it can be confrontational it could be like he's been my worst enemy and my best friend and my biggest supporter and like the person I've hated the most I don't think enough people talk about that but I think it's one of the defining things in so many of our lives like if you look back I share a lot of those traits that he has that I probably can't stand and the fact I have those traits is also probably why he butts heads with me right and so we just have these different World Views that have shaped with like a fundamental underlying personality and um uh that's it's made me you know I'm curious I'm curious to get into kind of the the early years um and it's interesting right like when we think about school or we think about high school you almost have like these different archetypes of what the kids are like right you have like The Jock like the cool kids you have the nerd the loser The Loner um the ones that like struggle getting girls I'm I'm curious for you what kind of kid were you like if I had gone back to your school and observed like what would I have seen I I was a misfit in every I didn't fit in so picture sophomore year I'm F and now I'm 6'4 like good athlete like do all these things but sophomore year I'm 53 I grew up basketball is my life so I'm naturally in just kind of that that culture and so I'm this 53 kid who doesn't necessarily get in with like any of the white kids but then on the like on the black side like I'm not super accepted there and so I was just this little Misfit I mean five 53 and then junior year I'm still like 5'7 and I mean girls was like the biggest struggle of my life I that's the age you start crushing on everyone and I used to have this confidence about me I still do I I I've tried to brainwash myself in a way that like I think it's important we can talk about that later but even back then you know like I I didn't mind shooting a shot basketball court I'd shoot the shot girl I like I'd shoot the shot I've told this story a couple times but like one of the hardest moments for me my sophomore year I just moved to the new Public School in my area and there was this there one one girl I really liked and I you know had math class with her and we kind of built like a little relationship and her eyes and hindsight it's obviously just like this is my little cute dorky friend in my mind I'm like yeah I can you know I can like pull this right and uh there was a song I like I love music and uh the lyrics like really resonated with me for her you know I'm like oh this is perfect now I remember writing it on a little love note and going and handing it to her and um like but kind of running off like I didn't stand there and wait but I could I still had visibility of her and she was with her friends and I remember she looked and like read it to the group and they all laughed and she kind of like crinkled it like didn't fully tear it but just kind of crinkled it and it was like oh and that [ __ ] made my heart like sink like I felt this sick disgusting whatever feeling and pretty much from there until later senior year I I had very little success with women you know what's interesting actually you mentioned that you were like you were a misfit and I think when you're younger it's difficult to be a misfit because you want to be you kind of you're you're feeding into all of these things like you want to be liked you want to be popular you want other kids to like you you want the girls to like you and so when an experience like that happens what is the effect of Rob oliv on Rob Oliver in sophomore year like what does that do to your confidence here's the truth I think we're all inherently individuals and misfits in some capacity so Society is engineered in a young way cuz you said in high school right that you just desire to fit in bro that H that that shit's more relevant as you get out of high school you're trying to find your entrepreneur group or you're trying to find your co-workers like we seek to be a part of a group and so we often compromise our personality and who we are and more importantly what we have to bring to the world the more we fall into that and there's reasons for it there's social expectations like if you walk around like a like a goth with you know like heavy clothes what's the chance you're going to get a tech job like zero right so we're we're forced to conform to this new world that isn't necessarily us and in the process we lose ourselves and we're not living for who we want to be and we lose that Independence and so that's kind of my my personal brand nowadays the whole rob the bank thing it's been like I have this luxury of having made enough money in my mid 20s where I can kind of stand up and and be who I want to be but most importantly hopefully be a symbol for anyone else out there who wants to be them because I mean is abundant it it comes nonstop but the more in tune you are with who you're supposed to be the better off your life tends to tends to get like and that's that's me saying that firsthand and so I guess that's kind of that was a long answer there but that's my general message to people is like Embrace that natural Misfit tendency don't fall into the crowd no matter what and it's really hard in high school like like that's that's where the pain is but if you felt that pain just know that's going to be a blessing later on cuz if I didn't go through those experiences and get ostracized or Outcast like I wouldn't have had the um awareness or Vision to create my own company because it happened again when I'm start building my business you know this is the cliche entrepreneur story but the second you go all in on something with passion you you lose people you lose friends and they talk [ __ ] at first like all those little gimmicky entrepreneurial quotes about like first they laugh then they ask you how you did it like that's all for real I'm sure you're you know you're running this up I'm sure you got friends back home like good luck with the little podcast or whatever right like it's so cute and now you're going to break 100,000 subs and they're kind of like oh you know he's for real but that that's kind of my message I hope just to embrace that Misfit nature yeah no I love that that is so true um you know I want to get I want to get into the Rob of the bank stuff and the entrepreneurial rise before we do though I'm curious like so you go through this experience uh it's so crushing right and you talk about the fact that you're you're a misfit you grew up up a misfit and the point that you are now I can tell even in the way you dress the way you present yourself your brand you fully leaned into it like you've embraced it but it doesn't always start like that and and I felt that firsthand right like there's certain moments where you almost kind of lean into trying to be like everyone else trying to please the crowd and so I'm curious when you reflect on on your early story is there a moment where in your mind it's kind of the time where it's almost like you lost yourself a bit like you started trying to play into the crowds or like trying to lean into being like everyone else like what what comes to mind yeah I mean I'd say I'd say throughout life yeah I mean for for sure let me think back like even you know early college I'm looking back at how I dressed or even even those years you know I mean I think that's where I got criticized half the time like basketball's my life bro like I'm trying to make that varsity team I played on good aou teams growing up and so I'm dressing like basketball players like for like a better you know like it's more it's more Street and like that was where I was leaned into and then any of my white friends I was like kind of friends with those groups they're not treating me the same and so remember one day I went to like [ __ ] alberon B and I'm like maybe this is how I need to be dressing you know and I'm like God why does this store smell so bad what's going wrong you what's wrong in here um but it's been a constant accumulation of events where I'd say I haven't stuck to me until like when I was building that first company I let go of all that stuff and that was one of my first times where I got tunnel vision and it wasn't like on style or anything like that I looked like a dork but I was living for me I knew I was living for me I knew I I was living for what I need to do and kind of as I've rounded into this phase of my career like I'm doing the same but it's a little more it's in a it's in a different way it's public like I I buy the things I like I'm interested in fashion I'm interested in design and I have no problem standing behind those things because they're they're me um and and I think the more you kind of iterate down to that we're all one of one at the end of the day we you really are one of one and the more you iterate to find that individualism the more fulfilled you're going to be MH no I love that and it's so true you know what I think I think it's interesting even when I look back at my own life there's certain moments I almost call them like trigger moments where it was just a sign to me of like you have to bet on yourself like you have to go all in on you and so I'm curious when you think back to that and you talk about even the experience of being in like in the abber cromie store trying to dress like these other kids what was kind of that first moment where you were like [ __ ] that I'm just going all in on me like what was the trigger point so I've got a couple let me let me tell you a couple good ones I have one story that I saved save for this cuz I've told the story about the girl breaking my heart when I was 14 or 15 or whatever what I don't tell is what happened when I was like 23 I've been with my my wife for a long time and there was a breakup where we were not together for 6 months and so this girl from my high school in college one of the first times I went all in was when I decided that I wanted to play basketball again so I walked onto that team and it became my life and I transformed physically like I got jacked I was a practice player but like my whole life changed that was like my first glow up right and I get back after college that that last year and I'm working out my local gym and that girl is there and we had like a decent relationship and I remember she comes up to me and my friend and she like puts her hand on my shoulder and she say oh my God Rob you're like you've gained like 50 lbs of muscle like something like that and long story short I slayed that demon for lack of a better term um while I was on a break with my wife and um it just kind of that was one of the moments though where I realized everything comes full circle when you're who you're supposed to be like I just I focused on me I didn't it's so cliche but I didn't spend time you know obsessing over girls or chasing these things like I was focus on my individual glow up and it just showed how easy all of the other things tend to fall into place and so that was one of the moments and then I'd say more recently too there hasn't been like an aha but it's been the more that I double down on who I'm supposed to be the better life keeps getting and that's operating from a place of like very Natural Abundance that's investing in others around me that's giving back that's not being afraid to buy the pants I want or whatever and things just keep getting better like in in general business keeps going better like I've made more money at least on paper with some of the growth and stuff in the last 2 years than I did my entire career prior and it's not like I wasn't successful before that but that was me going in on me on like you know truly and the results speak for the the results speak for themselves I think it's actually the self-improvement is like an addictive angle because you you start doing it and you start seeing the results and what happens and it just each win Spurs you onto the next win and you know I wanted to share a quote that you put on your Twitter you said n was right on the money when he said that the modern man has to literally relearn how to believe in himself you need to teach yourself to be confident you do this by taking bets and surpassing your own expectations eventually you build a big enough portfolio of winds to rest your laurels on start stacking confidence points now yeah I think modern society in general again it forces Conformity that's why there's like this obsessive idea of like the Matrix or whatever which which I totally reject because I never think it's it's never been easier to create your own life and design your own life and make money however you want and all that stuff we can talk about that more later but in today's world they don't like accept someone who stands up and and wants to claim W's you know that's that's pushed away and again there's so many reasons like societally why you shouldn't shoot the shot why you shouldn't start the business right but in reality this is the greatest place in the world greatest time in history to be building anything and it's like what's the worst case if you fail like I mean even even we have bankruptcy law like there's literally no downside to starting to stack wins and we're just we've gotten so far out of that game it's not even it's not even funny and so again I hope to lean into messages like that because I'm only one person but if some of these messages become more mainstream have you heard the idea of Life maxing which I've been pushing me life maxing is just this idea a that you need to take your scorecard and you have your different main traits and then you Max all of those out so it can be business there's often something physical like you know for me it's it's martial arts I love to box like I do that several times a week um experiences and basically you reject this idea of balance in exchange for an obsessive foot on the gas everything in life like even when you're finding peace it's in like recovery through you know a trip or whatever but you're constantly investing in all the components of life they're going to max out your life and that inherently fuels each thing like every new time I go to an experience like this you know flying to New York to do this podcast I I I told you like I just I wanted to come to New York I wanted to spend some time here that was a an investment in an experience it was an investment in a relationship but that's going to come back and I'm not worried about work life balance or anything I'm trying to set up a life where I'm constantly working and the more that people can align that way in a young age the better off they're going to do the Tik Tok shop kids are pH example of this and we can talk about that later you know what I realized the the default kind of mood or mindset I feel like when I observe a lot of people and we all fall into this in different stages of our life is kind of indifference yeah it's like almost like apathy it's like just uh but in the wrong way we numb ourselves to the fact we're dying like you go walk the streets of Wall Street right now and even the intern doing the private banking thing like he is so focused on that day and getting back working his 14-hour day and getting on the couch and just working to be 30 to get that promotion to be the billionaire to be the like it's it's Soul numbing versus crafting out a life where you're indifferent to people people's opinion of you right we're we're indifferent to the to the reality that we're going to die and you need to be indifferent to the reality that other people's opinions don't matter and I feel like the the reason I even mentioned that is that the energy that you bring it's like you're you're going after it and I can tell even the way that you speak there's like it's personal for you and I and I find that interesting whenever someone sits in that chair and they're speaking about something and I can tell it's personal to me what that signals is that there's some sort of experience there's some there's something that's happened in their life that they're like I'm not doing this at 50% I'm going to do this like my life depends on it because it does it's personal and so that's I'm kind of curious for that like why why is why is it so personal for you this this kind of Relentless drive to to self-improve to get better why is that such a strong thing I think the biggest question is what do you want in life and then when you realize that anything in life requires a certain level of effort and focus if you want it in a meaningful amount of time then there's truly no other way to behave I mean if you want to build a business like go through Silicon Valley and you're not going to see any guys that have it that did it part time if you want to build a monster podcast you [ __ ] you know you I know you live and breed this thing I I know I've seen the growth in a short amount of time you're a perfect example but that's just what it takes and and it's not it's not meant to be like the dry hormos like you just need to work a million hours it's like no you need to find your passion and your flow and in that it doesn't even feel like you're working but if you're not taking that approach then I don't think there's any point in doing it like I think people spin their wheels I know people spin their wheels and waste their time quarter asking something when in when they're 80 years old that will have mattered zero whereas building a huge show or building a brand that's going to live beyond me those are impactful things and I would rather put all my time and effort into those and so I guess I do talk about them very obsessively but it starts to become second nature when it becomes your life you know what you mentioned the point about quarter assing like just not not putting your all into it and I wanted to I wanted to read this um cuz had a moment of that and you said life was great during college but then I graduated and I had no idea what to do next I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur but at that time I was lost MH I went through a dark period of my life I was smoking weed daily constantly having depressive thoughts there was no clear path for me to make it can can you just talk about that period yeah for sure so I graduated a little bit early I had like running start credits and I finished College and I was like you know I'm going to take this this time off and that was one of the first times I just end up on the couch every day playing Call of Duty smoking and it's like the best thing in the world for a week and then two weeks you're like what am I doing with my life and by the end of a month you're like what's the point of this existence like period I just spent this time in college my basketball years are done what am I going to do next and I think this is a point where maybe a lot of people tune it out and just like start to numb themselves start to become indifferent they train themselves I think a lot of people have like a mild depression and rather than address it and be in tune with it and ask themselves why they just it becomes part of their life it becomes their normal and so that's what eventually prompted me to just like hey I have to figure this out that's when I went and shadowed my uncle like I spent some more time with my dad and I was like I just have to find out how to make it in some capacity this is before early social media too so I don't have like Ty Lopez telling me I need to make money online or Tim Ferris 4our work week or anything this is just a kid becoming in tune with with his emotions and becoming in tune with the reality that this isn't enough for everything this life isn't enough for everything and you have to start figuring it out and you have to carve something out so I remember Chris Williamson says this thing he says uh most people live lives of quiet desperation yeah it's exactly that right that that depression kind of starts and few people are brave enough to address it they say you know what if I just if I get that corporate job then I'm doing what I'm supposed to and then they start that corporate job and then it's like it becomes worse but it's like you know if I get that promotion or get a vacation to to kind of break you out of it briefly but you zoom out 30 40 years and I think Millennials as a whole like have have really really [ __ ] up like the the dream of the Millennials has been a little social media and a tech job and a you know Starbucks to go and the end result is like less less kids less fulfillment all this stuff but I think we're seeing it right sized with the younger generation that's becoming more self-aware if you will um but yeah Chris hit that one on the head no 100% 100% do you remember the day it kind of changed like if the default is that most people live lives of quiet desperation and you're going through these days where day after day it's like smoking weed playing video games you remember the day where you're like no this is different oh so so that that moment was another gradual shift and eventually I F fell Amazon and when I found Amazon I started to make some money and that was like a you know a bit of a cure right like life started to feel a little bit better I'd still live my normal life like I'd go to the gym I'd eat Chipotle but I I was still kind of on autopilot everything really changed when I got a phone call from my mom I was sitting in my little desk like just starting my day and she's like hey I need you to know that your dad took your grandma in for an operation this morning and she didn't wake up and I'm like what do you mean she didn't wake up like my Nana is what we call her she was the center of our family 70s super young young had lived a crazy life you know I told you she had my dad when she was 14 and all of a sudden um she's not waking up and and I don't I'm like what does that mean and basically she went in she had a oper operation on her leg freak deal and her heart stopped and they did revive her and so this I think is what made it worse and more surreal they revived her but she was totally brain dead and so you know immediately we go to the emergency room my whole family spent the entire week there and she's a vegetable and we're just praying for that 0 1% Miracle all week and I see my dad Cry For The First Time in his life I see you know my grandpa Begg her to wake up and it never happened and on Easter of all days I I'll never this was like the moment on Easter after she'd been out for a week we all go in that room and there a decision made to pull the plug and everyone circles around her and we hold hands my dad couldn't be in there my grandpa couldn't be in there it was like me my mom M and mostly mostly women and play this song she loved Rocket Rocket Man by Elton John and they pulled the plug and you know she takes a gasp and you just see the Flatline and that was after like a week of hell and I remember going to the window and kind of looking out it's in Seattle and feeling like like almost Spirits it was like this surreal like energy where where I don't know if it's her leaving the room or what but you're like what the [ __ ] and pretty much like the day after that we're we're all sitting at dinner and it's like life goes on and you have to find this kind of new normal but most importantly you remember that like yo that's going to happen to my dad that's going to happen to me and that kickstarted this fever like that was when I like hold on I have this Amazon thing I'm making 20 grand a month I'm seeing you know guys build these bigger Brands why not me why not do something she'd be proud of why not do something I'd be proud of and that was pretty much the moment where I abandoned my old life like dramatically like I stopped going to the gym I realized this this internet thing was here I can create something that changes my life at least in the changes my life forever and I poured in that [ __ ] like [ __ ] crazy but it was that prompt with death or experience with death that tends to kind of be a recurring theme in my life that it focuses you you get one shot and you're only going to live for you and so that was one of the more that was the first moment where a light bulb really came on yeah damn that is that is something and you know what you know where my mind goes is um I think like with our parents and grandparents we kind of look at them as like superheroes you don't even look at them as like real humans like if they get sick like when my mom gets sick it's like wait she's like ill that's not supposed to happen yeah like that never happens cuz we always look at them as like they have the answers they know what's going to happen they know they can almost predict the future that's what I me but my dad has been like like the strongest person I've known my entire life like he he raised that family and I still remember you know one of his friends came up to the emergency room and it' been like a day or two and I still I didn't see him cry I knew he'd been crying previously but the friend came and and and he just exploded into tears and hug the guy and I was like that was one of the like sickest feelings of my of my life you know like it made me cry and I'm just like what the [ __ ] U it's like these surreal but real I mean that that's like this is real life like this this is going to happen this will happen you don't know what day the reaper is going to call you know all of our lives are stories written by authors that we don't we can't even see it you know we can get in tune with it and influence it but we need to appreciate all of it and actually do stuff that matters it sounds like that moment kind of lit a fire like you you already had success like things were already going well to a certain degree but then it seems like from that moment you just took it to another level and I think so much when we we hear stories we kind of people talk about that in like the abstract of like oh I just double down I started doing something I want to get specific and what and what I mean by that is if someone had like observed your life what you were doing on a day-to-day basis maybe a month before that event happened and then they' seen the way that you were working I don't know maybe 3 months afterwards like what was the shift like on the day to day like what was would recognize the person my my life prior to that was like gy bro split like I was happy enough to be able to work 5 6 hours less than most people get to LA Fitness by 3:00 and lift for two and a half hours and then go to Chipotle and shoot the [ __ ] with the buddy I always lifted with and I was just always super proud of my my lifts my useless [ __ ] lifts you know like everyone should lift to a certain point and then like all right bro you're 230 lbs no one cares if you can bench 3:15 um and then when that happened you fast forward 3 months later and I didn't leave a a cage like I locked myself in my home office and like I mean straight like it's kind of embarrassing like I didn't really shower that much like like I was like there's old pictures of me for real where you're like who who is this guy but I just saw this Amazon thing growing and I I saw this actual opportunity in front of me and I was like if I don't Master this trait then I will have left generational opportunity on the table for whatever I want to pass down in this world and so that was the shift and if you you looked at me then and maybe 6 months after right but like I literally had this thought in my head I maybe it's crazy maybe it's not but a haircut is a waste of a waste of time not money it was just a waste of time like me going in and getting my haircut is an hour that I could be putting towards this thing and that's how I thought in terms of everything I did I was wildly in inefficient business-wise like I'm this kid figuring it out I wasted all this time trying to figure out different components of the business but my fundamental thought process was anything not going to this is a waste of potential Millions down the road and Bo my hair got wild bro you know what give people give people the context you you spoke about it it's like Amazon at that time was like a generational opportunity like when you say that like what was it that you were building I built a supplement company that was my first thing I I built a portfolio of supplement companies the genius brand is the main one that's still up there leader in neut Tropics but when I was on that platform it was like a reseller platform and like I used to go to other top brands that are selling in GNC and vitamin shop and like I was like hey I can help you sell on Amazon they're like oh Amazon's not that serious like whatever I was like no just give me a shot you know and I'd get them listed and this is how I started and they would be making some sales like all of a sudden it's like 20% of their business 30% of their business these massive conglomerates I'm like guys this is the new platform and it's already doing that kind of Revenue you should really focus here and they' be like ah yeah whatever like they they'd like me but they didn't pay me that much mind or take it that seriously and it was eventually where I realized like okay this is this is my time like if they're not going to pour into this and they're doing you know 25 million with all these other channels and I can do 25 million just here with better margins like this is this is my time and so it was so wide open back then there's no one bidding on keywords it's very easy to rank at the top of SEO like when you hear people talk about Amazon being saturated today it's not saturated there's more customers than ever but the easy days of like just you could throw a pre-workout up there and literally be at the top of pre-workout and be making 20 sales a day without spending any money like it was that you know wide open and so I mean that's how I got my start I saw this vehicle yeah you know I want to I want to take one of the quotes you you spoke about risk you said I took $5,000 I had in savings and invested into developing my own supplements brand that's when my first brand was born talk about that just taking everything going all in yeah because I mean for me it was it was was clear at the time I lived at home I didn't like I said I didn't have this like crazy lifestyle and I'm seeing all this stuff happen I'm like I have to figure out how to launch my own brand this where people stress out today they're like how do you get a product made how do you find a manufacturer all that stuff that's the easiest part the hard part is figuring out how to sell it at scale right so when you have a Amazon or you have a Tik Tok shop like that that's where most brands struggle getting the brand made was as simple as like I called this manufacturer who had met at a trade show they knew I kind of did Amazon I was like hey can you if I give you a deposit can you front me on the rest of this like I'll turn it to profit and they like I said they knew me at the time i' helped other brands so like yeah whatever kid like we'll give you a shot and I just I me I had to go for it it's like if I lost that five grand and I knew I would it like when you get to a certain point with your skills and you see like a very clear opportunity you're just like how much money can I make how big can I scale I I never felt the risk of losing that because the deck starts to get stacked in your favor you know what I mean like if you have the skills if you put in the time then it becomes exponentially easier to succeed what do they say it's like is it eight out of 10 businesses fail or nine out of 10 businesses fail those are the nine people that didn't have like an edge or a clear-cut path to scaling the thing um I had that piece and so you know I threw that in there and and we turn that to a much bigger number very fast it also sounds like your mindset at that point was just at a different level like it was almost like a refusal that you would lose like that it was I mean you tie back to that nich quote about stacking wins and stacking confidence like that's what I had done I had I had got on the sales calls and sold the big brands on how to succeed on there and I spent time with those teams and you know I had done sales on Amazon with other people's products like I'm like this is this is clear you know I have the confidence to to launch this I always wanted to be an entrepreneur like let's go Now's the Time but it came back to all those years prior of putting in the time and learning the stuff and yeah I mean that's kind of what made it go yeah you know we we going to get into the Tik Tok shop stuff because the same way that you said that in 2012 or 2013 when you started genius Brands Amazon FBA was like a generational opportunity I've heard you speak about Tik Tok shop in that same way so so we'll get to that but I want to I want to start by kind of what was kind of the early period of Genius Brands like right because you take this $5,000 in savings which to most people and to most people listening you told them to take their savings and put it into a new platform it would be insane to them like it would feel like stepping off a ledge right like which is actually insane to me I'm trying so hard to get back into touch with I'm 32 now and I forget those I forget those days but to me it's insane to do that Wall Street thing I just said or the or the tech job or the even worse you know what I mean like I don't that's the insane part to me cuz it's like what's the outcome you lose $5,000 and you have to start again eventually or you commit your life to something that's like damn near modern prison I mean in a lot of ways like you said it's it's a quiet what what's the Williamson quote quiet Des most people live lives of quiet desperation quiet desperation that sounds horrible so I don't know I think through it through that lens I think we got to try to change that narrative too because there's again as we talk about Tik Tok and some of these opportunities to start with nothing like it's there did you put did you put a lot of money in starting the show uh I was working when I started the show and I was doing it on the side but when I left I left my job to do this full-time Maybe 15 16 months ago this was making no money when I left did you have the platform started like was it started I was already doing it for a year but like the audience wasn't anywhere close to what it is now I kind of just saw I go off Instinct so I see an opportunity and then I'm like I'm just going to do it and you felt like you had the skills at that point and like you know I knew it was my thing yeah I mean you're good at it and and after a year of doing it like you know you're stacking the deck in your favor that's how I feel and and and you know what it is it's like I understand how you get to that mindset where it's uh why won't people take the risk I also understand the other side of it which is like you at this point have like stacked the winds like you have so many proof points of the risk working that it's like why wouldn't you do it and so get into like when you were doing when you were building genius Brands what was that initial period like because and I I'm feeling this firsthand like business is [ __ ] hard yeah like it is tough to build a business and sometimes it takes years to actually get good at what you're doing but it sounds like for you it was actually you had some success out of the gate with genius brand so like what were those initial periods like well I had some positive cash flow right so I was in the green I was making some money but in terms of building an actual business like the complexity that goes into that it's insane when you start hiring people and like I'm doing all this from scratch I don't have a mentor I don't watch much YouTube like I'm having to figure out like okay now I have three employees should we use this slack thing you know to communicate like how would we or organize the slack Channel how do we Dropbox or Google drive and how do you like all these different pieces I'm having to learn from scratch but I'll tell you what because I found the outlet I liked and something I was like super interested in I liked it every day like I was super excited to go answer those questions there was that flowes state and that ties back to the life maxing thing the more you can align with that flowes state the more you're going to get out of your life because none of that like now I look back and all this stuff that I take is second nature and I'm trying to like get to a point where I can recommunity you don't learn management until you're doing that [ __ ] like I I remember having this surreal reflection moment where it was like I was a horrible student but there was this management class uh 404 it's like your Peak management class in in college and there's this uh woman teaching it that was like the Superstar professor and she had never done anything in her entire life other than teach that class and so I apologize it was negotiation negotiation she had never done anything other than teach negotiation and I remember when I was selling my business to private Equity thinking back to that class going like she would have died in this world like died and yet she was the one that was had every single opinion ever on what you are and aren't doing right in negotiation and so you learn from doing it and then you max out your learning when you're doing something you actually enjoy because none of us are going to like the information is not going to stick if it's [ __ ] we don't like you know you know what's interesting um and maybe you'll remember this when you're when you're running a business and especially when it's like the first real business that you've done and this is what I'm experiencing right now is even when things are working every new stage is something new and you haven't done it before you have no reference especially for people that are like you don't come from some wealthy family where like you're dad had a successful business and can like coach you through the whole thing and so there's sometimes this anxiety even when things are going well cuz you're now like okay I need to now hire like a manager for like my bit and then like there's these new things that you haven't done you have no reference for it and it's actually like it can make you anxious my God it arguably gets more anxiety ridden and more stressful because the stakes just keep getting higher and higher like one of our portfolio companies that I I don't talk about and I just keep kind of private but you know we're breaking that off entirely and hiring a CEO and going for retail and doing all of these things like hiring a a true seite team and that's the the makeup of being a multiple nine fig business and it's not something I've done and and luckily on that side I have a partner who has had an exit like that and so there's some familiarity there but you talk about anxiety and stress on like hey I can make the marketing machine go I can get this Tik Tok thing working I can make Amazon work but now we're talking HR departments and CEO and this whole different thing it's about as stressful as can be because if you shoot the wrong shot there it sets you back you know maybe we have a window of three to five years to build a generational you know half a billion dollar brand but if you mis step on any of these you the stakes are higher right and I think you have to remind yourself of how far you've come this whole time like if I would have told myself two years ago as I kind of reembarked on the whole whole thing I'd be where I'm at right now I'd be like oh that's incredible but I still wake up and have days where I'm like this isn't going fast enough or this is stressful or whatever and so again that's that mental framing of Entrepreneurship that isn't talked about enough like the higher you go you have to kind of make it a superpower to catch yourself mentally and never let those negative or dominant thoughts become reality because thoughts do tend to become reality and if you keep playing that story in your head over and over again like hey you know I'm supposed to be so and so and I'm supposed to have these guests on my podcast by now or whatever eventually that can manifest in the wrong way whereas if you come at it from a more abundant place and you're curious and you ask the right questions the people that have done it and have brought in a Podcast manager or whatever right then you're going get so much further and so I'm a big [ __ ] believer of what goes on up here regardless of where you're at like the bigger you get yeah I remember we had we had a guest come on here name is Hunter Hammond and he said um the best entrepreneurs tend to just be the best like stress managers well think about like this I had like this breakthrough the other day the difference between a billionaire and the average person is their ability to handle stress like you think about a Bezos and no he has Amazon blue origin how many personal Investments does he have how many different properties does he have like as I've gotten learned to be wealthy over the last five six years you know I got real estate I got liquid assets I got crypto I have personal employees that you know manage the house there's all these different Avenues of of stress like whereas you know some people are like man they get upset if they're like I don't know like people get up like stressed about all sorts of stuff and unless you learn to shake all of that off then you're not going to grow into that next tier so as soon as I started thinking about it through the lens of like you know how much do billionaires actually handle and I'm just preparing myself to be hopefully in that League the easier it got right like it's kind of a badge of honor to be able to shrug off like oh I just lost cost a million bucks in crypto like whatever I'm not going to let that ruin my I'm not going to let that ruin this interview I'm not going to let that ruin my business I'm going to keep trudging forward you know what it's like when you're when you're in those early moments I think just because you're not as experienced those the losses or like when the stress does rise it it feels more impactful because you don't have that framework of like how to handle it and so I'm curious like you're going through this period as you're building genius Brands and you're continuing to scale and at every it's like new level new Devil right like that's the that's the quote as every level it's like these new things that you're dealing with is there like a peak moment of stress like a peak moment anxiety like a story that you remember where it was like that almost overcame me even like that was just that was it from overnight I went from thinking I was going to be a multi-millionaire like liquid on paper I was going to go tell everyone [ __ ] you I did it to oh my God I'm going to have to lay off my friends and go get a 9 to5 and what happened basically there was this Amazon algorithm change and overnight they more or less wiped half of our products of reviews and they did this to a lot of a lot of Brands this was like a pivotal Amazon moment I think late 2018 I mix up all my years but we woke up and half of the business was gone to make it worse you know I told you how obsessive I was this was the first year uh the first time in years that I took away from the business I got married in Ireland and the night of my wedding ceremony all this [ __ ] started to happen so I'm on time change I'm communicating with my guys back home like what's going on I'm already kind of anxious cuz I hate being away from the business and in the course of like 48 Hours Amazon decided that these products were whatever and they smashed us and so all of a sudden our business is cut in half and I think they're going to keep doing it to more products cuz they for for a month every Tuesday they would hit new products and more or less kill these products and so it was in that moment I had like a literal anxiety attack like I remember you know hyperventilating and [ __ ] went and grabbed some like CBD in Ireland thought that would help it didn't made it worse I'm uh freaking out over there and when I got back like I sat down with my key Guys these are my two best friends and you know one of them has a kid like his life's dependent on this business like his whole salary he's got like I'm taking care of him on the equity but he's all in and we're all sitting there like you know there's I don't know there's maybe like a million bucks in the bank or something at this point and we go you know I guess we could take This and like run or what you know like kind of at least say we did something and we looked around we go you know this is happening to other people why don't we launch into those new categories why don't we take that money triple down on this thing understand that we didn't like we didn't do anything wrong we kind of got caught up in like a bad mix you know big Tech is is Big Tech and they always run systems and algorithms and so we doubled down and we went after like three main categories that the leaders had been smashed and maybe rightfully so like a lot of a lot of black hat guys got hit then too and so basically we end up creating three of our best products in this time period our business almost Roars back to like exactly where it was 6 months later Amazon restores the reviews on the existing products and that was like this Rocket Fuel and that was one of the most pivotable moments in entrepreneurship for me because it it comes back to sports it's like under pressure like when you're under pressure how are you responding are you going to Turtle up and and you know be a little [ __ ] or you gonna like stand up and own it and make good decisions and the best entrepreneurs I've seen like one of the private Equity guys I met down the line they are just famous for when the house is on fire being that voice of reason and that Steady Hand That is going to guide you through whatever that situation might be it still might not be good on the other side but they're like a calm collected mind and I think my sports instincts kicked in at that moment but since then it's reinforced such this pivot this like pivotal belief that that's what makes the great ones you know um there's this there's this line there's this line that Drake says in a song he says uh Imagination Running Wild with the speculation yeah and it and it reminds me of what you mentioned earlier which is like we all have these fears and like these insecurities I call it like the quiet voice in your head that when things start to kind of not go your way a little bit it's like this little voice that's like you were never able to do that thing or like bro we're narrative machines and we have all sorts of beliefs that have been ingrained into us through the years and that's what I said where thoughts tend to create reality you need to be able to flush out those thoughts because they're often ridiculous like truly ridiculous like you can I'm famous for this I can tell this story in my head of how I'm going to lose everything like with the perfect cataclysmic whatever and if you succumb to those a lot of the time you'll make your life exponentially worse like do those wild wild thoughts ever come true like probably not but on the flip side of that if you can create a positive narrative a positive internal talk track you start to become stoppable I mean truly it's again stacking that confidence but more importantly training your mind to become who you need to be like being there mentally already and that's that whole Law of Attraction that's that whole gravitational pull to becoming who you're supposed to be it's not fuu it's not like super magic it's very rational and I mean you you said it best I'm curious though because your nightmare was kind of happening like you wake up that morning in Ireland and you see that like your business is going down in the way that it is I'm just like what is your what is your mindset like what is happening in your mind what are the fears like oh I mean for 48 hours bro I mean you know I'm 24 25y old kid the world is ending for sure and I I am succumbing to speculation and I am worst case scenario and I'm freaking out my guys and I mean all that stuff is real I mean it was like a truly horrible moment but again there was a solution in it and how many people in that same instance I know plenty of Brands I know one guy that like fire sold his [ __ ] you know he had a business that was worth $20 million he sold it for a million bucks um so it's in those moments where you need to be sound because even like hey worst case we had a good team we had the skills like if that business went to zero we could have started something again we could have figured it out someone would have funded it there's often always an answer but you can compound it negatively and make your life dramatically worse it's like the idiot who you know sells at the bottom of the stock market cuz the world's ending you has the world ended yet like no did did it crash 50% in Co yeah did we then go on to have the greatest bull market ever like yeah you know and so it's being more in tune with the nature of reality while attracting a level of positivity and like true iron mindset yeah you know what it reminds me of it's like the it's the Panic that gets you like often when things go like cataclysmically wrong it's emotional yeah it's not the initial thing that happened it's the knee-jerk reaction it's everything you do after 100% And so I mean now like I've had horrible [ __ ] happen now but I don't even talk about it because has been more like you know it's just who I'm training to be it's just another day in the office like it's not always good and when it's good I appreciate the [ __ ] out of it it was bad I learned to handle it you remember the moment when you kind of like you had composure around the situation you spoke about that first 48 Hours you were like all over the place it was when I got back it I got back we all met up we sat down we had coffee it was like everyone sat round table and we kind of laid out the options and I remember I go am I crazy if I wanted to just double down now kind of looked at me like what's the worst thing can happen you know like maybe a little bit but [ __ ] it and we all just kind of like went all in and called the manufacturer worked on some new formulas and I mean we blitzed that it was like the hardest we all had worked everyone's extra locked in that's the good part about dangerous times too right it brings out the best in people if you're focused like that fight ORF flight Instinct kicks the the house is on fire you're figuring out how can I go save the baby you know you'll do superhero things and so I've almost come to appreciate the times in a lot of ways yeah and it makes for such a legendary story as well makes for way better stories um so anyway you know what you you go on to uh you build genius Brands you sell it for 30 million to to private Equity I want to get into the Tik Tok stuff and kind of like what you're doing now because um you spoke about Tik Tok shop in 20124 is what Amazon was in like 2012 2013 it's that scale of opport and so just to begin let's kind of level set like why why do you say that like what is it that you're seeing with Tik Tok shop that it's like this is where the opportunity is so first I want people to appreciate how fundamentally the Earth has shifted the the nature of Commerce the nature of everything because of short form content and Discovery the big deal for me that like and I'm saying this for all the 22 25 year old like anyone under 25 that hasn't had had life experience on the internet the big moment in Amazon was when they surpassed Google for where people were searching for products prior to like I don't know 2015 70% of people started their search on Google Amazon comes around and within a couple years Amazon was becoming the SEO platform for products and that was like this moment where all of a sudden people are fundamentally shopping different right like e-commerce is now gaining this level of scale like this true pivotable pivotable force it it it killed GNC it killed vitamin shop it killed a lot of categories that weren't primed for Ecom and it was it's so obvious in hindsight right could you imagine a world without Amazon where you can oneclick order but back then it was it was less obvious although if you're really in tune with it you're like oh yeah this is pretty clear now fast forward the whole impact of the Tik Tok thing hit me about two years ago now you've seen all the influencers come up through this world like it's just a new wave you you've got the hosis hormos is basically like Gary ve of this generation because of short form right and streamers and all that stuff but that's been because of their adaption to this new PL like this new way of communication and this new way of Discovery and then I'm planning a Tokyo trip with my wife and all of a sudden she is not using Yelp she's not using Google she's not using any of these things to plan our activities or our dinners she's going on Tik Tok and seeing the [ __ ] real time like oh that looks good like okay we're going to go here and all of a sudden I go oh wow this is like way bigger than simply like a dance app or whatever right or a means to be an influencer like this is fundamentally going to rewrite the way everyone organizes everything and kudos to Tik Tok they've done a phenomenal job of forcing it down everyone's throats and making it addictive and getting this Mass scale and then Tik Tok wakes up one day and they go well we're not going to fall into the mistake Twitter made like we're going to be a platform where people make money and then you look over into Asia and that's how everyone shops they shop live streaming they Shop video discovery like there's not fancy Shopify websites it's a whole different way of Commerce and Tik Tok goes that's going to work here and we're going to spend every dollar we have to to make it happen and so at first you know I'm still hesitant as they roll out the shop platform they're burning like a billion dollars a day they're doing their own fulfillment they're not making money on the brands and then I see the level of scale that starts happening like there's a brand that was relatively obscure on Amazon a couple years ago they do maybe like 10 million a year and all of a sudden they're doing 15 million a month on Tik Tok shop like third month in and it's just creating this like broadcast system where even if you're not buying it on Tik Tok shop you're like you'd know that brand in retail like you you you see it and when that light bulb came on I go yeah this is like clear like we've just gone we've undergone a fundamental way that people communicate and Shop just like we did with Amazon it's the exact same thing happening again and it's presenting itself different right you have to learn different skills and all that but it's as good as it comes you have a billion Shoppers and you can reach them without spend spending any money that's the beauty of all of it like the fact I could reach so many Shoppers back with Amazon without spending a dime now you can do that in Tik Tok if you can Master virality if you can Master like different means of communication you can build something that exponentially scales without having to go raise a bunch of money and all that stuff you know what I was thinking about as you were speaking it's it's actually interesting that Evolution that you describe um because it's really about like where does the customer journey start like where do people start with when they're looking to buy something and I remember growing up right like say that you wanted I don't know kitchen towel or like a new sofa or whatever you would just go and Google and type that in and like see on the shopping results and then to your point there was a certain uh there was a certain point 2012 2013 2014 2015 where you don't start on Google anymore you go straight to Amazon and you type for that you type that product and you don't even know if Amazon have it you just assume that they do they're the platform like they're the place you go and and now to your point people's first discovery of a product is now starting on Tik Tok or on social media platforms on short form on short form content and I I do think Tik Tok will win out I don't think they get banned but every time I talk about Tik Tok I get someone in the comments good thing it's going to be banned like if you put Tik Tok in the header of this that'll be the first comment you get without anyone watching it I don't think Tik tok's going away personally um but even if they do it's IG shop it's YouTube shop like this fundamental shift has happened and I really want the audience to understand that Nuance because these skills the ability to communicate in this era are invaluable okay you know what I'm I'm curious to get into and this will be so valuable for the audience you start genius brand in 2012 2013 you start with $5,000 and you obviously end up selling it for 30 million and so if you almost wanted to build the equivalent of what you did like if we took um Rob Oliver maybe you have all the resources that you did in 2012 when you started but you have all the learnings the knowledge the experience uh that you have now and it's like you're seeing the opportunity on Tik Tok shop and you almost want to build like an equivalent business like you want to build a business in a similar way to how you did genius Brands but on Tik Tok what is kind of step one in your mind like where are you even starting that out let me break I'll I'll break down the step by step for building a multi-million dollar company in this era but I want to highlight something really quick I've gotten more into this social media world I told you I wasn't with genius right and when I started my latest brand top shelf it was Amazon only and I have posted results and strategies and playbooks of that since we were doing like $2,500 a day if you go back and look at my stories you see like they're they're save there top shelf $2,500 a day this is cool we made $200 like $200 a day it's lifechanging and then you fast forward to the Amazon growth was all there like we got it to a couple hundred thousand but then you see the exponential Spike when Tik Tok rolls out transparent and talking about all of it like you see those numbers go from you know 3,000 then 10,000 and then Tik Tok shops run out I'm posting a $100,000 days and this is like as real and clear as can get and so that's one of the things that throws me off with this whole social world you have a lot of people who talk about some of these things and it's like well yeah okay if it's so good if the getting so good where's your business where's your brand or where's your you know like where's your money I don't want to see Shopify screenshots I want to see like what are you doing and so topshelf is the the brand I've been building publicly like I said we have a couple different ones but this was not a resource intensive business when it starts I'm not a guy that's going to put millions of dollars into something like I'm always going to be that guy that wants to find that Avenue where I can start with five grand because that's profitable it's scalable like I don't want investors and I don't want to burn millions of dollars trying to find out if something works and so in today's world you have that opportunity and we've pivoted top shelf since we since Tik Tok shop rolled out you need a product so this is this is Step number one and I always recommend people do something they're interested in it's the internet like there's that whole idea of [ __ ] your passions do what makes money but we have the luxury of doing stuff we're interested in because it's so broad everyone's buying everything Ecom and so you need to find a niche you're interested in there's a lot of different ways to kind of go about this like I loved genius I love neut tropics I love biohacking in that phase of my life in today's world you know if like Fitness is your thing or whatever there's a couple means of nailing down that actual winning prod you can the simplest way you can open a brand new Tik Tok account completely blank you can go like products that you use like period in niches you're interested in and what do you think's going to happen when you go back to that Super Genius AI algorithm they are going to start feeding you the winning products like you are going to see like oh [ __ ] sheit is becoming a huge thing and like oh this is kind of interesting and so you're fed countless ideas of a flagship hero product so that's that's one method you can use there's like EXP in topics which shows all the buttoning search data like Broad in your category like oh all of a sudden you know looks maxing is becoming a thing and so so and so is using like a jaw trainer like you you're fed these ideas and then you can cross reference that on Amazon like are people already moving into this world like what is it saturated what's it look like so you can kind of nail down your winning product there uh fast.com is another one that like not a lot of people know about that shows all of the data from Tik Tok shop like you can see who's doing what so that's your starting point the second point this is a Virgil abau Rule and all you need to do is improve that product by 3% he's like most of humanity was built on simply improving ideas by 3% and so Tik tok's so early you see a lot of these ideas ripping they are garbage The Branding is garbage like you could on accident improve something by 10% you know and and you don't need money for that if you figure out some of these like we use AI tools bro to like do half of our branding and Graphics now like di 2 and like it's such this crazy time that if you just skill stack you can do this from zero so you improve the brand 3% and then if you're younger and you're like native to Tik Tok you can learn how to make the content yourself because people misunderstand Tik Tok is Instagram Instagram follower count matters like if you have a big Instagram account it's valuable if you have a Tik Tok you can put out three videos and the third video gets 2 million views and you just made $20,000 off your product launch so if you can learn that content Style I don't know how you can fail like if you make the product and proove it and then learn the content yourself on Tik Tok shop you can be in the green without spending a dime now me I don't make the content right I'm 32 years old and it's it's a it's a young man's game yeah um but this is where the exponential scale comes in you make a product that's designed for these Affiliates to push and all of a sudden there's this huge network of young kids who are masterful at making [ __ ] go viral for our product right they figured out the hooks they figured out how to Captivate attention and they get that algorithm you pay them a commission like you take care of them and that is the infinite scale game like we did we did a million dollars on Tik Tok shop our third month with Tik Tok or with top shelf because of those pieces and is that does that all make sense like it's like it's painfully simple actually and I think so many people are like I don't know it's usually not painfully simple to build like a multi-million dollar business but the blocking and tackling of this one is like so straightforward yeah you know I want to I to go deeper into each step cuz you said step one is you want to find the winning product and so you start that Tik Tok account and you start looking at different products you're liking videos and the algorithms feeding it back to you and you're starting to see okay these are some of the industries I'm curious for you like because when I look at what you did with genius Brands and I see your content and even the way that you speak about it in interviews and in conversation it feels like you were very intentional about going after something in the supplement industry and then it also seems like you are pretty clear about how you were going to improve it yeah and so for a lot of people that are watching I can imagine like they don't have that level of clarity right like they don't have the they're like okay what are there certain industries that are like better than others no of course and then you also mention um it's almost like certain products are easier for these Affiliates to make go viral y um I saw I've seen people they're doing like this was this was like a few months ago maybe a year ago they were doing like the whole sex chocolate thing yeah and it's like that's easier to make it go viral because it's a bit like it's naturally kind of controversial um and so how do you think about that like in terms of are there certain industries are there certain product types that you're specifically targeting yeah of yeah yeah so so the tabs found tabs chocolate his roommate is my partner on a lot of this stuff 22-year-old kid and we invented this [ __ ] like like for real that's why when I see people nowaday popping up talking Tik Tok shop I'm like you guys don't know sounds good but you guys don't know um we invented this game and so from a product standpoint like that's where I said we started iterating with top shelf you need to be under you need to be able to understand the product in 3 seconds and buy it within 10 so that's the frame of reference you have to look through with this era but that's still very broad I'll use an example of one of my students in million-dollar brand Club my guy Cole I just invested in his business mouth tape it's another one he started for for Grand he's into the huberman stuff biohacking and so he sees there this brand out there hostage tape that did like 10 million last year or something and he hates the product like he uses it but it's like shitty adhesive doesn't like The Branding and so this dude calls up a manufacturer in China he's like hey can you guys add a lavender scent to it like can you can you just add a lavender scent to the thing and then can you do something about this adhesive and so fast forward two months and a couple Grand he has this new mouth tape product to Market it's hiber tape like check it out on Tik Tok shop I'm super proud of this dude I use it every night and it's a dramatically better product it cost him a like the minimum order in China was like 500 pieces at $2 a pop he did better branding like he kind of poured into kind of my whole framework I don't want to bore everyone with I we could talk cult branding and like the obsessive nature of it but he put all those pieces together 3% is not a lot his product's probably 25% better than the leading thing in that world but he gets on Tik Tok shop he runs this exact Playbook his brother starts making the content and they're doing 100 Grand a month in like their fourth or fifth month and it's super profitable and it checks all of those boxes and so and that was not complicated I mean it was as simple as going on Alibaba typing in um mouth tape and there's like 50 people that want to make it for you hits them all up like does the work starts getting samples and he's going to be the next million dollar brand in our community you know what's actually um interesting and it goes back to something you mentioned earlier which is it works a lot better if you're actually interested in the product personally I I can imagine a lot of people listening it's like especially if you're like a newer entrepreneur this is the first business one of the first businesses that you've started it's like how do I even improve a product 3% but if you're the user it should be kind of obvious no it comes second nature yeah and that's the entrepreneurial thing it's like and again I try to simplify it to the point you don't need to reinvent the wheel you don't need to come out with something totally new you just find one of these categories and slightly iterate sometimes it really is as simple as better branding which I don't really recommend that I really like the entrepreneurial thing like we're solving a problem but you can succeed with just better branding like you can be number two on Tik Tok shop to a shitty brand that doesn't really know what they're doing and you can win tabs chocolate tabs was not the first sex chocolate they were the first Tik Tok shop optimized sex chocolate and he charged $30 for a three-piece of chocolate and printed like Millions but again pretty straightforward it wasn't like Reinventing the wheel yeah you know what I want to I want to get into the The Branding and marketing side cuz I think that's hugely important piece to it before we do I'm kind of curious what is your process or thought process around like testing product because I can imagine it's like someone starts going through this process and maybe there's several Industries they're personally interested in and you're like then is there like a testing phase where you're like buying different stuff and you're like n actually this won't work or like you start kind of building a brand and then you like toss it aside what is that process of you actually getting the thing which you're like if we turn the marketing onto this it will go yeah honestly I've never done that I know that's like a common talk track amongst Ecom because a lot of people like a lot of people frame how Amazon is supposed to be or how this is supposed to be but to me if you're paying zero for traffic like if you can make the content and you know there's a market for it you can't fail like too bad like I mean even Amazon was the the early thing I had some products that did unreal and made the business and I had others that would stall out at like 10 2030 ,000 but there weren't losses because all of the pieces were there the knowledge was there the brand was there the search data was there and so I really like I'm not a fan of like half housing it like I I get the need to want to test but like I I know a kid that your bam mate is like a hot category it's probably too late by the time this airs but he was on to this like a year ago and instead of going for it he tested a landing page where he wasn't even fulfilling the orders he just wanted to see how many people would buy it and then he'd refund them and he wasted like 6 seven mons doing that and now yamate is as big as they come I have another student who launched a yeram mate like kind of combo and he did $7,000 yesterday on like his third week in business in a day and so to me if the data is clear and the opportunity is there and you have confidence on what you're doing like shoot the shot so it's basically if the if the product quality is there and there's the traffic like you can get eyeballs to it that's enough exactly okay I get you it's when you can't get the traffic that's why I said the hard part isn't often making the product the hard part is having a window to scale it without breaking the bank like as Amazon got more difficult that's where that n Narrative of Amazon saturated came from because all of a sudden it was a lot harder whereas like Tik Tok right now is like bro you can if you have the skills you can sell literally whatever it's the speed okay you know what let's let's talk about uh The Branding I think you call it cult branding yeah explain that what does that mean so the best brands in the world mirr Colts like actually there's an emotional connection and relationship with the brand at its fundamental heart and we're all susceptible to this like you like these pants these are Chrome Hearts I am part of the Chrome Heart cult I know I could buy these same pants from carart with the same exact quality for a hundredth of the price you know but but that's the nature of strong brand and so when you look at all the strongest Brands out there there's a very clear intention on who they stand for and who they serve my favorite story is the founder of Lululemon when he started that business he did not make double XL because he did not want fat women wearing his his product and that's offensive and it's loud and it pisses all sorts of people off but the end result is he's a billionaire Okay and like that that's just objective that's not me having like oh you should be supporting those people like I'm not here for any of that I'm just telling you what made that work what made that go you look at like Harley Harley caters to a that's another cult brand caters to a very specific Market a very specific person and so whenever you're setting out on this journey I think it's super important that you can summarize all of this with drawing a clear Line in the Sand of who is your business for who is your brand for and then rejecting everyone else like like it's not for everyone it's for X Y and Z and there's enough of a customer base there to get you from zero to a million I mean I think to you know Lulu is public now right and they're trying to go bigger and like it's a whole different game it's not actually not working for them they've got away from their Roots but I'm speaking to Startup people like that's what I know I know 0 to 10 million and the harder you draw that line the more you're going to connect and resonate with people you know I want to read one of the I saw a tweet when you said this you said Nike sells the same shirts as Reebok yet people pay twice the price for a logo you need to create a strong brand one that has an emotional connection that speaks to the pains and beliefs of the customer strong branding Plus unique differentiators equal premium product yeah all day and and I think it's especially important when you're starting out to have that better margin to play with right like if you're if you're trying to commoditize and be like everyone else if you're selling the same generic shirt as Reebok and trying to or Nike and trying to beat them on price what's going to happen they're Nike right like so how are you setting yourself apart Chrome Hearts is a great story they are not for everyone and they've built a billion- Dollar business with like 26 stores by being extremely exclusive extremely clear on who they serve and the end result is again like success you're a drake fan yeah me as well and there's Nike socks and then there's Nike socks with nocta on them that I buy that are like $5 more it's the same sock but I resonate with that brand there's something about brand that forms identity in an individual and the more you tap into that and can make it a part of someone's life the better off you're going to be as the brand owner like as much as I can talk objectively about all this stuff I can't stop the lur that is Gallery department or van CLE or whatever you know like Steve Jobs was the original one on this Apple's the biggest cult there is I mean you go try to tell any iPhone user that like an Android's better and you're you know maybe maybe punches are being thrown right hands being thrown and and and the sooner you take that on your own journey and the more you appreciate it the better off you're going to be yeah you know I'm I'm curious to get deeper into your into your process when you're building like one of these um like brands on Tik Tok like take me into the room because you're someone that when I watch your content and what you do you're very intentional about brand and messaging and so when you're almost doing like the brainstorming or the strategy or the brand meeting like what are some of those conversations that you're having because when entrepreneurs say you have to know your customer I know how it feels to the person that hasn't built the business yet it's like just feels so vague like how do I know the customer how do I know what's going to resonate with them like where does your mind go like take me into those rooms this this is a great one I'll break this story down just objectively again it's important here everyone remembers I'm relatively IND different to a lot of this stuff and with as a brand owner you can be very you don't have to explain yourself right you don't have to explain most of it you can do whatever and let the art sort itself out and so if you go on social media what 18 months ago before there was a wide ban who is the most seen person Tate probably Tate of course right like you couldn't go on that app without seeing Andrew Tate and it created this wild wave of the red pill stuff like then belmare and like like Ean jum like literally that's all there is our first home run product it all coincided right with Tik Tok coming together and Tate strategy is actually what we use on products like multiple accounts but I remember going well there is a huge audience here that is not being sold to directly our first hero product was called Alpha grind and it's black packaging and it's like gold you know it's it's a great coffee alternative it's Coffee Plus neut Tropic but we just positioned that in a way that this whole platform is already wildly like redpilled out right like it was almost it was almost like it was comical like how silly it was getting and so we positioned the Rebrand of top shelf this was like iteration two cuz before that we were like a a coffee company and we positioned a lot of The Branding just from the Aesthetics just from like all those components of something that would look like it sits on Tate's shelf on the war room and then as that's died out like and that got us from zero to to 10 million and now as that's died out we're again iterating like we're not we're not here to like I said I'm not marrying to any Trend or idea it's like who are the customers at the center of it I just want this is a brand that's going to help men level up and so as that kind of lost steam you know we're going through another big Rebrand and like I'm leaning so hard into the Chrome hearts and I guess Drake's level of era of masculinity where it's a more subdued but like I mean who's going to tell Drake he's not him right and that's kind of the archet type so that that has faded out we've pivoted and that's what can take us from 10 to 100 million potentially um Chrome Hearts like it's that same kind of archetype and so that that was the room as that moment was going crazy you can't open your phone and not see you know whatever he's yelling about and we leverage that to our advantage that's interesting so you're actually you're actually observing like Trends and culture and then understanding the people that are supporting those movements but understanding them on like a deep level at the center of that it was just it was a self-improvement thing right however you dress it up like like you know we're not over here getting wildly political with it like at the center of that that young man consuming that content wants to be tougher he wants to go to the gym he wants to start kickboxing like so let's let's make a product for that and let's align it because it's there another one like right now we almost went all into this and I pulled back because I don't think it's a fully fleshed out idea but there's a subset of men that are leaning into looks maxing not sure if you've seen this but it's like 16 to 20-year-old kids that are hyper focused on their looks almost in like a feminine way like they're doing their facial routines and they're like all these different things so we could probably make the nail polish stuff I guess uh no not full nail polish it's more just like like literally like how you're getting your haircut and like it's it is very sassy like there's 16 like skinny like they're not hitting the gym so like they get kind of pigeon hold is like you know they get they get bashed a lot but at the center of that there's clearly a cry for something right and there's a movement that's getting tens of millions of views well what kind of product could you sell that audience like we had a like a moistu men's Moisturizer in the works that I know would sell cuz the data is there like it's it's serving that movement that's actually really interesting that's really interesting and so I'm actually curious then so what what are kind of because you mentioned with that specifically you kind of pulled back um so what is the differentiator of what makes you go all in on a movement and be like okay we're going to build the product we're going to build a brand we're going to go all into this versus it's not quite right like what are the key differenti with that if I had a brand new brand I I would I would build something to the looks maxing Community like it was just at that phase of it whereas Top Shelf has has gotten to a certain point and I don't think that existing Market because we we built it in a way that like you know you should be hitting the gym you should be you should be living more kind of how I try to design my life as kind of the customer whereas that was still too like too sassy masculinity if that makes sense like it was still too it just didn't align but the opportunities there it's just my brain at that point had had graduated from that size of a market yeah I'm curious what you what your life looks like on the day today in terms of um how you're observing Trends because it sounds like you kind of have your finger on the button of like where everything is going and like where the movements are and what products like what is it that you're doing are you just on your iPhone and you're on Tik Tok or like are there tools that you're using I say in this world we get to live for a living like we get to exist in this culture you know like how we design our life ultimately becomes the same things we're fed the same circles we run in the same algorithms like if if you keep living a particular way you you drift more into these these worlds and the important part with it is to be a an observer like we're all on Tik Tok 99% are as consumers who's actually observing it like objectively is like oh this is an interesting idea or oh this is bubbling up and so I think I've just gradually learned to take more of like a neutral approach with all of it right and and not get swept away and like I try not to have opinions on many things I try to view it as like yeah this is the movement that's happening like you see Drake paint his nails you see yachty paint his nails and I'm you know I test I'm like yeah I'm going to paint my nails I paint like who's going to say anything to my box or what and I did that you know triple sevens like I thought they were fly um but just existing within that culture and then being able to kind of play off it is it's fun as long as you're observing yeah and you know you know what's interesting and it's smart is that um because you're an objective Observer you can actually go like a layer deeper and start to see like well what are like the design is and like what is the what are the needs that people are trying to get with this Behavior what's the fundamental thing they're trying to achieve and then how can you influence it cuz both looksmaxing and the red pill thing were just unique cries for help an underserved audience that was trying to better themselves however that manifests in the end result like you know that's where people start getting strong opinions and it's right or it's wrong but what's the center thing going on there and the more you can tap into that the the more money you can make as bad as that sounds but like that's how I that's how I approach it yeah you know okay let's take it let's take it deeper so let's say that I found the the winning product I've then developed like a unique product which is 3% let's even say it's 5% 7% better um I'm very clear on like who the customer is what the Brand Story all of this how what are the actual practical steps of me now promoting that product on Tik Tok like what does that look like yeah I mean do you want to talk about Manufacturing I get asked all the time too where do we get it made like where do you get the product made I don't want to gloss over that because that's one of those things to me it's second nature there's manufacturers that want to make your [ __ ] like if you Google mouth tape manufacturer you're going to find five pages of people that do that um so seriously Google and then bang in the phones because that's where I think a lot of people get hung up they don't know where the product gets made am I making in my kitchen am I like but no you're working with a contract manufacturer there's all sorts of them just quickly when you say bang the phone so like you'd find a manufacturer on Google and then you're calling the factory and like what is even happening in that Co you're finding the salesperson and telling them you got a product and these are your you know this is your budget these are your minimums like I want to bring this to Market can you help and a lot of them like maybe it won't be a good fit maybe they only work with huge Brands and but eventually you're going to find that Botique manufacturer like I did with genius it'll scale with you you know those guys didn't I didn't pay them for the whole run I gave them a deposit they took a little risk on me and they grew with me over the years but their business is to make those products right like they don't keep the lights on unless they're making x amount of bottles per year so there's a whole ecosystem out there that wants to support you as a brand owner are there mistakes that people make when it comes to the manufacturing point of like I'm assuming I'm assuming you get sent prototypes or you get samples and stuff like that yeah manufacturing it can be a tricky world like again if you're starting out like work the phones and all those those things tend to sort themselves out like it's a relationship game um some manufacturers are can be Shady some don't hold their lead times right but that's why you're I recommend calling 10 to 15 just to get your feet wet right and figuring out what works um but yeah I mean that's generally a pretty complex topic but to bring something to Market is not not that complex it gets way harder when you're trying to do like you know I'm trying to do a million bottles or whatever I need to lock down supply chain but at that point you you have the skills and the confidence right yeah yeah you've built it up okay so let's let's assume then that we also we have the manufacturing sorted out like we we can fulfill orders and now we're just like how do we get the traffic on top of it um explain that game to me of like actually marketing the product on Tik Tok yeah so Tik Tok shop the platform is like super straightforward you go you like LLC or something like that um you know make sure you're doing another new business but then you open up a Tik Tok shop account you put all your info in you list your product it's like you know you need a picture of it you get it up there and now all of a sudden you're in the game you choose your sale price like you're you are officially listed on Tik Tok shop you have zero eyeballs and zero sales but that's where if you learn that skill of making most of it's faceless bro like people think it's like oh are you an influencer talking no a lot of it's like the kid holding the phone and the product whips in it's like this legendary herb has been around for like you know it's a very specific content style and if you master that by either studying the others or you know there's YouTube channels there starting to break it down I told you the tabs roommate um he runs a whole program now like that's where I get all my creators he has a program training 18 you know 15 to 24 year old kids how to make it's like $10,000 a month doing this but I'm the one writing the checks like it's for real I want as many creators as possible so if you're young watching this like that is the side hustle in my opinion that can get you started and so if you learn to make that all of a sudden you're you're in the game and then it's just how many videos are you putting out per day oh fulfillment right you need to have somewhere to fulfill the product everyone uses a 3pl um Tik Tok shop is partnered with shipbob so basically you get that run off the manufacturer you send that inventory to ship Bob you plug in with them and they'll fulfill every single order off of Tik Tok shop for you money starts going up yeah that's super easy I'm curious because you you work with so many creators can you even see someone and maybe they haven't even really made that many videos but you can just see the way they are and like the way that they create and you're like okay they're going to be they're going to make like viral content oh yeah yeah and and I mean the good ones often aren't aren't for sale right like you're trying to the best case is you're taking a bet on like it's like Venture Capital you take you pay 10 of them a retainer and nine of them go bust and then one of them gets you five million views and it just paid for the whole thing your whole product run and you're like [ __ ] I need more inventory um but that's generally kind of the game the more you kind of pour into that world and and learn it there's new Talent popping up every day so so so the one out of the 10 that is like the star that is the outlier what is it that they're doing like when you when you think about it like what is what is so special about their content like what do those cont features tend to be they almost always like I don't like this almost sounds bad but there's almost like a little autistic component sometimes that they just get the algorithm like the ones that invent the new strategies there's this one that everyone does now and it came from our group but it's this like deep AI voice you probably seen it on like the motivational stuff but it's like it's atom on 11 labs and it's like if you took alphar grind for 21 days this is what would happen to your body and a lot of time it's just like a very unique Creator who's been like living and breathing that since they were you know young like how old are you I'm 26 26 so like when when did you have a phone for like uh 13 14 13 14 so you you largely grew up with a phone yeah the 18-year-olds like that's been their screens have been their world right they don't even have a computer like you you're probably on a laptop more than or just as much as a phone yeah I was phone in high school right so like I'm I'm native to it but not like them where you have some of these kids that were making Tik toks in high school they just get it they know it's like hook keep keep them watching repeat some sort of Engagement and that's the equation like I can tell you the equation all day I still don't have the same natural gift that Sydney who there's a girl here in Brooklyn that she was like one of the star creators she made like 120,000 her third month doing it because she just she's just in tune with it like she was working at Chipotle finds this whole Crea Corner thing she's like well this is what people want to hear starts getting the Reps up um that's the other thing it's like it's a rep game you're not going to go viral your first five videos um but the more you do it like the more swings it bat and like eventually it's going to happen I'm curious then so because there's people that can go viral I don't I don't know this for Tik Tok but I've seen it in other forms of social media there's people that get a ton of attention but can't sell product so is it the same with Tik Tok where like there's certain creators that they can make viral creative but it doesn't necessarily lead to sales yeah I think the beauty of this world is these are all sales driven videos so like they're not showing their face it's almost always optimized to be about the product with some claim or some story um that's why I think influencers are dying like there's a lot of influencers that have mad reach but people don't take them seriously or whatever right and you pay that person a couple thousand for a post because they have a big audience and the end result is zero sales whereas this is like hyperfocused sales-driven content and there's still a scale like you know some videos will get way more reach and still not sell that much and some will only do a couple hundred thousand views but it's such a targeted video it sells but um in general like the way this is approached it sales first I'm curious I'm curious like you mentioned that this is like a a similar magnitude of opportunity to what Amazon was what are some of the craziest things that you're seeing with like people that are doubling down on it like the what are some of the results that they're even getting this just brand Guru Nanda who's another Amazon friendly brand who's doing a couple million a year they've done $38 million now since they've started on Tik Tok shop and it's like a mouth rinse that have you seen it like it's all over a lot of people's explore pages but again they just kind of figured if we go viral we make sales let's figure out how to go as viral as possible um you're familiar with the Tate strategy like just how you had all these different accounts going from Affiliates explain it to people the the Tate strategy what why everyone saw Andrew Tate every single day from however long to however long was because he had Affiliates that were trained in repurposing tapate podcast interviews and a lot of creators are using this style now like I I would like you'll see clips of this on my secondary accounts right but the idea was the more swings at bat the more likely you are to go viral and so all of a sudden he has hundreds of Affiliates putting out two to three tape videos per day most of them never see the light of day and then all of a sudden one gets 10 million views and then now this guy's on your algorithm more and more and so it's really the same idea it's how are we getting as many swings at bat as possible and so Guru andand figured that out early on they've done 38 million so far in 6 months months um there's a product like 15-day gut cleanse I have no idea who they are where they came from and they they did $10 million last month um so the the numbers are as real as you could possibly like dream of I mean it's like those are sustainable life-changing business numbers but yeah you know what here's here's where I want to end because I started by reading um this tweet um in the last 10 years I've nearly lost my business I sold it later for $30 million I dodged cancer I became a father of two and I found God during dark times and so I want to end with that final bullet point I found God during Dark Times M that moment have you you've heard me kind of hint at abundance and growth like all of that stuff throughout this interview right and my whole story I'll kind of summarize it in in a shorter form but after selling that company there was like a a window of emptiness where you get this huge wire into your bank account and you feel like you made it and then you refresh it 10 times that day and then you go to sleep and you wake up the next day and literally nothing is different and you kind of go what is my purpose like what what am I what am I doing here and I had been a guy that always felt guided or in tune with this very spiritual energy as I was kind of coming up like I always felt like the steps I was making were guided I felt like I was making moves operating from my heart and then that wire hit and for whatever reason it led to this emptiness and this progression down this like rational Rabbit Hole like trying to make sense of everything in a very non awe inspiring matter like everything is dictated by Randomness and chance and that's just how this universe shakes out and those who make it are lucky and so on and so forth and I had two years of really not a good existence like when I look back at those years uh they were very empty and eventually this led to I had this uh melanoma cut off my ear which is a form of skin cancer I have no idea what this thing is and I'm kind of going through life on autopilot I'm trying to learn how to be wealthy I'm trying to learn how to protect my money right I want I want to make sure that's like passed along that's all I think about there's no growth there's just like I got this chunk let me invest it right let me make the right decisions and then one day I like have this kind of growth going on behind my ear and my wife Flags it for me I I don't think anything of it for those of you who aren't familiar with melanoma it's like the I think I think the leading cancer that kills younger people like under under 50 it's a skin cancer and um the basic idea with it is it starts on your skin and if you cut it off within a certain amount of time before it grows to a certain point you're good but if it tunnels down and it starts to get in your body you are in for a whole another round like World of treatment and your life your life changes your life all of a sudden becomes the melanoma and so I'm going on with life I'm still kind of like Mr like I don't listen to anybody my Health's fine like that's just how I am and my wife Flags this thing for me and I like ignore her for a while and uh I'm back in Seattle visiting my parents One Summer and the day before I'm supposed to leave my mom goes you're going in like I have a dermatologist appointment today you're taking that like you're going in and uh I was like yeah whatever and so I go in I sit down I still have no idea like the seriousness of any of this and the doctor looks at and he goes that is coming off today and I'm like um okay like I'm still not really I'm like whatever and dude like numbs me up does this whole surgery like cuts out this big chunk behind my ear um we leave the next day headed back to Puerto Rico we sto in Texas for a week visiting some some friends family and uh I get a call from that same doctor and he goes hey are you sitting down and I'm like I'm driving like what's up and uh he's like well you know we got got the autopsy back and blah blah blah blah blah you're going to have to go you know find the the nearest major Cancer Center and you need to go schedule an appointment He's like the good news is I think we got this like in plenty of time and and like you know you're like like I think we got it but you need to go in for this this and this and basically like that day I still don't know what's going on I'm still kind of not thinking anything of this and I'm bro I'm Invincible right I'm 28 29 I have millions of dollars I like I'm plugging along with my life like stuff like this doesn't happen I'm in great shape like I'm not thinking of Health stuff and basically I have to go into this cancer hospital like no insurance like you know I was in Puerto Rico at the time so no us insurance so we're just passing through and next thing I know it's like this scramble to find an appointment at oncology in you know one of these major Cancer Centers and I remember when we finally did walking in to to that place you know and seeing the devastation cuz you're in there with you know I mean you see people that are probably terminal and fighting tooth and nail and it's like a really [ __ ] up reality and long you know long story short they go in they have to do another surgery to clear the margin like rip all this stuff out and the basic takeaway was like yo if you had waited like a couple more weeks like that [ __ ] was starting to Tunnel down and like you're you're living a whole different life and so from that point again it's that reoccurring presentation of of death that [ __ ] with me so tough I just have my second daughter and I remember just like wrestling with the reality of life and again that it could be gone and then I looked back to the Abundant me that had built genius and then the rational me of the last two years that I hadn't done [ __ ] fun and was focused on like just trying to be the smartest guy in the room and eventually through like a series of events it was like God slapping me it was like all these different things you know I kept seeing this Bible verse Isaiah 43:10 41:10 you know do not fear I'm with you and it's spent like a year bro like really contemplating existence like oh my my God this could be taken away I'm not going to see my kids grow up like what is the point of any of this and that's what kind of led me on the whole eventually on the other side of that I was like oh no this is almost like another second shot at this and this is the the life maxing movement this is like I want to go travel I want to live for a living I want to design my life so that I leave my mark while still experiencing life to the fullest it was through those really dark times like I you know like again the whole mental thing right and you talk about I had created this narrative that like oh my God I'm going to die or like you know it's going to come back or this that and it took me a long time to get over that but on the other side of it was this blessing that wow I'm 31 32 and I get to create this however I want and eventually that's what led to rob the bank that's what led to these new businesses that's what led to all the new growth where I'm operating from like a true place of being in tune with that that voice that person that's all I answer to I don't answer to others expectations for me I know like I'm blessed and have the opportunity to create in this world and operate from a place of abundance and once I doubled into that and let go of all the rationale like Randomness luck whatever life has been so dramatically better it's not even funny and it just keeps getting better and so I think there's importance in that message and uh we're just getting started yeah you know what you know what you one of the things you said it was you said it was almost like God was slapping you in the face slapping me bro and you know what when I was um when I was just listening to you recount that story it's almost Eerie in a way because the same way that you describe that experience sounds oddly familiar with the with what happened with your grandma where it's like this kind of innocuous event like you don't even really think it's something like the the mole that's growing on the back of your ear or oh yeah she was just going in to get like a treatment done and then it ends up being something so much more huge and even when you telling the story about uh the melanoma it's like going into that Center and it's like just a world of Devastation mhm and I'm curious for you like when you go back into that moment was it like Eerie for you was it almost like this is almost like a sick experience the fact that the similarities between what I went through with your grandma and how de devastating that was and then being there yourself was sickening and like to this day like you talk about how strong our minds are and our our bodies and thoughts can create stuff I box like right near that cancer hospital there's a boxing gym I go to and I have to drive by it and when I drive by it I was just there a couple weeks ago and I'm well removed from this entire situation but as I'm driving past that there's like a chilling you know like your skin crawls and I feel like a physical burning where they took it off like I I literally feel that and my life was like that forever I used to give into those thoughts it was like it would like melt you down and I still feel it when I drive by that place you know after having not been there for a while and I still remember those memories of seeing like you know the mom with her kid with the you know hat cuz she doesn't have any hair but I frame it and I know it to be like a blessing at this point you know like like I I move past it and I drive past there and I I tuck it away and I'm just like man like that happened to me and I'm really happy God brought me to this next point in my life but I still feel it you know when I drive by there and I guarantee you if I ever went back to University of Washington where my nana passed away in that emergency room I would feel that same room um but that's life we got to roll with it you know what you said you said life maxing I guess the opposite of that is just it's over like death I the opposite is is nihilism it's that subtle depressive thing that Chris talks about the opposite is going life on autopilot with no purpose no intention of purpose a real numb to the reality is that we will eventually expire would you say that's like kind of your biggest fear like what would you say it's your biggest fear I I try not to have fears at this point you know because we're not in control of a lot of it I think you lean into the the power of this universe of this God whatever it might be and try to be in tune with that mission and then live it to the fullest you know because we are going to die like I got to a point with all of it that I no longer had a fear of death you know like I know my father passing away will be that next big painful thing and I know I need to be a certain point in my life for that right and and so all these are inevitable realities that you can't be scared of but rather accept and then look at your own life through that lens because it's going to mold you on to better things you know what ju just finally you spoke about kind of like this this relationship with your dad like right in the beginning there's almost like this competitive streak to it I'm curious like where where is that like right now like how do you reflect on that right now my dad is largely opposite of Life maxing in the sense of he came from nothing he's always been super Frugal he could like afford a a first class ticket but would rather fly in the back of the plane cuz that's who he is I'm just slowly breaking him down to the abundance of life so like I'm taking my whole family to to Jackson Hole in a couple weeks and and I chared a jet you know it's like 22 Grand or something and it's just so necessary but I know that experience will stick with him like you have to live what you what you believe at the end of the day and if you're living in truth like I know that's going to make one of those experiences that's just indefinitely legendary to him I I took him to the he used to take me to basketball games growing up like we'd always sit like you know decent seats but whatever I took him to the Mavs game court side you know for the playoffs and it was the like he stops worrying about what it costs when he starts living life you know and so I'm going to continue to just do what always done which is live my truth and try to bring good experiences to other people and I'm trying to bring that to my to my home life now too with family and all that cuz it it's it's fractured a lot of things and again when I look at through that lens that hey this guy maybe has 10 to 20 years left like what what kind of experiences do I want to be having like will I really worry about spending you know 20 whatever thousand on a jet or will I remember that time that we had a blast in Jackson Hole was my dad's first private jet experience you know the answer is pretty clear right at that point so that's where I'm at with all of it awesome thank you so much can I ask you a question real quick go for it you you love your mom to death I can tell yeah yeah than anything yeah yeah yeah she'd be proud of this yeah yeah I think when you look at it through that lens like you know I know my nana will be proud of all this too it's like if you live your life in that level of Truth like that [ __ ] shines through at the end so thanks for having me bro for real I think you're like destined for elite things with this like you're I know you're about it and it was a pleasure thank you for having me on thank you so much man it's pleasure having you on thank you so much for watching this episode I hope you enjoyed it it's really a dream for me that I get to do this it's surreal that this is what I do full-time and every week so if you enjoyed the content if you enjoyed the conversation the stories please hit that subscribe button it helps us immeasurably with growing the Channel with getting guests all of those things so please hit that subscribe button and I'll see you next time