My First Million: Nick Huber: Powerful Sales Trick, Traits Of An Entrepreneur, & When To Sell A Business

Doing anything, doing anything that makes your life better.

It's all super uncomfortable and it's very, very easy to just be passive.

Well, I don't necessarily have the energy to do that.

I'm just going to step back.

Welcome to my first million.

Thanks for joining me, Sam.

All right, so Sean is in California.

There's a power outage last minute.

I called Nick Huber.

We're going to give you like the proper introduction.

But basically you were on a month ago, six weeks ago, and it was one month.

I think it was the second most downloaded pod in the last 90 days.

It had something like 150 or even more downloads, something like that.

So the people loved you.

And what was your introduction last time?

Nick has at least $100 million in storage units of which I am an investor in.

So I always disclose that and you also own three or four different companies right now

that are doing really well or own part of.

Yep.

Yep.

Dablin and a lot of stuff.

You texted me actually one hour and six minutes ago and you said, hey,

can you come on the pod in one hour?

And I said, yes.

And you said, do you actually have good content?

And I said, yes, I'm a content machine.

I was just kidding with you.

And you said, hey, you need to make a document and send it to me.

Are you sure you have the fire?

Put the pressure on me because we don't ever, I never asked the same person

twice, but I know that you're easy to work with and I knew you'd show up in time.

Well, you blew up, you blew up my life, man.

I mean, I looked back.

You, you brought me on this show the very first time on November 11th, 2020.

And then another time, February 16th, 2023, which was four weeks ago today.

And honestly, it blew up my world.

I mean, really?

What are the results?

I mean, support Shepard, the company that I used to hire a lot of VAs and I'm a

partner in 200 plus leads of people, business owners who reached out for the

first time to hire their first VA, which is freaking awesome.

And that's like four grand a month or something or two grand a month.

It just costs about three grand.

It's 30% of the first year salary, 35% of the first year salary to make the placement.

So average tickets between three and four grand, all the other businesses too

that I mentioned on there got some leads, Ari Kosig, Webrun.com.

It's just crazy, man.

Got reached out to by a lot of people and actually got started with a couple

more businesses since then.

So it's just been wild.

I went to Vancouver and I was hanging out with some guys that were like worth

hundreds of millions and maybe one or two of them in the billionaire range.

And we were having dinner and they wouldn't stop talking about that episode.

They wouldn't stop talking about you.

And they were like, I got to meet Nick.

I introduced you to one of them, but they wouldn't stop talking about you.

And I was like, damn, people love Nick.

It's amazing.

It's been amazing.

I think the, the network effects of that have really impacted my life.

And man, I have you to thank in a major way.

So really, really, really appreciate it.

We were at a, I did like a MFM meetup last night.

Jonathan organized it and we had 500 people RSVP.

I don't know how many people showed up, but it was awesome.

We got to like meet people and a lot of people were asking about you.

And it was really fun to get out from behind the microphone because what people

don't, I always say this, I said this last night, what they don't realize is

like Sean and I, at least we talked throughout the week, but we tried to save

our, if we ever, if we're ever talking about something juicy, he'll just say,

like, don't, don't tell me, tell me when we're live.

And right now I'm just in my, I turned like a small bedroom into a little,

it just has his desk and a camera.

And you probably, it looks like you're in the same.

You have like a small office in your house and like, they don't realize

that like we're just a bunch of like doofuses behind a mic.

I mean, we're prepared, but like, we're just kind of like having a conversation

with our friends and it's really cool to like see the people and like actually

hear from them.

And so we did that last night.

It was exhausting, but I was very happy to do it.

And so hopefully you, you've been able to meet some of the people as well.

It's crazy because we can sit here and talk and I'm a little bit nervous

just because I know the impact of my first million.

I know that a hundred thousand people might listen to this, but imagine

how nervous we would be if we were sitting in two chairs in the middle

of Dallas Cowboys Stadium with a hundred thousand people watching.

I mean, it would make it feel a lot more real.

It would make it feel a lot more real.

We've had so many people say, why don't you guys do it in real life?

Like you and Sean, like, and I'm like, well, it's just more convenient.

But also it's like one time I recorded at a studio and there was like this

like lady at the sound board and she was like hip and cool looking.

And I remember she wouldn't laugh every once in a while when I thought

I said something funny and I got in my head.

I was like, shit, I didn't, I didn't, was that douchey?

Was that lame?

And then everyone, and then when she would laugh, I'd be like, all right,

I got her, I got her, I got to keep going.

And so like she was my audience that I remember I was like changing

everything I did.

And afterwards I was like, Ben, I can't do this with with Eddie,

these people in this room anymore.

It's getting in my head.

I'm trying to impress them too much.

It's tough, man.

It's tough.

I'm having a live event on the 22nd in Athens, which you guys inspired

me to do.

I put it together right after that and 30 people have bought tickets to it.

So I'm a little bit bummed out, but we're going to actually go

through its next Wednesday night in Athens.

We're going to actually have it see how many people show up and see

if it's a success.

But yeah, when you put yourself out there for a live event,

it comes with a new level of stress and anxiety for sure.

A quick break to let you know that today's episode is brought to you

by the Side Hustle Pro podcast.

A podcast hosted by Nikala Matthews Akome, which is also on the HubSpot

podcast network.

So the Side Hustle podcast is focused on people bringing their

side hustles into making them their full-time gigs, making them big

businesses.

And so she's got a bunch of really interesting episodes.

Her most recent episode is about a woman who was popular on Instagram

and created a bunch of products and brought it into Target and

got it into retail stores, which is really, really hard.

She has a few other episodes on changing the relationship with

money and building a healthy emotional relationship with money,

which is something we talk about here, which is definitely

challenging, mastering self-talk and then also how to have a plan

for the year and put it into action and much more.

So go check it out, Side Hustle Pro, wherever you get your podcast.

So I moved to San Francisco in 2012.

I moved out there and I moved out there from Tennessee and I,

I'm still a little rough.

Back then I was really rough around the edges and this was right.

Yeah.

And this, and this was like, I moved out there and I would wear jeans

and like boots and no white t-shirt all the time and people,

and I had a little bit of a twang, you know, and people would

kind of tease me and I told them I'm from Tennessee and they're like,

you know, what do you date your cousin?

Like they would make fun of me.

And I felt really like jealous of the Stanford kids.

I would like, I remember I took a bus or a train out and to walk

around Stanford's campus.

I felt it was like a good will hunting moment.

I was like, dude, am I going to meet all these geniuses?

What's going to happen?

And I got so envious.

And so I created this thing called the anti-MBA because I was envious

that I didn't get my MBA from Stanford because I would meet

all these kids and they had this like awesome network.

And so I created this book club and we would read one book a month

and we would meet once a week and go over the trailing like,

you know, weeks reading and then I would call in a guest to like

lead the discussion and I would talk to them and I posted an

ad on Craigslist.

That's how I got my first people.

And so Cieva, one of my best friends, Cieva, who's like a

big entrepreneur, he was one of those people.

You know, he's one of my closest friends.

So I met him that way.

And so I would host these book groups and it would be 10 people

at first and then the next time like 12 and then over time,

I did this for a year every week for a year.

I got like 3000 people signed up to my email list.

Then I hosted an event that was like maybe 80 people came and

then I hosted hustle con and 300 people came, but it was very

slow like these like events.

I did them very like it was like a four year grind and then

at hustle con, eventually we got like 2500 people coming and

so like these events and then Sean and I did a live pod in

Miami and like maybe a hundred people came and it wasn't that

good and then we did it again and it was a little bit better.

So like these events, it takes time and it's hard and it's hard

because unlike the internet when you, you know, with the internet

you can delete some stuff within an event.

You just are going to embarrass yourself.

You know what I mean?

It's so it is challenging, but it was like a grind to do the

do those events and getting, getting people to actually show

up is tough.

I mean, to get people to listen to my first million or my

podcast and the Cuba show, all they got to do is flip through

flip through podcast, click a little button.

If they don't like it, they're gone getting somebody to buy

a ticket drive somewhere.

The uncomfort of meeting other people, you know, it's more

difficult.

Where do you want to go today?

Where you want to drive?

So I want to talk about the traits of a successful entrepreneur.

What made, what makes a, whether it's a partner, an operator,

a manager at a company.

And when I say entrepreneur, I don't necessarily just mean

somebody who starts a business.

I mean, somebody who leads other people inside an organization.

What makes those people really, really good at what they do?

And I think you have a lot of experience tracking down and

identifying these people who are killers.

We'll call them 10 Xers.

They're the people who, you know, I have a theory that

80% of workers are just kind of skating by and maybe they're

adding a little bit of value to a company, but the top 20% are

generating outsized return for the company that they work for

or themselves if they're an entrepreneur.

What makes those people tick?

I want to talk about that.

All right.

The most interesting thing about this is that it's kind of,

this will morph into a tactical guide of literally starting a

company because when you start to identify these things and you

track down these people and you bring them together, a company

is nothing more than just a group of people that all work together.

So if you can find these people and put them together, which I

know you can, which I'm confident that I can and anybody who

scales a business can do, you can make a lot of money fast.

So let's dig in.

Well, when I first started my career, it was basically just,

can I make enough money to pay for my own bills?

And then once you get past that point, maybe that point is,

it's different for everyone.

For us, it was in the $30,000 a month range.

Once we got to $30,000 a month, I realized cool.

It's sustainable to a certain level.

I need to hire people and I hired one or two people in a few of

my different companies where once we got to like 30 and 40,000

a month, when you hire the right person, it can 10x fairly

quickly.

And at that 30,000 mark, I realized at a young age, I am in

the collection of people business.

I just have to collect interesting people and you have to

play like a long-term game because it doesn't, you can't,

they're not always available, but if you like play the long

game, relationships last a long time.

So I've done a good job of collecting people and I, you

asked me this, so I made a list.

So four traits that I always look for.

The first is I look for emotionally stable people.

The reason I look for that is I'm not exactly the most emotionally

stable person.

I'm the fire.

So when, when it comes to starting stuff, I don't need anyone

to motivate me.

I'm the flame.

I'll get it started.

I don't need any gasoline.

I don't need anything of that like that.

But I need people who can, when you're the type of person

like me and you have really high highs and I can motivate

someone and I can get them to do crazy shit that typically

those people, it's almost like a comedian.

They're often, if they're great on stage, that means they're

probably sad a lot of times when they get like down or like

for in my case, I'm like, this is going to fail.

This sucks.

And so I always look for someone who's like pretty stable and

they're a rock who can like sustain like a pretty even pace

and they, I can motivate them to get excited, but they don't

get down too easily.

Let's, let's do one at a time.

All right.

For me, it's, it's very, very similar to what you just

described in yourself and it is that, that fire, that sense

of urgency and that energy.

I think most people out there, just in general, a lot of

people, they, they, they're like, they're in slow motion.

They walk slow.

They think slow.

They talk slow.

They make decisions slow.

They're just kind of lollygagging through life.

They go into work.

They clock in at 9am.

They do the bare minimum all day to get paid next Friday

and not get fired and then they clock out and they go home

and drink a couple beers.

They're not that excited about hobbies.

They're not that excited about much at all, which is fine.

Yeah, it's fine and you need those people a lot of times.

You need, you need butts and seats.

Yeah, which is fine.

Those people are fine and they serve a purpose, but then

you get those people that have that energy.

You get those people that have that.

Okay.

I'm going to get out of bed today and I'm going to attack

this thing and we're going to make decisions fast.

We're going to move fast.

We're going to talk fast.

We're going to take action fast and we're going to get

shit done and those people, when you bring them in,

they can do all the other things on this list.

I think everything else on my list and your list feeds from,

hey, we are going to get stuff done quick.

When I started my very first company, it was a moving company

that pick up and delivery storage for students.

We bought a cargo van on Craig's list for $3,000 and we drove

it back to the track house.

So it's a kind of a good example of the different, the way

that people think about business and opportunity.

We were jacked up.

Me and my business partner, we were all excited about the idea

of starting a company and going out and trying to make some

money.

We drove this van back and we're like, we're going to start

doing pick up and delivery storage for students.

And some of our buddies, they were sitting around.

We were sitting around the track house playing beer pong

and they're like, you guys are freaking crazy.

What is exciting about that?

What beer pong?

No, what do you know about moving?

Like, you know, like you're not qualified.

Yeah, they're just like, why is that exciting?

You're going to go, we're going to go have fun this weekend.

You're going to go around and sweat and pick up boxes for

30 bucks a piece.

Like that does not sound fun to me.

I'm I have zero energy and zero excitement around that.

And they would have quit or given up in a week or two.

Whereas we were energetic.

We were excited.

We got after it and we were able to convince some other

people to come along.

And you know, that was yeah, that's that's the whole thing.

There's this great book, Robert, you know, Robert Green, the

author Robert Green, he wrote that book, 48 Laws of Power.

He has another book that was way less popular called the 50th

Law and it's really weird because he wrote it about 50 cent

and it's actually a great book.

And I know it sounds weird, but because he Robert Green, he's

into like a philosophy and all this, all this stuff, but he

talks about like rappers and he loves hip hop culture and he's

like 50 cent is really good at this because he has done a

good job reinventing himself a bunch of times.

He's changed his image a bunch of times, whatever.

And he said the key to 50s success was his sense of urgency.

And if you don't have a sense of urgency and everything that

you do, it ruins everything.

And he doesn't just talk about business people.

He talks about poets.

He talks about people who discover, who invent different

medicines like, you know, poets, writers, whatever.

It's always about an urgency.

Doing anything, doing anything that makes your life better is

uncomfortable.

Going out and meeting somebody, taking a chance, trying to get

that really hot girl in the bar to go on a date with you.

It's all super uncomfortable and it's very, very easy to just

be passive.

Well, I don't necessarily have the energy to do that.

I'm going to step back.

I used to have a rule when I saw, this is how I met my wife.

When I saw a cute girl who I want to talk to, I could only

give myself five seconds after seeing her before I just spoke

to her.

Urgency, baby.

It was a five-second rule.

It was a five-second rule.

Because if you don't talk to them within a couple seconds,

you're never going to do it.

And the longer you wait, the harder it gets.

And so I always had the five-second rule.

I have a couple more on my list.

Do you want me to go again or do you want to do your second one?

Yeah, go one more.

Okay.

So I think this one feeds into the next one, which is when

you're starting a company and people ask me a lot after our

last episode where I spoke about the four or five companies

that I'm starting.

Nick, how do you have time to do this?

How are you doing it yourself?

And the answer is I'm not.

I'm going and I'm tracking down people who are really good.

And I want you to riff on this too, Sam, because you're a master

of bringing people together.

And I have this theory about recruiting employees or partners

or people in your early company, which step one is always,

you know, the website, getting your click funnels, getting

your copywriting down, getting your service put together.

But then it's attracting people.

That's all it is.

As an entrepreneur, all you're doing is attracting people.

I have a theory about this.

So 10% of people are in career nirvana, meaning they love

their job.

They're perfectly motivated and they are under no circumstance

are they going to go and do something else.

Another 10% of people are literally actively looking for

something else, either they're unemployed or they really hate

their job and they are very open and they're actively looking

for jobs.

These are the people that are looking on job boards, posting

around, you know, for anything that might be another opportunity

for them.

And there's 80% of people that are in the middle 8 out of 10

people have somewhere in the middle, they like their job,

but they're open to other things or they could be open to

other things, but they're not going to go on monster or on

indeed or on LinkedIn and actually apply for jobs, which

typically is the those are the winners.

Those are the winners.

I've every 10 X or that I've ever hired and I've been lucky

enough to bring a lot of 10 Xers and into what I try to do.

And again, it's kind of because of my charisma and my sales

ability and me really going out and putting myself out there

and putting my sales hat on like I'm literally turning into

a salesman.

I'm going to try to attract talent to come along on my

mission.

Every single 10 Xers that I've gotten involved falls in that

category.

They were previously employed.

They had a job they didn't hate and they had a boss that

really didn't want to let them go.

And my entire career has been built upon going and finding

those people tracking them down, identifying them and convincing

them to leave that opportunity and come along with me.

How do you convince them?

It's it's sales.

It's literally I'm selling them on my mission.

We can talk about sales like what sales is another thing,

but I'm trying to make it.

I'm trying to tell them how they can win better than what

they're winning right now with me.

I can either make them more money.

They can have a better quality of life.

We can do something more fun.

I got to get them to buy into my vision.

I got to be charismatic and and convince them that they need

to stop what they're doing.

They need to make a big life change, which is careers a huge

change to make and they got to drop it and come with me and

you do the same thing, Sam.

Yeah, usually what I do is I'll like I'll find someone

interesting and I just chat them up and I go I'd be like,

I usually like to flatter people.

So I say, you're amazing.

What's your story?

And they'll just gosh and tell you their story and I act

interested because I am interested and then usually

I'm like, where do you want to be in a handful of years?

What do you want to do?

And if they tell me something where I'm like, oh, I could

help you get there.

Sometimes I can't.

Sometimes it's like I can't help you get there.

But if they if I can, then I tailor my pitch around helping

them get there and I'll say something like, would you have

to come join me for a handful of years and I bet you we could

set you up nicely to get you to where you want to go and I

tailor my pitch all about them and how I'm going to help

them achieve their goals.

And typically what I do.

I've said this a bunch of times, which is the world wants

people to be vanilla.

They want you to fit into a very safe box and I think a lot

of people dread that even though they are living that life

and so I tend to go the excitement and fun angle because

a lot of the times I'm not necessarily building the next

SpaceX.

Like if you're like work at NASA, there is some big vision

which is like we're putting someone on the moon or if you

look at work at some type of company that's like creating a

life-saving drug, I'm like we're going to save lives, but I

don't really do stuff like that.

I just do awesome stuff like fun stuff.

And so I typically lean into excitement where it's like, look,

we're going to build this pirate ship together and you're

going to be leading it or you're going to be contributing it

in a way where we're going to agree on the rules, but you

could as long as you play within those rules, you could do

whatever you want.

And so that's typically how I pitch.

I love it.

And when I'm making a key hire, I do the exact same thing.

I call it like the motivational interview.

If I'm hiring somebody who's a little bit higher level and

making an investment, they're making a big change.

I need them to do some pretty important stuff.

I'll sit there in the interview and I'll be like, Sam, we're

talking about this company right now, but let's pretend that

we're five years in the future.

You and I are sitting right here.

We're in this office in five years and you walk into this

office and you are gushing.

You're excited.

You're like, Nick, things are going freaking awesome.

Tell me what is going on.

Tell me how much money you're making.

Tell me how big your team is.

Tell me if you're working from home, how much you're working.

Tell me what kind of projects you're working on.

And then I just shut up and I let them talk and I get to hear

what makes them tick and where they want to go.

And if my company can't put that together, sometimes it's

it's a really valuable tool because a lot of times 30, 40

percent of time, I'll be like, wow, I can't deliver on this.

My company can't deliver on this.

Yeah.

But then other times I'll be like, okay, I just, he just

gives you a look into how these people tick.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you got to tailor it.

So the, the third thing I, or the second thing that we won't

talk about because we already did is speed.

I look for speed and that's quite hard to find.

Most people aren't fast.

My, my current partner, Joe, Joe Spicer, he's the only person

that I've worked with that I'm like, Joe, you're going fast,

man, it's hard for me to keep up.

So I look for speed a lot, but the third thing is follow

through so people who actually act and I find that to be

probably the hardest thing to find.

And I actually, a lot of things are trainable.

I don't think that that, I think you either, you is or you ain't

when it comes to following through and like actually doing stuff.

And what I tend to do is I like to look at people who have

products or projects that are live.

So someone will be like, we had this one lady reply to one of

our tweets and she's like, I sold a hundred thousand dollars

worth of Taylor Swift t-shirts.

And I'm like, okay, that's, that's all I need to know.

You do stuff or maybe they have a blog or maybe they tweet or

maybe they have a YouTube channel or maybe they have some type

of hobby that involves like taking action.

And I always look for those things.

It could be like I organized clubs in college.

Just anything where I see like, all right, you follow through.

You say you're going to do something and you do it.

I look for that a lot.

And you also, you told me this in the group chat is that you

will give them a small job and that knocks off.

If somebody's interested in joining Sam Parr, the Sam Parr

ride and getting involved in one of your companies, one of

these things, you're going to give them something to do and

that'll knock off 80% of the people and cause they're not

going to follow through.

They're not going to follow through.

I think the, I got a good story.

Webrun, the guy that I found to start this front end web

development landing page companies named Will Wallace.

He's a coder.

He lives in Atlanta.

One of the most brilliant dudes I know.

And when I saw him, I was like, Will, I need, I need,

I need a favor.

And I was testing him.

He didn't know what I said.

I need a favor.

I need a landing page and I need something to form up on my

website.

I need it like right away.

And then boom, the next morning I woke up and it was there

and it was freaking awesome.

And he just moved so fast.

You just got stuff done so quickly that speed and sense of urgency

that you're talking about.

If you can find a way to get a look into their mind and it goes

back to like, Hey, we're looking to assemble a group of people.

As an entrepreneur, we're looking to assemble a group of people.

How do you know who those 10Xers are?

How do you know who those 10Xers are?

Getting a look into their mind with some of these ways that

we're talking about.

You're saying, give them something to do.

Give them something to follow through on like look at what

they're actually doing.

Often I tell them, I get pitched like five times a day.

You probably do two people who want to make short clips for me.

And I almost ignore all of them.

But every once in a while I'll be like, All right, make me a

video then.

And I'll tell them, I go, I'm not even going to post it.

So don't worry about free work.

Like I'm not going to, I'm not going to profit off your work.

Make me a video then.

And we used to do this all the time.

People would apply to the hustle for writing, writing.

I go, Okay, right tomorrow's email.

And yeah, every once in a while we get a 1200 word thing.

The next day I go, All right, sick.

We'll talk.

So what you're looking for is a look into the mind of these

people to figure out if they're a 10 Xer.

So if you're going out and you're trying to build these teams,

you can shoot from the hip, you can put, bring somebody in from

an interview and then you can make the hire or you can try to

get a preview, try to get a preview.

Another thing that I look for on my list and these two blend

together, I'm going to talk about both these things.

Clear and concise communication.

So many people you'll have a conversation and you'll listen

to them for 60 seconds, 90 seconds.

And you'd be like, what the hell is this person even talking

about? Get to the point.

Whereas you have Nick Huber on your podcast.

I can say exactly what I've done and where I've been and how

many storage facilities I have in it.

And I've given you three or four things to bite off on the

first 28 seconds that I've been on the show because I'm a very

clear and concise communicator.

So I look for that.

I listen to that when I'm talking to other business people.

Hey, you're trying to tell me a story.

You're trying to get a point across how quick, how clear and

how concise can you do it and the ability to get points

across in 15 seconds versus 30 is just mind blowing.

How would you feel if someone referred to themself and the

third person in an interview like you just did?

That's it.

That's it.

I'm out dog.

That's it.

I'm out dog right away.

Everybody wants to hear about the social justice warrior

tweet that I had a couple of days ago.

But yeah, I mean, there's a lot of red flags too that are

instant cuts.

You're just looking for red flags.

That's what you're doing.

Somebody refers to themselves as Nick Huber and the third

person cut out.

Dude, and the last thing that I have that's related is, and

this is hard to figure out a little bit, but I look for taste

and intelligence.

Intelligence being like, I always say, I'm like, does your

oven burn hot?

Like, are you just smart?

And can you like, do you have like emotional intelligence but

also taste?

So I like to ask people what content they consume.

I'd be like, do you like to read?

What do you read?

I'm like, where do you, where do you get your news?

Or if they're like, I'm like, seriously, just tell me like,

who do you follow on Instagram or what subreddits do you like

to read anything?

I just want to know a little bit about your taste.

I've noticed that.

And that's when somebody puts you on the spot like that.

That's really tough because what they want to do is please

Sam.

They want to say what you want to hear, but they don't know.

It's like somebody saying, hey, what's your political

affiliation?

Tell me who you voted for.

Maybe like, oh, oh, I don't know who did you vote for?

I voted for them.

No, and I don't care what they read.

I'm just like, explain to me why it's exciting because if

you're not excited about what you consume every day, then

you're boring and I don't want to be around you.

And, and, but I also want to know what their taste is because

I'll hire certain people and they like write in a certain

way that's maybe too corporate or like my brain is fun.

And so like if it is not fun or they don't get that, I'm

like, this is just, it's a bad culture fit that we're not

going to blend well.

So I look for a taste a lot and I ask them what they consume

or I do this thing called the bottom fourth of the resume.

So at the very bottom of people's resume is like where they

put like the hobbies or like what they did in college and

they'll say like, I studied philosophy.

I'm like, all right, cool. I mean, I don't really care about

philosophy, but I'm like, what was your favorite class?

And if they say, I'm not sure.

I'm like, oh, you're out.

But if they like, if they say like, you know, well, this

philosophy class, which I don't even know about, I'll just

be like, well, why?

And if they can entertain me and convince me that it was

interesting, I'm like, all right, cool.

You're all right.

So I look for taste a lot on the bottom fourth of the

resume.

Yep.

So I have a theory that you can get paid really, really

well and you can earn a great living if you're good at

your job.

If you're good at your job, you're worth a heck of a lot of

companies.

What do you Albinize sign?

Congratulations on that great theory.

If no, if now this is the theory.

This is the big, this is the big part.

If you can make other people good at their jobs, not just

you good at your job, but if you can lead other people and

set them up for success and make other people good at

their job, you are the 10 Xer.

You're the 10 Xer.

So I'm going to look for delegators who can do that, who

can lead other people and grow the business beyond because

look, if I hire somebody and I'm their direct report, but

they can't be the direct report of other people, they're

going to be a bottleneck.

I'm going to be bottlenecked.

They're not going to help me grow the company.

Now, the two things that I think are related to that that

are kind of counterintuitive.

Number one is copywriting.

They're a really good copywriter.

I think that's directly correlated to be able to being

able to delegate and lead other people because if you can

write clearly and concisely, if you can write clearly and

concisely the way people can understand it, you can lead

others, you can give directions, you can be on Slack,

text, email, the way that we run our businesses is through

the written word.

Very luckily, I can see how people write.

I can see it because they're DMing me.

I'm reading their tweets.

I get a look into how they write.

And I think I took your email course.

I want to talk about this because I took this nine months

ago or so, blew my mind and made me a better copywriter.

And now I have it.

Did it?

Did it work with you?

Yeah.

So Sam has a course where for 10 days in a row, he's going

to send 10 weeks in a row.

Is it days in a row?

Or is it once a week?

One day, one a day for 10 days.

One a day for Friday.

So two weeks.

You send an email that teaches people how to do

copywriting.

And I did it.

I got the email the first day and I spent, my wife comes

in and I got a notebook full of copy written down.

She's like, what the hell are you doing?

And I was like, well, Sam told me it's going to work.

Just trust me.

So 10 days I write and I copy these styles and I start to

learn how clear and concise communication and hooks and

throw away all the words that don't matter.

Where's that located again, by the way?

Copy that.com.

Copy that.com.

So the word copy and then that.

Yeah.

150 bucks or something.

And it's been worth, you know, 50 grand added to my

career.

Easy.

The best.

Do you know why that works?

I tried to explain it in the thing.

It's called copy work.

And it's how I learned how to write.

And it was like this way that they used to teach kids how

to write.

And in the 1930s and 40s, I think there was like a change

in the public schools and this thing got thrown to the

side.

It's called copy work.

But like if you like Ben Franklin used to write this

way, Hunter Thompson, he like said, this is how he

write Judd Apatow, the director.

And what they would do is they would find like scripts or

like if you're Judd Apatow, you would find like a funny

script that you want to emulate.

Or if you're Hunter S. Thompson, you would find you

do like Catcher in the Rye or some book that you like

because when you copy it by hand, you start seeing the

patterns and the texture of something in the same way

where if you want to learn how to play guitar, you're

not going to like get the guitar on day one and write a

song, you're going to like play Jingle Bells.

And then you're going to like move to happy birthday.

And then eventually you're going to move to like rock and

roll and then maybe blues.

And then you're like, oh, this riff from guns and roses.

It kind of reminds me of this riff from the blues.

If I'm going to like, I'll mash that with this and I'll

steal this from here.

And then boom, I've got my own piece of art and that's

why it's really good.

And there's actually science behind it where like it

imprints into your brain and you learn the flow of

certain things.

So if you could get good at writing and getting your

ideas across and also selling other people because

people think delegating is just telling people what to

do.

No, you have to make them want to do it and it's sales.

Life is sales.

So it's a beautiful resource.

Do you have a few more or no?

I want to ask you about that tweet.

So I want to go through how I think about sales because I

think this is really important because life is sales.

And as an entrepreneur, you're selling to customers.

You're selling to investors and partners and you're

selling to your employees.

Just like I said, you got to go find these people who

have jobs and you got to sell your idea and your vision

on them.

So I wanted to give you kind of a breakdown on how I

think about sales and how I kind of flip the script and

I can give you kind of an example of that.

The old school way to sell is you're going to be pushy.

You're going to ask directly.

You're going to speak the language.

You're going to prove that you're an expert and then

you're going to talk about all the benefits and all the

great things and then you're going to hand them a clip

board and ask for their signature.

I think that that way is a terrible way to actually sell

people in today's world of so many options.

So my way to do it is I speak the language briefly and

prove that I'm professional without being braggadocious

or bragging on me or the product that I'm trying to sell.

Then what I do is I dive right into talking about the

downsides, why I'm worried about it, why the deal might

not work, all the things that we need to stress about.

And then I ask them, given those downsides, why they still

want to do the deal or why they still want to work with me

or why they still want to work for my company.

And then I shut up and I let them, it kind of flips the

script to where they become the salesperson.

So like Sam, you're about to start working for me.

You want to come to work for Nick really bad and we're

going to start this company together.

I'll say, dude, this is an agency business.

It's really hard.

It might take six months before we make any money at all.

We might be stuck in it.

Worst case scenario, we're going to waste a year of our life.

Why do you want to come join me?

Another really great example of this is for my investors

and my real estate deals.

They get on a call with me and they expect me to just sit

there and regurgitate all the great things about

storage, all the great things about real estate investments,

the tax benefits, why I'm such a good operator, all that stuff.

I don't do any of that.

I get on a call with somebody, a Zoom call with somebody and

they already know me.

They're already on a call.

They're already interested in investing in storage.

So I talk about all the downsides.

I'll say, look, Sam, let's do an example here.

You give me this 50 grand, you're going to invest with me.

And let's say interest rates spike, the economy tanks,

people don't use storage as much.

And all of a sudden this deals worth 20 to 30% less than

what it was.

And instead of giving you an 8% cash on cash return,

I'm going to give you a 2% cash on cash return.

Now it's my job to make sure we don't lose the properties.

I'm going to do this, this and this to think about risk.

But why do you want to invest in storage?

Boom, flip the script, flip the script.

And the person will say, well, Nick, it seems like you've

thought a lot about these risks.

Like you're worried about this stuff.

I don't have to worry about this stuff.

I don't need cash flow off of this.

It's a long-term investment.

All the other reasons why.

When you're starting these new things,

how much do you fund them with?

Recruit jet, we put 50 grand in the bank account.

Web run, we put 10 grand in the bank account.

Blue key capital, we're going to put 50 grand in the bank account.

Did I tell you about Kevin Ryan?

You know who that is?

You're doing what he does.

No, tell me.

Kevin Ryan, I've talked about him a bunch on this pod.

He's kind of my hero.

He started, he was the CEO of DoubleClick,

which eventually sold to Google for multiple billions.

And it became AdWords or whatever, AdWords or AdSense.

I think AdSense, one of those, like the way Google makes all the money.

So it's like the best acquisition ever.

He was like employee 20 there.

And then he took over as CEO, sold the company for multiple billions.

And then he went and started, he took like his, whatever he made,

$10 million.

And this other guy who worked at DoubleClick named Dwight.

And they go, we're going to start this thing called Silicon Alley.

So they're based in New York.

So it was like the take on Silicon Valley.

And they invested, he goes, we would put, our whole shtick was,

we're going to invest $300,000 into a handful of interesting ideas we have.

And we'll try to find someone a partner and we'll try to make them big.

And we want big outcomes.

And with this method, he started Guilt, you know, like the women's fashion clothing company.

It didn't work out, but it got to like hundreds of millions of revenue.

He started Business Insider, which had a $600 million exit.

He started MongoDB, which is a publicly traded database company.

I don't know.

It ranges between 20 and 30 billion on the market cap.

But what else did he start?

He started Zola, which is like the wedding registry business.

He started like maybe three other things that are big.

And he goes, I give each company six months and 300 or $400,000, something like that.

And, you know, 300K is kind of a lot.

I mean, it's definitely a lot of money, but it's not that much money for how much value he creates.

And he gives it 300K in six months.

And that's how long it takes him to like figure out if an idea is going to be worth it.

It all depends on the opportunity.

I mean, some of these, the guy that we're partnering with on RecruitJet,

me and Sahil and Marshall from Support Shepherd are starting a company called RecruitJet

to headhunt US talent this exact way.

Like, hey, we're going to go into that 80% of people.

We're going to find them for companies.

The guy that's our head recruiter, he's been a recruiter for 15 years.

He's done work for me.

He's a complete badass.

He's not going to leave his job.

He's not going to leave his job until we get our first contract signed.

Like, so we don't have any expenses yet.

On the other side of the table, I'm trying to start a debt brokerage firm,

meaning we're going to be the middleman that finds and secures debt for giant commercial real estate projects.

We're going to go to all the banks.

We're going to shop them.

We're going to put the packages together and close the loans.

I'm right now on the road trying to attract a partner in that business.

I have somebody in mind.

I'm going to have to shell out a lot of money because this guy makes 450 grand for a bank right now.

He's our best loan officer.

He's a 10X or he's a killer.

I'm going to have to make him an offer where it's a little bit less equity, less of a percentage of sales.

But I'm going to guarantee him 200 grand a year for two years.

Me personally, off my personal check out.

Hey, this is, I'm going to sign a contract with you because I already know how he thinks.

I already know he's a 10X or I know he's incredible.

He's done incredible things for our company when it comes to sourcing debt.

Come to work for Blue Key Capital.

I'm going to guarantee you, I'm going to promise you two years of runway at 200 grand a year.

But are you going to put any additional capital?

Yeah, we'll have to.

We need to hire some additional people.

But for the most part, it'll be website, landing page, customer.io, automatic replies to emails, you know,

just be building the infrastructure that I'm so good at doing for all these other companies.

And you're actually going to do it.

You're going to write all the copy.

You're going to set up the email.

Web run.

I'm going to have a web run do that.

And then I'm going to create a Twitter account, make the follow account.

And then I do a software called BirdFlow that has an automatic DM.

I told you about that.

Yep, you told me about it.

Every time somebody follows the account, they get a DM and they'll say,

hey, if you're placing any debt on any big projects or you're buying something and you need help with banks,

give us a call and we'll just drive leads that way.

Does this person have a family?

What's that?

Does this person have a family?

Yeah, he's got a 12 year old and a nine year old and his wife doesn't freak you out.

It's very, it's very freaky.

Yeah, it's, it's, it drives pretty significant insecurity.

Yeah.

I mean, even Will, even Will at Web run, he had to leave a job where he's making 400 grand to start an agency with me.

So like selling these people, like identifying the 10 Xers and selling them on coming to join the NICU remission.

Like that's, that's what it all is.

That's the hardest part of this stuff.

The first family person that I hired, the person that had a family that had children.

I remember thinking like that when we hired them, I was like, I have a family.

I was like, I now have a family.

You know, I was only 26 and I was like, shit, feels like I have a child and it's, it shouldn't actually feel that way maybe,

but in a way kind of should where I'm like, oh shit, like I have, like if this is no longer just necessarily about me,

this is about like all these other people and stakeholders involved and I remember freaking out.

It was very nerve wracking.

The stakes go up and it definitely have some times where I'll wake up at night and I'll be like, what the hell am I doing?

Like, am I really think we can drive enough business to support this person and I'm convinced them to leave their job and their livelihood.

They make 450 grand a year right now.

I'm, I'm, I'm insane.

Dude, it's scary.

You messaged something.

You tweeted something out there that got, you got a lot of flack for.

What did you, what did you say?

I'll just read the tweet because it's funny.

So we talk about social justice warriors a lot inside of our group chat.

How many, what would you, what's a social justice warrior?

So a social justice warrior is anybody on, it can be a supreme leftist or it can be a Trumper.

It can be somebody who is out on a mission to change the way that a certain group of people is totally mistreated,

whether it be people who want to carry guns or whether it be minorities, whether it be, you know, people who feel a certain way from a certain place.

They're just out on a mission to go to war with culture to make it better for a certain group of people.

That's a social justice warrior in my opinion.

Am I, is that a correct, correct definition?

That's significantly more positive than how I use it.

A social justice warrior to me is someone who like is very closed minded, very outspoken and will not be well balanced or open minded to new ideas and new facts

and who will automatically dislike you because you do believe in something.

Regardless if you're like, for example, let's say you're, this is a controversial one, but pro or anti abortion.

It doesn't matter what you decide you fall on.

You can probably have a conversation with either side.

A lot of people can be like, well, I disagree with you on that, but I understand your perspective and I don't hate you for it.

You just have different opinions than I do.

Whereas a social justice warrior is like, well, you're wrong regardless of how you feel.

Yep. You put it exactly right.

So I made this tweet.

The worst thing you can do as an entrepreneur is hire a social justice warrior.

People who are very radical politically are way more likely to sue you or your business, upset your customers and upset your team members.

Either side of the aisle.

I said, luckily politics is not a protected class.

So I'm allowed to view somebody's social media before making a hire.

And then I said these folks bash people that they don't know on Twitter and social media constantly.

And I said, you don't think they'll take to a public forum to bash you and your company when you fire them for missing work to attend the eighth rally or March of the year.

And so what do people say to that?

You didn't get any hate, did you?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

The people who I got 64 quote tweets right now, maybe they can link this exact tweet.

I'm not going to tweet it so they can link this exact tweet in the show notes.

But this guy says, bro, just say that you don't hire black people.

It's way easier.

Like people are just really calling me a racist and calling me a lot of really mean things, which I'm not at all.

I am trying to weed out people who are close minded.

Because if you're radically politically left or radically politically right, that just tells me that you're not balanced because nobody that I know is super radical politically.

It's just a giant waste of time and energy.

I just think it's a good practice.

If you're a business owner, look at the way people spend their time.

Where are they?

If they told you they were in Reddit anti-work, when you asked them that question earlier, like what content are you consuming?

Oh, I'm in Reddit anti-work.

Okay.

Out.

Well, but they could make a good argument as to why they enjoy it.

So, for example, I like reading.

Have you seen this subreddit column?

What's the one where people have multiple jobs?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

That is fascinating.

Entertainment is another thing.

Basically, it's these people who get multiple jobs, like sometimes three or four jobs.

And I've known a couple of people who have done this.

It's called over-employed.

It's called over-employed.

It's a pretty funny name.

And I've known people who have done this, so they get a job at Facebook and Google.

And they call it J1 and J2.

And so they'll post advice, like, hey, so my J1 has me working from like, I can get it done from like 8 to 10 a.m.

And then J2 is like noon to 3.

How do you people get your manager to only put meetings for J1 in the a.m.?

Or something like that.

And it's crazy.

And I've known a guy who had a job at Facebook and Google, $250,000 or something like crazy for each job.

And they'll say like, so total income is $600,000.

That's broken up with J1 at $200,000, J2 at $300,000.

And they'll like say this, it's hilarious.

And I read it all the time because I'm like, well, I'm pretty sure I'm against that because that's unethical.

It's not illegal, but I wouldn't like that if someone did it to me.

But then I'm like, but is that wrong?

And so anyway, I like to like read that to like just explore new ideas.

And it's also just hilarious.

So someone told me they read anti-work or over-employed.

I'd be like, okay, why?

Tell me, what do you learn?

It goes really deep as I'm diving into this stuff on recruit jet and learning how recruiting companies work.

And I've talked to probably 15 recruiters in the past month and just asked them, you know, what about there are people who will literally show up to an interview like this.

An interview like this and their mouth is moving, but somebody else is talking to them.

And it's the people who are trying to-

No way.

No way.

Yes.

Tell me about that.

So what happens if you're, so you're a recruiter, somebody hires you to go place a tech position.

You're a technical recruiter.

You're going to find somebody to work for Google for 250 grand a year.

You're going to go in and you're going to sort through LinkedIn.

You're going to bring in all these applicants and you got to try to find a way to scan out a third of the applicants.

A third of these people are trying to get more than one job being a software developer.

And you literally can talk to them on the phone and that can't do it because then they can wire in somebody else to talk.

And that's why they do that.

That's why they do video is for that reason.

They have to do video.

I should have asked the guy a lot more questions about it.

If you're following me and Sam and you're listening to this and you obviously know about this occurrence, tweet us because I want to know more about this as well.

But he told me that you're on a zoom call with somebody and it's blurry and their voice is not really the one talking.

And it's people who are trying to get more than one freaking job.

Crazy.

That's ridiculous.

That's kind of amazing.

And like there's some way you got to look at from a like that's sleazy. Don't do that.

But also you're like, that's pretty amazing.

You know, it's like a lot of my my sleazy friends in high school, they would like pay someone to take the ACT form.

And I remember thinking like, I don't know, man, that's pretty that's almost as impressive as actually doing a good job.

You know what I mean?

I'm like, I don't want to work with you.

But like, kind of I do.

If like, if you could use that for good, you see so many criminals get caught doing all this crazy stuff.

And you just think that if they put that energy towards something productive, how rich they could get.

We had this guy named Michael Harris.

Michael Harris founded Death Row Records.

You know, Death Row, they like created Tupac, Dr. Dre, NWA.

Like they basically invented like modern hip hop or they invented like gangster.

They were the marketing, they were the marketing machine behind those guys, right?

Yeah.

And so Michael Harris partnered with Shug Knight and Michael Harris did it from prison.

He was serving 25 to life.

He got in trouble for attempted murder, which eventually he got exonerated by Trump two years ago and he got let out.

But he served 30 years partially on Death Row.

And the other charge that he was convicted of that I think he admitted to doing was he was selling at times $2 million a day of cocaine, of crack.

And he was talking about it.

And he was like, once I started getting all that money coming in, I started realizing like, I also need to go legit and do things the right way.

And so he started buying real estate and he started doing all this other stuff.

And he was like, I was killing it in the drug game, but like I killed it even harder, like just doing the legal stuff.

Like, you know, he's like, I had the cash flow from it.

So like I definitely profited off of it.

But he bought buildings.

He started a limo company.

Eventually Death Row was bringing in like north of 100 million in revenue because CDs at the time were $19 and it was like a dollar to make a CD.

And he was like, we killed it the right way.

But I did all this bad stuff.

So I had to pay the price.

It's such a good example that business is simply a flywheel around these things that we've spoke about in this episode.

If you can get these things right, attracting people, leading people, managing people, delegating, writing, it can work in any business.

Once you learn these skills, I could put Sam Parr and I could take him and I could drop him in a grocery store chain.

And I guarantee you, you would thrive.

I guarantee you could succeed just because of the way that you think about business, the way that you can lead people and the decisions that you would make.

So I feel strongly that once you get the flywheel going and once you push yourself and once you start to learn some of these things, you can crush it.

You're doing something that I hate doing.

And I advise most people not to do it.

But there's many examples of people doing it successfully of what you're one of them, which is doing multiple things at once.

In most cases, I think doing multiple things at once is a horrible idea.

The few times it does work is when there's like a Ryan Reynolds.

You see Ryan Reynolds sold Mint Mobile today for like 1.5 billion or two, whatever it was.

And then like last year, he sold what was his liquor?

His liquor, yeah.

Avion or Avion or something like that.

He sold that for hundreds of millions.

And you know, I don't have any idea, but it says like Ryan Reynolds sells his telephone company.

And I'm like, probably he has nothing to do with it.

He just does the commercials.

Maybe he has something to do with it.

I have no idea.

And I've no idea.

It says like Ryan Reynolds, his telecom company got sold.

Maybe he only owns like three points.

I have no idea.

But in that case, someone like him, he does have multiple things.

When it's you who you are doing a lot of the work and you're not, you're famous or you're a big deal,

but you're not like everyone in America knows who you are.

I think that it's scary and it's challenging.

Why are you doing more than one thing versus just one thing?

I'm pushing myself.

I don't know if I can do it.

There's a lot of anxiety around it and some of these things will fail.

I mean, look, it's five companies that we've started in the past year.

What will the collective revenue of those be?

Do you think in 2024?

Okay.

So you want me to make a prediction and then we can come back on and test it actually.

So I think RE Costsegg will be doing 500 grand a month or so in EBITDA.

In 12 months?

In the year 2024.

At the end of 2024, we'll look back on the year and I think it'll do 2.5 million in EBITDA probably.

So Webrun.

On what top line?

30% margins.

So whatever that math is.

Webrun I think will be 30 or 40%.

Getting close to 10 million in sales.

I think RE Costsegg will be really big in the year 2024.

So 18 months from now like trailing.

Titan Risk, the commercial risk property insurance company.

I think that one will do 3 million in sales at a 50% margin probably for insurance brokerage company.

Webrun I think will be doing 200 grand a month of revenue.

So maybe 70 to 100 grand a month of profit.

RecruitJet I think will be a big company.

I think RecruitJet will be 5 million of revenue and 3 million of EBITDA.

Okay, so collectively you're in the 6 million profit range or something like that.

7 million I forget.

Blue Key Capital could be the big one.

The debt brokerage company for real estate firms.

That one could be doing again another 5 to 10 million of revenue as well.

Pretty good margins.

The small team.

And would you, so 2.5 million for Costsegg, what would that be valued at?

Could it be as high as 10 times profit?

No, I don't think so.

Costsegg is politically dependent.

If bonus depreciation rules go up and down, it changes the demand for Costseggs.

So I think 3 to 4 times EBITDA would probably be the value of that company.

Wouldn't be worth selling.

So the cash flow is awesome.

The multiples are shit.

Everything that I've ever started, typically the cash flow is only okay.

But the multiples are really, really good.

This is what I...

20 times profit.

Yep.

This is what I can't stand.

I tried to convince a kid to come with me to do a web development agency.

And I failed.

My sales pitch failed.

He didn't join me and he kept saying, there's no enterprise value.

He kept saying, there's no EV in web development.

And my entire thesis is screw EV.

EV will come.

I want to be making money every single month and cash flow every single year.

That's the goal.

And if we can do that, good things will happen over time and we'll see which one of these companies really takes off.

But to play devil's advocate here, when I was first starting to hustle, I was doing the math.

And I was like, wherever I want to be by the age of 30, so in five years after starting or four years after starting,

you have to make a ton of profit.

Selling a company, if you can get 10 or 15 times earnings or three or four times revenue,

that's a huge number.

And for a lot of businesses, it's not impossible to get that.

You need some type of recurring revenue and a really big market and fast growth.

But to make $20 to $50 million or significantly higher,

my argument is it's way easier to get there by selling, selling to get capital gains.

There's a lot of people who have done it, like Andrew Wilkinson's company is just like killing it.

And so he's doing it through cash.

But if you like do the math, Val, yeah, my friend Val is doing it.

But he also sold the company.

He sold the company.

He sold two of them for tens of millions of dollars.

My opinion is, and there's so many examples where I'm wrong.

But in most cases, I think it's significantly easier to sell something than it is to earn through income.

That's my problem.

Same as I've never sold, I haven't sold the company right now.

I've never sold something to create a massive liquidity event.

So I don't have...

Would you?

Yeah, I think I would.

I mean, unless you work in finance, maybe like in one of your companies,

two of your companies are finance-y related.

Unless you work in finance, I think it's hard to get a significant amount of income.

But like, I don't know, like Donald Trump claims to have done it.

Like a bunch of people have claimed to have done it through real estate and finance.

But I think it's hard through a product-based company or service.

If you can really...

If you can wait it out, I mean, time is on your side.

You know what I mean?

If you're okay living...

Look, I live in a house that I bought for $290,000.

I drive a truck that's worth about $12,000.

Like if I can just not buy a private plane or a $4 million house,

I don't have to sell anything and I think time will really help me.

So I'm on the train now.

But how are you not...

Like, you know, desire is also like evil, you know, when it comes to this stuff.

Like when you want shit, you suffer.

And so, like, I know a lot of people that are really wealthy.

And every once in a while, I fall into this trap where I'm like,

five years ago, if I knew...

If I...

My five...

You know, my 25-year-old, if they knew where I was today, they'd be like,

oh, you're fine. And then I get to where I am now and I'm like,

oh, but there's another step.

Or what about a 10 or $20 million home?

Or what about having a warehouse full of cars?

Or what about doing this or that or owning a sports team?

Like, okay, you need more.

You don't desire things?

Or a $50,000 watch or something?

Of course I do, man.

Of course I do.

I really want an airplane.

I really want a PC-12.

And that's my goal is to have...

How much is that?

It's a $5 million airplane.

To fly yourself?

Pretty good for me.

To fly my family and fly my nanny.

And we could go from here to LA without stopping for gas.

That's your goal.

That's a goal of mine, but...

But why own it instead of rent?

I knew a guy who bought a jet for $16 million during the pandemic

when he had just sold the company for $100 million.

He owned it for six months and he was like,

what the hell am I doing with this?

And he ended up selling it for $20 million.

And he goes, I made a profit on it, which was lucky.

But it was looking like a horrible financial decision.

Could I have spent all this money to store it?

It was like, it was the stupidest thing ever.

Yeah, it's straight overhead, for sure.

Straight overhead.

But I need to...

I live, my family lives seven hours from here.

And driving with my family is something we're only going to do once a year.

So I can't get back to see my dad and my mom and my grandfather,

who's only got a couple of years left without easy access to get back.

So it'd be really nice to have an airplane.

But yeah, I'm not going to do it.

I decided with my wife, we're going to wait.

Because I just want to show my kids that I'm not just going to go out

and buy everything I want.

And I'm going to suffer a little bit and that's okay.

And, you know, delayed gratification keeps me humble too.

But it's tough.

I battle with it every day, man.

I mean, it's really easy to spend a lot of money.

What's your dream number?

Like, as far as personal net worth?

Yeah.

If I'm making a million dollars a month, I think I can then do whatever I want.

Isn't that funny?

But I bet you would have thought that 10 years ago,

if you are where you are now, you could do whatever you want.

If somebody would have told me five years ago that when I retire,

I am where I am right now, I would have given them a thumbs up

and said, I'm happy.

Please make that happen.

Dude, the goalpost always changes.

It's so hard, man.

And it's easy for me to cry and say, oh, it's tough.

But it's like a, it's a tough thing to swallow as a man when like,

all of a sudden you have seven figures in your checking account.

You have hundreds of thousands of dollars a month that come your way.

And you got to figure out what gets you out of bed and how you're going to not be an asshole

and how you're going to raise good kids and how, and I don't know about you,

but I get excited about hobbies and I'll pick up golf and I'll,

or I'll tennis or pickle ball or airplanes, whatever.

And I'll just get really, really, really into it.

And then it's on to the next thing.

It's on to the next thing onto the next thing.

And I don't like that about myself.

I wish that I was more disciplined long term.

And how do you feel about that?

I'm very disciplined.

I think compared to a lot of people, I think I have a,

I'm fairly disciplined.

I think I, we spend anywhere from, when we're in Austin,

I spend $15,000 a month or so.

When I'm in New York, I spend a little bit more.

But because I don't drink and go out like Monday to Friday,

we don't go out at night because it's a school night.

We say we go, it's a school night.

We're not going out.

I live in a house that was, is under a million dollars or paid well under a million dollars.

So which in Austin, it's kind of hard to find that stuff.

But I think I'm pretty disciplined long term,

but I do struggle with wanting more.

And my wife is always like, stop wanting that.

Like you're going to drive yourself crazy.

And so like, I do always want more stuff.

And I try to like, I want like, I want to buy just a huge garage in Brooklyn

and just stash all types of cars and motorcycles.

And then to have like a fantasy factory and just open up the garage door

and just sit in front of it.

And anyone who walks by and like, admires it, I'll be like,

Oh, you want to come in and look like I'll show you around.

We could like play with it all.

Like I want that.

And that's going to cost 20 million bucks maybe.

Like I, and it's a pointless thing because when you die, you don't get any of it.

But I got a whole story.

I ordered, I ordered a lot of bourbon lately, like high end bourbon.

Like how much is a fancy thing of bourbon?

The most expensive bottle was like $7,500.

And this is going to make me sadder.

You paid for a $7,500.

Does it taste any different?

What's it do?

This is me being vulnerable.

I don't, I have, I have zero life overhead.

Like I could cut my spending to five grand a month and put my kids in daycare

and pay for my house payment, which is $1,200.

So I've avoided like the big expenses.

I've avoided the big, big house, the plane, the big cars, whatever it is.

So I splurge on some of the little things that sound huge and obnoxious to some people,

but aren't really that obnoxious.

So I got some really nice bourbon, some bottles that are really special.

And then I got them, I'm looking at them in my bar and I sent a text to like four of my boys.

I'm like, Hey, come over.

Let's try some bourbon and nobody can come over.

They can't come and hang out.

Nobody can come hang out.

They're all working.

So the next morning I got up and I just looked at it.

I opened one of the nicer bottles.

I poured a little bit myself and I'm like, fuck, none of this matters.

None of this matters.

All, it is all about the people and the people, how they feel about you,

whether or not they care about you, whether or not they respect you,

how you can help them, how you can help them become better versions of themselves.

So the stuff is really just the distraction that sounds cliche because everybody says that.

But it hit me when I was looking at that bourbon and I'm like, my parents, my dad loved bourbon.

He's seven hours away.

My brother's nine hours away.

He's not here.

Sampar doesn't drink alcohol.

He can't come over with me.

You know what I mean?

Does a $7,500 bottle of taste any different than a $50 bottle?

I haven't opened it yet.

It's the Mikter's 20 year.

Does a $1,000 bottle of taste any different?

You know, I think it does because that's ridiculous.

No, it doesn't, Sam.

It doesn't.

It fucking doesn't.

It's just a Pokemon card.

It's an ego thing, man.

I'm a weak man who is after the ego sometimes and I got to stay.

I just got to remind myself of that.

It doesn't matter, does it?

I bought like a decent car and that makes me happier.

But besides that, most items don't.

And what am I going to do?

Invite somebody cool over.

There's a couple pro golfers in town that I'm friendly with

and I keep saying like, come over and drink some of my nice bourbon

and what am I going to be that asshole guy

who brings in this famous person into my house

and is like, yeah, drink my awesome bourbon

and just talking about how awesome.

It's so fucking dumb.

I'm such an idiot.

I don't think it's dumb.

Where do you buy this from?

And you do cigars too.

Those are two of my hobbies.

It's cigars and bourbon

because I share them both with my dad and golf.

Can you be any more of a stereotype?

Golly.

But my house is so weak.

Like it's literally sitting on.

The bourbon is sitting on a $200 really shitty cabinet

that I got from Home Depot

when I was doing my basement.

But no, a guy over in Carroll, Georgia.

I'm his biggest customer

and every year he gets the releases

and drives it over to me

and I give him an envelope full of a lot of cash.

You got a guy.

Dude, I love having hobbies where you got a guy.

That's the best.

That's the best.

Well, I appreciate you doing this.

I had a good episode.

Anything you want to pimp out or promote?

A lot of people ask me

where they could invest with Bolt Storage.

In real estate it's really slow

but you can go to boltstorage.com.

If you're an accredited investor

and you want to get storage exposure

and also my newsletter that I write every week

I think a lot about this stuff.

A lot of the stuff we're talking about.

How many subscribers do you have on that?

I'm up to 42,000.

I'm working it really hard.

I'm adding like 600 a month.

It's kind of weak

but I write a lot about a lot of this.

What makes a 10X or how do you think about this stuff?

How do you think about hiring management?

Getting these teams together.

If you go to my Twitter

that's where they start up

there's a little link in my bio

and you can join my newsletter.

Alright, we appreciate you.

Thank you for doing this.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.