Transcription
I'm at a point now and that I'm realizing a lot of other people too, but they just optimize for peace of mind.
"How much do you make from your YouTube?"
"Oh, It went down a lot. You It used to be way higher. Like 2020, 2021, 2022, it's fantastic."
"Do you think being poor is a choice?"
"Oh man. I would say overall I tend to lean in you have so much in your control right now that I like to believe that pretty much anyone could get themselves out of poverty. Now I look at prices and interest rates and I just think where's the upside in this. I don't see any way to make money unless"
"I lost like 250k on one property just one. Um and then all the rest of them some of them I broke even."
"because here here's how I view all of these is just liability liability. Liability."
"What is the biggest lie you've told your audience?"
"Um"
"this is my current rental portfolio."
"Oh wow. Oh, you got quite a lot."
"Not a lot. Not a lot."
"Well, not What do you mean not a lot? I I count like what? 20 plus. Not a lot. What's a lot?"
"Uh I think anyone that has more than 50 is a lot. That's a lot."
"So So 49 is like 49. Yeah."
"Questionable."
"Wow. Okay. So this is this is interesting. Joshua Tree."
"Yeah. That's an area where you had these values just skyrocket from 2020 from 2023 and now it's coming back down to reality."
"I know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm actually doing bad on those."
"I was considering to take those out, but I was like, you know what? No. I'm just going to leave it all in."
"One of them is listed right now. Um, and I'm selling the one on"
"So, that one uh on there, I think it's like the second one or the first one. That one's about to be sold"
"and off the books."
"And you're just basically gonna what? Come out of pocket a little bit on that one."
"It's going to be close. So, I think we're in escrow at like 280. I don't know what I owe on there. But, um, yeah, it's going to be close to like breaking even. Even if I have to spend like 10 or 20 grand, I'll dump it. But,"
"so, okay. So, let's talk about the first one on Josh Tree because you're technically underwater on that one. Yeah. I would just bite the bullet and just get the f out of it."
"I trude I've I've had it listed for a year."
"So, long story short here, I'll tell you the I'll tell you a quick story. So,"
"okay. So many stories."
"So many stories, right?"
"We need a campfire, right? Let's gather."
"Tell us not to do here."
"So, in 2019, uh 20 I started flipping houses in 2018, right? 2019 was doing well. I was flipping houses all over Southern California, including Joshua Tree. Okay. I was buying houses for like 75K and like reselling them for like 150,"
"right? COVID happens. Those 150 houses start going to 250 and 350 and all these things, right? So, I believe it's at the end of 21 when I bought this one. I think the dates on there."
"Yeah."
"I had a lot of income that year and I was like, I need to do a cost segregation. So, I went out and I bought five Airbnbs,"
"short-term rentals,"
"short-term rentals, right?"
"And then as an entrepreneur, I'm like, "Okay, if I can get 20 Airbnbs and they all make me $1 to $2,000 a month,"
"then, you know, I buy X amount of properties and then I'll be financially free." Right. Easy. Exactly. Yeah."
"You are idiots."
"So, I bought all these properties and obviously, you know, Joshua Tree crashed. Um, I lost like 250k on one property, just one. Um, and then all the rest of them, some of them I broke even. Some of them I made money. These are the last two that I own from that."
"So, your advice?"
"My advice is that there's got to be a price where someone's just willing to take it off your books. And even if you lose money on that, it's worth it because here here's how I view all of these is just"
"liability, liability, liability. And then you're talking about tenants rights in California. All they have to do is go to you and they say, "Hey, we got a habitility issue here. I see some rats. I see some insects. I'm not paying rent until this is resolved." And then they hit you with, "Oh, you know what? With this, this is acting up and this is actually we're going to be suing you and we want $30,000. Otherwise, you're going to take this to court and you're going to spend $30,000 to fight this thing or you just settle with it." The liability out the wazoo. Get rid of it. You're not making money on it. So, what's the plan? It's just you're slowly bleeding cash until you just cut the head off this thing. That's what I would do. Cut the head off those."
"Apple Valley, believe it or not,"
"I like that one. I'm It's so funny. I Apple Valley is one of the most surprising markets for me. Yeah. Because it's doing well. Yeah. There's a lot of people out there who have great jobs, a great life. They get to buy a property in California for like a third of the cost of anywhere else. They're 90 minutes to Vegas, 90 minutes to LA. That one, surprisingly, I like that one. Uh, you've made money on it. Your mortgage payment, your rent,"
"I burned it, so I took all my money out."
"Yeah, that one I believe I would tell you to keep that one. Las Vegas."
"Uh, so off the street. So, that one my mom lives in. So, that's why the rent is zero, I think, on there."
"Keep that. Let's see. Another Las Vegas. Dude, you're you're killing it in the Las Vegas ones."
"You're do you're doing well. Good time to buy, too. You bought that one 2017."
"Yeah, exactly."
"That one's fantastic."
"That's why I want to at the end of this I want to debate you on buying real estate, but we sure"
"these other ones I'm seeing the San Bernardino, again, San Bernardino has been the craziest market. Yeah, it's done really well. It's it's and I would expect San Bernardino to continue doing somewhat well for the near future just because when you look at what you buy in LA and spend 900 grand or you just go to San Bernardino Exactly. and spend half of it and get just as great of a place."
"Let's see. Uh Vegas again. Yeah. You just got those that you got two losers."
"The Joshua trees. Yeah. Yeah. Those are those are the bad ones."
"The only thing that worries me um like street"
"Uhhuh. Your mortgage is 1730 and your rent is 17. You're not really making money on that."
"That one I'm actually 1031 exchanging. Good."
"Yeah. So, that one I'm in the middle of 1031 exchanging."
"Everything else, the the only ones that again worry me is that some of the ones where you're like either breaking even on it,"
"unless you're really bullish on it and you just expect that longterm I'm going to make money and I don't care if I'm breaking even and I have the cash flow to sustain this. I just don't give a Then keep it. But really, the only ones that stand out from this are the Joshua Tree ones that I would just say just cut the loss. It's not worth your mental bandwidth to keep these things. And it's just like just having losers on your book like that. It's just going to stress you out. Yeah. Or it does for me when I have one. It's just like I got to get rid of that one."
"Did you sell all your real estate?"
"I've sold a few property. How many? I have sold two"
"and then I'm in the process of selling one more now. And then my plan because right now they're all occupied"
"and selling in Los Angeles with tenants in them is not really the best."
"Got it."
"Yeah. Those are in LA. Yeah. And so my plan is when a tenant moves out, I'm just going to list it for sale."
"Got it."
"So because otherwise what else? Like the tenants are in there. They're placed. They're all great so far. Knock on wood. Yeah. It's just when one moves out, put it for sale."
"Why would you sell it?"
"I'm tired of it."
"But what are you tired of?"
"I'm I don't want to deal with it, dude. I don't want to deal with it anymore. That that's that's the the honest truth. I have property managers. I have property. It's just it's not worth it. I don't like this. Like at this point, I am de-risking. I am getting Yeah. I'm getting everything off my books. All I want is the stress to wake up in the morning."
"Uh check the weather. It's just like, okay, how hot is it today? 82 degrees. All right. There. There. Like that's all I want to think about. I don't want to think about, oh,"
"this water heater is getting replaced and now the tenants's upset because the guy said he'd show up yesterday. he didn't do it"
"and now I feel bad and I'm stressing out because if I were the tenant I'd be upset over that and it just it it bugs me"
"but why wouldn't the the property manager deal with that?"
"They do but to but it falls back on me."
"Yeah. Yeah."
"You know there's only so much that they could do but there's still like I'll give you an example something really piss me off. Okay."
"I have a refrigerator. The refrigerator's worth $500. Okay. the ice maker goes out"
"and I get a bill from the property manager for $900."
"That's crazy."
"Why? Well, they said, "Oh, the ice maker went out and the tenant called and so we had someone come out and they said, "Oh, the little valve behind the refrigerator's uh leaking a little bit." So, they had to go into the drywall and they had to replace this little valve, but they couldn't just buy it from Home Depot. It was a special order valve. Yeah."
"And then they had to replace this little capacitor that makes the ice. And by the time it's done, I spent $900 to keep a $600 refrigerator alive."
"Yeah."
"Now, the property manager handled it, but that pissed me off. I got upset over that. And I had one with the like, why would you spend more than what the refrigerator is worth? Take it out, throw it away, get a new refrigerator. That it's just it's stupid stuff like that that I don't want to think about it anymore."
"But like, isn't that house going up like $100,000 a year? No. Or more? No, because it's LA County and LA multif family has taken a huge hit"
"uh because of a lot of rent control protections,"
"uh moratoriums that just seem to be like popping up left and right. These these emergency actions that seem to come up every few months is an emergency."
"Um so I would I made money on that deal, but"
"I haven't made any more money"
"over the last few years on it because property values kept going up. 2021ish they peaked and they've been slowly going back down."
"Really? Yeah."
"What about And then are you going to pay the capital gains when you sell it?"
"Yes."
"Is there anything you could do to not pay?"
"Just pay it. I'm just I'm just going to pay it. I'm just going to get this off. I thought about 10:31ing, but I really I I'm at a point now and then I'm realizing a lot of other people too who have portfolios like this where they just optimize for peace of mind."
"And it's just waking up and not having stress, not having anything hanging over your shoulders of this could go wrong or this could go wrong or this you have to do or this you have to watch."
"Uh and for me overpaying on stuff like that refrigerator is it just"
"it makes my blood boil. I just don't like doing it and I don't want to deal with it."
"That's interesting. So, I'm just going to pay the tax, move on, and consider myself lucky."
"Yeah. So, what my goal"
"with showing you this, um,"
"also my So,"
"my house is paid off."
"Um, I have a little bit of cash and watches and all that stuff. My goal of showing you this was my goal is to get to a place where I'm like stress feet stress free and living off of like passive income or some side of or some sort of investment. But all I know is real estate. So like what would you do if you were me with this?"
"Okay, now I'm going to be honest and I just see this is a nightmare. Uh, and the reason the reason why I say this is because you say you want it stress free. Every single one of these is like stress stress stress stress work. It's it's all work."
"So, um, and I see this as some of these you're not making much on like you're making a hundred to 300 bucks a month each."
"Yeah. And I just think, okay, well, what if your refrigerator ice maker breaks? There's like three months of profit gone. What if you replace the roof? There's a year worth of profit g."
"Now, I know that you have enough of these where like one will balance out the other, and that's totally fine. If you could handle this,"
"then I think it's okay."
"Yeah. Uh the only way you could go wrong on this is if rents go down, which"
"on a lot of these I think you're going to be pretty stable."
"Yeah."
"Uh or your day-to-day income goes down to a point where like you have vac, you know, 20% vacancy."
"Yeah."
"But you have enough cash on that."
"Yeah."
"So, I don't see that as a huge deal. How are you making most of your money"
"flipping and wholesaling?"
"Yeah."
"I mean, that that's your business. That that seems to be your your money maker there. Yeah. And so I flip houses and I wholesale. Let's do I let's say I make 500 to a million a year and then these offset my taxes because then I buy them and do 1031 exchanges. So at the end of the year I don't have to pay taxes."
"Yeah."
"So that's why I'm like if I sell I'm going to pay I'm going to pay recapture fees. I'm going to pay all these"
"True"
"things."
"So"
"So I have one thought that like you see the Kansas City ones I just bought."
"Yeah. So, one thought was exchange some of these ones that have high equity into Kansas City properties that do cash flow a lot more, but I'm not going to get the appreciation. Yeah. So, kind of like you said, like, yeah, if a refrigerator"
"goes out, but each property is going up $50 to $100,000 a year right now. I know it's not going to be forever, but they are going up in value. So like if I just keep holding them, you know, will I gain another million dollars in equity in like the next five years? So that's my thought."
"It's it's a burden in the hand. I mean, it's just like would you rather cash now or the potential for more in the future with appreciation?"
"Yeah."
"Uh I don't think"
"there's there's like like a one right answer on any of this just because"
"what you even if you just hold what you have now. Mhm."
"It will theoretically work as long as you continue making money or you don't have prolonged vacancies. So like what you're doing is working."
"Would you ever consider 1031ing some of these and getting just like a nicer bigger like commercial property in Vegas or something like this?"
"I feel like I've owned multif family in Vegas before and like most multifamily in Vegas is like in the ghetto."
"But what about a commercial spot like like a retail shopping center or like like a nice triple net?"
"Yeah, I feel like commercial real estate for me as a residential guy seems a lot more riskier because I feel like a lot of businesses are realizing they don't need the square footage so they're like exiting or whatever."
"So I had option A. I'm like okay I have like what like $3 million in debt. It's like okay can I pay off this? Can I pay this off? Right? Can I slowly year by year put like a hundred to $300,000 towards the principle of this in 10 years? pay it off and then I'm just debt free and I'm just, you know, Dave Ramsey. Like that's one thought process. And then another thought process is because I don't have anything in stocks, like should I be like exchanging this and putting it into the stock market or something like that? I don't know."
"Yeah. What are your loans like? Are they fixed?"
"Uh they're all fixed. Yeah. So they're all fixed. Yeah. I always get 30-year fixed rate loans."
"Yeah. That that was going to be my second suggestion. Well, all if it were me, what I would do is just um take this other money that you make"
"to diversify it. And that way, you're not entirely reliant on this. And it could be index funds. It could be throw some treasuries in there. Different things where at least you're not 100% reliant on real estate because it's like your business is real estate and now your investments are real estate. And I was the exact same way until Kevin Olirri just shued me a new one of it's like it might work to a certain degree but it's better to diversify just in case something were to happen."
"Mh."
"And I did that and I immediately felt better. And then I realized like wait a second I don't I don't like the hassle of real estate anymore. I'd rather just index fund it and focus on other areas where I'm just making more money."
"Yeah."
"Uh so for me I just went like way heavy the opposite direction into just index funds. Yeah. And that made me feel better. So you might just want to consider cutting a few of these losses and then index funding it, building up a bit of a portfolio there. And then you always know that like if you need to sell that to pay off something here, like something goes wrong here, it's almost like a safety net. Yeah."
"Where like it might drop 50% at some point."
"Mhm."
"But for the most part, it should be holding or going up 5 to 8% a year. Yeah."
"Just something to fall back on."
"Yeah. So what would you say? So, I I want to talk more broad for like the 21-year-old that's like"
"trying to build wealth because I got in in like 2017, I think, was when I bought my first property and you built a lot of your wealth in real estate. But then now you're telling people not to buy real estate. So, PE for people coming into investing, do you think they should buy real estate or"
"Probably not. I mean, when I when I was into real estate, you have to think I was buying houses that used to sell for like 350 grand and I was buying them for 60 and I was doing that San Bernardino. Yeah."
"And these were places that people just"
"refinanced. They pulled out all the equity at a really high price and then they short sold it."
"Yeah."
"And then even in like 2016, I bought like my first Big Boy house and that was 750 grand in West Los Angeles. Yeah. And that was for a three-bedroom, two-b500 square foot house in a great area that's like 15 minutes away from the beach. And that was like 700 and something grand that I could then fix up. And that when I calculated that when I fixed it up, I'd have about 80 to 100 grand of equity that I'd gain by fixing it up and and doing these remodels to it. And it's like it's impossible to lose on that."
"Now I look at prices and interest rates and I just think, where's the upside in this? I don't see any way to make money unless"
"I'm finding something that's that's really undervalued that I could then fix up and try to add that equity. But then I think, okay, those deals exist."
"Yeah."
"How long is that going to take me to find that deal? How much work am I going to have to put in there? What what's my return on time? What's the return on hassle? What's the risk?"
"Yeah."
"And I add all that up and I think that's a loser because I don't want to spend my time doing that. It's a needle in a hay stack. It can be done, but is that what I want to do with my time? No."
"Yeah."
"So, I just see housing prices are high, interest rates are high,"
"labor costs are high, remodel costs are high."
"There's just there's not enough meat on the bone to make it worth it. Whereas up until 2021, 2022, there was upside."
"Yeah."
"I just don't see the upside now."
"But do you feel like it's for you though? because you have high income in other places, but what about the people that want to build wealth and they do have the time? Like, wouldn't it make sense for them to go out and find like a burr property or even like these?"
"That's why I started buying houses in Kansas City. I could buy a house. I could buy a whole house for 75K. It rents for I think like 12 or,400 a month."
"Yeah, those are that those are good numbers."
"Yeah. So, like wouldn't that be better than buying index funds?"
"I would say it depends on the person. If you love this and this is your thing and and you have fun doing it, then absolutely."
"The issue that people get into is that they think, "Oh, this is this is a great way that I could build wealth, and it can be."
"But would their time be better spent doing just about anything else? Like, let's just say they're making 120 grand a year at a tech job."
"Yeah."
"Could they make 150 grand a year if they worked a little harder, showed a little more ambition, took on some extra projects?"
"Yeah."
"Instead of doing this, could they do that? And and if they level up in their own career and they go from 130 to 150, are there other opportunities where now they could switch and make 200?"
"If they go out and network and they meet some people, can they make 250?"
"It's going to give a much higher ROI than this. Unless you love it."
"Yeah."
"Like some people really gravitate towards this and they love going and searching for the deal and hunting it out and fixing it up themselves. They get a lot of fulfillment. Like I loved going to a house and"
"being like, I did that. Yeah,"
"I was the one who like put, you know, picked out those floors at Home Depot and then that was the tile that I ordered and then like all of this came together and it looked like this and now it looks like this and it's great and the whole neighborhood looks better."
"I get a lot of enjoyment from that."
"Yeah."
"Um,"
"so you you really have to utilize like where your time is best spent and it and it can be this,"
"but I would just really recommend to to look and figure out where where you could earn the most for your time. And in your case too, it might just be"
"instead of buying one of these deals and making, you know, 500 bucks a month where you say, "Okay, in that 20 hours it took me to do this."
"Yeah."
"I could flip one more wholesale deal or I could do this and I'll make 30 grand"
"and that money will be"
"way more than I'd make from one of these and I could just keep doing that and keep leveling up that."
"Yeah. But the problem with that, like so all these properties I could have just flipped because I bured them all. Yeah,"
"but like the problem is if I sell them then I'm going to pay like a 50% tax. So then it it gets to the point where it's like okay like I need to keep like how much income do you know I'm not making $10 million a year"
"but like how much income do I really need to make and then if I just flip everything I'm going to pay so much in taxes and then I'm not going to build wealth. That's kind of like my thought process. Yeah,"
"I would tend to agree with you on the tax bit and you have to look at what you would be left over. Like how I calculate some of these things is when I'm selling a property, I look at how much"
"is my return based on after tax money from the equity that I get after paying the tax and after paying off the loan? Like what's that amount? Is it like 500 grand? If so, how much am I making from the 500 grand if I just kept it? What what's that percentage? Yeah,"
"that's how I look at it. Um, and in something like this, it might just make sense where"
"if you 1031 to a deal that that now you start over again and you could you could not pay that tax. It might be worth it or it might be worth it just keep what you have, grow this as it is, but then diversify"
"and at least build some equity elsewhere."
"But can you make passive income from stocks?"
"Yeah. Why wouldn't you?"
"I don't know."
"Yeah."
"I've never bought a stock. Yeah."
"Well, actually, I' I use Robin Hood. So, I I spent probably"
"10 grand on Robin Hood, like following Meet Kevin's advice. Yeah. So, I lost it, but I'm joking."
"Yeah."
"But, um"
"I I don't know like where would be the best place to invest to get high returns in stocks."
"Pick like Tesl No, you're not going for high returns because the the likelihood that you make money like the more money you make, the more risk you're going to take. An index fund is usually something where it's going to be well diversified. You're not going to make, you know, a killing on it, but you could probably make a solid over 30 plus years, 5 to 12% a year."
"Yeah."
"You're also going to get a dividend depending on the index fund you buy of sometimes one to two and a half%."
"Okay."
"And you could get an index fund that covers the entire world market,"
"pay about 1.4% dividend. And I I don't know, 5 to 8% a year on average."
"And it's just going to grow over time. Yeah."
"And then in the future, if you're going to sell it, then you pay tax on a long-term capital gains,"
"which is going to be lower than the money you're paying on active income with real estate. So that's one of the benefits."
"Yeah. Okay. So,"
"uh there's other stuff I want to talk about, but um yeah, thank you for looking at this. You're welcome. Yeah."
"Yeah."
"So, I want to talk about social media. So, I've been doing YouTube now for"
"I don't even know probably like"
"I don't even know four years, right? At first, I'm like just doing Zoom podcast and then slowly I was like, "Okay, I want to do in person."
"Cool."
"Um I think we're at like 28,000 subscribers right now. And like in the real estate wholesale flipper niche, like I'm like already kind of one of the bigger ones. But like that's like if you're a wholesaler flipper that's actually like trying to learn and like scale a business."
"Yeah."
"So I feel like I'm kind of like capped out and then the YouTube doesn't like I can make a million bucks flipping and wholesaling real estate. The YouTube like maybe breaks even, right? It brings opportunity like employees and you know cool stuff like talking to you or talking to Grant Cardone or XYZ. Yeah. but it doesn't actually like make money. So sometimes I'm like, if I just cut this off, could I make $2 million a year and not be on YouTube or how do I make this into something where it's actually worth doing?"
"That's kind of like my go-to when it comes to that is just I hate to say chasing views, but but that's what it is. It's just like the more views that I end up getting, the better I end up doing and the more reach the channel gets. Yeah."
"So, I'm very much like trend topic. Like even scheduling this"
"uh was something where I basically have to tell everyone, hey, like tenatively this should be fine unless something happens in the market and I got to drop everything I'm doing to get out of video as soon as possible. Yeah."
"But I could do that because that's like all I think about that's all I want to do"
"and that's my focus. I don't have any anything else that's like taking my time away from that. But that's the reason I say that it's really hard to do when"
"that's not like your full-time thing. Yeah. And I wouldn't recommend that really. The only way to make money from a type of channel like yours is to probably sell either a coaching"
"Yeah."
"or some sort of uh like educational product."
"Yeah."
"So, and if people are watching your videos, chances are they're they're like the most qualified leads. They're interested in what you have to say. They want to learn from you."
"Can you add to that without taking away what you're already doing?"
"Yeah,"
"that that's probably the most viable way of doing that. And it's good that you'd still be doing like flipping and wholesaling because if you teach people about that, I think it's important that you're actively doing it and"
"know like the best ways to go about that."
"The problem is I've done coaching. Um I scaled a coaching company with Ryan Paneed, wealthy investor, but I just don't want to do that anymore. I'm just kind of like tired of like answering the same questions and like, oh, does does wholesaling work? I'm like, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, no, it doesn't work. So that's the only problem. I don't want to sell coaching. I just don't want to I don't want to I I know the money's there, but then I don't want to fulfill and like feel responsible for these people like"
"having success."
"Yeah. It seems like in terms of coaching, the the other thing if you go like a level deeper than that"
"that a lot of people are doing. It used to be courses. Yeah."
"Like you used to be able to like film a 10-hour course and sell that for like 300 bucks."
"Yeah. People moved on from that to then doing like a six-w weekek immersive like a hundred people could sign up. Yeah. It's $997. Yeah. And it's six weeks where we go through start to finish how to wholesale."
"Yeah."
"Um it's less one-on-one, but it's a little more scalable than like the individual coaching."
"Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah."
"But again, if if you have no"
"design Yeah. I don't want to do coaching. That's the problem. Yeah."
"Fair. The the the only other thing I could think of with something like this for the channel is doing something that's in conjunction with wholesaling, which would be like, can you build out a network of people bring wholesale deals and can somehow there's like a membership to"
"Yeah."
"You know, you get like 500 people, 97 bucks a month, but they get access to they could,"
"you know, JV on deals."
"Yeah."
"Uh"
"may maybe contractors could come in to fix these things up like like a small community where where everyone is vetted. Yeah. I think would be kind of cool."
"Uh so you can't just apply and you automatically get in, but maybe there's some qualifications or some skills that you have to bring to the table."
"If you get like a cool group of like 500 people across the country that all specialize in like different areas and can pitch deals and evaluate each other's deals. I think that would also be very interesting."
"Yeah, I think that's a good idea. I think I'm going to think about that."
"So yeah."
"How much do you make from your YouTube?"
"Oh, It went down a lot. you it used to be way higher like 2020 2021 2022 it's fantastic. Yeah."
"Uh but I've stopped I've stopped posting as much. So I've gone from it used to be at the peak 11 videos a week across five channels."
"Now"
"11 videos a week"
"across five channels. Yeah, dude."
"That's crazy. I didn't know that."
"I thought it was like one a week."
"No. No. There was my main channel three videos a week. My second channel three videos a week. the podcast one video a week. Uh, and then there was a live stream channel that was once a week and then I did a vlog channel where I used to do daily vlogs and I just filmed them for my iPhone."
"I would slap those things together. It took me like 15 minutes to edit, like very low production quality, but I'd just be posting."
"Yeah."
"But that meant like every day there was like a title and thumbnail I'd have to come up with and it was just"
"a huge mistake to do that. So now I'm down to once every seven to 10 days on my main channel,"
"once on the podcast."
"That's about it. And we have clips channels and things like this, but I'm not involved in those."
"Yeah. So I guess like what would be selfishly like what would be your advice to me because you I don't know if you look through my podcast. What do you think I should do?"
"The thing with YouTube, it's a it's a tough grind with very little longevity. And I'm like, I'm learning this now where if I take a step back from YouTube, like the whole thing"
"kind of crumbles. So, it only works as long as you could continue posting and as long as you stay at the top, which makes it really challenging."
"So, it's not only like continue posting, but it's also like making better videos than other people at the same topics and like"
"continuing to grow that. It's challenging."
"Uh, Alex Becker really was the one who did it the best where he was posting on YouTube, but he also built a secondary product, Hyros. Oh, yeah."
"That ended up doing incredibly well."
"Yeah. Yeah."
"And that way he's not reliant on YouTube, but he does YouTube for fun. I mean, that's ideally how it should have in the beginning."
"I I want to do it for fun, but I also want it to like make money. Yeah."
"So, you think I need to build a product? I think you I I think it's safest unless you genuinely enjoy YouTube. and I do,"
"but there are days where it's just you don't want to have to feel like you're on this hamster wheel of just like I got to post this video because it's been a week and if if I don't, the algorithm is going to punish me and there's no good topic. So, I'm going to rehash something I talked about a few years ago and like if you don't want to get on that hamster wheel, I think having an ancillary product or something that you're working on that will help people who watch your channel would be the most beneficial."
"Got it. some something for wholesalers, real estate, like like a tenant screening software. I'm just giving examples, but like something where if you make a video out of passion and you enjoy it,"
"what is that audience likely to buy or want?"
"Yeah."
"Is it like like you know contractor services? Uh I I don't know a way to find deals. Yeah. Something"
"do you think? So, this might not be the most entertaining for people, but I'm just gonna, you know,"
"I would like if you could to look at my YouTube page and then let me know what you think"
"if cuz I'm like, do I need to go more broad? Because my stuff is like straight like I go like how much are you paying for leads? What's your return on ad spent? Like, what's your net profit after running your operation? like I go like super deep into flipping wholesaling, not like broad and well, you know, when did you get started and blah blah blah blah. I try to go like super tactical um for myself to learn and for the viewers to learn because I felt like I could never find that."
"But I feel like I'll cap out at like 5,000 views. So, hold on. I show Actually, I'll just show you on my phone."
"I had like random life stuff pop up. So, some of the stuff is like"
"my father-in-law. Anything that looks different is like my father-in-law recently."
"You got to update your uh profile photo. Your your beard has grown quite a lot since then."
"What's the story behind the beard? Like letting it go."
"Um dude, I just got I was just lazy. I was just like, you know what? I just want to grow my beard."
"Is it not like a strategy like a like a Brandon Turner?"
"I did get noticed more for my beard. So now more people are like, "Oh, like I've seen your beard before. I've seen you. You're the guy with the beard." So it does it does help a little bit."
"Okay. Um Okay. So, here's what I don't like. Here, let me do it on my phone because it's showing me some unlisted videos and it's it's just crowding things."
"So, here's what I don't like. How to make your first 100K flipping and wholesaling real estate step-by-step guide. The title is really good for SEO when people are like searching how to make your first 100K flipping. Like title, I would say is good. It's not going to pop off, but it's going to get consistent views from people who find it over search."
"That's okay. Your thumbnail, I think, is really, really, really bad. Oh, damn."
"Like, sorry. Yeah, like really bad. I don't I don't like your facial expression. I don't like the money in the back. Make a 100K fast."
"I would do something a People are gravitating now to more like serious thumbnails. Okay."
"Like this would have worked like 2021. I would do something a little more like serious."
"What does that mean?"
"Uh less like attention grabbing the like the the face. Less of the face. And then make it look a little less photoshopped. Like when you like the second face here is bigger than the first face. Like that just like shouldn't happen. That face should be smaller than this."
"Got it."
"It's like little things and they make 100k fast."
"Um like this would look really cool if you're like holding a $100 bill in front of a a property"
"or something like that. You know who's doing what a good thumbnails is Humphrey Yang. uh a tad AI, but they're doing really really really well for what they for what they are. They get your attention."
"They're straight to the point and they're not over the top. So, check out Humphrey Yang for for that."
"The other thing I don't like uh life update major life changes."
"Yeah, that was a Yeah, that was because like I had to post something because I stopped posting because my father-in-law got cancer. So, it was literally just like a hey, this is what's going on."
"Don't do that. I hate to say that, but you can't do that on YouTube because what happens, it throws off your algorithm. Like if you have one video that just doesn't perform well. I found that subsequent videos after that just stop getting views."
"Yeah, that's what happened to mine."
"Yeah. So, it like throwing one bad video in there"
"ruins it. So, unfortunately, like you just it's got to be on the same topic."
"Got it."
"Um, make 500k a month wholesaling real estate. I don't like the thumbnail."
"What don't you like about it? It just looks bad. It's just like,"
"but why does it look bad?"
"Why does it look bad? Like the guy's face. I don't like the face. I don't like the money behind the house. The dollar bills are all green. Uh, again, I think something a little more like serious would look better. Your facial expression in this I think is fine. The other guys I don't like. Um, and then how's the money behind it? It's just"
"Yeah,"
"I'm just don't like that. Um, let's see. life updated movement company how to make 100k cold calling. I' I'd be fixing your thumbnails."
"Is you have one with uh Mike Zuber?"
"Let me see this one."
"Intro's a little short. The thing is you have a good intro. It's just a little short."
"How long should intros be? I try to keep them at a minute like Yeah. I like when you watch our intros, Mikey, our editor, will spend a like a full day just doing that first minute of the intro and we go through five revisions of it. So, what he'll do is he'll send me clips and he'll like he'll pick like 15 clips and we'll go through and say, "Oh, I like this, this, this, and this, and this." He'll stitch something together. We'll watch it and I say, "Oh, this part's wordy" or this part loses me." Maybe take this out. Could you put something else in there? I don't like that hook. Maybe this hook is better. Fill it with this B-roll. We'll spend a long time on that first intro. Yours is good. It's just It should be longer. Let's see. Dean Graiosi."
"That was virtual. That's when he was doing his like promotion."
"Yeah, sure. Let me pick again. It's just too short. Like, it's it's not bad. It's just that it's too short."
"Which is a great comment. Uh,"
"so do you think I should do thumbnails that just have me if the person doesn't have an audience? Because I try to include them on there, but then sometimes I'm like,"
"No, I think you could I think you could keep them in the thumbnail because I think I think it's good to show that it's not just like you talking."
"Yeah."
"That it's a podcast. I would almost change your title to the Brian Deville podcast or Brian De Brian Deilla podcast."
"Got it. And that way people know a little bit what to expect. It seems like you have a lot of longevity with the podcasting angle."
"And I would post this video in its entirety on your channel. And I'll help you come up with a good like title thumbnail to it. And the goal is that this one should try I would try I'm going to help you try to get like 10k views on it."
"Well, I've had go can you go to the most popular ones?"
"Yeah. Yeah. But you haven't had a good 10K in I'm trying to see when the last 10K was cuz that should be your benchmark here. Over a year. Yeah."
"Yeah. My best videos are like nonreal estate based."
"Are they faith-based?"
"They're faith-based. Yeah."
"Yeah."
"Depends. It just depends on like which angle you want to go in. I mean, if if you would rather it be more faith"
"Mhm."
"that's fine. If you would rather it be more real estate, that's why I would pick a direction."
"And and I would go in that direction."
"Don't mingle it."
"It it here's what's going to happen is you're going to bifrocate your channel and you're going to have some people who watch you for faith,"
"some people who watch you for real estate. There's going to be very little crossover between them. Yeah, there are going to be people that watch both."
"But what happens is now when you post a real estate video, half your probably more than"
Half of your audience isn't going to watch it. You post a faith-based video and now like another two, you know, one-third of your audience isn't going to watch that one. And so now every post isn't going to reach your audience because they, they're split.
Yeah. So it's better to go in one direction and then that way, ideally, like everyone should be watching every video that you post.
Okay. So just split it.
What do you think if I was like, "Hey Graham, I want to make $100,000 from my YouTube page. How can I do that?" I would say you got to post once a week minimum.
Long or short?
Long. So like one hour, one hour a week. And then what you're going to do with that one hour, hopefully, there's some clips in there that you could take, like five good clips. So, I'll tell you, like our our whole strategy is we'll post a lot of clips on TikTok and we'll just spam TikTok with clips and then sometimes some of those clips do well and they take off and then those are the clips that we then post on YouTube as shorts. And so now they've already been somewhat tested on Instagram and TikTok, then we do YouTube, that helps us grow and then, uh, the shorts then divert back to the long-form episode.
So now we'll get like eight to 10 clips that then divert to the long-form that drive more growth for the long-form. Uh, that is a strategy that works and then you could also take those episodes, every hour-long episode could then be turned into like three or four eight-minute episodes that you could post on Facebook. Uh, Facebook could be a great way to monetize too because their algorithms sometimes get boosted by like just whoever comments last and then it gets kind of pushed to the top.
Got it. So, you could take a one-hour episode, syndicate it across YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, maybe Spotify, um, grow out on those platforms. And then, if applicable, you could also eventually, as you start getting like 10 to 20k views per video, see if you can start getting some sponsors on that. Um, and then every sponsor will pay for the overhead cost of producing the episode when it comes to like office space or production, editing, all of this. And now you're breaking even on the episode. And then everything else you make on that is profit.
Yeah. What's your team look like?
Uh, so it's me and Jack. Mikey's our editor. Uh, Gavin does a lot of our sponsorship integrations. Uh, he runs our clips channel. Uh, Josh does all of our shorts, TikToks, uh, social media money. There you go, Josh. You get your your shout out. I highly recommend Josh. Josh is fantastic. Josh has been with us for years and he's done like every short that you've seen of ours with like 50 plus million views on a single, like that's Josh. So Josh and his team is great.
Um, so he doesn't just work for you, he's like an agency?
Correct?
Oh, okay.
Yeah, Josh is fantastic. Um, we work with Decked Media who sometimes syndicates our episodes, uh, throughout other platforms. Um, so I mean, it's it's a good team. And then we also have some some people that are that'll work with us, uh, maybe on a case-by-case basis or like if we need an episode edited somewhat last minute, like we have our our guy Arby or Andrew and we, we have other people that are ready if we like, "Hey, we need to turn this around as soon as possible. We're already editing this, but we need to edit this first." Like we have different backups or if if absolutely needed, like Jack and I just get into the weeds and we do it ourselves.
So how much do you think your podcast costs you a month?
I couldn't even, I would have to do the math. I'm sure you could work backwards to figure out.
Yeah. You think like 20 grand or more?
Maybe. Yeah. Six. Yeah. Probably. Maybe more.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's not bad to make a million bucks.
Yeah.
Yeah. Could be. Could be more or less. And again, it depends on the month. Like some months we could, we film them all here. Yeah. And then other months it's we're going out and we're, you know, spending a lot. And when we do travel, we try to make the most of it since we, we pack up all of this equipment and we take it with us in two suitcases.
Dang. And so when we travel, let's say to the East Coast, it's a whole day to get there.
Yeah.
Um, you know, six-hour flight plus a three-hour time difference, like it's a whole day of our time.
Yeah. And so then we try to like, "Hey, if we're over there, let's see if we could do at least like three of them." And then it brings down the cost since we're already out traveling.
Yeah.
What do you think about like, do you think your podcast would be as big if you didn't have Jack? Do you feel like you need a co-host to make a good podcast?
You don't need a co-host, but Jack is a gem. Um, I, the podcast wouldn't exist without Jack. So, he brought this idea to me to do the podcast in 2020 in May of 2020 and we filmed our first episode. Like, I wouldn't have even done it.
I used to watch those episodes and you're like, "I don't want to do this. This sucks. This is a waste of my time." I remember.
So, like, so the podcast, so, so if it were not for Jack, the podcast would not exist. I would have stopped doing the podcast because at the time I was so busy doing my main channel that I just didn't have time. But I did it for Jack in the beginning because I knew he was putting so much work into this that I didn't want to let Jack down. And Jack was like, would always say like, "Dude, look, come on, let's do it." Like, worst case, you get to meet someone new. And I'm like, "All right, let's do it."
Yeah. And then it started growing and evolving.
Um, and then Jack is able to do so much that I just couldn't. Like, I would be very hands-on with every single thing. Jack is great at outsourcing.
Yeah. Uh, he was able to bring on like a great team that makes us run more efficient that I just, I couldn't do. So this wouldn't exist for like, no, you do not need two hosts, but in, in our case, um, I 100% need Jack.
Got it. And I guess like, if someone's thinking about starting a podcast, what do they need to do to be successful?
My, what I bring to the podcast is really like a title, thumbnail, algorithm. Um, like I really go build. Like, unfortunately, like if you want to grow, you have to think of like these numbers and you have to think of what's, what's going to grow the channel.
Uh, so how does, so how does someone do that? 'Cause like I hear you say that, like I think about title, thumbnail, algorithm, but like I don't know what that means and I think most people don't know. They know the words, but they don't actually know like what you do to find a good title and thumbnail. So, it's got to be something that I think would hit a large audience or be interesting for people to watch. Sometimes it's just stories out there where it's like, it might be interesting, but they're just not great on camera. And that's something that we, that we have to think about.
If you have someone on your channel who just talks like this the entire time and answers like this, and really, boy, click out. Like, unfortunately, like even if the information is great, they're just going to click. And that's why like, even on on this, I try to amp it up for the camera. Like, I'm, I drink my coffee because here's the thing, when you watch this back, only like, in person, how do I explain this? Like, in person, you could be at like 100% baseline, but on camera, you see, you come off as like 50%. So you have to be like 150 on camera just to seem normal when you watch it back. So you have to like amp it. So certain people are great on a podcast because they're able to amp it up. I'll give you a great example. When you watch on the podcast, a toy. He's a, he's a great person on camera and his episode did so phenomenal because he's over the top and he just, he, he's great at getting attention. Yeah. We've also had guests that are really informative and smart, but they just don't translate that well. Yeah. So, it has to be entertaining to watch, applicable to a wide audience, and you have to package it in such a way that will make people want to click on your video over every other video on YouTube.
But how do you get good at that? Can you just copy? Can I just go on yours, pick a real estate, let's say whatever you did with paste, just copy paste that on mine and it'll do well?
No, because if you do too similar of a title and thumbnail, it's not going to be as appealing as if, you know what, I will say, sometimes it works. Mhm. There is a video that has been circulating YouTube for years. Uh, it has been like this, "Always happens right before a stock market crash" has been the title and it was one channel who did this video and it popped off like a few months ago. Ever since that video popped off a couple months ago, people have been doing videos similar to that with almost the exact same title and their videos pop off. But I found that video that first popped it off was a near identical title copy, title and thumbnail copy from a video posted years ago.
Yeah. And they just repackaged it or redid the video and it did well. There's another one, uh, and I'm guilty of this one too. It's "Why everything changes after your first $10,000." That's been a topic, it's been like circulating YouTube for years and then every now and then it just kind of pops off and anyone who does that title does well.
Yeah. So, you have to find a catchy title, thumbnail, and preferably put your own spin on things, but sometimes if you're beginning, sure, copy or put your own iteration on a title, thumbnail.
Yeah. Like when people copy my titles, like I don't care. It's you. It's like, you know, you do whatever you need to do to get your video to stand out above the rest. But sometimes, I'll admit it, like it works against you because you want to be different enough where you could like be a step ahead of everyone rather than just like copying.
Yeah. But do you go into podcasts already having a title and thumbnail in mind or you film and then you pull from what happened?
We film, pull from what happens afterwards.
Yeah.
I like, in a perfect world, you do the title, thumbnail prior.
Yeah. But sometimes we'll be in a podcast talking about something and I'm like, "Oh, wow. That, that's better."
What about like for you, if you're doing a talking head video, how do you pick what to actually talk about? That's like a basic question, but I feel like that's a good question.
Oh, yeah. Talking head video, I think of the title, thumbnail first. So, I will look at Twitter's been incredible. So, I look at really Twitter now and I just see what are people talking about, what's getting a lot of attention. When I find a topic like that, then I could say, "Okay, I'll make a video on that." And I make my whole video. I'll film it. I'll edit it. And then I upload it to YouTube. And then I start thinking, okay, how could I best optimize the title, thumbnail? And then I'll probably spend like a day and I'll, like, sometimes I'll just be at the gym writing down titles and then I come back to it a few hours later and then I'll come up with more titles and I'll pass it by some friends like, "Hey, I narrowed it down to these top three. What do you think of these three titles?"
Oh, I, I like that one. Okay, well, this person liked this one. And then, then I just, I, I try to imagine what I would click on. Like, when I just get a notification on my phone, would I click on the video? If the answer is no, then I keep thinking until I come up with something that I would click on.
Dang. So this is like, yeah, this is like your full-time.
It's all I, I think it's all I think about, unfortunately.
So do you think like, because I was thinking the reason why I paid to talk to you because I was like, okay, I am really debating.
Donated. I donated to them. You're not paying to talk to.
You're the first guest I've ever donated or paid to speak to.
I didn't get a, I didn't get a penny for this. It all goes to Team Water.
Yeah. Shout out Mr. Beast.
Yeah. I think even the payment, like, like I don't touch a dollar here. So. Yeah. Yeah.
So, um, but I'm in the spot where I'm like, "Okay, I hired a strategist, right? He just started. Um, his name is Evan. Shout out to Evan. Um, he's starting to help me, but I feel like I'm going to give this a good year and if I can't really make it work, I'm just going to just trash it or I'm just going to, it's going to be like, I'm going to cut it down to the bare minimums and I'm going to just do it as, you know, a side thing, but not actually like really go for it. So my, if you, with knowing that information, what do you think I should do? Do you think I should do podcast? Do you think I should do talking head? Do you think I should?
Talking head is way too difficult for what it is. And the reason I say that is because you're, you're have to come up with like an interesting 12 minutes, get people's attention, follow the algorithm. Podcast, you have more room to like go wrong because you're doing an hour-long podcast and you could use that podcast to then clip up the small episodes. Those make good shorts. Like you have way more ways to grow than just like an 8 to 12 minute video. So I wouldn't do those. I think the podcast is probably the best. I think what you're doing with real estate and wholesaling and flipping and the real, I love that. I, I would like to see you talk to more people like, uh, Zuber to talk about being a landlord, investing in real estate. It doesn't need to be like flipping or, you know, that sort of wholesaling. I like just hearing from landlords and just like, "Here's how I built my real estate empire. Here's what I'm doing now. Here's what I think is going to happen." Even like top real estate agents in the area who are selling a lot of real estate who could tell you who aren't going to be like biased, "Now is a great time to buy," but going to be honest with you.
Yeah. I think that would be very interesting. Yeah, I am like talking to more. I'm gonna do one with, uh, Leila. Um, Leila confirmed, Alex hasn't. But I do want to go after like more bigger entrepreneurs and go more broad and just see if like that excites me and like how that does.
Yes. But yeah, that's my thought.
Yes. But don't do talking head 100. No.
Yeah. I wouldn't. It's just, it's too, it's, I don't want to say it's too hard, but you have to like, really love it.
Yeah. And you're, you're going to be taking your time away from doing everything else that makes money.
Yeah. To do one of those videos. I wouldn't do it unless you're just, unless you, it's like that's fun.
Yeah. Unless you just do it because you want to have fun doing it and like, I'd rather do that than do anything else.
Yeah. Then do it.
Okay. So, because that was me. I'd rather do those videos than do anything else. And I just loved like, I'd cancel plans to make a talking head video. Yeah. But I wouldn't do that. If your goal is like, "I just want to grow the channel. I don't really like it, but I'm going to do it." Then don't do it.
Yeah. I want to transition to more like broad business stuff, but like, last couple for the podcast, like who was your favorite podcast and why?
Um, favorite podcast. Why? I always go back to like some of the more recent ones just because they're, they're more like in my head. Uh, but the Togei one, uh, because it was so unlike anything else we've done. For those unaware.
Yeah. I don't know who Togei is.
Exactly. I didn't know, I didn't know who Togei was. We had Greg Ducet on the podcast. Okay. He's a bodybuilder and we said, uh, "Who, like, do you think is like least deserving of YouTuber? Like, who do you think is the worst person on the platform?" And he says it's Togei. Toi because what he does, he, uh, is big into gambling and steroids. He said, "Togei is awful." And so we jokingly said, "All right, Togei, if you want to come on, you're more than welcome on the podcast." And we were able to get Togei on the podcast. And I do research on every guest that comes on. A ton of research. And I was doing research on him. I'm like, I was telling Jack like, "Dude, are you, like, this is the guy that we want to have on? Like, we really try to have on like serious people, like we have CEOs and like, you know, huge entrepreneurs." And then we go from that to like this dude who's doing drugs, uh, taking steroids, getting blasted drunk, gambling. I'm like, "Do we really want to do this?" And he's out of control and he's like, off of his rocker, like crazy.
Really?
And I was worried like, Jack, we really want to invite this guy.
Yeah. He's like, "Dude, let's just film it." I have to say, I was wrong on every single front. He came in the nicest guy. Totally chill.
Yeah. So laid-back. And I would just hang out with the guy, like, of how cool he was.
Yeah. And on camera, he was great. Our conversations were awesome. He was so respectful. And I've even hit him up like, like weeks later off the podcast, be like, "Hey man, I'm, he lives in LA. I'm like, "Hey, I'm in LA for this weekend. What are you up to?" Like, I just hang out with him. Yeah. He's just, and that was the biggest, just like, wakeup call where it's like, "Hey, every preconceived notion of Togei,"
Yeah. Out the window. I like the guy. I'm a fan.
What about from like the entrepreneurs? Like, did you do one where you learned a lot?
The thing is, I listen. Usually, if if they're an entrepreneur, they've done podcasts in the past. I listen to every single podcast they do. Like, I'll spend 10 hours listening to podcasts at 2x speed just to be familiar with what they're talking about. So I learn a lot from that. Uh, but otherwise, it's, it's usually people that are like, bucket list sort of, like, to me, they're impactful. Like, uh, Ned from Ned's Declassified on Nickelodeon. Like, I just love that. Uh, you know, the voice of Tommy Pickles on Rugrats. Just like, these are guests where I'm like, "How cool is this that I get to meet these people?" Yeah. And I would never ordinarily get to like, get an hour of their time. I think it's so neat. Kevin Olirri was another one. That was like a bucket list. Barbara Corcoran was just like a bucket list. Like, like certain people that I've looked up to as a kid to like sit across and do a video with them is incredible.
Yeah. Okay. So, uh, I want to wrap this up with just asking like more broad-based questions. So, I wrote some stuff down. So, do you think being poor is a choice?
Oh, man. Uh, we always ask that on our podcast.
Do you?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, okay.
Yeah. We, we say like, if you're poor in America between the ages of like 20 and 45, is it your fault?
Um, I would say, man, it's, it's a tough, it's a tough one. Overall, I tend to lean in. You have so much in your control right now that I like to believe that pretty much anyone could get themselves out of poverty. And I know you have like specific examples of people who grew up in like the worst of conditions with abusive parents, and they somehow were able to overcome a lot. Um, I like to believe that if you have a mindset of abundance and can even just get yourselves into like self-help books or or find a way to believe in yourself, I believe anyone could could be successful in America.
Got it.
Yeah.
Um, and some of these questions you could just say pass. What are your thoughts on Christianity?
I don't really have any thoughts. Christian. I would say pass on that one because I, like, I don't know what I could bring to the table.
Yeah. Well, have you ever considered like faith? Like, what are your thoughts on?
See, here's the thing. I, I believe there is a higher purpose and some higher power out there, but I don't believe it has to fit like this or this or this or this. I took one of those like, "Which religion are you?" like quizzes online and it said, uh, I was closest to Buddhism.
Okay. Where I just believe there, there's some greater spiritual force out there, but I don't believe like it has to conform to this like specific thing.
Yeah. Do you believe that? So, you believe God created you?
Yes, I believe there's some sort of higher power that's out there. Yeah.
Yeah. That it wasn't just like big bang, all random, like this is all random and then?
I, I don't believe that anything is random and I, I like to believe that everything happens for a reason. Everything has a purpose and, uh, potentially you're sent here to learn or go through lessons and, yeah. I like to think, uh, reincarnation would be pretty cool. Yeah. To like come back as something else. Uh, or there's a weird theory that I read where you could be everything. Like, I could be you in another life experiencing me from your perspective and then in another life, I am my father and another life, I'm like, and, but, but you could do this infinitely of every single person and then you start to think, well, is that person that cut me off me in another dimension? It's like, weird stuff like that, but like, at this, I think anything's possible.
Yeah. Do you, do you have a prayer life? Do you ever pray and like try to talk to God? Have you ever prayed?
Oh, yeah. Oh, 100%. Um, but I, again, I don't really think too much of it other than, "Hey, if it works, it works." And, uh, you know, I don't expect it. Like, sometimes you'll be like, "Hey, God, if you're real, give me a sign." And like, start looking around and be like, "Ah, well, nothing happened." So, like, I, or, or like, you see that and then there's like something happens like, "Oh, is that it?"
Yeah. So, you know.
You never had a religious experience before?
No.
Got it. Are your parents, are they religious at all or no?
No.
No. Okay. So you grew up kind of just?
Yeah. My mom grew up Jewish and she raised me both celebrating because my grandparents were Jewish. Uh, I would go to their house for Hanukkah and we would do Hanukkah there. But my mom and I would celebrate Christmas. So, I got to do both of those and I loved it because I go to my grandparents and I get Hanukkah presents and I get Christmas presents. So I get all the presents.
Yeah. Yeah.
Got it. Do you, I know this is super random, but like, do you believe in like spirits and stuff like that?
Yeah, I do.
Yeah. I feel like most people believe in like spirits and like they'll meet someone and they're like, "Huh, there's something off," or something will happen and they get like weird vibes, or they meet someone and they're like, "This was an angel," like,
Yeah. Where you're like, "This person's, like, something about this person is like perfect," or perfect timing or stuff like that.
100%.
Yeah. Yeah. Because there are things where it's like, "Ah, dude, the timing of that was crazy."
Yeah. Um, or there are things where it's like, "Dude, some of these things that have happened in my life, dreams come true."
Yeah. And you know, I just think there's got to be something more that would lead to that. So, yeah, certainly 100%.
Yeah. So what keeps you working? Like, are you at a stage where you could retire right now?
Yeah. Um, I would say two things. One is I enjoy what I do and then second, I, I, I have a scarcity mentality where I just, I price in the worst-case scenario of everything and then I, I build in a buffer.
Yeah. So, um, I try to come up with a number where I would be safe if my income goes to zero, all my investments drop by 50%, I get hit with a, uh, serious health concern. At the same time, I had a child, uh, that has like severe health conditions that needs to be like, you know, on support for a long time. At the same time, my, like parents need financial assistance for like a health condition. So like, I price in everything as like, "Okay, if this all happens at the same time, will I be okay?"
Yeah. And so I just try to base off that. So that's a scarcity mentality. And then also, I, I genuinely 90% of the time love what I do. Like, even this, I, I look forward to doing it. I have fun doing it. 10% of the time I don't. But I feel like that's like with any career, it's, it's probably worse than that. Like for most people's jobs, they probably like a 50-50. I, I get 90% I enjoy it. So I think it's pretty good.
Yeah. Yeah.
I guess like, because I, I talked to you about making videos when I don't want to and stuff like that, like off camera, I guess like, how does someone build the discipline muscle to become financially rich?
You just have to do it. Well, first of all, you have to believe in yourself. As cheesy as it is, like, I truly believe that if you, if, like, I was always convinced I was going to make money. Like, I just, I knew it. There was, there was not a doubt in my mind that I could not make money.
Yeah. And so because I believed it, I truly, I truly think that helps you in positions where you believe in yourself so much and it just comes across with other people that you create those situations in your life.
Yeah. So, how does someone build that? I have, I've always thought like, "I'm going to be rich." Like, I even when I was in elementary school, I remember I was in kindergarten and I was like, "Dude, I don't like doing this. Like, this sucks." And then I was like, I told my teacher, I was like, "I don't like school." And she was like, "Well, you're going to end up working at McDonald's." And I was like, "No, like, I know I'm going to make money. I don't know, like, this is a kind of a waste of time, you know?" And then as soon as I got like to like the ninth grade, I was like, "I don't want to do this anymore." I just dropped out and I started making money right away. So I've always had that. But for people that don't, or I also think about, I've never made $10 million before. Do I just not have enough belief that I could make that much money?
Have you thought about that?
Uh, not on that part. No. Um, but no, I read, I read some books. It was, um, Think and Grow Rich and it was Awaken the Giant Within from Tony Robbins. Those two books, I read those when I was like 16, that just like flipped the switch and I was like, "Ah, this is how it's done." Yeah. Um, Think and Grow Rich was probably one of the ones where it's like, I took that book as fact. Like, every single sentence I'm like, "Okay, that's the way it is." I believed it so much that I think that helped.
Yeah. I think the same. So that, that for me was that and then everything else was just like, I made it a must, like for my videos, I just, I had to get it done. There was just, Oh, who was it? I, I heard somewhere where they say that, you know, you have what it takes because if someone put a gun to your head and they said, "Hey, I'm going to kill you and your entire family. If you don't do this and you finish by 9:00 PM, you're going to find a way to do it." And so I said, "Okay, well, what's to stop me from not doing it then just because there's not a gun to my head? Like, if there's a gun to my head, I'll find a way to do it. So therefore, it's possible for me to do it and therefore I don't have an excuse for not doing it because I know I have what it takes. It's like if I told you you have to give me 20 pull-ups.
Yeah. And you're like, "Dude, I can't do 20 pull-ups." Well, I'm like, "Here's a gun and here's your family. Do 20." You'll do 20 pull-ups. Or if you're like doing reps and you're like, "I can't do one more." I'm like, "All right. Then this person dies."
Yeah. And you just keep going. You had what it takes. It's just now you have a reason to do it. So because you have what it takes, it's there and it's up to you to just to just do it without having to resort to extreme measures.
Yeah. I feel like the, the hardest part is just starting. I feel like once you start, you have moment, you have like extreme high years and years and years of momentum. But like most people, they just get stuck at starting. They never even start. And that's the hard part.
You just do it. You just, just do it. And, and if you don't, you're lazy. Just do it. I mean, really, what's, what's the excuse? You just do, you're like, "Oh, it's a bad time right now." Yeah. Ah, it's a stressful week. Oh, man, GTA 6 is coming out, so I can't do it. It's like, what? Then just, there you go.
What do you think is like your next level? Like, what are your goals?
Probably not grind so much. I'm trying to, I'm trying to learn how to relax a little bit more and not have such like a scarcity. Like, I still believe every day, like this is going to be the last day on YouTube just because it's like algorithms change so fast and every video I'm like, "All right, well, this is the last one." Uh, because after this, the algorithm's changing and it's never going to be the same and, you know, I don't have the same energy like I did when I was 20.
How old are you?
Uh, 35.
Okay. So it's like constantly having to adapt and it's tough. It's like, it's, it's a young person's game on. And maybe that's, hey, that's a limiting belief.
Yeah. Yeah. But you, but, uh, but yeah, but I see the people coming up now are all like 21, 22, and now I go to some of these YouTube events. I'm like, the oldest one there and everyone else is like 23 to 25.
Yeah. Crushing it. And I'm like, "Oh, wow. I'm like, I'm old."
Yeah. It's in some of these circles.
Yeah. So you don't have like a mindset of like, "I want to make $10 million bucks or $100 million bucks or anything like that?"
No.
No.
You just want to grow the channels?
Yeah. I, I get more enjoyment from having a video that that does well and getting a better guest than I do just like, "Oh, we we made X amount of money." Like, I'd rather just a really good guest.
Okay. Another question is, what is the biggest lie you've told your audience?
Biggest lie I've told my audience. Um, man, I don't think there's, I don't think there's a lie. Have you ever like done anything where you're like, "That was dumb. I should have said this or I should have said that or anything like that?"
I'm so careful with my videos. I really, when I script them out, I'll do like multiple revisions and I'll and I'll work around it. Trying to think if if there was something where I'm trying to, I'm trying to think through something.
I don't know.
That's good. Yeah, my social media manager wrote that. So I don't know. But, um, is there anything else you think you want to cover? Anything else like meeting me that you think could help me with what I'm going through?
Um, title, title, thumbnail. Don't do those personal, don't do the personal update videos.
Uh,
But so what happened was, really quick. So, uh, I'm married. We have four kids, one on the way. My, I was posting two to three times a week. Um, and then we found out that my father-in-law had a brain tumor. Um, so we went out to Kansas City. We're like, "Okay, we're just going to be here for a little bit." And it ended up turning into like a two-month thing. So that's why the first video was like, "Hey guys, I'm leaving for a little bit." D and then it just got worse. And then, um, we found out my, my new baby that's coming might have, uh, Down syndrome. So we just found that out. And then he's still going through this stuff. So I was like, "Guys, like, I'm going to take a break a little bit. You know, it's kind of getting where this isn't the priority right now." Um, so that's why I posted that 'cause I was just like, uh, it was just a lot. I maybe I shouldn't have said anything, but I was just like, "Hey guys, this is what's going on." So won't do that again. I get, I get, I get why you did that. Um, but don't do it again. Won't do it.
Title, thumbnail.
It's, it's, it's a, it's a tough one because, um, when you connect with your, it's a balance because connecting with your audience is important. Letting them know what's going on is important, but it's also, as a business, important not to do something that'll affect the long-term performance of the rest of the channel. Sometimes that'll come as a trade-off where it's like, "Hey, I'm gonna keep you updated, but now my next few videos are not going to perform as well." Yeah. Because of that, which is crazy.
Yeah. Uh, it's better in something like that, uh, Instagram or a YouTube post.
Yeah. Just a community post. "Hey guys, here's what's going on. I'll be back soon. More life to the channel coming back. Uh, but this is, this is why I haven't posted lately."
Got it. Anything else? So, title, thumbnail, don't do that. And then make sure people like and subscribe your video and do that preferably first five minutes of a podcast. If you guys enjoy this, hit the like button, subscribe. It means the world to me. If you, and then have a good, uh, uh, like, like an email at the bottom of your podcast or something where if people want to apply to be on it.
There you go. Got it. Now, you could be, uh, filtering through some potentially really good guests and have someone filter through and make sure they're good, like they're personable and they're good on camera.
Yeah. Got it. All right. Well, thank you so much, dude, for for doing this. I appreciate you.
Thanks for donating to Team Water.
Yeah. Shout out to Mr. Beast and Team Water. Till next time.