Alright, the last month's and went down to Nashville for the podcast movement conference and he did a fireside chat with John Lee, Dumas. He might know him as the host of the entrepreneurs on fire podcast. And if you like my first million, you might like the entrepreneurs on fire podcast. It's the same. It's like inspiration and strategy around your entrepreneurial journey and helps you create the life. You've always dreamed of and that sound too bad, does it? All right. Well, guess what? It's also part of the HubSpot podcast Network. That's who brings you our show and other great business shows. So if you want to listen, learn and grow, go listen to
two entrepreneurs on fire. It's on the HubSpot podcast Network. You can find it at HubSpot.com podcast Network.
I'm I am human optimization and optimized to to be what though? It just be happy.
I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to put my all into it. Like a Days on the Road Less Traveled. Never looking back.
All right. Sorry. We are late. We were, we were recording another episode and yeah, look, I got the context. I thought it was fascinating. I love the idea of like your digital media company being Acquired and then you have to do a podcast with the guy who acquired it no longer works there.
No longer the CEOs, fascinating.
Well, he told a story. That was, I think good because I think most people don't want to hear necessarily from. Oh, you're the CEO of some marketing companies and public companies. Not the sexiest story, but he just got in a crazy snowmobile accident and broke like every bone in his body and was sort of like, lying there on a mountain for an hour thinking
I might die or you know,
maybe hopefully a his
cell phone had like one bar and he was able to call the police get, get, get a firefighter to come save him like so
He
told that story and I was like, okay, this is good. This is good content. That never, then. I'm happy with how this turned
out. Wow. That's that is fascinating. So scary. Yeah, it was good. He was like, it was like a movie. We're like, you know, Brian this is like a movie, you know, like billionaire Tech guy, almost dies. Quit and starts meditating and yeah, he
became like a philanthropist afterward. He re-evaluate his life while he was lying there. That sort of thing. I Sam you want to do a quick intro. Do you do it? You do it. I like I've enjoyed you doing it lately.
Give the give the like the brief context of this. Okay, so Rob, I don't know if you know this but your your show on MTV. There's a there's a kind of a meme about it on Reddit. I do you ever go to Reddit?
I do not.
Okay. So, you know of Reddit, it's
like a of course website, whatever
course. So me and Sam, both watch the show, The Challenge on MTV and the challenge has been around for, like 15 years. It's kind of like, are you do?
I'm not even a guilty pleasure. Frank. I'm not guilty about it. I feel great about it. Yeah,
great ships makes, this is great. This is
so me and Sam, both watch The Challenge and we're probably the only kind of like Tech investor Duro, it's fully. I'm a life.
My wife watches it.
I Sam hides behind his wife. I love it. I'm not afraid to say it. I came out. The closet said, I loved the challenge. So on Reddit, there's a big stubborn about the challenge and the running joke. Is that MTV plays, 23 hours of
Nicholas Ridiculousness, and then one hour of The Challenge on Wednesdays. And so because your show is your show is always on TV. I don't know if you know this but it's kind of like constantly on MTV and so there's a running joke that that's that's all the
channel is basically as Ridiculousness.
I don't know if you know about that or if you have any thoughts. But I wanted us to start there.
Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, it's 60% of the total programming. Yeah, is it really? Yeah, and it's fascinating because it's like, you know, as
I'm have evolved the program in my relationship with the network and ultimately sort of the business that I have with the network. It evolved into creating more content and airing more shows. And so they began to are more shows in the ratings, went up higher and higher. So then now people are watching it in blocks of, you know, two and three hours at a time. So it, you know, in linear cable as a whole kind of faded to appointment television and you had hero content, that pushed up to the floor.
Almost all the networks and I just happened to be lucky. Yeah, I mean, it's like finding that sort of resurgence. But I was also because I control and own the production. I've negotiated on the unit economics of the show and what the network needed as the cable advertising world was evolving. So I was able to control the higher level than traditional town in which took me from getting 30 episode orders to a hundred and sixty-eight episode order.
Hours, which then eventually became 500 episode orders, right? It's a,
were you able to that? Like, I know with, for example, athletes like Floyd Mayweather, right. Starts off as a boxer, but then the promotion the the production company basically takes all the economics and he's out here the talent, the one that's drawn in all the viewers, but didn't own that piece and then overtime. Now, he owns it all because he kind of like got screwed for a few years or know, sort of wisened up and said, oh, I need to own more of this.
In order for me to like benefit in the way that for the value, I'm bringing were you did you get it from day one? Or did it take some time for you to figure
that part out? Look, I think you guys know, the complexity of making a successful business, right? So at the end of the day, there's Arbitrage for talent, and different aspects of business and relates to entertainment, but the ability to actually monetize it create value. And then in my case, sell it for a significant amount of money is extraordinarily difficult, unless you really understand business at a really high level.
Level. So, it's Way Beyond, you know, I started my first company at 18 years old. I went through basically years and years of making millions and losing Millions through Ventures, where I ultimately created a system to grow into being a great entrepreneur. And then I capitalized on this unfair advantage that I had in the entertainment space to be able to look at the opportunity and maximize it both from a talent perspective.
Is and create a business that I was able to have acquired through that platform, you know, communites. I think it's more rare than it is common for an athlete to have that mindset. Yeah, and let me give it back around here. And this is what I'm about to say is with no research it just as a fan. So I don't you don't know this but I still skate. So I've been a fan of yours forever. And so here we I have here look here, as can. You see that.
There's my Tre flip, talking about a full Tre flip right here. Fully caught, ya. All right, look, I could still, I still have it in me a little bit. My camera will come back in a second. But so you, you, you started skating very young and I think you were sponsored by Alien Workshop and you were like 13, 14, 15, something like that, right? People to give you more context. Like I got sponsored it at 11 years old, but I'm connected with the group and and when they
Founded the Alien Workshop and I turned Pro for it when I was 16 and you but now I think you own Alien Workshop, right? Or you're part owner. No, I acquired it for four million dollars and then I gave it back to the original founder. There's a free and clear on top of buying a bunker in Ohio. So they could run the company out of it and gave that to them free and clear. That was the worst mistake I've ever done in my life was, would you wire a skateboarding business? Look, I, you know, I
I did it more. They were acquired by Burton and I, every advisor around me was like, this company does not make money. It has terrible margins. Like it burns cash. Like, this is a terrible investment. I didn't care. I didn't understand business. Well enough. I just wanted it for the story. The Hometown kid buys back, you know, the Alien Workshop that he sat in the room and help choose the name, and create the brand. When he was 16 years old and finds great success and comes back and acquires the business. And
I acquired it. I felt like I acquired a hornet's nest and I learned so much about the operational side of the business and culture and and the Dynamics of what I'd consider a a, a toxic culture. And I just realized that that my passion was to create build and and create an Roi and irr for the stuff that I created and that's that doesn't align with skateboarding very much, right?
Like, they're really, like misery loves company. Let's all be broke. Let's all barely survive. Let's all like, keep your proving over to Sandra. Everything starving artist syndrome, and I literally like, was on another call and was like, man. I don't even want to be on it. I don't want to put another bit of my energy in here. And I'm like, you want to know what the real hero story will be. I'm going to give back the original Founders who built the company and sold it. I'm going to just give the entire thing back to them and that's what I did. So we have to talk about that in a
That's crazy to me, not in a bad way, but it's crazy. And so, your skater, you know, I used to watch you in a lot of Transworld videos. That's a kid and a bunch of other stuff. And then you were early-ish at, I think very early at DC shoes before DC Shoes was even named DC, right, that ended up becoming a pretty Monster success. And so, you've seen a bunch of stuff, then you started some of the early shows which crushed it and now you're telling your sitting here talking about Ridiculousness and
The way that you're describing things, I'm like, it's just the evolutions crazy, right from skateboarder to like talking about how you own 60% of the programming on MTV. And so I wanted to give like context there because it's, it's amazing and it's inspirational. But at this point, you've got your hands in everything. It seems like you've gotten you. Do you dabble? You do a bunch of stuff? I remember correctly years ago. You have like a food truck. Is that right? I'm not a wrote an episode around a food truck, but it was probably fake famous. You had like
Bunch of different states, you know, you had a bunch of different, get your hands and everything. I think you even did. I read that? You were you do horse racing, you own race horses. I did, I did when I got into horse racing. I jockey to horse for a race at Hollywood Park and won the race. Went on to own 12 or 13 resources, including a horse that I got third place in the Breeders Cup that I sold for two million dollars that I paid 200 grand for.
That's crazy to me. So he is owning a horse, a good, good investment in general. Like
that's a quality. That's a great flip, but it's not. But I for me, I got out unscathed, you know, and I mean like for a lot of people I know that are in it is just really for the enjoyment of it. It's a lot of fun to go. Watch your horse race, you know, I had a lot of respect and the racing Community because they know I jockey the horse. They know how insane that is, right. If you do that at the skit or did you take it seriously? Oh, no, I mean I do this ask it. I mean, it's like the don't it's the scariest thing I've ever done here.
Going to a guys broke the world record for jumping a car backwards. I barrel roll the car. I've been attacked by a shark and tiger. It's like I've done, you know, broken 25 World Records on a skateboard. But the scariest thing I've ever done in my life is jockey a horse at Hollywood Park because it's just you on the back of this horse, your you got a hold of its main, you break the gate, you're going 50 miles an hour on the back of this giant Beast. How do you how is your current, your entities set up right now as well?
As your focus because if you have all wasn't the reason I'm listening all these crazy stuff crazy things that you do and all these projects that you've got going on, which are very substantial. How are you balancing all this? And what's your current business structure? I mean, do you have like a Rob Dyrdek media? Which only does the MTV stuff and you get some type of fee from them? And then you have, you know, I've been a, let me tell you, let me tell you, if we, hey, if you want to talk structure. Let's talk some structure. Yeah. Basically, we operate as a very
Probably like a hybrid entertainment family office, right? /, Venture, creation studio, right? So I have a single entity to do Tech Machine LLC, that owns everything, including Rob Dyrdek Inc, which is the the entertainment side of Rob Dyrdek's business. So all of that Capital flows into this single LLC, and then I distribute that Capital into real estate holdings, right? The cash flowing real estate holdings, or I distributed into Ventures. That I
Find and create right. So I co find and create almost every single company that I build and I do Aiko find it with common shares and then I do the initial funding usually in the 800 to a million and a half million dollar sort of pre money. And then I put two 250 to 500 into every Venture. I try to own between 25 and seventy percent of every single Venture that I have at maturity, I have built.
At 17 companies, sold 6-4 and netted 450 million since I launched the company and 2016. One of those is the production company, but all of these entities sit under the umbrella of the Venture side of the Dyrdek machine business, including Rob Dyrdek, the television business. So my production company that was acquired, my earn-out goes into the LLC that I own a hundred percent of right. And then my talent money lives in that same, same thing, then.
Pay myself a salary that goes through that, and then I invest all of that in in basically non-correlated cash flowing real estate Investments, whether that's manufactured housing multifamily Units Storage units. Like, I've been investing a lot of RV parks lately. Do this music to my ears. Yeah. It's just very sophisticated. It's a very sophisticated, you know, hybrid family office that I built for myself.
Right now, and keep in mind, every Venture that I create has. It has a Time structure. We call it the unified theory. We at the very beginning, we lay out the entire Capital path and growth path and when we want to sell it and how much we want to sell it for and that's our Target. Everything is built to sell from the very beginning. Whether that's Pig Out chips and outstanding Foods or mind, right? Bars or lusso Comfort way or any of the build builds that I've done over the last five years, but all of it is connected to this.
Idea of the capital that you've earned attacks efficiencies on how you earn it. And then ultimately the irr on every dollar wherever it goes inside the system. And what do you do then? You keep your expenses within the range of your dividends that come from your real estate. So you basically play the entire game for free and then as you scale and have big exits and big big liquidity events, you just pump more money into
Into the overall system and you basically live this extraordinary free life. Now to that point. I do all of this with 30% of my time, right? Because I manage I've mastered time energy and capacity, right? So I live this extraordinary really Balanced Life by Design where I only dedicate 30% of my time to podcasts in my shooting television and building my businesses. I spend 30% sleeping 10% on my health. Never
Eyes have been 30% with my family. You know, how much is 13% for you? Like, how many are you looking at 30% of a 40-hour work week or 30% of your waking? He's thinking about in my entire life? All ours, right? Absolutely. Right? No. All life of the 24 hours in a day. I say sleep 30%, So seven hours, right? Like I'm work, seven hours. I'm with my family, seven hours, and I spend three hours on my health on average, right? When
You look at the overall balance and then I could show you this because I track it everyday. And it pumps all of it into this beautiful dashboard because what I've done over time because to give you an idea, I shot 250 episode, the television this year. It's exactly four percent of my total time. That's how highly optimized it's become dry. Because you basically have a certain level of human capacity. And in order to scale it you either hire automated. So I live this deeply automated life that that hires people into a
Capacity. And at the end of the day. I just lived super balanced and happy. That's it.
So guess what example, wait, what software are you using to track? All that time? That
dashboard I created? I had a, had a programmer, write me, a script that goes inside Google The Google Calendar.
It's an app on your phone or it's just on, like, a
spreadsheet based in its inside, Google Calendar and then it pops, it populates a Google spreadsheet. Right? And then the beauty of it is, is I qualitative data and
Native data as what I live my life off of right. So, every day for the last five years, I asked I wrote down how I feel about my life work and health 0 to 10. And so I could show you by the qualitative numbers, how I'm living a higher quality and happier life. In in the result of that, is based off the optimization that I've done on my quantitative stuff. My quantitative stuff, is that I get up before 5:00. Did I brain train? Did I get in the gym that I meditate that? I have a clean diet that
Not drink. I could show you by my quantitative numbers that I have done all of those almost every single day of this entire year, about 87% of those quantitative things that have just driven those qualitative numbers, how I feel about my life, my work and my health higher and higher. So by the numbers I could tell you what a high quality life that I'm living compared to just five years ago.
All right. I want to take a quick break to tell you about a video that I was watching the other day. It was a video of dermis Sean, who's the co-founder of HubSpot? Who brings you? This lovely podcast, we're part of the HubSpot podcast Network and he was on stage at this thing called inbound. It's their big annual conference for marketers sales, people business, people, that sort of thing. Customer success. And he was given this talk and was all about Starbucks. What Starbucks really set. It was amazing to, he goes, you know, Starbucks, you know, they sell coffee.
Well, you can sell coffee is just beans, just a commodity and that'll get you one price or you could kind of process. Those beans. You could do the work to make a cup of coffee out of it. That'll get you a higher price or you could strap a label on top. So that it's, you know, stands for something, put it in a nice cup, nice packaging, like Starbucks does, and that could charge you higher price. So, how the heck does Starbucks charge $3 50? Well, because they do all those things, but they also give you a place, a place to sit a place to work. A place to be quiet. Place to not be alone, but not be
Distracted as and not be bothered at the same time. And that's what coffee shop does. For a lot of people, they create these coffee shops with power, outlets and free Wi-Fi, and nice music, and some snacks, and some coffee. And because of all that they could charge $3.50 four dollars for a cup of coffee, and nobody bats an eye. And I love that talk. And I also just love going to conferences like this. So, this is my my promotion for inbound. 2021. That's Hub. Spots. Big annual conference called inbound and they have crazy speakers. They have dark mesh of they have Brian Halligan. That's a CEO of HubSpot there.
Oprah David, change Hasan, minhaj the comedian and more. You can grab a free starter pass or a Powerhouse pass. That's because you break out rooms and curated meet ups and stuff like that. Just go to inbound.com and you can get this for free. So inbound.com go get your free pass and get access to some pretty dope content. That's my my recommendation to you. Go attend inbound 2021. You're saying somebody amazing things, I gotta. Yeah, I went to each one. All right, so you just said something. Did I bring?
In train, what's that
mean? I use a Luminosity app. Right? Like we're it's just adding flexibility and just letting your mind do all of these things that are different than just getting in and reading your emails and very, you know, just going through your rhythms. Really. What I do that for
and you wake up at five. What's the morning routine? Like sounds like you're
pretty look I'll get up. I have to get up before five depending on what time I go to bed. I'll get up at 4:00 4:30 to. Right? And then to me, you know, always
That, that coffee pre-made. So, I can get up and get cooking. And then I track all my numbers from the previous day. Fill in all my time. If I missed any time to make sure that all my dad is there on your phone or on your computer on the computer, right? And then and then I try to just like organized and knock out sort of my more executional were before the kids get up and all that. Then it's six o'clock. I brain, train 6:30. I meditate. When I jump out a meditation. I
We're actually at 5:15. I bring my wife, a coffee and I send her an email of every single thing that I'm doing that day. What it means to me. I would love quote on top, right, again. This is what
it is and what it means to me. Like each
thing you're doing just like, you know, just like what are doing it? Yeah. In my in my one of the one of the poles of our relationship was like I do so much stuff that she would be. I just be talking to someone to be the first time she ever heard of it. And so she would just like I would do so much stuff in a day. She just would feel
Disconnected. So I just started giving her an email every day. I was like, what I'm doing, what it means, with a nice love quote, right? And in that, then, settled down the energy of feeling disconnected, from everything that I'm doing. Bring her a coffee at 5:15. God bless her. She started doing 5:30 calls for her business, which means he's going to be tired earlier. That means we can go to bed by 9:30, right? Which is another sort of blessing and this is happening in LA, right? Your, this is your yeah. Yeah, and then, you know, I
Pop out of meditation. It's Evan, wake the kids up, get them both down to breakfast at 7:30. My trainer doctor comes to the house 7:30 to 8:30 training, and then take the kids to school at 8:30, right? And then the day, depending on what the week is, you know, sometimes I go to breakfast dates with my wife. Sometimes it's, you know, on Mondays, you know, I basically run a flat organization, right? So I have, you know, 10 core divisions that are ran by
An executive and I just spend Monday fully organizing from when I get up four o'clock into my chief of staff for an hour, into my president/ceo for an hour and then half hours for every single person that runs that the vision so that we can just be highly organized and then plan the rest of the week, which, of course, is inside Thursday night, date night, and Friday night, Sushi night with my wife. I'm picking my kids up and all of, you know, I designed balance and then I only work within the structure of balanced and then depending on how
How I feel depending on how my wife feels. Then. I'll even adjust that to lean into making sure that my family is feeling priority above business. Always
you, you know, we're like, yeah,
you're like, you don't like people make fun of Silicon Valley people because it'll like, like, here's my calendar. I've got to adjust it like this. This is this, but I'm sitting here looking at you. I think it looks like you're wearing a black blazer with a black sweater and you got these slick are pads. And you are more Silicon Valley techie in tune with.
Is that like the stereotypes of it? And I love it. I think this is, I mean, look, I'm, I am human optimization and optimized to, to be what though could just be happy. You know what I mean? Like, at the end of the day, that's why you're playing the game. And you got to figure out yourself to understand what truly makes you happy. Because your goal is to not be happy in Pockets. Your goal is to be happy every single hour of every single day of your life, right? And that's really what I've accomplished and I'll tell.
You something. If you think about how you live, right? You you can live into places that will get you nowhere, its dwelling and being negative right? Or it's being hopeful in like wishing right? Either of get you nowhere. But real where life is lived. As you're either problem solving you're either creating the future or you're experiencing the present, right? And the truth is whatever you're experiencing. The president is based off of the decisions you've made in the past and it's your choice to create whatever you your reality is that you're going to eventually experience.
Or God forbid, something hits you rather than dwelling on it or hoping it didn't happen. If you problem solve and handle it. You're not going to. You can basically live a life with no negative thoughts. If you learn to live in a state of either experiencing creating a problem solving in your entire life, right? It. But it's all on you to understand what that is to be able to live in that state. I'm flabbergasted. Sean.
Rob is, is just is what I want to talk to me. Here's what I'm wondering and we share a lot of
Sophia's, by the way, the things you're saying, yeah, philosophy is I live by Sam lives by as well, but I'm wondering this in my life because I live by a similar philosophy. I've encountered a bunch of people and what I found, Maybe I'm Wrong here with you. But what I found is kind of to two groups, there's the group of people who kind of were this way from day one. They were sort of, like, optimizers from day one. They really cared about they sort of recognize the importance of time early on. They recognize the importance of their mood and how they're feeling early on and they say, cool.
I'm going to Design Systems to make this work for me by default. So I'm not swinging from highs to lows. I'm not pissing away time. I'm actually making imagine so some people get it early. I don't know if that's nature or nurture, but they were this way from day one. And then this other people who sort of live life in the exact opposite way for a while and then it comes to a screeching to a halt and they say I got to make a change. I got to get some order in some organization. I got to like I got to actually take control of this, not just have it be.
You so loosey-goosey. And I'm looking at you and I'm thinking, he's skater early. How does the skater guy become human optimization embody the way you are. Were you always this way? Or was this? I lived a certain way. And then I had a realization in a moment where I decided to kind of shift my path so that I could design my life a little bit differently.
Yeah. I was not this way, you're talking to a guy getting attacked by sharks who starting company after company breaking World Records.
And cars, doing cartoons television shows, doing doing all these things as you alluded to in the beginning like you you were pulling into I would say you were pulling energy from like who I used to be and what, you know, me as right. This is just a saying like, yeah, right. So so the way that you were viewing was in fact, really how I was kind of living where I was baby. I always refer to myself as going in so many directions. That once I was I was like pulled tight. And so what happened you swing from side.
Side to side in order for there to be some sort of give and whatever you were ultimately doing in. For me. I was I'm had had built my league, my professional skateboarding league and took it to Market to raise capital and then these groups were like, oh we want to, we want a piece of everything that you do. Look at all that you do. They offered me a 360 deal. I thought this is it. You know, I've just thought, you know, done this whole thing by the seat of my pants. And like finally, like these people are going to recognize me and turn me into the billionaire. I meant to be and
And they did the diligence on how I ran my finances, how I ran my life, all aspects of it. They were like, you're not even investable. You're just like, you spend all the money that you have. Like, you're not creating any value like all the stuff and he was this. This deep Awakening of like you're not who you think, you are like you you've attached yourself this. This identity that you've created for yourself is actually false and the success that you've had by being so driven and so ambitious.
Like as you know, despite all these other things you're doing that are failing, you're making up for it by other things working. Like you aren't actually what you think you are and I went on this journey to begin the discovery of like, how can I begin to put a system around myself to become first? It was like, how do I learn business? I don't know business and I hired a consultant to teach me how to build a company beginning to end. And in that process. I found this book called started.
End, that was a business book. About decide what you want out of a business before you ever start it and then it was like this sort of like leg, you know, insane sort of moment that where I was like, man like I need to start treating my life like that. What life do I want? And how long announced that would have been in 2013?
You know, I mean, so it wasn't you got to understand. I this the evolution in the growth that I have gone through over the last six years, as for five lifetimes of growth, you know, you're talking about from from saying your uninvested oil to creating generational wealth. In a five-year period. Okay. More land in. And now transitioning Beyond, you know, self-preservation to generational preservation. What is my 500 year?
How am I going to affect your decks for the next 500 years? And I couldn't even in 2013, you know, I was single partying and like part of like when I looked at like, what's my ideal life? I want to have balance in love, and marriage, and kids, and these things. So I had to begin to change the way that I was living to ultimately create the energy to attract the person. The people, the knowledge, everything that I would need to grow up.
Oh, into the person that I, that I had designed for myself and 2014-15 and was the, you said your production company was acquired. Was that the biggest win for you financially, you know, I mean, there's no doubt you're going to me, but you got to understand like even, you know, it's such a significant amount of capital and I own 70% of it, right? So it's just a, it's a much. It's a, it's a big acquisition.
You know, you know, the final numbers aren't, we're still in the middle of the earn out. But it so it'll it could be close to, you know, you know, a hundred and twenty five hundred and thirty million for just me now. Right? And so that, that unto itself is a really significant single transaction. That is that very few people ever experienced, you know, man. So again, it's a and it to me, it's the first company that I built that was in the bill to say,
Cell structure, right of when I just taught myself business completely built the system for how I would create businesses. It was the very first one that I built to sell and built it in sold it in three years, right? And went first to the investment bankers, said I'm going to build a production and sell it. The people that only sell production companies. They're like, okay, here's how you got to do it. If you want to build it and sell it, then I went and hired a person who just went through a build and acquisition, who was the number two at the company to help me build it. Then I went
And began to build it. Now, what happens, a whole lot of magical shit happens, you know what I mean? Like, because like like all of these different things like occur that allowed me to go from zero Revenue to 50 million in the first year, that allowed like the trajectory of the growth. And that the ibadah in the company to Scale based off of ridiculousness, having a second Resurgence and me being able to negotiate the value of the company. Based off a now understanding the production, the unit economics of, what the network would need.
These unpredictable things that in the beginning but I said it, where I would build it and sell it in three years and then took it to Market. Went back to those Bankers, three years later. Here's the numbers. Let's take it out and see if see who would be interested. Now, as fate would have it the group that acquired it was the same group that offered me. The 360 deal that said I had no value in 2013. And when they acquired it, part of the acquisition, I made them also acquire my professional skateboarding. Leading is part of the
I love that they create, right. So it was a very Poetic Justice and beautiful sort of 360 moment as it relates to, they, as the single sort of private Equity Group that drove me to like re-evaluate. And and really push myself to like design my life and then they come around and also provide the opportunity that sets me up for the future. Instead of owning half of me for the rest of my life. They acquired the only two assets I kept from
Um that era
you don't know the from but Sam is kind of a nut like you he I think at the age of he showed me the spreadsheet. He's like I made this I think he's 23 24, maybe and basically what he did was he said? Okay, I want to have I forgot what it was. I want to be a millionaire self-made
by said I wanted to make. I wanted to make 20 million dollars by the age of 30
by the age of 30. I want. I want to have 20 million dollars by the age of 30 liquid cash that I actually, you know, I own liquid, liquid net worth and so he then created a list.
First of all, the rich people he could find in Tech because we're the tech world, right? He's like, okay, from Jack Dorsey, who created Twitter and square to like, whoever. And he mapped out how many years did it take them to make their first, like their first nut of like a million bucks? And then like, how long, how long before they got their big win? He's like, he's like, okay, the median time in seven years that they are, the average person is getting this. I need to be on this trajectory at this. So he's like mapping it all
out. I was like, I need my business to be at this Revenue with this ibadah inside for you.
Years because that means the growth rate is this. And then if I owned this percentage, that means I'm gonna make this after-tax a long as I'm in this state.
Yeah. And everything. And then you know, when Sandy do
it. Yeah.
He did it. He pulled it off. He just sold his 31. I saw I sold the car to US. 31. You're late.
Yeah, good for you. That's and you want to know why you did it because you started at the end and then, you know, you know, hey, hey and you know, hey, like it wasn't about how the path actually went. You could have never predicted your
Well, I would have never expected it to be in this one, whatever it may be, but your mentality was there on what it is and you're very young because you got to think the way I'm talking, I didn't do this till I was 40 10 years from now for you guys, you know what I'm saying? But go ahead. So, I didn't mean to cut you off. I just wanted to know the payout.
No, you had it. You know, you had a point for me on that or not. I just, I just jammed.
Yeah.
No, no, you're good. The other things I was going to say is that we, you know, one of the first messages Sam ever sent me, I met the guy, you know, kind of in passing and then, you know, two days later on Facebook. He's like, so how much do you pay yourself out of your company? Started, talking money in a way that most people don't, most people are very afraid to talk money. And I thought at first I was taken, aback was I who the hell is this guy? And then I was like, actually it's pretty powerful if I could have some friends like this. We could openly share. What are we making? How do you know? What are we sell for? What are we?
I think it in
share. What about what are we spending? And is spending that much money each month actually making you happy.
Yeah, that's sort of thing and
so is amazing. Okay, go ahead. Go
ahead. So we got to know each other that way created a friend group that way. Do you have like a set of peers like that in your world where you kind of learned the game together came up
together?
No, but let me tell you what who I do have is a peer group that I think you'll find fascinating. Have you ever heard of tiger 21?
I guess we've broke down that business a ton. I actually think that you can build a new tiger 21 because it's pretty old school. It's like all old Rich guys, right soul. I can tell you what got tagged. Yo, so I'll tell you what, my tiger 21 experiences, right? So, to me, it's not about the business model of tiger. 21 is about the peer group. Yeah, 21. And so this is what you do in Tiger 21, so in my group, you know, they've really expanded it since they took on private equity and they're really trying to grow it. So it's probably a little bit different.
Different whenever whenever you had looked at him and my group, there's 15 people varying ages. Right? Really young guys that have made hundreds of millions. Really young guys that have billion couple billion dollars in net worth, right? Really interesting group of guys. Now, this is what you do in Tiger 21. You each month. One person has to show all of their assets and it's called portfolio defense, right? So each person has to
Like layout. This is every single thing that I'm doing. So what are we doing as a group? Not only do we understand each other's philosophies what they're spending their life, philosophies all these things, but understanding seeing how they manage their wealth, their wealth. Not not, not making money. But managing wealth, right? All of the latest things through their own, advisors that we share in all this stuff. But at the core of it, it's the realest of the real because you have to be very real in order to open up.
And show everybody what you actually have in to me. When I first heard about I'm like, oh my God, this is the group for me. Like this is what I need. Like, I know that only like the realest people would be willing to share all of their there and their investment strategies and all of their Assets in. So for me, I actually have been in it now for two years and it was life-changing for me, right? Because part of that, very first portfolio defense. It was like, what was your hundred year plan and it
Like in an instant, I've shifted from president, self-preservation to generational preservation, right? But of course, I had created enough wealth to be in that mindset to that point, right? And now, over these last couple years. It is just, it is a depth of knowledge of wealth building that I like that. So personal that that I've just never experienced on that. I could never experience through. Just people that were my friends, that weren't like open to the
This being part of the structure of a club, if you will. So, you know, look, I would even say 3/4, you know, you guys to even consider it, you know what I mean? Just because it is an extraordinarily eye-opening and you just learn and learn and learn because at the end of the day, you're you're you grow like this, right? Your your entire life as you grow and evolve you, you expand. And what you want to do is be expanding in One Direction because that's where
Growth in greatness and Mastery and all these things lie when you grow into a single Direction, so, you know, I think that that it's something like that. As a peer group has been massive for me that I didn't have before that because I just don't, I don't have anybody that, that because I come from a sort of a different world. I just didn't have any relationships with people that that were thinking like that. Were you doing? I know that you, I mean, you've been famous for forever. It seems, and you've always been
I'm doing cool shit. But you mentioned earlier that when you were going through due diligence that the buyers were like, dude, you're running. You're like you're spending too much money or your, maybe you're buying things incorrectly and you're not, you know, you're mixing personal and work. Maybe, I don't know. But we're you were you making a significant income leading up to your big exit. And also, I mean, judging just off purely off TV. So who knows if it's real where you seem like you spend a lot and you liked it and you and you like,
All out and you like to do fun stuff where you spending a significant amount and so like where you actually financially successful prior to the the the deal and you're saying when they offered me the 360 deal when they win and you're like like like you sold your production company recently. Although that's still kind of mid mid. It's not entirely done, right but prior to like your what you said you read the book in 2013 or whenever it was where you actually doing well, or was it like your
still getting by but you're you're you're making - I was not crushing. I was making a significant amount of income, right? The problem was I was spending so much and not managing it properly. Not not looking at what I was doing it. I would like, you know, I put two million dollars for million cash to buy the Distribution Company. I put two million into building the first-ever street dream skateboard movie. I put two million into building my league. I was just making millions in
Thing in building anything Any, Which Way, but Loose on top of having, you know, a five million dollar a year overhead and bodies in my in running the Fantasy Factory and then all the people that that were underneath me as it as part of the management team. So Fantasy Factory cost, five million a year to maintain and run like like having the building itself was like, you know, 750, right. And now you put all the bodies in there, you know what I'm saying? I had, you know, president/ceo.
Oh of like like full-time, like, general counsel like CEOs, like I had like, you know, a 30-person team. I was like running like an agency, almost the way that it was built in that era, you know what I mean? But also where you would, let me give you making on, keep it at all. Or was it break even and you're just spending all your goals? Like I was I was breaking even because yeah, I was, I was making profit and paying taxes, but after taxes, I wasn't saving any money. I kept reading and reinvesting.
And new project and bigger ideas because I thought that's how you do it. You know what I mean? You just keep taking shots at my back. Then I used to say, like, our money's Fearless scared money doesn't make money and it's like, you want to know dumb money. Doesn't make money, you know what I mean? Like that, just like the reality of how I was running again. It was because I was still I revolutionize skateboarding and built Street League Skateboarding. I've launched them built a cartoon on Nickelodeon. I had multiple
Shows on MTV. I owned my integration, right? So I was doing Chevy deals and Microsoft deals and making millions of dollars. So I was having extraordinary success. Only. Like I wasn't the way I was reinvesting in it. I was still essentially make rather than creating value. I was I was really almost like a created Services, a just kind of floppy. Just you weren't tight was not not only not tight, but didn't
Wasn't wasn't creating value with intention wasn't looking at markets and Market sizes, and, and Trends. And how could I create a business that could be acquired one day? I'd never even heard of a venture can I didn't know what an investment banker was in 2013. I thought it was someone that dealt with high net worth individuals when they told me my league was worth 30 million dollars and we did seven million in Revenue. I said how they're like, oh, it trades at like, you know, four to five times revenue and I'm like how
Ow, the how does business even that? How does that work? I That's how little I knew about business in 2013. When the 360 deal was offered to me. I had I knew nothing of the capital markets Capital staging, private Equity Venture. Didn't know anything of the first time. I'd ever even heard about it in in compared to who I am today and how I look at creating value and managing Capital staging and treating myself like a family office. Not that
Years later, it's an exponential amount of like unprecedented growth. You know that almost doesn't even seem real. You're like transferring through universes. You know what I mean?
You you've been, you know, pretty phenomenally successful. I'm very impressed by the way, but I almost feel like you were too early. I feel like if you were 12 years old now because you didn't have, you know, Tech talk and YouTube, where you would have been
In the, you know, the Noble in the neck, boys, you would have been bigger than the whole Brothers, right? Like, because you didn't have social media, when you were doing all these stunts, you did it in TV. You do, you know, you did it before TV? And then it on TV, but it
kind of helped him in a way, right? But like I
bet I think you would have gone viral like nobody's business. I think for the TV for the amount of views
that they get I began TV pays more than the new source,
of course, of course it see monetize as well, but I think Fame
Why is if you were a teen today with the tools they have and you had the same kind of Gunslinger mentality of like, doing stunts to attract attention, attract viewers and challenge yourself, and have fun and have a blast in public. That model works today with people who I feel like I've done like a fraction of the level of stunts that you've done.
Do you think you're human? You're early? I don't know. No, look, I'll tell you what. It makes me tired. Just even see having you say that. It's just like, God, think about being on YouTube.
You know what I'm saying? And like look if I even when I look at the world right, forget about sort of being earlier whatever it is like an extraordinary exist. I've lived an extraordinary life of handful of Life times, but I've never been happier than I am today talking to you because at the end of the day there was so much like like angst and ambition and like I want to do something so big and I just kept trying and trying it in my will to execute in my ambition and drive kept just breaking me down highs and lows highs and lows highs and lows. We're now
I am just in this like Perpetual strict state of like high growth in a clear direction. Right? And in inside that is complete happiness, right? And not saying that, I didn't enjoy what I went through, but it was too much highs and lows and chaos and for what it's worth, right? Like it's and it's all experience. And I really love my life, way more at 47. Then I did it 27 or 37, right? And that's really what
Your human mission is right at the end of the day. You want to live this peaceful. Happy effortless, like fulfilling life. That's really what you're chasing. Right? You want a life of infinite abundance in love, right in. And the only way you can actually get to, that is through learning Mastery of self. And that is Mastery of your energy and all the things that give and take from it, your time, and ultimately Your Capacity, right? And in the only way you can,
Sir, all those is to really learn yourself at a high level and what you really love to do. And the difference is back. Then I was I had to do so many things that I didn't enjoy to feed that Beast, right? And and continue to find the next thing and constantly struggling with. Like I got to do another show and it's got to be bigger. You know, it's like it's like that sort of thing where now, everything so much more controlled and done with purpose inside balance that you just enjoy every moment of the process, right?
But yeah, could could I have done that on YouTube? No, because I also had, you know, an $800,000 budget that allowed me to like, you know, go and do a deal that could, you know, rent out, you know, Six Flags. So that I could flip a car ramp to ramp over the world's biggest skateboard that I designed is World Records. That's how much that stunt cost was 800. Oh knock shoot. I don't that's taunt, probably cost like all together all of those were.
A few million dollars, you know, mr. Krei, that's like stunts teams and groups and like test cars and like I was like, you know, then then the day comes and what do you got to do? You got to flip a car and you want to know what you want to know? What happens on the day that you got to flip a car. You're like, this is the dumbest idea ever. Why am I even here? I have so much going on in my life. Like why would I even put myself in this position to like flip this car and then you flip the car and it actually works and now it's a Super Bowl commercial.
And it's part of the season premiere of season 5 as of fantasy factory in this giant Chevy partnership and you made millions of dollars and now you're a legend. And and you're going to all this stuff, it was genius and the best idea, but the demote, the day of, when you gotta do it, it's like cool. This is so dumb. That's basically all of those. All the stunts that I did in that era, it would always be like, this is the worst idea. It's not even funny. And then when it was over, I'll be like, I'm some
I'm a legend earlier. You said that you track Trends now and you start at the end and work backwards what trends interest you at the moment what what business opportunities are intriguing to you? If you had a little bit more like even if you aren't going to do it, but you wish you had more time and it's just kind of on the side mirror. Like this is this this interests me. I think someone should pounce on this opportunity. Maybe I will, maybe I won't put it. I'm interested to for clarity purposes here. Now now I have a
Business that builds businesses, right? So I I build, you know, five to six businesses a year, right? And although I've, you know, I've kind of like really pushed into all the builds. I'm doing. At the end of the year here, are all in the beauty beauty industry, adaptogenic topicals water filter system Soul, real opportunity and and sort of in the beauty space of like how important like water is. And how
How many chemicals there are and when you shower, but then you go and spend all this money on your hair and makeup and skincare. But you wash yourself and chlorine. So found a real opportunity to develop a real Innovative sort of shower purification system and water filter system for beauty. And, you know, he's really looking at superfoods and plant-based, the sustainable beauty products is Big opportunity and in that sort of space.
You know, we launched a nootropic footwear or a nootropic and an adaptogen plant-based bar and drink, mix and coffee, mix line this year, that's been really successful. We looked at, you know, the three billion dollars in market, share, between bugs, Crocs, and Birkenstocks, and created what we consider the more, the the sleeker ugly, ugly. Shook the pretty ugly shoe.
And Lou. So Cloud that we launched this year. That's their last year, that that really has ridden this wave of sort of comfort this Comfort wave and Casual wave in the Comfort Footwear world that we thinks going to be on track to do really be really big to for because to me at the end of the day, like what's happening in the market is important and it's going to be where you live and die, right? You too early or you know, in the case of ultra cast, you know.
I launched this company that was a live 360 Live 360 and VR video platform that put 360 videos all over the world and where you could jump on your phone and travel all over the world and be and different bars and clubs and all these different things, like right on the conversions of live Instagram, and, and live content, and live streaming and sort of VR coming in together. And then what happened to VR? Like, Nick just died.
Nothing, right? And it's like, I was like and what did it end up being? Like the new 3D TV? Right. And so 360 video became like the new like, the 3D TV, right? And so even though I built, I got it right on the wave and like it was super Innovative with an amazing CEO. Who wants to company, went out of business built. Took a company public in like nine months, but I'm that that fails right? So you're trying to time markets and look at Trends and all of that. But at the end of the day like you
Got to get a little bit lucky. So you want to be in the right place white space and an opportunity that's investible. There's so many Nuance to a white space. And where opportunity is I can tell you from someone that's built, 17 companies, in the last five years that the greatest lesson I had in years, two and three was founder market fit, you know what I mean? Like where it's like when the, the biggest red flag you will ever hear is when
He comes from, you know, one industry and wants to be in another because this one so much easier, right? This one's, it's the margins over here. It's the Shelf stability over here. It's all, there's not sighs. It's like they all have a position based off of how hard their particular Industries. Sort of structure is and they're all hard. They're all hard and you don't want to invest it. Build companies with people that have to learn the industry as they go. Right? And I think that's that's, I would get caught.
Caught and seen great opportunities and ideas and build with really Relentless. Well, experienced Founders who get crushed in the learning curve of trying to learn and understand a new industry. It's something that I've really very hard for me to build a company with somebody that's getting into a, an industry for the very first time Rob. We've, we've had like billionaires on. We typically don't do do guess. We typically just shown an eye but we've had billionaires, we've had
Gary vaynerchuk was on recently, he was, he was really fascinating. We've had some famous people, we've had all types of people on here. You might be the most interesting that we've ever had. You're definitely the most surprising, you know, and I hopefully this isn't you don't take this the wrong way, but I judged you based off of just as a skateboarding fan and what I knew about you on TV, obviously, I knew you were the slick-ass businessman and you always had some cool shit going on, but you are way more dial than I ever would have imagined. And you might be one of the most interesting people I've ever spoken to. And yeah, I
II think you're my new hero.
Yeah, I miss that this has been amazing.
Look, I'm could tell about the questions. You asked me that that it was coming from that sort of lens and I thought to myself, man. Let me let me feed this guy. Kind of the the angle and the evolution of where I'm operating at, right? You may also motherfucker is what, you know, and it's in think about it, too. It's extraordinarily concise and clear, right? Because it's like I constantly am seeking Clarity. So I'm off, always operating.
A place of intention. And then I'm consider myself to have an evolutionary mindset where it's like, how can I purposely keep evolving and evolving and evolving with purpose and in a singular Direction? And one of those is like, literally human optimization and being happy as could be, you know what I mean? At the end of the day, but no, I thank you and I appreciate it. Because you guys also had me do work, right? You guys said, hey, can you ride an agenda of what you want to talk about on today's show?
Oh, I'm like, these guys are like having me ride an agenda to be a guest on their show and I wrote out an agenda and we never even covered any of the subjects. Can you come back? We didn't cover it yet
because you are mine early on and they were happy. I could have took the first three things. He said and said, okay. I have two hours here were all I need to do is just let you expand on that because if I'm listening to this, and somebody says something interesting, there's nothing more annoying in the world than the guests. Going back to their previous.
From preset agenda and not asking about the really interesting thing that guy just said. And so we had to do it
and it is it, look, it goes back to what you said about building towards the end. Yes. We had to plan just like I planned my exit but like what you said was you don't really know what's going to happen in between. Yeah. Yeah. And look, even with all this, this, this planning and structure. I'm, I don't let it. I'm not controlled by that calendar. You know what I'm saying? Like, I still allow myself to like
The beauty of the system is, I could just shut down three days and everything continues to move and then picks back right up when I get there, you know, even as I operate my life, I with the same group that helped me develop my system for the Dyrdek machine in my business creation system. Like, I had them develop my life system. Right? And I have this this 50 page document called the rhythm of existence that's managed by my two assistants in my chief of staff. And it's basically the operating system for my entire life.
Right. And so that allows all aspects, whether it's from my food to my haircuts, too, like, how I do with birthdays and how I deal with all these different things? Just put into the system. That's managed that does what its automated in gives me back more capacity to be able to do more be more present with my wife and kids be more present when I'm working. Be more focused, be able to get more done because I keep adding more and more Automation and optimization.
Into my life that allows me to just live and do the things I love to do, which then gives me more energy to be more successful. More clear, have more intention in push things further and farther along. Well, would you be willing to come on again and and talk more about like pretty much everything you've discussed. And also the things that we plan because this is this is going to be a home run. Yeah, look, you know what I'd like to do. I'd probably like this like send you all of my send you all the stuff that I do, so you
Read it and see it and have that. Okay, here's a life conversation of how Rob lives and runs his life optimization. Then send you all of my business stuff, including my machine method and how I run my businesses through a discovery diligence build. Scare launch and scale phase. And Mike have been core capabilities of business and brand product marketing sales. Like you have a new product coming out. Yeah.
This is this is your deck.
Graham. No, it's not. It's just so I can build businesses. Efficiently and consistently, you know what this morning. I told my, you know, my head of media. I said look, I think I'm going to come up with a Drake equation for business. And are you guys familiar with the Drake equation? You know, the Drake equation is essentially the probability of intelligent life inside the universe, right? And to me, I do believe that there's an equation that I'm, I can put through Market through founder, experience, founder age, like, all these different things that add up.
To a probability number on this company that I'm about to create with this person's potential successes, and it's because I've pointed my Mastery towards. I want to master curating individuals and ideas and building them into sustainable profitable acquirable businesses. And I just get better and better at every single one that I build because that Master, he's going in a single Direction. So my depth of knowledge and Building Company is getting so
Wide, which in turn is doing what? It's making me more intuitive. I can have a five-minute conversation with the potential founder until all. Their holes know that they're a more operated minded like product person. Like, not a brand person. Doesn't understand. Marketing doesn't understand media. Oh, it's a financial mind that understands product. Oh, it's a brand mind. And product person that doesn't understand operations or marketing, our finances, for sure. Like, you become, you're driving yourself. If you want to save energy.
Become extraordinarily intuitive, right? Like that's where your Mastery shows itself. So I digress where I would we could, we could do a live show in a business show. You know, I'm in town. I think they're very similar, dude. This is so good. I'm so thankful that you came on. Thank you so much. We're going to do this again. I hope I hopefully, you'll do it but we're in. Do it. Yeah. Yeah. This is gonna be
our pleasure. Thank you so much for
coming on. Okay, all the best. Now, cool.
I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to put my all in it like a day's travel never looking back.
