You Cant Afford To Be Poor with Shaahin Cheyene

Good day, fellas. Welcome to Uncensored advice for men. This show is for you guys. Love you. This has been a lot of fun. Interviewed pastors, p*** stars, everything in between. I love conversations where guys challenge me. Just even on the initial pre recording and conversation prior to hitting record, this guy challenged me right off the bat. One of the things he said, you got to stand for something nowadays and want to talk with him about it. Hey, dude, welcome to the show, man. 

 Thanks for having me on, man. I'm super psyched. 

 Yeah. All right, so tell us about who you are for hanging out, and I introduced you to one of my friends. Who are you? 

 That's always a tricky one because I don't really believe in networking. As my friend Ken Ratawski with Metal says, you don't want to network. You want to connect with people. I always look at who I'm speaking to first and what I want the outcome of that interaction to be, and that will basically guide what I'm telling them about me. If you're an entrepreneur or, like a lot of my buddies are Cheryl entrepreneurs, you'll have lots of things that you've done, and you never want to be the f****** guy that's potpourri at a party or at someone's house. Their brains f****** blow up. Right? You want to be very specific and targeted. In this case, I'll let you guys know. My name is Shane Shannon. I'm a serial entrepreneur. Started a company when I was 15. By the time I was in my late teens, early 20s, we created over a billion dollars in revenue. 

 I did it through this pill called herbal ecstasy. I've written a book about it called Billion how I Became King of the Thrill cults. Become a best seller. We had a film coming out about it, and now I help coach people and train people on how to create recurring streams of revenue so that you can make money without doing the most rookie mistake that any of us make, and that's selling your hours for money. You're never going to get rich on your hours for money. And that's what I try to do. I try to coach people, inspire people, bring people up and teach them how to create these recurring streams of revenue so you have your money working for you, not the other way around. 

 Yeah. Now, I grew up on a construction site, swinging hammers, digging ditches in Florida. Hot, right? I got my PhD posthole digger, and I've earned that. I was trading dollars for my hours and my muscles. Right. You say that this is the biggest mistake you see guys facing. It is hard as h*** to move away from that. Like, what have you experienced in your own journey of how you started to learn not to do that? 

 Right. So you got to make a decision. You and I talked about this before. The thing the first thing you got to figure out is what do you stand for and who are you? Many people in this world, in this life, just don't f****** stand for anything. Right. Do you want to go left or right? I don't know. There is nothing that they believe in. There's nothing that they go after. That's the first step, is self knowledge. Right. They said one of the great things at the Temple of Delphi that they found engraved on the wall was know thyself. Right? Know thyself is one of the most profound things ever. Because a lot of people listening to this and I don't mean to put it wrong, because I suck at a lot of things, just suck. You f****** suck, and you're a loser. So okay, what's wrong with that? 

 Nothing's wrong with that as long as it. Because once it, there's something we can do about it. When you don't know that you're a loser, when you don't know that you suck, there's nothing you can do. Moreover, all this wokeness and the culture that we're in now wants you to feel that it's okay. I was listening to the CEO of Ford, Chris Farley. Awesome dude. Or Jim Farley. Forgive me. He's Chris Farley's distant cousin. I think he's one of the best CEOs out there. Real alpha guy. He said, Ford, we're doing better now because we've got all these EVs coming up, but second place is first loser. And I thought that was so profound. That's one of his, like, MeMobile sayings that he put out there. The CEO of one of America's great car makers. Some history says that you think, man, that goes against what they're teaching you in popular culture right now, that everybody's okay, that everything's okay, that you can just show up and that's good enough, and who you are is just enough, and it's f****** bullshit. 

 Because the fact is, we live in a predatory world, and you got to f****** make that choice, right? Look, we need people to drive the trains and drive the buses and clock in and clock out and do that. There will always be an abundance of people who do that. If you're the kind of person who feel that you have some untapped potential. Who feels like. 

 Hey. 

 Man. I want to make an impact in this world. And I'm a leader. I'm an alpha. I do it because that's who I am. You got to get to know yourself. You got to make that decision that you want to do better. You will never get ahead working for anybody else. If you've noticed in your life that you're unemployable like I am, I've held hundreds of jobs. Very f****** poorly. Very poorly. I am the worst employee ever. If you realize that you are unemployable and look, there's nothing wrong with working that construction job until you get on your feet, until you create that recurring revenue, until you create your empire, it's okay. I have all the respect in the world for people that are working. Men that go out there, they bust their a******, they feed their families, and they take care of themselves. Who I speak to is entrepreneurs and people who want to raise the bar. 

 If you want to do that, you can't f****** sell your hours. Just not going to happen. 

 Yeah. Super cool. This message of you suck, it's not okay. 

 Wake up. 

 You woke, right? That's not very popular, right? Like, that's Polarizing. I'm sure you get some fun hate mail. How's that going for you? 

 Yeah, so, look, I trained martial arts. I've done since I was 13. This is one of the interesting things. What I love about martial arts, particularly Brazilian jiu jitsu that I've gotten into in the last six, seven years, is that there are no liars on the map. What does that mean? You can watch all the YouTube videos in the world. Gracie this. Gracie that. UFC this. Think you're a real bad a** when you get on the mat with another dude and it's just your physical capability against that other guy. Or you get in the ring and you put on those gloves and you going against that other guy. It doesn't matter how much you puff your chest out. It doesn't matter how badass you think you are. At the end of the day, like Bruce Lee said, truth is found in combat, and business, as in martial arts, is exactly the same. 

 My answer is I don't give a f***. I don't care. It doesn't matter. I've made my money. There's very little that you can do to me now. I have a unique circumstance that my wife is a publicist, so she bought, and she's much more conservative than I am as far as, like, the things I say and do. She absolutely doesn't like a lot of the things I say. But you know what? I feel like if you come at something and anything that you do, if you're coming to that thing, you have to come with authenticity, and I don't have any belief structures that are unshakeable. I believe that I'm malleable and learnable. If something comes along in the world and changes my belief of how the world is, I'm willing to change, I'm willing to learn. Until that point, I'm going to come authentically, just like I'm coming to your podcast. 

 Authentically. This is who I am. 

 Super cool. All right, so I'm 58 174. I wrestled in high school, 119. All right, so I gained a good the freshman 15. No, I got the freshman 50. I'm still pretty fit, however. What are your stats? Where are you standing at? 

 I'm 510 and like yeah, you're leaner. 

 Than me, taller than me. 

 Okay, cool. 

 If we're on a mat, BJJ style and we're facing off, what's one of your you're kind of meeting me in on the mat with you. What's one of your techniques? What's your go to strategy? If you've never seen me fight, you've never seen me go at it. How do you typically start out? A rolling right. 

 Brazilian jujitsu, for anybody who doesn't know, is a grappling martial art, and it was popularized by the Gracie family in Brazil. It's interesting because it doesn't involve any punches or kicks or anything like that. So I'm still pretty beginner. Right. I've only been doing it six or seven years. I mean, I know guys have been doing 2030 years. They're black belts. That's not me. My general strategy is going to be to see what the other guy gives you and to be able to go in without any preconceived ideas about what I'm going to do, because that's not going to work in business, too. We can go, bro. We got to make 5 million this month. Cool. How do we have two? Well, we're selling this thing for, like, a million bucks. We just need to get five customers. Let's go. It's bullshit. It doesn't work. 

 You got to go out there, and you've got to see what comes to you, see what the other guy does, see what your opponent does in that case, and see what opportunities available to so I'm older, so I'm probably much older than you. I'm 47. How old are you? 

 41. 

 41. 40. 

 I'm not even 41 yet. Over 40, you just forget s***, right? 

 I don't know. I feel like I'm in the best shape of my life at 47. Actually, I spent my teens and twenties, although I did train some martial arts. It wasn't really working out until I got older. I wish I was, but now I feel like I'm in the best shape of my life. At the end of the day, you got to go out there. Really, one of my instructors told me this is that the opponent isn't the guy across from you. It's really you. You're trying to improve yourself. Whatever that guy's doing, that's what that guy is doing, right? You're going to put your 100%, you're going to do your best. Also, at my age, I'm not out there going aggressive with these guys trying to kill people. I'm out there trying to learn and improve myself and just get a couple of points better each time, really. 

 That's kind of the lens that I look at it with. Most people think when they look at fighting, I mean, you've had sounds like a deep experience in rapping and martial arts, but most people who don't or who don't really know how to fight think that it's like, okay, you go in there, you throw it all, you give all your stuff. It's not really like that. You don't really go in there all aggressive. You go in there to learn. The guy there is also trying to learn, and it's more about flow than it is about just raw aggression. 

 Yeah. On the mat, right. The mat doesn't lie. You might get a ref call or whatever, but typically the matt doesn't lie. What I love about the mat is you learn a lot about the opponent, but you learn a lot about yourself as well. One of your messages is know thyself. Now, let's keep it on the map for . What have you learned? 47. 

 Yeah, 47. 

 47 years old. What have you learned on the mat that shocked you, that you're like, holy s***, I didn't know this about me? 

 Yeah, I think the main thing is that you can tolerate a lot more before you tap than you think you can. In the early days, I would tap really fast because I was scared I'd be like, oh, s***, this guy's going to do this. This guy is going to do that. Now I've learned to just calm down and breathe. It takes a lot to make a dude make you pass out, and you must have really f***** up and got yourself in a bad position before that could happen. A lot of times, like, you're going with a guy that's younger than you, that's got more aggression than you, got more testosterone than you, he's in better shape. He goes to the gym all day. He doesn't have a family. That's all he does. He goes to the gym, he comes in, and that dude gets you in a compromised position, and he's just yanking and pulling and stressing. 

 You can remain cool under that type of pressure. You probably will tire him out. I guess the biggest lesson is that it's not just about you, but it's also about understanding your opponent's weakness, too, and being able to capitalize on that. Same in business. Same in business. 

 Yeah. Super cool. All right, so this idea of knowing thyself, you suck, and it's not okay. The first step, you said, is what? In identifying this, right? 

 Yeah. First you got to identify you got to realize that you suck. Because, look, most people don't like friction, and I hate to say it, but most men and a lot of women don't like confrontation or conflict. Unless somebody is your true friends and they answer you honestly, or someone in your family, they answer you honestly. Most people will just f****** lie to you because they don't feel like dealing. If you're like, dude, do I say no, you're great. You're the best. 

 You did awesome. 

 You're so awesome, man. People will say that. Why? Because it's easier. They don't want to get into it with you. They, hey, maybe if they tell you the truth, you might not be able to handle it's. Just like your girlfriend is like, do these pants make me look fat? Different answer. By the way, guys, the answer is always no to that one. 

 But great. 

 You look great. Absolutely amazing, right? You might still get s*** for that too, but with another dude, you need people around you. This is the great thing about interpersonal relationships, is that your friends, your true friends, act as a mirror. If you tell them, hey, I'm not going to be mad. I got thick skin, I can handle it, please tell me how you think about this or that. You can get a true gauge of your a** wholeness of how f****** much you suck at something and maybe learn about some of the things that you're good at. Once you have a true gauge of that stuff. Or you can do a lot of self reflection, which is the other way, then you can do something about it. Until you know that, until the point where you know that you suck at something, there's no coming out of that. 

 There's people who are living their life thinking they're f****** amazing and missing every shot, every time. That's why you see people that are absolute, complete failures. 

 Yeah. Giving a friend permission to be real with you, it's a challenge, I think, for a lot of guys. Now, let me just go open kimono for a second. I say it like this, open Kimono, cold, wet day. If people are still hanging around, they still like the short white guy, then we're still buddies after that, right? With that, man, I am a people pleaser. I love people, right? Like, God created me to love people, built popular, whatever bullshit, right? It's like, I want people to know, like, trust me, respect me. That's got me into a massive amount of issues. Now, as I get older and hopefully a little wiser and I've gone bankrupt, I've been on food stamps, I've gone through the s*** of life that I never want to go back to. Now I would prefer a friend that go, hey, dude, you got a Google in your nose. 

 Hey dude, your flies down. Hey, man, you really suck at this. Why are you spending so much time doing that? I would prefer friends that will go, Josh, I love you. What I'm about to say is going to be tough. How do you have that in your world and how can other guys get that? 

 Look, I think as a man, you got to spend a lot of time around men just to have that kind of energy. Look, if you're a single dude, you should be dating and doing all that stuff, whatever you're into. For the most part, I believe that having true male friends that are there for you and building those relationships is critical. When you have that, when you do those this you do those bonding things, you do those masculine things, then that just comes naturally, right? Guys that are close to each other will talk about that kind of stuff and then you can create this space for that kind of communication to be okay. The problem is, as you get older, it gets harder to build relationships and people get families and they have little time for that, so you got to make time for that. I do a guy's trip like twice a year with six or seven buddies, and we go somewhere oftentimes Mexico City or we go to Tulum or we go somewhere because I'm in La. 

 It's nearby and we'll do sweat lodges. We'll do different types of experiences that are like bonding experiences. It's in those times, especially when you're traveling with somebody, that you really get to know them and then you can ask, hey, man, what about this? What about that? 

 Yeah, super cool. So what have you learned about yourself? Like, if we go back in time to your 15 years old, you're like, I've been building businesses and crushed it. Billion dollars here and this and that. Deck a millionaire. You look back and if you had to look at your life and go, this is an area that I sucked at, that I really had to overcome, and it was tough as h*** to do. 

 So, yeah, I'm a terrible HR person. I don't at all. 

 You suck, Billy. 

 I totally suck at that, believe me. I still haven't improved. Actually, all my employees and my management and my companies now, they know not to let me around employees because people just end up quitting or getting fired because I am a very demanding boss. Also when you are at the top of the company, it's always better to have a filter between you and the employees just to keep them running because my level of expectation is so high and it can better managed through a zookeeper. I think that's probably like my biggest thing. In the beginning, at the height of verbal ecstasy, I had over 200 employees, we had done over a billion dollars in revenue, and I would be hiring and firing people by the dozens every day. I just realized that is not a job that I should be doing. That is not a problem that I should be solving. 

 The things that I'm very good at meeting products, creating story, selling and spotting trends and capitalizing on those trends have nothing to do with those skill sets. What I learned primarily through skills like GTD, David Allen's Getting Things Done, is that I need to be able to delegate away the things that I'm not great at to open bandwidth or the things that I am. 

 Yeah, dude, that's so awesome. All right, so friends are mirrors, you said earlier on, and you and I are hanging out, having a cocktail or higherwasa or doing something crazy in a sweat lodge or whatever the case, but you look at me and you go, josh, you suck at Boom because I gave you permission. I go, Bro, love you, man. Speaking of my life, I want to improve and I want to get better. You say, Josh, you suck at this. Now I've got a decision. I can do s***. I could do nothing and go, okay, cool, thanks. I get offended and cry or whatever, which might happen, but I could also go, I'm going to improve upon this, or I'm going to delete it from my life or delegate it out. How do you go about choosing how you respond once you're made aware of a weakness? 

 Yeah, so, look, I think the first part of that is evaluation. So you want to evaluate it. Maybe if it's something that is a big deal for you want to get a couple pieces of feedback, not just one, right? Because that person might not know s*** about that. And that happens sometimes. If there is something to it, then you just have to become a process ninja, and it becomes a project. Like anything. Once you look at things from a standpoint of everything as a project, you build systems out for everything. You do what again, what David Allen teaches in getting things done is you decide what the next actionable step is, and then you move forward, right? You're either going to delegate it, you're going to take action on it, or you're going to do nothing and file it away or someday, maybe or later, time in life. 

 Once you can make everything a project and you move through it, like I said, like this ninja, then that stuff is very manageable because you break it down into manageable steps and you just take location. What's the very next action that I need to do on this? Some things that you might not use. The next location might be wait, that could be it. 

 Yeah. Super cool. I love hearing how people approach their own weaknesses in self revelation. Like, oh s***, maybe I'm not good at this. Maybe I am. Should I focus on my strengths, my weaknesses? A lot of people could get like really spun out and then you wind up doing nothing, right, except stress about it. I'd love hearing your thoughts on that. Let me ask you a question, man. You're in the Far West, right? In a place called California. You talk about woke, you talk about alpha, you talk about being a man. I would say California is known for being more liberal versus maybe the Deep South where I am. Right. How do you approach I'm trying to be like really kind here to the world because I want us to all like this shows for men and I get hate mail just because it's a show for men. 

 Right? 

 So how do you approach this? Where people are going, no alpha is toxic or this or that? What does a healthy freaking man look like? I'm trying to figure that out. 

 Yeah, look, I think that's maybe partially stereotypical of California where we do have that kind of woke stereotype and it is more common here than I think, other parts of the country. In general, you've got a lot of people that are more conservative. You've got a lot of people that are in the middle and you've got a whole bunch of people that don't really fit in any of those boxes. They check something. They're conservative about some things and liberal about other things. Maybe they have their kids home school, but they like to party. There's so many different levels of that. I think one thing that's happened with recent politics is that the country has become so polarized that it almost makes you feel like, man, in order to belong, you got to pick one thing and then subscribe to everything that one side believes. And that's really just not the case. 

 California, I think, is one of the most beautiful state I believe it's one of the most beautiful states in the country. We've got great beaches, we've got amazing people. It's a great place to do business. There's problems here like everywhere else, like the homeless problem. But that's not unique to California. We've got that all over the country. I guess to the first part of your question, I love California and there's other parts of the country that are f****** awesome too. Like Florida is incredible. Texas is incredible. There's all kinds of places that are amazing. I've got a special place in my heart for California because it's kind of where I came up and my family's here and I enjoyed it here. I could see any of those other place. Dude, we've got one of the biggest martial arts communities here in California. We've got a lot of the best men's groups here in California and I really need some of the best people here. 

 I'm psyched about it here, but again, I'm malleable. I'm not tied to anything. We do have homes in other places and we travel to all kinds of places, and especially Florida. I like Florida too. 

 Yeah, I love Florida as well. Yeah, you choose right here. We're going to go red pill, blue pill. You get to choose the path of this conversation as we're unfolding this because number one, I love hearing your thoughts on this and it's super cool to meet you. Option A, we could go toxic first, Alpha. We could dig into that more of when does Alpha become toxic? Or maybe toxic. Is this toxic masculinity? Maybe it's a bunch of bullshit, right? So that's kind of option one. Option two, I think one of the things you said is guys have to be financially independent, and that's a passion for you. You got to make money, you got to be a producer, you got to be a hustler. Which would you rather talk about? 

 Yes, we can go either direction. Look, I come from a third world country. I come from Iran. I was born in Iran. That country is built around the family structure like most Middle Eastern cultures do. When you look at it from a family cultural standpoint, they are patriarchal, as 99% of the world is. It's worked f****** beautifully since the dawn of mankind. Now, with that said, there are certain provisions so that everybody within the family structure feels respected. You look at that kind of thing from a Western standpoint and they got red pill and all these different areas, a lot of times what's missing from that is kind of these cultural details that has really worked over the course of all these years. Right? Looking at it from that standpoint, if you ask somebody from one of these cultures, middle Eastern cultures, Asian cultures, any of these, oh, what do you think of this? 

 What do you think of that? They would be like, well, of course, right. That's the way that they wouldn't understand the meaning of toxic masculinity or any of that. Because we've been the hunters since the dawn of time. We've been the protector since the dawn of time. It's just what we do. And you can't change that. You can change your opinion on it from a cultural context, but you can't change the nature of humanity. And that's just my opinion. I think that there's a cultural tone to that. At the end of the day, where I think we should focus on is just f****** improving ourselves, like you're saying. The best way to do that is to make more f****** money. You do team chat, solves a whole lot of f****** problems, man. I have this thing I wrote about in my book, Billion how I Became King of the Thrill, called the Audible. 

 Book is available too, on Audible, where I. Talk about how I survived for my first five years of business. That was by having this thing called suicide margins. I was producing these pills for $25 a unit and selling them for like, $20 a unit. And it was a cash business. This was pre Internet. All sales were direct, so were making that kind of margin. I could afford to make mistakes. When a big mistake was made, I just made more money. Government sues you, no problem. Throw money at it. You're getting other lawsuits from other competitors, no problem. Throw money at it. As long as you have enough money. You can solve most business problems with money. A good friend of mine says he taught me this. He said that if you can throw money at a problem, it's not really a problem. I think as men, our goals should be to improve ourselves. 

 You can't do it if you're a broke a** m***********. It's just like you and I were talking about right now, about how the truth is found in combat. It's the same when you go take a look at your bank account. If you don't have enough zeros in there, you're f****** broke. As if you can't just take off and do what you want, when you want, who you want, how you want. You don't have that freedom. That's what fu money is. Fu money is I don't care. I don't care if somebody watches this podcast and cancels me. It doesn't matter to me. My businesses will still keep making money. My family will still love me. I'll still have the amazing lifestyle that I have. It doesn't really matter because I am financially independent to do that. That number could be different for everybody, which is why I encourage people to create recurring streams of revenue. 

 One of the best ways to do now is on Amazon, which is I teach people how to do and we can talk about that later, but does that take you down the right path? I feel like I took you down across roads again. 

 Well, I think you kind of did. Two birds, 1 st there. You shared your view culturally and your views on men, but you also talk about money. And you say money is the solution. Money is a way to fix a lot of freaking problems, right? We can make more money, and it could solve a lot of problems. There are some things that you cannot throw money at. Let's start there. What things can money not fix? 

 Well, I think most interpersonal family problems can't be fixed. You can't really buy friends. You can try, but you can't buy loyalty. You can build a foundation for loyalty with money. You can't buy loyalty. I think those would be some things that money can't fix. If you, for example, have a disloyal person in your midst, that person isn't going to be fixed with any amount of money because who they are is disloyal. You can't change people in that way. People's true nature can't be changed by money. Money is really just an amplifier. 

 Can'T change people. Most of it has to do with people. At what point when you have F U money, right? F*** you, money. Here, I've got this. Look at my briefcase, right? I got it. Part of it saying, I don't care what the recourse is. If people don't watch this podcast show or they cancel both you and me. If they cancel, by the way, if they do cancel me, I have another show ready to rock and roll, and it's about being canceled, so I'm just going to go out and love it. The part of being rich is so you don't have to worry so much about people. Yet money can't fix interpersonal relationships can't fix people. It kind of gets you in a, yes, money solves these problems, but I got to work on these problems, people. You got to kind of work on simultaneous. 

 Am I feeling that? 

 Yeah. Look, don't get me wrong. Being rich is the greatest thing. It's so f****** fun. There's nothing I rented a yacht over the weekend and took ten people out on the ocean and just paid for everything. And it was f****** amazing. It was glorious. You can do these kinds of things. We travel all over the world. We stayed at a $10 million mansion on the beach in Tulum. We do these amazing things because we have this financial freedom. It's f****** great. I've been poor, I've been broke, I've been way down and up, right? And being rich is way more fun. Things that are problems for other people and they won't tell you this because it sounds obnoxious, rich people won't tell you this really aren't that much problems for rich people. Things you think might be problems for you might not be problems for rich people. 

 Even health is another one that to some level, you can really solve most problems if you're rich. When covet was going around in most countries, we're still in the time of covet. When covet was going around really bad, most countries, rich people weren't freaking out. Why? Because they knew they had access to private hospitals, private medicine. They had all the new pills that were coming out, right? It was the poor people that really had the issues. I say this often, this is one of my favorite quotes from my book, is that I feel that the greatest injustice that you can do to yourself in America is to be poor. I cannot afford to be poor. Poor is way more expensive than being rich. Look, I hang around with lots of millionaires, a couple of billionaires, all kinds of celebrities, and those are not the people that are paying a premium for things. 

 Everybody wants to give you something when you're rich. When you're rich, people give you, oh, here, man, go stay in my beach house. Here's the keys to my Porsche. Here. Hey, you drive a Ferrari 48? Here you go. Check it out. Come to dinner. You come to dinner. They comp the whole meal, right? Rich people aren't paying for all that stuff. It's the poor people that pay and suffer. Being poor is very expensive, and you don't want to be poor in America. You get worse health care, you get worse access to resources, and you pay more for freaking everything. 

 Comedian Daniel Tash says, money can't buy you happiness. Just kidding. He said, have you ever saw someone frowning on a jet ski? He goes, it doesn't happen. I have seen, and I'd love to hear thoughts on this. I have seen people who only chase money and they're lonely. I have some friends that are worth a lot of money, and they don't have a strong network. They don't have a lot of friends. They have one. 

 I'll tell you this, chasing anything, be it money or tail or whatever it is in general a bad idea. I teach this to my Amazon Mastery students. I teach this to the people that I coach. Really? You want to become a decision architect? And this is the truth in sales. It's the truth to mastering sales and being able to sell anything to anybody at any time. The fact is that if you going out there in the world and trying to push stuff down people's strokes, you are going to be at a disadvantage organically, naturally, from the get go. You want to become a decision architect and create a path where people will pick up crumbs that you leave and be led to a path wanting to make a decision, believing that it was their idea to make that vision in the first place. If you look at people that are successful in any industry that entails or that involves persuasion, you will understand this as a fact. 

 So what do we do? We don't do push marketing. We do pull marketing. We build authority. One of the great things about being on podcasts like this, and I have an agency where now we get people on great shows just like this one called Podcast Cola. Anybody wants to check us out, check out Podcastcola.com, where we talk about building authority. One of the key elements of influence, what you want to do is you want to build yourself up as an authority in whatever product or service that you're in. And then people will come to you. People always want to come to the guy that's the expert that knows the most about any specific industry. At the end of the day, that's really what you want to do. You want to pull people to you, right? The guys that are going out in the clubs, like the old school, pick up artists that are like, hey, so how's your day going? 

 What's your number? Okay. I got 50 numbers, right? They're, like, pushing themselves down people's strokes. There's one dude holding court in the corner, and he's got, like, 50 chicks with them. That's the difference between pull and push marketing. People are intrigued by that guy. Who is that guy sitting in the corner? What's he doing? Let me go meet that guy. And they come to him. And then you get your pick. You get your choice. Similar with selling, with prospects, with leads, with all that stuff, right? You want to intrigue people. You want to leave bread crumbs, and you want to drive them to you. And when they come, it's their idea. 

 Yeah, it's the young bull, old bull. Right? Scenario. A few books that come to mind as a potential resource. I don't know if you've read them. Robert Galdani's book The Influence. Great book on building influence. And then or in class. Book on flip the script. I think it was him who wrote that. Talk about how to help people make a decision, and then it's their idea, right? 

 I talked to Audio the other day. Cool. 

 Super cool. Tell him I'm a huge fan. His first book, Pitch Anything, was just phenomenal. Second book was pretty good. First book pitch anything was really good. Pitch into the croc brain. Just super cool. What are some resources? You got a book actually, let's do this. Give a shout out to your book, your podcast show, as a resource for my guest. 

 Yeah. Any guys that are interested, check it out. I think I make all of $0.99 for every book that you buy. So it is very lucrative. It's called billion. How I became King of the Throw poke cult. It's out now. Amazon audible. Check it out. Leave me a terrible review or leave me a great review. It doesn't matter as long as you're talking about me. And we have a show. I do a weekly show with my co host, Barbie. I think we're up to close to about 100,000 subscribers right now. We had close to 50,000 downloads of the last show, which was pretty awesome. So check us out. We're on YouTube. Stitcher spotify. It's called hack and grow rich. So check that out. If you guys are interested in being booked on podcasts similar to just, like, this one, check out Podcastcola.com. 

 Yeah. I love it, man. As we're going through this interview, I'm getting to know you better, and I like your style, right? You stand for something. You're bold about it. Here's your time to maybe encourage us, of guys out there, because there's some guys that need to reclaim their boldness. They need to reclaim what they stand for. They need to be able to say, this is what I believe. Right? What's some baby steps that you can maybe baby steps is the wrong freaking idea. Maybe it's just like, what advice do you have for us? 

 Yeah. Or just f****** quit. Right? If you look at yourself and you're like, you suck, and you're okay with it, just f****** quit, man. There's no point in continuing because I see people all the time. It's okay. You can have a normal job, work nine to five, come home, complain about your boss, go to a party where you standing around, people are like, what are you doing? You're like and you make some uncomfortable joke because you f****** hate your job so much because you're on that f****** hamster wheel. And then you get fat. Kids get fat. Everyone's f****** fat and standing around hating their jobs, hating their life. That's okay, because there's a good portion of the country in the world that's like that. If you want to be somebody who creates an impact in the world, somebody who gets more and creates more, somebody who's a giver and not just a taker in the world, then you have to f****** stand for something. 

 You have to have an opinion. You have to believe in something. It's okay if it f****** changes, but you have to go out there and who are you? What is the philosophy of you? What is the religion of you? That's all I care about. I don't care what you are. Black, white, green, blue, gay, straight, whatever those things are. Republican, Democrat, liberal, none of that s*** matters. What matters is, what do you believe in and why do you believe in it? Have a f****** opinion. Stand for something. Because if you don't make those decisions, somebody else will, and you might not f****** like what they decide for you. 

 Yeah. I love this man. Now, you've mentioned you've said this a hundred times, like, who am I? I have a tattooed on my freaking arm. Because I was thinking about offering myself because I couldn't figure that out, and it was a really hard journey, and that's one of the reasons we have the show, is to help other guys find themselves. Right? Stand for something. Know yourself. This is really cool, man, and I appreciate that. I got a few more questions, but we are running out of time. Let's do this. Where could people go to connect with you? There's a dude in the audience that goes, look, man, I need help. I want to get off this rat race. I'm fat. Everybody's fat around me, and I want to change, and I need your help, especially around money. Where you guys go to connect with you? 

 Yeah. Reach out to me. I'm happy to have a conversation. I've got my Amazon course now, which is launched. Look, I've got a 1 hour course. It's normally $200 for those guys. I'm just going to give it to you for free. If you mention Josh Wilson, or should we make it the podcast title? 

 Yeah, just say Josh or whatever. Or they could just reach out to me and I'll give them the link. We could put it in the show notes, or they could say Josh podcast. Who cares? 

 Yeah. Reach out to me by email, guys. We just want to help. Is Darkzest@gmail.com. That's Darksess@gmail.com. That's my direct email. I respond to all Gmail directly. I've never missed one yet. It might take me a little while to get back to you, but I will get back to you. I'll give you the 1 hour Amazon course for free. So there's no obligation, no credit card. I'll get that to you to get you going. If you want to connect with me, fire off an email to me and I'm happy to help out. Again, if you guys want to learn more about my story, check out the book billion how I Became King of the Throw Poke Call. 

 That's super cool. We'll put that in the show notes. But Darkzess Gmail@gmail.com? What is Darkz? Where did you come up with that name? 

 Oh, it's just easy to remember so people don't forget. It's Darksess@gmail.com. 

 Super cool. 

 Yeah. 

 Here's a few questions right as we're going through this, man. You made a few money, we got the briefcase, and you could do what you want. You just rented a yacht. What keeps you going? Like, why build all these courses? Why write another book? Why create another product? Why jump on podcast? Why are you working? 

 The biggest problem is I can't stop doing s***. And I've really tried. I'm one of those guys who, like, the first four days sitting on the beach and being served food is, like, f****** great. After that, I'm like, okay, what's f****** next? Let's go on an adventure. Let's do something. I'm going crazy here, right? I think part of it is wanting to make an impact in the world. I think you don't stop when you enjoy what you do. Why would I stop just because I've got enough money? I like making the impact. I think that's one of the critical parts. I would say it's impact being able to do cool s*** and really being able to see that change that I'm making. When somebody takes my Amazon course, for example, and goes, dude, I was broke. I was driving Uber. I realized I was selling my hours and I started this business. 

 And now look at me. I'm on the beach in the Dominican, just chilling with my beautiful wife and my kids. While we're sitting here on the beach, someone's buying our s*** on Amazon. We're making money. That's f****** awesome, right? I love that feeling in the product sense. I love when I create a product. I've created over 300 products in my lifetime, including being the inventor of modern digital vaporization. When I see people using one of my products. I'm like, F***, that's a great feeling. You can't duplicate that. 

 Yeah. Super cool. Few personal questions. If I were to look at your phone and find over the past 20 years, you've had the same phone, the most common song you've played over the past 20 years, it keeps popping up on your playlist. What's your favorite song? 

 Oh, dude, there's so many. But I'd say maybe Bob Marley's. I'm going to go with get up. Stand up. I think that's appropriate for our show today, too. I think Bob Marley's get upstand up. 

 Cool. If your house caught on fire, all the people, animals, all living heartbeats got out safely, but you could run in and grab one possession, a material possession or something that's meaningful to you, what would you grab to get out, man? 

 I'm not such a materialist, but okay. So, like, one thing that's inside the house, not parked inside my driveway. 

 Yeah, that's right. 

 Probably my laptop. 

 Just grabbed the laptop. 

 I think I grabbed my laptop. Yeah, it's very practical. It's f****** boring. I'm sure you want me to say, like, some amazing maybe I'd take him. That's 150 year old African fetish that somebody brought from Belgium, I collect African art, so maybe I take that guy. He's come with me everywhere. 

 You're taking the statue. That's super cool. During this interview, there's probably, like, a question that I should have asked you, right? Or something that's super important to you that you wish someone would ask you. 

 What is that, man? Something that somebody would ask me? I think we covered most of the questions that I usually wish that somebody asked me. I guess that's a tricky one. I think we really covered most of it. I think maybe what's the thing that you're most proud of? I guess, would be that person. 

 Out of all your years, suitcase full of money, yacht, $10 million, visits on the beach, what are you most proud of? 

 My family. That is, of course, the number one family first, always. My son and my wife and our life together is probably one of the greatest gifts that I have. That has nothing to do with money. That's just us being awesome and living this awesome life together. I love watching my boy grow up to be a little man. Super fun. I think that's the greatest thing that you can do as a man. One of the most inspiring things to raise other men. 

 Right? 

 Yeah. 

 Super cool. One last time, where can people go to connect with you? I think it's a Gmail, so why don't you spit that out one more time? 

 Yeah, just email me. It's darksess. Darksess@gmail.com. Use the code Josh Wilson in the subject heading, and I'll send you the 1 hour Amazon course for free. If you're interested in being featured on podcasts to build through authority, check out podcastcola.com. Our podcast is Hack and grow rich. If you want to read more about my story, how I created over a billion dollars in revenue, check out Billion how I became King of the Thrill Pill Cult. Get the audiobook. Listen to it while you're in the bathroom or at the gym. 

 Shower. I want you to listen to your voice while in the shower. There you go. Well, cool. Guys, thanks for listening in on this podcast. If you are working on something that you need some help with, as always, reach out to our guests directly and just say, hey, man, I need help. If you have something to give some advice or some encouragement for us guys, head. 

 uncensored advice for men. Quick form and we'll get you on the show. The mission and purpose of the show is to lift up. Dudes. We love you guys. Talk to you all on the next episode. See you guys. Bye.