Shaq & Alex Hormozi Teach You How to Actually Get Rich
A 100-minute dinner-table roundtable where an NBA legend, a nine-figure operator, a finance YouTuber, a comedian and a deal advisor trade money stories, trust frameworks and brand lessons over takeout chicken.
Posted
3 days ago
Duration
Format
Interview
comedic-rant
Views
223.5K
3.8K likes
57 · 43
Big Idea
The argument in one line.
Wealth follows from trades you make on purpose, trust you earn through repeated chances to betray, and a brand built on real proof, not from motivation, hacks or fame alone.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
You already follow Hormozi or Graham Stephan and want their mental models in a looser, conversational setting rather than a polished lecture.
You're building a business or audience and want concrete frameworks on trust, deal-making and brand associations you can test this week.
You want Shaq's personal money habits: saving 75 percent of every check, annuities as a fail-proof floor, and only endorsing products he actually uses.
You're a YouTuber or podcaster weighing consistency, comment-driven topics and real-world proof as your edge against AI-generated content.
SKIP IF…
You want a step-by-step investing or wealth-building plan; the title oversells it and the money talk is spread across stories and banter.
Crude comedy bothers you; long stretches are roast jokes, fart bits and edgy one-liners from the comedian at the table.
You only want Shaq; he doesn't arrive until about 62 minutes in.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
Five successful guests argue that getting rich is less about motivation and more about deliberate trades, earned trust and real proof. Motivation tracks deprivation, so being around wealthier people widens the gap that drives you. Every outcome is a trade paid in one of five currencies: money, relationships, time, skill or brand. Trust is making yourself punishable and watching someone decline to punish you, so you speed it up by rewarding disclosure and stacking those cycles. Brand is a bouquet of associations that one bad stem can ruin. Shaq adds the practical layer: save 75 percent, build a fail-proof floor with annuities, and never sell your name for a product you don't use.
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Host welcomes the table, teases Shaq's surprise appearance, and the comedian starts roasting immediately.
01:14 – 08:31
02 · What your younger self would be proud of
Hormozi on writing books and working holidays, Sharran ringing the NASDAQ closing bell, Graham's Pokemon sheet, and Hormozi's $100K 'richest I ever felt' plus being 'appetizer rich'.
08:31 – 11:17
03 · The raccoon, the Pop-Tarts and the dumpster
Sharran arrives in the US broke while a cashier's check clears, fights a raccoon for food in a dumpster, and returns 22 years later as commencement speaker.
11:17 – 21:23
04 · How to win on YouTube
Consistency and the viewer's perspective, replying to every comment, doing epic things and talking about them, reality as the edge over AI, and a brand-funded six-episode reality series.
21:23 – 24:04
05 · A half-billion exit that paid 50x less
Sharran learns about liquidation preferences and ratchets the hard way, then teaches tennis to Bill Gates and Richard Branson before business school.
24:04 – 28:53
06 · Deprivation, motivation and patience
Hormozi argues motivation is only visible after action and deprivation predicts it; being around wealth widens the gap. Patience is defined as what you do while you wait.
28:53 – 35:13
07 · Broke in LA and robbed by partners
Zach's ten-guy apartment, a $50,000 podcast ad pool stolen by a network CEO, and Hormozi waking up to an emptied bank account after a gym partnership.
35:13 – 39:49
08 · Three traits of high achievers and death as a frame
Superiority complex, fear of failure and impulse control; then cosmic irrelevance, the veteran's thousandth-time frame and 'worst case you die' as coping tools.
39:49 – 43:47
09 · Is happiness a worthy pursuit?
Happiness lives in the process; Sharran and Hormozi unpack Camus, absurdism and Sisyphus pushing the boulder as rebellion.
43:47 – 52:35
10 · Trades, deal currencies and the four-box of trust
No solutions, only trades; five things you can trade in a deal; asking 'what are you afraid of?'; trust defined as making yourself punishable, and how to build it faster.
52:35 – 58:24
11 · Five levels of relationship and talking money first
How Sharran and Hormozi met, the five conversation levels from people to money, giving others the gift of going second, and Graham's slow trust-building with partner Jack.
58:24 – 1:03:07
12 · Would you take success without fame?
Zach sees fame as door-opening trust; Hormozi explains why he gave up being the least influential influencer: fame is the fastest arbitrage of value creation. Shaq arrives.
1:03:07 – 1:04:59
13 · Sponsor: the Dinner Party challenge
Travis pitches hosting your own dinner, the loneliness stats and his free newsletter at travischappell.com/dinnerparty.
1:04:59 – 1:15:23
14 · Shaq on Google, integrity and the 25/75 rule
A hotel-lobby Google investment, refusing endorsements he doesn't believe in, 'we're not rich, I'm rich', saving 75 percent, annuities as a fail-proof floor, coaches who pushed his buttons, and friends versus associates.
1:15:23 – 1:20:49
15 · Brand as associations
Hormozi on his record book launch, brand defined as associations between something known and unknown, the bouquet analogy, and why most influencers lack influence.
1:20:49 – 1:32:01
16 · Building the Shaq brand
The dunk logo trademarked in college, humor as the edge for a big man in commercials, the adrenaline rush factor of DJing, his father's bridge lesson and buying his mother a house.
1:32:01 – 1:37:50
17 · Why everyone at the table podcasts
Shaq wants comedy or information, Graham uses it to meet people, Hormozi started his to document losing everything, and Sharran built a billion-dollar business on a daily show.
1:37:50 – 1:40:35
18 · Thank-yous and outtakes
Travis thanks each guest, then pre-show outtakes and table-setting banter.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
Your first $100,000 can feel richer than any later number because going from $1,000 to $100,000 is a hundredfold jump you'll rarely repeat.
Motivation can't be seen until after someone acts, so look at deprivation instead: people chase what they've gone without.
Spending time around people far wealthier than you widens the gap you can see, and that bigger gap is what fuels money motivation.
Patience isn't a feeling; it's what you choose to do while you wait instead of acting on the thing you're impatient about.
Viewers are bargain hunters for their time, so condensing 100 dates or 1,000 cold calls into 12 minutes is the value.
When AI can write every tactic list, the one thing it can't fake is that you actually did the thing you're talking about.
Treat the algorithm like salt: a little sharpens the headline and intro, but a dish that is all salt is ruined.
There are no solutions, only trades, and if you don't have what you want you were unwilling to pay some price along the way.
When money is off the table in a deal, you still have four other currencies to trade: relationships, time, skill and brand.
Ask the other side what they're afraid of, then write it into the contract; one recruit signed once his kid's college fund was guaranteed.
Trust is handing someone a weapon and betting they won't use it, and you can only observe it when betrayal is possible.
Punishment erases reward, so 12 trustworthy acts can be wiped out by a single betrayal on the 13th.
The fastest way to build trust with employees is to thank them for sharing a problem before you jump into solving it.
Relationships deepen in five levels, from talking about people to talking about money, and talking money early compresses years of trust.
Give others the gift of going second by sharing your own money loss first, so they don't have to take the first risk.
Shaq's rule from a rich stranger's napkin: of every $100, spend 25 and save 75 if you want to stay wealthy.
Build a fail-proof floor that pays even if every investment fails; Shaq parked endorsement money in annuities that start paying at 55.
Influence is earned by a long history of refusing to sell your reputation, which is why most paid influencers have little real influence.
A brand association can never be undone, only diluted into irrelevance by stacking many more good associations on top of it.
Friends tell you to stop when you're messing up; people who hand you more drinks are associates, no matter how close they seem.
Takeaway
Get rich through trades, trust and real proof
WHAT TO LEARN
Wealth comes from trades you choose on purpose, trust built through declined chances to betray, and a reputation you refuse to sell, backed by a savings floor that survives failure.
02What your younger self would be proud of
Your first $100,000 can be the richest you ever feel because it buys years of room to make mistakes on food and rent.
Being able to order appetizers, or tell family to get the steak, is a real wealth milestone worth noticing.
03The raccoon, the Pop-Tarts and the dumpster
Hard early setbacks, like going hungry while a tuition check clears, become the stories that later give your message credibility.
04How to win on YouTube
Make content from the viewer's chair: if you wouldn't watch it, change it, and let comments tell you what to make next.
Do something hard and real, then report it; compressing months of effort into minutes is the bargain viewers want.
Use algorithm tricks like salt on the headline and intro, but let real proof be the meat that gives you staying power.
05A half-billion exit that paid 50x less
Read every term sheet for liquidation preferences and ratchets; a half-billion-dollar exit can pay the founders 50 times less than expected.
06Deprivation, motivation and patience
Stop waiting to feel motivated; put yourself around people further ahead so the gap you see grows larger.
Treat patience as an action: fill the waiting time with useful work instead of acting on the urge to rush.
07Broke in LA and robbed by partners
Never hand a partner or network sole control of money owed to you; two guests lost everything right as cash arrived.
08Three traits of high achievers and death as a frame
Big vision, real fear of failure and impulse control together predict success better than any one of them alone.
When something hurts, ask how you'd feel the thousandth time it happened and choose that calmer reaction now.
09Is happiness a worthy pursuit?
Look for happiness in the daily process of the work, not in reaching the finish line.
Frame the endless grind as defiance, like Sisyphus, so the effort itself becomes the point.
10Trades, deal currencies and the four-box of trust
If you lack what you want, find the trade you refused to make, then decide whether that price is worth paying now.
When money can't close a deal, offer relationships, time, skill or brand, and ask the other side what they fear.
Reward disclosure instantly, never betray it, and stack many share-and-safe cycles to build trust far faster.
11Five levels of relationship and talking money first
Push relationships toward honest money talk early, and go first by sharing a real loss of your own.
Test new partners with small tasks and expand their role only after they deliver, step by step.
12Would you take success without fame?
Fame works as leverage when it brings warm inbound demand; treat attention as a business asset rather than vanity.
14Shaq on Google, integrity and the 25/75 rule
Save most of every big check, around 75 percent, and park part of it somewhere that pays even if every investment fails.
Only attach your name to products you actually use; that refusal is what makes your recommendation worth paying for.
Keep friends who stop you from repeating mistakes, and treat people who only cheer you on as associates.
15Brand as associations
Every partnership adds an association to your brand; one bad one can only be diluted by many good ones.
Most paid influencers lack real influence; trust is earned by a visible history of turning money down.
16Building the Shaq brand
Find the one trait that sets you apart in a crowded field, the way humor let a big man win commercials.
Hold onto the hard lessons that keep you grounded, and keep a concrete goal for the people you're doing it for.
17Why everyone at the table podcasts
Start a podcast to document your journey or meet people you couldn't otherwise reach, not just to grow an audience.
A recurring internal show can scale your communication to a whole company and may turn into a public asset.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
Liquidation preference
A term in an investment deal that lets certain investors get paid back first, often a multiple of what they put in, before founders and common shareholders see any sale proceeds.
Ratchet
An anti-dilution clause that protects investors if later shares sell at a lower price, shifting more ownership to them and shrinking what founders receive at exit.
Annuity
A contract, usually with an insurance company, where you pay in a lump sum or over time and later receive guaranteed regular payments, often for life.
Absurdism
Albert Camus' philosophy that life has no built-in meaning, and the right response is to live fully and defiantly anyway rather than despair or pretend otherwise.
Myth of Sisyphus
The Greek tale of a king condemned to roll a boulder uphill forever; Camus used it to argue that a person can find meaning in the endless effort itself.
Arbitrage
Profiting from a gap between how something is valued in two places. Calling fame an arbitrage means attention lets you capture value far faster than building it quietly.
Resources
Things they pointed at.
1:38:20book$100M Offers (Alex Hormozi)
33:27productGym Launch
19:40productVibes (dating app)
32:06channelThe Dropouts podcast
35:41bookThe Triple Package (research by the 'Tiger Mom' author Amy Chua)
01:14 – 11:17steadyChildhood wins and first money milestones
11:17 – 21:23denseYouTube and content strategy
24:04 – 39:49denseMotivation, patience and setbacks
39:49 – 43:47steadyHappiness and absurdism
43:47 – 58:24denseTrades, deals and trust
58:24 – 1:03:07steadyFame as leverage
1:04:59 – 1:15:23denseShaq on money, integrity and family
1:15:23 – 1:32:01steadyBrand building
1:32:01 – 1:37:50steadyWhy podcast
The Script
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Hey there. Welcome to my dinner party. I invited a comedian, an entrepreneur, a CEO, a finance YouTuber, and stay tuned for a special surprise appearance from the most dominant NBA player of all time.
You are the most dominant player to ever play the game.
And just a word of advice for my two white gentlemen here. Sharron gets a little handsy at times. So you're going to want to protect your thighs.
I told him. What did I say? Stay up top.
This is my lovely wife, Jackie. Oh, hi, Jackie. I love your acai shop.
Plug. Did you see that, dude? I didn't have to do that.
Plug. So you've been single for how many years now? Well, unbroken.
It's something I'm working on. Well, I come from a broken home. So I didn't know what love actually looked like.
Wait, how to go with Sydney Thomas? Okay, right into it. She's good, man.
How's it going with your... I hope you get a divorce. I'm like, sorry, but I hope you leave your husband.
Like, the things that he's said to me so far are dastardly. Honestly, I was very optimistic for you guys' relationship. Me and her?
I'm just kidding. Sorry, but I said that. That's my fault.
How's your podcast? Okay, real quick. I do want to get into your podcast.
I have a question here. Don't come back to me. It's a fun way to get things started, to let people know who's here and what you guys have all done so far.
So what is something that your 10 -year -old through 18 -year -old self would think is a really cool accomplishment? Writing a book. Something you always wanted to do?
Yeah. How come? My mom said that if I wanted to make real money, I would become an author.
Not the best advice. I was going to say. That seems like opposite of what I've heard.
But yeah. No, I was a writer super early. I got a writer's writing scholarship.
But then obviously business took its other path. So I've always loved writing. Did she take all the credit?
You obviously slaved over a book. You got a lot of money from a book, but not the only thing. Was she like, told you?
You're like, yeah, I just slaved for 10 years writing this. But yeah, you're right. No, she died.
Great work, Zach. Great work. Four weeks after.
Is that true? Yeah. The first book?
No, the last one. Oh, really? I'm sorry to hear that, man.
That's literally all she wanted. I'm going a little Zach style. That's all she wanted in life.
She's like, hey, my son wrote a book. There's nothing better. She was stoked.
Yeah, I'm sure. She was stoked. Alex, speaking of that, I'm curious.
You tweeted a while ago about... working on Christmas Day. De -regret working on Christmas days and holidays and not spending time with family.
In hindsight. Don't say that after he just said, hey. He's like, hey, my mom died.
Do you regret not caring that she was alive? On Christmas Day. So this year we took Christmas off.
But, no, I don't. I mean, like, I think it's seasons. Like, when I had my gyms, I really didn't have anyone else who was going to, like, ban stuff.
Why should a day of the year that is prescribed by the calendar matter, Stu? how you live your life. Well, you and I, we agree.
Well, this is why you guys serve. This makes sense. You have different holidays, though, right?
Well, I'm a United College of Benetton kind of guy. I feel like I should bow just for you saying that. I don't know what it means, but I'll bow, brother.
Sounds like a board game. I think that's a great point, because my mom and other people in my life, I'll work a lot, and they'll be like, when are you actually going to take a break? Does comedy count?
Watch your mouth. You know what I mean? I'm going to beat the hell out of your friend.
And I know I can't. That's the bad part. I just like being.
I'm like, I'll bark. No bite. But it feels like this is my fun a little bit.
You know what I mean? I really enjoy working on. I feel some type of accomplishment doing things.
And that's like my hobby. Well, I also think that my wife and I, 18 years. have an awesome relationship.
What about you, man? 20 years. No, two years.
Two years. Just put a zero on DMX. But Alex knows this because we go on vacation and my wife will say, hey, you look antsy.
Do you just need to go sell something? What? Yeah.
So I'm like, she's like, why don't you go... Just a street corner. Yeah.
Yeah. That works too. She's like, hey, go do two hours worth of work.
You'll come back and you'll just be. Go sell something. Just go knock some doors real quick.
Some people need to work out. Some people need to meditate. Some people need to feel professional pride in what they do.
And that gives them. The rhythm and the raps are feeling like they're useful to society. Sounds like an addiction.
Oh, yeah. It's got to sell something really quick. No, it's a joke, but like it's...
He starts scratching his neck. Yeah, he doesn't like you. I'm glad we sat next to each other.
No, it's perfect because, hey, you should do what makes you happy. So same question for you then, Sharon. What would be something that your childhood self would be proud of?
When I was younger, we didn't have a lot of money. We lived in a one -bedroom apartment. And the one thing that my dad did often was he would turn on the CNBC -ish stock market channel and we would watch the closing bell every day.
And I've watched probably, I don't know, 10 ,000 closing bells. It took 43 years and got to ring the closing bell. So what you're saying is it happened overnight.
But it was a super cool experience to be there at NASDAQ and actually build a business so you can ring the closing bell for it. And I think my dad was, I wouldn't say he was proud. I'd say we were both reminiscing on that experience because that happened over and over and over as a child.
So it was a super cool moment. Graham? Jeez, at 10 years old, I got this uncut sheet.
of fossil Pokemon cards. My 10 -year -old self would go nuts over something like that. What, you just bought it?
Years ago, yeah. Oh, I thought you were saying at 10 you had... No, no, like what's something my 10 -year -old self would be like, oh my God, that's so cool.
It's that sheet of Pokemon cards. Yeah, that's awesome. It's just neat.
Can I ask how much it costs? Five grand at the time. But it's gone up in value since then.
I had to sell all my Pokemon cards because our pastor preached against Pokemon from the pulpit. And my parents were like, no more. And now they would have been worth quite a bit more than they were when I sold them at that time.
Zach. What's up, man? How are you?
I'm okay. I'm going through, I mean, I'm on Lexapro still, so I'm trying to figure it out. Are you proud of anything or?
Not so far.
Story's still being written. What am I? Okay.
I guess what I'm proud of is when I was younger. my mom after we'd go out to eat she'd make like small comments to herself and be like oh i can't believe that bill was 30 or i can't believe this was not that we were you know on the street poor but single mom uh education and things like that so uh now that i can take her out and she doesn't like she'll like still ask me like i can get the steak it's like yes mom we can we can have we can not worry about it that's i think that will always be the biggest thing for me people i love not to worry about things alex you talk sometimes about like the richest you ever felt you've obviously surpassed this number to multiple degrees at this point but what was that number and why was it important to you it was a hundred grand i mean that was that was the richest i ever felt and i think i think it was because the relative change in wealth was so big because if you have a thousand dollars you get to a hundred thousand dollars you're
a hundred times wealthier. And to get a hundred times wealthier once you start having money is really, really hard, especially in a short period of time. And so that first $100 ,000, because to me, that was, we don't have to worry about food and rent for like three years.
I remember I sat down with Layla and I was like, we have three years where we can just mess up the whole time and we'll be okay. And so that was like, for me, that was my big thing. And also to your point about the dinner meals.
I think there was a level of wealth of appetizers. Oh my God. I was not an appetizer family growing up.
Right, of course. No, of course not. And it's like, you're not getting drinks and you're not getting appetizers.
We're not getting the chocolate dip or the chilies. So you get an entree and that's the meal, right? And so appetizer rich.
That was what, I mean, 100 grand wasn't there, but like. Appetizer rich is big. Yeah.
Because I used to have kids growing up. They would be, just what happened, thinking about it. We'd all go out to eat and they'd be like, okay, let's get this, this on the appetizer menu.
And I'd go. Okay, we came for some money. Sharon, I heard a story about you where you were brand new to the States, first year of college, dead broke, starving, and you fought a raccoon.
That's what you're saying. I just couldn't figure it out. Well, give it a second.
Okay, my bad. We'll point and laugh in a second. Okay, I apologize.
And you fought a raccoon for a box of Pop -Tarts. Is that true? And can you tell us that story?
It's true. So I'll give you the backstory around it. My parents sold everything that they had to send me to the US.
And as a part of that, they gave me one year's worth of tuition in a international cashier's check. That was, I'm old, in a cashier's check. And so when I showed up to school, I went to financial services.
I delivered my cashier's check. They said, oh, this is awesome. Here are your room keys.
But since it's an international cashier's check, the check's going to take. seven to 10 days to clear, your meal plan will activate as soon as that happens. I was like, of course.
And then all the pizza parties and the rush party started on campus. So I went to every pizza party, every nerd party, wherever I could get food, I went to all of those places. Well, after like four or five days, that stuff dies out.
And I hadn't eaten anything. And I saw a bunch of people toss Subway sandwiches into this dumpster. And like, you're talking not subs, but like party subs.
Bonanza. This is amazing. So I waited till it got dark.
I jumped in the dumpster. I grabbed the party sub. And then I saw this all -American box of Pop -Tarts.
Strawberry. I had reached to grab it and suddenly something like smacks me in the face. And I'm like bleeding.
And this dumpster is not big. You're talking like eight by 10, right? Fight or flight kicks in.
You can't even make the stuff up. I didn't even know what I was doing. I kick something.
I grabbed the box of Pop -Tarts, grabbed the Subway sandwich. I tried to jump out of the dumpster. I'm running.
I'm just running from this raccoon that is still in the dumpster. And I sat down on this park bench and I'm like, this is insane. The craziest part about the story is 22 years later, I got invited back.
By the record? By the record. And it was still there.
22 years, I got invited back to be the commencement speaker. Oh, that's cool. And it's one of those things that you never put on your bucket list, but it's super cool to be invited to do that.
I told the same story and you had thousands of people laughing their faces off. And the dean took me back to this dumpster. And he's like, let's take a selfie, which I have to send your team, in front of this dumpster.
And the craziest part is around the corner on the dumpster was this poster, an Aquaman poster that said, not giving up is the most heroic thing you can do. Oh, that's cool. And that felt like a full circle moment.
It was not there at that point. But I took a picture of that and sent it to my wife. I go, this is insane.
Yeah. Something I found really fascinating when I was doing a bunch of research on this on YouTube alone. So barring all other social platforms, because that's almost impossible to try to figure out, especially with all the clippers out there.
There are combined 7 billion plus views represented at this table, excluding myself, of course, just with the four of you. What is your best advice to anybody who is a creator that wants to do well on YouTube? Graham will start with you.
Consistency. I think consistency and then seeing it from the audience's point of view. Because I see so many people make content and it just sucks.
Objectively, it's bad content. They're like, why is no one watching this? Because it's bad.
And if you put yourself in the viewer's perspective, would a viewer watch this? And if the answer is no, you've got to change it up. You have to think of what the viewer wants to see and what they get out of it.
I also read something that said that you... would sit in bed. Before you get out of bed, you would reply to every single comment that came on your YouTube channel until you had like a million subs.
So you would do this for hours a day. Hours a day. I'd be at red lights responding to comments.
I would be in a toilet responding to comments. You couldn't get out. You're like, God, somebody bring a ladder.
You're just in there. No, what's crazy is that I would spend like an hour responding to comments. I'm like, okay, I finally got to bed.
I click refresh and then there's more comments. Oh, sorry, dude. It's like, I guess I'm checking my bank account.
There's more money. Going up. I'm like, well, I can't keep doing this.
So I just refreshed again. I would get to it. So I could go to bed when there's zero.
Zero new comments. Yeah. And then wake up and start over.
When did you do a big advocate of there being gold in the comments? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the first time, because you were the first podcast that I did after I started making YouTube content.
And I think either before, during, or after when we had that, you were like, dude, the comments is where it's at. It's like, of course, you're going to have some bad stuff or whatever. But they're always going to have the nuggets of like, oh, I should have improved that.
They'll give you the truth. And I respected that. Yeah.
I remember that. Yeah, a lot of people give me really constructive feedback of like, oh, I like this. Or when I got a lot of comments saying, we want this topic.
I just make a video on that topic. And they love it. And then I reference the comments in the video.
I'm like, so many of you have got... And I throw up the screenshots of the comments. And they love it.
How do you balance between what other people would like versus what you enjoy doing? I listen to other people. Yeah.
Yeah. That's awesome. Ultimately.
Yeah, because it's for them. Zero percent joy. Whatever they want, I'm in.
Paid my life to be honest with you. I just think in the beginning, it matters more that they're happy than like... I'm willing to churn out content.
If it's what people want to see, I'm willing to do it. But that's sort of also a reason that you pivoted from the personal channel to the podcast channel, right? Yeah, that was more of a sustainability thing.
Alex, what about you? I would say make stuff that only you can make. And I think that if you actually think a little bit about stuff, anyone can do that.
And so if you're like, well, I can't talk about these big audacious goals. It's like, but you can do something that no one else has done and talk about that. and so i'm just a big fan of like do epic talk about the thing you did and then repeat that cycle um but like i think that all viewers are looking for a bargain and so they want to return on time and so if you can do 100 dates in 12 minutes it's like well shoot i don't have to watch a whole season when i can do it in 12 minutes it's a bargain right if i don't have to consume all the financial news and i can just listen to graham just like give me the highlights with his take it's like great that's a bargain on time if i can say hey i did a thousand cold calls last week i'm saying it from somebody's new and i just have time and effort then it's like this is what i learned this is what i did that will automatically put you in a one percent category of creators because you actually did something that you're really talking about and also in a world of ai where ai can come up with the six cheat codes the six tactics of whatever yeah
The thing that'll differentiate is still reality. Did you actually do something? Because anyone can like chat you a head.
But the thing that I think the audience will look for is like, what is the real world proof that I should listen to you? And this is obviously from an education perspective rather than entertaining perspective. But from the educator side, I think there's always big flashing lights of big Vegas lights above everyone's head that before they even hear what you say, they have to understand why they should listen to you.
That's always drove me crazy, bro. When like when your stuff really started taking off, especially on Instagram. And then all of a sudden I start seeing all these ads pouring on my feed about like, we'll create Hermosi style content just for you.
And I like jump on these callers just to see what their offer is, you know? And it's like, well, your captions need to be yellow or whatever. I was like, I don't think that that's what it was.
I think it might have to do with like maybe the $50 million exit and the like bestselling book that he put like four years of effort into. I think that might probably have a little bit more to do with the fact that people are consuming this ultimately. It was the font.
I'm a big believer in that. And also, I think there's a balance, because I think you were teasing that with Graham. But I think if you go all the way algorithm, then you just wash out.
You're the same. And so I think there's like, what can I learn from this versus how can I? It's kind of like salt.
It's like if you put salt on food, a little bit of salt makes the food better. If you make it all salt, it ruins the dish. And so I think understanding a little bit of the algorithm is kind of like that.
It's like I have my core ingredients. I got my protein, my rice, my whatever. It's like a little bit of salt, a little bit of understanding.
Okay, I could probably make the headline a little better. I could probably make this intro a little better. But I think the meat of what gives someone staying power is reality.
Without kind of repeating everyone, I do think that AI is going to make everything fantastical. you'll be able to make a Marvel movie pretty soon. I think in like a year in like two seconds.
So all that we really have is our own IP of ourselves and kind of what we bring to the table. Because when everything can look absolutely amazing and everyone can write the best email, everyone can make the best video and make it look wonderful. Yeah.
Again, the only differentiator is your take on things. Yeah. You know, not that my content is like some big, stoic, wonderful thing that's going to change your life.
At least I can provide some type of different opinion on what I'm doing through jokes or through what it's in. And at least people can see and be like, oh, that's a little different than what I would get somewhere else. And I feel like this guy is putting his personality forward, which right now might be the only differentiator between a lot of stuff.
I think the fact that you do a lot of reality stuff is, I mean, I'm leaning super hard into live, interactive, real. Because in a world where everything's fake, because someone could absolutely recreate. the show with like the you know the the house and the people or you doing the blind dating or whatever the shtick is but you know how like people will complain about reality tv series saying it's it's all scripted right and so it's the audience's way of saying this isn't real and so taking that to like the furthest degree it's like none of it's real i don't think that like if you have two shows and people know that this is real people versus people not thinking this is This is just a completely scripted reality TV show of two people falling in love that are not.
I see that as different. Basically, if it's masquerading as real, it isn't different than Snow White. You know what I mean?
Like, of course, there's a place for truly fictional romantic comment videos. And I think those will crush for sure. Everyone knows it's fake.
But the, I think basically my point is, I think that there's still going to be a huge, I think there's absolutely going to be a position for like you bringing real people in and having whatever, like the stakes are that it's, like stakes is what makes content, right? And so it's, not having a real person loses the stake.
Yeah. And then also with everyone getting so lonely, if you can bring, you know, more humans, more personality, more unscripted, there's such a different connection that you're having with people that people trust creators so much more now than even celebrities. I think people have completely turned away from traditional TV film celebrities as looking them because you want that relationship.
I think that's why companies do so well that make content because if I'm going to a shelf and there's like, okay, yeah, there's Gatorade. I know what they are.
I've seen them for years versus, oh, there's the drink. I know that guy. I've been watching his stuff.
I saw his journey of how he created it. Oh, he tried out samples. Oh, I remember when he failed, but he kept going.
I don't know. I'm going to go with the person I feel like there's a story with. And you guys recently did a really cool collab with Vibes.
To me, that is sort of like the evolution of content next is like companies that are media forward where it's not just them being like, hey, Zach, we'll sponsor your video on dating. It's like they helped you produce an entire like six episode reality dating series.
Yeah. So I always wanted to do like a reality show with my kind of take on it where I'm hosting and I'm the person calling out the things that are happening in the room. Like, why did that guy say that?
Because when you're sitting at home, you're like, who would ever say that in real life? So if there's somebody there that can almost be the mirror to the audience, I think there's some value. And they came to me, they're like, hey, we'll give you money for a 60 second ad read in one of your videos.
And I was like, well, what if you give me a bigger chunk of money and I'll create six episodes and we'll do a full season, we'll put it on YouTube. And they took that gamble with me and then their downloads were up 1500%. And it's just like, yeah, that makes sense because we're using, I'm not saying go download this app.
I'm saying. The people on the show are going to be on this app. I'm on there.
And if you want to be on season two. We have a new vibes member. Could you tell us how much does it cost to make an episode?
Of one? Yeah. Of one of your shows.
So for six episodes, we spent like $300 ,000, $350 ,000. Wow. For six episodes, which sounds like a lot if you're at home watching this and be like, that's a ton of money.
For the brand to get what they got from that, plus how much a normal reality show. I mean, some of these Love Islands is half a million, maybe even a million dollars an episode, but we were able to do it for the fraction of the price and go straight to where the audience is. There's no friction of, like the worst they're going to do is have the unpaid part of YouTube, but they can still like watch ads and see it anyway, instead of like, oh, I don't have Netflix.
I don't have this. I don't have that. But with that being said, if Netflix wanted to give us a lot of money, I'd sell my soul.
Your camera's over there. This one, I'll sell my soul to anybody.
Except my dad, I know what she did to my mom. Anyway, sorry. Jaron, you've been building brands and companies for quite some time now.
In fact, your first company ever was a half a billion dollar exit. However, there were some things that happened on the build that basically turned that more into a lesson. First company that we sold, I didn't realize what a liquidation preference or a ratchet was.
And what that means is whatever I thought I was getting, I got 50x less than that. 50?
50x less than that. And a founding team of four, correct? Correct.
I taught tennis for five years after that. At Four Seasons? Four Seasons, Ritz -Carlton, but I was in the Caribbean, Dubai, and on Maui.
Yeah, and you met Bill and Melinda Gates doing this? Taught Bill and Melinda Gates, Richard Branson on Necker Island, the Sultan of Brunei, Alan Alda, if you, I'm old, but Alan Alda, if you know. Used to watch MASH, yeah.
MASH, yeah. Taught tennis to all of them. Yeah.
How'd you transition back? Good question. My mentor was like, no one's going to hire a tennis pro to do anything in the future.
So you did the universal track switcher. So I went to business school. Who is the best at tennis?
And who is the worst? Branson was the best. Bill was the worst.
That tracks. Honestly, that tracks.
Let's go let's do a different joke I Was just he was he was hanging out with his Epstein stuff anyway That wasn't the one right all right back and forth, okay, no worries dude You've seen children getting right like brought in you're like you're like, okay, so back in your back ends a little tight I see so many kids, but I don't know where they keep going.
Sharon knew. Anyway, we'll cut that. My bad.
We'll cut that. We'll cut that. Sorry, Sharon.
Did you guys take note of that timestamp? My bad, Sharon. It's my fault, brother.
I've been wanting to ask that since you sat down. Does your wife find it... What does she think about you using an aura ring where your wedding band should be?
How did you... I'm just wondering, man. I just didn't know if that was a point of contention in the house.
Be like, you're tracking your sleep, but it doesn't feel like it's for love anymore. Is that a point of... Okay.
Somebody's got to ask you that. I think it's just an efficiency thing. He could be tracking his love, though, and just tying it to the relationship.
I see what you're picking up on. Listen, it's a little stressful today. Send me the link.
I get it. My bad. No, she doesn't care.
Good. Okay. Just have her text me about it.
We'll talk.
Okay, so then I want to shift a little bit. Alex, one of the favorite things that I've heard you talk about recently is the relationship between deprivation and motivation. And I find it to be a very good frame to look at it through because so many people are stuck on this motivation thing as like the bottleneck that prevents them from getting where they're going.
Can you expand on that? I try to define terms to the best degree possible. And I try and do it in observable ways.
Otherwise, it's like if I were to explain to a five -year -old, how do you be motivated? It's like, I don't know how I could do that. And so the trouble with motivation specifically is that you don't know if someone's motivated until after they do something.
That's when you know. And so then we have to think, okay, then what predicts someone taking action? And so if you look from a physiological perspective, someone's significantly more likely to eat if they have not eaten in a long time someone's really more likely to sleep if they haven't slept in a long time and so in each of those situations you're more likely to want to have sex if you haven't had sex in a while right and so That's a strong point.
Laugh one more time, Sharon. I'm going to screenshot your wife's face, put in AI image search, find your house, and figure it out. You raised your head, bro.
Thank you. That is true. Just because you're piping every mic doesn't mean you have to come over here to me.
Just throw in hog, Sharon. Anyway, sorry, you were speaking in depth. We're Shaq.
And so whenever we think about how do you motivate someone, I think it's... the person who is deprived of the thing is the most motivated but then you would think with that logic that somebody who is poor would be the most motivated to make money and i've seen some incredibly wealthy people be the money money hungriest out of anyone i've met and so i think because money is a construct you're not born having any knowledge of money you have you're born with hunger you're born with being tired you don't have to teach a baby to do that right but we have to teach people what money actually means right there's literally education for kids of teaching them what money means right and so It's something that you have to have psychological deprivation around and so I think there's a lot of Credence to the idea of if you get around people who are significantly wealthier than you it actually increases your deprivation because all of a sudden you're like Oh my god I didn't know that this was possible and then that Delta becomes much bigger And I think that is what creates that that motivation from from a money perspective So I think like the best gift in the world you can do is like be broke and then go to Stanford Coming from India and then be like, holy shit
this is not reality as I knew it. And then overnight go from, cause everyone in India, you'd be like, you're already made it, dude. You got here.
It's like, but then the whole game unlocks and you're like, I did not know that towers went that high. And I know for me, like when I went to college, I had never been around, I'll just say New York money. And so for me, I'm from Baltimore and like wealthy was a doctor, right?
Like that's, you know, which is fine and true. Right. But when I got around hedge fund money kids and private equity money kids and real estate money kids, I was like, I do not know what they know.
I'm in a different reality. And so that, I mean, like my goal in high school was to make $100 ,000 a year. Alex does one thing very well, which is he defines the term very behaviorally, right?
So for example, one of the first times I met Alex, I said, oh, you should just be patient. He's like, well, what does patient mean? Oh, you know, you gotta...
be grateful for, you know, patient patient. And he goes, no, it's like, what are you going to do while you wait? That is patience, right?
If you've seen, like, I love Graham's content where he goes, there'll be a question post and he is so curious. And the question that you have this amazing, delightful ability to bring out is exactly what the audience is thinking at that point. And so they stay for that question.
And then the comment happens and then you have the ability. to somehow hack the curiosity lip of the audience and ask the question that the rest of your audience is thinking, which keeps them on and on. Like, I find myself saying, well, I had that question in mind and he asked that question, which is very cool.
And the delightfulness for Zach is, you don't expect what he's going to say. And hilarious. You watch it, brown guy.
It's extremely... All right, that one was scripted. My bad.
Travis wrote that one. He was like, just say it when you feel it. I was like, I'll probably do it when Shaq's not here yet.
Good call, honestly. But no, what you're speaking about patience is like, I think I actually heard you say that and I was sitting on it because I never really thought about it before in the sense of, if you feel impatient, you feel like you're not being patient. But as long as you're not doing the thing, you're still being patient.
So that's like, it kind of was actually a big unlock for me where, okay, I really want, this thing to happen right now. But as long as I'm filling my time with something else and I'm not acting on the thing that would make me impatient, I'm technically being patient even if I don't feel like I am.
So that was cool to hear. When you first moved to LA, 900 square foot apartment, two bedroom? You better believe it.
Ten guys. Okay, well. What?
Yeah. Was that a reality show? I was just very poor.
Who did you share a bunk bed with? There's a middle -aged man who's drinking himself to death. He just found out.
He genuinely just found out he wasn't allowed to see his kid for five years. and what'd he do he i didn't ask anything he wanted no he was like he was just he said that you wouldn't just say like what happened no that was a that's that is the question that people are thinking he asked me more about naturally and he was about this guy actually we have a special guest hey dude good to see you again how's your daughter you're all grown up yeah god you really missed all her life But it was awful.
You turn on the microwave and the air conditioner at the same time, all the power would go out. And so it would flip like people couldn't afford the place, even though it was nothing. So it'd be different people every month.
And everybody was just smoking in there 24 -7. It was like walking through a haze. Um, like one guy, one night he came in and it's his first night there.
So you got to keep an eye on him. You can't go to sleep immediately when there's a new person there. And he, I told no one he had night terrors.
And so I get up in the middle of the night cause I have urination issues and I go to the bathroom and I'm throwing liquid and I hear, I hear out of the door, I swear he's screaming, I'm going to kill, I'm going to kill everybody. And I'm just like, this is it. Uh, this is it.
But so, and then I go out and he's just having night terrors and like other people came in and One of the funniest parts was one of the guys was there for a while and everyone was having stuff go missing. I was like, where's our stuff going?
Like, I don't know. Is somebody here taking it? And then the guy is leaving.
He's like, hey guys, I'm doing a fire sale. I don't need a lot of my stuff because I'm going to this new place. If you guys want anything, come check it out.
It was all of our stuff. But he like confidently showed us. I'm like, that's my jersey from when I was 11.
That I brought here as like a keepsake. First of all, what's he doing with it? And why is it a little crunchy?
You know what I mean? He was throwing liquids too. He was throwing liquids.
Did you buy it back? No, dude. I didn't.
You just take it? Huh? You stole it back?
No, no. He came in it. I can't keep it anymore.
How did you know it was crunchy? I tasted it. And there was an LGBTQ...
Yeah, I was talking about a little too much salt. Maybe that's a moment. So we had two bathrooms.
Yeah, and there was an LGBTQIA plus individual that lived with us. We were buddies with him. But he had...
His words, not mine. He had a twink boyfriend that he would bring over. And he kind of claimed that as his sex dungeon.
So we could only use one of the bathrooms because he would leave his condoms literally everywhere of... the exploratory wrestling he would do with said other male. Why'd you live there?
I feel like you could just... I was poor! Is there no other place that you could have lived?
Imagine going to Section 9, whatever, housing, and being like, why didn't you just move to Beverly Hills? I don't get it. Why didn't you just buy a house?
Yeah, it was bad. I mean, there was a million other things that happened there, but... What I wanted to ask about to you on that was...
Anyway, what? Yeah, it was bad. was that you finally start getting a little bit of money.
Hell yeah, brother. The podcast, right? Yeah.
The dropouts. And then you have a business partner who is managing sponsorship deals. Yeah.
So tell me that story. So the very first, so we started the podcast. It was going like decently well.
We were getting like 100 ,000 views an episode. And then with that started coming first ad dollars I'd ever seen. You're glimpsing like a light at the end of the tunnel.
Oh brother, $50 ,000 at that time. That would have, I mean, I was, before that, less than 12 grand a year probably taking home. And then, so we have a pool of $50 ,000 on paper.
Like that's how much we've made from the podcast. This is, no one's ever been more rich than me. And we go to get the money and it turns out that the people, the guy at the top, the CEO, stole all the money and then just like left to another country.
So I was like back to square one immediately. And he suckered us in because he legitimately had Mike Tyson's podcast. He had like a couple other big podcasts.
He was a legit dude. I don't know if he stole money from them, but I definitely didn't see any more. Alex, you had a similar situation with a business partner when you were just seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, right?
Yeah. I was kind of like asset rich, cash poor. So I had five gyms at the time.
But every time I had money, I just opened another gym. And so that was just kind of like what I was doing. And then I sold all of my gyms to start Gym Launch, where I was flying around launching other people's gyms.
And so I took that money and I put it into an account where I was going to partner with somebody. And he was like, hey, why don't you launch these gyms and I'll just come behind you and operate them. That way you don't leave any money on the table, which is why I make that joke on such a consistent basis, because I have lost so much money trying to not leave money on the table.
And so I put all the money in the account. I did the biggest launch that I had done at the time. And then all of a sudden, and I used to have this habit, and I think a lot of people do for a long time, like you check your bank account.
For me, it's not Slack the first thing. I would wake up and I would check my bank account to make sure there was money in it. And so I would check it like it was a pet, and so I'd see it.
And you have a pulse for what comes in, what comes out, whatever. And one morning, it was just like minus all the money. And I was like, that's not how that's supposed to look.
And so I was like, hey, what's, because it went to him. And I was like, what's going on there? What did both of you guys like feel in that moment?
Like, was it immediate revenge fantasy type thing? Or was it immediately like, well, that's that. I guess we're doing something else now.
I knew I couldn't afford a lawyer or anything even close to it. So it was kind of just, and we still had the podcast. So I understood.
hopefully make more money as like, as long as I don't die. Yeah. But like, I had dark thoughts at the time, so it wasn't.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, but I've, I've always, it's weird. I've always had this belief of like, I'm never doing enough.
Like I could always be doing something more versus like a weird confidence to be like, I'll figure this out. It's a, it's a, it's a balance of, yeah. So.
I felt like it's eventually going to be okay. Like I wasn't on the street, you know, I wasn't, there's people that had it way worse. It was just kind of one of those situations.
Yeah. He was over there fighting wildlife. So, um, Alex, you've told me about the three things that the most successful people have.
Yeah. And he just mentioned two of the three. Yeah.
I think it's from tiger mom. So don't quote me on that, but it's like, whatever. There's some big research study where they saw that the people who were the most successful had a superiority complex.
So they thought they were better than everyone else. which then unlocked the fact that they thought they could achieve these big things, but then paired with a crippling fear of failure, that they'd never be enough, which also motivated them to also move forward, away from something. But then the third element was impulse control.
So it's like, you have this big vision that you're going towards, you've got this thing that you're running away from, and then you've got something that keeps you focused on it. We've been dancing around them. That makes sense.
A ton of sense. And I do have an issue of, if I start something, Like my buddy Skyler over there, we started, we did a bet when we were 15 to not drink soda again.
And I haven't had it since. And like, I have like a weird obsession with, that's like, I started - Following through on what you say? Yeah, but not, but like too much.
Like it's not even, like who, oh, you don't drink, like it's not like a brag thing. It's like - It's probably a good thing not to drink soda. I would take that as one of the three driving forces as a number three impulse control.
You're not hiring me, dude. I'm busy. We've been talking a little bit about motivation, obviously.
Zach, I heard you say one time, In terms of where you pull motivation from is I'm gonna die and none of this is gonna matter So why not go that's been my whole life after my own heart. Yeah.
Yeah, that's you as well Well, I my mom doesn't like them. I always say the Sun's gonna explode Like where it doesn't like none of it matters Which also makes it all matter and it's very it's a very interesting balance or at least you get to choose. Mm -hmm.
Yeah. Yeah, and Yeah, I just I be good to people try your best and maybe you'll be all right you know that's deep thanks man alex you talk about that A lot.
This guy keeps on talking about killing himself. He's like, I'm not going to be here next week. Let's just do it.
But it's one of those things that's like, obviously, when somebody sees it in an out of context clip, it's extremely polarizing to mention death and how much you think about death or that we're all going to be dead or 300 years from now. Or like, when was the last time you thought about the Queen of England or things like that?
And you're not her. You know what I mean? So can you tell me more about where that mindset came from for you?
I think I'm actually somebody who inherently cares a lot. And so in order to cope with that, I had to figure out some contract of the world that would allow me to walk through it without and get what I wanted. And so I had to find something that allowed me to do that.
And so I had to continue to reframe until eventually I was like, okay, this works. I have a number of those ones, but they all come. come back to that same issue i mean when you have cosmic relevance of like okay you zoom all the way out and it's just like we're this tiny little dot in this gigantic universe it's like that's one so it's like the fact that you got fired probably doesn't really matter that much or the fact that you got an argument with your wife probably doesn't matter you've got the frame of the veteran which is like okay if i'd had this exact same negative situation happen a thousand times in a row how would i feel in the thousandth time well probably i wouldn't care because it happened so many times so it's like i can feel that way in the thousandth time Why can't I feel that way on the first time?
It's just a choice. And so I think those kind of frames allowed me, because I think, I mean, I think about defining terms a lot because maybe it's like an autist view of the world or whatever you want to say. But if you think about what definitions are, they're just making equivalencies.
And so it's saying this equals that, right? And so if we can make this equal whatever we want, then it means that we create and destroy our own meaning. And I think that that is incredibly powerful.
And so a lot of people see... quote my view of the world. And I would say like, if whatever you have is working for you, by all means, like double thumbs up, please.
Like I'm, this is not a, it's not a pulpit. This is just a doc, like guy documenting what's worked for me. And so for only the people who are like, my current thing isn't working, I'm like, we'll give it a shot, which is just the realization that your worst case scenario is you die.
And if you die, it won't matter because you will be dead and it won't affect you. And so like, that's the worst case is that it won't affect you anymore. And so it's kind of one of those, like, I can't stand it.
It's like, well, you can stand it because you're still here. And the moment you can't stand it, you'll be dead, in which case you won't have to stand it. Yeah.
So which means that you can get through anything. Yeah. As long as you stay alive.
There's a lot of talk online about happiness, meaning, mattering, utility, all these different types of terms. Kind of broad question for the table, and maybe we'll start with Graham on this one. Do you think the founding fathers got it wrong when they wrote the phrase?
With slavery? Yeah, I do. I do.
It's a hot take. It's a hot take, but it's just like, I don't think we should enslave other people. I know you have different views, but that's just my take.
Anyway, sorry. Sorry to finish your sentence on that. I know where you're going.
Yeah, next topic. All right. Anyway, sorry.
Let's scrap that one. Everybody in the comments is like, this kid just shut up. When they wrote the phrase, the pursuit of happiness.
Yeah. Do you think that happiness is a worthy pursuit? Yeah.
As the end goal. Yes, but I think happiness is usually in the process and not in the results. Like I get so in the weeds when it comes to what I'm doing that I love it.
It's like time stops. Are we in the food tower? Okay, just making sure.
Is that a train? Yeah. Yeah.
It's like shaking the room. Oh my gosh. Was that exactly what I think it is?
I know trains. It just keeps going though. Do you want us to hold off for a sec?
Yeah, I keep this in. I keep the train in. Keeps it real.
Keeps it authentic. That's the word. Somebody's about to click off.
The retention's plummeting. This is real. This is real.
They could have cut that out. Okay, happiness. Happiness.
Yeah, I think it's in the process. I think it's really just focusing on what you enjoy. And when you get in that zone where it's just like time stops, I think that's where real happiness is, at least for me.
Sean, is happiness a worthy pursuit as an end goal?
Yes, if you can define it for yourself, right? And my friends and my family know that I spent a lot of time defining happiness for myself, very similar to as Graham shared on the process. When it's hard for me to define something, I try to find a story or a character that I can connect with.
There's this amazing legend myth of Sisyphus who has been banished by the gods to push that boulder up the mountain over and over. And at the end of the day, it rolls right back and he starts that process again. The gods think that they have pulled one on Sisyphus to make him do that.
But the truth is he's found joy in pushing that boulder up the mountain. I found a lot of peace and joy in pushing that boulder up the mountain every single day. And so as long as I can continue to do that, that's the definition of happiness for me because it makes me feel useful to push something up the mountain every day.
And Sean and I have such a good friendship because of this. So that is from Albert Camus, who's an absurdist. An absurdist?
Yeah. Never heard that phrase before. I pretended like I knew I went.
Like, oh yeah, an absurdist. So nihilism has a bad rap because people think it like, nihilism literally means nothing matters. But then there's the other side of it, which is that you can create and destroy meaning, kind of what I was just saying.
But absurdism is acknowledging that and then living a life so grand despite that knowledge. And so the final line of Camus' book is that like, we must imagine Sisyphus is happy. Is that he knowingly defied the gods.
by rolling the boulder up the hill, which they believed was punishment, which he obviously extracts out as the human existence. It's like, we're making this YouTube channel, we're doing this everything. And anyone who's been to a funeral or watched multiple people die, it's amazing how quickly the world just moves on, right?
And so a lot of us are in the Sisyphean pursuit of just, we all have our own boulder. And so it's on one hand, you have the people who are like, well, the boulder doesn't, it never gets up the hill and therefore I am unhappy. versus the person who just rolls the boulder and says, like, I live in defiance of this reality that I acknowledge and allow my work to be my rebellion.
And work can be whatever you want. It can be family. It can be whatever.
Sure. Same. Ditto.
Retweet that. Recently, Alex, I heard you say something about if you don't think the price is worth it, then don't make the trade. Can you talk about the relationship between...
trade -offs, sacrifice, and achievement? Yeah, I think there are no solutions. There are only trades.
And I think the whole point for a lot of people is just trading up. And I think people who end up in positions that they don't want made trades knowingly or unknowingly that were not aligned with what they wanted. And so, I mean, you use the Jordans, the shoes that somebody wants, and a lot of people just stand there at the shoe store yelling at the store owner saying, like, these shoes are too expensive.
And it's like, well, then... We don't need to be upset. It's just, it's a price and you don't want them or that you don't think it's worth that price.
Great. You don't have to buy them. And so I think it's just the idea that it's voluntary.
Like all the trades we make are voluntary. It's our choice. And so if we don't have what we want, then it means that we were unwilling to make some trade at some point.
And now we're living with the consequences of that trade. The single most important way that I found to reframe trade -offs for myself is in deal structures. So probably done a hundred plus deals and you realize that it's generally not money.
So over time, I mapped that there are five things. I learned this from you. There's five things you can trade.
Money, relationships, time, skill, and brand. Money as in economic value. Relationships as in, hey, I don't want this relationship to go bad or some version of that.
Time, hey, is this a return on hassle? Can I actually buy myself some time back? Skill, hey, do I have a skill of making content that I can trade with you for something else?
Or brand, which has ultimate leverage where they pay Zach. $92 million, which cost him $300 ,000. How did he get $92 million?
I don't remember. No one told me. Jeez, congrats.
And then it was diluted by 50. And he got 50 bucks. But I think a lot of times if you can approach a situation and you have something in front of you that you want to acquire, you're like, well, if money's off the table, what else can I trade?
And you'd be amazed at so many things that actually are out there that they really want that you can trade. One of Sharon's favorite things, because I've obviously been in many deals with Sharon, that he'll ask the other parties, like, what are you afraid of? Like, what are you afraid of having happen?
What do you not want to have happen? And as soon as they answer, he's like, great, write it out. Like, because people ask for these big, vague things.
Like, you can't touch any of, like, I can, they'll say, like, you can't touch all of this stuff. And you're like, he's like, what do you think we're going to take or touch? And they're like, well, I've got this thing.
You told me the story about an executive. You should tell it. I mean, it's your story, but the executive that you got for the college thing.
Fine, I'll tell you. So he was trying to get this really high -level talent into the company. And he was recruiting this guy over.
And the guy was not willing to sign. He's like, dude, the comp package is insane. What's in the way here?
And finally, he was like, I just want to make sure that I can pay for my kid's college if this doesn't go well. And so Sean was like... well then why don't I just write a check right now put into a fund that guarantees your kid goes to college would that solve it and he was like oh yeah and like this was a multi -million dollar plus contract but he was like it was an emotional thing of like he was afraid that his kids wouldn't be able to if something went wrong and so it's just like he's very good at getting to the core of like what someone really wants and being I think you're also very accessible like um you're trustworthy.
And so people are very quickly willing to just tell you what they really think, whereas some people can be more aggressive and guarded. And I think you do well. On that same line, can you define trust?
So if you think about trust, there's really a four box of trust. So you have, I can trust you, right? That means I'm giving you a secret of some kind or some access to something, which means I make myself punishable by the other party.
So if I trust someone, I'm making myself vulnerable, making myself punishable. The equal opposite, you can trust me. I become trustworthy by demonstrating different things, which I can get to later.
But like, that's the two box of like, either you trust me, I trust you. On the other side, it's I can trust you to do something like, hey, I'm going to pick your kid up from school. And so I'm trusting that you're going to make that happen.
The difference between those scenarios is who is doing the punishing. And so in the first scenario, the opposite party is doing the punishing. In the second scenario, the environment or reality is doing the punishment.
So if I don't pick up your kid, I'm not doing anything, but reality will punish you for your kid being there or them getting napped or whatever, right? And so that's, so it really just comes down to punishment. Again, I try and define these things in ways that I can see.
It's like, you make yourself punishable. You give someone a weapon and you just bet that they're not going to use it against you. Now it's like, if you define trust that way, then you have to ask the question of like, well, why is that worth it?
Like why? Would I make myself punishable voluntarily? And I think you have to take the absolute extreme of that, which is if I, if somebody had, if I had no context in another human being, someone shared nothing, then it would be very limited to how much I could help that person.
On the opposite extreme, the person that you probably help the most is the person you have the most context on, which is yourself, right? And so the idea is that I think if you want to have enriching relationships, you want to have the most shared context as possible. And what's really tricky about trust is that based on how...
behaviors across species, not just humans, is that punishment erases reward. And so you can do 12 trusting behaviors. I can give you a knife 12 times in a row and you don't use it.
And on the 13th time, if you stab me, I never want to give you a knife again because punishment is significantly stronger in terms of changing behavior than reward is, which is why they'll say like, you know, it's just like a coffee filter. You know, it's one drop at a time, but you can dump it all out at once in terms of building trust.
But it's really just creating a track record of reinforcement of you've given me these opportunities especially when someone has a short -term benefit of betraying you and they don't is when you trust them more but you can only visibly observe trust when someone has the opportunity to betray you is there a way to build trust faster i guess if you're yeah if there's somebody you really want somebody to trust you i guess how do you operationalize you never punish disclosure in the moment.
So if someone says, hey, I'm gay, whatever, like your roommate, right? If someone came out to you or whatever, they have some deep secret, in that moment, you have to absolutely have zero punishment. It has to be like immediate reward for that.
So you want to reward them disclosing whatever it is. Second is that you can never, strong words, never betray that. And if you want to have it happen faster, you want to have as many of those loops happen in a row as you can, comma.
and the opportunity to betray them, and then evidence that you didn't. And so if you think about how people fall in love or they trust someone really quickly, it's typically not because they actually trust them quickly. There's usually just more reinforcing cycles that happen in a shorter period of time.
So if someone goes to a cruise with a family and they meet on the cruise and they spend two weeks together, 12 hours a day, and they're like, how can you trust these people? It's like, well, if you think about how much you spend time with a friend as an adult, maybe you see them an hour or two every month maybe. So you crammed five years of friendship and trust cycles into those two weeks.
Now, from an opportunity perspective, how could they have the opportunity to betray you? Less so. But I mean, if you're like, hey, the person tells you, hey, I'm cheating on my spouse.
It's like, well, shit, the spouse is there. I have the opportunity to oust this guy. And so then you have to make the call of whether it's worth it or not.
I actually had one of those when I did the inside show because we were stuck inside, no phones, no anything, just each other, the 12 of us for seven days. And we were all speaking about this right when we got it. It's like, why do we feel so close?
Because we're only having conversations with each other where I've known people for three years and I haven't talked to them as much as I have, at least on a time basis in this time. So yeah, that just felt like a time that was similar to how he's describing it. Time in a vacuum.
There's also a lot of high stakes moments that Alex was sharing where, so if you run a business and you have employees, here's the fastest way to build trust. when someone reaches out to you on Slack or text message and says, hey, I'm thinking about this problem. I did X, Y, Z.
If the first thing that you respond with is, thank you so much for sharing this with me. You just did that one thing. Every time they share, it reinforces the loop that you actually stopped to hear.
What most busy executives will do is when someone has that disclosure or share something, they'll instantly go into problem solving mode without the acknowledgement of that disclosure. So you already have it in your head. actually put it into implementation, you can, just in a few days, you can dramatically increase the cycles of trust because you already feel it.
You're not manufacturing it in any way. You're just like, oh, Travis, thank you so much for sharing that with me. And then you go into whatever solve you have.
Just that one little thing, because disclosure is disarming, right? And so if you acknowledge that, that one thing will stress so much faster. How did you guys first meet?
So I'd helped a few different people sell their businesses after I sold mine. And one of our mutual friends, Jason Capital, said, hey, Alex is working through a potential sale. I think you should talk to him.
I had never met Alex before. Did you know of his stuff? I knew nothing about Alex.
And then right before the call, I Googled Alex and I saw this big handlebar mustache. And I was like, I have no idea what I'm getting into on this call. Oh, this was a while ago.
Yeah, yeah. Mustache days. This was gym launch days.
Wow. So this was gym launch days. How many years ago was that?
Sorry? Six, seven years ago. Yeah, yeah.
So Alex and I got on a call. And we talked for like four and a half hours. It was supposed to be a 30 -minute call.
And then Alex said, hey, I think you would enjoy meeting my wife, Layla. And I was like, OK. And then.
Alex, Layla, and I met the next day. And Layla and I just became kind of instant besties. And it's been a friendship ever since that day.
And so I got a chance to be Alex's and Layla's advisor as they sold Gym Launch, which was really great. And this is a really interesting thing, by the way. There are levels to relationships.
The first level of relationship is when you talk about other people. You're just like, hey, let's talk about friends, let's talk about people. And the second level of the relationship is when you talk about the memories of the past and the experiences.
You're like, okay, in high school we did this, we did that. The third is when you talk about tactics. We get in a mastermind group, we talk about tactics.
The fourth is when you talk about execution. Hey, we're actually in this together. Can we actually do this?
And the fifth is when you talk about money. And I think what happened to Alex and I was, in the second conversation, we automatically talked about money. And so you dramatically drop everything that is around because your entire world becomes deeply vulnerable to you.
And I think that accelerated the trust in our relationship. And that helped us, you know, I'd say we compressed a lot of time and pulled the future forward. Talk money first.
If you can talk money first. As soon as possible, talk about money. Speak in my...
This is great news for me. I'll tell you the big reason for that is, and the way you do that is to give others the gift of going second. Instead of expecting them to share the money lesson, you share the money lesson first.
A lot of times that's just having one or two really vulnerable stories that you're open to sharing. Hey, I did this and I lost X amount of dollars. And it instantly breaks all bonds.
And you literally give the other person the gift of going second. And I don't think people do that often enough. They just wait for the other person to take that step of trust.
And so you do this very well. Because you go on Ramsey and you literally show them your entire portfolio. That's crazy.
Yeah, people love the transparency. Of course. And everyone's curious about it.
I was going to say too, because you, I think Jack is floating around here somewhere, but sort of a similar story where he basically reached out to you, offered to do some bunch of free work. He actually executed it in a short period of time compared to everybody else who was saying that they would do it and never did it.
What has been the... core benefits of having a friend like Jack, now also as a partner in Iced Coffee Hour, where he's the one who basically made the whole thing happen. Yeah, I think we complement each other really well.
But I think also looking back, I got really lucky. And it could have also turned out really bad. I'm starting to see that's not a common experience.
And so with Jack, it just so happened that he had sent me an email. I just so happened to have seen it in a red light. I just so happened to have needed some extra help, but like everything aligned.
Andy happened to be a really good guy. So like everything worked out on that. And he was really complimentary in terms of like, he has this big grand vision and I tend to be a little bit more cautious and like slow moving.
And I think it's a good balance between the two. But a lot of that I think is just. Well, it's kind of risky, right?
Because you already had this massive YouTube channel, which is one of the reasons he reached out to you. He's a massive fan and had taken action against some of the things that you've done, right? But then to bring somebody on board is one thing, but then to put them in your content where now it's like he's sort of an inextricable part of the show.
He started slow. So like the first one was, uh, tell me about that. Yeah.
The first, the first task was going through emails or no, it was going through a face. So I had this Facebook group, uh, but to get into the Facebook group, you had to provide your email and it's putting people on a MailChimp email list. And I'd get thousands of applications for this Facebook group.
And all I wanted someone to do was go through and copy the email address into an Excel spreadsheet and no one would do it. But Jack said, I just do it for free. And so I said, all right, Jack, and he finished it like the first night.
And then after that, I said, okay, no, he's a hard worker. And I had these other ideas. I said, hey, how about you go through my emails?
And I want to do this call on like the Dave Ramsey show. I want to do the Graham Stephan show. And he went through these emails, picked really good people.
And then I thought, okay, well, now you could edit these. He started editing those. And then he started being integrated with other things.
And so it was a very slow moving, like one step, one step, one step. And then he came to me with the idea of the podcast in 2020. And I'm like, yeah, let's do it.
And he spearheaded that. You might like this quote from Rockefeller, which is, More great friendships emerge from business than great businesses emerge from friendships.
So basically, if you do business together and you have stakes, then you already know how someone's going to behave in arguably like your most vulnerable position when someone could screw you and then they don't. Then you're like, oh, well, then I just, I trust you now. So like, I have no, like, we're good.
We talked about how many billions of views have been around this table. All of you, to some degree, have reached this sort of level of fame where people actually recognize you. You're out and about.
Zach, you and I talked about this, I think, on our last podcast on my show. And I asked you something about if you wanted to get famous. And you basically just said that only because it's a core metric for the thing that I'm trying to do.
If you could theoretically have the success in your field without the fame, would you take that deal?
Um, well, I, I, I really enjoy meeting people and having some type of commonality. And like, this is just happens on a kind of a broader basis. So, uh, cause it never even, so I'll get recognized with like when I go out, but even the first thought is never like, Oh, this guy might know me.
It's like, wait, how do I know this guy? I wonder where that's from. It's not like, Oh, he might watch my stuff, but it, it's just opened so many doors to meeting new people.
And, and, um, it does build kind of that trust we were talking about where it, if people know who you are, there is that immediate trust on their end. So it does open a lot of, a lot of doors.
And I think my job is not, is to use that in a part for a positive thing and not like take advantage of people because they might have trusted me initially. So yeah, I don't see how I would get kind of what my goals are without it, but also my goals probably are it not in a sense of praise, but in a sense of, getting connected with a lot of people.
I know it was something that you struggled with for a little while, right? Where you were just like, I'm just going to build businesses. Why would I want everybody to know who I am?
Yeah. Then you see a Kylie Jenner who's 21 launch a billion dollar cosmetics brand in a year. And it basically changes your tune, right?
Can you tell us what ended up pulling you in that realm? Yeah, it was like this series of unfortunate events, if you want to call it that, where the first ever podcast that I did publicly was just at my house in a random room. And a guy named Ryan Fisher, who's a fitness guy, flew out just to like...
do this pod and before we're setting up he had the camera on and he's like you know it's it's crazy how much money you're making and like no one knows who you are and i was like oh yeah i'm trying to be the least influential influencer of all time um and so it's like i have no desire to be famous or any of that stuff and so it's just kind of funny because i think that was like 2018 or 2019 and um yeah it was struggle because i had it was kylie it wasn't just kylie kylie was like the biggest crack but then it was and then uh clooney had uh because amigos uh then proper 12 with conor mcgregor and then yeah yeah and then huda had huda beauty and she had her like exit and then um and then i was listening to a podcast where this guy who was on youtube um uh he he like helped people exit the us and become like expats or whatever and he said that he was getting a hundred inbound applications a day and i went through his site and i saw the the the application it was like
27 questions of like, I mean, everything short of your social security. I mean, it was like an incredibly painful thing to like, you know, move someone from place to place. And he had like 180 ,000 people on YouTube.
And I was like, shit. I just knew that if I was like, if I had 100 inbound warm applications a day, I was like, I would already be doing $100 million a year. And then shortly thereafter, I got on, like I started making content.
And Sharon and I had this discussion. He was like, fame is the fastest arbitrage. of value creation and so uh anyways i i have graham invited me out to do the first iced coffee hour and i i remember saying i was like man if i had your audience i would be a billionaire yep it's still uh i still think about it yeah yeah yeah yeah oh here we go there he is Wow.
So we got big chicken for the whole table. But we did. We did get Alex something special because we know you have all the hacks in the Chipotle line.
So we got you the world's largest Chipotle bowl just for you. I think there's about 450 grams of protein. I'll give you $100 for your favorite charity to eat that right now.
I won't be able to. He also hates charity, so that was a bad call. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
If you would have said strip club, you would have been figuring it out. We'll get back to the show in just one second. But first, we are in the middle of a loneliness epidemic.
The Surgeon General warned that it's the next great public health crisis. And that's actually why I created Dinner Party, because I want to challenge you. to host one of your own.
The World Happiness Report found that people who share more meals with friends report greater happiness and satisfaction with their lives. Meanwhile, in 2026, 42 % of American adults say they feel lonely at least once a week, which is up from 33 % in 2025. It doesn't need to be fancy.
Just order some pizza, invite a few people over, put the phones away, ask a question you've never asked before, and use the hashtag dinner party challenge so that we can share your dinners and say hello over there. I'm Travis Chappell, host of Travis Makes Friends and Travis Makes money.
And over the past nine years, I've released over 2000 podcast episodes, mostly on professional networking, making friends and building better relationships. So when you accept the dinner party challenge, you'll also join my free newsletter, your friend. Travis.
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Think local dinners, in -person meetups, and an online space where you can make friends, share ideas, and turn we should do something into actual solidified plans. Join now and you'll be the first to hear when that community opens. You'll also get behind the scenes footage and opportunities to help shape future episodes of this show.
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Be the one who makes the first move. If no one does, nothing changes. Now let's get back to the show.
You famously had a story where you were meeting with a guy in a hotel lobby, 1990s. Ended up being a pretty solid investment for you. Can you tell us about that?
I was sitting at a table like this, and a guy had some kids, and I was just playing with the kids. Everybody knows Shaq loves the kids. I'm playing with the kids.
I wasn't even paying attention to that conversation. And he looks over at me and says, man, I met a lot of superstars. I haven't met anybody like you.
You're here by yourself. You're humble. You're nice to my kids.
And he started talking about Google. I had no idea what he was talking about. But one of the first things I did when I started playing, I used to read a lot of quote books.
General Eisenhower said, the greatest leaders are the ones to hire people that are smarter than him. So he's giving me all this shit. I have no idea what he's talking about.
So I give it to my guy. My money guy said I met this guy. He's talking about this Google thing searching your thing in the future I said you want to look at and he said hey man, she looks pretty promising.
I Said what you want to do? He said what you want to put it on so just you know, just put in a little bit You know put him and put it a little bit and I forgot about it and then one day I was reading the paper and They talked about all the guys that were first investors and and that was a nice big hit which I lost all of my divorce Let's bring her out.
She has opinions on that. When you talk about promotion, could people say, hey, if Shaq's involved in this brand, you know, Shaq's going to go promote. How do you kind of think about you being involved in things?
Where do you put kind of promotional energy? Is there a strategy behind it? How do you kind of think through it?
Yeah, there's only one strategy. I'm not going to lie to the people for my monetary gain. If I don't believe in your product, I won't do it.
Favorite story is Icy Hot. Before I had to deal with ICI, I had a thigh injury, and I rubbed it on my thighs, and that shit rolls up to the boys. It sure does.
I didn't know that. It was kind of super hot. So then my guy says, hey, man, ICI, I want to do a deal with you.
I said, yes, because that shit works. Yes, I will definitely do a deal with ICI. So, you know, for me, being raised by a military man, we're always taught honor and integrity.
And even though there's a lot of money being thrown at them, I can't take your money and then lie to the people. I just can't do it. How do you pass all of that down to your kids and make sure you instill those values in them?
Well, trials and tribulations are definitely different. So I'm not as hard on my kids as my parents were on me. But luckily, I have nine great children.
I ain't using this word. All my kids are perfect. I don't have any problems.
They were mad at me for a while because I put out a statement that says, we're not rich, I'm rich. So, you know, I try to make them work for it. The girls have to work a little easier, but the guys, I just try to make them work for it.
And I finally opened up the books for them. I said, hey, when something happens to me, this is what you get. There's stipulations.
Gotta have a master's, gotta have a bachelor's. So if you want to touch the cheese, you gotta have two or three degrees. But, you know, I just, you know, as a parent, you just want there to be something.
I preach to them early. We don't need another basketball player in the family. If your father's crazy, your father's insane, I don't want you to be like that.
Just be something else. And when you got nine children, that's nine different things. And I also try to explain to them that, you know, your father's very successful and your mother's, but I'm at the point to where you tell me what you want to do, I'm sure I know somebody in that field.
You know, you want to do a podcast, I know a lot of producers. You want to do movies, I can call anybody in Hollywood. I just want them to be something.
I just want them to be productive. I just want them to be educated. So as a father of nine, I have that.
And I'm the happiest dad in the world. Because I know a lot of fathers and mothers in my position. And their kids are off the record.
So I don't have that problem. I was hanging out with, actually, Sharif four or five days ago. Oh, you were?
Super nice guy. Yeah, yeah. Nice kid.
We had a mutual friend who was having a kid. And yeah, I think your other son was there as well. But I didn't speak to him as much.
Great people. Did he come with you today? Because I told him to.
No, he's not here. Okay, never mind. I don't like him.
I get more giggles out of that. Hey, man, I met your kids. Your kids are great.
I mean, one time, because my father was a hardcore dropper. A guy came to my dad one day and be like, Sarge, man, Shaquille is a great kid. My father said, That's supposed to be a compliment, motherfucker.
It's supposed to be a great son. So I'm kind of opposite. Like, so when I hear people say, hey, Mike, your kids are so nice, that's just, you know, it's just a great night.
So thank you for saying that. Yeah, I was trying to wingman him a little bit, to be completely honest. That's okay.
If you guys want to, like, talk into the food and forget after this. Yeah, I'm not hungry, but. Okay.
I'll eat. Yeah, what do you recommend? I don't know what's in the box.
Big chicken. We got some of everything. Tenders, sandwiches.
Worst case, I could take this to go, right? Of course. So I was saying, I would always see this filthy rich guy.
I'm talking rich. Four season, Rolls Royce, white guy. So finally, I said, hey, man, how you doing?
He's like, hey, Shaq. And I asked him, I was like, I'm a kid again. He's like, how do you stay rich?
And he has a napkin. He said, Shaq, if you have $100, it'll be like this. He said, you want to save 50 and do another.
But he said, if you want to be wealthy, you play with 25 and you save 75. So after I heard him say that, I was starting to get an endorsement check and not even turn them in. Just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
And now I'm starting to have a lot of money and now I'm starting to meet people and invest in things and do strategic investment and also had to do something that was fail -proof. annuities. I said to myself, okay, if I fuck all this up, I still want to be able to get something when I'm 40.
So I had so much money coming in, I put a lot into annuities, so I had to start collecting. Matter of fact, next year, get a lot. I'm off for the rest of my life.
So 55, 60, and 65. That was my fail proof that just in case the investments don't work and this and that. Thank you.
I appreciate it. What's the return on the annuities? Is it like a percentage that you get?
I don't like to brag, but I think at 55, I'll probably get a million dollars a month. A million dollars a month. Geez.
No way. I don't know you, so I can't build your trust. That's a callback.
That's something like that. Wow. Yeah.
How do you value, from the outside perspective, you're everywhere all at once. How do you, I guess, equate what's worth it for your time? Because, I mean, you've made a lot of money, obviously, but the most precious thing you probably have now is your time.
It's opportunities and belief. I'm thankful to still have these opportunities, but I just believe in your product. So, you know, the fact that I haven't played basketball in 15 years and I'm still able to do commercials, you just have to take advantage of that.
But I will not. I lied to the people and I will not get myself involved in something that I truly don't care about. Can you talk a little bit more about, you mentioned your dad, but I know that there's a lot of other people who had a mentorship role in your life.
Your coach at LSU, Dale Brown, was somebody who believed in you really early. And then Phil Jackson brings you to his house in Montana, makes you swim across the lake. You go to one and win some championships.
What is the role of this? You guys did your freaking research. FBI agents here.
They all were masters of psychology. You see a tough kid that's not going to quit. You see a tough kid that has a lot.
You see a tough kid that wants a lot. So you have to push every button until you get it done. They know.
Everybody knew that when I get pissed off, I get super focused. So Father would do a great job of pissing me off. Dale Brown would do a great job of pissing me off.
Like, my father, in order for me to have a great game every game, he would always focus on what I didn't do right. Everybody knows I'm not a great free throw shooter. I can remember one game I had 67 points when I missed 10 free throws in the ride in the car.
He said, everybody's sucking you up. You could have had 77, pussy. Like, no good game.
So now, next game, I'm like, okay, pops. I'm going to fucking get, like, it just kept me going. Dale Brown was the same way, and Phil was the same way.
So the fact that they were all similar and the fact that we all wanted the same thing and they know what buttons to push to get me there. There's a quote from Aristotle also is one of my favorites. Without friends, no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
Who are some friendships in your life that you think make life worth living? All of them. My crew is still with me from 95.
Uncle Jerome. Yeah, Uncle Jerome's at the house. D -Mac, Alex.
No guys that help me become who I am. And I was thinking about this the other day with Tiger Woods. I don't think he has friends.
What I mean by that, my friends are telling me, stop fucking up. You already did that one time. Don't fucking do it again or we're going to fight.
That's my friends. My friends are not, when they see me drinking in the club, they give me more drinks. They see me drinking in the club, give me the keys, that's my friends.
I don't know them, but in order for that to happen twice, tell me something's going on. I think he needs some better friends. Not yes men, fucking friends.
And my friends will fight me. Especially Uncle Jerome, my mother's brother, he don't play. He's been keeping me out of trouble ever since my father passed away.
Do you find it hard to get new friends? Do you feel like, I don't know how to trust people? Because obviously the people you've had forever, you can trust them.
They're not here just for your accolades or money, but how do you differentiate? There's a difference between friends and friendly. I'm always be friendly to people.
Especially if you're friendly to me, but it takes a lot to get in and get close. Then there's a word between friend and friendly. It's called associates.
I have a lot of associates. You guys are my associates. I respect you.
You don't call me. I'll be there for you, but I don't know much about you. You don't know much about me.
You're an acquaintance for me, just so you know. You got to work on associates. There's tears for me.
No problem.
I want to shift the conversation a little bit. We've been talking a little bit about brand tonight, Jack. And Alex, in particular, I want to start with you because you recently had a Guinness World Record.
You sold the most copies of a nonfiction book in 24 hours in history with 2 .9 million, I believe. I knew that was you. What's up?
Yeah, that's awesome. Over 100 million cash collected during the launch. How much of that?
do you attribute to brand versus the crazy logistics that went into pulling off a successful event like that? I think it's kind of like, what's the most important part of a car? It's like, is it the wheels or the engine?
It's like, well, you can't have the car work without all of it. I would say which one was more replicable. The logistics behind the launch, incredibly difficult, but the brand is probably harder.
You put, I mean, you wrote the book way before. which I think a lot of people might not know. It's like you waited till you had the brand, essentially, to pull off the plan.
Sounds like you're paying now. He's pouring his heart out. Just, hey, get your sips in, man.
Did you realize you were going to sell that many? Like when you were writing the book, did you just like, I'm going to sell it? Well, the $100 million series, the goal was that on the third book, which would be monetization.
So each book was like a demonstration. Thanks. Congratulations.
thank you that's big can you define brand it's the associations that people make between two things that's bread you have a bad brand you have a good brand association between two things and typically it's between something that the audience that you're trying to do the branding with something they don't know and then something they do know and if you're doing running well something they know and like right so the dilemma of any case is like the easiest like a branding master class of she or rather edweiser did a deal with her thinking that uh by doing the deal they would make an association that their audience liked but the vast majority of the audience did not like that association so sales went down then they made another association strong with ufc which had a much larger percentage of their audience which thought it was good so then that was good branding because it resulted in more sales and so i think don't move any might be it might have been a perfect
brand association for a different business, but probably not Budweiser. Could you give your association, or when you speak about the bouquet, I love that analogy. So it's like, if we think about making a brand, it's like, what makes a flower bouquet a flower bouquet versus the flowers that are on a table?
It's like, just bringing them together makes the associations, right? But then if you have just one rose, it's like, what's happening there? If I have 20 roses and they're all red, that's a much stronger impression and so just like tiger woods has one masters versus ten masters or whatever it is it's like his brain gets stronger with each successive win but as soon as you have one of those roses that breaks and you try to handle you know hand your wife the bouquet and one of those roses is broken all of a sudden she's like what's this bouquet is up right and so the only way that you can compensate for that one broken stem is that you have to do a hundred more so that's so much overwhelming proof or you know brand associations over and over again that it almost Because you can never go back in time and undo a brand association.
It dilutes the broken. Exactly. You can only dilute it.
And ideally, you dilute it the right way. You dilute it into irrelevance because of all the other things that you do the right way. You believe in brand influencers?
I mean, because I have this fight with my company. That's how I'm this brand influencer. I'm like, what does that mean?
Paying to be on like someone to shout him out? Yes. Yes.
Oh. I see that as just advertising. Like you're paying for some amount of reach.
And then obviously there's some association there that happens. I mean, she had her thing. It just didn't go well.
I think the vast majority of influencers don't have that much influence. Thank you. Yeah.
You have influence because you have a long history of what you just said. It was like, everyone knows that you want, you've also have enough money that people know that you don't want to sell your reputation. You're like, it's not worth it.
And so they can then trust that when you're like, Hey, this icy hot, this is the shit. And so I think your brand is incredibly strong. And I think you, I mean, you've been able to use it to make huge amounts of money because it's been valuable to those companies.
And so I think there's totally brand influencers. I think just there's a lot of them that just don't have influence. People don't actually listen to them because they don't care.
With the Shaq brand in particular, I heard a story where you were, I think it was high school, and you were watching all the guys of that era, the Magics, and you were trying to do sort of like... replicate their style of play. And then your dad pulls you aside and says, like, stop trying to be magic, be Shaq.
Which ultimately led to you just basically dunking everybody. No, I didn't fart. Well, you probably did.
And if you blame me again, we're going to take this outside.
you had starbucks and that's how you know it wasn't me it's a fetish too because he winked when he did it you fart don't lick your lips dude i'm trying to have a good afternoon oh i'm telling you you just went down from acquaintance to i don't know what you are i didn't fuck if i was gonna be proud we'll pick it up yeah if i was gonna participate in the toot i wouldn't like i'd spread the cheeks it was just air coming out you know i would do that So anyway, you transitioned to basically just start dunking down people's throats, which ultimately became the logo for the Shaq brand, which has now sold how many pairs of shoes?
Oh, I think over 400. So Jumpman is Jordan. I was in college and the professor said, gave all the students, he said, give us an assignment, create a product or products that you can see being sold in the future.
I mean, I do what I was doing. So I kept seeing the Jordan Dunkman, the Jumpman. So I was like, got one of my friends to look at a picture of me dunking, create it, went to the local office, trademarked it in the States only.
And then I came in with products, underwear, t -shirts, whatever. And a professor laughed at me. He said, cool.
Let's say you put a lot of thought into this, but big guys don't sell. And it was true. So at that time, only, Magic and Larry Bird had commercials.
And all the big guys were stale. My money was stale. So I kind of went back to my role and I said, ha ha, if I ever get a chance to get on TV, I have to utilize my humor.
So I think that's why I've survived as a big guy. I think I'm the only big guy who's ever really done commercials in anything. And I think my humor has a lot to play with that.
And the crazy thing about my humor is I've been a class clown since second grade. So I always like to think I'm funny. How tall were you in second grade?
Taller than you are now.
At least five feet. I was tall. Six nine at 13 or something.
Yes, six nine. Wow. You got a couple years.
You'll hit it. I'm going to hit the growth spurt any day. 37, 38.
It's still there. I hear 40 is actually when you start to increase a little bit. What's your name again?
Because I got a nickname. Graham, like a Graham Cracker. I'm not going to call you Graham.
Your name is MTC. MTC? Yeah, mini Tom Cruise.
I'll take it. I'll take it, man. And Tom Cruise is already mini.
Yeah, the mini mini. He never aged. He looks great.
And I'll take it. And you love science, dude. You want to try it on?
It's giving me Fonzie happy days. Thank you. Yeah, if you want to try it on, feel free.
Yeah, I do. With the hair, right? Yeah.
Shaq, you are seemingly in about 50 % of the commercials that I see on TV. I am? I didn't know that.
It seems like it, anyway. You also commentate for TNT. After we're done here, you're going to rap.
take a nap go play a show and live you got a show at the sphere i think coming up soon tomorrow so how do you compartmentalize and always bring the party with you when you're constantly going and doing the next thing i like his take on brands the shack brand is all about fun i'd like to consider myself the up train we heard you like train so we actually had it that's a diesel yeah yeah There you go, Travis.
Travis is in the bag right now. So I like to consider myself the ambassador of fun. I just like having fun.
For me, it's real. This is how I am. When the camera's on, when the camera's off, nice, respectful, like to have fun, like to do my thing.
And again, it's about opportunity. You know, the DJ thing, for me, it gives me what I call ARF, the adrenaline rush factor. Because for so long, from age nine to...
40 was about an hour of people going, oh, boo. So when I DJ in front of a crowd, like I had a show the other day, it was 100 ,000 people there. And that gave me the feeling of the final parade at the Staples Center.
It gives me that adrenaline rush factor. Because when I retired, I didn't have that. I just felt useless.
I didn't feel like a man. What's your favorite song to play? I have no idea.
I have to look at the crowd. Well, we're all going to be there, so. Do it.
We'll bring a sign. Good job. We'll write something cool on there.
You're doing really good or something.
Don't fart. I'm not going to fart. First of all, I know you did it.
No, I didn't do it. Whoever smelt it dealt it. Isn't that the thing?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It consumed me like a cumulus nimbus. It was near.
Good cloud reference. Thank you so much. I've been like, I was trying to sneak it in the whole time.
I was like, thank God he set me up with the fart thing. Start talking about clouds. But you say you bring the party everywhere.
How often are you just not in the mood? Like you just wake up, you just have a bad day, but you have to still like bring the party. You don't?
No way. Because I remember one time I was complaining about a terrible game. And my father made me fly home.
Get your ass home, and I want to see you tomorrow at 0900. Like, what the fuck is 0900? 9 a .m., so I go to his house, and I say, you wanted to talk to me?
Shut the fuck up. Puts me in the car, and he drives me to this bridge, and I'm sitting there. He's going, so you had a bad game yesterday?
I was like, yes, sir. He's like, I'm telling you, you fucking spoiled brats who make all this money complain about you had a bad game. It could be worse.
He said, look over there. And across the street was a homeless family. So I never want to hear you fucking complain again.
Now get out. So what do you mean get out? I said, get out.
So get out means take care of the family. So I made contact with the guy. And I said, hey, man, how you doing?
I'm just, I'm on some hard time. I said, you know my father? He said, yeah, Sergeant Harrison.
He always come by and give us stuff. So he said, I can't leave until I get you situated. No, man, we don't take handouts.
I said, fuck, I'm not going back over there until I get you situated. What can I do for you? Man, if we could just.
I can just get a place to stay. Hold on. Hey, Jonathan, you just built some apartments.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I need a three -bedroom. How much?
$3 ,000 a month, $36 ,000. All right, send me the wire information. So now I got him a place to stay.
So now I'm like, hey, man, what do you like to do? Man, I can do anything I want. Hold on.
Hey, Tony, you still got that motherfucking grass -cutting service? Yeah. I'm going to send a guy.
We're going to clean them up. Just let them cut grass. So anyway, the guy did that for a while.
Got on his feet, started his own company. I hired him at my house. I recently had to, I don't want to say fire him, I recently had to stop doing business with him because I sold my house in Orlando.
But my father taught me it's a valuable lesson. Things could be worse. Do you think you would have become who you are today if your father hadn't been as hard as he was on you?
Maybe. And that's a great question because I think about it all the time. So, you know, his process was, you make the mistake, And it teaches you not to make that same mistake twice.
And I'm still doing stuff at 50 now that I was doing when I was eight or nine. My guy was laughing at me the other day because I told my chef to make me a sandwich and he put three pieces of turkey on it and I sent it back. Motherfucker, we don't play that.
One slice of turkey. I mean, because that's how it was growing up. One slice of turkey, one slice of cheese.
He's like, come on, man. I was like, nah, nah, nah, nah. I don't play that shit.
I'm not. One slice of turkey. No more, man.
You're rich now. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no.
One slice of turkey, one slice. So like stuff, it's just, it's just nature. It's just habits just, you know, instilled in me.
We're talking earlier a lot about motivation. What continues to motivate you to keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing? One, two, three things.
So I'm a family guy and I know I've been talking to my father. Now let's get to my mother. Mother never had a house growing up.
She'd go house from house. So when she started having kids and got married to my father, still never had her own house because we moved from barracks to barracks, like apartment buildings. So one day in San Antonio, we arrived in her neighborhood.
I just see her stop and look at this house. Nice house with the fence. She just stopped and looked.
So now I'm at the high school in America. This is the time where I started getting fucking focused. I'm going to buy my mom a house.
And she was the only person that believed in my stupid dreams. Mom, you know, when I get drafted, I'm going to make about $50 million. I know, baby.
I tell my friends, I said, man, shut the fuck up. I'm asking for $50 million. I know, baby, you're going to get it, too.
So anyway, I just was able to make that dream come true. tears in her eyes, tears in my eyes, in the family's eyes. But before my father passed away, he would say little things that he knew I would remember.
Don't lose your mama, husband, or all that money. Because he didn't really know my method, but when I show off, I show off. But now that I got 70 % said, this little 10, 20%, I'm going to do what the fuck I want to do.
So I would come with Ferraris and Lamborghinis. He didn't really understand financial literacy, but he had like horror stories in his head that I had all this shit. My son's going to go broke.
So before he passed away, he said, don't lose your mom's house fucking around. So now I got to get refocused again. So that is number one.
Number two, I got nine children that look up to me. And then the world, kids look up to me. So I just always try to be the best example that I can be.
So that motivates me. And I know one day it's going to be over. I know one day I'll be 60, 70, and I'll be old.
I'll just be the legend Shaq and won't be doing all this stuff. So I'm just having fun while I can. You brought up your mom.
What is your favorite Dr. Lucille O 'Neal quote? Make them remember your name.
I think you did a pretty good job with that one. Yeah. What was it again?
Make them remember your name. What was your name again? My name is Tony.
So great to meet you, man. Nice to meet you, too. Fart, man.
Okay. Well, there's the spark there. Fart Simpson.
You like that one? That one made you laugh? Yeah.
All the people you paid in the background just laughed. That's all that was. Oh, man.
Our friend's so funny. Can't wait to go to the club tonight. That's all that was.
Me and him would have been best buddies in high school. No, we wouldn't have. Fight one day and then hang out the next day.
Yeah, you wouldn't be able to fit in my twin bed. We'd have to share a bit of that. Twin bed?
I wasn't. I wasn't. I didn't have a lot of money, sorry.
I didn't have a queen or a king. A twin? Yeah.
I did two at some points, man. A few times. Yeah.
I used to tell people it was a Japanese mattress. Is it actually true? So when they'd come in, I'd be like, yeah, it's just a mattress.
But also, I was sharing it with other people. Like the room. There's no way I have money and also other people live in that room.
One thing I found kind of interesting when I was doing some research before this is that One thing we all have in common is everybody here has a podcast. Shaq, we'll start with you, and I'd love to hear from everybody else.
Why do you podcast? What benefit does it bring you? It doesn't really bring me any benefit.
I just like to do it. A good friend of mine, Adam Lefkoe, he's a wonderful sportscaster. Yeah.
It's just something I do. In my world, in my culture, the podcast has become very silly. Like, what you guys do, informative.
I enjoy this kind of podcast, teaching people. So, like, mine is, Stephen ain't talking about this guy, this guy, this athlete. And, you know, I see a lot of athletes, and it's a shame, and they're probably not going to like me for saying this.
I see more athletes getting famous from podcasts than their regular body of work. And to me, that's a shame. Like, I don't want to be known for doing a podcast.
I know. I want to be remembered for what I did as a basketball player or what I did as a human. So a lot of these guys, they like these podcasts and they just take it too far.
But for me, if it's not comedy or informative, then you're just wasting people's time. And I don't want to be a hypocrite. I do it every now and then, but I do it in my world.
I'm allowed to talk about a basketball player because that's what I do. I don't go out and talk about politics and talk about this and about that. So in my realm of podcasts, it's getting silly.
What you guys do, very informative. Keep up the good work. I like it.
Graham has a show with one and a half million YouTube subscribers, in addition to your five million subscriber regular YouTube channel. It's all about money and finance, entrepreneurship. So we spun off my main channel as a podcast to talk to other people about their success stories and what they do.
And for me, doing my main channel, it's just me in a room. For like 12 hours a day. Yeah, just me.
Just me talking to a camera. And at the time, I was posting like 12 videos every single week. I didn't miss an upload for like four years straight.
And so it's just me in a room. And so a podcast was a really good excuse that I could meet other people that I would never ordinarily get to meet. And I found that when I would invite people like, hey, let's go grab a coffee or let's go.
Like no one wants to do that. But when you say, hey, come on the podcast, everyone says yes. It's just a cool way to meet people.
Like meeting Alex Ramosi was just incredible. If you would just come to the house, we'd talk for like three hours straight. And it's so much more intimate.
All of a sudden when a camera's going, you get the side of a person that you would never get over like coffee. Yeah. Sorry, I got to get my milk.
So I love it. He knows when dinner time is. But the other thing that's so cool is that when you break down, like some of these people would charge like $200 ,000 for like an hour of their time.
200 ,000, geez. We got to speak with Tony Robbins for like two hours, one -on -one. And I'm thinking in my mind, this is such an incredible opportunity.
Was he like this the whole time? Dude, I hung on his every word. I give it to me.
There's a lot of energy when he talks. I'm like the biggest Kentucky fan in the world, and I got to interview Coach Cal in his office. Well, Ellis, I mean, you know what I mean?
Yeah, they're a football school.
You know what I mean? I mean, it is what it is. Ben Simmons had that workout.
What I do want to say is, but it was so cool to be in his office around the championships, around the players, and it just opened doors that I couldn't afford a ticket to Rupp Arena as a kid. And now it's like, oh, I'm sitting here with a coach. I'm like, you know, I get what you mean.
Alex? Yeah, I started mine because I wanted to. document it for myself because I lost everything.
So I had some level of success in entrepreneurship, lost it all. And so 90 days after losing it all, that's when I made my first podcast because I wanted to document the lessons because I always thought it was cool. Like you said, Bezos, he's a big hero of mine as well.
And I always wished that I was like, man, if I could have had Bezos' journal, obviously there's shareholders letters, but like if I could have had his like, what was he doing on October? you know 13th of of 1999 like i just want to know what he was thinking through and so i wanted to have it be as raw as i could so that i could look back and be like oh yeah that's what i was thinking throughout that at that point in my career on on my on my road to where i was trying to go so that was first started with me and then other people ended up liking it sharon you are uh a brutally consistent person you just show up You had the 5 a .m.
club for years and years. There's 5 a .m. every day.
5 a .m., call thousands of people to join. But you also have your podcast, which has remained consistent in the background of all the other things that you're doing. Why make time for that?
Many years ago when we started our first business, you had to drive between offices. And we had one office, and then we do the real estate business to a second office, and I would just drive between the offices. Then there'd be a third office.
And I ended up just driving between offices. I'm like, this is not working. I'm driving 450 miles a week.
This is not working. So this guy told me that, hey, if you record a podcast, it'll be private. And you could just give it to tell everybody that everybody in the business to listen to it.
So I was like, oh, this is great. So that would be leverage for me. So I started making the podcast for the business, but I had no idea about that it was public.
So we started, I started making, so I started making the podcast and then I started to see the views grow. And I said, well, why am I making a weekly podcast when I make a daily show? So I started making it every, so I made it five days a week.
So we built, I mean, we were fortunate to build a billion dollar business on me just making a podcast five days a week. Yeah. That's so funny that you didn't know.
You're like, who, I mean. We don't even have this many employees. I like love that so much more now.
Well, just to wrap up. First off, just want to say thank you to everybody here. Fart man.
Hey man, you got nine kids in the first night you've ever wrapped up, huh?
He's been sitting at Joe's for some time. MTC. Thank you, man.
Shaq, you are quite literally my childhood hero. I appreciate that, brother. Not mine.
A mural painted of you backing down Ben Wallace on my wall. Bobbleheads, jerseys alike. Zach, you're here.
Thank you. No, generally though, like the stuff you've done with your podcast, the business you built in the back end, I have a ton of respect for you and I appreciate you being willing to co -produce, come sit down, be a guest and all that stuff. Thank you, thank you.
Alex, 100 Million Dollar Offers was the book that was responsible for my first million dollar year in business before I turned 30. So thank you for doing that. All right, I'm gonna check it out.
Graham, newer to your stuff, but the podcast. for me is always a challenge when i see people who start a podcast after i did because i've been doing it for nine years now and then blow mine out of the water so i've learned a lot from you watching from afar and appreciate you taking the time sharon you were one of the first people to just be willing to spend time with me when i was a nobody and i've always very much appreciated that time you could have charged me six figures for the stuff you gave me for free so generally a dream come true for me everybody so thank you so much that's a wrap thank you first episode of dinner party Quiet on set!
Well, it's not live, right? Correct. There's 30 ,000 people tuning in right now.
I didn't know it was Sydney Thomas. Okay, we're right into it. She's good, man.
How's it going with your... I hope you get a divorce. This table's a little far away.
I think we have to... Shaq's going to be here? Brother, I haven't got...
We don't... We don't have enough room. Yeah, just right when he comes in.
That's right. We budgeted for one ass cheek. Okay, that's what I'm saying.
I feel like you gotta move this a little close. It's intimate. I feel roomy as fuck over here.
You gotta move the chair this way. That was his fault. No, but it's too far.
He just wanted to prove you strong. It's too far away. Nobody sits like this.
We have no food. Yeah, it'll be good. There will be food.
Have a good time. Just sit back, relax, enjoy yourself. In the green room, Shaq thought he was a child.
Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you was a kid.
How's it going? I think I have to.
I told you if you burped, you would burp. I know I can't, that's the bad part. I just like, I'm like, oh, burp.
Coffee's good. Sweet.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The title promises a get-rich lesson from Shaq and Hormozi; what you actually get is a dinner party. Host Travis Chappell opens by teasing the most dominant NBA player of all time, then spends the first hour with Hormozi, Graham Stephan, comedian Zach Justice and deal advisor Sharran Srivatsaa before Shaq walks in with big chicken. The money lessons are real, they just come wrapped in roast jokes.
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Two business owners, one studio audience, and a 73-minute case for selling through rooms instead of pitches: Zoom calls, coffee meetups, workshops, and the follow-up that closes them.
A 31-minute, one-take talking-head where a six-year YouTuber reads ten fundamentals off his phone notes and argues that the unscripted, unedited version of you is the whole strategy.
A 52-minute no-BS breakdown from a UK creator who replaced his income on YouTube, complete with real earnings, real contracts, and 13 things you should never do.
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