What series of bad life choices led you here?

My friend meeting Jeff Fargo.

Yeah, Jeff.

You son of a bitch.

He's listening in the background.

We were talking about his package earlier.

That's nice.

Good start to the day, guys seem very friendly here.

What we believe in openness in the community.

Yeah.

Something you and I will be talking about a great deal.

Awesome.

So I first saw your content on Ballerbuster's page was reposted, and you were taking what I like to call a loving critique of Andy Elliott.

That's very nice of you to say.

Yeah.

You know, affection is going to be a recurring theme during this episode.

So talk to me about what brought you to the moment where you decided to make content calling out some of the most nefarious characters, shall we say, on the social webs.

Well, I don't know if, you know, I've been in the car business for 25 years, and Andy's main fame to claim is car sales.

Car sales training.

Yeah.

And just hearing the claims that he makes, you know, hearing the way that he talks to people, just sitting in my office one day, saw one of his videos.

I said, you know what?

I'm going to respond to this.

And very first one just went viral.

It's crazy.

So that's kind of what, where it started.

Just kind of seeing his content just going, you know, this.

The things he says are just so.

Outlandish, you know, so being in the car business for as long as you've been, you've obviously built a career doing this.

You've done it for a long period of time.

You can kind of see the social media pretty easily.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

But at the same time, a lot of people who are not in the business, they really kind of fall for that stuff.

They do.

So I think that's.

That's probably why.

I think the clip you posted was so sensational, because so few people have the.

The.

That level of experience.

20 plus years is a long time to be able to call it out.

But did you.

Did you think it was gonna go viral when you made it, when you made the response?

No, not at all.

Because if.

If you see some of my newer content, I'm real aggressive, you know, I'll say, shut up.

And I'm, you know, I cuss a lot.

That video was just literally me sitting at my desk and in a calm voice saying, andy Elliott, you're full of shit.

You know, so, no, I didn't expect that.

You know, just the way that I did that.

So the format changed later into Me being a little bit more aggressive, but, you know, I know, to say the least.

Right.

Well, I mean, let's go there.

I want to start there in the beginning.

So why, why the twist to be more aggressive?

Like, what was it you felt?

I just thought it was catchy, you know, just to, you know, when, you know, someone had reached out, was talking to me about how to edit and whatnot.

And so I took that to heart and I go, you know what?

I think I really need to grab people.

When it cuts to me, it's really got to be able to grab them.

So.

And it is catchy, frankly, your anger, whenever you're like, what the fuck?

Yeah, right out the gate, it catches.

It catches you.

Yeah, I think it's valuable.

So I want to spend some time on Andy Elliott because as somebody who was born and raised in Oklahoma, I can tell you we don't claim him.

Yeah, that's not our boy.

Well, if you read the comment section.

Yeah, no, I.

Very ashamed of him out there.

So have you, have you actually met him or like been to his, his like, I guess, events or whatever these cultures.

So I've never personally met him.

I have gone to one of his events.

One of my good friends is his next door neighbor, so they're in the insurance business.

Oh, so many questions.

Oh, I know, we'll get.

I'll give you a little synopsis of it, then you can ask away.

But basically Brad Lee, who is Andy Elliott's mentor, they.

Wait, I'm sorry, Brad was his mentor?

Yes.

So, yeah, but they both come from the car business.

So Brad is kind of the one that showed him.

When I say mentor, I mean on social media.

Yeah, they always kind of follow somebody else's.

Andy went to Brad, I guess they were friends before and was like, how do I blow up?

And I guess he told me, you need to be the content, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is.

So that's when Andy started to get real big.

Was just having cameras following him around.

The aggressive in your face type sales tactics, very controversial, got people talking.

So that's what really blew him up.

But anyway, back to what we're talking about with my friend.

They have a life insurance company and Bradley and Andy Elliott have their own called Real Financial.

Well, it wasn't doing very well.

Big surprise.

The two of them own a company together.

The Bradley and Andy.

Yes.

I didn't know Andy Elliott did anything besides, you know, be a douche on social media.

Wow.

He's got like seven or so different ways of, you know, his Training his life insurance business, the podcast that he's now charging people to be on.

So.

Yeah, he has, he has.

I know they're running, they're running simultaneous scams.

You know, for the record, we didn't charge you to be on the show.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah, no, I wouldn't take any money either.

Yeah, but, but, but, yeah.

So their real financial wasn't doing very well, so my neighbor went to them with a proposition.

Hey, let GFI come in.

That's the name of the company and we'll help.

We have an onboarding program.

We have everything you need to get the thing going.

So they jumped on board with it.

So they were trying to recruit me into the life insurance business, my friend.

So he goes, hey, come to Arizona.

Andy Elliott's gonna be putting on a thing.

You can come, you could sit up close and blah, blah, blah.

And I go, all right, I'll go check it out.

You know, because I was curious.

You're a lot more open minded than me already.

Well, I didn't know him.

I didn't know him that well at this point.

Fair enough.

I didn't know.

Yeah, okay.

So I go check in.

You know, you meet his whole clique, it's, it's total cult vibes.

And you get in the room and he's literally just on stage talking aggressively in your face, body shaming people, you know, talking about if you're not making X amount of money, then you're not fulfilled as a man.

You're not a man.

Yeah, exactly.

In group out, group class.

Classic psychological, just advantage taking, advantage people.

Yeah, so that's, that's really what they're all about.

But yeah, so I've been to one of them.

I saw it.

Now, you know that that may have been in combination with more, you know, more reasoning why I thought to make that video.

Wow.

So tell me how much, how much more trauma this provided.

Jesus Christ.

So I have so many questions.

So you go to this event, right?

Let's walk through this.

Because I, I just gotta, I gotta go through it.

You get there, your friend's inviting you.

You go, you get.

Was this, Were you not, you weren't.

You couldn't have expecting this, right?

Like this wasn't like on your radar as something.

Like this is what you're going to walk into.

This is like a timeshare, like no sales pitch on steroids.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So it's like, it's basically just a company overview with a guest appearance by Andy Elliott to motivate you into, you know, Whatever it is.

Taking the step forward to becoming an insurance agent, you know, whatever it is.

But basically, how is he supposed to be motivational?

It's not.

It's great.

It's a.

It's an aggressive, grab your balls type, fucking in your face.

It's not.

It's not motivational in any way.

It's.

It's demeaning.

And it's not.

If you look at.

So it was.

I went to my friend right after, and I go, so I'd like to see how many people sign.

I'm curious how many people signed up because Andy Elliott.

Yeah.

Versus on your normal.

You know, your normal.

The normal.

Whatever it is that you guys call these things.

Yeah.

And it wasn't much of a difference.

So he had.

He had little to no impact on it, you know, so it only goes to what I'm saying about his tactics.

They don't work on everybody.

You might get that one person who's just like, okay, okay.

They like the way he's approaching them.

But the majority of people, the majority of sane people, older people, educated people, they're not going to fall for those aggressive sales tactics.

Older, educated.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I blame the school system, frankly.

We did an episode on this Rajeel Said Naya a while back where we don't teach kids about financial literacy in school.

And because we ostracize them with a basic education, they go to social media and these things sound sensational and cool and awesome and.

And it's easy to take advantage of them.

And they get ingratiated into these glorified cults and what do they do is they have.

They feel trapped.

Yeah.

I mean, think about.

If you're one of the people who follow.

And I've seen people in this, quote, Elliot army, the people who follow him around and, like, buy into his sub.

Subculture that they.

They're.

They're wearing his name on.

On his chest.

Yeah.

I always thought that was weird.

Like, branded him.

Yeah.

You're literally wearing another man's name on your chest.

Well, so do you know who the Macklin twins are?

I've seen the pictures.

They're his vice presidents of the company now, so.

Oh, wow.

One of them named his son after Andy.

I saw this.

I made a video because it was like, are you kidding?

It just seems like such a weird relationship to have.

It is, dude.

And I don't know if this podcast is G rated or whatnot.

I feel like they're all just, you know, like, just a big fest.

Is the wife everybody.

I feel like, it's just this, the whole environment.

Oh, he's.

Yeah.

Here we're just pulling it up.

So this is one of the twins here.

I name my son after Andy.

Oh, my God.

You named your son after Andy.

Who is that kid gonna look up to when he gets older, you or Andy?

Yeah, you know, it's easy.

It's easy to make content when these guys put this out there.

It's so bizarre.

So I want to go back to the Bradley thing for a minute because this.

This is crazy to me because on one hand I get it, on another hand I don't.

It used to be that you would build some subject matter expertise and you become good at something, you'd be in the car business for 25 years.

You get good at something you can spot.

You can also make money because of the skills you've acquired over that time.

Yet a lot of these guys, like Brad will say, hey, no, no, no, no.

You don't need the skills.

You just need eyeballs.

Yeah.

If you have enough eyeballs, you can sell anything.

And this is where you're like a master of nothing.

So I look at somebody like Andy Elliott, who presumes to be in the car business, although there's some legal issues there in the past which seem like fraudulent behavior or something.

Yeah, exactly.

And that's what he attributes a lot of his success to, is that fraudulent behavior.

Granted, after that, he's never gone into the car business again to, you know, do any of the things he claims to do.

And I've heard from people that he's not even able to sell cars, maybe in that state.

I don't know, maybe some kind of.

That's why he went into the training system, because, you know, those who can't do, teach.

Yeah.

And I hear you.

So in.

One of the things I find it stunning is in Andy's just the latest generation of this, and there's the Grant Cardone's of the world, the fake it till you make it mentality.

Yeah.

When I could say that.

Sure.

You can argue that Cardone faked it until he made it.

Right.

Where he's got a lifestyle that seems to be supported financially somehow.

Right.

But on the other hand of things, there are so many more people along the way who fake it and never make it, and they get exposed and they fade into oblivion over time.

Yep.

Right.

And I look at Andy Elliot and I think to myself, okay, what's his value proposition to society?

Do we really need another angry person yelling at men to train them to.

To motivate them?

No.

Is that really how.

I think the, the best proxy I have for this, the best possible motivational speaker I think we can all point to is probably Tony Robbins.

Sure.

Been around for decades.

He isn't exactly yelling at you to get better.

Yeah.

Right.

He's.

He's taking a tact of talking to you like a human being.

Yeah.

That resonates with people.

Sure.

So you will have to, you have to wonder why.

So social clickbait only lasts so long and then it gets exposed.

Right.

So you kind of have to wonder what you like.

Is this a short term thinking on their part?

I think so, yeah.

Because I, you know, I look at Andy's following and it's not going up anymore.

No.

I'm not looking at the exact numbers, but it may even be going down, you know, and it's.

I, I think you're right.

There's a certain regill just pulled up Social.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So.

Oh, we're gonna see.

But I, I think there's a certain point where you're exactly right.

It's gonna get exposed and then.

Yeah.

I mean, his videos are, are going up, but if you look at the last.

Well, if you look at his views, they're not even.

He doesn't even get that many views anymore.

Yeah, well, many, many people on social media.

This is, this is interesting too.

Or I'm, I'm seeing.

I think people are just getting sick of engaging.

They don't want to engage with the bullshit anymore.

So they just.

It's either view or not view.

And as the views fall off, I think that's a real indicator now it's not even like likes and comments anymore.

It's just like how much, how much you're getting.

Look, if you look down here at some of the, some of the dates that were just pointing to here.

Yeah.

I mean, you're losing, you're losing followers.

He's not posting as much.

His number staying pretty flat on total followers and total engagement all the way around.

And what's funny about that is they're all even numbers.

So it's like, okay, paid for 100 bots, whatever it is.

And then they're dropping off.

And even numbers, like, come on, why do we have so many even numbers dropping off?

I mean, it's not a coincidence that, you know.

Yeah, I mean, even that too.

Look at it.

Everything's in.

Everything's an even number.

That is kind of weird, isn't it?

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, look, you know, good for him.

I mean, it's it's, it's always weird to me to see the social content that grows from it.

So God damn it.

It's crazy to me to think that him and Brad Lee came.

So Brad Lee, who I think I told you before the show started, was one of the first people to promote this podcast.

And I still don't know to this day why he did it.

Yeah, he just reposted it and said, hey, this was going to grow.

He enjoyed it.

I don't, I don't think he listened to an episode.

I really, I would be stunned if he said he's ever listened to an episode.

I've never met him, never talked to him, no, nothing.

You know, I think I sent him a thank you message as a response to it.

Never responded to it.

But it.

Now he's advertising for his services to go on his podcast, saying, if you want to come on the podcast on my Dropping Bombs podcast.

And then obviously there's a sales pitch there.

Yes.

Yeah, you call up and they go, okay, it's going to be $6,000 or $5,000.

Oh, they don't drop that on you till the end.

So they get you.

Oh, okay.

Well, what is it that you do?

Oh, you're a business owner.

Ok. And so why do you want to go on the podcast?

Are you looking to expose your business?

Are you looking to do that?

So It's a whole 20 minute extraction of information so they can figure out the key points and how to sell you on it.

Of course.

So I went through the whole thing.

I tried, tried to record it.

I'm not good with tech, so I couldn't do it because I was going to do a video exposing that kind of stuff.

I've been trying to do with Andy Elliott's people too, because it's the same thing.

Does he charge to be on his podcast?

Well, not, not to be on his podcast, but he charges for his events.

He charges for.

And there's stages of the event.

So there's just a general ticket.

There's, there's vip, there's.

Go to the Elliot's and have dinner with us after the event package.

Jesus Christ.

Yeah, so it's funny, I was, I wanted to get one of those tickets and go and fucking just show up, show up and, you know, but by that time they already knew who I was, so there's no way they left me.

Yeah, I told Jeff I'd have to go in a disguise.

There's no way they'd let you go?

No, I get my ass kicked, probably.

You know, they'd probably fucking jump my ass.

Which is a terrible look.

I look at it like this.

If somebody wants to call you out, and I've done this before, too.

Like, I've had people like this that on the show that I've called out and I've always invited them on the show.

You want to talk to me about it?

Let's have a discussion.

Come on the fucking show.

Have a conversation about it.

Let you and me sit across from the table and let's, with hot mics, hash this out.

The audience will be the arbiter of whether you.

You're one or I won or nobody won or we're just idiots.

You know, not a single person to date has ever accepted that.

They'd rather go on other people's show and have like a scripted narrative.

Exactly.

And Lee, like, you know, it's funny you asked me, is there anything we can.

No, there's nothing that we can't talk about.

There's nothing that's off limits.

You know, you'd be surprised how many.

Oh, I could.

Because they got issues and I get it.

And, you know, it is what it is, dude.

Let's, you know, you'd be surprised.

Or my.

My favorite is I'll do like a podcast with somebody and they'll want to come back and re.

Edit things out.

Really?

Oh, yeah.

And it's, it's.

It's interesting because you're like, wait, why, why does that.

Like, why did you say it?

And then it's usually not them.

It's their representative who comes back to you.

And PR person.

Yeah, it goes.

Hey, can you cut that part out?

Yeah.

So a lot of times people don't know this who listen to the show is we have a green room with the doors open, and their PR person will sit on the other side of the glass watching.

And they'll watch and they'll go, oh, yeah, and they'll write Right.

Stuff down notes to have things they'll.

Want to cut out.

But I know Pineda does the exact same thing.

Like, he tries to upsell you on it.

Sean Mike Kelly does that.

Yeah.

And then I look, Nate is doing baptisms now.

So that's his latest thing.

He's doing baptisms in his backyard.

What is that about?

I don't know.

Well, you know, here's another thing that they're trying to do is they use religion as a way to lower your guard, bring you in.

They go, oh, okay.

Get you comfortable dealing with them because, oh, they're religious, they're God fearing.

People, but it's all just a.

It's a hoax.

You can trust them because they have morals, because they go to church, like I do.

Yeah.

I've always.

So Dave Ramsey does this.

It pisses me off to no end.

And I wealth con.

There you go.

There's your boy Ryan Pineda over there.

He also does like Wealthy Kingdom now, which I think is his thing.

And by the way, that's my sister in law, one of those that commented there.

She was getting checked.

Oh, God, I'm so sad for her.

I'm gonna have to have that conversation.

But.

And like Carlos Reyes, another one of people in his network, that's.

That's another fake account.

I knew the guy.

I'll get back to that comment in a minute about the religion.

But I knew the guy that helped Carlos Reyes grow his account with fake followers.

Oh, really?

And I know that his account got so toxic with fake followers and bought growth that he had to create another account and try to grow it as organically as he could because his other one was just clearly all fake.

Wow.

And then.

So then he tried to delete bots and add people, but once you get flagged in the system, like, you can't do anything about it.

But the religion thing, it really pisses me off to no end.

And I got in trouble with Dave Ramsey's camp at one point by his finance people who listen to the show because we're a finance podcast, predominantly.

We do some social stuff too.

But they got super pissed off that I was calling Dave Ramsey out and giving the world's shittiest advice.

And my response to them was, you do realize that when he started his personal brand to teach people about finance and wealth and building and creating wealth, he was going through a bankruptcy and leveraged his relationship with the church to do it.

And now he's America's trusted advisor.

Why?

Yeah.

Is he a certified financial planner?

No.

Does he have a background?

No.

He tells you, hey, guess what?

Don't get a credit card.

Don't take debt on.

You're gonna run a company like that and you're not gonna have any credit card debt.

Yeah.

Bullshit.

Yeah.

No, but more importantly, it keeps you in his ecosystem as somebody who needs his advice.

If you follow those rules.

Yeah.

And Pineda and those guys are all the same.

He's getting it a lot.

I think he's.

I don't know if you know this, but he's getting sued right now.

Class action lawsuit on that whole NFT rug pull thing.

Jeff told me.

Did he?

Oh, yeah, yeah, that, that's interesting to me too, where you get a lot of these influencers who, who hop on the latest trends because, like Andy making opportunities.

Yes.

They're using.

I'm a, I'm a person of social notoriety according to these completely irrelevant and useless statistics, how many fake followers I have.

So if I endorse this.

If I endorse this, the money will come.

And then what do they do?

They just jump on endorsing one thing to the next thing to the next thing with what they think are no repercussions.

And.

Yeah, and Cardone did this too.

He did this when he, I think was originally car salesman, right?

Yeah, yes.

And then he would jump from that to training.

Training, right.

And then from training he got into real estate.

It was real estate, but then it was syndications.

And then he always touts, oh, I own all this real estate.

No, you're the syndicator.

You own a portion of interest in that piece of real estate, but you don't own.

Yeah, you don't own a single one of those buildings yourself.

Those are all owned by the syndication, the structure.

Yeah.

And people always point that going, oh, he's so successful, he hasn't paid out a single one of those syndications yet.

So until you get your money back, everything that he's telling you you're going to get in equity is speculative, which, you know, maybe comes true, maybe doesn't.

Yeah.

But in your industry and in the industry that you're in and Andy Elliott and then the Cardone's, I mean, people like this really got to get under your fucking nerves, right?

Oh, it does.

Because it gives people like us a bad name.

You know, it makes, it makes people think of us as all grimy salesmen when he comes and speaks like that.

So absolutely no, I take it personally and I think really that's why I made the video.

And I go after him so hard because I disagree with him so much.

So is anybody from his camp ever?

Yeah, so.

Well, not.

They didn't identify as being from his camp.

But shortly after some of the videos were going viral, I would receive calls at my dealership when I would open at 10am from anonymous numbers.

People just kind of aggressively threatening to sue me, you know, just saying slander.

Slander.

Yeah, you know, yeah, just stupid.

Sue me, click.

I don't care.

Why are you calling from an anonymous number?

Well, first of all, suing somebody for slander.

So it's under the defamation.

I'm going to defamation.

Excuse me.

Yeah, it's well it's part of definition.

It's spoken.

So it's slander, but it is.

That's the proper vernacular for defamation.

But the absolute defense to defamation is the truth.

Yeah.

So if you go to court and you prove that what you're saying was true, which, I've seen your videos, it's all true.

Yeah.

I haven't really made any allegations that aren't.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, look, if you say, hey, fuck you, prove up.

That's a valid thing to say.

You might not like the way I said it.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

You're gonna sit here and say you can sell 80 cars a month or 200 cars a month.

Okay.

Prove it.

Like I'm, you know, there's.

There's nothing deformatory about that.

So.

Well, and not only that, but you also get these guys like him who cite.

They were the number one this or number one that.

That was another one that went viral.

I was the number one salesman at 18 and I didn't know anything about cars.

Yeah.

First of all, what.

What list are you, magically speaking?

Well, that's what.

It's funny.

That's what.

That's why I made that video.

And that's why the one that went viral is it said, you know, I've been in the business for 25 years.

I have yet to find a list that names the top salesmen in the country.

Granite car manufacturers, Honda, Toyota, they keep statistics on their sales.

So they're salesmen on the brand.

But one thing they don't do is they don't cross reference the brand.

Chevy, Toyota, and they don't count used cars.

Yeah.

So there's no way that anyone could make that sort of a statement and have any kind of anything to back it up.

Now you could say you're the number one for Toyota, like, because there are people.

You can Google this.

There's a guy that's in the Guinness Book of World Records.

His name is Joe Gerard.

He's on record for selling the most cars in a day, month and year.

Oh, no kidding.

Yeah.

So you can look this information up, but he has statistics to back it up.

He was a unique situation.

Basically, a Chevrolet dealership in Detroit closed and he inherited their entire book of business.

Oh, wow.

So that's how he was able to do it.

Hired an entire team to do.

To basically be.

He was like a dealer within a dealer.

So that's how he did it.

But.

And you asked.

You also.

You have to like position yourself with a Guinness Book organization in order to get that kind of.

Yeah.

And be able to be able to substantiate it.

Yeah.

They actually come out and measure.

Like the Guinness Book team is like, yeah, I've seen it before.

It's.

No, there you go.

Joe Gerard was a car salesman.

He was famously known as the world's greatest car salesman and held a Guinness world record for selling 13,001 cars at a Chevy dealership between 1963, 1978.

Damn, that's a lot of cars.

Yeah, he's.

He goes down as the goat.

What a stud, man.

Yeah, he's old school.

Absolutely.

Went in, went into training after.

Yeah.

Notice how he's not wearing shirts?

No, no, no, no.

He was professional.

Wore a suit like we should.

It's, it's, it's too easy.

Could you imagine seeing Andy Elliott in a suit?

Yeah, dude.

So that's, that's the part that blows me away is like, I recognize that I dress like a hobo now, but for years of my life I was, I wore a suit like everybody else.

Right.

And I love wearing a suit and I'm all for it, but I can't imagine a dude who wears 5 inch inseam shorts and loafers with his name on a T shirt really getting me to want to buy anything besides just pants.

All he needs is a little hat with a fan on or a little propeller on it.

The full image right there.

But yeah, no, it's, it's, it's comical, man.

So I also saw one of your videos.

Grant Cardone's right hand man in his CEO has been talking about his relationship where he seems to have started dating his now wife at 12 years old.

Or it's what they, it's what they claim.

It's what he said.

That's what they claim.

Yeah, there it is.

Rajeel's pulling it up.

Common question that I get every single week is how did you and Brandon meet?

So.

So how did you and I meet?

Please tell me she wasn't a minor.

Brandon and I met when I was 12.

Yeah.

And how old was he?

40.

I think the most important thing for everyone to know is that I logged four years.

Five years at 20 to 30 minutes a day sitting in the car waiting for the school bus with your mother, talking about all the things you girls were up to.

Oh, that's the most important thing we should know that you put in overtime grooming this girl to be your wife later in life.

Yeah, that, that's a, that's a, that's a valid question.

I mean, what the Hell, and they put this podcast out there.

This is not just some footage that was uncovered.

They literally sat down to do a podcast and wanted to.

They're trying to normalize it.

Like, that's all I can chalk it up to is that somebody like that is putting that information out there to normalize it.

Well, not only that, but I mean, by his own statement there, they met when she was 12.

He spent four to five years.

Years picking up that school, still under.

The age of 18, which in most states is still a problem.

Yeah, mom seems to be on board with it.

So, yeah, lots of questions about mom, you know, good for them, I guess.

But invite her on the podcast.

Yeah.

Something tells me she ain't coming on, brother.

Yeah, that's one of those invites that doesn't get right to.

But.

And this is Cardone CEO.

It is Cardone Ventures.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And to me, I look at this stuff and I think to myself, okay, what's the.

What were they trying to accomplish, putting that out?

Like I said, the only thing I can come up with is that they're trying to normalize it, you know, and that's what.

I'm sure you live in California, so you see it all around too.

They're trying to normalize this shit.

And it's a big problem.

And, you know, these people with power and money think that they're untouchable.

They're borderline bragging about this now.

Which to me is kind of crazy.

And you think about the context of what is their podcast.

I don't even know what their podcast.

Don't know either.

Yeah, I just.

That was literally the.

Well, I have about a two minute clip of it that I.

That I watch.

I really don't want to really care to watch any more of it.

That's all I needed to see to tell me somebody reaction.

Tell me somebody sent this to you and you had to watch it like three times.

Wait, did I just hear what I just heard?

Because that's weird.

That's exactly what happened.

So did anybody ever respond from his camp?

No, but coincidentally, prior to me releasing that video, I had dropped another video about Grant Cardone, specifically where he said, making 400.

You should be ashamed as a man if you make 400 grand a year.

So Dawson chimed in in the comments section, basically, you know, reciting his resume and, you know, demeaning me and my financial expertise and saying that, you know, I don't.

I don't quite understand how it's easier to make 20 than 2.

So me and him were going Back and forth to the point where he's like, okay, let's get on a podcast and talk about it.

I said, okay, let's do it.

And then against my better, you know, judgment, I said, you know, let's not do that.

Shortly after that, I get the clip of him saying this nonsense, and I go, okay, so, yeah, so that's the only response I've got from him since then.

I went on that post and I tagged him and I said, so when are we doing the podcast?

Something tells me it's not gonna happen.

I don't think so either, man.

And I don't think he would have done it even if I hadn't dropped that clip.

You know, they don't.

They don't want to give.

Okay, it was about 90 grand last month.

It's not at least 100 grand a month.

You got work to do.

Really?

A lot of you guys jack off all day.

Like, you guys just all the time.

This sounds like it's not all sexy and fired up.

It's not staying consistent, doing the you.

Need to do, like, consistently lying about your achievements over and over and over and over.

Yeah, the same lies over and over and over and over.

Everybody told me what's impossible.

Who's everybody?

Everybody.

Fuck you.

I called my own shots.

I'm not a crowd pleaser.

I think your wife calls the shots.

I destroyed it.

The fuck did you destroy?

I look at stuff like this, and I think to myself, like, who buys that narrative?

It's so cringe.

And you want to know who's buying it?

Dealer, principals, general managers.

They're spending tens of thousands of dollars to bring this guy into his dealership and humiliate the employees.

And they're all.

Nine out of ten of them are saying, that's the stupidest thing we've ever gone through.

I can't believe our dealership spent this money on this kind of training program.

We learned absolutely nothing from this guy.

All he did was yell at us and tell us to take our shirt off, and if we didn't have a six pack, we couldn't sell cars adequately.

It feels like rage porn.

Like, it's just like you get off on somebody being angry or something, and that's what you.

That would not motivate me.

And I would.

I look at him and I think to myself, like, even.

Even the cardone.

Like, camp.

I look at these guys and I think to myself, all right, I'll use myself as a proxy, and I'm sure somebody's in my DMS later on about this, but you want to see that I'm.

I'm not full of.

You can Google my name and find things that I have done and not done.

Yeah, right.

You can go.

Okay.

He succeeded at this.

He failed at that.

Yeah, right.

You can find that.

I'm an attorney by trade.

You can find the states that I'm licensed in.

You can find the real estate that I own.

You can find the companies that I own.

I was an SEC file public executive at a public traded institution.

So it's all out there.

Yeah.

That's part of what people aspire to be.

You want.

You want to be successful?

There's financial ramifications, and some of that is a lack of privacy.

Yep.

Okay.

Accept it or not.

You open yourself up.

You open yourself up.

I have yet to see a single one of these dudes who make claims like that.

If you were to say, hey, Chris, you told me today I didn't know what Bradley did.

I honestly, other than him hosting a podcast and being a personality, I don't know.

Yeah, well, he sold cars before that too.

Again, did not know that.

And I look at someone like Andy Elliot, I think to myself, like, okay, you sold cars.

Good for you.

Not knocking it.

That's great.

I sold cars.

I worked at Irvine BMW way back.

Oh, did you really?

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

I sucked.

I was the world's shittiest car that makes.

Then you're probably a good, good man.

No.

Yeah.

Nonetheless, you didn't want to take advantage of your customers.

Yeah, I still love cars to this day.

I just, you know, I love them from a not selling them perspective.

Right.

I'm the buyer, not the seller.

But look, I. I look at the.

Where's the accomplishments?

These people, like, they don't exist.

None of them do.

Right.

Like, no, they don't exist.

You know, they all that.

That's why they're able to make such outlandish claims.

You know, they're.

Just say it.

There's.

There's no.

There's nothing to substantiate it.

There's no documentation, nothing.

No track record.

He's got a track record for ripping people off.

That's about it, Elliot.

Anyway, most of them.

Most of them do.

And there's a whole, like, demographic of charlatans along the way that I look at, and I just think to myself, like, what the hell's going on?

So I have to ask the obvious question, and, and forgive me for being pointed here.

Has this helped your business at all?

No.

If I could be completely honest, I mean, I get A call here and there saying, hey, you know, we love your content.

You know, people will call the dealer and stuff like that, and they'll, you know, they'll ask, like, I make videos on cars and stuff, and they'll call and inquire.

But I've yet to have anything lead to a sale.

And honestly, that wasn't my intention.

When I started this, you know, I just kind of started to have fun.

You know, I'm just.

I'm me.

I say what's on my mind, and I wanted a platform that I could do that.

And I thought the car dealership setting would be just something that people would be interested in on top of that, 100%.

So that's kind of where I went with that.

And if it leads to money and it leads to, you know, exposure to the business, then great.

You know, I'm all for it.

But initially, that wasn't my intention.

No.

So now that you've got some eyeballs on your account, I mean, I. I've seen your stuff well before you were even a potential podcast guest.

And I mean, I. I thought.

Did you really?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

No, I. I saw.

I think Baller Buses originally posted your.

Your first post that I saw, I think it was an Andy Elliott post.

And I was.

I was all on it right away.

Okay.

I thought it was hilarious.

And it's.

I have a great deal of respect for people who.

Because I understand that it's easy to say, I would call that person out.

It's easy to talk shit when you're not on social media.

It's another thing to do it.

It's another thing to do it and put up a post.

And I don't know if you've had this experience yet, and this is kind of where I'm going with it, is I have done this, and I know that I.

There was pushback.

I got socially backlash.

There's always backlash.

Because the same people who are willing to make these outlandish claims who don't have anything to back them up, they can't go to a courtroom and fight you on it, because what you're saying is arguably true, if not absolutely true.

So what do they do?

They resort to threats.

Yeah.

So how much backlash have you gotten along the way?

So, like I said in the beginning, I would receive these calls to the dealership, and they would threaten, basically lawsuits and whatnot.

Right.

Other than.

Other than the occasional comment from someone, not a whole lot of backlash.

And I'm surprised, too.

Yeah, I really am.

I think we're getting to a point where they don't want to like, give it visibility by responding to it.

Yeah, well, he made a big mistake by responding to one of my videos Andy Elliott did.

So I made a video about him.

He may be able to pull this up.

This one went pretty viral about him selling X amount of cars in Oklahoma.

And I said, that's bullshit.

You know, Oklahoma is a small market.

It's not like la, so there's no way that you're doing those kind of numbers when I'm doing those kind of numbers on Craigslist.

So it's bullshit.

So he responded and goes, I'd sell 200amonth in your market.

So I did a green screen of his comment and I go, okay, why don't you come out here and show me.

Better yet, show the world.

We all want to see Andy.

Yeah, and after that comment got deleted, his comment got deleted and I've heard nothing from him ever since.

See, that's so weird to me that people are so vigilantly curating their commentary that.

Oh, is this it?

Is this it looks like it.

The out of here.

Andy, you used to sell 30, 40 cars off Craigslist in Oklahoma's market.

Get the fuck out of here.

I sell 30 cars a month off craigslist in LA's fucking market.

Full of shit.

Yeah, so that's the one that got him.

And he responded to it.

So.

But yeah, never again.

You know, it's crazy how they go to such links to monitor.

I couldn't take the last post I commented on.

You know what I mean?

Like, they monitor and delete the content because they're so busy about worrying about image.

Well, it's funny, I joke that his wife made him delete it.

I've never.

I probably should have seen his wife by now.

Maybe I just haven't noticed it in the videos.

Is she in the videos of them?

No, sometimes she is not the videos that I've chosen to, to take on.

But yeah, she's there usually with them on stage right next to him.

Oh, so she.

So they're doing like a Grant Cardone, like, it's all in the family type thing where like everybody's ingratiated and you're just all part of it.

Yes, exactly.

They do the same thing within the company, like the, the employees and everything.

It's all family, if you will.

But yeah, yeah, damn it.

It's such a wild situation.

So if you're gonna continue this and you're gonna go down this path, like, what's the vision look like for you here?

Honestly?

Honestly, I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, honestly, I don't know.

I mean, there.

I don't know if you've seen some of the other people that I take.

Honestly, anything I see, that's.

That's just not right.

I. I'd like to call out, like, that's just what me as a per.

Like, in life, I do that.

You know, if I see an injustice, I speak up.

You know, I try to speak up for the guy that can't speak up for himself.

He's getting bullied.

I step in and try to help.

I feel like I'd like to do that on a larger scale.

And, like, for instance, we have a big problem in California with who's running.

Our state, Mr. Newsom.

And that's another individual that I go after.

And I'm surprised I've been able to get as much.

Get away with as much content going after him with TikTok, given his connections to China and, you know, but ultimately.

He looks like a weird dude, by the way.

Just.

Just aesthetically, he looks like a weird dude.

Yeah.

Bridge, you'll play it.

Governor of California.

What the.

Are you proud of the highest cost of living in the nation or the slowest job growth?

Get the out of here.

Yeah, but nobody has up a state more than Gavin Newsom.

No.

No.

And that's not me endorsing a political party.

It's just astonishing to me to see how.

God, it's so bad.

And now he has a podcast, which we talked about before.

Yeah, it's incredible.

Just.

Just the stupidest thing.

Or, Reil, see if you can pull.

I can't imagine what he would pull a guest on and talk about.

Reill, see if you can pull up an episode of his podcast.

It is the weirdest, most bizarre thing where you can tell he's trying to make light of his Persona because he knows that people receive people.

They.

He.

They.

People perceive him just like you do.

They're just.

He knows how frustrated they are.

What are dumbass decisions.

But he's obviously not acknowledging that he's corrupt.

He's just trying to justify it.

This is Gavin Newsom.

Geez.

Holy shit.

Oh, God, this is such a bad, bad.

Look, first of all, it looks like a, like, kids pop culture podcast, and.

But this is not.

This is supposed to be the guy who's leading our state.

Yeah, this is weird.

Honestly, his cover art looks better than our cover art.

I heart podcast.

Who gave him the deal?

Like, what the fuck is going on?

But And I.

Look, I get it.

Like, you realize that personal brand is important, but you can't turn around your personal brand.

And look.

Look at this.

I'm.

I am Gavin Newsom, and it's time to have a conversation.

It's time to have an honest.

Honest discussions with people that agree and disagree with us.

Yeah.

Really?

I don't think he wants to have that conversation.

No, he doesn't.

As a matter of fact, he got called out on a couple times on his own podcast, and he tries to defend stuff where you can tell, like the defense scripted, where he knew he was gonna get called out.

And so he's trying to say, oh, I brought somebody on who disagrees with me.

And it's just.

It's just very.

Like, the ick factor is pretty high.

Yeah, it's pretty gross.

Yeah.

No, he.

He's very disturbing.

He's one of the.

One of the.

It's funny you asked what the future looks like.

It's.

Yeah, we know he's making a presidential run.

You know, we know that's what this is about.

Exactly.

So we know that.

And hopefully, you know, there can just be more voices out there in opposition that can bring awareness to what this guy's done to our state and in no way let him run this country.

You know, my theory is in the podcast.

What's that?

I haven't told this anybody yet.

So you're the first.

I believe that podcasts and your non traditional media were such a huge influence during this last election, where you saw the presidential candidates jump around from podcast to podcast in a way they'd never done before.

Yeah.

And Rogan was kind of center stage on this because he invited one side, they showed up, he invited the other side, they didn't show up.

Well, they wanted to show, but with conditions, you know?

Yeah, they had their conditions.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I believe that Newsom is so far extreme and not well liked that he knows he can't go on somebody else's podcast.

So ahead of a presidential run, he had to build his own platform to have a voice, because no one was going to lend you their platform.

And even if you did go on, you'd be so limited.

You'd be just like the last Democratic candidate who just happened to not show up.

Right.

So I think that's what that's about.

And look, on one hand, as a podcaster, I'm like, great.

They're embracing the fact that what we're doing here has meaningful value.

On the other hand, I'm like, but this is how twisted it is.

Anybody can.

Can jump into this pond.

Yes.

And anybody can have a wood.

And he already has a platform.

That's what's dangerous.

Yeah.

You know, so he can just take the platform and grow it from there, but.

And.

And spend it however he wants.

Exactly.

But if it's disingenuous and it comes off fake, that that's all problem with.

A lot of the people in California.

And it's funny, I notice in my comments section that I get a lot more praise than I do hate, which is very unusual for social media.

I mean, I'm surprised I get so much praise.

But the negativity that I do get, they're just die hard for the guy.

They're just die hard for him.

I don't understand it.

I don't understand what it is that.

Yeah.

You know, I think.

And maybe tell me your opinion on this.

I think extremism has gotten so bad that the reason why you have gurus like the Andy Elliot's of the world is because you have to be so extreme that you get eyeballs, and then the people who follow you have to be so extremely on your side that they're just die hard loyalists, no matter what.

Yeah.

And I think with Gavin Newsom, people are like, oh, he's a Democrat, I'm a Democrat.

I defend him.

You're like, you're not even gonna care what he says.

I mean, I look at Trump and I know this is gonna be politically charged, so forgive me.

Everybody's listening.

He's gonna get pissed off me because everybody always gets pissed off me.

He was not a Republican when he started this.

No, everybody forgets that he ran on the ticket.

Yep.

Yeah.

Republicans defend the.

Defend him because they don't want to lose power.

And it's like, okay, look, I don't care which side of the aisle you're on.

Care about your policies.

Yeah, I don't care about any of that.

All I care about is what's happening to the country.

I don't care what somebody identifies.

They're running the country.

I only care about what you're doing for it.

Right.

But people go, oh, no, no, I defend him.

I'm this, I'm that.

And it's like, dude, like, stop talking about the political ties.

He himself wasn't any of those ties years ago.

And I can guarantee you, if you would ask him, he does not give a shit.

He does not.

And he even said himself that if he was not nominated the Republican nominee, he was going to run as an independent and do it.

So that just goes to show you that this was his avenue to do it, and he did.

Yeah.

Again, I'm not knocking it, like, good for you.

You found your path.

Clearly it works twice, you know, and look, I'm not judging it, but what I think is, is extremism becomes such a problem that in order to.

To get any type of attention and get any type of meaningful traction, you've just got to be an extremist.

Yeah.

And then people on social media go on, and then I wonder, you ever look at your comments and wonder how many of those people are actually bots?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Some of the comments are really stupid.

Yes.

And you're like, okay, yeah, like, that's weird.

Yeah.

And then I'll look at, like, some of the trigger stuff.

You ever had.

I don't know if you've had this happen you.

Have you ever had, like, a bot attack on your account yet?

No.

So what's that?

Oh, shit.

I'll never forget.

I had made a post about, oh, Chris Choi, an Airbnb mastermind guru guy.

Right.

And Ballerbusters had reposted it.

And within a couple of hours of me to get off a flight going to Florida, I started getting all these fake followers and fake comments and fake likes.

And it was trying to flag my account for fake activity to try to get Instagram to take it down.

And they were just like clown emojis and stuff like that.

But it was like tens of thousands.

I had to shut off comments and shut off, like, all this stuff.

I had to move my account to private.

At the time, I had one of the original verified accounts, so you couldn't go private without, you know, causing a bit of a ruckus.

And it was just like.

It was such a ridiculous thing.

And the light bulb went on for me that in the social media game of warfare, people will literally.

If you're.

If you're a legitimate business person, you're not going to waste your time and money going to some account, finding an account that.

Or finding a website that can.

You can send to an account and spam them with fake accounts.

Right, Right.

But a lot of these guys, that's all they have.

Yeah.

Is this image that's been carefully curated, like Andy Elliott.

Right.

Do anything to protect it.

Do anything to protect it, including spamming your account and then flagging your account, mass reporting your account.

There was a guy, you see him on Adam22's podcast not too long ago.

Who's that?

It was a guy, Kimber's name.

He.

He was Saying that he was getting paid to ban people's accounts and then he would reach out to the same people and then have them re like, I guess unbanned.

But he was charged like $25,000 on each side to do it.

Right.

So he ban him and then unban him.

So somebody like Andy Elliott would be pissed off.

Call this person to have your account banned.

The same person would then call you.

I can get your account back.

Yeah, I saw, hey, your account went down.

I get your account back, It'll cost you 25 grand.

Wow.

And it was this perpetual vicious cycle of charging people on both sides.

And because the guru scammers kept trying to take the cows down, because that's all they wanted, they would keep paying because the guy's account was getting going down, was generally somebody on social media with some kind of high profile had value in that account, which pay to bring it right back.

And it was this weird gray market that was going on at all times.

And Instagram was just turning a blind eye to it.

They were just like, it doesn't involve us.

It's not our people.

Wow.

But yet you're like, wait a minute, somebody's using bots to trigger your algorithm to take accounts down and somehow could use bots to trigger the algorithm and take your account and put it back up.

And that doesn't seem.

Yeah, that's not a concern.

Yeah.

Security or whatnot.

Wow.

Only recently, in the last couple like years did you start seeing like Instagram and those, those groups really start to try to change it.

And some of these people have been like now like charged and arrested for crimes and stuff like that.

But it's.

It's wild to see how like, cavalier some of the stuff is that it's out there.

And if you're a casual user, you never see this shit ever.

Yeah, I guess that's what I have to look forward to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is in your future.

So at what point did that happen to you in your career or your podcasting?

You know, I don't have a big social media.

I actually.

This is, this is a fun story.

Well, I feel like I'm being interviewed now.

The.

When I first started on social media, I knew that as an executive public traded company, I needed to have some type of social presence, a brand.

Right.

But I didn't know how to do it.

I knew that going into social media is not.

Even to this day, I'm still learning, like, I'm still trying to figure it out.

And I hired a guy who has a very Popular, well known brand with millions of followers on Instagram.

I figured he's got a very high profile.

Everybody I know follows his page.

And I'll tell you when we're off the mic.

I don't want to give him the courtesy of people going there.

And I said, hey, can you help me grow my, my personal brand gets back to me?

He's like, yeah, it'll cost you this much.

I think I paid him like $30,000 is actually how I met the Ballerbus people or how I got messaged by them.

Anyway, they, they were following my account at the time.

I just started making social content, but it wasn't getting much lift off.

And overnight I go from like 10,000 followers to like 80,000.

Wow.

And Bars has reached out to me.

They're like, hey, this growth ain't normal.

You need to stop whatever it is you're doing because it's very inauthentic.

And I'm like, well, I'm working with this person.

They like, as soon as they heard the name, they're like, stop, get your money back now.

And I was like, what's going on?

Like, just get your money back.

We'll talk afterward.

So I said, okay.

So I reached out to the dude and because I was an attorney and because somebody was messing with him, I helped go to Instagram because I had a legal relationship with them at the time and got their account completely shut down.

And it was IP violation.

He was afraid that I could do that to his account, so he gave me money back.

Yeah, it took me paying a full time employee a salary for the course of two years, removing body like followers from the account from 80,000.

I think I'm down to like 40 something thousand at this point in time.

It took me years of like doing that to really like strip down.

And even to this day, I'm still losing followers to get back to normal.

And when I, when I approached this guy about, hey, like, why did you fill my account with bots?

His response was, this is what everybody does.

This is, this is how you build your brand.

He's like, when you have a big enough account, real people will start following you.

And I was like, okay, like, this is bullshit.

So I learned early, early, early on that a lot of what we see in social media we think is real is fake.

Yeah, no, I'm learning that now because I'm new to this too.

I've only been doing this since April.

If you, I don't know if you know how insane.

No, I didn't realize it's only been for three, four months.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, I mean, that's.

You've had a good run.

How many followers you have now on Instagram?

Instagram only 3300.

Okay.

But what about.

TikTok's almost 35,000.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's huge growth.

Is it?

Yeah.

Again, I'm new, so I'm not.

You know, but more importantly, the message is real.

What you're going to find with, I think with your account is so many people will follow your account.

Like, they'll follow the content, but they won't actually, like, follow your.

Like, they won't follow you as a person.

They'll just reoccurrently come back and watch it.

Yeah.

A lot of the accounts that expose people, I don't know what it is.

Maybe it's the stigma.

People don't want to be seen following it.

Because whenever you go to like, Instagram or you go to.

Oh, you follow that guy.

Yeah, yeah.

No, that makes total sense.

And I, Because I look at the likes, I look at the comments and I'm like gauging that.

It's not like, oh, it's not that great.

But I think watching the full video is the most important thing and.

And more so re.

Watching the video.

Yeah.

You know, if you.

Shares too big chairs.

Is that another one?

Yeah, shares.

Shares are really big.

Gotcha.

Okay.

So if you find it engaging enough to share with your friends and they.

Share, boost you up.

That boost you up in the algorithm.

Something that I'm not very good at, by the way.

Like, none of my shit ever get shared.

They're like, I fuck this guy.

Which is fine.

We do high quality stuff.

I mean, wrong.

But it's.

It goes to show you that you really don't need like studio quality cameras.

You just really need a good message at all times in order to get things across.

And I think what resonates to me with your content was that it's super authentic.

Yeah.

So.

And I want to be.

You're not just targeting these, these people.

You're looking at things that interest you at all times.

There's got to be somebody on your radar now that you're looking at going like, oh, this is concerning.

Nobody.

Nobody knew.

Like, I'll be honest with you.

The way that I kind of do this is I'll see the content and it's like, okay, that there's.

There needs to be a reaction to that, you know, And a lot of it just has to do with me scrolling on the.

On social media and Find running into outlandish things.

You know, the algorithm knows what I want now, so it's giving me these people.

It's weird, right?

How the algorithm figures out.

Save the video real quick.

Go back to it later.

We'll edit that.

So every D bag in the world is in your algorithm is.

I know, right?

Is your cardone grand a year?

I would be embarrassed.

Get the fuck out of here, Grant.

How the fuck are you going to tell people they should be embarrassed?

If they make 400,000 a year, that's 33 grand a month.

That is a lot of money.

Get the fuck out of here.

Yeah, well, I can tell you when I saw that video, I thought to myself, like, this is where we're at.

Yeah.

I have a son.

Do you have kids?

I do three.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I have a six year old son.

And I keep thinking to myself, like, this is the pressure that we're socially putting on our kids to have this warped sense of like, worth where it's weird.

So you have to be in tip top shape.

You have to be like, look like a model at all times.

You have to be rich as hell.

You have to look rich as hell at all times.

And then somehow you have to be humble and a kind person.

But then they're like, okay, well, if I had to sacrifice something, I won't be humble and I won't be kind, but I still have to look really good and be really rich.

Yeah.

And I'm like, what, where did, where did this become our new reality?

Yeah.

I'm not sure, but it's, it's scary for the generation coming up.

And I think that's why a lot of the younger kids are buying into it.

You know, they're like you said, it's painting a picture of what success looks like and they want to achieve that more than anything, you know, and they're looking for a shortcut to do it.

You know, hard work and perseverance is no longer preached.

Shortcut to success is preached.

Buy my course and I will make you rich.

Has.

Is.

Is the new, you know, the.

You ever bought a course?

Oh, no, absolutely not.

No.

I will say that fucking course would I buy?

Yeah.

I'm trying to think who.

Who would want to learn anything from, like, not only.

Who could.

Who could.

You want to learn something from that you couldn't find by googling the same title on YouTube?

Yeah, like searching it, you know, I mean, I'm trying to think, Jill, you ever bought a course?

For sure.

You have?

Yeah.

For college?

No, not college.

College doesn't count like a traditional course.

No, nothing, no training courses, nothing like that.

I'm just trying to think who buys this, like who.

What's the demographic of the person who goes, I want to sign up for Andy Elliott.

I think it's a 18 to 25 year old lost kid with some money in his pocket that thinks that that's the answer to their problems.

You know, he somehow resonates with that.

That audience.

Don't know how or why, but that's who seems to be flocking to his, you know, events and what he's surrounded by as far as his army.

Yeah, it's a bunch of young, impressionable kids.

I mean, other than some Nikes in a, in a, in a robe, they're pretty much a cult.

Yeah.

Which is kind of wild to me to think about.

I'm trying to figure out.

I look at someone like a cardone to like.

It's weird because he has.

He's another person who uses religion, uses Scientology as kind of like the nexus for who he is.

Although he doesn't push it in your face like the way like Orion Pineda does where he's like, I'm this religious figure, you should trust me.

But then I look at someone like, who's a good example.

Dave Ramsey.

Let's use him.

Here you go.

Let's play this.

This is actually something for you.

Jeff Fargo's Ryan Pineda uses the church to make money in blatantly is leveraging the church to make money.

He's now doing like all these conferences and involving God.

Ballerbus put out him doing baptisms.

It is pulled his house.

Saw that.

What?

Yeah, they use that as a way to lower your guard and go, okay, well they're praying, so what they're saying must be authentic.

Annie Elliott does that too.

Like we're a God based company.

They that they have this five Fs and one of them is faith.

Religion to me is the biggest grift out there.

Nothing against if you are religious.

Bless your heart.

Pun intended.

I'm not, but I have no disrespect for anybody that is Muslim, Jewish, Christian, atheist, agnostic, whatever, I don't care.

But again, there is this group of guys and it's all men that are preying on lower income guys and girls looking for answers.

Yeah.

Also shout out to your sponsor, Young for Life Wellness.

Right, buddy.

Jeff has been able to grow his podcast and get sponsors on pretty, pretty aggressively now.

It's been really cool to watch.

But so, yeah, I look at stuff like That I think to myself, like, okay, we're now I'm going to say something that's very stigmatizing and charged.

We talked about this in the last podcast.

When you go to school, they teach you to show up on time, to raise your hand, to be obedient.

And I'm a guy who's got a lot of education, right?

It's good taxpayer qualities, good tax.

That's 100.

Right?

Well, the Vanderbilts, the Rothschilds, JP Morgan, the people who put this system in place is based on the Prussian school brought here to the United States.

But there were really three schools in what, Prussia, now modern day Germany.

And there was a school for the elite.

There was a school for people who were going to be kind of like your lawyers and doctors, your middle area.

And there was like a lower class school that would meet your menial wagers, wage worker, typical blue collars like activity.

Right?

That's the school system implemented that we implemented here.

At the same time, you take our brilliant idea to offshore the physical labor to give to China, manufacturing China, because we're going to be intelligent, our culture is going to be intelligent.

And now you got AI saying we don't need your intelligence.

Yeah, we don't need you.

Right.

And I look at all this stuff and I think to myself, like, okay, like we, we screw these kids up.

We did this.

But the same problem that I have with the education system, I also have with the religious system.

Because what does religion teach you?

To be obedient, to follow the rules.

And, and kind of like Jeff and I've got a pretty wide history of my family was very open to religion.

I was allowed to go to like temples and mosques and churches, you know, Catholic and Christian.

And I got a lot of exposure to a lot of different religions growing up.

So I don't really hate any of them.

I actually love them all for the good and the bad.

But I can tell you that religion also means the Catholic Church is the largest owner of land in the world.

Right?

So now you're using something that teaches obedience to use that same level of obedience and trust to bilk people out of money adjacent from their own religious beliefs.

Now they're required to pay their 10% to the church and then they also have to buy your courses in order to be a good man.

Like, isn't that a wild concept?

It is, yeah.

And you know, again, nothing against the religions and whatnot, but I believe it was just brought in, like you said, as a way to control people early on, you know, kept everybody in line and now it's turned to a, a monetary aspect, you know.

So you ever wonder if like the government knows about like aliens or something like that and the reason why they keep it silent is because then religion can't keep people in line?

I thought about that, yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

But it's funny if what I kind of ruled that out was our last administration, our last administration was not religious at all.

So if there was any way to abolish religion and if they could have, you know, confirmed aliens or whatnot, I think they would have done it.

Really?

I don't know.

They're just so fucking evil, man.

Like they look at what they were doing.

They were just blatantly putting on these shows with the devil.

I don't know if you remember, I forget what they were.

But just every, every national thing was embracing the devil, LGTB community, all that.

Oh yeah, yeah.

It was just everything, every performance, even getting the kids involved with this.

Yeah.

So I don't put anything past them.

I don't.

That's a valid.

Tell the president though.

I don't think they tell the president of the administration.

I think this is like one of those CIA.

Yeah.

It's like the Men in Black.

You know, they have a special section that handles this and I think there's.

Somebody out there in government who probably has.

Because keep in mind, presidents come and go every four years.

Right.

Their cabinet usually is swapped out by the next president every four years.

So why would you tell them?

If you're a high ranking official in for example, the CIA and you're around for 20 years.

Yeah.

30 years, you're gonna know.

You're going to know.

Would you tell the President?

Nah.

Why?

Yeah, you know, and then you look at some of the stuff that's happening and you go to yourself like, how much does this person really know about what's going on?

They probably feel like they know a lot.

Yeah.

But they're shielded from it too.

I think, I think you're right.

Yeah.

There's, there's too many top ranking officials that have the information that are either don't want to or they're just, you know, they want to stand in the way or whatever it is.

But that's where like naivety almost has this way of like it's I, I admire people who, who are naive to the, to the greater like sinister thoughts of people.

Like if you can look at someone like a Grant Cardone and Andy Elliott and go, ah, that's a good person.

I want to be like them.

Like Are you really that naive or are you just saying, I want to be rich?

I think it might be a combination of both.

Really?

Yeah, I think so.

I mean, there's a lot of naive people out there that want to be rich.

Yeah, I guess it's true.

But I mean, honestly, I do.

I chalk it up to both.

I think that they're naive and they're just looking for a shortcut to success.

And he promises that, you know, he promises it with passion.

And, you know, let me ask you a hypothetical question.

Let's say you built a following, okay.

And let's say someone's.

Because I've actually been approached with this.

So this is not like super hypothetical in the sense that it hasn't happened to me before.

But I want to see your answer.

We have always said on the show we don't do courses.

Now, have I contemplated creating a course and giving away for free?

Yeah, a hundred percent.

Like, look, I've got a finance background.

I'm happy to teach a course on multifamily real estate investing.

I'm happy to teach a course on buying commercial real estate, whatever, you know, so you don't go to someone like Grant Cardone and go, here's my money.

Yeah, so you understand what you're getting into.

I know that a lot of these courses are MBA level courses and they're best not taught in school, they're best learned on the job.

If someone came to you and said, hey, look man, I like your content.

You're calling out these guys for bullshit.

Could you teach me how to sell cars?

Would you put out a course?

Would you consider it or would you?

I don't know.

You know, when you say course, no, I don't think that's what I would do.

You know, it's funny.

Jeff and I talked about this and we're going to start putting more valuable content just on the page for free.

You know, car buying tips, things to look out for, good cars to buy cars, to stay away from, things like that.

So no, I want to provide those values for free.

I'm not looking to sell a course to anybody.

I'm not the leading expert in the car industry.

I'm not going to stand up here and say that I have all the answers to it.

I've done okay for myself and my way works for me.

But no, if anyone was just to reach out and say, hey, would you?

This, that or the other, I might entertain them for a few and answer some of their questions.

But no, I wouldn't want to.

I wouldn't sell a course or anything like that.

No.

I asked the question because I think that that's probably the.

The expected answer from someone with your background.

But it's interesting to me to see how a lot of people, when they gain social notoriety, Andy Elliott's Grant Cardones, even the Gavin Newsoms of some in some way shape or form, they have to find a way to monetize.

Very few people say, you know how I want to monetize.

I'm going to grow my core business.

That's how I'm going to monetize.

Yeah.

I'm going to use this to grow my core business.

Instead.

They look for the faster dollar.

Right.

And the sad part is people who are spending the money in the faster dollar, people who are buying the course, don't realize that you are the fast buck for them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They charge you up front.

They get your email that you're in the newsletter system now.

And then they're always going to upsell you.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a weird mix, right?

It is, yeah.

Jeff and I were talking about that on his podcast on how it's just this, this never ending.

You know, once they get you in.

You know, once they get you in, it's never ending.

Like you said, constant upsells.

Yeah.

It's just a way to get more and more money out of you.

I would love to see crossover in your brand.

So, you know, the videos that I've seen, they've all been.

They catch you quickly because you come off real quick.

It's a.

It's a sharp like, what the fuck?

And it's engaging like that.

And that's what you do.

Like.

But it's beautiful.

I would love to see that crossed over to don't buy this car, buy that car.

Or this is bullshit.

You know, just more educational but with.

The same level of candor.

Yeah.

If you can.

If you can broach.

Because people want the no bullshit, quick approach.

Yeah.

And I think, like a lot of car videos that I see a great example.

This is forest.

Great guy.

Yes.

He does great videos.

Videos.

Fantastic videos talking about him.

Yeah.

Super classy.

Very, like, respectful.

You could tell he's just a good human being.

But I think there's a whole cohort of people who want, like, a little bit more like this.

This features fucking bullshit.

What the.

Like, they want more of that.

And sure, it doesn't resonate as much with brands.

There's forced.

Yeah.

Forest Auto reviews official.

This dude's career.

He's out here in Orange County Too, I think.

Yeah, he's Orange County.

We actually talked to his PR guy about trying to get him.

I'm actually peer pressuring him.

Try to get on the show, are you?

Yeah.

Nice.

And he's a super nice guy.

So.

R35 GTR, rest in peace, little dove over it.

You know, I like the car, I just can't fit in it very well.

So you're in the car space, man.

So talk to me about cars.

Like, how did you get in the business?

I started out as a lot Porter at 16 years old for an Acura dealer back when The Integra type R's were hot, you know, so I was just a 16 year old kid washing cars and then that I, I worked really hard, you know, I, when I started working, I really wanted to make money and do well.

So I was a hard worker and that went, it didn't go unrecognized.

So Shortly after my 18th birthday, I was promoted to a finance manager from a Lot Porter.

Wow.

I never sold cars, so they, they had seen enough potential in me to take me, put me in the finance office and train me to do finance.

That's a wild age to do that.

It is.

And it's just because I was unique.

They never had anybody like me.

I was literally the guy that, you know, I'd wash the car, then when I'm done, I'd come sit in the office, go, okay, what else do you need?

What else do you.

I'm constantly in their face, what else do you need?

To the point where they were finding office stuff for me to do, inputting inventory, stocking in cars, things that none of these other people do.

And they said, dude, this guy's quick, like, he's smart, like, you know.

And they had an opening in finance and it was at a Volvo dealer.

I, after I left Acura, I went to a Volvo dealer.

That's a weird swerve.

I know.

Well, so I got, I got fired from the Acura dealer because I had a, I had a weird rash all over my chest and I took a few days off.

Well, the owner's son was just a prick and he called me and he's like, if you don't come in today, you're going to lose your job.

So I went in there and I showed him what I had and I just basically told him off and he fired me.

So I went to, literally next door there was a Volvo dealer.

I went in my Acura uniform.

I said, hey, are you guys looking to hire?

I know you guys just they just built the store and they go, yeah, fill out an application.

So they hired me on the spot, immediately went to the Volvo store and that's where they promoted me to be the finance manager.

That's super cool.

So, yeah, so that's how I got started.

From there, I bounced around to probably 8 to 10 different dealers throughout my career before I decided to go out on my own.

And for many years I just sold cars out of my house.

Sell 15, 20 cars out of my house.

Were you nervous when you jumped out on your own?

No, not really.

Because I had already had a good understanding of the business and I was tired of the political environment that the dealerships create.

Like, it's crazy how some of these companies can get political like that, right?

It is, yeah.

And so I just had enough of it.

You know, a lot of the, a lot of the issues we deal with in the car business is not getting paid for, for, you know, revenue that we generated.

So that was a big thing with me.

You know, I generate, I performed, I want to get paid.

So they would slow pay.

You find reasons not to pay.

You find reasons to charge you back, things like that.

Because the arap, like cycle for the dealerships.

Not really.

It was really because they want to limit your payout.

You know, they're trying to cut your pay at every level.

You know, even so you have a good month, they want to come back and lower your percentage in management anyways.

Salesmen typically have the same percentage across the board.

But management is where it can get expensive when you're taking 18, 10% of the bottom line.

So they always want to try to chip away at that as much as they can.

They want you to be successful, but within reason, well, they want to keep.

You on a leash.

They don't want me to be like, like I am now, independent.

I don't need them.

I don't need them for their floor plan.

I'll just have a. I have a liquid inventory.

It's a lot smaller granite, but it's enough for me to make a good income on.

And I don't have to deal with any of the political bs.

I don't have to deal with mood swings of an angry owner.

I used to work for Danny McKenna.

I don't know if you know who that is, but he has quite a history in the car business as being a very erratic individual.

So people don't realize that a lot of the dealerships, almost all of them are individually owned by families that have either been in the business for a long time or just got into the business.

And it's not this massive corporate, like, Ford structure.

These are franchises.

Yep.

Individually owned and operated.

Yep.

Yeah.

And because of that.

There you go.

Look familiar?

Yeah, sure does.

Yeah.

That's the business, huh?

Yeah, that's the website.

I like it.

So look, you go from the house to.

To a shop.

So that's.

That's actually a funny story.

To the shop.

So for, like I said, the last 15 years, I've kind of been just selling out of my house.

So my good friend is actually who started H S motor cars.

He started about 10 years ago, and he was not doing too well in 2024, so he was getting to the point where he thought he might lose it.

So I said, look, why don't I come in?

I'll run everything, but I'm gonna take 50%.

And he decided to do it because he was gonna lose it.

Better to have 50% of something than all of nothing.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's where I made my deal with H and S. And that's actually when the social media got started.

Because once I got that, I go, you know what?

Why don't I bring some brand awareness to it?

Why don't I just try to be funny?

You know, include my personality into it and see where it goes?

Yeah, so that's.

That's.

That's the story of H S. And basically.

Yeah, my God, you could.

My career.

What's the guy on the east coast?

He sells all the cars.

All these kids come to see him.

He's an independent.

Oh, yeah.

I can't think of his name right now, but he owns him.

Yeah, he's a used.

Well, actually he's a Mitsubishi franchise now, too.

Yeah, he's a Middle Eastern guy.

Yeah, yeah.

Shaved head, beard.

Yeah, I follow him.

I can't.

I don't.

Yeah, I can't remember his name, but everybody goes there like he does.

You could do the exact same thing on your platform as him and combine your current social awareness with that.

Well, that's.

That's what I want to start doing is.

So now he.

See how he records live negotiations and everything.

Like, that's really what I want to get into.

There's other dude in the bow tie who does that too.

Yeah, Ben's is in bow tie.

So he has a.

Literally like this, a setup.

And he's just recording his daily routine every day, whether it be car deals or whether he be talking to the camera, trying to inform customers.

Yeah, he's getting up there too.

So.

So I have a Theory.

And you probably heard this from Jeff, but I'm going to go ahead and say it and Jeff's going to use it later on to try to sell you on something.

Just know that going out, right out the gate.

But I believe that the next generation of success in, in business, regardless of what business you're in, requires a personal brand.

So much so that.

Oh, there you go.

That's the guy.

George.

George, yeah, yeah, George Saliva.

Yep, that's him.

Yeah.

He's gotten a lot of growth as of late, particularly just from.

Well, and in all fairness, he deals with higher end cars too, which is very attractive to social media.

You know I, I'm definitely not on that level.

So that's.

Yeah, but I don't, I don't think the hiring cars are, I used to think the same thing.

The hiring cars are the draw.

Yeah, I don't think that's it.

I think what it does, it's important.

I think the content is important.

The personalities that come are important.

Okay.

So I think if you were to do the same thing and show the personalities that come through.

Yeah.

Because there are, there are very different personalities.

Oh, absolutely.

Well, well there's a different personality from someone buying a $15,000 car and a $200,000 car.

Yeah.

So absolutely.

Yeah.

100.

So if you watch someone like Gary Vee, like, it's not like he's not selling like a premium service.

He's just telling people, go out, start a business, go outside a business.

Yeah.

You can give people the back behind the scenes look of what that business looks like and I think that's what they really think.

It's interesting.

Yeah, yeah.

And like even Benzos and Botas, he doesn't know own that, that business.

He's just a finance guy at a dealership.

It's a look into the daily life of somebody that works in the car business.

Yeah.

And it's, it's, it's his personality and the backdoor look into what the finance manager is looking at whenever you're doing a deal.

Yes.

That makes people interested that they all, they're all Mercedes Benzes.

At some point you're gonna go like, all right, it's another Mercedes Benz.

Do you know who Russ Flips Whips is?

Have you heard of that guy?

So I know, right?

So he's another big car influencer out there.

He actually stopped working for the dealer and is now doing social media training.

So he's in a way selling courses, but he's actually a legit guy.

He, he reached out to Me really early on in when I started posting videos and gave me some free tips.

Oh, I've seen this guy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So he's.

He.

He reached out to me.

He actually called me and was like, look, I love the content.

He goes, but I'm gonna.

This is the one thing that I think really drove my success, and I have to give him credit for it.

He told me to cut the video as much as I can.

So there's no.

Just literally, if you're even cut off a syllable if you have to, because you would rather it just be what you want versus that delay, because that delay could cause someone to just flip.

So I. I've been told the same, and I refuse to do it.

Oh, okay.

Because I'm just an anal retentive and I can't take it.

But he's 100, right?

To be honest.

Don't tell him I said this if.

You ever talked to him.

I thought this dude is part of Andy Elliott's army.

Oh, did you?

I. Dude, he looks like he has, like, the.

The vibes going on, but it's sarcasm.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So he went and did the funniest Andy Elliott.

So he called them and they did a little social media collaboration.

It was friendly.

It was friendly.

So he.

Yeah, they just did it and they.

Russ went there and they were like, kind of, you know, pretend bullying him, and they were, you know, put him like 10 people around, throwing them up in the air.

Like, it was just this whole.

I think I saw that.

Yeah.

So.

But no, he's definitely not.

He.

He's actually.

Yeah, they're not.

They don't like the Andy Elliott thing.

And AMG Jared, too.

That's another one.

I don't know if you know, that is.

That guy's cool.

There's so many guys in this niche that I think are such unique personality types, and so here's my shtick, and here's what I'll.

Here's what I'll tell you.

I think the next level of leadership in this.

Here you go.

You got your salesman.

You just got back from Andy Elliot.

No, I'm a warrior.

How you doing today?

I'm Russ Richard.

Pleasure to meet you.

Appreciate you coming out today.

You don't understand how much I appreciate your time today.

Geez.

What can we help you with?

I was just looking at.

Look at some cars today, man.

We're gonna look at some cars.

Well, you came to the right place.

And I'm gonna make sure this is.

The greatest experience you've ever had.

Follow Me navigator for you.

What do you say?

Oh, my God.

All right.

I can't take it.

He seems just like Andy Elliott.

It's just killing me.

But yeah.

So I believe that the next level level of personal brand is going to be so if you go to the Rock or you go to Kevin Hart and you want them to do a movie for you, you sign a separate contract for their social media access.

Really?

So if you sign a deal with, with Dwayne the Rock Johnson, he won't post anything about your movie on his social media unless you pay him separately for that.

And it was Kevin Hart who originally taught him that.

And the conversation went something like this.

Like, look like building a personal brand gives you an upsell to add to.

To you as a quote brand, personal brand.

But just because they're signing you to do a movie with them doesn't mean that they get your marketing access via your platform.

And even now, when you go to sign, like as an athlete, they have 360 deals where they sign the entire deal with an athlete.

So everything the athlete touches, your agency now gets a piece of, regardless of where you're at.

Well, it's not the same way in a lot of businesses.

And I truly believe that in corporate America, as you go on, people want to.

They want somebody that they resonate with that's authentic, that's visible.

They want to see you.

What they don't want is some asshole who's at a Coldplay concert cheating on his wife.

Right.

And that only happens because that person wasn't visible, he wasn't known.

So it's completely shocking that this behavior is out there.

Yeah, but if he was visible and he was out there, number one, he wouldn't be doing that kind of stuff.

And number two, people would be like, oh, that person's authentic.

I know about their life.

Yeah.

The next level of leadership in this country, even the presidents, currently, right now, our current president uses social media in a way no other president had.

The next level of leadership in this country comes from visibility.

With owning a personal brand, I believe that in order to be a CEO of a company moving in the future, you're going to need that element, as in addition to your resume and your.

Pedigree, that's going to be your resume.

Yeah, we're moving to that.

And that's honestly what kicked me into social media too, is it's like, I better get on the bandwagon.

Yeah.

You know, if you're going to have any sort of brand recognition or credibility for that matter, you know, you should be out there, so.

And because you own your own business and because you are your own brand, you can do it in your way.

Yeah.

Which is truly a blessing.

Yeah.

I know it is.

And we just pull this up.

The Rock is getting paid $1 million to post on social media about a new movie he's in.

Wow.

So think about that.

He's getting paid to be the movie.

And then he's on the back end, too, on the social.

Wow.

It's no clue.

It's an incredible boost.

Makes sense, though.

Yeah.

Don't tell Jeff because he's predatory.

He's the back.

Well, I would be mindful of your time.

I appreciate you coming on.

Thanks so much.

Thanks for having me.

I really appreciate it.

And you're local, so you get to see my face more often.

Yeah, definitely, man.

Anytime one of the next time you want to call somebody out, if you have a post that goes viral or something like that, you want to come on and talk about it, you come on the show, we'll do it here.

Appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

All right, brother.

Thanks for having.

Awesome.

All right, bye.