April 2, 2026 • 36 mins
Wilmer and Freddy welcome Third Amigo Joe Huff, the entrepreneur, author, and former heavy-metal–hair wild child who went pro at building a life on purpose. From getting kicked out of high school to launching impact-driven companies that fund hearing aids around the world and co-writing Experiential Billionaire, Joe shares how his dad’s near-death “bonus round” and a decade of service work rewired his definition of success.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hey, how you doing.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
This is Freddie Rodriguez and I'm wilmer about the rama.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Welcome to the DOOS podcast where all of our dreams come.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
True, All of our dreams come true.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Today we have another great episode.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Very excited to tap into some inspiration keeping giving all
of our dogs community, uh more things too. I realized
that you got what it takes to actually live a
happy life.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I guess that's right. And a real third amigo.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yes, I like to introduce everyone to Joe Huff.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Joe.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Joey is a very dear, very dear friend of mine.
We've known each other for many, many many years and
I we'll dive right into it. But above it all,
he's an author, he's an entrepreneur, he's an incredible father,
he's a you know, like a C plus friend. It
kind of goes yes, but he's very good Chicago. And
(01:04):
I will also say, you know, he is the godfather
to my daughter and I kind of very interesting. I
hope is that it's something happened to me that they
pick it up where I left off.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Yeah, maybe be would have to be.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Joe, Welcome to those podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
I'm very excited to have you finally have look, we
we as we were continuing to talk about, you know,
the themes of this season, you know, which is like
what are we living on the table, like what are
we letting.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Go of ourselves?
Speaker 3 (01:39):
But also how we building a more uh uh you know,
a space that makes things possible, you know, and more
and more and more possible space.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
You know.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I think the idea that you can find happiness and
not just who you are, but the strengths that you've
yet to recognize, I think is really interesting.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
You've had quite an amazing.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Story, and I would love to share your heart and
your spirit with everybody that listens to those amigos. But
starting from scratch, wouldn't you tell us a little bit
about you.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Know, where you're from. I know you guys were talking
about Chicago.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
You were shutdown, baby, shutdown.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
First of all, I didn't know there were going to
be hard questions. I'm probably gonna dip out starting off
hart Yeah. Yeah, originally yeah, from Chicago, but we moved
when I was a kid to Sokel and I acclimated
too well. I think it's why the sunny weather every
time I go back to Chicago and it's not fall
or spring. Yeah, I remember why my parents decided moving
(02:42):
was a good idea.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
But no polar vortex for you.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
No, yeah, yeah, I was just back actually in Minneapolis
for some work and there's like negative seventeen. It's like
almost like eighty four degrees in LA when I left.
But yeah, so it's it's great to be a so
cal person with perspective. I feel like that's important. You
know a lot of people you hear say things like
I just want to live where there are seasons that
(03:06):
have never lived where there are seasons. It's a little
bit yeah, it's a little bit of a statement, but uh, yeah.
I I grew up in Sokeel, not too far from
the LA area, like thirty forty minutes away, and you know,
I had a kind of crazy adolescence where.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, yeah, I wasn't going to go into that. But now, yeah,
I don't know where we're at.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
You got it.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I got that exactly where we're at now, you got No.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
I'm happy that you bring that up because they think
that that adventure is like, let's get it down. Mentality
comes from somewhere, and you definitely cultivated it at a
very specific time of your life. You know, Joe had
very long heavy metal hair really.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
For those who are going to be watching that picture
on the screen also that at some point. But yeah,
he uh.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
The first time I met him, he said, Hi, I
am Joey.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Does What year was it?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
That was his go to? I don't remember. We both
like tequila back then.
Speaker 5 (04:13):
Yeah, it was actually about twenty six years ago, believe
it or not.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Yeah, we were both ten something like that.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
And yeah, but so, do you have any brothers? You know,
tell us a little bit about your family.
Speaker 5 (04:27):
Two older brothers, you know, they're there West Coast, once
in San Francisco, the other ones in Irvine, kids, wives,
the whole shebang. I'm the youngest, and yeah, typical kind
of sokeel stranger.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Fairy, typical upbringing.
Speaker 5 (04:44):
You know, a lot of BMX bikes, you know, right
around on trails, kind of lack of supervision, latch key.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Kids come home and the lights go turn straight up
and maybe yeah, maybe your mom's scream if it was
too dark, Like, yeah, wait, how did you two meet?
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Though?
Speaker 1 (05:03):
What was the what was the long hair? And the.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
So how do I say this?
Speaker 4 (05:09):
And it was delicate for him.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
I was doing my first movie ever, cool summer catch
starting Freddy Prince Junior and Jessica Biel, Matt t. Lillar, who,
by the way, shout out to Matt de Lillard. He
was a major class act. On on that said, he
was like just an amazing nurser and friend, incredible man
Mark Bluke, Cedric Pendleton, Christian Kane, Brian Denahey, fred.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Ward just like.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
It was so fun and was same producers Baschadory Blues.
It was this beautiful baseball movie. We were in South Polk, Okayland.
And at the time, you know, Joe and and Freddie
Prince Junior, which I have been remained really good friends
this whole time. Uh, they were best friends and I
think were you guys roommates.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Roommates for like five years.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
I met Freddie when he first moved from New Mexico
to La before he had ever acted in anything, and
he was in my other roommates acting class and he
needed a place to live and we had an extra room,
so I was like, yeah, sure, you got a friend
that wants to move in. He moved in, and then
he got a couple of jobs, and then one of
them turned out to be a number one movie.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Right it was I know what you did last summer?
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Oh wow, were you? Were you all actors?
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (06:27):
No, I was just trying to figure out life still
at that time.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Voice.
Speaker 5 (06:33):
Yeah, I was acting like a bartender mostly and a waiter, yeah,
a mover all kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
When did you get the first bug to entrepreneurship when
we were like, oh, you know, I like to start
this aster that, you know, I like.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
To build things.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
I just always felt one thing I think I got
from my parents which was really helpful, is my dad
specifically always maybe believe I could do anything.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
And I think that's really powerful.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
And it wasn't that my dad was like some super
successful person, but he really instilled in me that.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
If you think you can do something, you do it.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
Go do it. You could do it, why can't you?
And that mentality really stuck. And I really had a
couple of key moments though, you know, as I alluded
to earlier, but I had like a crazy adolescence that
got really this exclamation point where I just started to
figure things out.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
I got and kicked out of high school. I figured
out how to get back into high school.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
I started figuring out that maybe the decisions I was
making were actually terrible yeah, and I was looking at
my friends. A lot of people were going to jail,
and a lot of other terrible things were going on.
And I started to turn my life around, got back
into high school, and right before I graduated, my dad
had a heart attack. I came downstairs. He's white as
(07:53):
a sheet and dreshed in sweabs. This really crazy moment.
Oh my god, my dad's having a heart attack, and
we turn him the hospital. But it turned out it
wasn't a heart attack. He actually had advanced stage heart disease,
and so it was failing and he wound up going
on life support and needing a heart transplant. And it
was this period of a couple months of just this
just intense fear of Wow, like all the things my
(08:18):
dad always wanted to do, he's not going to get
a chance to do those things. He was only forty
eight years old. It was just crazy and it just
woke me up. That was like this really powerful moment
of life can change in an instant. Yeah, and you know,
the most important thing is our time. And we all
talk about it, but do we really get especially when
you're young, right, we all think we're going to live
(08:39):
forever and all that and really what happened was my
dad got the transplant and immediately had to like change
his entire life around because he realized he had done
all these things he wanted to do with his life,
and that watching him just kind of go after his
dreams and goals really inspired me to take action, not
just think I could do things, but like, I should
(09:01):
figure this out and start trying. And that was really
the impetus. I think to, like, what do I want
to do with my life? And I literally tried my
first company. I graduated high school and immediately great side story,
moved to the beach with two girls I met at
a party the week before.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
The roommates didn't last.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
They only lasted a few months, but I had already
made it to the beach, so I got new roommates
that yeah, exactly, I got different roommates and wound up
staying at the beach, and one of those roommates inspired
me to start my first clothing company, which was T
shirts that were grabbing T shirts that we made with
a credit card, my first ever credit card that I
(09:42):
maxed out immediately, and that company, as we all not,
turned into one of the most successful T shirt companies
of all time, which is I'm just kidding on My
lasted about a year, way more shirts than we sold
our friends all had.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Sure, turns out that's not a good business.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
Plan, but it was a great experience and to me
it kind of gave me the bug of like, oh,
I should try to build something after it. I pay
off this credit card. But what was.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
The one thing that you saw after your dad got well?
Because you said something interesting, you said, you know, my
dad got well and he decided that he was going
to change things around and follow specific goals that he
wasn't following before, Like what was a goal? What was
the one thing that stood out the most that he
did once he got well.
Speaker 5 (10:39):
Yeah, you know, there's a couple That's a great question
because there's a couple different answers in that question. And
really he was also part of the story that I
left out. He got out of the hospital and he
was on permanent disability, like he had like this crazy
limited income of like seven hundred dollars a month.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
And.
Speaker 5 (10:58):
He could have easily just kind of curled up in
a ball and just said, yeah, I'm just gonna stay
close to the doctors and the hospital and all that stuff,
but he knew because of what had happened, right, this
is like, this is this crazy risk, this is my
one and only life. So he not only had to
make decisions, we had to make decisions with these extraordinary constraints,
(11:19):
both financial and otherwise. Right at the same time, my
parents actually wound up getting divorced, and there was just
this whole mess of situation. And my dad up and
moved to Mexico, to this small beach town where he
could afford to live on this beach in this tiny house.
And it turned out to be like this, you know,
extraordinary decision because it changed this entire last chapter of
(11:42):
his life. He called his last chapter his bonus round, right,
and that was like the kickoff moment to just this
entirely new chapter. I really truly believe it was that
last chapter of his life that changed his life story,
his own eulogy into like the one he was proud of.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
He did.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
He did all kinds of like kayaking and mountain biking
and about to sale and dancing and all kind of stuff.
I never thought my dad, if you knew my dad
before that, my dad got up at four thirty or
five in the morning, went to work, put a suit on,
went to work, came home at like seven thirty and
I ate dinner, went to bed, repeat, you know, Monday
through Saturday, Sunday.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Did the crossrod puzzle, watch some football. That was it?
Like he I don't, Sadly, I don't.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
As much as my dad inspired me by telling me
I could do those things. He didn't go to a
sporting event or I don't remember him in any activity
taking me doing it. There were no moments like that
because he was just working all the time. He was
just trying to get to this imaginary finish line that
maybe doesn't exist.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Right. So that's kind of the lesson.
Speaker 5 (12:43):
That I took away from it, Like everybody's planning for this,
you know, let's let's plan for this future that just
might be an apparition.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
So that's why I invested in it. Today it's pretty
cuy wow.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
So going back to your investments and going and what
you learn from there, what do you said your launched
that a teacher company, and then and then what took
cute to that? Then you started kind of trying to
find your plays again because I remember you just started
doing a little stand up well again, I.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
Moved actually So I was still living at the beach then,
and this went on for a few years, and I
was just trying to figure out how to survive and
get by and figure out how to scrape up enough
money to actually start something. Again, I didn't have like
a access to capital or anything. I didn't even know
anybody that had any access to capital or anything like that.
So I was just trying to figure out how to
make enough money to start something that could work. And
(13:35):
after a few years, I just realized the beach was
kind of a smaller environment. I didn't want to get
involved in, like the serve for action sports community, so
I said, you know, I think I'll move to LA
And there was one guy who from high school that
had moved to LA after high school and he lived
in Hollywood, and I told him and he was like,
I need a new place.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
So we were found this house and moved up to LA.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
And when we got to LA, I was just kind
of trying to figure out things that I like. And
I had always been kind of the comedian, funny friend
or whatever.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
You know.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
People were like, oh, you should try comedy, and first
of all, absolutely terrifying. One of the most terrifying things. Ever,
there's a great lesson in that though too. But so
I was still I was. I started doing personal training,
all the typical stuff that you hear like people that
are living in LA trying to do.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yeah, by the way, if anybody noticed that, you know,
the season three of that seventies show, fest was a
little buffer than usually.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
It was this guy putting the first time.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
But you know what, I also got to say thank
you because you were the first one to say you
got to train now for whatever life you're going to
have after that seventy show.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
And I needed to look like who I.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Wanted to play next in the movies, when the TV
shows and all that stuff, and if it wasn't for him,
like transforming the way I thought about my physical appearance
and all that stuff because I was gonny, skinny you
know kid, you know get well.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, I mean, I mean it was I just love
ranch stressing.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
I mean.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
You craft services was like corn dogs every Friday. But
I think that the thing that really that really uh
stuk might be is like making this long term decisions
at a time where you are coherent enough to understand
that you know you need the runway to get to
the most ambitious version of yourself and you come in
full circle to that moment in time where you started
(15:32):
personal training and all that. And I remember you even
launch another T shirt company.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
You know, you learned your lessons from the first one.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
Wasn't enough I did. I did not none the lesson
and uh, I was doing the comedy. And by the way,
the actual wardrobe folks on seventies would actually tell me
when you'd go to the taping, they would say, stop training.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Because it's close anymore. They're actually getting mad at me.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, I mean, in their defense my bell bottoms.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Where as they said back then, juicy mo better juicy
against stand up company is really hard. Yeah, So I
started this other T.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
Shirt company and I'm doing comedy, like, you know, poorly,
probably just it was fun and it's funny. This is
I like to say that it's a great lesson because
the first time I did stand up, you know, I
was I was plausible as passable, and if people laughed,
I was like, that was really fun. It wasn't like amazing, amazing,
but as hard as it was, it was actually so
(16:36):
much fun that I was like, oh, I could see
doing this more. And I did it more and more
until I actually got good enough that I was performing
pretty regularly, and I grew to really love.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
It, and I loved like the whole process of it.
Speaker 5 (16:48):
And I think that's a great example of like doing
things you're afraid of and that you're not good at
naturally and seeing what happens, because most people aren't good
at things that are worth doing, you know, the first
time around. Most people start as beginners. Surfing is another
great example. Always say like, I'm a terrible surfer, but
I love it. But if everybody that you know was
(17:08):
a terrible surfer never served, that, no one would serve
because you start off terrible, right. But yeah, So I
started this next T shirt company with a really a
good friend of mine, and you know, it's the same
kind of thing the T shirt companies. It takes off
at first, and it's really hard. It's not really getting anywhere.
We have this small garage a couple thousand square feet,
(17:29):
and we're trying to figure out how to make this
thing survive. And a friend of ours comes over and
looks around and he's like, you know, you got a
lot of extra room here, wy, don't you help me
ship my company's products? Since you're not using all the space,
which again I feel like was a nice way for
him to say, it looks like your T shirt company's failing.
But yeah, so we we wound up helping him ship
(17:49):
his inventory. And some other friends were like, oh, you
know you you actually are helping Rob ship his inventory.
We were not that good, I don't want you to
help us, and okay, and slowly but surely we turned
this T your company that was failing that we loved,
by the way, and absolutely, Ya's such a great brand.
But you know, after like three years of trying to
(18:09):
get it somewhere, the shipping company was like take skyrocketing,
and his teacher company was like stagnating or decreasing.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
What were you doing in your shipping company that was
so different than everyone? How come they couldn't?
Speaker 5 (18:21):
You know?
Speaker 4 (18:23):
It was a couple of things.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
I think that shipping as an industry was just dominated
by massive players and with like old like Italian guys
in like the New Jersey Meadowlands.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
They're smoking cigars.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
Go let me tell you how, I'm gonna put your
stuff in the corner and it's going to go next
to some vacuum cleaners and mayonnaise jars, and we were young.
We were like young friends of all these people going
to all these trade shows, like apparel and fashion trade shows,
and they're like, I want my stuff to go in
the cool you know place with all the other guys
cool stuff.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
You know, Like it was all a premium apparel brands.
Speaker 5 (18:55):
So it just became like the place for it and
just grew and grew and grew here every year. So
that was like my first real successful right. It was
probably already my fifth company at that point of attempts
of things that I had tried to start.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
So you eventually sold that company, yeah, right, and then
you went into something.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Sold the shipping company.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Yeah, and made up pretty good on that add and
what with that successful organisation that so, you know, selling
the company, he decided to go into a more humanitarian,
you know journey, and he started thinking about other companies.
I don't want to paraphrase it, but I think I
(19:34):
were saying that his heart has always been the thing
that people you know, really connect to. He's he'll he'll
always be there, he'll he'll always show up, and translated
into you know, I think the next chapter of his life,
which was the you know, giving a piece of himself
to humanity in a way that came in a form
(19:54):
of different you know, humanitarian moments, you know, And maybe
talking about listening will be a really because listen is like,
you know, what you were able to see in humanity,
you know, and how you travel the world would listen.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
I think there's something that was very inspiring. Do you
mind talking a little bit.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
About listening and you started listening and what listen eventually
went out to do?
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Yeah, no, I mind, I definitely mind talking. That was
no questions day.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:22):
So you know, there's all stemmed again, you know, not randomly,
but you know, I think it's important to point out
it's stemmed again from my dad. What happened was my
dad actually after fifteen years of his bonus round, he
passed away. And when my dad passed away, at that moment,
I remember those last moments I was with him, and
(20:42):
I remember thinking, what does he care about?
Speaker 4 (20:44):
What is he thinking about right now? What mattered to
him in his life?
Speaker 5 (20:47):
And he even told me some of the things that
were the most important things those last few days. And
it was just this like great realization again of like
what am I going to care about?
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Like at the end of my life, what am I
really going to care about?
Speaker 5 (21:00):
And that's what, you know, inspired me to sell, to
basically sell the shipping company, And I said, if what
I'm going to care about? And really what the conclusion
I came to is what I did to have an impact,
you know, what I did to make the world a
better place in whatever way.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
And you know, people do that a lot of ways.
Speaker 5 (21:18):
People do that through their craft, through their business, and
you know, philanthropy doesn't have to be the only way.
But I remember thinking at the time, what am I
waiting for? Like, am I going to like do something?
You know, maybe I'm not going to be Bill and
Melinda Gates or whatever and have some foundation.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
Why don't I start something now?
Speaker 5 (21:37):
And I sold my shares in the company and started
first a T shirt company again third one that was
dedicated to giving back. And then that led I started
doing some work with a water filtration providing clean water
and some building schools and things like that that I
cared about. But then a friend of mine called, she said, hey,
(21:59):
you know, Joe, I see you're doing with the T shirts.
It's really cool and you're doing this charity work. But
I just saw this video of this girl hearing for
the first time, and I did looked it up. There's
all these crazy statistics, hundreds of millions of people don't
have access.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
And I basically heard.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
Her ideas goes, what why don't we sell headphones and
try to get people hearing aids?
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Like it's a way better idea than my T shirt.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
And by the way I sung it selling shirt, it's like,
I'm clearly not great at this. And yeah, we actually
started that company Listen together, and we had this, you know,
crazy dream of helping one person here for the first time,
just like in this video that we saw.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
And you know, but.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
How did you discover that that that headphones and hearing
aids could be synonymous?
Speaker 5 (22:46):
Well, because we wanted it's story, Like you know that
everything's about the story, and people that appreciate and love
music that use headphones. The idea of not being able
to hear is very easy to explain to someone and say, hey,
imagine if you couldn't actually hear, whether you couldn't enjoy
music or rain or laughter or any of these things
that we all take for granted. So tying it to
(23:08):
a hearing related thing that not only was something that
everyone understands what was global, Like the thing with the
T shirt. Companies were doing things like water filtration that
doesn't affect everyone, or maybe it was for schools or education,
but hearing loss actually affects everyone around the world. So
it was something that we could tell this story that's like, hey,
we'll sell headphones and we'll use the proceeds.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
We are about the statistics in that because I think
they find them really interesting.
Speaker 5 (23:33):
When I started listen that was twenty twelve. Actually there
was over three hundred million people globally that have severe,
too profound hearing loss that just need access to hearing
aids that don't have access, and now it's actually over
five hundred thous.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
Half a billion people.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
And the craziest part is that, you know, since they're babies,
they just say, oh, he can't hear, Oh she can't hear,
and all they realized come to realize later later in life,
after their last two decades or even three decades of
their life, they realized that all they needed was a
hearing it exactly.
Speaker 5 (24:08):
And so this is our mission statement was selling enough headphones.
We literally maxed out our credit cards again, bought some inventory,
built the website, we're gonna sell enough heaphones, so we're
gonna give somebody hearing. Just like in that video we
saw get out there. We don't even get the product
in yet. We build the website and we get an
email from the Today Show before we even get product,
and we don't know how they found us, and they're like, hey,
(24:31):
we're going to feature you on the show. Like what
we literally they feature us. We sell like one hundred
thousand dollars in headphones before we even have products. We're
like sending your emails, so it's gonna ship soon, et cetera.
But we wind up, you know, striking this chord with
all these people, and this dream of ours, of like
helping somebody hearing for the first time, you know, happens
(24:52):
in like eight months. We wind up going on a
mission in Peru and in front of this young girl
and then Maria who had never hurt eighteen or she
was like fifteen, and I had never heard before, just
never had access, and we get to see this girl
here for the first time. And then that just kind
of went on to us traveling around the world for
a decade and helping over fifty thousand people get hearing. Aids,
(25:12):
and we got to like see that firsthand's volunteer and
work on the ground.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
This is again this this.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
This kid that barely graduated high school, that you had
these failed attempts at all these other things. I was like,
I could again, I could do things if I just
keep trying and taking action on things that matter.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
It is the hearing aid integrated into the headphone?
Speaker 4 (25:43):
No, no, no, it's like we're selling. Like that's the
confusing part of the business. For sure.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
It's like Tom's shoes, right, Tom claim at the beginning,
it's like you buy a pair of shoes.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
We provide a pair of shoes too.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
We sell actual consumer products like a Beats headphone, and
then we use the proceeds from the sales to give
hearing aids now people. So we fund our charity partner,
and then we go work with them and actually fit
people with hearing aids.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Got them which and then and then you know the
next chapter, which I also think is one of the
most it's a major moment of legacy. If you become
an author and you know, you guys wrote a book
that I thought was one of the most prolific hacks
for life. Uh that anyone could discover. So I want
to make sure that we talk about this book because
(26:31):
I want everybody to get this book. This book kind
of realigns not just priority, but what you invest in.
And when I mean investment, I'm talking about how are
you investing the hours and the days that you have
in life to get the currency that actually really is profitable,
which is happiness and you know, health, which is living
(26:55):
in a life.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Full of experiences. And I think.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
That that that philosophy was so incredible, so obtainable in
this book. I felt like was you know, and anybody
comes across this book, it's just like like their head
explodes because they're like.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
This is what I was missing.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
I was missing this part of perspective that allows me
to kind of now read this triviu how I lived
my life?
Speaker 2 (27:20):
You know this versus Dad? How many of that? How
many of this?
Speaker 3 (27:23):
And what are you doing for yourself that actually keeps
you making memories? Or or what are the memories you
take with you when you're no longer here?
Speaker 4 (27:31):
What? What?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
What one?
Speaker 3 (27:32):
What expired inspired this book? And talk a little bit
about the name of the the of the book and
and and what is it about?
Speaker 5 (27:39):
Yeah, so the book, which is called Experiential Billionaire. It
was born because we were traveling around the world giving
all these hearing aids and doing all this travel at
the same time. Of course, so people started coming up
to us and saying, well, you guys must be so rich.
The reality was we were donating most of the money
to the chair because it's a charity's work, right, you
(28:02):
donate the money or there's no work done, And so
we would just laugh and go, we're more like experiential billionaires.
And then people would always laugh and say, well, I
hope you can teach me how to become an experiential
billionaire because I want to travel and do these things
you're doing.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
And that led us going, maybe we can.
Speaker 5 (28:22):
Help people because we realized that after like myself, especially
after twenty five years of building these companies and working
with all these people and doing all these things on
the ground, that like, really there was one thing that
all the people that felt like their lives were successful
all had in common. And to make sure that we
weren't just crazy or egotistical about our opinion of it,
(28:43):
we decided to write the book. But to write the book,
we ran a study of over twenty thousand people around
the world where we asked them, what are the most
valuable things in your life your biggest regrets? Do you
feel like your life is successful?
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Why or why not?
Speaker 5 (28:55):
And the study just made it crystal clear, literally at
that direct center of our happiness or our regrets is
whether or not we're taking action on the things that
matter to us. And that taught us that our dreams,
they're not selfish, they're so important they actually lead to
our greatest contributions because when we're living fulfilled, we actually
(29:19):
show up better everywhere. We lead better, we're better friends,
we're better relationships and collaborators and all those things because
we have passion about the things we're doing. And it
was just this moment of like, how do we capture
this in a book to teach people that it's not
about traveling and you know, doing all these exotic, bucketless things.
It's about identifying what you care about and just trying
(29:42):
and taking action. Because what the book shows, I think
hopefully well, is that it's not about succeeding. And in
the study this came out so clearly because a third
of the people's most valuable experiences in their entire life,
we're negative experiences like my dad probably right, or something
gave them some huge value and maybe they tried something,
(30:04):
it didn't work, it go as planned, but it unlocked
something else or so it was just really this powerful moment,
and the book is just this memoir story to try
to help people believe that they can do those things.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Do you feel that the hearing aid aspect in regards
to all of the businesses that you started, do you
feel that that's been the most fulfilling part?
Speaker 4 (30:27):
You know, I think that anytime.
Speaker 5 (30:30):
Any interaction I've ever had with someone that led to
their life getting better is just so rewarding. The hearing thing, obviously,
it unlocks a lot of potential for people, especially in
a lot of parts of the world where things might
be more limiting if they don't have the ability to
you know, communicate like you know, through normal hearing conversations.
(30:52):
But I think that there's a lot of you know,
a lot of other things as well. I've the book
has probably been the I hear the most direct fee
back of how people have changed their life in extraordinary
ways from reading the book because they stopped and took
action and started to realize The book is really the
core message is what I learned from my dad, which
(31:13):
is that life is short and uncertain and it's important
to make the most of it. And by the end
of the book, people, I think get that pretty clearly.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
And do you feel that people also share stories with
you of how they're it? Almost and correct me if
I'm wrong here. It almost seems like you're you found
this need to be of service, right is would that
be a correct way to to categorize it? Right? Like? Here,
you've done well? Right, you started companies, some have done well,
(31:41):
some have failed, But at the end of the day,
you've been of service of service to people. And so
do you find that that's when people read your book,
that that's mainly what they get out of it, and
they're sharing stories with you about how they've been of service.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Yeah, I know, Actually I don't.
Speaker 5 (31:59):
I think think that that's one possible component. But I
think one of the beautiful things about taking action on
things that matter to you is you unlock a ripple
effect of more action and inspiration that you might not
even see or know about. For instance, my dad, right
my dad passed away, and part of the reason that
(32:21):
I started the charity work is because my dad had
started a charity with one hundred dollars when he was
in Mexico that by the time he passed away had
already led to hundreds of underprivileged children going all the
way through university.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
But that inspired me to take action and try something right.
So here I've helped fifty thousand people all around the world.
My dad doesn't know that. You never saw that. So
what are you going to do when you take action
on the thing that matters to you? Who are you
going to affect? Just by proxy, like someone that just
happened to see you and you gave them permission to think,
(32:52):
maybe I can take action on my goal or my dream.
So it doesn't have to be direct aid. I think
it's more about just letting people signaling that we all
can do these things.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Right, as opposed to sort of the hamster wheel. You
describe your pop being on every day just sort of
putting on the suit and going to work and coming
home and doing something that really matters. Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
And now Joe is uh, you know, traveling the country
giving speeches to thousands of people, making sure that he's
preaching you know, really the the urgency to start living
the life that you want well, and that.
Speaker 5 (33:29):
Was spurred on by the event of the personal nature
that happened to us when I finished the book. If
we finished the book, turned in the book, which was
a huge lift.
Speaker 4 (33:39):
It was so hard.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
Uh, you know, writing a book, as you know, is
just extraordinarily difficult. You ever written a book forty I haven't. Yeah,
if you do, call us for support, yes you're going to.
But uh, you know, we finished the book and my
my h my second son was just born, and we
got all these plans for the next few years and
(34:02):
literally turned the book to the publisher, and my wife
is suddenly and unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer. You're very aware, well,
and yeah, that just kicked off a year plus of our.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
You know.
Speaker 5 (34:15):
She she went through chemo and immunotherapy and radiation, all
this stuff, and when she finally got her cancer free
diagnosis after the treatment, she was like, you got to tell.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
People this message. You got to get out and share
this message.
Speaker 5 (34:30):
More So, that was really kicked off this urgency to
like the book school, let's start speaking about it, and
let's start really trying to hammer this home and get
as many people to just kind of shake them awake
and start living their lives kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
And when she's an inspiration, she's she's incredible.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
And I mean, I'm so grateful that you were able
to be here and tell the world, you know, have
you been inspired? Because everybody has a story there at
beginning in middle and yours est that is anywhere near
your last chapter. And you've done so many extraordinary things.
So thank you for being here.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Joe, Absolutely, thank you, Thank you. You know, my dad
passed away a few years ago, my mother passed away
of breast cancer, so I could very much relate sort
of the trajectory that you've been on. And uh, and
I think it's wonderful. And I've met you before through
Wilmer and he speaks so highly of you, so.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
I can't wait for you.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Beautiful read his book man, Yeah, really great, Absolutely absolutely,
I got one in the car.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Awesome.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
Thank you very much, my brother, Joe, godfather, my child,
Yanks for having me.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
Guys.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
I'm Wilmer Valdorama, I'm Freddie Rodriguez. This is Amigos Podcast
and Joe Houff. We're going to pick up your book.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Thanks guys.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Those Amigos is a production from WV Sound and iHeartMedia's
Michael Through That podcast network, hosted by Me, Freddie Rodriguez,
and Wilmer Valdorama.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Those Amigos is produced by Cooper and Sophie Spencer Saviles.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Our executive producers are Wilmri Valderrama, Freddie Rodriguez, and Leo
Clem at WV Sound.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
This show is mixed and mastered by Sean Tracy and
original music by Madison Devenport and Hala Boy.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
For more podcasts from my Heart, visit the Rhart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
See you next week.
Hey, how you doing.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
This is Freddie Rodriguez and I'm wilmer about the rama.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Welcome to the DOOS podcast where all of our dreams come.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
True, All of our dreams come true.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Today we have another great episode.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Very excited to tap into some inspiration keeping giving all
of our dogs community, uh more things too. I realized
that you got what it takes to actually live a
happy life.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I guess that's right. And a real third amigo.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yes, I like to introduce everyone to Joe Huff.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Joe.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Joey is a very dear, very dear friend of mine.
We've known each other for many, many many years and
I we'll dive right into it. But above it all,
he's an author, he's an entrepreneur, he's an incredible father,
he's a you know, like a C plus friend. It
kind of goes yes, but he's very good Chicago. And
(01:04):
I will also say, you know, he is the godfather
to my daughter and I kind of very interesting. I
hope is that it's something happened to me that they
pick it up where I left off.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Yeah, maybe be would have to be.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Joe, Welcome to those podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
I'm very excited to have you finally have look, we
we as we were continuing to talk about, you know,
the themes of this season, you know, which is like
what are we living on the table, like what are
we letting.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Go of ourselves?
Speaker 3 (01:39):
But also how we building a more uh uh you know,
a space that makes things possible, you know, and more
and more and more possible space.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
You know.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I think the idea that you can find happiness and
not just who you are, but the strengths that you've
yet to recognize, I think is really interesting.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
You've had quite an amazing.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Story, and I would love to share your heart and
your spirit with everybody that listens to those amigos. But
starting from scratch, wouldn't you tell us a little bit
about you.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Know, where you're from. I know you guys were talking
about Chicago.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
You were shutdown, baby, shutdown.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
First of all, I didn't know there were going to
be hard questions. I'm probably gonna dip out starting off
hart Yeah. Yeah, originally yeah, from Chicago, but we moved
when I was a kid to Sokel and I acclimated
too well. I think it's why the sunny weather every
time I go back to Chicago and it's not fall
or spring. Yeah, I remember why my parents decided moving
(02:42):
was a good idea.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
But no polar vortex for you.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
No, yeah, yeah, I was just back actually in Minneapolis
for some work and there's like negative seventeen. It's like
almost like eighty four degrees in LA when I left.
But yeah, so it's it's great to be a so
cal person with perspective. I feel like that's important. You
know a lot of people you hear say things like
I just want to live where there are seasons that
(03:06):
have never lived where there are seasons. It's a little
bit yeah, it's a little bit of a statement, but uh, yeah.
I I grew up in Sokeel, not too far from
the LA area, like thirty forty minutes away, and you know,
I had a kind of crazy adolescence where.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, yeah, I wasn't going to go into that. But now, yeah,
I don't know where we're at.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
You got it.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I got that exactly where we're at now, you got No.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
I'm happy that you bring that up because they think
that that adventure is like, let's get it down. Mentality
comes from somewhere, and you definitely cultivated it at a
very specific time of your life. You know, Joe had
very long heavy metal hair really.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
For those who are going to be watching that picture
on the screen also that at some point. But yeah,
he uh.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
The first time I met him, he said, Hi, I
am Joey.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Does What year was it?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
That was his go to? I don't remember. We both
like tequila back then.
Speaker 5 (04:13):
Yeah, it was actually about twenty six years ago, believe
it or not.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Yeah, we were both ten something like that.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
And yeah, but so, do you have any brothers? You know,
tell us a little bit about your family.
Speaker 5 (04:27):
Two older brothers, you know, they're there West Coast, once
in San Francisco, the other ones in Irvine, kids, wives,
the whole shebang. I'm the youngest, and yeah, typical kind
of sokeel stranger.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Fairy, typical upbringing.
Speaker 5 (04:44):
You know, a lot of BMX bikes, you know, right
around on trails, kind of lack of supervision, latch key.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Kids come home and the lights go turn straight up
and maybe yeah, maybe your mom's scream if it was
too dark, Like, yeah, wait, how did you two meet?
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Though?
Speaker 1 (05:03):
What was the what was the long hair? And the.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
So how do I say this?
Speaker 4 (05:09):
And it was delicate for him.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
I was doing my first movie ever, cool summer catch
starting Freddy Prince Junior and Jessica Biel, Matt t. Lillar, who,
by the way, shout out to Matt de Lillard. He
was a major class act. On on that said, he
was like just an amazing nurser and friend, incredible man
Mark Bluke, Cedric Pendleton, Christian Kane, Brian Denahey, fred.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Ward just like.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
It was so fun and was same producers Baschadory Blues.
It was this beautiful baseball movie. We were in South Polk, Okayland.
And at the time, you know, Joe and and Freddie
Prince Junior, which I have been remained really good friends
this whole time. Uh, they were best friends and I
think were you guys roommates.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Roommates for like five years.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
I met Freddie when he first moved from New Mexico
to La before he had ever acted in anything, and
he was in my other roommates acting class and he
needed a place to live and we had an extra room,
so I was like, yeah, sure, you got a friend
that wants to move in. He moved in, and then
he got a couple of jobs, and then one of
them turned out to be a number one movie.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Right it was I know what you did last summer?
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Oh wow, were you? Were you all actors?
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (06:27):
No, I was just trying to figure out life still
at that time.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Voice.
Speaker 5 (06:33):
Yeah, I was acting like a bartender mostly and a waiter, yeah,
a mover all kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
When did you get the first bug to entrepreneurship when
we were like, oh, you know, I like to start
this aster that, you know, I like.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
To build things.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
I just always felt one thing I think I got
from my parents which was really helpful, is my dad
specifically always maybe believe I could do anything.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
And I think that's really powerful.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
And it wasn't that my dad was like some super
successful person, but he really instilled in me that.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
If you think you can do something, you do it.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
Go do it. You could do it, why can't you?
And that mentality really stuck. And I really had a
couple of key moments though, you know, as I alluded
to earlier, but I had like a crazy adolescence that
got really this exclamation point where I just started to
figure things out.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
I got and kicked out of high school. I figured
out how to get back into high school.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
I started figuring out that maybe the decisions I was
making were actually terrible yeah, and I was looking at
my friends. A lot of people were going to jail,
and a lot of other terrible things were going on.
And I started to turn my life around, got back
into high school, and right before I graduated, my dad
had a heart attack. I came downstairs. He's white as
(07:53):
a sheet and dreshed in sweabs. This really crazy moment.
Oh my god, my dad's having a heart attack, and
we turn him the hospital. But it turned out it
wasn't a heart attack. He actually had advanced stage heart disease,
and so it was failing and he wound up going
on life support and needing a heart transplant. And it
was this period of a couple months of just this
just intense fear of Wow, like all the things my
(08:18):
dad always wanted to do, he's not going to get
a chance to do those things. He was only forty
eight years old. It was just crazy and it just
woke me up. That was like this really powerful moment
of life can change in an instant. Yeah, and you know,
the most important thing is our time. And we all
talk about it, but do we really get especially when
you're young, right, we all think we're going to live
(08:39):
forever and all that and really what happened was my
dad got the transplant and immediately had to like change
his entire life around because he realized he had done
all these things he wanted to do with his life,
and that watching him just kind of go after his
dreams and goals really inspired me to take action, not
just think I could do things, but like, I should
(09:01):
figure this out and start trying. And that was really
the impetus. I think to, like, what do I want
to do with my life? And I literally tried my
first company. I graduated high school and immediately great side story,
moved to the beach with two girls I met at
a party the week before.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
The roommates didn't last.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
They only lasted a few months, but I had already
made it to the beach, so I got new roommates
that yeah, exactly, I got different roommates and wound up
staying at the beach, and one of those roommates inspired
me to start my first clothing company, which was T
shirts that were grabbing T shirts that we made with
a credit card, my first ever credit card that I
(09:42):
maxed out immediately, and that company, as we all not,
turned into one of the most successful T shirt companies
of all time, which is I'm just kidding on My
lasted about a year, way more shirts than we sold
our friends all had.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Sure, turns out that's not a good business.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
Plan, but it was a great experience and to me
it kind of gave me the bug of like, oh,
I should try to build something after it. I pay
off this credit card. But what was.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
The one thing that you saw after your dad got well?
Because you said something interesting, you said, you know, my
dad got well and he decided that he was going
to change things around and follow specific goals that he
wasn't following before, Like what was a goal? What was
the one thing that stood out the most that he
did once he got well.
Speaker 5 (10:39):
Yeah, you know, there's a couple That's a great question
because there's a couple different answers in that question. And
really he was also part of the story that I
left out. He got out of the hospital and he
was on permanent disability, like he had like this crazy
limited income of like seven hundred dollars a month.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
And.
Speaker 5 (10:58):
He could have easily just kind of curled up in
a ball and just said, yeah, I'm just gonna stay
close to the doctors and the hospital and all that stuff,
but he knew because of what had happened, right, this
is like, this is this crazy risk, this is my
one and only life. So he not only had to
make decisions, we had to make decisions with these extraordinary constraints,
(11:19):
both financial and otherwise. Right at the same time, my
parents actually wound up getting divorced, and there was just
this whole mess of situation. And my dad up and
moved to Mexico, to this small beach town where he
could afford to live on this beach in this tiny house.
And it turned out to be like this, you know,
extraordinary decision because it changed this entire last chapter of
(11:42):
his life. He called his last chapter his bonus round, right,
and that was like the kickoff moment to just this
entirely new chapter. I really truly believe it was that
last chapter of his life that changed his life story,
his own eulogy into like the one he was proud of.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
He did.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
He did all kinds of like kayaking and mountain biking
and about to sale and dancing and all kind of stuff.
I never thought my dad, if you knew my dad
before that, my dad got up at four thirty or
five in the morning, went to work, put a suit on,
went to work, came home at like seven thirty and
I ate dinner, went to bed, repeat, you know, Monday
through Saturday, Sunday.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Did the crossrod puzzle, watch some football. That was it?
Like he I don't, Sadly, I don't.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
As much as my dad inspired me by telling me
I could do those things. He didn't go to a
sporting event or I don't remember him in any activity
taking me doing it. There were no moments like that
because he was just working all the time. He was
just trying to get to this imaginary finish line that
maybe doesn't exist.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Right. So that's kind of the lesson.
Speaker 5 (12:43):
That I took away from it, Like everybody's planning for this,
you know, let's let's plan for this future that just
might be an apparition.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
So that's why I invested in it. Today it's pretty
cuy wow.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
So going back to your investments and going and what
you learn from there, what do you said your launched
that a teacher company, and then and then what took
cute to that? Then you started kind of trying to
find your plays again because I remember you just started
doing a little stand up well again, I.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
Moved actually So I was still living at the beach then,
and this went on for a few years, and I
was just trying to figure out how to survive and
get by and figure out how to scrape up enough
money to actually start something. Again, I didn't have like
a access to capital or anything. I didn't even know
anybody that had any access to capital or anything like that.
So I was just trying to figure out how to
make enough money to start something that could work. And
(13:35):
after a few years, I just realized the beach was
kind of a smaller environment. I didn't want to get
involved in, like the serve for action sports community, so
I said, you know, I think I'll move to LA
And there was one guy who from high school that
had moved to LA after high school and he lived
in Hollywood, and I told him and he was like,
I need a new place.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
So we were found this house and moved up to LA.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
And when we got to LA, I was just kind
of trying to figure out things that I like. And
I had always been kind of the comedian, funny friend
or whatever.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
You know.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
People were like, oh, you should try comedy, and first
of all, absolutely terrifying. One of the most terrifying things. Ever,
there's a great lesson in that though too. But so
I was still I was. I started doing personal training,
all the typical stuff that you hear like people that
are living in LA trying to do.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yeah, by the way, if anybody noticed that, you know,
the season three of that seventies show, fest was a
little buffer than usually.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
It was this guy putting the first time.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
But you know what, I also got to say thank
you because you were the first one to say you
got to train now for whatever life you're going to
have after that seventy show.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
And I needed to look like who I.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Wanted to play next in the movies, when the TV
shows and all that stuff, and if it wasn't for him,
like transforming the way I thought about my physical appearance
and all that stuff because I was gonny, skinny you
know kid, you know get well.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, I mean, I mean it was I just love
ranch stressing.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
I mean.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
You craft services was like corn dogs every Friday. But
I think that the thing that really that really uh
stuk might be is like making this long term decisions
at a time where you are coherent enough to understand
that you know you need the runway to get to
the most ambitious version of yourself and you come in
full circle to that moment in time where you started
(15:32):
personal training and all that. And I remember you even
launch another T shirt company.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
You know, you learned your lessons from the first one.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
Wasn't enough I did. I did not none the lesson
and uh, I was doing the comedy. And by the way,
the actual wardrobe folks on seventies would actually tell me
when you'd go to the taping, they would say, stop training.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Because it's close anymore. They're actually getting mad at me.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, I mean, in their defense my bell bottoms.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Where as they said back then, juicy mo better juicy
against stand up company is really hard. Yeah, So I
started this other T.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
Shirt company and I'm doing comedy, like, you know, poorly,
probably just it was fun and it's funny. This is
I like to say that it's a great lesson because
the first time I did stand up, you know, I
was I was plausible as passable, and if people laughed,
I was like, that was really fun. It wasn't like amazing, amazing,
but as hard as it was, it was actually so
(16:36):
much fun that I was like, oh, I could see
doing this more. And I did it more and more
until I actually got good enough that I was performing
pretty regularly, and I grew to really love.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
It, and I loved like the whole process of it.
Speaker 5 (16:48):
And I think that's a great example of like doing
things you're afraid of and that you're not good at
naturally and seeing what happens, because most people aren't good
at things that are worth doing, you know, the first
time around. Most people start as beginners. Surfing is another
great example. Always say like, I'm a terrible surfer, but
I love it. But if everybody that you know was
(17:08):
a terrible surfer never served, that, no one would serve
because you start off terrible, right. But yeah, So I
started this next T shirt company with a really a
good friend of mine, and you know, it's the same
kind of thing the T shirt companies. It takes off
at first, and it's really hard. It's not really getting anywhere.
We have this small garage a couple thousand square feet,
(17:29):
and we're trying to figure out how to make this
thing survive. And a friend of ours comes over and
looks around and he's like, you know, you got a
lot of extra room here, wy, don't you help me
ship my company's products? Since you're not using all the space,
which again I feel like was a nice way for
him to say, it looks like your T shirt company's failing.
But yeah, so we we wound up helping him ship
(17:49):
his inventory. And some other friends were like, oh, you
know you you actually are helping Rob ship his inventory.
We were not that good, I don't want you to
help us, and okay, and slowly but surely we turned
this T your company that was failing that we loved,
by the way, and absolutely, Ya's such a great brand.
But you know, after like three years of trying to
(18:09):
get it somewhere, the shipping company was like take skyrocketing,
and his teacher company was like stagnating or decreasing.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
What were you doing in your shipping company that was
so different than everyone? How come they couldn't?
Speaker 5 (18:21):
You know?
Speaker 4 (18:23):
It was a couple of things.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
I think that shipping as an industry was just dominated
by massive players and with like old like Italian guys
in like the New Jersey Meadowlands.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
They're smoking cigars.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
Go let me tell you how, I'm gonna put your
stuff in the corner and it's going to go next
to some vacuum cleaners and mayonnaise jars, and we were young.
We were like young friends of all these people going
to all these trade shows, like apparel and fashion trade shows,
and they're like, I want my stuff to go in
the cool you know place with all the other guys
cool stuff.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
You know, Like it was all a premium apparel brands.
Speaker 5 (18:55):
So it just became like the place for it and
just grew and grew and grew here every year. So
that was like my first real successful right. It was
probably already my fifth company at that point of attempts
of things that I had tried to start.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
So you eventually sold that company, yeah, right, and then
you went into something.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Sold the shipping company.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Yeah, and made up pretty good on that add and
what with that successful organisation that so, you know, selling
the company, he decided to go into a more humanitarian,
you know journey, and he started thinking about other companies.
I don't want to paraphrase it, but I think I
(19:34):
were saying that his heart has always been the thing
that people you know, really connect to. He's he'll he'll
always be there, he'll he'll always show up, and translated
into you know, I think the next chapter of his life,
which was the you know, giving a piece of himself
to humanity in a way that came in a form
(19:54):
of different you know, humanitarian moments, you know, And maybe
talking about listening will be a really because listen is like,
you know, what you were able to see in humanity,
you know, and how you travel the world would listen.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
I think there's something that was very inspiring. Do you
mind talking a little bit.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
About listening and you started listening and what listen eventually
went out to do?
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Yeah, no, I mind, I definitely mind talking. That was
no questions day.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:22):
So you know, there's all stemmed again, you know, not randomly,
but you know, I think it's important to point out
it's stemmed again from my dad. What happened was my
dad actually after fifteen years of his bonus round, he
passed away. And when my dad passed away, at that moment,
I remember those last moments I was with him, and
(20:42):
I remember thinking, what does he care about?
Speaker 4 (20:44):
What is he thinking about right now? What mattered to
him in his life?
Speaker 5 (20:47):
And he even told me some of the things that
were the most important things those last few days. And
it was just this like great realization again of like
what am I going to care about?
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Like at the end of my life, what am I
really going to care about?
Speaker 5 (21:00):
And that's what, you know, inspired me to sell, to
basically sell the shipping company, And I said, if what
I'm going to care about? And really what the conclusion
I came to is what I did to have an impact,
you know, what I did to make the world a
better place in whatever way.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
And you know, people do that a lot of ways.
Speaker 5 (21:18):
People do that through their craft, through their business, and
you know, philanthropy doesn't have to be the only way.
But I remember thinking at the time, what am I
waiting for? Like, am I going to like do something?
You know, maybe I'm not going to be Bill and
Melinda Gates or whatever and have some foundation.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
Why don't I start something now?
Speaker 5 (21:37):
And I sold my shares in the company and started
first a T shirt company again third one that was
dedicated to giving back. And then that led I started
doing some work with a water filtration providing clean water
and some building schools and things like that that I
cared about. But then a friend of mine called, she said, hey,
(21:59):
you know, Joe, I see you're doing with the T shirts.
It's really cool and you're doing this charity work. But
I just saw this video of this girl hearing for
the first time, and I did looked it up. There's
all these crazy statistics, hundreds of millions of people don't
have access.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
And I basically heard.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
Her ideas goes, what why don't we sell headphones and
try to get people hearing aids?
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Like it's a way better idea than my T shirt.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
And by the way I sung it selling shirt, it's like,
I'm clearly not great at this. And yeah, we actually
started that company Listen together, and we had this, you know,
crazy dream of helping one person here for the first time,
just like in this video that we saw.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
And you know, but.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
How did you discover that that that headphones and hearing
aids could be synonymous?
Speaker 5 (22:46):
Well, because we wanted it's story, Like you know that
everything's about the story, and people that appreciate and love
music that use headphones. The idea of not being able
to hear is very easy to explain to someone and say, hey,
imagine if you couldn't actually hear, whether you couldn't enjoy
music or rain or laughter or any of these things
that we all take for granted. So tying it to
(23:08):
a hearing related thing that not only was something that
everyone understands what was global, Like the thing with the
T shirt. Companies were doing things like water filtration that
doesn't affect everyone, or maybe it was for schools or education,
but hearing loss actually affects everyone around the world. So
it was something that we could tell this story that's like, hey,
we'll sell headphones and we'll use the proceeds.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
We are about the statistics in that because I think
they find them really interesting.
Speaker 5 (23:33):
When I started listen that was twenty twelve. Actually there
was over three hundred million people globally that have severe,
too profound hearing loss that just need access to hearing
aids that don't have access, and now it's actually over
five hundred thous.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
Half a billion people.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
And the craziest part is that, you know, since they're babies,
they just say, oh, he can't hear, Oh she can't hear,
and all they realized come to realize later later in life,
after their last two decades or even three decades of
their life, they realized that all they needed was a
hearing it exactly.
Speaker 5 (24:08):
And so this is our mission statement was selling enough headphones.
We literally maxed out our credit cards again, bought some inventory,
built the website, we're gonna sell enough heaphones, so we're
gonna give somebody hearing. Just like in that video we
saw get out there. We don't even get the product
in yet. We build the website and we get an
email from the Today Show before we even get product,
and we don't know how they found us, and they're like, hey,
(24:31):
we're going to feature you on the show. Like what
we literally they feature us. We sell like one hundred
thousand dollars in headphones before we even have products. We're
like sending your emails, so it's gonna ship soon, et cetera.
But we wind up, you know, striking this chord with
all these people, and this dream of ours, of like
helping somebody hearing for the first time, you know, happens
(24:52):
in like eight months. We wind up going on a
mission in Peru and in front of this young girl
and then Maria who had never hurt eighteen or she
was like fifteen, and I had never heard before, just
never had access, and we get to see this girl
here for the first time. And then that just kind
of went on to us traveling around the world for
a decade and helping over fifty thousand people get hearing. Aids,
(25:12):
and we got to like see that firsthand's volunteer and
work on the ground.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
This is again this this.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
This kid that barely graduated high school, that you had
these failed attempts at all these other things. I was like,
I could again, I could do things if I just
keep trying and taking action on things that matter.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
It is the hearing aid integrated into the headphone?
Speaker 4 (25:43):
No, no, no, it's like we're selling. Like that's the
confusing part of the business. For sure.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
It's like Tom's shoes, right, Tom claim at the beginning,
it's like you buy a pair of shoes.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
We provide a pair of shoes too.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
We sell actual consumer products like a Beats headphone, and
then we use the proceeds from the sales to give
hearing aids now people. So we fund our charity partner,
and then we go work with them and actually fit
people with hearing aids.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Got them which and then and then you know the
next chapter, which I also think is one of the
most it's a major moment of legacy. If you become
an author and you know, you guys wrote a book
that I thought was one of the most prolific hacks
for life. Uh that anyone could discover. So I want
to make sure that we talk about this book because
(26:31):
I want everybody to get this book. This book kind
of realigns not just priority, but what you invest in.
And when I mean investment, I'm talking about how are
you investing the hours and the days that you have
in life to get the currency that actually really is profitable,
which is happiness and you know, health, which is living
(26:55):
in a life.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Full of experiences. And I think.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
That that that philosophy was so incredible, so obtainable in
this book. I felt like was you know, and anybody
comes across this book, it's just like like their head
explodes because they're like.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
This is what I was missing.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
I was missing this part of perspective that allows me
to kind of now read this triviu how I lived
my life?
Speaker 2 (27:20):
You know this versus Dad? How many of that? How
many of this?
Speaker 3 (27:23):
And what are you doing for yourself that actually keeps
you making memories? Or or what are the memories you
take with you when you're no longer here?
Speaker 4 (27:31):
What? What?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
What one?
Speaker 3 (27:32):
What expired inspired this book? And talk a little bit
about the name of the the of the book and
and and what is it about?
Speaker 5 (27:39):
Yeah, so the book, which is called Experiential Billionaire. It
was born because we were traveling around the world giving
all these hearing aids and doing all this travel at
the same time. Of course, so people started coming up
to us and saying, well, you guys must be so rich.
The reality was we were donating most of the money
to the chair because it's a charity's work, right, you
(28:02):
donate the money or there's no work done, And so
we would just laugh and go, we're more like experiential billionaires.
And then people would always laugh and say, well, I
hope you can teach me how to become an experiential
billionaire because I want to travel and do these things
you're doing.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
And that led us going, maybe we can.
Speaker 5 (28:22):
Help people because we realized that after like myself, especially
after twenty five years of building these companies and working
with all these people and doing all these things on
the ground, that like, really there was one thing that
all the people that felt like their lives were successful
all had in common. And to make sure that we
weren't just crazy or egotistical about our opinion of it,
(28:43):
we decided to write the book. But to write the book,
we ran a study of over twenty thousand people around
the world where we asked them, what are the most
valuable things in your life your biggest regrets? Do you
feel like your life is successful?
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Why or why not?
Speaker 5 (28:55):
And the study just made it crystal clear, literally at
that direct center of our happiness or our regrets is
whether or not we're taking action on the things that
matter to us. And that taught us that our dreams,
they're not selfish, they're so important they actually lead to
our greatest contributions because when we're living fulfilled, we actually
(29:19):
show up better everywhere. We lead better, we're better friends,
we're better relationships and collaborators and all those things because
we have passion about the things we're doing. And it
was just this moment of like, how do we capture
this in a book to teach people that it's not
about traveling and you know, doing all these exotic, bucketless things.
It's about identifying what you care about and just trying
(29:42):
and taking action. Because what the book shows, I think
hopefully well, is that it's not about succeeding. And in
the study this came out so clearly because a third
of the people's most valuable experiences in their entire life,
we're negative experiences like my dad probably right, or something
gave them some huge value and maybe they tried something,
(30:04):
it didn't work, it go as planned, but it unlocked
something else or so it was just really this powerful moment,
and the book is just this memoir story to try
to help people believe that they can do those things.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Do you feel that the hearing aid aspect in regards
to all of the businesses that you started, do you
feel that that's been the most fulfilling part?
Speaker 4 (30:27):
You know, I think that anytime.
Speaker 5 (30:30):
Any interaction I've ever had with someone that led to
their life getting better is just so rewarding. The hearing thing, obviously,
it unlocks a lot of potential for people, especially in
a lot of parts of the world where things might
be more limiting if they don't have the ability to
you know, communicate like you know, through normal hearing conversations.
(30:52):
But I think that there's a lot of you know,
a lot of other things as well. I've the book
has probably been the I hear the most direct fee
back of how people have changed their life in extraordinary
ways from reading the book because they stopped and took
action and started to realize The book is really the
core message is what I learned from my dad, which
(31:13):
is that life is short and uncertain and it's important
to make the most of it. And by the end
of the book, people, I think get that pretty clearly.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
And do you feel that people also share stories with
you of how they're it? Almost and correct me if
I'm wrong here. It almost seems like you're you found
this need to be of service, right is would that
be a correct way to to categorize it? Right? Like? Here,
you've done well? Right, you started companies, some have done well,
(31:41):
some have failed, But at the end of the day,
you've been of service of service to people. And so
do you find that that's when people read your book,
that that's mainly what they get out of it, and
they're sharing stories with you about how they've been of service.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Yeah, I know, Actually I don't.
Speaker 5 (31:59):
I think think that that's one possible component. But I
think one of the beautiful things about taking action on
things that matter to you is you unlock a ripple
effect of more action and inspiration that you might not
even see or know about. For instance, my dad, right
my dad passed away, and part of the reason that
(32:21):
I started the charity work is because my dad had
started a charity with one hundred dollars when he was
in Mexico that by the time he passed away had
already led to hundreds of underprivileged children going all the
way through university.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
But that inspired me to take action and try something right.
So here I've helped fifty thousand people all around the world.
My dad doesn't know that. You never saw that. So
what are you going to do when you take action
on the thing that matters to you? Who are you
going to affect? Just by proxy, like someone that just
happened to see you and you gave them permission to think,
(32:52):
maybe I can take action on my goal or my dream.
So it doesn't have to be direct aid. I think
it's more about just letting people signaling that we all
can do these things.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Right, as opposed to sort of the hamster wheel. You
describe your pop being on every day just sort of
putting on the suit and going to work and coming
home and doing something that really matters. Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
And now Joe is uh, you know, traveling the country
giving speeches to thousands of people, making sure that he's
preaching you know, really the the urgency to start living
the life that you want well, and that.
Speaker 5 (33:29):
Was spurred on by the event of the personal nature
that happened to us when I finished the book. If
we finished the book, turned in the book, which was
a huge lift.
Speaker 4 (33:39):
It was so hard.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
Uh, you know, writing a book, as you know, is
just extraordinarily difficult. You ever written a book forty I haven't. Yeah,
if you do, call us for support, yes you're going to.
But uh, you know, we finished the book and my
my h my second son was just born, and we
got all these plans for the next few years and
(34:02):
literally turned the book to the publisher, and my wife
is suddenly and unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer. You're very aware, well,
and yeah, that just kicked off a year plus of our.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
You know.
Speaker 5 (34:15):
She she went through chemo and immunotherapy and radiation, all
this stuff, and when she finally got her cancer free
diagnosis after the treatment, she was like, you got to tell.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
People this message. You got to get out and share
this message.
Speaker 5 (34:30):
More So, that was really kicked off this urgency to
like the book school, let's start speaking about it, and
let's start really trying to hammer this home and get
as many people to just kind of shake them awake
and start living their lives kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
And when she's an inspiration, she's she's incredible.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
And I mean, I'm so grateful that you were able
to be here and tell the world, you know, have
you been inspired? Because everybody has a story there at
beginning in middle and yours est that is anywhere near
your last chapter. And you've done so many extraordinary things.
So thank you for being here.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Joe, Absolutely, thank you, Thank you. You know, my dad
passed away a few years ago, my mother passed away
of breast cancer, so I could very much relate sort
of the trajectory that you've been on. And uh, and
I think it's wonderful. And I've met you before through
Wilmer and he speaks so highly of you, so.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
I can't wait for you.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Beautiful read his book man, Yeah, really great, Absolutely absolutely,
I got one in the car.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Awesome.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
Thank you very much, my brother, Joe, godfather, my child,
Yanks for having me.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
Guys.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
I'm Wilmer Valdorama, I'm Freddie Rodriguez. This is Amigos Podcast
and Joe Houff. We're going to pick up your book.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Thanks guys.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Those Amigos is a production from WV Sound and iHeartMedia's
Michael Through That podcast network, hosted by Me, Freddie Rodriguez,
and Wilmer Valdorama.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Those Amigos is produced by Cooper and Sophie Spencer Saviles.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Our executive producers are Wilmri Valderrama, Freddie Rodriguez, and Leo
Clem at WV Sound.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
This show is mixed and mastered by Sean Tracy and
original music by Madison Devenport and Hala Boy.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
For more podcasts from my Heart, visit the Rhart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
See you next week.
Hosts And Creators
Wilmer Valderrama
Freddy Rodriguez
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